How Long?

[00:00:00] Let's get our bible and turn to the 13th psalm. [00:00:05] The 13th psalm. Psalm 13. [00:00:10] Six brief verses. We will read psalm number 13. [00:00:24] Psalm 13, verse number one. The subtitle says to the chief musician, a psalm of David. [00:00:30] How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord, forever? [00:00:36] How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? [00:00:41] How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? [00:00:49] How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? [00:00:53] Consider and hear me, O Lord. My God, lighten mine eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest mine enemies say, I have prevailed against him. And those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved. [00:01:13] But I have trusted in thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord because he hath dealt bountifully with me. Let's pray together. [00:01:28] Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the time to meet together as your people, as the church of God. Thank you for those that are here and for those that listen in that can't be among us. Lord, I pray for your blessing upon them as well as they listen. [00:01:42] Lord, I pray that you would give a special blessing to Sister Judy as she's dealing with some health concerns as well. Lord, please help her and strengthen her. Lord, please bless those that are in the path of Hurricane Milton. And Lord, please just show your mercy even on people that don't know you. Yea, even people that hate you, please pour good upon them. And especially, Lord, protect your people that are in the path like brother Moyer and brother Erickson and others who are in the path of the hurricane. Lord, we feel and understand a lot better than maybe we did the danger and the suffering that comes from that because of Hurricane Helene so close to us. And we pray that your blessing and mercy would be upon those people and that you continue to provide for those that are in need. In western North Carolina, Lord, as we look in psalm 13, we pray that you would guide in our study. Please be our teacher. We ask in Jesus name. Amen. [00:02:49] Psalm number 13. I'll start with this. [00:02:52] I just want to say from the outset that we're only in psalm number 13. And of course, the psalms, there are different areas in the psalms, different groupings of psalms. So as you go through the psalms, there's different kind of sets of psalms covering different themes. As you go further into the psalms, this section at the beginning of the psalms is one that, as I said, we're only on psalm 13, and yet we are already beginning to repeat some things over and over. And over. And that's the thing, is, that is a good thing. And I think it's reflective, and I think it makes it. [00:03:37] It reminds us of how often we need the reminders of these repeated truths in the psalms. And so if I repeat myself with some of the things I've already said in previous psalms, that's because that's where our study has brought us, and that's what the text is repeating, some of these themes. So in verse number one, the Bible says, how long wilt thou forget me, o Lord? Forever. [00:04:04] How long wilt thou forget me, o Lord? Forever. [00:04:09] Now, what's interesting is we know from the start that God has not forgotten David like you read it. And this is where the doctrine of biblical inspiration is really important. Did you know not everything in the Bible, everything that is written in the Bible is true. What do you mean? Well, the Bible is an accurate representation of what is spoken, even if that thing which is spoken to is false, like when the devil speaks as an example, or in this case, when David speaks carelessly out of his anguish. And of course, we know the Book of Psalms is the book which is the heart of the Bible. And it is often David, the psalmist is expressing his heart and in his anguish and in his weariness, which we'll see in a second, David speaks carelessly and says a thing that is not actually true. God has not forgotten David, even though he says this. Pause here a second and go to Isaiah, chapter 49. I want to show you this verse just to kind of reiterate this truth. So we're all on the same page. [00:05:19] Isaiah 49, verse number 14. [00:05:31] I'll read verse 13 just to pick up. Get a running start on verse 14. [00:05:36] Isaiah 49, verse 13. The Bible says, sing, o heavens, and be joyful, o earth, and break forth into singing, o mountains. For the Lord hath comforted his people and will have mercy upon his afflicted. But Zion said, Zion being a reference to Jerusalem, but it is a. Is a name given to the people of Israel. But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. It's interesting because when I read this, my mind immediately went, when David says, how long? Essentially, how long wilt thou forget me? He says, how long will thou forget me, o Lord? Forever. And you know who I thought of? I thought of those in hell. [00:06:22] Now, we know