Trusting God in Tight Places: Overcoming Challenges and Embracing Divine Assistance

0:00:01 - Speaker 1 Welcome to the City Light Church podcast. Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's Word and discover the hope and truth that He has for us. If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us at CityLightNYCcom. That's CityLightNYCcom. Pastor Boyan Jansik and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds. As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are deeply loved by God, that you are surrounded by His grace and that He has a real hope and a future for you. 0:00:41 - Speaker 2 Let's go this morning to Matthew, chapter 26 and verse 36. Matthew 26 and verse 36. Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane and said to His disciples Sit here while I go and pray over there. This is Jesus in the garden. Gethsemane, which means the place of crushing. It's the place where olives were crushed and turned into olive oil. And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with me. He went a little further and fell on His face and prayed, saying Oh my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass for me Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping and said to Peter What could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. The Spirit, indeed, is willing, but the flesh is weak. Again, a second time, he went away and prayed, saying Oh my Father, if this cup cannot pass away from me unless I drink it, your will be done. And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. So He left them and went away again and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then He came to His disciples and said to them Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. There are three distinct events that propelled Jesus into His destiny. Likewise, there will be three distinct events in your life that will be used by God to further you and to propel you into your destiny. They are the wilderness, the garden and the cross. The wilderness you see Moses spending time in the wilderness, david spending time in the wilderness. Jesus had his time in the wilderness. The wilderness speaks of a time of solitude, of loneliness, a time of solitude and prayer, of diving deep into the presence of God And, yes, also a time of temptation. The wilderness The cross speaks to a place where carnality is destroyed. But the garden, that's a place of crushing, that's a place of anguish, that's a tight place. I want to minister to you this morning on the God of the tight places. When you don't know what to do, when you feel beset on every side, you say how do I know if I'm in a tight place. If you find yourself praying the same prayer every day, you might be in a tight place. Have you ever been in a season where you have nothing new to say to God but you keep saying the same thing? Hello Lord, it's me again, just checking in. Not much has changed here. In fact, i'm going through the same thing I went through yesterday, that I was going through last week and the week before then. A tight place is a place of crushing, and God is the God of your tight place And He is the God who will bring you victory And He is the God who will see you through and He will use those places to propel you on into His plan for your life and into the destiny that He has prepared for you, amen. I want to read something else from from the life of David, first Samuel, chapter 30, verse six. There's different kinds of services that we have here, with different goals. You know we've been riding this wave of the gospel and of grace. Sometimes the goal of a service is to just see the Holy Spirit come upon people. Sometimes the goal in the service is to fill you with the word of God that it would just produce faith. Sometimes the goal is just to see your faith increase so that you could get the breakthrough that God wants to bring to you. And sometimes you can just get that breakthrough or have it begin in a service where we're all collected together. There is a difference between being alone and endeavoring to serve God and then being physically present together. You know the very word church means the assembled ones. This is what was so strange and bizarre, as the world was trying to get us to only do church online and not meet together. We are the corporate body of Christ. Corporate doesn't mean company or business, it means body. We are bodily him together. The wine is in the cluster. We have to be together. Why is that so important? Because you come to this place with some faith and someone else comes to this place with some faith and then the word of God is presented and that faith increases. And guess what happens next? That faith is compounded and amplified and it's like a leverage, it's like a catapult that you need to get you past that rut that you may be stuck in. It is powerful. It's why Jesus talked about the prayer of agreement and why it's highlighted as the most powerful type of prayer that there is that if two of you can come together and agree and stand in faith together, that faith is then compounded and amplified. And he said you will ask what your father anything, and it will be done for you. Amen. This is David, i'd say at the midpoint of his life, but he already had some history here. See the thing, when you're going through a tight place, what you got working against you is you may be tired, and when you're in a tight place, there is a tiredness, another battle And there's a different mindset. It's I know God is good and I know he did that thing for me back then. But what about now? This time could be different. This time the Goliath he seems too large Here. Already David has slain his lyam and his bear and his Goliath. He already went into the palace and served under King Saul and then saw Saul turn on him and persecute him. He already had major victories in battle, but now he lost one. And I just want to say that, although we believe in biblical victory, there are some battles you lose. The war you'll definitely win, but some battles you lose. Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters, but David strengthened himself in the Lord, his God. David was in a tight place already having gone through some things, and now his best friends, his team of 600 mighty men. They took up stones to murder him and he began to rise up and trust in the one who had given him previous victories. Let's read that from Psalm 86, verse 20. I'll never forget. How would I forget? I have many tight place stories to share. In fact, that's part of my ministry. I remember when I was 18 years old and I was on a retreat, my freshman year of college, and I had joined this Christian college group called basic brothers and sisters in Christ, out in Stony Brook in Long Island, and we went on to a retreat in Syracuse, new York, and it was the first time I ever received the prophetic word. We had these breakout meetings. I'm 18 years old and someone laid their hands on me and began to prophesy. And let me just say this I immediately sensed the anointing of God. When you receive a prophetic word, you want to pay attention to two things The words that are being said. And Paul said if it's from God, it's gonna be edifying, exhorting and comforting. Those are the three categories, but also look for the anointing. When God is speaking through somebody, that should be anointing. I have to say that because what sometimes passes as prophetic words, there is no oil on it, there is no power, it's just somebody giving a word for who knows what reason. This might blow your mind, but did you know there are some people who are spiritually insecure and they feel the need to use the gifts of the spirit, even though they're not tapping into the gifts of the spirit, to make themselves feel like one of the spiritual? I know, not here, never here, but there are conferences you might fly into and you'll find the parking lot prophets around and there's no anointing. You get more anointing on a takeout Chinese and opening the fortune cookie and reading it, and there's more anointing that'll hit you. But this man began to prophesy over me, the anointing. My whole spirit started vibrating and I was 18 and he prophesied. He didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. He said you're gonna go into ministry, you're gonna pastor. And then he said these words. He said and you will be exposed to much fire, you're gonna go through much fire, you said. Was that edifying, exhorting, comforting, somehow it was. He didn't end, just end there. He said you're gonna come through the fire and God is gonna use what you have gone through to encourage others and help them get through the fire that they're gonna go through. Amen. And I remember a fire, not the good fire of God kind, but where you feel like you're burning, hitting me when I had experienced depression for the first time in my life. The first thing I learned is that 99.9% of people don't know what depression is unless they have actually gone through real, clinically diagnosed depression. I didn't. I always felt depression was when someone had the blues, when they were just sad, and then, with the really, really sad, they can say, oh, i'm depressed. That's not what depression was for me and others I've talked to. It's not that you feel sad, it's not that you feel happy, it's that you don't feel at all. I felt like I was disappearing, Like my very life force was just shutting down, And it went on like that. Weeks turned into months where I ended up in the hospital having to receive ECT treatments, that's, electroconvulsive therapy, where they actually had to send an electric current to a certain part of my brain to wake it up because it had fallen asleep. I thought I was through, i thought I was done with minutes. It was over the end. This verse became real to me. Our God is the God of salvation. That word salvation means deliverance. It's who he is. He is a rescuer, he is a deliverer, he is a saver, and to God, the Lord, belong. These are his escapes from death. If you're in a tight place this morning, i want you to know God is good, he loves you, he's got your number and you just need to not quit. Quitting is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. He's got your back and divine assistance is coming your way. Just hang in there. I don't know why he waits till 11.59 so often. I've had my fair share of 3PM breakthroughs. Some have come and woke me up at six in the morning, but others tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, it's not until the midnight hour, dung, dung. And he always comes through. To the Lord alone They belong. Escapes from death, hallelujah. And when I just was telling you what kind of a Mauricio, come on up. What kind of service this is, it's because faith is arising in here And some of you, all you're gonna do is you're gonna say Lord, i believe that. I believe that, and what you did for him and what you did for her, you're gonna do for me And this is gonna catapult you. Some of you would have given up, but then you would have stumbled and fell and tripped, but you came into the house of the