In every job or calling there are occupational hazards; things that just come with the territory. Because you perform your function your occupation there are dangers that go along with it. It is the same with following the Lord. Following Jesus Christ is no exception to occupational hazards. There are certain things that come with the territory in following God that would be considered dangerous- a hazard. Even if you're in the, what is known as the, "perfect will of God". And if you've been a Christian for very long, you've heard those terms. The perfect will of God versus the permissible will of God. It is a phrase that is coined from the book of Romans, Chapter 12. It says, "Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you might prove what is the good and perfect will of God." Every single mature believer that I have ever met wants to do God's will. At least they say so. Anyone that is walking with the Lord and has any inclination towards serving him at one point says, "All I want to do is find out the will of God for my life and walk in it." Yet I have discovered that built into that desire to do the will of God is an idea that doing God's perfect will means freedom from anxiety, uh, freedom from the storms of life, uh, we just go through smooth sailing, and that's the indication that we're in the perfect will of God. I've found that many Christians think that way. Because they think that way, a lot of Christians face tremendous pressure from guilt. And the will of God becomes something that they're always looking for to do but never experiencing because there are still storms in their life. And they think, "Something's not right, because if I'm in the will of God, everything is just going to flow." I've heard the cries from Christians who have said that. "Life is flowing like it should. What am I doing wrong? I must not be in God's perfect will." The will of God and the perfect will of God is not a cure-all for problems. And instead of looking at doing His perfect will as something where the storms are removed, look at it as being in the eye of a hurricane. The storm is raging all around you but you have perfect peace because your mind is stayed on the Lord. The storm is still there and yet deep within there is a sense of peace amidst all of the problems, that you are doing the will of God.

Perfect example is what we're going to read this morning. Sarah and Abraham are performing on schedule the perfect will of God and there's incredible joy in their lives when they do that. And yet, it's not a breeze. There's some tough stuff they go through. It says in verse 1, "Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah," or the Lord visited Sarah, "as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant, bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. Sarah was uh," excuse me, "Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said, 'God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.' And she added, 'Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.'" Look carefully at the phrasing in the very first verse. "The Lord was gracious to Sarah as He had said. The Lord did for Sarah what He had promised." You remember the first time when Sarah heard the promise that she was going to have a kid? She cracked up. She didn't do it out loud, but inwardly she said, "Bahaha that is a great joke, Lord." She, in her skepticism, laughed at the promise of God. And you remember the reaction of God, when He knew that she was laughing? It was a two-fold reaction from the Lord. Number one, a question, "Is there anything too hard for God?" And secondly, He said, "I'll be back. I'll be back at the appointed time just as I have promised you. I'll be back and you'll see it happen." Well, here it is happening. The Lord did just like He said, just like He promised, it came through.

