Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent

Well, now is the winter of our discontent. You might recognize this as the opening line of Shakespeare's play, Richard III. Written in 1594, the play follows the main character, Richard III, the younger brother of the newly crowned King Edward of England. And they had this big bloody war, the War of the Roses, and the War of the Roses is over. Peace has been restored to the kingdom, and Richard does not know what to do with himself. He doesn't know what to do with himself. He has great physical limitations. He's at his core an extremely unhappy man. He's power-hungry. He's malicious. He's bitter about his lot in life. So he begins to aspire to the throne itself, and decides to kill anyone who stands in the way, including, and most certainly not limited to, his own brother.

Throughout the play, through a series of political maneuvers and assassinations, he manages to solidify his power. And as he wages this completely brutal ascent to the throne, he begins to alienate all of the people that he is ruling over.

The commoners fear him. The nobles have been completely alienated. And there must have just been this collective sigh of relief when a challenger finally arose to King Richard. Because, according to the story, the commoners, the nobility, and the queen herself, allied with that particular person to overthrow and remove Richard's threat. Richard is eventually killed. The challenger, the Earl of Richmond, is crowned king. Peace reigns in the kingdom again, and all is well with the world.

But throughout the play, notably in the opening soliloquy, Richard continues to come back to these physical limitations. And he contrasts them with those of his brother. And it kind of comes to this idea, and you've heard this, and I hear this all the time in teaching, this concept of life isn't fair. To be saddled with these deformities, Richard said. My brother Edward is perfect! He's handsome. He was king.

He had this. He had that. Why not me? Richard had allowed bitterness to take root in his life. He allowed it to poison him, kind of eat at him from the inside out. He resented his older brother. He resented the success and the happiness of those in the kingdom under King Edward's reign. He complained. He resented his lot in life. He wanted more. He wasn't current with his, or content, rather, with his current state.

And he was willing to murder and manipulate to improve it. He was portrayed throughout the play as a very thoroughly evil man. And really, whether he was as evil as the play portrayed him to be, honestly, he's kind of uncertain.

We're not 100% sure. History kind of records him as a fairly brutal person, but history can sometimes be embellished over time in particular. He was a real person. He was a real person. In fact, just a couple years back, they found his body in a parking lot near a church. So there was a church, and then there was this adjacent parking lot, and they were digging up the parking lot to do some renovations. And they came across a set of mass graves.

And in that mass grave was one skeleton with some really serious spinal deformities. And they kind of got to thinking about it. Like, this kind of matches the description of what history records as Richard III. So they started doing DNA testing and whatever else. And sure enough, it was him. So he was a real person. You might, you know, it's hard to know for sure if he was really as brutal as he was portrayed in history, but he was buried in an unmarked grave which became a parking lot in England.

So, you know, he wasn't really given a royal burial. You know, he wasn't necessarily given this kingly funeral. But regardless, the quote that we began with, which incidentally is the title of the message today, the quote is the title, it has a second lesser-known aspect to it.

So the entire quote again, and this is with the rest of it included, which is the opening monologue by King Richard's character, is, Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York. In other words, really, what that quote even means is that the time of unhappiness has passed. That now our winter of discontent has made glorious summer by this son of York. Except for Richard, it wasn't.

It wasn't. He continued to be unhappy. He continued to be discontent. He allowed this degree of bitterness to reign in his life, and it consumed him. It consumed him. And while it's an extreme example, while he's, you know, obviously it's been quite a while ago that Richard's example was lived out in history, it doesn't take much looking around in the world around us today to recognize that the world around us is full of unhappy people.

It's full of unhappy people. You know, recent studies have shown workplace discontent is at an all-time high. In fact, a 2013 study, which, you know, is a few years old now, showed that 52% of individuals in the workplace showed up to work, but were less than thrilled about being there. So they were there. Oh, they were there. But they were not happy about being there. That's 52%. Now, 18% of that group readily admitted to being extremely vocal in their discontent at work. So it wasn't enough that I'm here, I'm gonna do my job, I'm gonna keep my mouth shut, and I'm just gonna, you know, be unhappy and do my job.

No, this was the group, this 18% of that 52% was like, I'm unhappy, and everybody's gonna know about it when I'm done. We've all, you know, these are the ones that admitted to, these are the ones that admitted to being regular complainers, grumblers, and mumblers. And keep in mind, the ones that admitted to it. I mean, how many others do it and then don't want to cop to it, right?

We've all likely worked with somebody like this before, you know, to be honest, we may have been this person before. But it does seem to be a problem, discontent, that's also on the rise among millennials. Also on the rise among millennials. There's an article from the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics, it was written by Greg Ayers, and it contains a following. I'm gonna read highlights of it, I'm not gonna read the whole thing. But the title of the article is, The Summer of Discontent, The Millennial Generation's Search for Meaningful Work. And this was again written in 2013. With due respect to Shakespeare and John Steinbeck, for millennials, the winter of our discontent has continued into summer. At least that's the impression that one gets after reading the latest job reports, report released last Friday. The pace of job growth has slowed, ABC News and other sources report, and that doesn't bode well for the already discouraging job prospects of many young adults. He goes on to cite a couple of statistics. This is Gallup recently reported, fewer young adults aged 18 to 29 are holding full-time jobs.

43.6% as of June 2013 compared to 47% in June of 2012. So within a year, about a 4% drop. Generation Opportunity, which is a nonprofit organization focused on political and economic issues pertinent to young adults, found in its most recent Millennial Jobs Report that the unemployment rate for this same age group was 16.1% in July of 2013.

It goes on, lists some more statistics, but it says, in short, it is, as Generation Opportunities present, told ABC News in April, a rough time to be a young person in America. It mentions there's a young man who added to this particular article, his name is Tyler Castle, and he's a writer who's kind of trying, was at the time, trying to navigate this kind of rough job environment. And he chronicled the status of his job search experience after graduating from college. But he said his article was my success story, what I learned from Jesus and John Wooden. And that was published the same day that the July Jobs Report was released. Here's what he says. He says, I'm a 23-year-old college graduate. Am I quickly making a name for myself in the political world? Playing professional sports? Rapidly climbing the corporate ladder? Nope! I'm serving tables at a restaurant while I look for a job. In a society that compulsively obsesses over achievement and success, it's easy to become discouraged. At times, I feel like a failure. Is this what years of education gets me? Many other recent college graduates are in similar situations. Some are working in mindless entry-level jobs. Some find themselves in one unpaid internship after another. And even worse, others are back, living in their parents' basement. Castle also shares candidly about the effect that it's having on his generation. As a result, those of us who are not quote-unquote successful, right out of college, can easily become depressed. And vocationally debilitated. In D.C. and other large cities in particular, some just give up and go home. Is this simply a reality of life? Are we destined to lead unsatisfying, or lead rather unsatisfying, vocational lives? It's not just millennials. It's not just in the workplace. Statistics on depression are, well, depressing, for lack of a better term. One in ten Americans suffers from depression. Of those who do, 80% are not seeking treatment. And the number of those being diagnosed with clinical depression is increasing by 20% a year, according to Healthline.com. Depression is found to be most prevalent among those aged 45 to 64 years of age. Women are twice as likely to suffer from depression as men of a comparable age. As a country, we're struggling. According to the World Happiness Survey, the United States didn't even make the top ten of the happiest countries in the world. We are in 15th place, directly behind Mexico.