Lord, hallelujah. So I'm having several people just come up and share with you their tight place moments and how the Lord came through for them. Open up your heart to them and allow the Holy Spirit to minister to them through them, to you. 0:15:07 - Speaker 3 Let me pray first, heavenly Father. I thank you, father. I pray that the eyes of their heart would be enlightened to know him. Jesus, father, i thank you that the spirit of wisdom and revelation flow upon your people. In Jesus name, amen. When Pastor Boyan asked me to share something, i had some few stories, but the Lord asked me to share this particular story because it's the hardest place I've ever been in. In 2016,. My son passed and I could not see the light of day. I could not see tomorrow. All I heard was you could have all condemnation, guilt, you could have all done this, all these things. It was just emotions that I could not hear God. I learned then that when you're in emotions, you cannot hear God. Your emotions are too loud. Pastor Boyan was speaking on that verse I think it was 1 Samuel 30, verse 6, where David was greatly disturbed, or greatly. What was this? disturbed or greatly distressed? You got 600 guys thinking talking about this stone, david. But, as you notice, he says he says that he went and strengthened himself. When you can't hear God, if you're not strengthened in him, if you're in emotions and if you're feeling all these doubts, unbelief, all these things, imagine David how he felt All his best buds are now against him. He didn't go first from that place to inquire of God what to do. He first came and asked he to strengthen himself. Same thing with me. I had to strengthen myself. But how did that look for David? He remembered how God was with him when he killed the bear. He remembered when God was with him when he killed the lion. He would remember when he stoned Goliath and he was with him. And he says God is with me now. God has a plan for me. Now. God has a plan for you. Now He has a plan. So it's strengthening in the Lord. So I got strengthened in the Lord to be able to see tomorrow But by the grace of God I'm standing today Pastor Boyan would come upon, he would come to me, he would come with me. He would take walks and will come to my house. That he would say that, wow, this is almost like a revival in this place, because God was so present. When you're in the midst of that tight place, god is so present with you. 0:18:15 - Speaker 2 Amen. I remember that, walking into Mauricio's house and I said it's like you have been having a 24-7 revival service in here, because he was pretty somber but his home was filled with the power of God and with joy, and so he had made a decision, while going through this very difficult thing, to strengthen himself and encourage himself in the Lord. And so, just specifically, how did you go about that? Because different things can mean different things to different people. 0:18:51 - Speaker 3 So I worshiped the Lord. When old school I took out some CDs, i got to get the old CDs out. I just turned on some CDs. I just lost myself. I put my emotions aside, i just started worshiping God because that's all I had. Is him, Amen. 0:19:13 - Speaker 2 And, yeah, did you sing out louder? Did you just kind of have the CDs playing in the background, creating a nice ambience? 0:19:24 - Speaker 3 No, no, i had to come from within. I had to come out from my innermost being Amen. 0:19:30 - Speaker 2 I had to come out. This is key, And I always want to find you. We have people that are all different levels, People that have been serving the Lord here for decades, And people. I just baptized you for the first time a couple of weeks ago, And this is all new to you, And we live in a blessed time. David encouraged himself in the Lord. He didn't have his iPhone speaker to play it through. He didn't have a Bluetooth connection. They didn't have CDs, They didn't have Tidal or Spotify. They didn't have YouTube to check out the full worship concert. They had to go raw right out of their belly and sing songs that they had already learned. But we have these things, We have these benefits, And that's awesome. It only doesn't become awesome when we rely so much on these things And then we just have them play in the background And we let others do the worshiping for us. There is power in worship. Worship brings deliverance, Worship brings breakthrough. You have so many battles in the Old Testament where it specifically says that the front line soldiers that should be the heartiest of men warriors, battle proven, And you know who it was The Levite worshipers. And the Bible said they were clothed in linen, not with iron, not with bronze. No suits, no weapons, but a linen that's essentially linen pajamas And with harps. I mean, can you imagine what that looked like? You got an opposing army with murder in their eyes. You ever watch Braveheart, Ah. And then you got the Levites Pring pring, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness Pring, and the Lord would smite the enemies of God before their face because worship went up first. You have to worship God. If you're in a tight place And I recognize and you know it wasn't easy, right, You're going through it You don't feel like clapping your hands and shouting a hallelujah. It's actually the last thing in the natural that you want to do, But in the spirit it's the first thing that you've got to do And that, yes, And you actually have to sing the words. It's nice and pretty if we have it in the background. I actually try not to have background worship music so