Amen. Well, good morning. I am not Justin, obviously. My name is Elon. And Justin asked me to speak today, and so here I am, and I'm really, really excited because today we're talking about being stretched. Yeah, you know what that means, don't you? I I wonder if you've ever been stretched and it didn't go well for you. Because I can think of a time for me that I was stretched and it didn't go well for me, and it involved a pair of pants. And um, they were my favorite pair of pants, actually. Girls, you know what I'm talking about, right? Your favorite pair of pants or jeans, you you love them, you wear them for everything, you feel good in them. Guys, I'm not trying to leave you out, but your favorite pair of jeans is probably your only pair of jeans, maybe? Yeah, okay. Well, I had these favorite pair of pants and I loved them. I loved them. I loved their color, I loved the fabric, I loved how they made me feel. And honestly, as a girl, it's really hard to find a pair of pants that fits really great. And so, this is a little gross, but I didn't wash them because I didn't want them to shrink. If you laugh, that means you understand. There's a couple laughs out there, people who don't wash their pants. Okay, so but but I love these pants and I wanted them to fit, and and but eventually, you know, they kind of they needed a washing. Like they were about to break away and just kind of walk down the street. It was, it was time, it was time, and so the day came, and I kind of prayed, you know, God, please don't let these shrink. I know that sounds silly, but they were my favorite pants. And so I washed them and I dried them, and and guess what happened? Yes, they shrank. They did, and I got them out of the dryer. It was one day, I will never forget it, on my way to work. Not on my way to work, I wasn't getting dressed on the way to work. Okay, I got them out of the dryer, and I'm getting dressed, getting ready for work, and I put them on, and my legs and my toes began to go numb, and I am not kidding. And so so I did what any desperate girl who wants to wear her pants and they're too tight does, and and I just started stretching them. I took them by the waist and at the foot, and I just started stretching, you know, all sorts of different ways, and then inside the pants, and I'm pulling them apart in the leg to try to make them stretch, and I felt kind of confident that I had done what I needed to do, and so I put them on, and they were still too tight. And so um, I'm about to reveal a little something to you that I did. Um, I just started squatting. Now I know some of you have done this. So I am in my bedroom and I'm ready, and I'm like, I need a little extra. So I'm just I'm squatting and I'm getting a good workout, actually, it's pretty good. And so I'm squatting in there. Every now and then you gotta kind of sit down there for a few minutes because you gotta stretch it out a little bit more. And and so I'm doing this, and all of a sudden, my husband comes in the bedroom. And he walks in and he looks at me and he kind of stops, and he didn't ask me any question, um, but he kind of had his head cocked to the side. And I think that's because you know, he's seen me do a lot of weird things before. Men, you know, your wives do really weird things. We're girls, that's what we do. And so he walked in and he just kind of looked at me, and then he asked the question that he was gonna ask me, and we were talking, and and I just continue stretching. And so he's talking and I'm stretching, and he's talking, and I'm stretching, and I'm I'm at this point where I'm like, these puppies are ready to go. So I like hop up with all confidence and I button them. Do you know like those sounds where you're like, I can't see it, but I I recognize that sound, I know what that sound is. I I I heard the sound of fabric ripping, and and I felt this cold air hit my leg. And I looked down, and I'm not kidding. I mean, it had torn from the top all the way down to the knee, right in the middle, and there was it wasn't even on the seam, I couldn't even fix it. And and Tab literally stopped. And he looked at me, and I could feel my heat, my neck getting red, and my face getting red because I was horrified. I'm sitting there in that moment, and I'm like, okay, oh my gosh, all these things are going through. First of all, these are my favorite pair of pants. Secondly, why did they stretch? I mean, rip. Was it the dryer's fault or was it me? You know, you have to ask yourself that question. And then I look at my husband, and it was right in front of him. My husband's not supposed to see that happen. It was embarrassing. And then I look at him and he has this look of horror on his face, and I could see his wheels were turning. My husband loves me, and he saw that I was suffering, and he wanted to give me an encouraging word. I could see it in his face. And guys, I just want to go ahead and apologize to all you men on behalf of every woman on the face of the earth. I am so sorry because when you're in a situation like that, and you have to come up with something good to encourage her, and you you just don't know what to say, it's a lose-lose situation for you. It