Here's the top 15, in case you were curious. Switzerland, number one. Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, Costa Rica, Austria, Mexico, and the US, in 15th place. Brethren, it is truly mankind's winter of discontent.

It is mankind's winter of discontent. The online dictionary, dictionary.com, defines discontent as – wait for this – not content. Dissatisfied or discontented. Thank you, dictionary.com. But it also does provide three additional definitions and contexts for the word that we're going to use today as our three primary points of the message today.

The first of those is discontentment, lack of content, or dissatisfaction. So the first is discontentment, sorry, lack of content and dissatisfaction. That's the first point that we're going to look at. Exactly what is this? And is it something that's new or has it been around for quite some time?

Number two, a restless desire or craving for something one does not have. A person who has discontent could be restlessly desiring or craving for something that they do not have. That's point number two. And then number three, they just define it as malcontent. Malcontent. And we'll explore what that is and we'll dig into that as we go. Because discontent, unhappiness, complaining, grumbling, it's nothing new. It's nothing new. This has been going on for a long time. And to be honest, for examples, we need look no further than the pages of our own Bible. So let's start today by taking a look at this overall concept of discontent and really what it is.

So the first point we're going to look at again today is discontentment, lack of content, or dissatisfaction. And it can be so easy, it can be so easy to fall into this discontented, dissatisfied, you know, upset at the world around us attitude to become frustrated. It's so simple and so easy to do. And we are all too familiar with the negative airwaves that Satan broadcasts. We're aware of these attitudes that are sent out and these things that are easy for us to kind of tap into. In fact, if we're not careful, I heard it described once, Mr.

McCready is back in the east side of the US. He describes it sometimes as getting tuned in to 666 on the radio dial. You know, if you're not careful, you get in on these airwaves that Satan broadcasts. And it starts with frustration, it starts with kind of a little bit of upsetness over something, and then that builds and we dwell on it.

And then it builds, kind of breeds dissatisfaction, and we build on that. And that dissatisfaction goes straight to discontent. Happiness starts to become elusive, it's harder to find, and it can honestly be hard at times to see the bright side of situations. And if we're not vigilant, if we are absolutely not vigilant, it is not hard to find ourselves in this place.

In fact, I'm going to share just a personal anecdote before we jump in here. Right around the end of October and the beginning part of, well, kind of into November itself, I turned into quite the complainer. Quite the complainer, even more than normal. I have always been working on complaining. I'm somebody who sometimes can get kind of frustrated and kind of voice my frustration. I don't know that I would find myself in the 18% of the people in the workplace side of things, but, you know, at times, I try to find a solution for why I'm frustrated. So at times, I can complain occasionally. And for most of this school year, I'll be honest, I haven't been the most fun person to be around at work.

I happen to have a very difficult group of students this year, the crew of kids that I have as a class, as a group of eighth graders, honestly are probably some of the most difficult I've had in nine years at this school. And on the horizon, the other frustrating part is looking at next year's group and the year after, it's getting worse. And so it's kind of this, you know, you're looking down the tunnel and instead of a light at the end of the tunnel, it's constricting a little bit more as it goes.

But I feel like, if I'm being perfectly honest, some of the day-to-day within my job, I'm just not enjoying. I'm spending more of my time babysitting than educating. And I got into this to educate, not to babysit. And so, you know, for me, when I get into a situation where I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels, it's hard to have the energy and the enthusiasm to go in there and give it 110 percent every day, just because you know it's not appreciated.

And it can be difficult to overcome that sum. So I've been struggling to have the energy to really do it and do it well. But as I've talked with people at work this year about this thing, you know, as we kind of discuss different aspects of work and talk about our day-to-day, I notice that almost all of our conversations have come back to us complaining, murmuring, and sharing this significant overall negativity with one another about our jobs. And I found that the more I had these conversations, the more upset I was about work, the more I was upset about my chosen profession, and in the full interest of disclosure, I contemplated not teaching anymore.

Like, I'd gotten to the point where I was like, you know, maybe I just need to be done. Maybe I just need to be finished with this. But I started to think about it as I'm reflecting back on these conversations that I'm having, and I'm realizing the common denominator in these conversations is me. I'm the common denominator in all of these conversations that went down the road of complaining and murmuring and getting negative.

And so I realized I am partially at fault for taking this down the road that it went. And like I said, as a result of these conversations, I started to consider something different. Not too seriously, but looking at possibilities, trying to see what are some options, what maybe I need to change a scenery, maybe I need something different, maybe I need to go teach high school, maybe I need to, you know, whatever it may be. Maybe it's just 14 that's the problem. I don't know. But to somewhere where I could experience more satisfaction in my job.

And what I had done, honestly, brother, and I had allowed bitterness to enter my life. When I thought of work, I despaired. I had to talk myself into swinging my legs off the bed in the morning, getting dressed and going to work. I mean, it got to that point. And so, you know, you're looking at, okay, what are the benefits? And the one benefit that keeps coming back is, well, you're getting paid. And it's like, if you're looking at the job and the payment of the job is the only benefit, it's not a good place to find yourself.

And so let's fast forward just a little bit to fall conferences. We could Thanksgiving. We could Thanksgiving. We have fall conferences right before the Thanksgiving holiday, and then we have the day off before Thanksgiving, and then three days. We do two days of conferences prior. And God inspired me during that week. Or you might even say that he kind of slapped me in the face a little bit. And for me, sometimes those two things are synonymous.

But we always park at this church that's across the street from our school. We have a church over there. And what we do is we park our cars over there so that the parents can park out in front of the school and don't have to walk through the rain to get to their conferences.

And I'd never noticed before, but this particular church has a reader board out front. I never noticed it. I've driven past it dozens and dozens and dozens of times. Maybe it was new. I don't know. I'd never seen it. But as I parked my truck and I got out of the vehicle and started walking in, I happened to look over and notice, oh, there's a reader board. And I love quotes. I love quotes. I'm a huge quote fan. And so I read this quote, and for the first time noticed what the message said.

And here's what it said. It said, discontent is the penalty that we must pay for not being grateful for what we have. And it was kind of like, whoa, ouch, okay. All right, that's fair. That one left a mark. But message received. I realized I wasn't grateful at all. I wasn't being grateful at all. I was focusing on what I felt like I wanted, something different. I wasn't considering the blessing of the job that God had given me.

