Finding Strength in Faith Amid Life's Storms

1) "The question today is how do you prepare for life when in life there are so many unexpected turns that happen? You know, it's real easy. No, I shouldn't say it's real easy. Faith is not always easy in any way, shape, or form. But when life is going good, it's pretty easy to just kind of go along with the flow. It's easy to cling on to the wall hangings we all have in our homes, the faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love, and it's this nice little beautiful thing that somebody painted, and then they mass produced so that we all could buy it at Kirkland's. And it's easy to live by that when nothing's really going wrong." [01:55] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "What happens in your life when the hurricane comes and it stalls out over your mountain home and your home is destroyed completely? You've lost everything that you know. What happens in your life when you lose your job or a relationship or fill in the blank? What happens when you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel? Not the train that's coming at you, but the peace and hope that you can get through what you're living through right now. What do you do in those times? What is your response?" [03:06] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "And as I listened through that video, there was so much over and over and over. We're doing a testimony series at youth group right now where us adults are starting off by giving our own personal testimonies and then we're gonna give the students an opportunity to give them a chance and an opportunity to give their own testimonies. And what's so important about a testimony is that it's not necessarily a thing that is going to alter your own personal faith walk. But you see other people that have gone through unimaginable things within their lives you see how they were able to deal with it." [14:42] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "She's on her roof feeling like she's safe and her house falls apart underneath her. And yet she has hope. In the middle of the waters, where she's being pushed under the water and brought back up, she says she hears from God, be still. I can't even begin to understand what she's going through in this moment. I have children. I have a seven-year-old myself. I can't imagine being on the roof with my child like But the strength in her faith, the strength in her hope in Jesus, the love of the people that were on that roof surrounding her, the love of God in her life is why only four days later she's able to give a recount of this story as powerful as it is." [16:05] (57 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "How do you prepare for something like that? How do you prepare yourself for an unimaginable tragedy? And I think that Megan gives us the answer and it's very similar to what we talked about last week in how do you live this out. When they talked about her parents, you know, the first thing they said is, my parents weren't perfect. We're not going to glorify the fact that who her parents were. Her parents loved her. And her parents instilled within her, which gave her hope and they showed her love. How do you prepare for something that's unimaginable? It's by living every day in a life of faith." [18:13] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "It's counter-cultural for the Bible to say, rejoice when we run into problems and trials. Rejoice when you go through difficulties in life. Why? Why? Because when you go through trials and difficulties in life, you grow. Because when you run into problems and trials, they develop, they develop an endurance in you that allows you to continue walking through life with faith as your pillar. As you develop an endurance for how to live life here on earth, it builds and strengthens your character." [21:15] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "And when you have strong character, founded on the basics of faith, hope, and love, given by Jesus Christ, it leads to a hope and salvation. There's the only way that this woman, Megan, can find joy today, is that there's a hope in salvation. She has lost so much. And yet Jesus promises us, place your faith in him. Place your hope and be that found in Jesus Christ alone. Because Jesus Christ loves you, you can go and love the world. There will not be disappointment we develop these things." [22:01] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "How do you prepare yourself for the difficulties that are ahead if you've met the person on earth that has not had difficulties send them my number because I'd love to talk to them that's one thing we all have in common there's going to be difficulties in life how do you walk through them do you walk through them standing on your faith do you walk through them with your hope in Jesus and do you walk through them in love or do you choose to throw those away and do what's in our own hearts always come back to the basics faith hope and love" [22:54] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)