It's been said that making promises will get you friends, but performance keeps them. You know, God performed what He promised. He just didn't say, "Oh, yeah, sure it'll be done." The Lord did as He had said. And they learned a lesson from that. The first and obvious lesson is that God keeps His word. He is never late. He's never early, either. But He's never late. He's just on time. Look at verse 2, "Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age," and there's that beautiful phrase, "at the very time God had promised it." He's never late. I believe that the first time God told Abraham that he was going to have a kid, Abraham thought that it would be an immediate thing. After all, at the first time God promised Abraham a kid, Abraham was sixty years old. He said, "Abraham, you're going to have a kid." He thought, "Great, next few years, my life will change." However, he waited forty years from that time, till he was 100 years old. And he had a lot of problems with waiting. He even took that promise into his own hands and tried to fulfill it with Sarah by Hagar. I'm sure he thought it was immediate. Truth of the matter is, is that God's appointment book is different than ours. And we don't know always what that is. The day that God said, "Abraham, you're going to have a son," in a sense, Abraham got out his day timer and said, "Great, next few years, period." What Abraham didn't know is that God turned his day timer to forty years later. And he said, "Isaac born on this date, when Abraham's 100 years old." But Abraham didn't know that. Although Abraham was probably many times perplexed saying, "God, you're late!" He wasn't. He wasn't in a hurry, He wasn't early, He was not late. God marks His appointment book differently than we do. And He doesn't let us see everything that is going on in that book. It's the same as Jesus Christ. At the time Jesus was born, there was an oppression throughout the whole Jewish system. The Jews were crying out that the Messiah hadn't come. They were begging God to send the Messiah. The Romans had taken over, the people were oppressed, and Jews all over the place were thinking, "God has not kept His promises." And you start thinking, "Now why didn't God send the Messiah earlier? Is He late? Yet Galatians Chapter 4, verse 4 says, "In the fullness of time, God sent His son. At just the right appointment and time, God was not late, God sent Jesus Christ on time. We hate delays, right? Whether it's from people or from God, we hate to be put off. We don't like waiting. We hate being in doctor's offices and spending an hour waiting. We don't like to be put on wait on the phone, even though they have music playing in the background. We don't like delays, especially when we think God is delaying us and we've prayed and we've prayed and we've prayed, and our prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling. We think, "God, why don't you keep your appointments? I was sure that you were going to do this for me, but it seems as if you're late." This is the tension that we have with the Lord. His timing. His timing and our timing are two different worlds apart. And we have real tension when we have to be put off on a holding pattern by the Lord, his delays. And we start thinking that God has forgotten about some of the details of running the universe. After all, there's so many details in the universe, certainly God must've forgotten a few, especially, uh, my details.

I heard about a guy who got a check up from his doctor, and then he went back for the results and the doctor said, "Phew, I don't know how to tell you this, but I have bad news and I have worse news. Which would you like to hear first?" The guy said, "Give me the bad news first." He said, "Well the bad news is that you have twenty-four hours to live. After looking at your charts and the tests, you've got twenty-four hours to, to live." The guy jumped off the table, he said, "Twenty-four hours to live? How in the world can I get the affairs of my life together and sealed up in twenty-four hours? What could possibly be worse news than that?" And the doctor said, "Well, the worse news is that I was supposed to tell you yesterday." (Laughter) You're late, doc. And we think that God is often late when it comes to our lives. "God, why didn't you tell me sooner? Why didn't you do it sooner?" You know, you find a pattern of God throughout the Scripture that human beings have a tendency to think that when God makes them a promise it's going to be immediate, and yet there's a waiting period, always. In this case, forty years. In David's case, ten years. From the time David was anointed king, it took ten years of trials for him to get to the fulfillment. Ten years. The day that Samuel came and poured oil all over his said, "You're the next king," David thought, "Oh, this is wonderful. What a joyful occasion this is." And then right after that, he was hunted for ten years like an animal, a fugitive in caves, took ten years to get the fulfillment. Paul the apostle, remember the prophesy of Ananias by the Holy Spirit to Paul. "Paul, you are a chosen vessel to the Lord. You're going to bear His name before kings, gentiles and the world." Paul thought, "Alright!" And yet after that, he went to Arabia for three years, and just when he thought it was the right time to appear on the scene publicly and fulfill the ministry, he goes to Damascus, gets kicked out of Damascus, goes to Jerusalem, and the apostles ship him off to Cilicia for another seven or eight years. Total of about eleven years from the time God promised him that he would be used until the time he was finally used. God is never late, though. In the fullness of time, God used Paul, God picked David, and God gave Abraham a son. Look at verse 2 again.