He literally dropped this job in my lap eight years ago, literally just handed it to me. And it was one of those things where it was no question in my mind that that was a blessing provided straight from God, not a question. And when was the last time that I thanked him for that job despite his challenges? And that wasn't the only thing. Boy, that only started me down the road. And then you start thinking, okay, what else have I dropped the ball on? What else haven't I been grateful for that's a frustration?

You know, my truck was acting up at the time. It wasn't running right. It was a free truck! I didn't pay anything for it. And so I had to take a step back and go, okay, no, thank you for the vehicle that has been running for an unbelievable amount of time and only starting to act up now. You know, it kind of changed the focus a little bit.

And I don't know how many of you guys have found yourselves in a state of discontent before. I would venture a guess that most of us have at one point in time in our life or another. But I've discovered that becoming grateful and thankful for the blessings that you've been given, and even for the things sometimes that we recognize and we think of as even trials.

You know, if you have an illness or something, you can still be very thankful to be alive. You know, there's ways to be grateful. But I've discovered that that is a surefire cure for discontent in one's life. Gratitude and acknowledgement of our blessings in our life and the wonderful things that God has done, it destroys discontent. I'm going to show you a scriptural example of that.

Let's go over to Psalm 77. Let's go over to Psalm 77. And we're going to tap into a Psalm that is written not by David in this case. This is one of Asaph's Psalms. But Psalm 77. And we'll pick it up in verse 1 of Psalm 77. And we'll go through and take a look at it. But I want you to see where Asaph found himself as he's writing this particular Psalm. So try to, I don't know, in a way maybe put yourself in Asaph's shoes just a little bit and kind of see what exactly he's getting at.

But it follows the pattern of what we just discussed. Being discontent, being maybe bitter, being a little bit concerned about some things, but then also recognizing that the blessings and the gratefulness and the mighty works of God are the cure for that feeling of discontent. So Psalm 77 and verse 1, oops, I'm in verse 12. That's not going to do us any good.

Verse 1 says, It actually starts with, to the chief musician, Degeta Thun, a psalm of Asaph. So we know the author in this case. I cried out to God with my voice, and he gave ear to me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord. My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing. My soul refused to be comforted. He's reaching. He's trying to find some form of comfort here. He looked, he sought God, he reached out, and he states he didn't find him. He wouldn't be comforted.

And keep in mind, it's not because God wasn't there to comfort. It's not because he wasn't there to comfort. It's because Asaph wouldn't be comforted. Now why? Why wouldn't Asaph be comforted? Let's look at verse 3. I remembered God and was troubled. I remembered God and was troubled. I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. What does that sound like? What does that sound like? I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. As he's thinking about God, he's saying he's disquieted. He's troubled. He complains his spirit is overwhelmed.

If you think about it, you could almost say very easily here that Asaph had allowed some bitterness in. That he'd gotten to the point where he was complaining. The thoughts of God disquieted him. He's complaining. He's overwhelmed. He's having a tough time. He's having a difficult time. Struggling, perhaps, with discontent and unhappiness. Let's see where it goes from here. Verse 4. You hold my eyelids open. I'm so troubled that I cannot speak. I've considered the days of old, the years of ancient times. I call to remembrance my song in the night. I meditate within my heart, and my spirit makes diligent search. So he's looking. He's looking around. He's trying to find.

Will the Lord cast off forever? This is verse 7. And will he be favorable no more?

Has his mercy ceased forever? Has his promise failed forever more? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his tender mercies? I'm asking these questions of, have you left me? Am I out of your favor? Do your promises fail? Asaph here is having an incredibly difficult time. You might even call it a crisis of faith. He might even call it a crisis of faith. He's seeking but not finding. He's reaching, but he's just grasping air. He says this is his infirmity, he says. Notice verse 10. Verse 10, he says, if I'm in Psalm 77, I was just trying to read you 7610. And I said, this is my anguish. Another translation says infirmity. But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. So we turn a corner in verse 10. We turn a corner in verse 10. In the beginning of this, we're dealing with all of these troubles and all these things that we're struggling with and all these difficulties. But then in verse 10, he says, and this is my infirmity, but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. And that right hand of God is symbolic of power and authority of mighty works. And so he goes on in verse 11. He says, I will remember the works of the Lord. Surely I will remember your wonders of old. I will also meditate on all your work and talk of your deeds. Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary. Who is so great a God is our God. You are the God who does wonders. You've declared your strength among the peoples. You have with your arm redeemed your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. He goes on, the water saw you, O God, the water saw you and they were afraid. So he's referencing back to the parting of the Red Sea. The depths also trembled, the clouds poured out water, the sky sent out a sound, your arrows also flashed about, the voice of your thunder was in the whirlwind, the lightnings lit up the world, the earth trembled and shook. Your way was in the sea, your path was in the great waters, and your footsteps were not known. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. You know, as Asaph reflected on the deeds and the works of God, these blessings that he had provided to his people over the years, the things that he was working out in the lives of his people and in the life of Asaph himself, as he focused on these great and wonderful miracles that God had wrought, these, the very miracles that Israel forgot, you know, even though they were right in front of their face, he had an attitude of gratitude, thankfulness for what God had done for his people and for what God was doing continually for his people. And that attitude of gratitude, that ability to look at our life and be thankful for the things that we have and for the blessings that God has done for us, and even, again, looking at our trials and framing them in such a way that, you know, we can focus on the positive outcome of that particular trial.

It destroys discontent in our lives quite handily. It does. It destroys discontent quite handily. I can attest to it personally. As a result of that reader board, what I decided to do, I've been keeping a journal this year that's more of a, it's not really a journal, it's more of a calendar to where I can keep everything organized because life's a little busy at the moment, trying to keep track of everything and where stuff's going to go. But one of the things that I've done on that, each and every day I put a spot down for five things, and at the end of that day I go back and I think, okay, what five things am I thankful for today? What five things can I focus on? And so, rather than brood about the fact that, you know, my kids at school were rude, they were disrespectful, they didn't do this, they didn't, you know, and focus on those kinds of things, I focus on, yeah, despite that, throw that off to the side, you know, I'm thankful for my family, I'm thankful for my calling, I'm thankful for, you know, whatever those things may be, but it allows me to put it into perspective and to recognize that the positive mindset is always going to outweigh the negative mindset and it's always going to be something that's going to be better for us. So, as a result, it changes your outlook. It changes your outlook. It changes how you look at the world around you. And that's something that I think all of us can use at times, is a change in our outlook and how we focus on what we see or what happens to us. Sometimes, you know, if you're in a really negative mindset, something small can be the biggest thing in the world. But when you're focused positively and you're focused on the blessings and you're focused on what you're thankful for, these little things don't matter at all because you still have these things. And so, it's made a big difference, personally, for me. It's helped me to counter kind of this next definition that we're going to look at. And so, the second definition that they gave us was a restless desire or craving for something that one does not have. A restless desire or craving for something that one does not have. And being grateful, being content, being happy and thankful for what we have helps us to not want to have that restless desire for other things. Let's turn over the book of Exodus. Let's go to Exodus. Let's go to Exodus 16, actually. And we'll start there for right now. If we are going to do a sermon on complaining and mumbling and grumbling, I would be doing you a disservice if we did not go to the example of ancient Israel. Because they do provide a fantastic example.

