The Humility Gap (Lisa Harper)

rhymes with Pennsylvania. And I knew. I knew I wasn't going to be warmly received because it was just it was just more of a formal setting, and I'm not very formal, and so when the women picked me up from the airport, it was just it was crickets all the way to the conference. And then we get to the conference and they had what they called the fellowship time, which means you usually eat carbs and cold coffee and make small talk in the fellowship hall before you go

into the main part of the sanctuary. And I stood around. I thought they need to re christen this the stiff and Hateful Hall, because nobody's talking, like nobody's chatting, And so I just kept kind of moving from group to group trying to find somebody who would talk, and finally somebody introduced me to the worship leader for that particular conference, and she wasn't from that area, and she seemed friendly, and I thought, cool, we can be aliens and strangers together.

And so I introduced myself to the worship leader. I'm gonna call her Wanda. That's not her real name, but I said, Wanda, I'm so glad you're here. You know, I don't know anybody here, and she was like, I don't either, and so an effort to connect further, I started to tease. I don't know if y'all do that when you first meet people, you kind of start teasing

with them, unk, you know. And I said, well, Wanda, you might want to watch me when you start playing a real up tempost song, because I might just break out into a worship dance. Now I was teasing. I know, we've got a couple of dancers here, and it's a biblical thing. It's a totally biblical thing. There's Preston's and scripture. David even says we should. But I grew up half Baptist. My mom's Baptist to the bone. My dad was Pentecostal.

So the Baptist in me long to dance. The Pentecostal in me tries to dance, but the old pale woman that I am can't dance, and so it's just it's just a real juxtaposition for me. So I was just teasing with Wanda, and I said, you may I want to watch me because I'll break out into worship dance. And then you know, when you're teasing with somebody you don't know, and you can tell by the way they're

listening to you, they think you're being serious. They don't realize you're you're kid yet, and I thought, gosh, I need to tell I was just playing because I don't want to think I was being disrespectful because there is liturgical dance in scripture, and so I thought, when we have a second I'll qualify that so she knows I'm not playing. Well. Then they separated us. Then the conference started. It was real, very very serious, and so I thought I'll talk to her at the end of conference, but

they took us our separate ways. So the next morning, I was like, I've got to see Wanda for it starts to tell her that I was just kidding about the whole dancing thing, and so I'm starting to talk to her. They lead us in. It wasn't a house like elevation. It was a real it's just a real serious church. They had like, you know, polished pews all the way back and all the stained glass windows, pipe organ and so they usher wanding up to the front.

They had two little, short, diagonally opposed pews like big enough for I don't know, two skinny keto girls or tunky chick with a bible. So I was on one little diagonal pew and one is on the other pew, and so I lean over to tell her remember last night when I said about it, well, why does start and explain it to her? The lady who was hostessing the event comes up. She's very very serious war hoos and she was like one to you know, I need you to start worship now. And so one is like, okay,

hatn't got to explain it. Wanda stands up. She's a real perky worship leader. Didn't fit the whole setting, but she stands up and she goes exactly like this holly to me. She goes and then she comes up and I don't know how to explain what I felt to that moment, but it's just this deep sense of foreboding. I thought, just something about this didn't feel good to me. She walks up and Chris, they didn't have like a cool keyboard. They didn't have one of those old upright pianos.

I remember those that as the high back. And so one of goes plays a song on the piano, kind of a hymn, and then she stops. There's about I don't know, three hundred women on the pews, very lot of match outfits, and she leans out from behind the piano and she went, ladies, I have got such a treat for you this morning. And then she gestures to me and she goes, hey, lo just she goes, Lisa is a worship dancer. And then she grabs this package. I hadn't noticed until that point. Scrabs this package on

top of the piano. It's this long package, comes all the way off the stage, comes down to grind sitting. I'm sitting where you are, Holly. She unwraps this package and unfurls this massive, like five by seven foot purple flag with the alpha and the omega and gold glitter on the flag, and then she, you know, presents it to me with a flourish like we've planned this. And then a second she goes heads back up on stage. Now, y'all, the women are stiff. Wanda isn't and is evidently a