that in absolute terms, as a matter of theology, God being omniscient, doesn't forget anything. But did you know that the word forget, it doesn't necessarily mean you forget something. Like I forgot something a minute ago on the calendar. Right. That was a slip of the mind. But did you know you can forget something on purpose? And sometimes God, as an act of the will, chooses to not remember something? [00:06:53] Well, I don't know. I don't know that I can say for certain. But you think about those that have died and gone to hell and will end up in the lake of fire. [00:07:04] Those that are cast away from God's presence forever. Now, does God ever forget them? As in he could not recall them to mind? Well, I don't think so. He's omniscient. He knows everything. He knows the end from the beginning. He knows the future, the past, the present. He knows all things. If there is something that can be known, he knows it. Yet. [00:07:25] Yet you think about being those people going back to. [00:07:30] We're not done in Isaiah, but just. It says, how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? Is that not true of those who perished? How God hides his face from them? So they go to a place where there is no light, a place of total darkness. Right. And torment where there's no comfort. Everything that is God is absent. Light, comfort, love, hope, joy, peace. All of that is gone. And in its place is torment, the lake of fire. And to think that God would just take a sinner, cast him behind his back and forget him. [00:08:14] What utter hopelessness when God chooses to just delete you from his memory. Now, again, I'm speaking in relative terms, you understand. But that's a terrible thing to think about, is it not? It's a terrible thing to think of. But yet it's true. [00:08:32] It's true. This matter of salvation is a gravely important matter. It matters where we go once this life is over. [00:08:44] But in Isaiah 49, he says in verse 15, can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget. Yet will I not forget thee. [00:09:05] The Lord promises he'll not forget his people. This is, of course, the reference to Israel, but no doubt extended to us as his people. He says this, behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. You think now I know. We think of the palms of the hands. In all likelihood, Christ was crucified through the wrists. We don't know that for certain, but archaeological records indicate that crucifixion was often done through the wrist. And you think, well, but the Bible says his hands were pierced. Well, what you have to understand is, in some languages, the hand or the arm is inclusive of everything from the shoulder down. [00:09:42] And so it is likely that Jesus was crucified through the wrist. But you think about this. The Lord says, I have graven you upon my hands, speaking, of course, of Israel. But notice the pain involved. [00:09:56] Now we automatically, we think of the hands, and we automatically think of the cross, right and rightly so. But whether it's actually a direct reference, this verse is not quoted in the New Testament, so we can't firmly say this is a reference to the cross. But, man, you think of graving something in your hand. There's bloodshed, there's a scar, there's a mark. And you know what that mark is? That mark is a reminder, the name of someone written on your hands. How can you forget? [00:10:29] How can you forget? I have a scar right here. And I have a scar right here. And I have a scar right here. And I have a scar on my right foot. And I have a scar on my left foot. [00:10:41] Coffee table when I was two, being stupid with a collapsing knife when I was in Cambodia trying to strip a huge wire, when I worked for an electrician with a knife, dropping a mirror when I was about four. [00:11:00] Putting my foot into the. Spoke of a bicycle when I was about five or six. [00:11:07] I've got other scars, too. I've got one on my knee when I was foot racing, my brother. You notice how I haven't forgotten any of that? And you know what? You've got scars, too. You haven't forgotten. [00:11:18] Helps you remember, don't it? You see what the Lord says? How can I forget you? [00:11:25] I have the scar to remind me. [00:11:28] And of course, we can't think of anything but our lord, right? The marks in his hands, in his feet, in his side, in his head. [00:11:38] Our Lord will never forget us, no matter. Again, this goes back to what we study in psalm ten. But no matter how we might perceive his distance or his aloofness to us, he will never forget us. [00:11:55] He always remembers us. That's the truth we see here. [00:11:59] Going back to psalm 13, you think about what David is saying. How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? Forever. How long will thou hide thy face from me? And here's the thing. What a dumb prayer. [00:12:14] Have you ever prayed something that you knew was contrary to the scripture? [00:12:22] In your frustration, in your distress, have you ever prayed something that's