And as oftentimes, sometimes examples are what not to do in a situation, but they do provide a fantastic example of something not to do in this case. And what I want us to understand is, I want to understand, I want to look at and make sure that we understand the magnitude of exactly what happened in Exodus 16 and Numbers when we explore these couple of accounts that record this type of thing. So I want to make sure that we connect and we understand the magnitude of what we're really talking about here. I think sometimes we can gloss over that, because I know I have. I know I have in the past. So Exodus 16, verse 1, we're going to read a fairly substantial chunk of this. And the reason being is, again, we want to get the magnitude. We want to get the magnitude of why this is a big deal. So Exodus 16, verse 1, and they journeyed from Elam and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, which is between Elam and Sinai. Notice this date, on the 15th day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. It's about a month out. They left roughly on the 15th of Abib, and there is the 15th of the second month in this case. About a month out. They are now in this position. And this is what's happening one month later, from what we know to be the Exodus account.

Okay, verse 3. And the children of Israel said to them, Oh, and you I'm gonna I'm gonna lay it on thick. I'm gonna lay it on thick, only because I want to make sure we understand this. Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, and when we ate bread to the full. For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Verse 4, the Lord said to Moses, I will reign bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. So we've got the Israelites here complaining. They're grumbling. They're mumbling. They're they're upset. They wish they could go back. Never mind the fact that they were slaves. They want to go back, because at least they had ready access to meat. They had ready access to food. They had ready access of other things. And God said, look, I told you when I brought you out here that I would take care of you, and I will do just that. I will take care of you. And so he tells them, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to reign bread from heaven, and the people should go out and gather this certain quota. This is verse 4 again, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not, and it shall be on the sixth day. They shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, at evening you shall know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, for he hears your complaints against the Lord. But what are we that you complain against us? And Moses said, this shall be seen when the Lord, now check this out, verse 8, this shall be seen when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening, and in the morning bread to the full. For the Lord hears your complaints which you make against him, and what are we? Your complaints are not against us, but against the Lord. So it's a situation of God's going to give you what you need. He's going to provide for you. He may not, you know, it may not be abundantly heaped out like to where you can pile it up on the table and dance around it so excited that look how much mana I've gathered. It's probably going to be enough to take care of you and your family. In the evening you'll have meat, the next morning you'll have bread, in the evening you'll have meat, and this pattern will continue, and I will make certain that your basic needs are taken care of.

Or I'm sorry, verse 9. Moses spoke to Aaron, saying, "'All the congregation of the children of Israel, come near before the Lord, for he has heard your complaints.'" And you might imagine that the Israelites kind of, you know, a little bit kind of as they're working their way a little bit closer, maybe a little hesitant, maybe.

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "'I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel. Speak to them, saying, "'At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.'" Verse 13, "'So it was that quails came up at evening and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay all around the camp.'" Verse 14, "'And when the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a small round substance as fine as frost on the ground. And so when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, What is it? for they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.'" We know that's how it came to be known. Manna is what is it, basically. But here is this unbelievably incredible miracle that God has provided. Day in, day out, like clockwork. Quail show up, smack, cook, eat, next morning, sleep, wake up, dew is gone, boom, I've got bread. All I got to do is collect this stuff up, put it together, and it's even a little sweet. It's even got a sweetness to it, it describes within Scripture. So here is this incredible miracle of Manna, in addition to the incredible miracle that He just provided for them, delivering them from their bondage, parting the Red Sea, I mean, allowing them to come out of Egypt. He did exactly what He claimed to do. I will take you, I will bring you out of your bondage, I will lead you out of Egypt, and I will protect and I will care for you in the wilderness. So what happens next? What happens next? Let's go to Numbers 11.

Numbers 11. And I'm going to have you put your finger in Numbers 11, because we're going to go back to Numbers 10 just really quickly, because we need to understand why this is such a huge magnitude. We need to understand this, and I'll be honest, I didn't catch this until recently. I'll be perfectly honest, I didn't catch it until recently. So Numbers 11, we know, in fact, under my Bible, it says the heading, that people complain. We know that they really get going in Numbers 11. Okay, but let's go back to Numbers 10 real quick and look at Verse 11. So Numbers 11 follows the account in Verse 10. Verse 10 is them leaving Sinai. It talks about the silver trumpets. It talks about when the cloud goes up off of the off of the tabernacle, you will pick up camp and you will go.

Numbers 10, Verse 11. Also in the day of verse 10, now it came to pass on the 20th day of the second month in the second year that the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle of the testimony. We're like 11 months on, almost a year on, from where we were in Exodus 16. We're a year out.

They've been in Sinai for close to a year as this process is going on, according to that. Now, immediately following Numbers 10 comes Numbers 11. Okay, comes Numbers 11. And so as they embark, they go on their journey, they go do their thing, and then they camp again, and they set things up, and then here we have Numbers 11 occur. So Numbers 11 comes in, again, about a year later, if not a year later, with the, it's like a year and five days or whatever later.

And the people were as murmurers, and the people complained. It displeased the Lord, for the Lord heard it, and his anger was aroused. So the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp. Then when the people cried out to Moses, and when Moses prayed to the Lord, the fire was quenched. Okay, so the complaints happened. God kind of burns the outskirts of the camp a little bit, just kind of is a, hey, you guys are doing this again. You should stop. You know, you've got this fire that's going on in the outside. God's anger was was aroused. In verse three it says, we called the name of the place to bear up because the fire of the Lord had burned among them. Verse four, now the mixed multitude. Now when Israel left Egypt, it wasn't just Israelites that left. There were a number of Egyptians that came along. There were a number of others who left as well, and they're referred to kind of in the process as mixed multitude. Okay, they're referred to as the mixed multitude, because it clearly defines, between the two of them, the mixed multitude and then the children of Israel. And it talks about it right down here. So now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving. So the children of Israel also wept and again said, who will give us meat to eat? Turns out if you just wait until evening, the quail will be here.