little oblivious the women are stiff. She starts playing this real up tempo probably an elevation song, a real uptempo song, and then she goes like gestures to me like, now it's time for your routine. And I'm holding this massive flag, and you know, nobody's even singing with her. They're just and I'm holding this flag, and I thought this is like a Saturday night life skip, like I don't I

don't know where to go from here. And then I have just a smedge of prodigal in me, and I thought, she's my only friend and these women probably need to be just poked a little bit. And so I started to dance, and the only thing I knew to do, because the flag was heavy, was just to do kind of this big squirl with a flag and women are laying either way. Well, Wanda was charismatic. So the song, I said, like seventeen minutes says one a song, And so I thought I can't hold anymore, Like my what

hanging down part is starting to cramp. I was like, I don't know what to do, and so I thought, well, this is probably my last public dance, and so and this is straight up truth. I'll tell you if I was lying in church, I went all the way up to the front of the of the church and I kind of got to run and start because I've seen people do this at Joyce Myer events and I've always wanted to try it. And I started running. I'm going to have to do this to show y'all what I did.

I started running and then I swept instead a grunt to take with a flag, And y'all, what was hilarious. I probably should have worn a sports braw for that. But but what it was hilarious is you could hear this collective gas people like all the women swept. But I didn't think God was disappointed. I felt like God was leaning over going Jesus, you've got to see what she's doing this morning. I am, y'all funny, y'all, it's funny. I am so much more Laurel and hearty than I

am Shakira and j Lo. I do not have it altogether. My life plays out more like a bloop of real than a press release. But at fifty eight, what I'm learning. I keep saying sixty because sixty is just like a little over a year away for me. So I keep saying sixty so I get used to it. The thing I love about this age isn't just the discounts at McDonald's. It's that I can look back over fifty years of walking with Jesus and I can go, you know what,

It's really not about my capacity. It's about his compassion. It's not about whether I have it all together. It's about Jesus. What I'm learning, and I'm a slow learner, but what I'm learning, y'all is if you really want to access intimacy with God, if you really want to commune with God, the key is humility. And Rick Warren says it well. I usually attribute this to C. S. Lewis because it sounds like something Sir Lewis would say.

It's actually Rick Warren, pastor in California. He says, humility is not thinking less of ourselves. I think in American Christian culture we tend to think humility is, oh no, it's not about me. Well, that's actually just narcissism and a nicer outfit. That's not humility. That's still drawing all attention to yourself. Woe is me is not humility. Rick Warren says, humility isn't thinking less of yourself. It's just

thinking of yourself less. It's just being so preoccupied with Jesus, being so distracted, so discombobulated by his kindness, his goodness, his accessibility, that we're just not very focused on ourselfs anymore. I think humility is the key to intimacy see with God. I think humility is necessary for worship. My posthumous pretend theological boyfriend, aw Tosier says it like this. He says, it takes humility to worship God acceptably. It takes humility

to worship God acceptably. So it's it's the it's the the way that we commune with God. It's the way we effectively adequately worship God. I also think it's a harbinger for divine glory. It's kind of like this. You know, the most common bread in almost all of the Southern Hemisphere for the last I don't know, four or five centuries. I read this is the lowly tortilla chip because of or I should say tortilla, because of the relative cheapness of corn and how how easily it's grown in hot,

humid areas. And so they've got tortillas. Totorya is a no big deal. They're just they're just common. But but if you cut a tortilla into triangles and you deep fry it, and if you're a Christian, you deep fried in lard, and then you you dip that triangle into a that of case. So then well that that becomes the conduit for a life changing culinary experience, y'all. That's humility. Humility actually leads us to glory, the kind of divine glory that we read about in the Old Testament, but

we so rarely experience in our culture. And I think it's because we've gotten a little too proud. But we wrap verses around our pride and call it humble. So we're going to talk this morning, just for a minute about true humility. If you'll turn to first Samuel, I'm gonna show you the the proof of why I think humility is to glory, what ships and q so are to life change, First Samuel, and we're going to be

looking at chapter two, verses twelve to twenty six. Now, the sons of Eli were worthless men, they did not know the Lord. The custom of the priest with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant would come while the meat was boiling, with a three pronged fork in his hand, and he would trust it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron or pot. All that the brought up the priest would take for himself. This is what they did at Shiloh to all the

