seeing the possibilities right where you are coming up next
hey everyone welcome to Wednesday's with crystal
I'm crystal Sparks so glad that you are here hey I am excited to talk to you
today out of Isaiah chapter 43 if you missed my video from last week you can
jump over and watch that I talked about turning the fertilizer moments in our
life the disappointments into potential I want to talk to you about that last
week but this week I want to continue talking to you out of Isaiah chapter 43
18 and 19 and let's just read that together says do not earnestly remember
the former things neither consider the things of old behold I'm doing a new
thing now it springs forth do you not perceive it and know it and will you not
give heed to it I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the
desert ok so I want to talk to you today about that word behold the actual
translation that word what it really means is to look up for our gaze to go
up instead of down you know whenever I was training for my first half-marathon
I was running with the trainer and she was getting me ready and she was talking
to me about things like my breathing and and how I ran in the time and all these
different things and whenever she was training me she said I can always tell
when you're thinking about giving up and I thought well you are you able to tell
because of what like I'm not saying I'm going to give up but she said no I can
always tell when you want to give up because you stopped looking straight
ahead of you and you start looking down at your feet and she said the more time
you look down at your feet the more you think about giving up and she said
what's funny is when we start thinking about quitting our head naturally goes
down when we're running to our feet and when we do that it begins to constrict
our airway we're not able to take the deep breaths that we need to keep giving
us endurance and so in turn it makes us feel more tired more exhausted and all
we see is the little steps that we're taking and I thought about that and
today when I wanted to share this message with you about behold that that
is so often how we do in life disappointments and setbacks come our
way and what do we do we begin to look down we mean the look
down at our feet look down at our present circumstance and the more we
look down we begin to feel defeated we need to feel like there's no way out but
God says the first step is for us to first of all to forget the things that
are behind like we talked about last week but then if we want to really move
on we got to behold we've got to begin to lift up our head and get cast our
gaze on the horizon and begin to look forward to the good things that God has
for us see we have to begin to change our focus if we want to change our
direction if all's we're seeing is where we're at you could have exactly what you
want right in front of you but you can't see it why because you're too busy
looking down my husband and I we have a running joke in our family that if I
sent him to the refrigerator to get something he's not gonna be able to find
it anybody else know what I'm talking about
it doesn't bill I will sit him to the refrigerator and ask him honey can he
get the milk he'll go over there and he'll say hey
I'm sorry we do not have the milk I'll say hey babe do you mind grabbing the
hot sauce real quick he'll come back to me and say we don't have any hot sauce
in the whole house and every single time I'll go over to the refrigerator I open
it up and I'm able to grab it right there you know we got staying here in
Texas that if it was a snake it would've bit him right and sometimes that's the
way I feel like it is with the good things that God has in our lives it
could be all around us and we're just missing it it's all around us is
everywhere but what are we doing we're so busy looking down that we're not able
to behold and to behold we got a look from our present circumstance we had to
begin to look up and get the bigger picture of what God would have you know
recently I was leaving the church office with some women members that go to our
church amazing people and Cassie was walking out with me and she was busy
with her kids getting them into the car and everything was frustrating and they
were hungry and she was tired so she got him in the car and got them buckled in
and I look I was just standing there and she said what's wrong and I said look at
how beautiful the sunset is and the whole sky was colored and purples and
pinks and oranges the most beautiful sunset just stretching across the
horizon and she said wow if you wouldn't have said something I would have totally
missed it so she stood for a moment grabbed out her phone and
took a picture and I just want to ask you how many amazing moments are you
missing because you're not beholding you're not looking up to see the
potential you're so busy doing the day-in day-out you're so busy focused on
what's that here now that's calling for your attention that you're missing the
beautiful landscape that God has all around you I'm not just talking about
sunset so I'm talking about instead of complaining about the laundry maybe
taking a moment to thank God for the people that fill the clothes why you're
doing the laundry maybe instead of complaining that you have kids to pick
up from school may instead of complaining about that get the bigger
picture of God thank you that I have kids that are healthy I'm sure that
there's other moms who would love to have healthy kids that they were taken
to school maybe instead of complaining that you're making dinner and how
frustrating it is the process is taking a moment to pause and say God thank you
because some families are going to bed hungry tonight not knowing where their
next meal is see when we begin to lift up our head and get a bigger picture of
our life we begin to realize that our problems really aren't all that big and
we're never gonna see the potential we're never gonna see the answers that
are right all around us if we're looking down at our present circumstance we're
so busy looking at the problem we're so busy looking at the
disappointment we're gonna miss the potential that's all around us I heard
this story I thought it was really inspiring I hope it inspires you too
it's about a man in the early 1900's he was a cotton farmer and it's what he did
to help provide for his family and there was a terrible bug that came in and it
was called a weevil and that bug ate up all of those crops completely demolished
everything well all of his friends were so defeated and they were like there's
no way that we're gonna be able to make any money at all and so the man got this
idea and he said instead of planting our normal cotton crops and to try again
because we're not gonna make it for this harvest season let's plant peanuts
instead all of his friends mocked him peanuts there's no way anybody could
ever make a living off of peanuts and eventually he convinced him that
he's gonna do it no matter what they say you know sometimes the best way to prove
your haters wrong is just to do it anyways so he planted the peanuts and
here's the best part he made more money off of that crop of peanuts in just a
few months than he would have normally made all year long in fact when the boll
weevils were diminished and the farmers could have gone back to planting cotton
he chose to not plant cotton he put peanuts instead see I want to tell you
that in your own life maybe boll weevils have eaten up what
you saw as your potential harvest maybe it seems like everything in your present
circumstances has just been totally demolished and there seems like there's
no way let me tell you that you might have some peanuts
you might have a best answer a best-case scenario coming your way but you got to
be willing to behold to look up quit looking at how things didn't work out
and start saying god what do I have left right now see if the man would have been
focused on cotton then he wouldn't had a harvest but instead he said god I'm
gonna behold I'm gonna lift up my head and show me the potential of what I do
have I'm not gonna be so focused on what I don't have that I miss what I do have
what you may think is a setback is God really just setting you up for something
brand-new so instead of getting dipped down and disappointed and said say god
I'm gonna behold I'm gonna lift up my head show me the potential of what I
have you know Brian was speaking recently at our church and he was
talking about Moses and how Moses kept telling God I'm not a man that's good
with speech I'm really not that great and he kept giving God all the reasons
why not to use him and I love what God told him he said Moses what do you have
in your hand and he said a staff and you know that staff that Moses had in his
hand he went on to carry in front of Pharaoh it helped deliver the Israelite
people from Egypt it helped do all kinds of amazing things brought water out of a
rock later on did so many amazing things but the interesting part was he didn't
see the potential in what was right in front of him see he was so busy looking
down at himself that he missed the bigger picture of what God had all
around him see if God calls you to there must be something in your life
that has the answer all you have to do is look up quit focusing on what you do
don't have I love what Brian said he said if God's not worried about what you
don't have why should you be and I want to tell you the same thing
friend it's time for you to lift up your head and begin to behold all the great
things that God has ahead for you hey did you get something out of this video
I hope you did thank you so much for spending time with me I want to give a
quick shout out to our sponsor for this year's sisterhood a Ben Shaw
Orthodontics I am so excited that they decided to partner with us y'all they
are an amazing company they're in Rockwall Texas I love dr. Shaw he is
incredible in fact I love him so much that even my own daughter goes there he
is an amazing orthodontist and he heard about what we're doing on November 17th
and he wanted to sponsor the event and I'm so excited about it
so if you haven't heard about sister red watch this video
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awesome for God this week
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