The quail will be here. So they're getting back into this complaint. We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. And this, if you've got children, you have heard this phrase right here. But now our whole being is dried up. There's nothing at all except this manna before our eyes. Now I'm adding emphasis. I'm adding emphasis to this, but your kids have said that to you before. If I don't eat, I'm gonna die. No, you're not. You're gonna be just fine. My kids have said that, but I'm so hungry, I'm gonna die. No, you're not. You're fine. But that's kind of what they're throwing in here. Our soul is dried up. There's nothing at all except, and you can almost hear them kind of spit the word out, this manna to look upon. And you know what that sent to God? Here's the message that sent to God. Hey, God, we don't even want this miracle that you've given us. We don't even want it. You've done this miraculous thing. You have given us meat. You've given us food. For a year, you've sustained us. We don't even want it. We don't even want it. We're sick of it. In fact, we're upset about it. We're upset about it. So much that we're gonna complain about it. We want fish. We want leeks. And all those things we left behind. And you can almost imagine them go, like, oh, well, it didn't fall out of the sky like the meat did before when we complained the last time. And it didn't because God's not a genie. You don't rub the side of the lamp and you get everything you want, right? But they collectively sent God an overwhelming message of, dear God, your blessings are not good enough. Regards the Israelites. And this attitude of not appreciating God's blessing comes to a head. In a couple of chapters, it comes to a head in Numbers 14. Let's go ahead and flip over there in Numbers 14. And we'll see how discontent becomes something more. We'll see how it breeds and how it gets in there and it just kind of builds and kind of eats away and digs. And this root of bitterness can have horrible, horrible results. So this attitude of not appreciating these blessings comes to a head. And it comes to a head in Numbers 14.

For context, the spies had just gone into Canaan. They had come back to make their report. Keep in mind, God had given Canaan into Israel's hands. Literally all they had to do was have the faith to follow through and go and claim it. If they did and they continued to do what they needed to, he would fight their battles the whole all the steps of the way. He would be with them the entire way. Instead, in Numbers 14 verse 1, we see the congregation itself. And we know the story. You know, 10 of the 12 spies came back. They said, nope, it's too hard. We can't do it. There's these giant people in there. Yeah, there may be abundance. We can't do this. We're not strong enough. There's no way. Joshua and Caleb, on the other hand, said, no, we got this. God's with us. All we got to do is go in and take it. God will fight our battles for us. And done. Well, Numbers 14, here's the congregation itself. So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. And you can imagine, okay, if we put ourselves in Israel's shoes, here they've come all this way. They've been promised the promised land. They come all this way, and then to hear, well, there's giants in there. We can't do it. You can imagine there's probably a bit of despair that's going to come from there. I'm not, you know, condoning it by any means, but it's understandable. I mean, we can understand from a human standpoint kind of where they were. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, if only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness. In other words, you're going to take us in there, and then we're going to die by the sword. We could have died out here, or we could have died in Egypt. What'd you bring us out here for? To die by the sword. Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword that our wives and our children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt? And you might imagine at that point in time that maybe some of the crowds said, yeah, yeah, wouldn't it have been better if we'd have just gone back to Egypt? You know, we should do that. In fact, not only we should do that, we should get somebody instead of Moses and Aaron who will lead us, really lead us, because Moses and Aaron, they just let us out here to die. They don't know what they're doing. We need a leader, a real leader. We need somebody who's going to lead us back to Egypt where we can be happy again. And we see that's exactly what they do in verse 4. So they said to one another, let us select a leader and return to Egypt.

What at one point in time was some small frustrations and discontent and complaining and murmuring and grumbling has now become mutiny. It has become a full-fledged rebellion against the two people that God had chosen to take care of these individuals out in the wilderness.

Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jafuna, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes. I mean, they rent their clothes on the spot just in in mourning, really. I can't believe that Israel is seriously suggesting, you know, what they're suggesting. And they spoke to the congregation of the children of Israel saying, the land we pass through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey. They said, only do not rebel against the Lord nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread. The protection is departed from them and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. And you can, you know, we want to go to the happy ending and go, and that worked. And they all said, yes, let's go up and let's do it. Well, no. Verse 10, and all the congregation set to stone them with stones. So instead of responding positively to the words that Caleb and Joshua had just said, which were absolutely correct, they grabbed stones and are ready to kill all four people as a congregation. Now the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of meeting before all the children of Israel. So in comes the glory of God.

Okay, in comes the glory of God. Verse 11, then the Lord said to Moses, how long will these people reject me, and how long will they not believe me, with all the signs which I have performed among them? Miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle. And they still reject me. It says, I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they. In other words, Moses, get out of the way. I'm going to destroy them all. And I'm going to start over from you. And I'm going to build from you and create of you a nation greater and mightier than they are. Moses intercedes on the people's behalf. He reasons an argument to God that stays his hands. But the Israelites did receive a judgment. Let's skip down to verse 20. Israelites did receive a judgment. Verse 20, then the Lord said, I've pardoned according to your word, but truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, because all these men who have seen my glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and have put me to this test now 10 times and have not heeded my voice, they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected me see it. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land where he went and his descendants shall inherit it. And that's verse 24.

None of the Israelites in that older generation who had seen God's miracles, who knew his deeds, were going to be allowed in. They'd complained one time too many, and God said enough's enough. We're done. The Israelites lost sight of the blessings that God had provided them. They'd lost sight of all these miracles. They'd lost sight of all these things that he had done for them. And really, you only need to look at one of them to see God's hand in it. I mean, these were immense and great things. These were parting of giant waters. These were raining bread and quail from, I mean, later on in the later part of the one, God says, you want quail? I'll give you quail. Three feet high and a mile across, I'll give you quail. And you'll eat quail until it's coming out of your nostrils. I mean, that is not something natural. That is something where you could, by all means, see God's hand in that particular event. But they lost sight on these blessings. And frankly, very similar to how I had lost sight of what God had done for me. But the Israelites had completely lost out on the fact that they were no longer in bondage. The needs that they had were taken care of entirely. That God was going to make of them this incredible nation in the land of Canaan. And they were too short-sighted to see past their own desires. What they wanted, what they needed, what they craved. They craved a return. They craved looking back. They wanted to not go forward, but go backward. And so what about us? Because we always have to ask a hard question. We always have to ask something that's going to put it into our lives today. What about us?

Do we lose sight? Do we place our desires and our wants in the forefront? And if we look at the example in the case of ancient Israel, what they wanted was more important in their minds. And as a result, they started grumbling and complaining because they didn't have it. What they wanted, they didn't have. And so, of course, they complained. They mumbled. They grumbled. And they became quarrelsome, and they followed through on rebellion. God said, look, not so fast. We're not done here. We're not done here. Their desire for things that they couldn't have. We might call it a restlessness or a craving, but their desire for things they couldn't have. Let us call it what it is. It's coveting. Plain and simple. A restless desire for something that you don't or cannot have is coveting. I don't know how else to put it. It is coveting. That was their downfall. They wanted more. God's blessing wasn't good enough. And as a result, the generation of those that were, you know, 20 or over, for the most part, would die in the wilderness without having set foot in Canaan. They would wander and wander and wander and wander until all of them dropped off, and then God would finally allow the people that were left to go in.

