Jo: Life has circumstances and circumstances that can be storms in our lives. 

How can we draw close to God through circumstances in our lives -- her journey of how she has surrendered to God and allowed these circumstances to draw her closer to God. 

(Jo asks Brittney to introduce herself.) 

Brittney: I'm married, mother of four. I grew up in the church. I've been active in the church, and I'm raising our children to be the same way. I stay at home with them. 

Jo: Growing up in the church, how did that prepare you for marriage and motherhood?

Brittney: Knowing that it was all designed by God -- He created our family and glorify Him in that. 

Jo: What does [glorify God] mean to you? And what does that look like in your home now? 

Brittney: How I raise the children every day -- getting up, getting them ready for school, we pray together; we talk about our day; we put on the armor of God every morning to prepare for the day -- that no matter what we go through during that day, eve...

We see a lot of restlessness, anxiousness, uncertainty, despair. Our hearts remain fundamentally unsettled, left longing. Why is that? I maintain that it's because we have totally misunderstood what life is actually all about. 

From what we know in Genesis, we know that God looked out into the void and spoke creation into existence. What was He after? Was He performing a powerful, cosmetic demonstration? No. He was designing something very specific, very creative to Him. God desired a relationship. He was creating all of this to be in a relationship with His created beings that would reflect Him. 

We were created in the image of God. 

Life requires a relationship with the Creator to function because Himself is life. He's the source of our life. 

Satan doesn't just simply want to inconvenience your life. He wants to sever your relationship with God. 

• Example of Job

The enemy uses independence and isolation and to convince you that you can govern your own existence. It's an amb...

Jo: The demands of family life are constant. 

The Word is not getting through. It's there, but it's not getting through. And, we wonder: How in the world do we cultivate a deep spiritual life, when we can barely find five minutes. 

Notice what the tree does. The fruit is visible. The branches they reach outward. The roots that feed every single leaf, they are completely unseen, buried deep underneath the surface of the soil. 

Spiritual depth in the Christian home does not come from the grand, theatrical gestures. ... It's built on the hidden, quiet, faithful everyday moments.

What life practically looks like when we remain in Christ -- How do you keep your family rooted in truth? How do you ensure that the seed of the Word is not choked out by the cares and circumstances of life? How do you embrace the high calling of motherhood, grandmotherhood? Even in the small things to be faithful one step at a time

Sydney: What does it look like to stay abiding in the everyday, with the mess...

Looking around, our nation needs healing. We need to be made whole again. The enemy always works to divide. The answer for division is unity. But God wants to heal us. 

Today, I want to talk with you about healing and the point where true healing begins -- for an individual, for a nation -- fellowship. The pathway to healing is through fellowship. 

I'm talking about a gathering at the church where we're broken on the altar and we see our hearts the way God sees us -- the way God saw us when He allowed Jesus, His Son, to go to the cross for our transgressions. 

How does that healing take place? And how do we get there through fellowship?

• Transgressions is for outright rebellion against God. 
• Stripes or wounds is translated fellowship.
  • By His fellowship, we are healed. By coming into fellowship with Jesus, it will bring healing. 

So how do we heal a nation? How do we put us back together?

Our nation must come back into fellowship With God. We were (are) to keep the chur...

How do you handle frustrating moment or frustrating people that steal your joy? And in the middle of that frustration, you sin. You respond in a way that you know is not honoring to God. 

Three steps to victory over these encounters

1) Intentionally stop and take a deep breath

God is looking at us. He wants us to overcome these moments. He wants us to walk with such joy in our lives that it's an overflowing testimony of the goodness of God. 

Be intentional, when you feel the temptation coming on or in the midst of the struggle, stop what you're doing and take a deep breath. 

2) Acknowledge what's really going on -- what the Holy Spirit is speaking to you at the moment. Call it whatever God calls it. Agree with God. Confess it. 

It may be someone else that started it. It may be something else out of your control. Your response to it -- that's what you want to take responsibility for. That's what you want as the leading of the Holy Spirit. That's what you want to confess.

"God, th...

Jo: Today, I want to offer you some hope. Take your circumstances and see them as an opportunity for purpose, see them as divine missions. 

Entrust whatever we're walking through to Father God. 

It's a trick of the enemy to make us look around at other people's relationships, to make us feel like we're the only one walking through something heavy. 

As Christians, the power of God is within us. 

...How you've seen God through some of the opportunities in your family as you pray for your family to turn them into an opportunity for joy

Colleen: You've taught me, through discipleship, how to pray for my family using the Word, using the Word as my weapon, using prayer, using fasting to fight against the enemy for my family. 

I took that guilt on and condemnation. But, in discipleship, I was set free from that. When you have those strongholds on you, you don't have any power. Being set free enabled me to fight for my family. 

My purpose as the Lord has told me: They are my cross to be...

Jo: Have you ever stood at the crossroads and wondered what is the next step? That next step will change everything about me. 

You've prayed, asked God, brought God into the matter, talked to friends you can trust. What if that silence is a sign? How do you know?

Jesus Himself says: He who has ears to hear let him hear. Not just with our ears but hear with our heart and be ready to obey. 

Today, we're going to unpack the path of hearing God's Word the way Jesus intended us to heart it, distinguishing between the hearing and the listening, explore why listening isn't passive. 

We want to equip you to recognize God's voice and respond in faith. 

Tracey: Are you listening? Obedience activates listening. 

"I trust You but I don't always trust me." 

"I want You to show me how to listen. Teach me what this means."

Samuel came with his yes available before he knew what the assignment was.

I rush in and rush out. I'm not there to listen.  

We enter in relationship with Jesus and beco...

Jo: Once you drop those children off, that sudden quietness from the home, in the car -- it can either be a moment of peaceful stewardship or the beginning of a chaotic season that pulls your heart away from what really matters most. And, we're standing on the threshold of a new school year. We have the divine opportunity to stop and ask ourselves: Are we fitting a new school year into the godly values that we established back at our home or are we fitting our home into the new school year schedule and all the commands that are already coming at us? Also ask: Are our routines built to serve the Kingdom of God or are we simply just running on a treadmill of the world? 

What's God's voice saying to us?

We want your calendars, your life to be honoring that covenant, love relationship with the Lord. It's out of that love relationship that everything in your life should flow -- this school year, our calendars are the same way. And, you want to build your home that reflects and produces th...

I want to give you some hope and I want to give you some Scriptures to pray the Word of God and the promises of God that perhaps will help you as you walk through these hard times. 

God wants us to walk and live a life everyday that exalts Him, looks to Him, leans on Him. How do we do that when there's so much heaviness around us? Take off that heaviness and put on a garment of praise. 

Isaiah 61:3 - To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

Begin to walk that promise as if (God has) already manifested it in your presence. 

God was saying: If you really believe My promise, believe what I have said to you about this situation, as you have been praying it and sharing it, go live it. 

Live the joy of God's promises. 

As we begin to pray for our family members who are struggling, o...

There truly is a war going on today for the heart and soul of our teenagers and our young adults. As Christian parents, we no longer have the pleasure to just sit and let time pass us by. We have to get active, intentional about the teaching and living by example. 

Mattie Claire Jones is going to tell her testimony -- how her parents were very intentional as she was a teenager and now a young adult to point her to Christ, to show her how to get into life and they lived that example for her. 

(The difference they made in your life growing up that set the pace and the pattern for where you're headed in your life today.) 

Jo: I don't know a parent or grandparent that's not on their knees praying for the heart and soul of their children and grandchildren. 

By knowing your parents, I see some of the things they did that made an impact on your life and the decisions you're making for life today. One of the biggest things is that they recognized their responsibility to give unconditional ...