often. I'll put on greatest 80s hits from Pandora. I. Why? You say why not? Because I don't want it to become blasé to me. I mean, I can't prove this scripturally, but there are some songs I almost want to protect the anointing on them. I don't want to suck all the anointing off them by listening to 100 times. You ever get into a song And it's like why doesn't this move me like it did two years ago, Because you had it on auto replay so often And you done slurped all the anointing off of it. Tell me, worship music I want to engage God with. And then you have to open your mouth and sing, And I know I've been in times of pain where we're singing. God is so good. It might not come out Very pretty, It's God. You know good. I mean, your intestines are coming out right. You've been totally beat up and bruised, You're in it, You're going through it, But it's God. You're so good And you keep doing it and eventually it'll change. Until you are dancing and you got to worship like nobody is watching Amen. In the book of Hebrews it says the fruit of your lips. Right, We got to have fruity lips. That means the sound. What's fruity lips? A sound's got to come out. Don't let someone else do the worshiping for you. And we do live in this age where there is more anointed worship music than ever before. I remember when I got saved, you know we'd go to the hottest church in town, right, Right in Times Square, And I'd bring unbelievers and they'd be singing songs like We are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit And I'm like this person doesn't know that one page out of the Bible. I bought an unsafe friend from high school and she's singing We are the circumcision who worship God. Like what are they even saying? But worship music. It's changed. It used to be like all songs about God, Now there's songs to God and they bring you right into his presence and you can intimately engage with him. Amen, Thank you. Thank you, Mauricio. Thank you, Anika. Come on up, Anika. Just share with the people the tight place that God brought you through. 0:24:15 - Speaker 4 Okay, a few years ago I was in a point in my life where I felt stuck, like everything, just felt like everything was at a standstill. My career, i was working, but I just nothing was happening. No raises nothing And my personal life, the same thing. Everything that I tried to do undertook like projects. It was just like fall apart And I was just disappointed. I was starting to lose hope and I was upset and I was angry. I was like what is going on? You know, it's just a place, like every single thing that you do, it's just like nothing's working, nothing's happening, everything stopped. So I, you know I was, you know, i got to the Lord and I was upset And I was like what's going on? I don't understand. Even in my quiet times with the Lord, it felt a little different, i know, because of all the resentment and everything, but it was just. You know, when you open a faucet, you know the water flows. But for me, like my times of the Lord was just a little trickle, just stop, i don't. 0:25:11 - Speaker 2 But you said your quiet times were hit. Yeah, because of the resentment. Yeah, the disappointment We just we need to, we need to be able to acknowledge that That's right. Yeah, but that's something very real. That's something that very rarely gets acknowledged in church, that when you, when you have unanswered prayers for a while and you're in a tight place, it is not abnormal. It is actually normal. It is not abnormal for you to experience thoughts of anger and resentment towards God, the one who's still in your spirit. You know he's good, you know he loves you, but at the same time you're wrestling with thoughts of resentment and they interfere with your quiet times. He did Because you mentioned it in the first service. You said like everybody else seems to be getting blessed. Yeah, i said this once in a service. I got scolded by somebody who was redheaded, but I said I felt like the ugly, redheaded stepchild in the family of God. So I said you really hurt my feelings, i'm sorry if you're a redhead, it's an expression, it's an expression, it's an expression. But I remember saying that to God, you know, because when you're going through it and it's dry as a bone, just then, all of a sudden your phone starts ringing and everybody wants to share their testimony with you, and so you're going to be a good Christian and you're like I'm so happy for you. 0:26:31 - Speaker 4 This is great. And then back up like God. What about me? Hello, i'm not. 0:26:34 - Speaker 2 Chop Lever over here. You know I'm not Chop Lever. The second time you're happy, the third time you're happy, like by the 20th time you're like. I'm so happy for you. This is wonderful how you are blessed. Please go on. Yeah, that's a reality we have to acknowledge. 