Israelites who came there. Moreover, before the fat was burned, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, give meat for the priest to roast, for he will not accept boiled meat from you, but only raw. And if the man said to him, let them burn the fat first and then take as much as you wish, he would say, no, you must give it now, and if not, I take it by force. Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord, for the men treated

the offering of the Lord with contempt. Samuel was ministering before the Lord a boy clothed with a linen. Ephod and his mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would bless el Caana, Samuel's daddy and his wife, and say, may the Lord give you children by this woman for the petition she asked of the Lord so

they would return home. Indeed, the Lord visited Hannah, and she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters, and the young man Samuel, grew in the presence of the Lord. You probably remember Samuel's story. It's one of the favorite stories I saw Flannel graft when I was growing up. Babdocostel and Samuel was born to a woman who struggled with infertility named Hannah. The reason I love Hannah is not only that she was patient, which is something I've

been praying for for five decades. Y'all. Remember, she had a sister wife that was back when polygamy was a norm, and she had to put up with his sister wife named Panina, who had all these kids. She was fertile, Myrtle and then Hannah short of them. Utilly didn't have any kids, and Panina was a big braggart. And when they drove to Costco, She's made Hannah's life miserable. And so Hannah went to church. I'm taking the tiniest bit of liberty with Hebrew, but this is what it would

play out like. Now. They go to church and Hannah goes to the altar and is grieving with such drama that the priest Eli who's mentioned here, thinks she's had one too many mimosas before small group, and so the priest chastises her, and she says, no, sir, I haven't been drinking. I'm just travailing before the Lord because my heart has been broken for so long and it has just devastated me that I've never been able to curate children.

And I know what that feels like because I didn't become a mom until the age of fifty through the miracle of adoption. So I know what it feels like to travail, especially on Mother's Day or Christmas. You wish there's more than yours and your dogs talking hanging on the fireplace. Nothing wrong with dogs, but that's all I had until the age of fifty. So identify with Hannah. And then she gets pregnant because our Lord is so kind, and she names her son Samuel, which means the Lord hears,

and after he's weaned. She takes him to the temple and dedicates him and says, this is going to be like his boarding school. And she says to the priest Eli, I want you to raise him up in the ways of God. I want my boy to love God. I want my boy to give his life for kingdom purposes. Well, Eli already had two sons, so he effectively adopts Samuel. But he's got two older sons, Hofney and Phineas. And these boys are players. These boys were raised in the

house of God. They were fluent in the ways of God, but they flouted the will of God because they were more interested in satisfying their own appetites than they were in honoring God or serving God or submitting to God's will. And so even though they were more than familiar with Torah or people who are trying to be fancy and pressure what dinner parties will say to Rah, but that's just the Hebrew version of the first five books of

the Old Testament. They were familiar with that. And in the Hebrew scriptures, God very specifically said here's the template I want you to apply to sacrifice this and he said, when people bring meat to church, to temples what they called it back then, when they bring meat to church as an offering, I want you all to use a three pronged fork. I've studied this, I can't prove it.

I'm almost sure that's where we get the vernacular pot luck supper, because people would put meat in a pot and then the priest had to poke a three pronged fork into the pot, and whatever they brought up was their protein for the day. And so Hafni and phineas the sons of Eli, the priest whose lineage goes back to Aaron, the first priest of Israel. So they had very, very impeccable blue blood when it comes to be in preased.

I mean, if these guys were living today, Mother Teresa and Billy Graham and Spurgeon and maybe Stephen Ferdick although he's not dead, would be on their twenty three ae me Tree. I mean, they just incredible legacy with regards to people who love God in their backstory. But they just ignored all that because they decide, we don't want

pot luck, we want to know what we're getting. So they set up a system in the parking lot of the temple and they begin accosting worshipers, so before they could even get to make their sacrifice, they'd be like, what you got in that yettie, Let me see give me those places, give me, give me that Kobe. And they set up a system where they took the meat before it was sacrificed. They took the choicest cuts. They had traggers set up in the parking lot. And that's