is that no matter how much you try, you're just not gonna win. I'm so sorry. That's just the way that it is. But my husband, you know, he didn't give up and he was searching for something to say, and and I appreciate that about him. But really, the best thing that he could come up with was, oh, honey, don't worry, that that happens to me all the time. No, it does not. He has never ripped his pants because they were too tight on his thigh. Thank you very much. Gentlemen, I want to give you a free piece of advice. I will not charge you for it. If you are ever in a situation with a woman and you are searching for the right thing to say and you don't know what to say, don't say anything at all. I love my husband dearly, but he is a liar. Have you ever been stretched? I mean, personally. You know, in your life? You've been stretched and you've been tugged at and you're just like, I can't do this. I actually looked up the word stretch in the dictionary because I love words and and I like to see what they mean and apply them to my life. And so I looked it up, and this is a fun fact: Webster's Dictionary of 1828. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but Noah Webster wrote this dictionary, it was the first dictionary, and he was a very strong Christian man. And he took all of the words from the dictionary and he compared them to the Bible. So all the definitions of those words in the 1828 version are actually based on the Bible. And it's really interesting, fascinating, and really kind of concerning if you are to look at a dictionary of today's time and compare some of the words that we, our society, has changed the definitions of compared to how God originally had intended it. But anyway, so I looked up the word stretch, and the Webster's Dictionary of 1828 said that the definition of stretch is to be extended to the point where you feel like you're going to break. To be extended to such great length without breaking, to strain and to struggle. Boy, ain't that the truth? Ain't that the truth? You're in a situation where you just feel like I am about to bust open. I can't take it anymore. You're here, you're alive, you're breathing, that means you have struggled before, you have been stretched before, I have been stretched. There's so many different ways that we get stretched, whether it's finances, how are we going to get by this month? Because we barely got by last month, by the skin of our teeth. And we've got all these new expenses coming up, and and I don't know how we're gonna pay this, and my job keeps demanding more and paying me less, and then you know the car breaks down, and you've got all these financial stretches that are happening, and they're trials, and then maybe at work your boss comes up to you and says, Here's another job I want you to do, and you don't feel appreciated, and there's more that they're asking from you, and and and you're getting less in return, and or maybe you're in a relationship and and you're having a hard time seeing eye to eye, and you're just being really stretched, or or you're grieving. You're grieving because someone you love has has either left or or they've passed away, and that grief is real. Or or you're dealing with addiction, and you just you're just feeling like you just can't take it anymore. Or maybe your mind is is your worst enemy, and just constantly telling you bad things about yourself. You can't do it, this is gonna be a struggle. Oh, here comes again, life's not gonna turn out again. Regardless of what it is, we've all we've all been stretched. We've all been stretched, and we want to do anything we can to avoid it. We really do. I know for me last week, just being honest with you, at work, I was asked to take on another project. And I remember standing there in that moment and hearing the words coming out of my mouth and wishing I could take them back. And I was just like, you know, I appreciate that. That sounds like a great project, and I really want to do it. Can we please postpone this to another time? Because I've got a lot going on in my plate, and I just, I really want to do a good job. And I I heard myself saying that, and I was like, Elon, think before you speak. And and and throughout the day I kind of thought about it, and I, yes, I told the truth, I did want to do the best job I could, but if I'm being honest with you, the real reason I didn't want to do it is because I don't want to be stretched. Because being stretched is uncomfortable, it's outside of our comfort zone. But you know what? If we avoid being stretched, then we are avoiding incredible and positive results in our life. We are avoiding becoming bigger and stronger and better and happier. If we avoid being stretched, when we avoid being stretched, it's almost as though we're saying, you know what, God, I don't, I don't need any miracles in my life. That's what that's what we're saying when we try to avoid it. Actually, the Bible, the Bible uses the word stretch several times. And it's fascinating because every time the word is used, immediately after, God performs a miracle. So Moses, he's like my favorite. I love Moses. Besides Jesus, he's my favorite in the Bible for