There's another lesson they learned. "Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age." Now the Holy Spirit thinks it's important to draw our attention to that fact three times in just a few verses. He brings out his age. And look at verse 5, "Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born." Look at verse 7, "And she added, 'Who would've said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have born him a son in his old age.'" Abraham and Sarah learned that God is all-powerful and the laws of nature do not restrict him. He is not confined by natural law. Now think about it. It's pretty obvious, isn't it, that for Abraham and Sarah to pull this off was an impossibility. They could not have conceived and desired to have kids on their own. It’s a human impossibility for people ninety and 100 years old to go out and have kids let alone nurse them, as we see here in that verse. She's nursing her own child. Totally impossible. Yet they learned what is known as the sovereignty of God. Do you know what that word means? Sovereign? It means, "Without external control." It means, "Totally limitless." And they learned that. They learned God isn't late and God can do anything. Even if it is against natural law, there is no, nothing confining God, nothing holding Him back; He is all-powerful. I have watched the church of Jesus Christ from the time I have become a Christian and I have noticed that the miraculous aspect of Christianity wanes in some circles. We tend to look back at the miraculous through a whole different set of eyes. We think, "Oh, I read this and that's a nice story. Um, and I believe that it happened, back then. And it was neat that it happened to Abraham and Sarah, but miraculous events like that just do not happen today." Or we tend to over-naturalize miracles. We say, "Oh, life is a miracle. A baby being born is a miracle. The sun rising is a miracle." No, that is a pattern of natural law. And yes, you and I couldn't pull that off, but we have come to recognize that as a pattern of natural law, and we tend to oversimplify the miraculous. The miraculous is when God intervenes in natural law, there's a break in natural law. And yet, the church has a tendency in some circles to play that down. Oh, it doesn't happen. Or it happens back then, but doesn't happen to me. You've thought that. And let's face that for what it is, it's simply unbelief. When you bring God into the picture, there are no limitations. When God wants to pull something off, Abraham and Sarah learn that there's nothing restricting. If you have even witnessed a true miracle, and I've witnessed a few, a true physical healing, a true intervention of God where you look at something and you think there is no mistaking there is no other explanation, except that God intervened; that's a miracle. And you think, "Wow." And yet, for God, it's not that big of a deal. If you think of it in terms of natural law, God simply works on a higher set of laws and His laws supersede other laws.

Example: When I go to an international airport and I look at a 747, it think, "There's no way in the world that thing's going to get off the ground." It is so huge, made out of all metal; it'll put 500 people in that thing. And after having 500 people, it's got 6,000 cubic feet of space to put 45,000 pounds of luggage. Now there's a law called gravity that says that thing's going to stay on the ground. Take an object, put your arm out, drop it and it'll smack the ground. The Law of Gravity. While there is that law, and it is not cancelled out, there are other laws that, when you bring them into play, in a sense, supersede the Law of Gravity. You've got propulsion, thrust, aerodynamics. Put those laws together, you get a jet-propulsed engine and the dynamic reaction of air against the surface of the wings, and that huge piece of metal starts taking off. And every time I look at a 747 I think, "Amazing, miraculous. How can that thing fly?" It can fly because there are certain laws that supersede other laws. God works on a whole different set of laws. We see a miracle and we think, "Wow!" And God says, "That's not a big deal. That's nothing. I just went (snaps fingers) and it happened. My ways are not ways. My ways are above your ways." God's laws supersede all natural laws. Sarah and Abraham, ah, there's nothing impossible for the Lord.

Look now at verse 6, "Sarah laughed. Sarah said, 'God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.' And she added, 'What or who would have said to Abraham and Sarah, or Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.'" These are the results of the will of God. They learned something about God's will: that there's nothing impossible for them, and they also learned that God is never late. When God wants His will done, it's going to happen and nothing's going to hold them back and they are experiencing the results of God's perfect will. Now, she's laughing, not in disgust, not in skepticism like she did a few years ago, or a year ago. When God said, "You're going to have a kid," she cracked up in skepticism. Now she's holding a baby. A ninety-year old woman, a silver saint with a newborn. It's a reality and she's filled with joy, she's laughing in joy.

