Johnny Sanders (00:00)
Hello, hello, happy Friday to everybody who is tuned in today. I hope you've all had a just a wonderful week. This week, you know, kind of a little bit of a shorter week for a lot of you because of Labor Day, which is, you know, I hope you got to do some fun things. Feel free to put in the comments something fun you did for Labor Day. Then, today, our main topic is being patient. I would also, before I get into this talk, feel free to put something down in the comments, something you've had to be patient on. Maybe this is something you're waiting for right now. Now you're in the midst of just having to wait on something significant, waiting on the Lord for something big. Maybe it's something that you dealt with in the past. Just write a little comment. Write down in the chat if you're listening to this live, or put in the comments if you're watching this afterward or if you're an audio-only person who listens to this after it's uploaded. Yeah, feel free to send me an email. Johnny at truth and grace counseling .com. I would just love to hear from you. Now what's something that you're waiting on? So let's kind of dive in here. I'm to give you some personal examples here. One more serious thing that I've had to wait on in my life and another one that's

Important not quite the same seriousness, but I am waiting on it Right now so I'll start with the more serious one now my wife and I which, she is tuning in right now. So hello to Mary who's watching. My wife and I have been married a little over seven years now and at the time when we were and Well before we had met, I was waiting. I was waiting on finding a spouse, finding my wife. And at the time, in my naivety, I was like, man, I've been waiting forever. We got married when I was 28. At the time, mid-20s, man, how long am I going to wait? And thankful to the Lord that the Lord brought Mary my way. And we didn't wait very long once we met.

Johnny Sanders (02:29)
ended up getting engaged and married pretty quickly. From the time we first started dating to when we were married was just about nine months. So we didn't wait long once we met each other, but me being patient and waiting to meet my bride, there were moments where it was hard. And I can look back at that now and kind of laugh at myself, laugh at my naivety and how like, hey, you really didn't have it that bad. But at the moment, I really...

wanted to be married and I didn't know how long I was going to have to wait. And those moments are hard. It's hard to be patient when you want something big like that, a spouse. You're waiting for a new job. You're waiting on some medical results or something like that that are just really big things in your life. It's really hard to wait, to be patient. It's almost better
using the medical example, it's almost better as far as dealing with patience. When you get bad news, as weird as that sounds, because at least I know what I'm dealing with. It's that just waiting, I don't know what's going on, that is hard. It's really hard to wait. Give you another personal example. This is the one that's not quite as serious as when I was waiting on having a spouse, God leading Mary into my life. Right now, we are in the middle of building a new house and we are beyond blessed to have the means to build this house it is coming along, and splendidly that it got started earlier this year in the spring and it should be done here probably in the next couple months or so. But my goodness, when people say that it's hard towards the end, you get a little impatient.

If you've ever built a house or known someone's built a house I can live that when we check in like man Did they did they do anything today? just get that impatient feeling And it's one of those I have to check myself God has blessed my family with all sorts of incredible both financial blessings and an Excellent family and a community of believers. We've been given so much that we don't deserve

Johnny Sanders (04:56)
And if I just get caught in that, like, come on, speed it up, let's go, let's get into this house. I miss that. I'm not being patient. I'm not taking advantage of the breath that I received today that I was not guaranteed. Because when I get in that mindset, I'm in the mindset of, God, I know best, just get me into this house. I deserve it. I deserve to be in that house now. I don't. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve to be alive.

none of us deserve anything. Every day that we are given is a gift from God." And that's really, sometimes when I make these themes for Faithful Friday, sometimes I look at what the guest on Monday was talking about and use that as the theme. Oftentimes, I'm just talking to myself because I'm imperfect like the rest of you are and I wanted to make sure that

I stay patient in the Lord. So know that this scripture reference I'm about to come in applies definitely square to me. I'm talking to myself. And like I said, write down in the comments if you have anything that you are patiently waiting on right now as well because I guarantee you probably got something. So let's get into the text today. The text is in Psalm 37, verse 7. For us, start reading this. Just know I've used some of the Psalms before on Faithful Fridays. If you're looking at any type of emotion, whether it be whether it be anger, whether it be grief, sadness, despair, or any type of emotion, look at the Psalms. I guarantee you there is a Psalm that speaks to whatever emotion you're feeling at some point. And the Psalmist, whether it's King David, whoever that might be writing that particular Psalm probably had it worse than you do and it's a good convicting thing. So highly, highly recommend the Psalms for whatever emotional type of issues you're going through. So let's read Psalm 37:7 and this is in the ESV translation. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in His way over the man who carries out evil devices.