contrary to the scripture? [00:12:31] Lord, do you love me? [00:12:34] Right? [00:12:35] Where are you? You know the answer. [00:12:39] If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I ascend into heaven, behold, thou art there. You know, we know God is everywhere. We know God has not left us, and we know God loves us. But the thoughts that fly through our head. When we're under the pressure of trouble and anguish and pain. [00:12:58] I have prayed unbiblical prayers, right? [00:13:01] And I'm glad that God is kind to often overlook those things that we speak in our suffering. [00:13:13] He just kind of overlooks it. Ignores it. How many foolish prayers has God mercifully ignored? Unbiblical prayers that we have prayed? [00:13:24] So the first thing is God has forgotten. For those of you that like to take notes, Miss Brenda, I've tried to make an outline, okay? I've tried. I have numbers. She ought to be proud. She said. She told me. I don't think you mind me telling me. She told me. She tries to take notes. And anybody that hears me preaching knows that's hard to do when I preach. Because I don't even have, like, notes that make sense. So. All right. So number one, God is forgotten. All right. Number two is the question, how long? And what I would put here is persistent trials in verses one and two. You have the question, how long? Four times. [00:14:03] And here's what that indicates is this idea of. Here's a tense word for you, time dilation. What are you talking about? Time dilation. [00:14:14] What that means is, what I'm trying to say anyway, is that in certain circumstances, time seems to go quickly. And in other circumstances, it seems to go slowly. When you're having a good time, say you go. Say you go on a family trip, you know, and you go somewhere fun. An amusement park or something like that. It's like over like that. [00:14:37] But when you're suffering, it slows down, right? It slows down and it drags and drags and drags. [00:14:48] And the repetition. [00:14:51] Well, let me show you that actually, before we go any further. Look back at the book of Job. Chapter seven. Look at two places, if you would. Job seven and job 29. [00:15:05] Job seven and job 29. [00:15:15] Job speaking in verse seven. I'm sorry. Chapter seven, verse number. [00:15:21] Verse number three. [00:15:26] The Bible says this. Job says, so am I made to possess months depths of vanity. [00:15:37] And wearisome nights are appointed to me. Look at chapter 29. [00:15:42] And verse number one. [00:15:48] It says this. Moreover, Job continued his parable and said, oh, that I were as in months past. [00:15:55] As in the days when God preserved me. [00:15:59] See that? [00:16:01] How long had Job's trial lasted? In both cases, he describes it as months. So this idea we have in our mind. That job had a week long trial or something like that? No, it drug on and on. And on indicated by the words in our psalm. How long? How long? [00:16:23] We can endure a trial trouble in our life. [00:16:28] We can endure it if it comes all at once, briefly, and it's over. [00:16:35] I mean, we can endure almost anything. You know, you think of. You think of people that go through taser training in law enforcement, right? Brother Joseph, you ever been tased? He has. [00:16:47] Did it hurt? [00:16:50] You shook your head. I was like, man, brother Joseph is exceptional. It hurt. I actually want to be tased. I do want to be tased. [00:17:01] Huh? [00:17:04] Okay. Yes. Who would be tased if you had the opportunity? Okay. Me and Sam. All right. Would you do it again given the opportunity? Joseph, you know what I'm thinking? I'm sure being taste hurts everybody, even the strongest of men, the most macho of men. [00:17:29] They say it's the worst, it's the worst pain, but it only lasts for. Was it 3 seconds, 5 seconds? I think so. You think, well, I can endure almost anything for that long, right? [00:17:42] No, you don't think so. [00:17:45] But here's the problem with trials and troubles and distresses that we often face is they're not quick. [00:17:51] They drag. [00:17:55] And by dragging out, by the trial and the trouble dragging out, it grates upon us. And the strength that we had for that initial shock, right. Whenever that, you know, whatever the case, whatever that trial is or trouble is, the strength we had for that, because it drags out so long, our strength becomes spent. We become weary in the trial. [00:18:23] Brief exertion is one thing, but then you have our trial and our troubles become a marathon in which our strength is exhausted. [00:18:34] This fact is what makes it so hard is that it persists. [00:18:42] It's that it lasts so long, even a trial that is not all that difficult, if it lasts a long time, even something not all that difficult or serious can totally wear out our strength. [00:19:00] And so we ask the question, how long? [00:19:05] How long, lord? How long is this going to last? [00:19:12] It's the persistence of our trials. Number three, I want you to