 Good morning everyone. Welcome to morning prayer. It's so awesome to get to be with you guys. This snowy morning, what a joy. Michigan has brought us once again. The late season snow, hopefully it's the last one. We're gonna go ahead and open up this morning in Psalm 123, starting in verse one. Unto you, I lift up my eyes. O you who dwell in the heavens, behold, as the eyes of the servant, look to the hand of their masters. As the eyes of the maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God till he has mercy on us. Lord, this is our heart posture this morning. Fixing our eyes on you, lifting our gaze, recognizing our brokenness, our sin, all the things that we've brought in, the circumstances, the hard things in life. But we choose this morning to lift our eyes to you, to look to you until you have mercy on us. You are a merciful God. You delight in showing mercy. You love to forgive. So Lord, we just acknowledge our need for mercy this morning. We acknowledge our constant need for you. And we know that our eyes like to look to the left or to the right. Our human hearts love to go astray. Lord, but this morning, we choose to put our gaze on you. Regardless of our brokenness, regardless of our situation, we will look to the Lord most high. We will look to you, put our gaze on you, our trust in you. Blessed is the one who puts his trust in the Lord. We trust you this morning. Look upon us with compassion as your people. Love on your kids. We all come with our messes, but we're here to meet with you. And that's all that matters. Lord, we just ask that you would come and fill this space, that your spirit would dwell here, that you would find our worship pleasing, that you would feel hosted by our worship, by our heart posture. Just to gaze upon our King. Lord, we love you, we love you. Come and fill this space this morning. Leading us beside the still waters and making us lie down in green pastures. Say surely goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives. All the days of our lives, Lord, you are leading us in paths of righteousness and your goodness and mercy follow us. No matter what valley we go through, no matter what enemies lurk around the corner, no matter how many times they call out to us, you are the one who leads us. You are the one who guides us. We can trust your rod and your staff for they comfort us. Lord, we can trust in your character. We can trust that in every season, you are good. We can trust that you're working everything out for our good and for your glory. We can trust you, you are a trustworthy God, a good leader, a good shepherd, goodness beyond what we can comprehend. Let's begin to remember. Remember the valleys that you've walked through with the Lord. Remember the seasons where it was dark and you couldn't see the path. You made it to the other side. You could declare that he led you in paths of righteousness for his namesake. That his goodness and his mercy followed you. Let's begin to let the Holy Spirit call to remembrance, call to mind those seasons and those times. We're just gonna make some space and remember with the Lord. You'll see He covers me. Isaac, Jacob, to Israel, while they were enslaved in Egypt, when you brought them out through Moses, Lord, from beginning to end, you are good. You are faithful. We could search this book page to page. We could search the pages of history, fail to find a time that you weren't faithful. We'd fail to find a time that you weren't good. We can't even comprehend that. Thousands upon thousands of years, you've never once failed to be faithful. Never once failed to be good. To show your people how much you love them and care for them. The stories of those that have gone before us, the stories that this book tells, that we declare your faithfulness that's yet to come. Your goodness that we haven't seen yet. Aren't you writing a story that starts from before time and will go on into eternity? And we have the honor of living in this part of it. And so, Lord, when it gets hard to see the full picture, when we get so caught up in our lives, our troubles, our trials that you're taking us through to produce good in us. Lord, would you help us to not forget the greater story that you're writing? One of redemption, one of faithfulness, one of goodness, one of a love that we can't comprehend, but we know it. Lord, when it gets hard to see, would you catch us up in your story? Help us to remember the faithfulness you've shown in our own lives and in others, the faithfulness that your word tells of. The goodness that the Bible shows us. The word of God, the living and breathing word of God. Lord, that's from that place that we just declare you will be good, you will continue to be faithful. There is no change or variation in you. You're the same God that you were when you formed the world. You're the same God now that you will be when we're living together in eternity, on a new earth, where pain and death are gone, where sorrow is no more. When we are fully fulfilled and satisfied, because we're with you, our one true love, the one who our hearts were made to love, made to be close to. So Lord, we dwell on that greater story that you're writing this morning and we declare you are faithful. You are good, you are kind. You are worthy of praise, worthy of adoration. You are the one true living God. There's no one else like you, no one else that can stand beside you. Every other God doesn't compare, they fall short. But you Lord, are good. You are true, you are steadfast. You are never changing. Your mercy, it endures forever. Your love goes on and on. Remember that this morning Lord, when we declare it. All you gotta do is give. For my decisions cause a path of destruction. You're still there, everything's as it should. The sun's shining down surely. We make our bed in the depths, you are there. Where can we go from your presence? Always with us, from the beginning of time to the end of the age and on into eternity. Always with us, faithful to carry us through every season. Faithful to lead us and guide us. To love us well. To show your goodness to us, even when we don't deserve it. It's the great exchange Lord. More of you, less of me, view less of me. Help us God to keep our eyes fixed on you. To keep our hearts close to you, searching for you. Jesus, would you be our greatest desire? We know our hearts and we know they're sinful. It's the human nature to desire other things. But God, we want you even just a fraction of how badly you desire us for today than we did yesterday. We desire you more today than we did yesterday. All the days of our life that we continually grow and our love for you and our desire for you why don't we just thank you? We thank you that at the end of our lives as we finally get to see you that we're gonna be able to look back on our lives. It's the beautiful story that you've written of your goodness and your faithfulness and your love for us. And that it's gonna fit into the greater story that you've been writing since the beginning of time and that you're faithful to finish. Jesus, you are glorious. You are mighty in all your ways. Perfect in all of your ways. We love you, we cherish you. And we thank you for loving us. It's such an honor to get to spend our mornings with you. You're in the presence of God in the house of God. We love you, we love your presence. When we would pray, amen. Thank you everyone for joining us for morning prayer. Love getting to spend Friday mornings together. God bless you, have a good day.