And next, there's a feast. Look at verse 8, "The child grew and was weaned," he was about three years old at this time, probably, "and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast." I'm sure at that feast Abraham stood up and said, (knocks on the podium) "Attention," held up his glass, "Here's my son, Isaac. He's three years old and as you know, all of you who are friends of mine, I was 100 years old when he was born, Sarah in her nineties. It's a miracle baby. And you've heard of all the promises that God made me for forty years. Here is the son of the promise. Here's the miracle baby. In him all the nations of the world are going to be blessed." And there was probably a toast and a great celebration. Here is Abraham and Sarah in the perfect will of God, enjoying the results, having a great time, thinking, "Oh, if we only would've trusted and not did that thing with Hagar. God is able to do anything. Oh, it's wonderful to walk in the perfect will of God." However, they're about to learn another lesson. That you can be smack dab in the center of God's will and still experience negative emotions and all sorts of tough problems. Look at the next verse, " But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking," and you starting to get an uneasy feeling at this verse, like something weird is about to happen. Sarah turns and notices Ishmael who is about sixteen to seventeen years old at this point; a ripe, young, sassy teenager. Any of you got uh, a few like that? You know, that's the age when uh, the kids start raising the parents. Ishmael is uh, not taking kindly to this. He's watching the feast. He gets the feeling that he's being replaced. He's an alert kid. He probably grew up having his mother tell him, "You're the promise seed, you're the promise seed. See this kid thing isn't happening with Abraham and Sarah. You're it, man." And now he finds out that she's wrong and bitterness starts taking over, and he starts mocking. And we don't know what he said or what he did exactly, but whatever he did, it rekindled all sorts of resentment within Sarah. For the next verse tells us, "And she said to Abraham, 'Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.' And the matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But God said to him, 'Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring.' Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and she sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba." Those feelings that, uh, Sarah repressed for such a long time now came to the surface. I don't know if you have noticed this or not, depending on if you have had a bout with bitterness but, when a person becomes bitter, it doesn't take much to retrigger or re-stimulate those feelings. It seems as if bitterness lies just below the surface, just when you think you dealt with it, it doesn't take much of a stimulus to revive those feelings. We are always vulnerable towards people we have been bitter toward once. And Sarah, for many years, probably looked at Hagar and her son with a little bit of spite, repressed it, suppressed it. Didn't take much, she was ready to fly off the handle and as soon as she saw that kid mocking, she said, "Abe, I've had enough. Get rid of them." And verse 11 says, "The matter distressed Abraham greatly." He thought, "Man, just when I thought this was buried. I thought we dealt with this. She and I worked it out." And he found out that those feelings were not buried. They were very much alive, they were only suppressed for awhile and it distresses Abraham. Now think about it. In the perfect will of God, God is doing something at just the right time miraculously throughout Abraham and Sarah. He is in the will of God, he is in the miraculous will of God, yet he is distressed. He is feeling anxiety and stress while he is in the perfect will of God, and so is Sarah. It did not take away their humanness, their anxiety, their feelings toward other people; in the will of God experiencing distress. If you are honest with yourself, you will have to admit that at times you have figured that to be in the perfect will of God means no pressure, means no more breakdown in communications, and thus, when you were experiencing that you think, "What's wrong? I must not be in God's will." 2 Corinthians chapter 4, let's look at Paul the apostle in the perfect will of God for just a moment. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 1, "Therefore, since, through God's mercy, we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced the secret and shameful ways. We do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly, we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." Perfect statement on being in the will of God, "God chose us, we have this ministry, it's from God, we've renounced the hidden things of darkness," they're walking in the perfect will of God by carrying on the ministry of preaching the Gospel. Might want to turn the page or look down at verse 7, "We have this treasure, the treasure of the Gospel in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." Now look at the next verse, "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you." Look down at verse 16, "Therefore we do not lose heart." Even though being in the will of God causes us to be perplexed, distressed, we are not crushed; we do not lose heart. "Though inwardly we are wasting away," or, "outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day." That is the balance and the true perspective of a Christian walking in perfect obedience and in the will of God. You are perplexed, but you are not wiped out. And he goes, "I don't lose heart. I don't sit back and think, 'God I want no storm. I recognize I'm in the eye of a hurricane and I have perfect peace within me. I'm being renewed inside day-by-day yet I am experiencing the storm all around me."