why God says they're worthless men. And he says, Eli, you are not teaching your sons what it is to bow their knees before me. He said, Samuel is base an orphan, and Samuel Samuel and patting himself on the back and dislocating his shoulder. Samuel is not impressed with himself. Samuel's impressed with me. So God says, Samuel's growing up while your boys are growing out. The word in Hebrew for weight is cavode, is the same word for honor

and for chubby. And God tells Eli, your sons are getting pretty thick, brother, because they're eating all that marbled me. And he goes on to chastise Eli. In verse twenty nine of chapter two, he says, why then do you scorn my sacrifices and my offerings that I commanded, and honor your sons above me by fattening yourself on the

choicest parts of every offering of my people Israel. Therefore, the Lord, the God of Israel, declares, I promised that your house, in the house of your father, should go in an out before me. But now the Lord declares, far be it from me. For those who honor me, I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father's house, so that there will not be an old man in

your house. Then, in distress, you will look with envious eye on all the prosperity that shall be bestowed on Israel, and there shall not be an old man in your house forever. The only one of you whom I shall not cut off from my altar shall be spared to weep his eyes out to grieve his heart. And all the descendants of your house shall die by the sword of men. And this shall come upon your two sons, Hoftni and Phineas shall be assigned to you. Both of them shall die on the same day. We go on

to read the Hofti Infinius. Their destructive appetites led them to the point they spiraled to the point that they were actually getting jiggy with women who were coming into volunteer at church. So they added sexual abuse to their gluttony. And these these were bad guys. Y'all their sons of one of the high priests of Israel. We tend to think that legacy. We equate legacy with effective leadership. Legacy without humility is destructive. Legacy without humility leads to entitlement,

which leads to lunacy. I love that Chris said, don't always give your kids what they want when they want it. I'm not going to talk about parenting. I've only been a parent for ten years and Missy is now a teenager, and so I can't say anything. I'm afraid I'll be struck by lightning because we're just starting to have a little emotion at our house, even though she's an amazing kid, much easier parent than I am deserving. But I'm not going to talk about parenting. I am going to talk

about our calling as christ followers. If you had the privilege, the undeserved privilege of having Christian parents. Goodness gracious, that does not mean that you're going to be a great leader. It means that you should every single day go thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, that I had legacy in my house, that I heard these stories when I was a kid. Without humility, legacy becomes entitlement. And that's what we're seeing all over culture.

I'm not going to name names, but how many businesses have you seen absolutely fall apart when the sun takes over and the dad led really, really well. The dad built it from the ground up, and then the sun takes over with his bentley and his whatever addiction, and within ten years they're no longer traded. And when another ten years they're belly of Now. That is sad when you open up Wall Street and read about those kind

of businesses. Sadder still are churches when you see a pasture who loves the Lord, and he's got a team of men and women who love the Lord, and there's honor and there's integrity in the house, and then you see a young leader come in. And I'm not against youth. Goodness gracious, I pray for a young man on ey harmony.

So I am not at all opposed to youth. But if you see a youth begin to lead and they get a platform before they have the scaffolding of humility, they will topple because legacy does not equate to leadership. Legacy and humility become leadership. We've got to be aware that we've all got clay feet. We've got to be aware that the hope doesn't rest on us, at rest on Jesus. Hafi and Phineas completely forget that they fly out the ways of God and the Paul Harvey part

of their story. The second half is heartbreakingly sad. Flip over a page to chapter four. A man of Benjamin ran from the battle line. This is verse Samuel fod verse twelve, with his clothes torn, dirt on his head. When he arrived, Eli was sitting on a seat by the road, watching for his heart trembled for the ark of God. Do you remember what the ark of God was? Young? Talkback, I'm not your pastor Joe, remember what it was? Remember Harrison fore chased it. Arc in Hebrew just means a box.

