How to Thrive Through It

And so this really introduces us to to a painful truth. That is something that we don't like to understand for ourselves, but, man, we have to. Because the truth is obedience does not always lead to immediate reward. Just because you do the right thing doesn't mean you're always gonna be rewarded on the spot in the moment. So we gotta make a choice. Are we gonna walk forward in integrity and do the right thing because it's the right thing, or are we just gonna try to do the easy way and seek our reward? Because sometimes obedience, it actually leads to prison. [00:24:58] (37 seconds)  #ObedienceOverOutcome

And notice that god's presence, it didn't prevent him from going to prison. This is not prosperity gospel. It didn't prevent him from going to prison. But just like the pit, god transformed it in him into preparation for what he had next for Joseph. And so the question is that we have to answer for ourselves is when we're in the prison, do we actually trust in what God has next, especially if you can't see it, especially if you don't know where you're going just yet? Like, can you trust to the point where you choose not to compromise and you choose to be obedient and follow him? [00:32:18] (37 seconds)  #PresenceTransformsPrison

Like, how many times do we seemingly at least try our very best to do the right things only to find ourselves in some kind of prison? And it may not feel like it, but we gotta realize that that there's actually life waiting there for us. Even in the prison, like, God wants for us to thrive when we get there. If we're obedient to him and find ourselves in a bad situation still, if we find ourselves in a prison, he still wants us to experience the goodness of life that he has for us. He wants us to thrive in the prison. [00:26:08] (39 seconds)  #ThriveInPrison

But here's the truth of god. No matter what your story looks like, no matter what your prison might look like right now, whatever your circumstances are, the truth of God's word and the truth of to to us is that his presence with us is always the same. The end result might look different. The circumstance is different, but his presence in the midst of it, it is the same, and it is power, and it is strength, it is rest, it is comfort for us. [00:38:06] (27 seconds)  #PresenceIsPower

God is not absent in our injustice. He's actually forming something much deeper in us as we go through our prison. But we've gotta make that choice. We gotta choose to walk forward with bold determination knowing that he is good, that he is faithful, and that he is bringing us towards something. And I know this because I know that you are a you are a son. You are a daughter of the most high god whom he loves more than anything, like, literally loves more than anything. [00:40:14] (33 seconds)  #FormedByAdversity

Right? It's our survival instincts. It's short term. There's no life in the pit. Right? All we find inside the pit is death, so we wanna get out as quickly as possible. We wanna survive it. Right? And so last week was about how to survive the pit. This week is about how can we thrive when the pit turns into a prison. Like, how do you survive? How do you thrive actually when the pit that we're in, that that moment, that circumstance actually turns into a long term prison sentence. [00:13:38] (34 seconds)  #FromPitToPurpose

Prison is about how we thrive in the face of adversity. It's knowing that while your circumstances are hard and difficult and maybe have been for quite some time, maybe you've been dealing with whatever you're going through for many many years even. I know that that's the case for for many of us. But in spite of that, we can still trust and know that god is leading us into life. And not just life, like abundance with, like, strength and power and rest. [00:33:20] (30 seconds)  #LeadToAbundance

But Joseph reminds us, guys, that even in the worst of circumstances, the lord is with us. No matter what has happened, no matter what circumstance you're in right now, the lord is with you just like he's with me, just like he was with Joseph as a slave in Egypt, a foreign land. We're never alone, and we will never be abandoned even in the face of injustice. [00:18:11] (26 seconds)  #NeverAloneInTrials