God wasn't willing to reward people who spit in the face of the miracles that he had provided. He wasn't willing to reward people who didn't see his hand working in their life. And you know, people who would kind of rebel and quarrel with the leaders that he'd chosen. Interestingly enough, James talks about this. Let's go over to the book of James. James 4 verse 1. We come here a lot. We come here quite a bit because it is a good example of where quarrels come from and where we have these spats with each other and amongst ourselves in our interpersonal relationships.

James 4. We'll pick it up in verse 1, answering that question of where do these things come from. Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and you do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. You know, we have fights and disagreements among us. We quarrel. We have difficulties in our interpersonal. Interpersonal, right? That's with... yeah, interpersonal. So interpersonal and intrapersonal. I had to think for a second on that one. But we have difficulties in our interpersonal relationships. We do. We have difficulties. We have troubles. We war within ourselves. We war within ourselves. And why?

Because of the pleasures that war in our member. We desire and we don't have. We covet and we can't obtain. We fight and we war and we quarrel. And we have not because the Scripture says right here, we have not because we ask not. Or we ask, but we don't receive because we're asking with the wrong attitude.

We're asking with the wrong attitude for the wrong thing. And our attitude in our life is so unbelievably important. The attitude with which we look at life and the way that we look at how we deal with things is so important. We can't afford to be a malcontent. So we're going to spend our last little bit of time on that third point, malcontent. And we're going to look at what exactly is a malcontent. What is a malcontent? Because we can't afford. We don't want to be one.

That's the ultimate gist of it. So here's the definition of a malcontent. A malcontent is someone who is dissatisfied or rebellious. Some synonyms of malcontent is, and there's a big long list of them, troublemaker, mischief maker, agitator, dissident, rebel, and my personal favorite, rabble-rouser.

And if you think about it, all of these things, if you think about, okay, think of troublemaker, mischief maker, agitator, dissident, rebel, or rabble-rouser. All of these have some form of character involved. It is to the point now a malcontent is someone who has character traits of discontent. Like, not frustrations, not stresses, not like a one-time thing, like I'm kind of upset about this, but I'm upset about everything.

I'm upset about this, I'm upset about that, I'm going to tell this person, I'm going to dig into that, I'm going to do this. It's become so ingrained that it's become part of that person's character. Albert Einstein once said, that a weakness of attitude becomes a weakness of character, and that's what happens in a malcontent. A weakness of attitude becomes a weakness of character. If we don't keep a close check on the attitude that we have in the situations that we face in life, we can allow that attitude to breed discontent, and over time, it can become an aspect of our character.

It can become an aspect of our character. Being a malcontent can be dangerous, and there's a reason scripturally why it's dangerous. Let's turn over to Ephesians 4. Being a malcontent can be dangerous because it provides Satan with a foothold, provides Satan with a foothold in our life. Gives him, you know, if you ever go rock climbing, you know, it's hard to rock a... hard to rock, hard to climb a perfectly straight up and down rock. You got to have holds, right?

You got to have places to put your hands, you got to have places to put your feet. If you think of your life in that way, if you're going to give Satan a toehold, he's going to be able to climb, and he's going to be able to get in, and he's going to be able to do different things.

We go to Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4, and we'll pick it up in verse 21. Ephesians 4 verse 21. We'll go through a fairly substantial section here. Ephesians 4 verse 21 says, if indeed you have heard or if indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, again there's that idea of things that we want that we can't have, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor for we are members of one another. Making sure that what we're saying and making sure that when we're talking to people and when we're voicing our frustrations, making sure that what we say is truth. Making sure that the information that's being passed on to other people is actually true, that it's not gossip, that it's not something that we heard from somebody else or hearsay or whatever else.

Verse 26, verse 26, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. You know, it's okay to be frustrated. It's okay to even be upset about things at times. But where it crosses a line is when we begin to stew on it for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. It says right here, don't let the sun go down on your wrath. Constructively solve it or let it go.

Short-term, constructively solve it or let it go. You can't stew on it. You stew on it, it starts to become this root of bitterness and that starts to eat us from the inside out. We start thinking about it more. We start digging out more. And the reason that we want to constructively solve it or let it go is right here in verse 27. It comes after, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.

Nor give place to the devil. And some translations, some translations put that as foothold or toehold. Okay, I'm going to read just a little bit out of Barclays. Barclays in the book on Galatians and Ephesians. This is page 157, paragraphs 2 and 3. And he talks a little bit about kind of this aspect of things in this particular setup, talking very specifically about Paul's advice. It says, Paul's advice is sound because the longer we postpone mending a quarrel, the less likely we are ever to mend it. If there's trouble between us and anyone else, if there's trouble in a church or a fellowship or any society where men meet, the only way to deal with it is at once.

The longer that it's left to flourish, the more bitter it will grow. If we've been in the wrong, we must pray to God to give us grace to admit that it was so. And even if we've been right, we must pray to God to give us the graciousness, which will enable us to take the first steps to put matters right. Along with this phrase, Paul puts another command. And the Greek can equally well mean two things.

It can mean don't give the devil his opportunity. And he talks about an unhealed breach is a magnificent opportunity for the devil to sow dissension. Many a time a church has been torn into factions because two people quarreled and let the sun set upon their wrath. But there's another meaning which this phrase can also have.

The word for devil in Greek is diabolos. But diabolos is also the normal Greek word for a slanderer. Luther, for instance, took this to mean give the slanderer no place in your life. It may well be that this is the true meaning of what Paul wishes to say. No one in this world can do more damage than a slanderous tailbearer.

And if you think about one of the things that's mentioned of Satan in his initial rebellion, it says he went about trading in merchandise. And the context of that is in words, in speaking things, and trading information, and talking things up. And so Paul continues here, verse 28. Verse 28. Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed, for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you, constructively solving it. It doesn't mean we get in somebody's face, necessarily. It doesn't mean we, you know, yell and scream and throw out a temper tantrum to fix it. We constructively fix it. There are going to be things that are going to frustrate us in life.

We will get upset. Life throws us curveballs all the time. Things that we are not expecting. Things that we're not necessarily prepared for, but it's coming anyway. We go through trials, we go through struggles, we go through difficulties.

We have unexpected circumstances that we have little to no control over, and that's the one thing we have to keep in mind. Many of these things that come our way, we have little to no control over. The one thing that we do have control over is how we choose to respond to these difficulties when they do come our way. And as we mentioned the last time I was here, they're going to come our way. We are guaranteed they're going to come our way. That's really the only choice that we have. When it really comes down to it, that's the only choice that we have. We have to choose contentedness. We have to choose a good attitude about our situations. And when we talk about contentedness, when we look at what it means to be content and not continually lust and desire after more, the Apostle Paul knew a little something about that. Let's go to 2 Corinthians 11.

