About to jump into a little job here. But I saw a comment on the channel where, um, someone said, uh, or asked what, what about us old and broken people? What do we do? What, what does God expect of us in life or something like that? So, I wanna, I, I have a couple of analogies to use here that you may
or may not appreciate, but I'm gonna do my best. I'm squinting because the sun's in my face and I, I couldn't be happier about it because it was cold and brutal this morning earlier. Um, so yesterday, my wife went to the store and I caught her before she went. And I said, hey, can you buy me a jug of
chocolate milk? And, uh, from time to time, you know, it's nice to have a little treat toxic waste just to show your body who's boss. Uh, it happens to be something that from time to time I like to drink right before workout. And, uh, that way you get a little burst of sugar and, um, you can enjoy something
without it being so terrible for you. So, um, the other thing is that, that uh from time to time I like to come up with things I can ask my wife to do for me because I know that, that, that I actually enjoy, but that are accessible because I know that she cares about me. And uh I'm sure I fill her life
with challenges of many sorts. But one of them is that I, I probably am not the most accessible person to help. Um So, you know, it's nice to have things to, to help her help me. And that, that's a win for both of us anyway. So she got me this chocolate milk and I totally forgot about it until a minute
ago. And I, I worked out this morning and I didn't have any chocolate milk. So that was really sad. So I was contemplating that sadness while drinking a glass of chocolate milk. So, what, what's the point of this? Well, there's no point in chocolate milk under the, the conditions I've described if you
don't drink it, right? What's the point of a gift? If you don't see it as a gift, you might be scratching your head, your gray head thinking uh but she got something on me, right? I'm thinking, hey, I, I don't get it. What, what's the uh gift here? Boy, there are a lot of places we could go here. Uh
Where to start. Well, so I don't forget, let's talk. Now, let's not go there again. I have in my hand, some nuts, some actual nuts. Right. We'll show you these first, these are chestnuts. Now, I've never actually eaten a chestnut. I have no idea what this tastes like. I ate a horse chestnut once which
it turns out they're poisonous and I was like, I don't know how anybody can find chestnuts appetizing. Now, why do I go into that? Um, a horse chestnut and regular chestnut look the same to an untrained eye, but one is actually poisonous. It's full of tannins which are incredibly bitter. And so you may
as well eat pine bark or something. That's, that's kind of what it tastes, just, just less piney, that's what it tastes like. Ok. So what about not poisonous chestnuts? These are not your average everyday chestnuts and no, I'm not about to sell you magical beans or anything. These are called Dunstan
chestnuts. These are hybrids between the American chestnut which got wiped out for the most part by a, by a disease and a Chinese chestnut which is much more hardy. But American chestnuts have benefits over Chinese chestnuts in several aspects. One of them is not that they're disease hardy, but um they're
more, they're much more rigorous in cold weather and they're, they're um they're much more productive. So they're hardier and more productive. I don't know if they taste better, but we don't need to know that for the purposes of this example. So to the untrained eye, a chestnut's a chestnut but it turns
out a chestnut can be poisonous or it can be different varieties with very different characteristics. And depending on where you live, those characteristics will matter more or less, but they can really matter. This tree will be producing sooner than other varieties and it will produce more nuts. What
about these little guys? So these are actually, let me put my hand up here so you can see how tiny these are. These are actually hazelnuts. And if you've seen a hazelnut before, which I had not, um I got this bag and I showed my wife and I'm like, these are a lot smaller than I thought they would be
. And she said, what are those? I said they're hazelnuts. She said those aren't hazelnuts, they're too small to be hazelnuts. And I said, well, they're a special kind. And I said, well, let's see what they taste like. So I cracked one open and um, it smelled really nice and it tasted pretty good. I said
, huh? That's like a single shell peanut, but it tastes a lot better. So why do I have these hazelnuts? And why are they so small? This is a variety called a Manchurian hazelnut. And it was developed in the 18 hundreds in Russia. And the funny thing about these, the unique thing about these hazelnuts
is they're heartier than regular hazelnuts. I have planted something like 20 hazelnuts on my property and we're zone 2 to 4, depending on who you ask or when you know what kind of winter we get. But two is super brutal. Three is not even nice. Four is bad enough on its own. And so it's a, it's a fun