sure. Um, he's this outlaw, a fugitive, and that's not the reason I like him, by the way. I'm not like after bad boys or anything like that. Um, although it would be really cool imagining him on like a Harley splitting the Red Seas. Or the Red Sea. Okay, anyway, so so Moses, he killed an Egyptian soldier, and he didn't like stay around to face the consequences. He fled. He went into the desert and hid for 40 years. God came to him through a burning bush and he said, Moses, you're my man. You are gonna free my people through um out of Egypt, out of Pharaoh's control. And and God wanted to do miracles through Moses, and and some of those miracles were meant to open basically the gate for Pharaoh to let the people out of Egypt. Okay, so I want to look at a couple verses with you, starting in Exodus 9. This is the plague of hail. Listen to the word stretch and watch the miracle. So Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh and stretched out his hands to the Lord, and the thunder and the hail ceased, and the rain no longer poured upon the earth. And then Exodus 10, this is the plague of darkness. Then the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness spreads over Egypt, darkness that can be felt. So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days. Then in Exodus 14, the parting of the Red Sea. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. And then he closes the sea back up in Exodus 14. Then the Lord says to Moses, Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen, and there are ten plagues, and in every one of them, God says, Stretch, Moses stretches, and then there's a miracle. But God doesn't stop there. There are examples in the New Testament, even in Jesus' ministry. Catch this. In Matthew 12, verse 13, it says, Then he said, This is Jesus, okay? Then he said to the man, Stretch out your hand. So he stretched it out, and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. Now, I read this verse and I can't help but picture kind of what may have been going on in that moment. And I don't know for sure, but I imagine that this man had something wrong with his hand, and perhaps it was disfigured or he was disabled, and maybe it was kind of curved in close to his body. So for Jesus to say, please, you know, stretch out your hand, that would have been literally very difficult to do if he wasn't able to stretch his hand out. Or if his hand was covered in disease. I can't imagine how painful that must have been for him to literally stretch his hand out that was covered in disease and how that must have felt. Or or or stretching out his diseased hand or his disfigured hand in front of everyone so everyone could see. But the thing that tells me the most about Jesus in that verse, you know, Jesus could have easily reached his own hand out to this man. He could have reached out and he could have touched this man's hand and healed it right there on the spot. But he didn't. And what this says to me, and what I think it's for for all of us, is that God wants us to be partners. He asks us to stretch because he wants to grow our faith. And when we trust him and we reach out to him and we get out of our comfort zone and we stretch to him that he will bless us, he will heal us, and he will perform miracles in our life. Now, I've given you a whole bunch of examples of physical stretching, and that's great and everything, but but there are a ton of examples in the Bible of stretching that took place in people's lives and personal growth that took place. So, for example, we're talking about Moses. Okay, so let's just go back to Moses for a second. So God comes to Moses in the in the burning bush and he tells him, You are the one I've chosen, you are the one who's gonna take my people out of Egypt. And it's almost as if Moses reacted like this. Are you talking to me, God? You can't be talking to me, God. Because my greatest weakness is speaking. I am not eloquent, I get all tongue-tied and tongue-twisted. Lord, I am slow with my speech. God, please choose anyone but me because I can't do this. Have you ever felt that way? When you knew you had to do something or God was literally calling you to do something, and your response is, I can't. I can't do it. You know, maybe in your marriage, you just you're done. Too much has been said and done, and you've gone too far, and this is just I just can't. I don't have what it takes. Or chemo? Next round of chemo. I just I can't. I don't have the strength. Have you ever felt like that? Because see, Moses felt that way. Moses felt that way. But guess what? He said yes anyway. He said yes to God because he trusted that God was going to be with him, that God was going to go with him, that he wasn't going to be doing it alone. And I am so blown away by how beautifully our God has put the Bible together. Because he just doesn't leave any stone unturned. He weaves it all together in this incredible, beautiful story. And in the New Testament, this is long after Moses had been had had served and been and been dead. Okay, we find this out about Moses in Acts 7, verse 22. Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in both speech and action. It blows me away because I was reading this story about Moses as how God was using Moses to bless his people and to free his people. But God loves us so much. He doesn't want to just use us to bless other people, he wants to bless us. Moses was important to God, and God did a miracle in Moses. He grew him and he stretched him because he loved him. And do you know what that tells me? That God can take our greatest weaknesses and turn them into our greatest strengths. Now that deserves an applause for all that God can do. It does, and it's true. It's true. But it's painful. It's painful, it's uncomfortable. We don't want to go there. So so now what? Because it's not enjoyable. How are we supposed to enjoy it? But see, God addresses that too. In James, James talks to us, and I love what he has to say. This is uh chapter one, verse two. Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. Look at how our God loves us in that verse. He wants you to be complete and perfect and lacking in nothing. He wants you to have an abundance in your life no matter what you are facing. He does. And I know he doesn't always feel like that, but you know what he wants us to do in what he's telling us through James? He is telling us that when we are in those moments where we are tempted to get really frustrated, to throw our hands up in the air and say, God, why me? Why now? Why this? What did I do? That we would take James's advice and we would say, God, I don't understand, but I trust you. I love you and I know you want me to be complete and you want me to have every good thing. You want abundance in my life, you want me to be mature, you want me to lack nothing. And so James is telling us that we should actually consider it to be a joy when we are stretched. That we should actually be thankful when we are stretched. The truth of the matter is we're all gonna be stretched this week. We are. And I'm not being negative on that. I'm just saying we, you know, you know, we're gonna be stretched. And it might be, it might be at work, it might be with your finances, like we were talking about earlier. It could be in uh your patience, your patience with a situation that you're going through or with a person. It could be if you're one of the dear people who have signed up to be partners with us with Faith Bridge, whether you know foster partner or foster parent, you're gonna be stretched. You're definitely gonna be stretched. Maybe when you leave here today, you get stuck in traffic and you're gonna be stretched there, and your kids are in the backseat and they're yelling and arguing and you know, pitching a fit, and or you go out to dinner and the the waiter messes up your order and they overcharge you. And I know those don't seem like big things, but they happen and we get stressed out and we get frustrated. But we don't need to. We don't need to let our upset plans upset us because we have the Holy Spirit living in us when Jesus is our Lord. He gives us a power. His Spirit gives us power, it gives us self-control, it gives us a sound mind, and we don't any longer need to let our emotions dictate how we are going to approach a situation. We do not need to feel defeated. God wants more than that for us. He does. Listen, I don't know what you have going on, and I don't know how you are being stretched. But it's going to be okay. You are strong. You are not going to tear apart at the seam. You are not a pair of pants. You are God's child. And he loves you. And he has a good plan for your life. And he has gone before you, and he will be with you, and he has equipped you for everything that you are ever going to face in your entire life, today, tomorrow, next week, next year, for the rest of your life. He says so. It is his word. It is his promise. And we can trust him today. Listen, God wants us to experience miracles. Let's not, let's not avoid the miracles that He wants to give us. Let's get outside of our comfort zone and trust God. Let's be stretched and like it. Because it is a good, good, thing. Pray with me. Lord, thank you so much. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. And I I love, Lord, your message, and I love how you weave it all together, and I love the story you write in our lives, and I am so thankful you care about us so much, God, that you want to stretch us. I am so thankful, Lord, that that we get to be uncomfortable because that means you are you are giving us your attention and your love and and you want to bless us, Lord. And I know you've done that in my life, and I'm I'm so asking, God, right now, that you will just show each one of us this week that you are there, that you are here, that you've gone before us, that you want to grow us, that you love us, and that we can be filled with joy in the midst of it and trust you. I thank you, Jesus, for making the ultimate stretch and stretching your arms out on the cross, Lord, dying for our eternal freedom, but for our freedom today, because you care about that too. I pray, God, that we would just claim that as ours today, that we would receive it, and that you would bless us, and that we would stretch, and that you would perform miracles. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.