106. Freedom From Depression Part 1

I don't remember all the details of the conversation. My wife and I were sitting together. It was evening time. We had this corner in our apartment that we called the nook. It was between the dining room and the kitchen. It had enough space to fit two armchairs, table between them with a lamp. We spent a lot of time in that nook together with many conversations. This one stands out to me because it was the first meaningful conversation we had about my sadness. My wife mentioned noticing some emotional disconnect in me. I was attempting to explain it like when you fall asleep on your arm funny and it falls asleep. You sit up and you try to reach for a glass of water with that arm. You look at the glass and you look at your arm. But as much as you want to reach out, there's a disconnect with your intention to reach out and your arm's ability to actually do it. And that's how I felt in my emotional life. I'd wanted to connect and reach out emotionally, but something inside me was asleep or disconnected. Something had changed. It wasn't surprising to my wife that I had been sad. There was challenging circumstances at church. There was conflict, confusion. And for the first real time in my life, I'd experienced being slandered and lied about. Where I had lost my reputation with people that I cared for. I was exhausted. I was regularly in meetings until midnight trying to work through really tough relational dynamics. I lost a lot of confidence in myself. I didn't know which way was up, which way was down during much of that season. It lasted about 18 months. But I began to notice that I wasn't just sad or discouraged about my circumstances. Something was different. There was a darkness that had set in. My sorrow and discouragement began to wrap around me and squeeze. It was hard not to experience my entire reality. My family, work, rest, prayers through the filter of sadness and sorrow. The flesh can bear only a certain number of wounds and no more, says Charles Spurgeon. But the soul can bleed in 10,000 ways and die over and over again each hour. In other words, while depression may have been triggered by circumstances, it wasn't just discouraging circumstances that kept me low. Depression was something that I had never experienced. I'd always had the ability to see around the corner, to speak truth into circumstances, and trust either in God or, sinfully, in myself to make it through. But now it was as if I had emotional blinders on that didn't allow me to see or feel much of anything else but my sorrow. My inner life seemed to reject the word of encouragement like a body that vomits up medicine. I could hold on to hope like I could hold on to smoke with my hands. But the more I opened up and talked about it, the more I heard from other pastors and colleagues that they had never experienced depression until they went into pastoral ministry or engaged some significant conflict or discouragement in their work. I wasn't alone. What was remarkable was that while words of truth and encouragement often felt as effective as cough syrup for throat cancer, the abiding presence of a fellow sufferer was like the hand of God over my wounds. It helped enlarge my scope of reality. Depression was like being in a confusing, blindly dark cavern. But the presence of someone who could give witness to my pain was like a voice in the dark, awakening some hope that there may be some direction out. I was a pastor and depressed. Of course, depression doesn't just hit pastors, and not all pastors will experience depression. But there were some unique challenges to being a spiritual leader and guide, while also feeling weakened by my emotional life. But I didn't have many categories for it. How could I help others if I felt helpless? How could I preach the fruit of Christian joy when it had literally been months since I had experienced it for myself? Shame, guilt, and fear seemed to be taking their turns swinging at me. Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. I found my freedom in you. I found a joy I can't lose. And thank God it's true. You wrapped your arms around me. And heaven broke through. From the moment you found me, I found my freedom in you. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now, here are your hosts, James Seyfried and Brett Martin. Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. Thanks for being with us today. And our subject today is depression. And I've got some thoughts here for you. Some statistics that I wanted to read. And then, James, once I read through this, I'll turn it over to you. But, you know, and by the way, that article at the beginning was by John Stark. He's the pastor preaching at Apostles Church in New York City and Manhattan. But, you know, more than 350 people in the world, 350 million people in the world are affected by depression, according to the World Health Organization. And, James, I don't know if you know this, but women are impacted at twice the rate of men. You know, men are more likely to turn to alcohol and substance abuse than women when they are depressed because they're less likely to talk about how they feel with their family and friends. Because as men, we like to bury those feelings by, you know, kind of working harder, putting our head down. And we're less likely to talk about our feelings. You know, joy and sadness are a part of human emotions. And, you know, they're very daily and very common in daily life. So, I said that to say that not every sadness is a sign of depression, is a sign of clinical depression. For example, sadness may occur in response to a life crisis, a failure, a disappointment. And that normal sadness does not impair daily activities. But when it comes to clinical or major depression, on the other hand, it's essentially a painful emotional state that brings with it a