Fancy word. It just means a box. And the ark of God or sometimes you call it the ark of the Covenant. For the Israelites, these relights where God's chosen people. That just means God set his favor on this motley crew of people group, and he said, I'm gonna set my favor on y'all, and for the rest of time, people are gonna look at you as a symbol of the kind of intimacy that people can have with me. So I'm gonna set you apart. I'm I'm gonna call

you a theocracy. Fancy word. That just means he set his favor on them first, and then forever more people will go, oh, God actually wants a relationship with us. Previous to the theocracy of Israel, people thought God was the sun. That was the Roman Egyptian idea. They thought God was the sun. You can't commune with the sun, don't wear sunscreen, the sun will fry you. And so the Hebrew God, who began Gudeo Christianity, said I want actually real relationship with you. So Israel, I'm gonna set

you apart. I'm gonna commune with you, I'm gonna actually talk with you. There's gonna be boundaries for you to live a blessed, blessed life. They're not rules. I hate it when people call the Ten Commandments rules. They're like the the bumper reels at the bowling alley that keep your ball from going in the gutter. They're felt bumpers. I'm gonna give you these parameters because I love you, because you're my people. I'm gonna institute something called Sabbath.

That's not so you can't wear, you know, shorts on Sunday. That's not so you can't have belly rings that you show, preferably not in church unless you're really lean that. That's not a punitive decree. Sabbath was given to a group of people. All they knew was slavery. They've just come out of slavery. That's all they know. And God says, you're not going to understand this now. But I'm giving you something called Shabbat, and that means one day a week.

I want you to work. I want you to gather around the table, and I want you to eat carbs because kito is from the devil. And I want you to look at each other's eyes, and I want you to enjoy each other, and I want you to have fellowship and I want you to remember how much I love you. Sabbath Shabbat is about relationship. I'm a relational God. He's always been a relational God, and so he's told them from the very beginning, I love you, I'm for you.

I love you, I'm for you. Hofei and Phineas just said, Nah, we want to do it our own way, y'all. They knew those parameters, they knew who God, what, they had heard their daddy praying, and they just didn't care. They wanted to fill their own bellies. How often have you stopped in a moment? Or I better said, as the Holy Spirit stopped you and you went, what do I

want to do? He said, Actually, your will isn't quite as important as God's, and you went, it is today, and you are oppositionally defiant even though you know God, y'all. I am a grace girl through and through. I love the unmerited favor of God as the only reason I'm here. I am a grace piglet. I love the unmerited favor of God. But I'm also a word woman. And if you study scripture, God doesn't play. God does not allow

willful sin to continue indefinitely. There is a point where God brings a consequence, not because he's mean, but because he's merciful, and he doesn't want us to get so far removed from him that we can't find our way back. Hafni infineus goodness gracious. Of all people who knew God's will, they were the ones who shouldn't have wandered. Their father

was in the ministry, this man of Benjamin. He came back to Eli, and Eli was skeered because he didn't know what had happened to the ark of the Lord. The box that carried the relics that proved that God loved the Israelite. Y'all remember what those relics were in the big box, A jar of barbecue potato ships we would call it manna. And then the staff that had butted miraculously pieces of the Ten Commandments. Those were relics that proved. So they were like, hey, we weren't smoking

something medicinal. This really happened. He really gave these words to Moses on top of Mount Sinai. He was really with us in the wilderness. That ark of the Covenant was precious to them. I trade Bibles usually every ten years, but my dad wrote in this one, and my dad passed away in twenty twelve. This is precious to me. It's precious to me. I don't care if I lose my purse. I care if I lose my Bible. I care if I leave my Bible in an airport or a hotel. I'm the Ark of the Covenant. That was

that was the crown jewel of Israel. And so Eli is afraid because the Philistines, who were the arch enemy of Israel, they always wanted to steal the Ark of the Covenant. And when the man came into the city and told the news, all the city cried out. When Eli heard the sound of the outcry, he said, what is this uproar? Then the man hurried and came and told Eli. Now, Eli was ninety eight years old, and his eyes were set so that he could not see.

In other words, he was blind, but he can hear everything. And the man said to Eli, I am he who has come from the battle. I fled from the battle today. And he said, how did it go? My son? He who brought the news answered and said, Israel has fled before the Philistines. And there has also been a great defeat among the people. Your two sons also, Hoffni and Finishiness, are dead, and the Ark of God has been captured.