0:26:51 - Speaker 4 That's so true. And then so I would get a reprieve when I would come to church and I would feel depressed, but not the same. But then nothing would change And I was like what is going on? And then thoughts started coming You know what? I'm going to leave church. I don't think this is for me, it is the dumbest idea ever. Like, why would you? You know when you're going through it? that's not the time to leave. But I was like every single service I would go to, that's it. If nothing doesn't change during service, then I'm going to leave. But it wouldn't change and I kept coming. I was like this is it, this is it. And then this one time, thank God for your brothers and sisters in Christ, because usually I tend to keep to myself like, especially in the beginning, and so I didn't share that with my brothers and my sisters. And so one day we was one of those services. I was like this is it, i'm not coming back, i'm leaving church. And as I'm walking out, someone called up with me, spoke with me, prayed with me and gave me a word and said like obedience brings the blessing. And then that's when it hit me. I was like that's it, i'm obedient in some part of my life. Because I looked, i was like there's no sin, so I don't know what's going on, what's stopping the flow. But it was obedience. So I was like, thank God, finally Hallelujah. So I went back to the Lord And I was like, lord, where am I not being obedient? What's going on? And then, as I'm praying, spending time with Lord, he started to show me little things that he said to me that I kind of brushed away And I was like no, do this instead. And so I chose my way, how I wanted to do it, my timing, instead of what he wanted me to do. And then that stopped the hand of God, his favor upon my life. So I started being super attentive to even simple things, but also bigger things, like decisions you have to make. Also, should I go to this dinner party with those people? Yeah, they're unsafe, but they're not bad people. And then Lord would be like no, but I'm like, but they like me, i like them, but you know they'll always be like no, and then do this instead, or whatever. And then when I did obey, and then the Lord, just first that dryness, that constriction, my eyes just kind of disappeared, they dissipated And then everything started to flow. There was more life. I started to deal with anxiety, which the Lord healed me when I first got saved And it started to come back And then that went away And yeah, and then, even till today, i saw an immediate result in my life when I became obedient. But even still today I'm still reaping the benefits of my obedience from years ago. Things that I wanted back then, that I was trying to make happen on my own. The Lord is freely giving them to me now And it just it's good. 0:29:26 - Speaker 2 So awesome And I'm grateful that Anika highlighted in her story that it was a matter of obedience and changing some things. I'll admit, oftentimes I'll approach this topic from the area of faith. You know you're in a tight place. There's a mountain. You're gonna blow that mountain up with faith, but yet the reality is and this is from my own life, like she said, from her life many times you have to go back to the drawing board and Readjust some things and take a personal inventory and say Lord, am I, am I doing anything That's causing me to be in this tight place? Have I ended up in the garden because you brought me here or because I brought myself here? And it could be that you have some areas that haven't been submitted to the Lord or some areas of disobedience. Look, if you're in a romantic relationship with an unbeliever and you want to tear your hair out And you're going, lord, pull me out of my tight place. Lord, please bless this relationship and bring peace to it, and that's not gonna happen. Man, that's the big. You go back to the drawing board, amen. Oh Lord, i fell out of your will, i'm now in rebellion, and so Faith isn't gonna deliver me. But you know, i spent a long time saying, lord, who is this devil that's frustrating me? Where is this devil that's hindering me and holding me back? and I walk past the mirror and the Lord said there he is right there. You know that old movie. The call is coming from the downstairs bedroom. The upstairs bedroom, the devil that's hindering you, you, you're your own worst enemy. Submit a line to my word Be obedient And you'll come out of this. Amen, sean, come on up, put your hands together for anointed and beloved praise and worship leader Sean Samuel. 0:31:34 - Speaker 6 So I wanted to talk about the tight place that my wife and I experienced When we moved back to the US. So, when we got married in 2014, god had called us to be on the mission field in India, and so we lived there for four years, and then, in 2017, we fought, felt God calling us back to the US. Shortly after we made that decision to move back to the US, we found out that we were pregnant with our first daughter, and so we Started the process of moving back, and The tight place was, when we got to the US, we didn't have a plan in place for what was next. So, practically speaking, i didn't have a job lined up, neither did my wife, and we didn't know where we're gonna live, and so and we had a baby on the way Do in six months, in in January, and so that was a really difficult time, and And we didn't know what, what God had for us. We knew there was something, but we didn't know what. And so what do we do in that type place? we we went into an extended time of fasting and prayer and we sought the Lord, and up until that point, the idea that I had in my head was to apply for jobs in some other areas of experience that I had in marketing and data and, when we went into this time of fasting, heard from the Lord, specifically from Colossians 316, about Pursuing a role as a worship leader. And that was not something that was even on my radar or something I'd even considered, because I didn't have a background in that and also It's just not something that I was thinking about. And so I started. So we changed courses and The one thing I knew was there's no way this is gonna happen in New York. It's just too expensive. So I was applying for jobs in other places in the south because I figured that's where something like this would be more