Now there are three reasons, and I've left it blank so that you can fill them out on your own, why Christians have feelings of anxiety or negative emotions or tough problems even doing the perfect will of God. And number one, it's obvious from the text in Genesis, is that we reap what we sow. We reap what we sow. That's one of the reasons we experience that many times. Now Abraham and Sarah are experiencing the result of their previous sin. They took Hagar and had a kid, Ishmael, trying to help God fulfill His promise. They are experiencing the consequence of a previous period of disobedience. They're forgiven, don't get me wrong. Being forgiven and going through consequences of something we do are two different things. Remember when David sinned with Bathsheba? And the prophet said after David's repentance, "David, you are forgiven. Nevertheless…" And he spelled out a series of consequences that would happen. Every action demands an equal and opposite reaction. There are consequences. It's a spiritual law. You reap what you sow. And so Abraham is having an event that occurred in the past haunt him in the present even though he is walking in obedience to God, having the kid at just right time that God told him he would. You reap what you sow. Folks, it may be tough for you to recognize or to believe but few of us are exempt from suffering due to past sin. Let me give you an example of how it could happen. Let's say you have been in the past given to anger. People just tick you off. And there was an episode years ago when you were confronting a person in the store and you got a little bit mad and he got a little bit cocky and you hauled off and you hit him in the mouth. And the whole store looked and it was a huge scene. Years have passed and you think it's all forgotten, it's all done away with, "the past is done, oh, Praise God," and then you find that your next door neighbor's house is up for sale. And low and behold who buys that house and moves in next door but the guy you punched out in the store ten years ago (light laughter). And now you're carrying a Bible, you're a Christian and he goes, "Ohhh," you know, it comes back. You remember it. It starts involving your present relationship with him. The past, in its consequence, is haunting you now. Let's say before you were a Christian, you stole money and you've been in jail ten years because of it. Now, should you think, "God, now wait a minute, now wait, wait a minute. Uh, something's wrong. I should never have gone to jail. I'm a Christian, after all, I repented. Isn't it true Lord that when I repent that You just take everything away, all the consequences immediately? I, I don't need to go to jail, judge, I've repented." No, you could suffer a consequence from the past. What if you have been promiscuous in the past and today you are suffering venereal disease. God doesn't owe it to you to heal you. He might, but He doesn't owe it to you. You may be suffering that consequence. So you reap what you sow. That is one of the reasons and it’s, uh, very strong in this context with Sarah and Abraham. Your future can be affected by what you've done in the past even though presently you're serving God with all your heart.

There's another reason. Number two. We live in a sinful world, an imperfect world. The perfect will of God in an imperfect world don't always mesh. There are sinful people around. And people who hate God and hate God's values and God's ways hate you. 'Cause you represent Him. And so you might be working at a job and you're this "Joe Christian" with a high ethical standard. And yet, in your business, cheating is rampant; people take pens and stationary and all sorts of stuff home from the office and they cheat on their reports. And you're honest. Your honesty reproves them. And it's gonna make them look bad and they may reject you, they may accuse you falsely, and you may even lose your job. Doing the perfect will of God in an imperfect world, a sinful world contaminated by sin, causes fireworks; a dedicated Christian in a sinful world. It's called a Kingdom Collision. You represent the Kingdom of Light and you rub up against the kingdom of darkness and every time you do, there's a collision that takes place. Your standards are different. And they hate God's standards. I worked at Westminster Hospital in Southern California, no St. Joe's in Orange. I worked there and I remember this one guy who knew I was a Christian. I shared with him and I was trying to get the patients done on time and trying to raise the standard a little bit along with a few Christians who worked in our department. And this guy hated Christians, because he hated the Lord. And everything ticked him off, and he was always trying to find an excuse to bring before the boss uh, my performance. And I'll never forget it was a Monday and I came in I was (starts whistling). I'm getting my report (whistling) and he just stood at me and he said, he looked at me and goes, "Would you stop whistling? That makes me sick!"(Light laugher) I said, "Why?" He said, "It's Monday. Nobody can be that happy on Monday." He was waiting to find anything to attack my character for. And he did that with all the other Christians that worked in the department. A Christian doing God's perfect will in an imperfect world causes storms sometimes. It doesn't alleviate them. We live in a world contaminated by sin. However, I wanna make something clear on this point. You can be going through a time like that and yet have inward perfect peace because you have a satisfaction that you're doing what God wants you to do. It hurts on the outside, it hurts to come to work, it hurts to be around those people who are sinful and who are accusing you however, you have a satisfaction that, "I'm doing what God wants me to do." Also, don't get this confused with being persecuted because you do a poor job. Don't use that as an excuse. There are some Christians who just do crummy work; a poor sloppy job. They are giving the world an occasion to point the finger and if that's happening to you, and they're accusing you, don’t say, "Well, you know, I'm doing God's perfect will in an imperfect world." No, repent and do a good job. That could be the problem.