Johnny Sanders (07:18)
I keep these Faithful Friday texts fairly short, either just a verse or a couple of verses. I highly recommend if this kind of is convicting to you, read the whole Psalm. Read all of Psalm 37. It's an excellent, excellent Psalm. But let's go into this. The first part is really what it relates to when it comes to patience and things that we're waiting for. Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him. We can honestly just talk about that. That is key here. The first part there is be still. Right now, my life, personally, is just filled with busyness. I have a pretty full counseling practice that keeps me busy. I've got three little kids that definitely keep me busy. Obviously, I talked about with my wife and keeping our relationship going healthy and strong, have the new house that we're making decisions on all the time and trying to manage the old house, our current house, and also we're getting ready to sell this house. There's a lot that's going on in my life. It's not very easy to be still. I'm not going to just naturally be still. Right now, especially in the season of my life, but for all of you listening, you all have different things going on. Our life and our culture is very connected. It's very busy. There's a lot going on. And there's a benefit to that. I'm certainly not one that's going to say all technology is bad or we just need to go back 30 years from the past or whatever. believe God has given us and gifted us with different technologies just like this right now. Me being able to talk to you now. There are all sorts of great things that make our life busy, but you need to be still. You need to be able to weed out. Is this part of my life? Is it really that important? Am I spending too much time just on my phone? Doom scrolling. If you don't know what that is, basically just stand on your phone and scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, and see all these terrible things on Twitter or wherever, Facebook. Maybe I need to cut some of that time out and be still.

Johnny Sanders (09:44)
That can involve reading scripture. My wife and I, we're going through a Bible reading plan that we do together. That is a fantastic thing to do to have that plan. Maybe that just involves personal prayer. It could also just involve sitting, and being quiet. Something that we are super excited about, going back to patience with our new property, is we have about 16 acres that we are living on and it is

still out there. When we walk out back behind our house and just kind of let the kids play around, we don't hear a lot of traffic going, we don't hear a lot of neighbors talking, it's still... You may not have that access. Maybe you need to go alone in a room. These headphones I have on my head are noise-canceling for a reason. It helps bring quietness into my life and to my work when I'm working at home. Maybe you need some noise-canceling headphones. Maybe you need to go take a walk outside, go to the library. But you got to be still. Be quiet before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. That is an active thing to do. We need to actively wait patiently, not just sit back and I'm kind of fidgeting around and moving around all the time. Waiting patiently in His goodness. He has a plan for us.

He is going to work everything out for his good. We need to rest in that fact. It's not going to happen naturally. We have to seek that out, seek him out, and be good with that patience, be good with the waiting. I know that Caesar said and then done. It's not because the waiting itself is good. It's because he is good. And he's making us wait for a reason. And we need to accept that.

This next part really relates to what we're going through right now with different politics and just the craziness of the culture. But it really speaks conviction into my life as well. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices. So is there evil in the world? Yep, you betcha.

Johnny Sanders (12:08)
My daughter has talked with me about different fears and things that she's had and her little life and talks about bad guys. Are there bad guys here? Are there bad guys in Duncan where we live? Yes, there's bad guys. There are bad guys in politics. There are bad guys all over the place. Quite frankly, you and I are bad guys too. We all have sin in our hearts, but we need to not fret over the bad guys. We don't need to fret over the evil ones.

We don't need to fret over the presidential debate with Kamala and Trump coming up. We don't need to fret over the lies that are going to be told and things of that nature. Now note here, it's talking about not fretting yourself. It doesn't mean to not concern yourself, especially as it relates to politics. That's part of why this podcast exists. I want us to be active in your values. If you are a conservative Christian, be active. Part of that means voting. It means being educated, maybe calling out some lies, but not to fret, not to worry. Look, if Kamala Harris wins the presidency, I think there's going to be some negative effects there. I'm not going to sugarcoat that, but we don't need to fret. God has this under control. There's a difference between being active and being worrisome, fretting over that, the evil one that's prospering, the per -

The boss that doesn't really care about you and is maybe looking bad at your work performance or whatever. The family member that's just constantly telling lies and is gaslighting all the time. You're going to be concerned. You may really struggle to wait patiently. When am I going to get justice here? When am I going to get what I need here? Don't fret over the evil one. Fret over, or not fret.

but concern yourself with being in God's presence, waiting on Him, and actively knowing He's got this under control. As soon as we put it into our hands to figure it all out on our own, trust in our own wisdom and no one else's, we'll lose the plot. So I encourage you all, to go out and read Psalm 37. It's a fantastic little Psalm. I've read over it just a little bit before I came.

Johnny Sanders (14:34)
came live today, really worth your time and actively seek out that calm, that quiet, seek God's presence and be able to rest in that fact that even though this is hard for me to wait, even though I'm worried about what these other evil people are doing while I'm waiting, I trust you. I trust you above that you've got this under control. So write down a chat, write down in comments, what are you waiting on?

What are you patiently waiting on? What were some fun Labor Day things that you did? Have some fun. Have some fun this weekend. Check out faithfullyengaged .com if you want to help support the show. Get some merch. I've got my mug that's kind of hiding out back there. Got a mug, got t-shirts. If you're interested in using me for some consulting services, if you have a specific issue, you want to...

talk some things over, maybe you're struggling in life. I am a licensed counselor. I can do actual therapy, but I can also do just some consulting and use some of the things that I've learned over my life to help point you in the right direction. Check all that out at faithfullyengaged.com. Thank you again for tuning in and I'll catch you on the episode on Monday.