subjective feeling of persistent loss or interest accompanied by anxiety and sadness. So, this real major depression in your life, it's going to affect your life. It's going to affect your ability to function. It's quite a disturbance in somebody's life. It brings about a profound sense of guilt, of hopelessness, helplessness. In major depression, there's a feeling of emptiness and despair, which we can kind of talk about the general symptoms of depression, which are a feeling of sadness and hopelessness. And that's kind of defined as a belief that there's no way to stop feeling stressed out. There's no way to stop feeling sad. There's no end in sight. Moodiness is another symptom, and that's an irritability or feelings of anger and sadness for like weeks at a time. Other symptoms are eating disturbances, which is eating too much or too little. Sleep disturbances, which are nightmares, insomnia, hypersomnia, changes in social life. Stop spending time with your friends, refuse phone calls, chemical abuse, loss of interest in pleasurable activities. Now, according to the World Health Organization, depression is now the fourth leading cause of disability in the world. And, you know, I wanted to give a biblical example of what depression feels like, you know, since we're talking on that subject. And the biblical example that I wanted to bring up today was Lamentations. It's actually Jeremiah. A little bit of backstory. You've got Jeremiah. Jeremiah grew up under one of the greatest kings that lived, Josiah. And, you know, everything was going well. But then everything kind of started going downhill for Jeremiah. And he witnessed his whole nation be torn apart and ripped away. And all his family and friends were ripped away from him. And then Solomon's temple, which stood for 400 years, which was the greatest monument to God on earth that man had ever created, was just torn down. And that put Jeremiah in this depression. And I'm going to read a few verses from Lamentations chapter 3. And if you listen, this is what depression feels like. So Lamentations chapter 3, hear a few verses from that. Jeremiah says, I am the man who has seen affliction because of the rod of his wrath. He has driven me and made me walk in darkness and not in light. He has besieged and encompassed me with bitterness and hardship. In dark places he has made me dwell, like those who have long been dead. He has walled me in so that I cannot go out. He has made my chain heavy. Even when I cry out and call for help, he shuts out my prayer. My soul has been rejected from peace. I have forgotten happiness. So I say my strength has perished and so has my hope from the Lord. Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. You know, if that's not just a biblical example of what depression feels like. And, you know, I've been depressed before. And this is speaking to everybody who's been there, who's felt that, who's been in that deep, dark pit of despair and depression and hopelessness and not seeing a way out. And this is the situation that we want to speak to in these next few episodes. We want to speak into this space of somebody who's dealing with this type of depression. Absolutely. And, you know, when we hit this topic of depression, there's a reason why we didn't do our normal opening because it is a difficult topic. It's a topic that is hard for people to talk about. We know that if you haven't suffered depression and you're listening to this, you know of someone personally to you that has. And so the purpose of today and next week's episode is to look at the different stages of depression, the biblical responses to that stages of depression, and some biblical examples of this thought of depression. Because whether you have dealt with depression or whether you know someone, these are areas and things that you're going to need some Bible verses, some scripture that's going to be applicable for you and are going to be able to help other people. And so that opening, that cold opening that we played, man, it shook me a little bit when I listened to it because I haven't necessarily been to that point. But if I were to look back on my life, probably for me as a pastor, COVID would have been that moment for me. You know, the uncertainty, what's going on, the uncertainty of our job, our ministry, our calling, you know, what's going to happen in the future? Churches are shutting down. Are we ever going to open up? It was just unending side of what's going to happen, the unknown. And it did take me to some places that I didn't like in my mental state. But in other times, man, it took me to places that, I mean, I got to see God work and glorify God in some ways that I never thought would be possible. So there was that give and take for me in that moment. But we're going to take some excerpts today from a guy that I came across. He's the chair of the Expository Counseling Training Center. His name is Nicholas Ellen. And he put a great article out on working through categories of depression. And so there's six different categories we're going to look at. We're going to read some scripture, give some responses, and then give some closing remarks as well, some helps as well. And so let's talk through the first one here today. And the first one is this, common depression. And I'm going to read one verse of scripture, Proverbs 13, 12. And it says this, Hope deferred, make it the heart. This is simply stated like this, So this is a common thing that we can go through. We've got a grandparent, a mom or dad that passes away, a best friend. Depression comes in and we don't know what to do. We go into this disappointments of life. We get let go of a job or, you know, a best friend breaks a friendship off. You know, there's many different things. And, and Brett, I don't know if it's been like this for you, but for me, when it comes to