There's a third reason why you can experience these negative kind of a feelings. And that is, that you have an enemy. You have an enemy called the devil. The first is you reap what you sow. The second is, you live in a sinful world. The third is you have an enemy who's looking to wipe you in your effectiveness as a Christian. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. The devil hates you and has a miserable plan for your life. Jesus told Peter, "Peter, Satan has been asking for you, that he could sift you like wheat, but I've prayed for you, that your faith would not fail." Peter said later on after this event, he wrote in his letter, he said, "The devil, our adversary, is like a roaring lion, walking around seeking who he may devour." And so he'll ch, throw all sorts of temptations your way especially, especially when you desire to do God's will for your life and walk in obedience. That's when he's gonna throw the barrage of temptations your way. You have an enemy and he wants you to stumble. And every time God blesses you, Satan wants to rip you off. And you need to be prepared for that. It should not shock you that the perfect will of God causes adversity many times. You have an enemy, you have people who do not adhere to the Kingdom of Life and you can reap what you sow. It should not astonish you that adversity comes to every Christian who desires to be obedient. If you are waiting for the flow to be perfect, you're going to be sadly mistaken. Because sometimes doing God's will causes a break in the flow. Adversity can come.

Look at it this way: no follower of Jesus Christ is safe. That might shock you, it might be tough for you to swallow, but it's the truth. No follower of Jesus Christ is safe. You are vulnerable. Anytime you love God and decide to obey God, you are becoming vulnerable. Listen to what C.S. Lewis says concerning this, "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping intact, you must give your heart to one or to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it up carefully, wound with hobbies and little luxuries. Avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in a casket or coffin of your own selfishness. But in that casket, dark and safe, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken, it will not, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is hell." To love God and to obey Him is to become vulnerable to attack, to become vulnerable to those who hate God, and also to reap those things that we have sown. Do not blame God, do not be astonished every time you have a tough encounter with life. The solution, lean hard upon the Lord, lean hard upon the Lord at those times.

Heavenly Father, we thank You that Your will, Your perfect will, brings a satisfaction and a peace beyond all comprehension. When Your promise finally materializes in our life we, like Abraham, rejoice, we feast, we laugh, we delight. And yet in the midst of that, there can be adversity, due to our own past which we understand, Lord, and we don't chide You for, and also because people don't agree with the standards and values of Your Kingdom. Lord I pray that because we have an enemy who is against us, that we would lean hard into You. We would not be distressed, even as God told Abraham, "Don't be distressed." That we would not lose heart, as Paul said and that though the outward man is perishing, that we would be renewed inwardly day by day. Lord, keep us in the eye of the hurricane. We're not asking that You take it away from us. We understand that storms come, but, but keep us in the eye of it, Lord, next to You. In Jesus name.