plausible. And I applied to a bunch of places and nothing was working out. It felt like closed doors and time was coming like really close. And then I think it was October of that year I got connected through a friend of my brother-in-law and he was because I was telling everyone that I was looking for a job. And so He said, oh, i go to church called City Light, i'd never heard of it And they're looking for a worship leader, and so You know, you should, you should call and find out. So I got connected to pastor Mo, i had my first call with someone at City Light and and he explained City Light to me and I listened to him on the phone and he was, you know, very transparent and straight up to set expectations And I was like, okay, that's a lot different from you know churches that I've grown up in, but Let's try it out. So I I decided before, you know, i wanted to come and attend a service. So I came to a Friday night service and I Got it, i got it jump in. 0:35:06 - Speaker 2 Now we normally have these Friday night revival services where anything can happen, but on this particular Friday night, anything did I mean of all the nights, right, i mean the Holy Spirit blasted into the place. We had a spontaneous healing miracle service. There were bodies all over the place and I didn't see your wife so much, but I saw you and you were just like I Mean, he looked, he looked like he was ready, you know. 0:35:35 - Speaker 6 Yeah, it was very different from what I'd grown up and I was like, i was like baby if there's like a gold nugget in my pocket. We're getting out of here. 0:35:46 - Speaker 2 It was, it was yeah, it was. 0:35:48 - Speaker 6 I wasn't, So I didn't think it was for me. I was like I don't know what I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna do here. But we had a conversation and we were just gonna have you blow the shifara But. But We, we, we came to audition two weeks later, on a Friday night, and we just felt this was from the Lord, and I was very uncomfortable, but This was, this was what the Lord had for us, and that was in 2018. I remember I accepted the the role in December and started in January, and Our baby was born two weeks later After we started as City Light. And so what did I learn from this tight place? I learned that God's timing is not our timing and that when he makes a promise, he makes a way, and a lot of times it's it's different than what we may imagine. For example, like when we moved I, we didn't have a place, we were gonna stay and we didn't know how this was gonna work. But and I'm gonna say this, and you may not count this as a blessing but we, my, we started to live with my parents, and This may not be something that you would count as a blessing, but for my family, it was the most incredible thing God could have done for our lives, because both my daughters grew up, you know with, and I love my parents and and they poured in so much into them, into their lives, and it is I mean I could have asked for something better for my kids To grow up in that godly environment Along with us as a family, and so that was a way that God made for us to be in New York, to be here, to be a part of this community, and it wasn't what I had imagined or did would have designed for myself You but it blew it out of the water, and so that's what God does so awesome. 0:37:58 - Speaker 3 Awesome. 0:38:03 - Speaker 2 Just say this God will do it for me, he sees me, he loves me, he's working in the invisible For me, on my behalf, because he's a good God, hallelujah, hallelujah. When you're going through it by definition of going through it and you've had the wind knocked out of you, i get it. I Have been there So much so I ended up in the hospital. There were prayers when I would pray, i would go to pray and just, and I wouldn't speak in tongues, but it's still just like syllables would come out Oh God, oh help. That was the best I could offer, but I still kept talking And I want to encourage you to just not quit on the inside. The devil wants to crazy glue your lips shut and get you from speaking, get you from engaging God, Just say no to mopey Christianity. There are times you can be weak. I get that, i was weak, but not where you're moping, where your arm is just hanging down and you've just quit quietly. Quit on the inside And now you're just going through the motions. Still, let something arise out of you. Amen, hallelujah. Pastor James, won't you come on up and just share your experience with the Lord? 0:39:39 - Speaker 5 Experience with the Lord. There are so many And, gosh, parenting is challenging. Right, that's a fun place to start So many tight spaces because our families are so important to us And I mean that's one of the things that we pray about the most right, you don't even have to be a parent to know how challenging it is. Some of you are like, yeah, it's challenging. Others of you, you know that you had parents and you made it challenging for your parents, so you know it's challenging to be parents. So we can all agree, right, but I'm a blessed man, i have a great wife, i have great kids and we've had great experiences. And it was probably when our youngest child, our daughter Nichelle, was born. I was so excited because, again, the only daughter and I had been praying for this excited because I was excited one to have a little princess that I could be her hero forever. If you've ever had a little girl, you know that they're going to get you wrapped around their little finger forever. I was terrified of having a teenage daughter, mind you. So my prayer was God, let me