leaving the IFB and legalism, there have been really good friends that I had that said, hey, you're an apostate. I can no longer be your friend. And that is a disappointment in life. Because these are friends that guys that I thought, man, these are going to be like lifelong friends that we're going to do life, ride or die. Like these are guys that we're going to go to, to, to the ends of the earth with. And all of a sudden disappointment comes and heartache comes. And these are just common things that happen in life that can cause us to go into this depression. One of the sadnesses of hearts results in unmet expectations. Maybe you were expecting something to happen. And because that didn't happen, there is sadness and sorrow that happens. One of the sadnesses of the heart is a result of extreme tragedy in our lives, loss of someone, a death. And then another one is the death of someone that we were attached to, but yet not corresponding with the sin or the sadness that happens. And it comes to the later days. So, Brett, what's the response that we can have when common depression comes? Depression happens in our life. This is this common depression. This isn't like a spiraling out of control, just a common depression. How do we, what's our response to that? You know, I've experienced this a lot too, especially in like, you're right about COVID. You know, even just looking at social media, looking at the Facebook posts, looking at the numbers every day going up and up. I mean, this was, my parents at the time were older. They were still here, but they were, you know, very sick. Their health wasn't good. And we spent so much time away from them. I felt like this, that COVID time was robbing me of time with my parents. And to your point about coming out of the IFB and losing friends, man, that really hit me in the gut. But like I said, I have friends today that are, you know, with me and not going to leave me and true good friends. But a lot of the friends that I had turned their back on me when I left the IFB. I mean, just written me on Facebook, all this stuff. And so I definitely can sympathize with this type of depression. And just our response is just to embrace the sovereignty of God and embrace the wisdom of God and the love of God in this depression. We have to know that God is on the throne and God loves me and God knows what's best for me. And God can look over that hill and see what's on the other side. And I don't. His thoughts are not my thoughts and His ways are not my ways. And the goal is not to hinder or stop this depression, but to accept that God has one's best interest at heart and will use it to His glory and their good overall. You know, James, there's a stigma of psychiatric illness, including depression and especially depression. And it's one of the reasons that people avoid seeking help for mental health problems like this, you know. And this bias, it's twofold. There's this bias of yourself and there's this bias of society. When you are depressed, you're going to have this bias against yourself as a result of your mental state. But the second part is society. It's society. There's a negative stereotype of mental illness resulting in discrimination against those who are suffering from it. And it's had a large impact on a number of patients. Let me let me give you an example. All right. So you're going to church. You're going to a small group, you know, and you're you're with this group of people. And you say to the group of people, hey, I've got a sore throat. And what are they going to tell you? They're going to say, oh, well, maybe you need to, you know, go to the doctor. Maybe you need to get a lozenge. Maybe you need to do this to fix that. You say you come in and hey, I fell on my ankles. I thought I think I sprained my ankle and it's swollen up. Oh, well, you need to go to the doctor. You need to have an x-ray. You got to have it checked out. But you go into the same type of church, small group setting and say, I'm depressed. And people are going to say, oh, well, you need to buck up. You need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you need to just get over it. And so there's this stigma, especially when it comes to depression, just like, oh, if you're depressed, that must mean you're not a good Christian. Yeah. Because if you were a good Christian, you wouldn't feel that way. And what we need to realize is that we're not alone, is that other people face depression every day and our feelings are valid. OK, that's a truth. We need to realize that our feelings are valid. But it's an incomplete truth because our feelings are not only valid, but we have to remember that our feelings and our emotions, they may be valid, but they're not permanent. Our emotions are temporary. They're not permanent. And one more thing I wanted to say about this, this type of depression, this common depression. So many times when we're in a depression, we ask, why? Why is this happening to me? What was the purpose of this, God? Why are you picking on me? And, you know, the book of Psalms is full of people asking God why this had to happen. And, you know, and whether we're depressed because of our sin or not, I think we ask when we ask, why is this happening to me? We need to remember, I think that's the wrong question. I think the question we should be asking instead is, what is God trying to teach me in this? Instead of trying to figure out why God did this to me and why this is happening into my life, which should just push us down further into depression. We need to be asking God, God, what are you trying to teach me in this? You know, because James, as Christians, our suffering has a point. Our pain has a purpose. God's not trying to pick on us. He's trying to teach us. He's trying to sanctify us. James 1, 2 through 4, Count it all joy, brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. And