Before I pray and ask God's help with Isaiah chapter 12, I want to just give another verse and make it the banner over the celebration of the 10th anniversary of Desire and God Community Church.

And this came to me yesterday as something that was fitting because of the way it started in

2002 with Bethlehem and then the way I heard testimonies being given yesterday.

Psalm 126, verse 6, goes like this,

He who goes forth weeping, bearing his seed for sewing,

will come home with shouts of joy bearing his sheaves with him.

So farmers can get this. It's springtime, sewing time. You must sew, but you are weeping.

The family is about to blow to smithereens, perhaps. Marriage is painful.

The children are not where you want them to be, the health is not where it needs

to be, and if you don't sew your seeds you don't eat. So you sew.

He you sew. He who goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sewing, fall will come. The rains will intervene. God will do his work and the crops will come up and you will go get them. The sheaves will be brought

home and you will shout for joy. That's ministry. That's ministry.

2002 was not the highest season for me, my family. I was just doing the math this morning trying

to figure out how old all my boys were. I raised four boys. It wasn't the greatest of seasons.

Plenty of reasons to weep in 2002

when I preached planting a passion.

Because the church was full, we didn't know what to do, that's another aspect of ministry, you didn't know what to do.

That's another aspect of ministry, you don't know what to do.

You don't know how to manage God's blessing or manage the lack of seeming blessing.

Then you just try to do the next thing, weeping. Not everybody sees the

weeping and then the seeds have been sown and there it went, the sermon went.

I had no idea.

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