As soon as he mentioned the Ark of God, Eli fell over backward from his seat by the side of the gate, and his neck was broken and he died. For the man was old and heavy. He had judged Israel for forty years. Holly, how long have you and Stephen been leading Elevation? Sixteen so forty years double what you've plowed here. Forty years. Eli has been leading Israel. He's been their spiritual leader, and this is his epetah. He's standing on a chair waiting to hear about the

Ark of the Covenant. And because he's a chunk, because he's been eating all that meat he's not supposed to to eat, he's heavy, and he's so flustered when the messenger comes back and says, I'm so sorry, the ark has been stolen, and your son's both died in battle, and he remembers the prophecy of God saying your sons are not going to live. You're not going to have any old men in your family tree. He falls off the chair and breaks his neck. That's not Jerry Springer,

that's the Bible. That's called consequence. That's consequence of not going yes, sir, not my will but yours, which even Jesus said in the Garden of Guessimone, I don't know why we think we can shirk that anymore. And our Jesus is my bumper sticker society. I know, humility isn't trending because we're so preoccupied with my brand and my choice and my preference. Y'all. It never stop trending. In the scripture, God tells them over and over again, you're

my people. I love you. You're my people. I love you. You're my people. I love you. I made away for you. Be reconciled with me. Now I'm God. You're not. I'm God, and you're not. Humility. Humility is it is key to intimacy with Jesus. Phineas one of the Fat Dead Boys wives. She's pregnant and when she hears her husband has been killed in battle and she sees her father in law topple over and die, she's spontaneously gives birth. She has a spontaneous birth, and she's so traumatized by what has

happened that she doesn't immediately bond with the baby. The women around her have to care for the baby, and they say, but but you need to rejoice, You need to rejoice. You had a son. We know you lost your husband, you lost your friendly, but you had a son. And she says, name him ikabod kobad means where has the glory gone? One word in English is in glorious. The name cavode in Hebrew means glory, glory. Cavode also means chubby, juppy, same word for physical weight as for glory. Y'all.

The bottom line of this Jerry Springer tail is our shoulders are not shaped to carrie divine glory when we think it's all about us. If you aren't careful, it will crush you. Our shoulders are not shaped to carry God's glory. I worry sometimes in the culture we have that's so focused on platform and entertainment, I think, oh, Lord, protect them, because when we start thinking I'm the conduit for God's glory, I'm like, no, baby, you better get out of the way. You had better get out of

the way. Because God doesn't play with human pride. He just doesn't. And if human pride leads to an appetite, that says my stomach is more important than God's will. Y'ah, we are going to have some consequences that we haven't begun to fear. I'm usually not a fire and brimstone kind of girl. Again, I love the grace of God, but at that age I am. Sometimes I look at culture and I go, we have forgotten. We have forgotten the glory of God, and we're taking too much of

it for ourselves. I watched a documentary recently and it was about Dennis Raider, the BTK serial killer, and he had a killing spree over about twenty years. They know definitively he killed ten people, one of them a nine year old little boy. But the whole time he was doing these heinous things in the dark, he was a leader in his church, and they asked him about that duplicity, and he talked about pride. He just said, I wanted people to know who I was. I wanted people to

be impressed with me. I wanted to be a big man on campus. And I thought, we have no idea what our pride leads to. It leads to destruction. If I could hang my hat on one thing that I've had the privilege of witnessing in thirty plus years of

vocational ministry. Something that happened about fifteen years ago at an event in Orlando was a women's conference that wasn't in a stained glass window kind of church, thankfully, it was actually in a holiday and we walked into this holiday inn and it was leaders from all around the country, all women, and I had the underserved privilege to be one of the teachers at this event. And we were all in the pre event time, gripping and grinned in time.

And there was one woman I wanted to meet more than anybody else in the room because she was carrying a baby. And I've had baby fever since I was probably thirty years old. Didn't think I'd ever become a mom because my history romantically is a train wreck because I was just scared, slammed to death of intimacy, a lot of abuse in my background, So that was kind of It's kind of where my fault setting has often been set on abusive men and the good guys like y'all.