see. [00:19:23] Hold your place here and look over a few pages to psalm 27. [00:19:34] So remember we talked about the persistence of trials, which is the question, how long? [00:19:40] The answer to that question is in psalm 27, verse 13, when your strength has been exhausted because the distress, the trouble has lasted so long. Listen, and we used to talk about distress and trouble. This might be a problem with your health. [00:19:59] This might be a problem in your family. [00:20:02] This could be a financial problem. [00:20:04] It could be a personal problem. [00:20:07] It might be a problem with people. It might be a problem. [00:20:12] You know, there's a multitude might be a job problem, but whatever the trouble is, eventually our strength wears thin and we want to faint. Now, notice what verse 13 of chapter 27, psalm 27. I had fainted. [00:20:31] The trial lasted so long that I just. [00:20:36] My strength gave out. Now, what does that look like spiritually? You know what it looks like. Some people say, I quit. That's what it means. It means all of those things that you counted as duties and as responsibilities in your walk with the Lord. You give up. Listen, what that means in practical terms is when we faint. As a believer, that is the point at which we begin to sin. [00:21:06] When we no longer care to follow the Lord and obey his voice, we fainted. [00:21:16] This is the effect. [00:21:18] Our spiritual strength is exhausted because of the length of the trial. We say how long, and eventually we want to faint. But verse 13 says, I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. [00:21:35] Now notice what verse 14 says, right on the tails of what we just read. Wait on the Lord. [00:21:43] Be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. So I'll make this statement. [00:21:50] Waiting on the Lord is an act of faith. [00:21:56] That's what this says. 13 and 14. [00:21:58] Unless I had believed so. You have this picture. He's suffering. Whatever the trial, whatever the difficulty. And of course, I know I'm repeating. Listen, I already told you I will repeat. This is a repeated theme. The psalmist is suffering. [00:22:12] I'll get to a point about that in a minute. But he's going through another bout of suffering and he's wanting to faint. [00:22:20] His strength is failing. [00:22:23] He says, how long? And the Lord answers. [00:22:27] Believe me and wait upon me. To believe is to wait in those times of trouble, to wait for the Lord's deliverance. [00:22:37] Because notice what he says, verse 14. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage and he shall. What's that say? [00:22:45] What's that say? Strengthen thine heart. That's the inside of you. [00:22:51] Listen. The distress and the trouble might not be over, but in the midst of it, he gives you strength to wait. You see that? [00:23:01] Strength to wait. [00:23:05] Wait on the Lord. Which is an act of faith. So listen. You might say it like this. Hanging in there when you're under the pressure of distress and trouble is itself an act of faith in God. [00:23:18] Waiting on God to bring it to an end. [00:23:23] The moment you. The moment you throw in the towel. Which, interestingly enough, for those of you who like your boxing illusions, the boxer is never the one who throws in the towel. You know that we use that wrong all the time. If I'm fighting, if I'm in the fight, I'm not allowed to throw in the towel. The coach is. And last I checked, the lord's not throwing in towels for us. [00:23:43] So we have to believe him and wait upon him. And the promise is attached to that which says, he shall strengthen thine heart. He will enable us to wait. So the answer to that how long is wait upon the Lord? [00:24:01] The next thing, go back to psalm 13, if you would. [00:24:09] He says this. Verse two. How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord, my God, lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest mine enemies say, I have prevailed against him. And those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved. Now, this is a prayer, okay. Many of the psalms are prayers in the middle of the psalmist distress, which is, we've covered it before. Here it is again. As often as it pops up, we're going to have to cover it because it tells us something about ourselves. But verse five says, but I have trusted in thy mercy, my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord because he hath dealt bountifully with me. Do you know what you do not see in these six verses? [00:24:59] As far as we know, nowhere in these six verses indicates that the Lord has delivered him. [00:25:08] Even though the text does not say the Lord did deliver him, you still see verses five and six. You see that even though deliverance has not yet come, God has not yet come through. [00:25:22] In verse five and verse six, David says, I trusted in thy mercy, my heart shall rejoice. I will sing so. Even though he has not been delivered yet, and God has not yet come through for him, nevertheless, he