And we're going to see kind of his words here on this particular topic and look at what he's discussing and talking about here in 2 Corinthians 11.

2 Corinthians 11. And we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 23. We'll pick it up in verse 23. We'll give a little bit of context before we jump in here, but we see a beginning of this laundry list of injustices that he kind of received as a follower of Christ. And he's not bragging in this particular section. He's not like it's not being boastful in the least bit. What he's trying to do is state his qualifications for those in the church in Corinth because there were a number of people who were kind of challenging him from a standpoint of who he was. And was he really legitimately the guy who needs to be here, etc. So 2 Corinthians 11.23, he kind of jumps into the asking about these particular things. We'll go ahead and pick up 22. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool, and I'm more. In labors, more abundant. In stripes above measure. In prisons, more frequently. In deaths, often. From the Jews, five times I received 40 stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I've been in the deep. In journeys, often. In perils of waters. Perils of robbers. Perils of my own countrymen. Perils of the Gentiles. Perils of the city. Perils in the wilderness. Perils in the sea. Perils among false brethren. In weariness and toils. Sleeplessness, often. Hunger and thirst. Fastings, often. Cold and nakedness. Besides the other things, what comes upon me daily, my deep concern for all the churches. He wasn't doing this as a means of boasting. He wasn't trying to make himself look better. He wasn't complaining about his lot in life. He was providing the members in the church in Corinth with a laundry list of things that he had gone through for them so that they would understand the love that he had for them. That he would willingly, you know, the one for me, the story that just seals it for me, is the story that he mentions right here where he was stoned. They drug his lifeless body out of the city, you know, they stone him, and he gets up, rolls up his sleeves, and goes right back in. You know, it wasn't any concern over his own safety. It wasn't any concern. It was like, no, I've been thrown out of better places than this. In he goes, right back at it. And it's that kind of attitude and it's that kind of love that he had for the brethren in Corinth that he's trying to illustrate to them. He's saying, very much so, I love you so much I would gladly endure these things. That I would gladly endure these things. And despite these things being out of his control, you know, you can't really stop a mob full of rocks.

Despite these things being out of his control, he chose to accept them for what they were.

They were part of living his Christian calling, living the life that he'd been called to lead. He talks about a similar principle in Philippians 4. Let's go ahead and go over there. Philippians 4.

Philippians 4, right there before the book of Colossians.

Philippians 4, he provides us with the solution. How do we deal with things that are out of our control? When things happen in our life, how do we deal with them? How do we approach them? How do we recognize that they are out of our control? And what's the ultimate solution? Well, Philippians 4, verse 12, he kind of gets into this concept. He says, I know how to be a based. I know how to abound. So, in other words, I've seen both sides.

I know. I know how to do this. Everywhere and in all things, I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. So, whatever situation I am placed in, I have the solution, is what he's saying here in Philippians 4.12. He's telling me, look, I know what it's like. I understand. But I've learned the secret to being both full and hungry, to abounding and wanting. Verse 13, he says, very specifically, that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And I think sometimes people have used that to, you know, kind of justify a lot of other things like, well, I could fly like a bird! Or, no, that's not what it's saying. It's saying that God gives us the strength to get through the things that come to us, that he provides us with the ability to get through them. He provides us the strength to face it.

Shannon and I had a pretty eventful summer. And when I say eventful, read the word expensive.

Some of you have heard this story or parts of this story already. So those that haven't, though, you need to understand what I mean by that. Shannon and I went to Northwest Camp at the end of July this year and had a chance to serve at Camp Magruder for a week. And then the following morning, after Magruder was over with, the Sunday that things were done, once we'd seen all the campers out the door, we jumped in our van, which was piled to the ceiling full of stuff, and headed on what we termed the Great Summer Road Trip of 2015. We drove, so there was a family reunion going on down in Altas, Oklahoma. And my wife's family is all from down there. Her great grandparents are celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary. So we get together every five years. And in the past, we've flown. Well, now we have three kids, and that's three extra plane tickets. So I very wisely said, it'll be cheaper to drive! Well, as is often the wisdom of man. No, no, it definitely was not. The first day we went from the Oregon coast, we went from Magruder there at Rockaway Beach. We drove to Boise, Idaho. From Boise, Idaho, we went to Green River, Utah. From Green River, Utah, we hit Arches National Park and Moab, headed towards Albuquerque, New Mexico. Our goal was to hit Albuquerque and then cut I-40 across down through the rest of New Mexico and the Panhandle, and hit Oklahoma that way. Our plan, though, was on the return trip, it would take us from Altus to Dallas, Texas, where Shannon's brother lives, back through Albuquerque to Flagstaff and go see the Grand Canyon. Then we planned to hit the Mojave Desert, Yosemite, and then Redwoods and make it home. So we wanted to do four different national parks. We did. In fact, we did one of them. We did Grand Canyon and Yosemite within a 24-hour period, which was a little bit insane. But I tried to get in on the pass at Yosemite that I bought in Grand Canyon. She just laughed at me. She goes, you can't use that here. I'm like, but it's a seven-day pass. I was just there yesterday. She goes, no, you have to buy a new one. Okay. Well, anyway, where it got expensive, just outside of Shiprock, New Mexico, which in the event any of you have been to Shiprock, New Mexico, it's really kind of in the middle of nowhere, honestly, within the Navajo reservation. Our Dodge caravan had other plans. It started making some funny noises, the temperature spiked, and smoke started pouring out of the air vents into the car.

I'm no mechanic, but I don't think it's a good sign. So I came to the conclusion that last time I checked, there should not be smoke blowing into our car. We pulled over. I grabbed the fire extinguisher thinking that I was going to have to put a fire out or something. So here we are. We're dead in the water. We're on the side of the road in the middle of the Navajo reservation, about three miles outside of Shiprock, which incidentally, in case you're going to be there anytime soon, has no mechanic, no tow truck operator, no hotels, nothing. They have a regional hospital, but that's pretty much it. We called the tow truck guy, and he said, we're an hour, hour and a half out. And so there we are. We're waiting on the side of the road.

And, you know, as we're thinking about it, I'm thinking back to the thousands of dollars that I dropped into the car before we left. I'm thinking about all this money that we put into this thing. I'm thinking about all this and thinking about, this is bad. This is definitely not good. I mean, I'm no mechanic, but this was not a normal thing.

And a lot of people stopped. It was great. I love it. People do stop, and they do try to help, and they want to help, and it was nice that they did. But they all kind of walk up, and they look in the hood and kind of go, yup. And then there they go. I mean, there was no, like, we didn't, nobody was a mechanic. Nobody saw me. It was just, nobody really knew what was going on, and neither did we.