just skip over those years somehow, i don't know how, but let her just think of me as her hero and I can be just the dad of a little princess forever. So I was super excited, but with a little fear. She was about four years old. She went to a wellness check doctor's appointment and I was at work and my wife actually called Nicole and she just had come out of that doctor's appointment And so she shared a really devastating diagnosis that her little four year old Ray of Sunshine had been diagnosed with a condition called neurofibromatosis. And that was a super long word, not from Mary Poppins. I had never heard it before So I had to look it up. I said what is neurofibromatosis? It's the condition that you're born lacking the gene that controls tissue growth. So anywhere you have a nerve and if you remember from biology class you have a lot of nerves right, you ever pricked your finger or smashed your thumb out nerves everywhere you're going to have tissue growth unchecked. The gene that says stop growing isn't there. So as a result, you've got fibromas and tumors throughout your whole body. So consequently, there's no cure, there's no treatment. Typically it's a death sentence. You don't necessarily see that on the death certificate cause of death neurofibromatosis but you just have these tumors that run havoc all over your body. And she was having optic seizures and they thought maybe they were putting pressure on the optic nerve and she was having all these neurological issues And so she was getting all these tests done. We were seeing all these specialists. Turns out they found five tumors in her brain. My little princess running around trying to live a normal life. She got five brain tumors And two, they said, her deep brain. So if you know anything about the medical profession, when they say deep brain, that means inoperable, that means they're so deep it'll do more trauma to try and remove them And if they keep growing it's bad news And even a grain of sand size tumor in the brain can be devastating. So she was having all kinds of problems. So, as a result, every six months she's had to have more MRIs so they can check the status of the growth of these tumors. So, as you can imagine, that felt like a tight place right. I left my office that day, i just went into my car and I wept and I asked God why. And we prayed, and we prayed, we asked God for healing and we said why? I didn't understand why, and so I spent a lot of energy asking why And at the end of the day I realized that was probably the wrong question. Have you ever been there? Even you're tight space. You're like God. Why am I in the tight space? I don't know. His ways are higher, they're different And I don't think we're going to know the side of eternity. So one of the things I want to share with you today is don't waste your energy asking why, because it's useless energy spent. So we started hitting our knees And one of the things that we did is we included our kids in the process. We said we're going to pray as a family for this. We weren't going to just kind of mom and dad huddle and cry in the corner in private and the kids come hey, everything's great. Little plastic fake smile, right. We would cry together And our daughter would ask questions like am I going to die? Those are tough conversations. And our older brother would come and he's a sweet, sensitive spirit And he said one day I think I need counseling, dad. I said why do you think you need counseling? He said I have anger issues. If you've ever met my son, you know that that is so far from his behavior. He's not destructive, he's kind, he's well read, he's well spoken, he's smarter than me by a long shot. So why do you think you have anger issues? He said sometimes I just get so mad at what my sister is having to endure And so it's putting trauma on him and he's praying privately and with us And he's asking questions like if you knew what she was going to experience, would you and mom have still had her? Try answering that question. Lot of tear field conversations for years, year after year. It's a tight space. That's a tough space. But we decided you can either build a monument And for a lot of people when they get a diagnosis like that and Nicole was fantastic. She started going online. She found a group of parents. This is very rare And again, one of the sad things is you follow the dollars When there is money to be made in treatments and medicine. There's a lot of research and a lot of people are saying but nobody talks about neurofibromatosis Why? Because there's no medicine to make anywhere money, so it's really hard to find information and support. So we felt alone, isolated. So we would dig and we would try. We were applying to the Mayo Clinic because we would go about her condition. Than they knew That's scary. You go to a specialist and they're like what are we doing today, you tell me. So we prayed and we prayed for healing, but we asked God to be part of the process. We said this is your story. So a lot of people, when they get that diagnosis and that's what we found from a lot of people across the country their life just stops. It's like pre-diagnosis, post-diagnosis, but that was a divider in time And it was a monument to that moment in their life And everything pointed back to that. Or we could dig a well of refreshment for other people that were going to come after us, that were going to have similar experiences, so they could find hope. So, regardless of the outcome, we determined this was God's story And so we'd walk through. She'd have to get these