still rejoices and sings. And that is all in the context of a prayer in which David unloaded his burden upon God. [00:25:54] So here's the truth I want you to take from this. I want to show you a few verses to demonstrate it. [00:26:01] The prayer of David itself was a source of encouragement so that he was able to rejoice in spite of the persistence, his circumstance. [00:26:17] In other words, when we're in distress, we pray and say, Lord, take this away. Lord, bring this to a conclusion. Lord, deliver us. Deliver me. That's what we want the Lord to deliver us. And we think the only way that God can strengthen and help us is by delivering us. But that's not true. [00:26:34] David apparently has not yet been delivered, and yet at the end he is rejoicing, maybe as if he has been delivered. So that tells us that when we take our, when we take our burden to the Lord, we take the distress and the trouble that we are experiencing, and we yield it to God. We offer it to God. We give it to God in a prayer of faith. [00:27:02] The effect of the prayer before deliverance ever comes. [00:27:07] The effect of the prayer to the righteous is that God uses that. [00:27:16] God uses that prayer. It's not just a prayer you pray, but that offering and casting that burden upon God, that very thing, is the thing the Lord uses to sustain us even though we haven't been delivered yet. [00:27:33] The prayer is not just to be delivered, but to sustain us within the trouble and to give us joy despite of the trouble. Now think about what Nehemiah 810 says. Nehemiah 810 says, the joy of the Lord is your strength. Right? I'm not going to go into the context of that. But the principle, the truth is that. So when you have trouble and a burden, you take that thing to God and you give it to God. And you might have to do it many times. You might have to do it every day. You might have to do multiple times a day, because you know how fickle we are. We'll see that in a minute. But when we take it to God, God by us, taking it to him will give us joy. [00:28:10] This is the answer. [00:28:12] Listen. This is the answer. And the joy gives us strength and sustains us until he delivers us. [00:28:24] See, our danger. The danger we have is when we're suffering is to clam up and just sulk and not take it to God. But taking it to God is the thing that God uses to bring us joy in the midst of it, which then turns into strength, which sustains us until there is deliverance. [00:28:49] So we can say the joy that God gives by means of the very prayer that we in which we cast our burden upon him is the strength needed to endure the trouble. [00:29:02] Look at psalm 55, psalm 55. [00:29:10] I want you to see this truth. [00:29:17] Psalm 55, verse number 22 says this, cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee. [00:29:33] Notice that it does not say the burden will be lifted. It says he will sustain you. [00:29:41] See that he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Go to the New Testament if you would, to Philippians chapter number four. [00:29:52] Philippians, chapter four. [00:30:02] Look at Philippians four, number six. [00:30:10] In psalm 55, it says, cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee. Philippians four six says, this. Be careful for nothing anxiety, right? But in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. Now, verse six. All it says is you tell God about it. [00:30:31] Cast your burden upon the Lord. Right? [00:30:35] Verse seven. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. There's no mention of God answering the prayer. [00:30:46] That's the trick. It's not the Lord. Listen, the Lord is not a. I was gonna say a slot machine, but that's not the right one. A gumball machine or vending machine. Slot machine. [00:30:58] It's not like you put it in. And because you pray, God's going to deliver you immediately. No, that kind of name it and claim it stuff is not biblical. That's not what these verses say. These verses say, cast it upon the Lord. That's an act of faith, right? You're casting upon him. You're waiting on him to deliver you. And as a result of you doing that, he gives you peace and he gives you joy and he sustains you. And the problem is still there. [00:31:23] It hasn't been taken away yet. [00:31:27] It enables you to wait until it's taken away. [00:31:31] But see, what we want to do is, and I'm the first one to raise my hand here, we want the problem to go away. [00:31:38] We want the trouble to go away. [00:31:41] And the Lord will deliver you. One way or another, he will deliver us from every evil work, right? But we want the trouble to go away. [00:31:50] And the Lord wants to demonstrate his power to sustain you within it. [00:31:55] I mean, this was perfectly illustrated in all the times that the disciples crossed the sea of Galilee, right? Over and over and over and over and over. [00:32:08] Go back to psalm 13, if you would. [00:32:12] So number four, if you're taking notes, is help received from taking