once we search and find out what God is trying to teach us through this trial, that'll help us through this season and we'll be able to navigate better. No, maybe we're depressed because we have an unhealthy attachment to something that we shouldn't have an attachment to. We've idolized something. We've put something over God. Maybe we're depressed because our faith is not as strong as we thought it was. Whatever the lesson, I think learning it is the key to overcoming it. Right. Christians have different seasons in life. Some seasons are meant to be enjoyed, but other seasons are meant to be endured. Right. No, I agree. Brett, I'm going to pull out two things that you said because I thought it was fantastic. That our goal is not to stop or hinder depression, but accept what God has for us. I think when we get that in our mind, when we're going through a time where we're depressed or in a state of sadness, that God does, in order through that, for him to be glorified overall and the good of overall for God to be happening. And when we hinder that, we're like the little boy in the old story that sees the hole in the dam and he goes and puts his finger in it. And we think we're stopping it. But in reality, we're making it a whole lot worse because pressure is building up behind that. And when we stop depression and we don't deal with the cause and effect of it, we're just building up to a bigger explosion later on. And I think the second thing you said was this. Our suffering has a point. Man, when we get to that point, we understand, hey, this is here for a reason. Man, our life changes. So that's common depression. Let's look at the next one here. Number two, chosen depression. I'm going to read another passage. Numbers 14, one and two. And it says, and the whole assembly lifted their voices and cried and the people wept that night. All the children of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron. And the whole assembly said to them, oh, that we were to die in the land of Egypt or that we would die in the wilderness. And why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword and our wives and children should become prey? Is it not better for us to return to Egypt? And they said to one another, let us select a leader and they will lead us to return to Egypt. And so this is Israel refusing to enter the promised land of Canaan. And instead of embracing what God had for them and addressing the problems ahead of them, they said, you know what? We're going to choose to rebel. We're going to choose depression and we're going to choose the consequences of that depression. The sadness of the soul is created by one grumbling or creating or complaining about their circumstances. For example, one does not like what is going on and is unwilling to accept what God has allowed the circumstances to be. So that person then begins to complain about it and creating a state of sadness. One is unwilling to accept that people are not operating as they would like them to. So one begins to complain about it and creating a soul of sadness. Another way is one is unwilling to accept the life's difficulties and they begin to complain about it. And then also they fall into a state of sadness and depression. And so these are man-made chosen depressions. God says, hey, this is what I've got for you. And we rebel against it. We began to be the kid that this morning, for instance, I was getting my son ready. And every morning we have a routine where I get ready and he's watching his trains or cars, whatever it is. And I get done getting ready. I get his clothes out. We go get him ready and we take him to daycare. And so I take him into the room and I've got him laid out. We're taking his clothes off. He's two and a half now. And I go to put his pants on. And he goes, no, dad, I don't like those pants. And so I had to go back and get another pair of pants. And so I brought those pants out, put them on him, went to put a shirt on. And he liked the shirt. But then he's like, oh, no, no, I'm going to try this again. I don't like this shirt. Okay. So I'm going to go get another shirt. And so he's rebelling and against every little decision. Well, then I go to put the new shirt on him and he's going to try it again. And I said, no, you're going to wear this shirt now. And I said, if you don't, there's going to be consequences. And so he began to fuss and complain. He chose this depression, this sadness, because then he got a spanking because he decided that he was going to continue to do what he was doing. So consequences are there. The choices are there to be laid out. And because we choose to disobey, we bring this depression upon ourselves. So this is this chosen depression. It's not that we're saying, I want to be depressed. It's that our choices are causing depression and sadness in our life because of the actions that we're making. Brett, how do we respond to this? Part of our response is to repent of the unloving attitudes and actions. And once again, embrace the sovereignty of God, the wisdom of God and the love of God. And one is to accept what God has allowed while submitting to what he has commanded accordingly. And this actually reminds me, it reminds me of an article that I wrote for a local newspaper here. You know, when I think about this type of depression, I often think of the book of Ruth. You know, most people would say that the book of Ruth is about Ruth. But, you know, the problem with that is Ruth really doesn't speak all that much in the book of Ruth. I mean, Naomi and Boaz, they speak more than Ruth. There's another layer of the book of Ruth that people often miss. You know, the main character of the book of Ruth, I would contend, is actually Naomi. And Naomi comes to mind when I think about this type of chosen depression. You know, the book starts with