Reflection, Encouragement, and Help

Composed Sunday, 1/12/2025 - based on Sam Emadi's sermon from 1/12/2025 

Sunday morning’s sermon was greatly encouraging and exhorting to me as throughout my life and even recently, I have had different period of overwhelming feelings of sadness and sorrow in my soul, feeling and believing that God is absent and in various circumstances in my life whether in conflict, sickness, or death. And the Lord has greatly used both his Word and the church to encourage, exhort, strengthen, and expose my heart in many ways through reminding and massaging scripture and praying God’s very words after him. 

Emotions can feel all consuming, much like a tidal riptide knocking all your breath out of you and pulling you under the water, or as though these emotions are uncontrollable, and as though there is no possibility of mastery, like a fire ravaging a brittle, dry forrest of trees. And yet, by his Spirit illumining his Word and giving us ears to see, training our hearts how to sing to him and to praise him, the Lord can both teach us to be honest and how to think rightly, how we are loved by him and how to love rightly. Because of Jesus Christ we have forgiveness by his blood and he has given us all the instruction and stories and history and songs necessary by which we are comforted and changed and trained and equipped in his Word. He has given us himself. And I am continually humbled by how much change I still need and that we have such a patience, kind, humble God who is willing, able, and doing just that- all that he has promised. 

I wanted to share how the sermon ministered to me to the church as an encouragement to you of the Lord's good work that he is doing in all of us. But, I also wanted to share because if you're wanting to pursue the kind of honesty in sorrow and turning to God that Psalm 13 shows more in your own life, I would love for you to consider talking with me or others. I'm toward the end of my formal training in biblical counseling, and I'm looking to be of help to anyone in the church who’s looking to find the words for your experience, struggles, responses, and looking together to frame them according to the truth of God’s word together. I’d be happy to talk about that and I will send an email some more info after you look at and fill out this form but most importantly, I wanted to encourage you that we are able to be forgiven by Jesus Christ’s atonement, that he is always with us, and he will make us more like Him.