Y'all God protected y'all from me. That was just hot mess. Express. Anyway, I went up and I told this woman, I said, I want to meet you, but I need to confess my ulterior motive. I'm really coming over to meet your baby. And she grinned and she said, well, my name's Molly, and then she down and she said, and this is Elijah said his name was Elijah, and yeah, sometimes a mama says their child's name, and even with a child or a daddy, if the child is sleeping, they wake

up when they hear their parents' voice. When she said and this is Elijah, he just went he just woke up. And my first thought was, what a pumpkin, because he had this shock of just white hair. You know, sometimes Caucasian babies, no matter how much spit the mama uses, they just can't get their hair to lay down. He had this like little mohawk of white hair and then huge blue eyes, and I thought, oh, what a beautiful boy.

And then my second thought was, I wonder if this has been a difficult season for Molly, because it was very apparent Elijah had down syndrome. And she began to tell me your story. She's my age, much older, and she said they didn't plan on the third child. She has two grown kids. But she said, we trust God. We trust God as sovereign. We know that he wove our family to include Elijah. But then she said, but

it's it's been a tough season. She said she hadn't slept through the night since they had brought Elijah home from the hospital because he had a lot of medical issues and he wasn't sleeping much. They were struggling a little bit financially because of those medical issues, and she just said, it's been a tough season, and we trust the Lord, but it's been a hard season. And I was so grateful for her honesty, because I think sometimes our pride is just a smoke screen because we won't

say I'm struggling. I think some of the no I'm good is actually we're afraid if we go I'm not so good. We're afraid somebody will pull the switch string and the whole sweater will unravel. And y'all, that's not church, by the way, Church is I'm dying today, Will you take a corner of my mount and carry me to the roof and lower me to Jesus neediness? Neediness is actually a spiritual necessity. So some of y'all aren't prideful

because you're arrogant. You're prideful because you're just geared slammed to death. Somebody's going to look under the hood. So Molly said, it's been a tough season. She wasn't maudling, she ain't gone and on didn't air any dirty laundry. She's just honest. Well, then all of a sudden, the conference was over. It was a Friday Saturday conference. Saturday afternoon, I'm out in the foyer the hotel talking with some women.

Molly comes walking up and asked me if i'll sign a book for her, and I was like, oh, sure, I'd love to. Was I'm writing in her book. The women I'd been chatting with continue to converse, and I accidentally wrote one of the words they said out loud into Molly's book in black sharpie because I have a little bit of add and I was like, oh snap, because I've written this mistake word in her book in big black manship market and I didn't know how to fix it. And I said, oh man, I really liked her.

I so enjoyed the conversation last night. I've totally defaced her book. And then from seemingly out of nowhere, I remembered a verse that included the mistake word, and I was like, score. You know, I'll make this all like pinteresty and do it up around it, make it look like I meant to do that word in there, which is exactly what I did. Closed the book. We talked a minute more. I hugged her. She left it didn't think i'd ever see her again. We live four or

five states away. Maybe ten minutes later, I see her turn back in the lobby and start walking toward me, very appearent she's been crying. And she walked up and she went, Lisa, I just got to tell you what that verse you wrote in my book meant to me. And I said, oh, God, come it, because sometimes I get the addresses mixed up of verses, or sometimes I'll read like a really resonant bumper sticker and I'll quote that as a verse. I don't mean to, but you

know how, you'll just get things mixed up. And I thought, I probably, you know, put something there from People magazine or something. And she said, do you remember last night when I kind of told you our story about Elijah? And I said, oh, I remember everything, and she said, well, I didn't tell you the whole story. She said, it's been more than a hard season. She has been more than hard. She said, I feel like my prayers are

hitting the ceiling. I know the theology in my head, but emotionally, I feel like God is a million miles well, she said, I'm just really, really struggling. And she said, my husband told me I really needed to come to this event, but I didn't want to come. She said, I just couldn't do perky. I just couldn't do it. So she said, finally we made a deal and I told him I would come, but I wouldn't drive with

anybody else. I didn't want to make small talk. And she said, the whole way here, she's a four hour drive, and the whole way here, I've just been begging God for that. You know, sometimes you want that tangible thing, maybe Pastor Stevens preaching. You go, Oh my heavens, he's been reading my emails. He knows exactly where I am. You just want that that personal, personal message from the Lord. And she said the conference has been fine, but I