We, I appreciated their willingness to stop. I really did. I appreciated their willingness to stop. Thankfully, our tow truck shows up. He starts to get the car loaded, and then he asks us. And it's almost, I mean, it's just after sundown at this point. He was, like, might have been, it was a Wednesday night, actually, just after sundown, because we had to get to Oklahoma the next day. Anyway, he asks us, well, how are you guys getting to Farmington? And we're like, we were going to ride with you.

And he goes, well, my tow truck's only got two seats, and I brought my daughter, because she was working on, and so here we are looking at a tow truck that we can't get in. The fact that it's going to be another hour and a half for a tow truck to make it to us, or a taxi of some kind to make it to us, not to mention, I'm paying a taxi for an hour and a half. And I just said, are you sure we can't just ride in our van on the back of the truck?

And he goes, I think it breaks a number of laws. And I go, well, you check with your boss. So he called his boss. His boss said, put him in the back of the van. We buckled up, and we kind of reclined the seats back and hid, you know, as for not up on top of the truck itself. But by the time we got everything loaded, by the time we got there, we're all exhausted.

The kids hadn't eaten. Everybody's tired. I'm tired. None of us have really eaten all day. Once we got to Farmington, we spent a bunch of money on a hotel, spent a bunch of money on the van to find out that it was dead, that the engine was toast. We spent $700 to find that out. And then all the rest... so we're like, okay, we got to get to Oklahoma. We got to rent a rental car. We got to find something. There's this giant softball tournament in town.

Every rental car, except the most expensive rental car on the lot, was gone. Literally, I pulled into the rental car a lot, one car, and it's in one slot. And I go in, I go, can we rent that car? And he goes, well, it's the most expensive one on the lot. And I don't have many other options, you know. And so we rented the car.

We got ourselves to Oklahoma. We bought a... or the van that we're driving now, we bought on a whim off of Craigslist in Oklahoma. Found this really nice guy, and it's been a great vehicle. But honestly, as all of this started to occur, we were realizing all Shannon and I could do was laugh. All we could do was laugh.

Honestly, as it kept coming down, there were just... we finally just... I mean, it was so out of our control. There was nothing, literally nothing, you could argue, I probably could have changed the oil more frequently on my van.

I'll give you that. But there was nothing we could do about any of it. The only thing we could do is choose how are we going to respond to this? How are we going to deal with this particular thing? Honestly, you couldn't have written a better movie script. And maybe I should write this into a movie script of some variety. But I coined a phrase in my life on that trip, and I'm going to remember this, and I'm going to use it again and again and again. I told myself, good memories or bad memories?

They're all memories. And honestly, when it comes down to it, what am I going to remember more about that trip when I'm in my 60s or 70s? Probably the bad stuff that went wrong that we laughed about. And just those things. Now, the other beautiful part was we saw arches. We saw Grand Canyon. We saw Yosemite. We saw Redwoods. I took my kids to these places. I'd never been. You know, we had a chance to go in to see these things.

And so we're going to have all these wonderful memories from this particular thing. So we left on this road trip with one car. We came home with a different one. And they were expensive memories, but honestly, I wouldn't trade them for the world. I really wouldn't trade them for the world. And I had no control over any of this. I had no control over any of the stuff that happened, but I could choose the attitude with which to face them.

And I could have very easily gotten stressed. I could have gotten anxious about it. I could have gotten mad, frustrated. And I could have destroyed and absolutely made my family vacation the rest of the time that we were on that miserable. Just miserable. I could have been constantly stewing and complaining and all upset and driving and the kids saying something, be quiet back there, turn this car around, you know, whatever you say on road trips, right?

But instead, what we chose to do, Shannon and I both, we chose to hand the situation over to God and let him take care of it. We knew that if we stopped worrying about it, we trusted that he would work it out in some way, one way or the other, he would work it out. He knows and he will do what needs to be done. Let's go over to Romans 8 as we start to close today.

Romans 8, I don't know why, but this, I keep coming back here. I cannot tell you how many times I have come back to this passage in the last little bit, as the last six months or so. And I think part of it is because it is so encouraging.

It is so incredibly encouraging. Romans 8, we're going to go ahead and look at verse 28. It's one that very probably is already ringing out in your head as to the wording of this particular passage, but Romans 8 verse 28 very specifically says, And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. For those that love God, we know that things work out.

We may not get to choose how they work out for good, and frankly, they may not work out for good the way that we expected they were going to work out for good. Sometimes the thing that we want is not what we really need. And there are times that we have, I think Garth Brooks sang that song, you know, thank you for unanswered prayers.

The things that we think we need and the things that we want really aren't what God may have in store for us or have planned for us. And as we mentioned last time that I was here, they might not even work out for good in this life. They might not even work out for good in this life, but they will work out for good in our lives because, one, we love God, and two, because he said so. He said it will right here. And we know all things work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to his purpose.

You can bank on it, because it's right there and it's in Scripture. Psalm 91. Let's go ahead and turn over there, and we'll finish up today in Psalm 91, recognizing just how things work out and how God takes care of us. And there's some beautiful, beautiful imagery in this particular psalm. Sometimes characteristics that we don't often think of when we think of God are located in this particular psalm. And we're going to go through and we're going to read it, and that's going to take us to the point of closing things out today.

But Psalm 91, and it's just safety and abiding in the presence of God, being close to God, staying close to God, and loving God, and ensuring that we're doing our part. And here's what we hear. He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him I will trust. Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge. His truth shall be your shield and your buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.

A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look and see the reward of the wicked. Because you've made the Lord who is my refuge even the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling, for He shall give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion, and the serpent shall trample under foot. Because, verse 14, He has set His love upon me, therefore I will deliver Him. I will set Him on high because He has known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer Him.

I will be with Him in trouble. I will deliver Him and honor Him. With long life I will satisfy Him and show Him my salvation. Brethren, our life is full of all sorts of trials, difficulties, injustices, frustrations, struggles, and every day we have a choice as to how we're going to deal with these trials and with these injustices.

We can dwell on them. We absolutely can. We can get frustrated. We can get all mad. We can get bitter about it, and we can let it just eat us up. Or we can hand it over to God and say, this problem, this frustration, this trial, this struggle, whatever it may be, isn't worth my time.

I'm seeking you, and this is nothing more than a distraction that's preventing me from getting there. We can just tell God, Lord, please handle this. Take care of it. We have to be aware of these attitudes. We have to be aware of these negative airwaves, this bitterness and this discontent that gets kind of thrown out. And if you look around society today, again, it's more discontent than ever. You know, just watch the debates.

It is more discontent than ever these days, especially politics and everything else. But we have to be aware of these attitudes. We have to be aware of the discontent that can build up. It is poison. It is poison, and it can destroy us. We need to ensure that we put our trust in God and put our confidence in Him and be actively thankful for all that He has done in our lives. And really, when it comes down to it, the antidote to bitterness is gratefulness.