the matter to the Lord. [00:32:18] Help receive from taking the matter to the Lord. Number five. [00:32:24] The fickleness of God's people. [00:32:27] Look at verse number one and verse number two. How long wilt thou forget me, o Lord? Forever. How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall mine enemy be exalted? Now you three. That's one verse four, two verses, three verses later. But I have trusted in thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing because he hath dealt, bound and flew with me. In three verses span, he flipped. [00:32:58] How quickly David's perspective changed. He goes from questioning God and saying stupid things that aren't true. And he knew weren't true. Theologically, he knew weren't true to God. You've dealt bountifully with me. So at the beginning he's saying, God, you've forgotten me. [00:33:17] And like four verses later, he's saying, lord, you're great. You're wonderful to me. What in the world happened? [00:33:26] Did God change his mind in working with David in five verses? No. [00:33:34] But when we see this, we see our own fickleness. [00:33:40] Our up and down, in and out are encouraged, discouraged. [00:33:47] The heights of. The heights of joy, the depths of despair. This is us swinging wildly back and forth. How many of you can identify with these kinds of. [00:34:00] This is the heart of the Bible, right? This is the human condition, the human heart, the human experience. [00:34:07] I'm just. I'm thankful that the Lord, he gave us an example of that. Not only one, in fact, this is a pattern. Point number six deals with the pattern, but this is a pattern in psalms. It starts one way, it ends in a completely different way, but that is us. One day we wake up and we're happy and jovial, and the next day we don't want to get out of bed. That is us. [00:34:31] We are not consistent. [00:34:34] One thing we can do as we grow in Christ, and I don't think it ever gets better as long as we're in this flesh, but as we grow in Christ, is to become a little more stable, so we're not subject to these wild swings. [00:34:47] But David was, and it's preserved in scripture for a reason, because this is the way we are. [00:34:55] Maybe. [00:34:56] Anyway, let's go to number six and we'll be done. [00:35:00] Number six is just the pattern. [00:35:03] There is a pattern in the psalms that we see in this psalm, which is. [00:35:11] Starts out really badly. David's having a rough time, and by the end things are going good and we know the difference. What changed? What changed is David cast his burden upon the Lord, and the Lord gave him joy because he did that and the joy sustained him. And he has a totally different view of the same problem, even though the problem hasn't changed. [00:35:34] But this pattern demonstrates the ups and downs that we experience in our own walk with the Lord. That there are high times and there are low times and oftentimes the high times and the low times are set right next to each other. And we ride these waves constantly, right? We do. [00:35:58] So what should we learn from this pattern about ourselves? [00:36:07] I mean, I hesitate to say this just because it sounds so stupid, but we can give ourselves, give ourselves a little break. [00:36:16] We ought to be stable. Right. We ought to be consistent. We ought to exercise faith all the time. But I, when we don't, at least we can look back at the psalm and we can say, well, I guess I'm in good company. Right. David, a man of great faith and love for God, rode these waves like I have. And so maybe I have hope that maybe God's still going to be faithful. But the second thing is this, let's judge each other real gently, right? [00:36:48] Judge each other real gently because we are all subject to the ups and downs, the ins and outs, the joys and the despairs. [00:37:01] We all do it. [00:37:03] So when we meet someone, when you meet a brother or sister in Christ at church and they're out of sorts, I'm sometimes out of sorts and so are you. Right? I'm sometimes low and sometimes I'm high and I'm kind of a moody person. That's kind of my nature. [00:37:25] But let us just, let us remember that, that we're all riding these waves sometimes and just be slow to, to take things to heart, slow to judge and slow to react because we're all going to have bad times and good times. And sometimes we say things and we're not paying attention and not being wise with our words. And sometimes we're distressed about something and you might not know anything about it, but let's just give each other a long measure of grace. Right. [00:38:06] This is a new testament principle as well. But this pattern of ups and downs reminds us that we could all use gentility. Right. When we deal with one another and assume, assume in love, that person's probably having a hard time. [00:38:26] Maybe they're going through the trough of the wave rather than the crest. [00:38:32] It's a good reminder to us. [00:38:35] That's what some of these patterns teach. Let's pray together.