didn't get it. She said, quite frankly, when everything concluded, I was a little disappointed because I just didn't get that word. I felt like I needed to kind of carry you on. I feel like I'm at a knot at the end of my rope and I just needed she needed something to help me hang on. And I just didn't get it. And she said, I was going back up to my hotel room, just get my suitcase. And she said when I got on the elevator where there were three other women on the elevator, and I

didn't want to talk. I didn't want to make small talk. So she said, I just opened your books so they wouldn't say anything to me. I just pretended like I was reading. And she said, when I opened your book, I saw the verse you wrote in the front. And she said, I was so surprised that the verse you inscribed is the verse I chose when I was in campus crusade and college as my life verse. She said, Lis, I haven't thought of that verse in twenty five years.

She said, that was so long ago I forgot. I saw it again, that that was the verse I chose. I was just trying to look spiritual. I chose kind of an obscure verse. And she said, out of all the verses in the Bible you could have written in the front of my book, you wrote that verse. And she said through that I sensed God's presence on the elevator, going, Molly, I'm right here. Nothing in your life is hidden from me.

I'm right here. I see you. I've got you. She said, I just had to come back and say thank you. And I said, oh, Molly, it's a bigger miracle than you think. And I told her I was not being a good Bible teacher at that point. I wasn't being a sage prophet. All I was trying to do was cover up mistake. Truly. That was my only motive, was a cover up and mistake. And our God is so kind, and he's so good, and even in our pride, he

was so redemptive. But he used even my mistake as a bridge to embrace, to encourage this beloved, exhausted daughter of his. Y'all, it has never ever been about us. I could stand up here for a weekest done Sundays and tell you miracle after miracle after miracle that I've seen in thirty five years, and none of them are connected to anything I carry. It's usually my lack, and it's God's largess. It's where his mercy seeps in the gaps.

It's where his mercy covers it's where his kindness compensates. It's not all about us. We are not We are not containers of glory. We're calendars of grace. It leaks through us. It leaks through us. Can I ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes. Pastor Jonathan is gonna come up and close us. I feel like

an ant in this house. I've such a deep affection for you, and I'm older than most of you, and I wish I was smart enough to have concise words to say, don't ever think less of yourself, but be preoccupied with Jesus. Be preoccupied with Jesus. Our shoulders aren't shaped for glory, y'all. It does not matter how many followers you have. It does not matter who's singing your praises. It doesn't matter how many accolades are on your press release.

It doesn't matter. What matters is intimacy with Jesus. And if people clap lovely, it's fleeting. It won't carry you, and it doesn't honor God, whom we're preoccupied with our reputations and our appetite. Be preoccupied with Him. Well, Jesus. I pray for this house, this amazing anointed church that you love, that you blessed, that you poured favor on Lord.

I pray that their DNA would would not just be Lord, a house where people are safe, in a house where people hear your gospel, in a house where people praise Jesus. I pray humility would be in their DNA. That people would be slow to take offense and quick to say I'm sorry, That people would be quick to step out of the way, so that you would be the biggest thing in the room, so that you would be the name on everyone's tongue. Lord, thank you, thank you, thank

you that your mercy covers our weakness. Thank you, thank you, thank you that where we are weak, you are strong. Thank you, thank you, thank you that you don't turn your face from us when we're face down on the floor.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lord Jesus, that even though you know we're dust, you call us a royal priesthood, Lord imbue in this house humility, ingratitude, humility, ingratitude, that we would be quick to fall on our face and just say thank you, thank you again, thank you again. I remember, Jesus. I remember, I remember what you saved me from. I remember the days you saved me from myself and my appetite. Oh Lord Jesus, I want to be hungry for you, for I'm hungry for anything else.

Bless these people, Lord Jesus. Give them more of you, increase their hunger for you. We love you, Jesus. Thank you that you never remove yourself from us. We love you, Jesus. Well, if you enjoyed today's podcast, there are a couple things I'd love for you to do. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. You can also help us reach others by investing today at Elevationchurch dot org, slash gift and thanks again for joining us on the Elevation Podcast