treatments, she'd have her little IV bag and she's walking down the hallway with her little MRI-approved teddy bear and she's walking down and they're just doctors are weeping. They're like how do these things happen to such a good person, bad things to a good person? We say, well, that's a great question, let me tell you. And we would preach the gospel to them. And they would be weeping doctors, anesthesiologists, dentists because we said we're going to be a well of refreshment, not a monument to the pain. The pain has to count for something, and so that was what we determined. We gave it to God. He never told us why, but we said well, that's the why. We're going to make up. Okay, we're going to fill in the blank, because God hasn't told us the why. So maybe three years after that diagnosis she's there for another one of these MRIs, she's getting the MRI at the neurologists and they're looking at the report and we're like, oh okay, normally it's just yeah, here's the little milky substance that had developed around the brain we were concerned about. Here's how big they've gotten. They show you the before and the after, how much larger they've gotten. They kind of have the little spots and they give the measurements. And so we're prepared, we're expected, we're braced. But that's not what he says. He looks and he gets a call league, and they come back in the room. They're whispering in the corner. So at this point you start to wonder well, what's the other shoe that's going to fall? How much worse can it get? And that we had kind of laughingly held onto the adage God never gives you more than you can bear. Well, it's a farce. It's not about what we can bear, it's about what he can bear. And we hadn't reached the breaking point yet, even though we thought we were crushed and completely destroyed. So we're thinking what next? I don't know if I can take any more bad news, but we're trying to keep a brave face And he shall sit in there playing with her, my little pony, and we're just okay. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the neurologist said I'm sorry to keep you waiting, but I just wanted to make sure I was seeing what I thought I saw. But I cannot, even if I stretch the imagination, find even one of the brain tumors. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, praise God. And then he said you know, i'm not religious That's always code, for I'm not Christian, i'm not anything. But are you praying people? And so we got to laugh and tell him yeah, we've been praying, we've held her in front of our church, we've had people lay hands on her, we've prayed as a family daily that God only has the cure for her condition, and we trust that. We have faith in that. We didn't run to him as a last line of defense, but as our first line of defense, as our first encounter. And so that's where we went, and so we got to celebrate. But here's the stupid thing. My first reaction was are you sure you're reading this right? I don't wanna walk away with this good news feeling great And then you call back a week later and say, oh sorry, we got the wrong report Or we gave you someone else's MRI. Oh, the machine was broken. Those were my first thoughts. And then God just kind of whispered it's like he flicked me on the back of the ear. He's like hey, you remember that group of Christians in Acts, chapter 12, praying for Peter's release from prison? And then God released him from prison. And then he came to the door and then he said hey, stop knocking on the door, We're paying for Peter's release from prison. He said I'm Peter. He said no, no, it can't be Peter. We're praying for him. He's in prison. No, it's Peter, i'm Peter. And they said no, no, it must be a ghost, it must be a spirit or an angel, cause we know Peter's in prison. We're praying for him to be released from prison And I said, wow, how easy is it to fall into that trap? I believe and we had great faith And I think God used that in some way to bring about this incredible healing. But if I'm being honest, i had to say I believe, but help my unbelief. And if you find yourself in those moments when we talk a big game and we talk big here at City Light cause, we believe God is big and faith is strong and God can move mountains. But sometimes when we leave this place and the high is gone and we get kicked in the gut again, we think is he really going to do it? When you find yourself in that place, just remember he's done it before and he'll do it again. He's not done. He's not done. 0:50:10 - Speaker 2 Hallelujah So awesome. Let's look at that verse from 1 Corinthians 15, worship team, come on up, very, very encouraging. How many of you have been encouraged this morning. Thank you, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory as conquerors, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's just say that together Ready go, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory as conquerors, through our Lord Jesus Christ, amen. Amen. 0:50:56 - Speaker 1 This is the City Light Church podcast. If you've missed any part of today's message or if you would like to find out more about Pastor Boyan Jansik in City Light Church, visit us at citylightnyccom. That's citylightnyccom. Feel free to visit us online or in person anytime. We would love to connect with you. We pray that you have been encouraged today, that you have been reminded how much God loves you and that you are surrounded by grace. Thank you for listening. Make sure that you subscribe to City Light Church podcast wherever you find your favorite podcasts worldwide.