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Living Hope SDA Church

Daniel Towar

Reclaim Your Life

Dear Father in heaven, we want to thank you.

This is a moment that you've chosen to bring us hope, to bring us renewed life, renewed experience.

We just pray humbly that your presence will be with us, that your Holy Spirit will be in control of everything that is said, and that you'll interpret it right to our hearts.

Reclaiming your life, Hillary Allen was an ultra, and is, But back to my story, she's an ultra marathoner.

And to tell you the truth, until this week, I had no idea that her particular sport is even a sport.

Because she doesn't just run long distances.

Hilary Allen and those of her ilk they run mountains.

Her training causes her to run not only marathon lengths but her training causes her to climb mountains within her marathon.

Imagine mountain climbing and at precipitous heights, climbing all the way up to maybe 15, 000 foot elevation from nearly sea level, and then back down.

And how you might feel is you cross a narrow abyss near to a chasm, and then you're running along and you still are seeking for that finish line.

So I would like to see 1 of those events.

I wouldn't want to run 1 of those events.

I've run a marathon too but on a very flat course.

Certainly a pancake compared to what she accomplished.

But while she was in Norway 4 years ago, at the top of her sport, considered to be the ultra marathoner among all the women, she fell.

She took 1 rock, it tilted, and it tilted Hillary Allen into a fall as though she was a rag doll, into a flailing in the air.

And she went until gravity brought her right to where gravity will, the lowest possible point.

150 feet and she was Suffering from multiple breaks of her ribs, both feet, fracturing her back in 2 places, L4 and L5.

And believe it or not, she could not get up.

Someone came who was also running that race.

And you see the picture as within a few moments until they could find Hillary there at the bottom of that ravine where she had fallen.

It would be 11 months of intense training, more than training, therapies of all sorts to get her back to where she had been.

And then, not even 100%, she ran at the Squaw Valley, California Sky Event.

Now this is sky racing, they call it, sky racing, and for good reason, as I've said.

And she placed second in that 32-mile course.

It taught her that no matter how far you've fallen, and how many of you have ever fallen 150 feet and lived to tell the story?

Now I know my son-in-law, who you know very well, fell 709 feet a couple years ago, but he was on the end of a bungee cord.

And by the way, pray for him because he's going to jump out of a plane in about another month.

And I hope and pray the man who's riding his back all the way down remembers to pull the ripcord and that the parachute flies open.

Some people just, They live on a different level than the rest of us.

So Hillary Allen, she was back to it, and she placed second in the Squaw Valley Broken Arrow Sky event, Sky Race.

Please open your Bibles with me to the book of Proverbs, chapter 24, and verse 16.

Maybe you can relate, not to a sky race athlete, but maybe you can relate to this.

For a righteous man may fall 7 times and rise again.

The Bible realizes that we will fall from time to time.

We're not living on that perfect level yet.

We're in the flesh, and maybe there's a rock on the course and it's tilted just right and we hit it wrongly and off we go.

It may not be as dramatic as falling 150 feet, but spiritually it could be.

But the righteous fall 7 times, and what do they do?

Today we're talking about reclaiming your life, reclaiming my life.

And some of us might be reclaiming what used to be.

It's not easy to go back to what used to be.

Now just a couple days ago, being tourists as we are, in a wonderful host family of our daughter and son-in-law, grandchildren, we went to the U.S.

It's very, very interesting and inspiring.

But I think my takeaway from there that I loved most that day and I really didn't realize until after, they had a special event in the main concourse of that museum.

And we rode up the elevator to the second story or whatever, We could overlook everything.

We saw the Marine color guard come in and they had a Marine band that was there.

And they had a general, three-star general there, introducing.

It was the Wounded Warrior Regiment Change of Command.

The Wounded Warrior Regiment change of command.

And I thought to myself, I had no idea the US Marines have a wounded warrior regiment and they pay special honor to the wounded among them.

The Wounded Warrior Regiment provides leadership and ensures to support recovery and non-medical care of combat and non-combat wounded, ill, and injured Marines, sailors attached to Marine units, and their family members in order to maximize their recovery as they return to duty or transition to civilian life.

And I thought if the Marine Corps can do that, I know they're a first class operation.

And if the Marine Corps can do that, what about God's people?

Do we have any wounded warriors today in our midst?

Have you ever been a wounded warrior for Jesus?

If you're in the army, there's a pretty good chance, or the Marines, the Navy, that at some point you know someone or you have been wounded.

We are in God's army, and there may be someone feeling wounded today.

I believe every time I preach there's someone in the house, in God's house, that's wounded in some way.

That in some way they have a special need.

And as God's people we need to come near to them.

They may be the person sitting next to you, but God cares about them and God knows about the wounds and there's new life available that person can have their life reclaimed.

You can have, if you're the wounded, you can have your life reclaimed today.

But sometimes easier to just remain fallen.

Hillary could have been left for all we know.

Maybe it was a time, maybe it could have been a time where as that rock tilted beneath her feet and she fell over the edge of that abyss near to where she ran.

Maybe it could have been a time where no 1 had even seen that, where no 1 had even known.

And if so, she would have been left there to die.

May it not be that we would never, that we would ever leave someone to be a failure, to fall so hard and not be noticed.

Sometimes you may feel like, I'm not where I want to be.

And in our spiritual life, we need to know that healing is possible.

Come with me now to the book of Jeremiah chapter 29 and verses 13 and 14.

Jeremiah the 29th chapter, and this is a promise, 1 of my favorites in the Bible, that tells us about healing and how God is involved in the healing for each and every 1 of us.

You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all of your heart.

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Reclaim Your Life

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