Naomi. Naomi, it ends with Naomi. And Naomi, in the beginning of the book, she disobeys God. She disobeys scripture by going to Moab in the first place. And, you know, she's burying her husband in a foreign land and marrying her boys to Moabite women. And then she comes back to Bethlehem, not out of obedience to the Lord, but only because the famine was over. But then as soon as she gets back, she starts charging God with all these heinous crimes like, God is a bully. God is mean. God is unfair. God is afflicting me. Call me Mara because I was full and he brought me back empty. And, you know, she bemoans God when this is all her fault for disobeying scripture. Naomi is, she's stubborn. She's bullheaded. She's manipulative. She's deceptive. She's immoral. And James, she's a lot like us. Yeah. You know, so how is God going to answer these charges that she's made against him? Well, we skip to the end of the book and we see that God answers these charges by making her a grandmother, by giving her a redeemer, by giving her fame, by giving her a daughter-in-law that's better than seven sons, making sure she's cared for in her old age, putting her grandchild in the line of the Messiah and so much more. And I think what it teaches is that God takes care of us in spite of us. Yeah. What a great picture of the mercy, grace, and love of God. And I think it's important to know when we are depressed. And I do want to say a word about submission. We're talking about submitting, you know, to God's will when we don't want to. And that's part of causing our depression. Submission is the attitude of a Christian. A Christian is a submissive person. Ephesians 5, for instance, is about being filled with the Holy Spirit. And how we're filled with the Holy Spirit, it talks about addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. It talks about singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. It talks about giving things always for everything to God, the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And people usually stop right there. But there's one more thing on the list that you need to do to be filled with the Spirit. And that last thing is submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Yeah. So having a submissive spirit as a Christian is one of the ways we're filled with the Holy Spirit. And then the rest of the chapter and on into chapter six lists a bunch of ways we can be submissive. And so to be a Spirit-filled Christian is to be a submissive Christian. And that includes being submissive to God's will. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's great. And those are ways that are very practical for us to understand what God has for us. The third thing, the last thing we'll talk about in the episode today is not only do we have common depression and chosen depression, but the third one gets into the area that we don't often think about. We're going to give two scriptural examples of it is conscience depression. This is a sadness of the soul as a result of one's conscience bringing about guilt due to an act of sin in one's life. Romans says it like this in Romans 2, 14 and 15. For when Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature the things that contained in the law, these not having the law are a law unto themselves. Verse 15. Who show the work of the law written on their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness while the conflicting thoughts accuse us or even excuse them. And so that's just talking about our conscience and how we in the ingrained of our life have a conscience that tells us right or wrong. But as a Christian, as a believer in Jesus, our conscience goes even further than that. Because when you look at the life of David and how David was chased from Saul and had every right to be the next king, chose that he was not going to harm God's chosen servant. But then in 1 Samuel 24, we come to this story that you've been taught since you were a kid in Sunday school. When Saul returned from the following, the Philistines, and it was reported to him saying, David is in the wilderness of El Giddi, then Saul took 3,000 chosen men out of Israel and went to seek David and his men in front of the rocks and the wild goats. He came to the sheep pens, by the way, and a cave was there. And while Saul went in to relieve himself, now David and his men were sitting at the rear of the cave. The men of David said unto him, This is the day which the Lord said unto you, I am giving your enemy into your hands, that you may do with him that seems good into your eyes. So David then arose and secretly cut off the corner of David's robe. And this is the part that every time I read it, it gets me because it is this conscious decision. Verse 5, And afterward, David's heart was troubled because he cut off the corner of Saul's robe. If that doesn't tell us that there's conscious depression because of our actions, because of our sinful actions in our life, then I don't know what does. Examples of this is one that has been thinking in a manner that's sinful, resulting in conscience bringing about guilt in your heart that leads to depression because we don't deal with it. One person who maybe has been talking in a sinful manner, resulting in your conscience bringing about guilt in your heart because of your conversation. Another way of living in a sinful manner results in a conscience bringing about guilt in one's heart leading to the sadness of our soul. So our actions, our thoughts, and ultimately the way we are living and are talking can all be ways that bring depression and sadness in our soul because we simply are making conscious choices to do wrong. And the Holy Spirit convicts our life. And because if we don't deal with it, then we are just like David. And it says that his heart was troubled because he did this thing that he shouldn't have