Hi, this is Joel in Victoria. Thanks for listening to our podcast and thanks for supporting the ministry.

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God bless you. Always our joy to come into your homes. We love you. We know God has great things in store. If you're in our area, I hope you'll stop by and be a part of one of our services.

I promise you it will make you feel right at home, but thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks again for coming out today.

I like to start with something funny and I heard about this husband and wife. They'd been arguing and now they were given each other the silent treatment.

The man had to catch a flight early the next day and he needed his wife to wake him up at five in the morning.

Not wanting to break the silence, he wrote a note and put it on her side of the bed that said, please wake me up at five.

The next morning he got up at eight. He missed his flight. He was so upset. He went in to ask why she didn't wake him up and he noticed a piece of paper on his side of the bed.

He opened it up, it said, get up. It's five.

All right, hold up your Bible. Say it like you mean it. This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do.

Today I will be taught the word of God. I boldly confess my mind is alert my heart is receptive. I will never be the same in Jesus name. God bless you.

I want to talk to you today about how God works all things for our good.

And every person goes through disappointments and things that don't seem to make sense. It's easy to get discouraged and think, why did this happen to me?

Why did my love one not make it? Why did this person treat me wrong? Why did I get laid off? Had a man recently tell me how he lost his job after so many years and he just didn't understand it.

He said, Joel, I gave that company my best. It was always there on time. I was loyal. It's just not right.

We have to understand even though life is not always fair, God is fair. And he promises in Romans 8, 28 that all things work together for our good.

I believe the key word is together. In other words, you cannot isolate one part of your life and say, well, this is not good. It's not good that I got laid off. It's not good that my child got sick.

It's not good that my relationship didn't work out. Yes, that's true, but that's just one part of your life. God can see the big picture. That disappointment is not the end.

Your life doesn't stop because of one setback. That's simply one piece of your puzzle. There's another piece coming that's going to connect it all. It's going to work together for your good.

My children and I used to love to make chocolate chip cookies. We'd been doing it so long since they were two or three years old. We didn't even have to look at the directions anymore. We knew exactly what they took.

So Jonathan would go get the brown sugar and the eggs and Alexander would grab the flour, the bacon soda, the vanilla. I'd get the bowls and the mixer.

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