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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Bailey Krall

Kathryn Wright

The Battle Against Discouragement and From Roots to Harvest

They're still working on my slides, but we'll just get started.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this chance to come here today and to worship you.

Thank you for the beautiful music that we already heard and God you know that we already made this agreement that I'm not a speaker but and you promised that you would be here with me today and that you would speak through me So I just pray that you would remove all of self here today and just that you would be here and speak through each and every 1 of us.

Thank you so much for your love and continued mercy to us.

All right, so like it was already mentioned, my name is Bailey and I'm representing School of Nursing here for graduation weekend.

Right now, I'm in the orientation period for my very first nursing job.

I've wanted to be a nurse since I was a little girl.

There's also a big sense of responsibility.

Like I get to take care of patients on my own now.

I can't just say, oh, let me get the nurse because I am the nurse now.

And when I first started nursing school, I was so excited to be able to interact directly with patients.

The whole reason that I wanted to be a nurse in the first place, because I knew that nursing would be the perfect place for me to be able to witness and serve God.

But I cannot even describe how much I love going to clinical in my first quarter.

I had so many divine appointments and witnessing opportunities.

And I can just remember even the smallest tasks just made me so happy.

Like patient needs water, yes, I'm carrying water down the hallway.

The 1 difficult thing though was having the chance to connect with patients while still keeping up with my busy and sometimes jaded preceptors.

I remember 1 time I went into a patient's room and he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer and it still breaks my heart to think of the picture.

He had just thrown up all over the place and he looks at me and he says, you know, I throw up every time I eat but I just have to keep trying and enjoy the little things while they last.

And I helped him clean up and he started sharing with me about what it was like to come to terms with his death, but have family members that were just not there with him, and the struggle that it was.

And he was so encouraging to me and my nursing journey, and everything that he shared was so beautiful, and tears were streaming down both of our faces.

And then my preceptor walks in and he's like, Bailey, where are you?

I'm like quickly wiping away all my tears, trying to pretend like nothing had happened.

There are so many different stories that I could share, but of course, without time is very limited.

But recently, I discovered a few months ago, while I was finishing up my last few shifts of my last quarter of nursing school, I just kind of evaluated the situation and I realized that my shift in the hospital had become routine.

I was lacking divine appointments and I was lacking the Holy spirit.

You know, the further along I had gotten in nursing school, the more responsibility that I had.

And yeah, I was just getting caught up in my tasks.

And man, I was really saddened by this realization.

I'm like, man, I haven't even graduated yet and I'm already burnt out and jaded.

Like those nurses that I was judging when I was a first quarter student.

And yeah, I just wanna share with you today what God has been teaching me over these last few months.

My relationship with God started at a pretty young age.

I was really drawn by his love for me and his desire to have personal relationship with me.

The older I got, the deeper my love became for him, but also there was this guilt that grew inside of me as well.

I wanted so badly to be able to give back some of this love that God had shown to me, and I wanted to be able to surrender my whole life to him and serve him, but I knew that God was not first in my life.

And every day I would pray, God, please help me, show me how to serve you.

But it just seemed like there was always obstacles, always barriers.

And then when I got to college, and I was so excited, because there were opportunities left and right, just everywhere, to get plugged into ministry.

And I felt like, okay, finally I'm gonna be able to start living a life totally surrendered to God.

And so my sophomore year, I signed up for Campus Ministries and I had never felt so connected to God.

I became much more brave and bold in my faith than I'd ever had in my entire life.

I was looking for divine appointments and praying with the people, spreading God's love and I was so happy.

I'm like yes, finally I'm living a life that matches the love that God has for me.

But there became a point not too long after that that it seemed like things just got really dark.

There were some situations I was involved in where God seemed to be silent and my presence in those situations seemed to be making things worse.

I wanted to be a reflection of God's light and love to the world, but I was failing miserably.

So before you know it, my newfound boldness just slowly disappeared until it was kind of non-existent, to be quite honest with you.

This pattern was played out in my life over and over again.

I would experience deep conviction, and yes, my desire to serve God would grow strong.

But inevitably, something would happen, and it would dampen my enthusiasm, make me feel like I can't do this, and before long I would find myself in the valley of complacency.

I don't know if I'm the only 1 here that has experienced this, but I feel like maybe this is not something that is uncommon to the Christian experience.

So in this past year, I was, just a few months ago actually, when I started first praying to God, I was studying the story of Elijah, and I was really moved by the message that I found that I had somehow never seen before.

And as I read the story, the pattern of my life began to make more sense.

So let's read the story together, starting in 1 Kings verse 18.

Now as Elijah enters into the scene of the story.

Israel has fallen away from God, and God has instructed Elijah to communicate with King Ahab.

Okay, so starting in verse 17, Then it happened, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him, Is that you, O troubler of Israel?

And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father's house have, in that you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and have followed the Baals.

Now therefore, send and gather all Israel to me on Mount Carmel, the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table.

So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel.

And Elijah came to all the people and said, how long will you falter between 2 opinions?

Then Elijah said to the people, I alone am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450 men.

Therefore, let them give us 2 bowls and let them choose 1 bowl for themselves.

Cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it, and I will prepare the other bowl, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it.

Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.

And I'll skip over the part where the prophets of Baal failed.

We all know that part, and let's start in verse 36.

And it came to pass at the time of the offerings of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word.

Hear me, O Lord, hear me that this people may know that you are the Lord God and that you have turned their hearts back to you again.

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench.

Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, the Lord, he is God, the Lord, he is God.

How when I read of Elijah bravely standing all alone in front of Israel, the prophets of Baal and the king Ahab, my heart was filled with admiration.

I was like, yes, this is a man who truly exemplifies what it means to seek God first, about everything else, and to live your whole life for him, and to surrender everything to him.

I have to admit that in addition to admiration, I was also jealous.

I was like, God, why can't I be like Elijah?

This is how I want to live, but I can never get there.

Let's keep reading 1 Kings 19, 1 through 4.

Now Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, also how he had executed all the prophets with the sword.

Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so let the gods do to me and more also if I do not make your life as a life of 1 of them by tomorrow about this time.

And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.

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The Battle Against Discouragement and From Roots to Harvest

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