done. And this is where we get to with conscious depression, where we know we've done wrong and we don't deal with the consequences of that sin. Brett, how do we respond to this? Well, one way is to repent of the unloving attitudes and actions, embrace the sovereignty, wisdom, and love of God, and accept what God has allowed while submitting what he has commanded according. Now, one more scripture reference that is listed under this conscious depression that I wanted to hit on is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. And it's 2 Samuel 24. And I'll read verse 10. It says, But David's heart struck him after he had numbered the people and David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly. So this is a story of David numbering the people. Now, listen, there's nothing wrong initially with numbering the people. In fact, there were times when numbering the children of Israel was an appropriate thing to do. You had to number people for tax purposes. You had to number people for the army. But this was not for taxes, and this was not for the army. This was a numbering just for David's pride. He wanted to number the people. Just the sin of pride had overcome him. And he commanded Joab. It was to the point, he wanted a big number so much that he commanded Joab to count the tribe of Levi. Now, when you do count number the people, you're not supposed to count the tribe of Levi. So much so that Joab, when he did count the people, he left the people of the tribe of Levi out. He didn't count them. And James, you know when Joab is making better spiritual decisions than you, you're in a bad way. And so, you know, David, you know, something's bad wrong. So then Gad the seer confronts David about this. And that's when David is struck with this immense guilt and shame and depression about what he'd done. So David had a choice to make. And we all remember what his choices were. It was three years of famine, three months of his enemies coming after him, or three days of pestilence. And what I love about this story is I love why David made the choice that he did. Verse 14 says, then David said to Gad, I am in a great distress. Let us fall into the hand of our Lord for his mercy is great. Right. He said, don't let me fall into the hand of man. If I'm going to fall anywhere, let me fall into the hand of the Lord for his mercy is great. And that's what we need when we experience guilt for our sin is to fall into the hands of God for his mercy is great. David said, let me not fall into the hands of man. You know, if we try to keep ourselves in our own hands, we're going to suffer more. But, but, and David got into this mess by listening to his flesh. in the hand of God, there is mercy to help in, in the time of need. Absolutely. And that is so, such good word there. We, I would rather fall into God's hands of discipline than fall into man's hand of discipline because God's gracious and man's not. Right. I know for myself, I am not gracious at times, but God. You ever play the exercise if you were God, what you would do? Yeah. If I was God, man, I'd make that dude over there. Oh yeah, absolutely. But, what would God really do? He would send his son to die for him to forgive him of his sins. Right? Exactly. Yeah. So, that's where we're at and that's, that's the first three things of depression. We're going to jump through the next three in our next episode. Thanks for joining in to us. A couple of things. I hope you join us in November for our meetup in Asheville. It's going to be fantastic. Great time. Tons of people. I've already seen lots of friends of mine that said they're going to be there. We have four great messages. Nathan, JC, and Brian all are going to give one and then Papa Craig is going to be there giving a message. I can't wait. So, hopefully you'll come and join us. We'll have some time where you can hang out with us as for freedom. Ask some questions. If you're coming and you'd like to tell your story, we'd love to have your story online and we'll, we'll record you while we're there. We'll bring our recording stuff and it'll be a great time just hanging out and fellowshipping. The last thing is Israel. We've talked about it but with everything going on in Israel, we're sort of putting a little bit of a pause. We've got to figure out what can happen and what's going to happen with Israel. And so, right now, over the next couple of weeks, we're sort of putting a little bit of a pause trying to figure out what Yael and Frey is telling us to do. And so, if you're interested in going, we're still going to try to put on a trip. It may not be when we were wanting it to. It may be later but we don't know yet because of what's going on right now. So, if you're interested, still be praying about that. Let us know if you want to go with us. But we'll be going to Israel here sometime in the future. And then, Brett, anything else? I think that pretty much about covers it. You know, we've got some decisions to make in the next week or so concerning Israel. We've got some Zoom calls, you know, scheduled to talking to our Israel reps over there. And me and James know people who are in the military and we're currently fighting what's going on over there. It's a bad situation. But we just need to remember to pray for Israel, pray for Israel, for peace in Jerusalem. We're commanded to do that in the Word of God. Absolutely. You know, and at the end of the day, God is sovereign. Jesus is on the throne. And one day He's coming back. Absolutely. Well, until next time, to God be the glory. Found my new name. Found that good grace. Found that healing. And the tears fell down my face when I found my beginning. That has no ending. Found that second chance. Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast. For Freedom Podcast. . Thank you.

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