game trying to see what works here of those 20 or 30 however many hazelnuts I planted over the years, we have something like four that are alive. I have no idea if they're gonna actually produce nuts or not. And I couldn't tell you what variety there are. They are. But I know it's of two. That's sort
of irrelevant. The point is those are standard and the results weren't that great. And so I wanted to try something that was a lot different and I discovered these and they're hardy down to zone two if I recall, which is, which is crazy, you could say that's nuts. Um But anyway, they're tiny. So if you
showed someone in Virginia these little nuts, this little hazelnuts, they say why the heck are you growing those grow the big ones. But the thing is that those won't work here. And so these have much greater value here because the alternative isn't available. I hear I can't attest to this, that these
actually have a much, much more pungent in a, in a good way, a stronger positive taste than the other ones. So that's interesting. So I'm, I'm just trying to explore my nut options here and, um, there you have it. So what does that have to do with being old or broken? Well, um you may see yourself a
certain way, but that does not mean that God sees you that way. So let me hit you with a couple of truths here. First off, this life is not the place where we receive our eternal reward. This is not the place where we receive our eternal reward. Everything that, that we see as an affliction is something
that takes away if we live our life properly is actually a gateway. It gives, it provides something more. The phrase you need to remember is prospered in affliction, prospered in affliction. It's not automatic. You have to actually live righteously and it's not like uh again, it's not like the full effects
of this will be poured out in this life. So a good scripture story to look up again is Lazarus and the rich man. So this, this, this man Lazarus, he was covered with sores, he was a beggar, he had nothing and he was obviously in pain. He was obviously not regarded very well in life and he died and he
was in heaven with Abraham. That's according to the story that that Jesus told. So in life, Lazarus may have seen all those things as terrible afflictions, but they were the vehicle for where he was in heaven. So um that's sort of where one slice of Christianity would leave off. Most slices of Christianity
won't tell that story because they say that life is all puppy dogs and rainbows. The rest of the story is that there's actually an awful lot of joy and meaning that we can have right here. And right now the issue is that we try to find it in ways that are tied together with what the world regards as
prosperity or happiness and worldly joy and godly joy. They aren't the same thing, worldly prosperity and Godly prosperity, they're not the same thing. So whether we're talking about age or capacity in any sense or even circumstances in life between that, we're talking about a huge slice of human uh
of the human population of humanity. And the fact is that what we ought to be looking for is not so much what the world regards as valuable, but the meaning that God provides and how is that meaning encountered? That meaning is encountered by learning about and living his love. So if these nuts stayed
in a place where their larger alternatives were available, they wouldn't be regarded as valuable. If these nuts, these chestnuts, if there were no, I don't know, it's called chestnut light or something. If there were no disease, which the American chestnut was susceptible to, there'd be no real value
to that hybrid. And so part of achieving the meaning that's possible in life is finding the situations where you can give a unique contribution and then making it, I was talking to an elderly gal not too long ago and she's riddled with various afflictions. And she said I'm so depressed. I just wish there
was something I could do. I can't work and, you know, I, I can't do anything that's got a regular schedule and, um, I just sit here by myself all the time and I'm so lonely and I, I wonder if I've wasted my life because this is how it's ending. And I said, well, you, you can't work for money but you
can still work. And she said, what do you mean? I said, you're telling me there's not a place that you'd enjoy volunteering at because she was saying she had a, she has a friend and they were gonna go clubbing at the senior center or whatever. And she's like, but we just started talking about it and
I just can't get excited about it. I just don't know why I'm just not interested. And I said, there's no way you can volunteer. I mean, what about, like an old age home? You know, because, because, uh, she went through some hard times when her mother was dying. I said, why don't you go and help some
people there? And she said, well, I couldn't deal with that because when they die it's just so sad. And I said, well, can't you find some place where you can volunteer with kids? And she's like, oh, well, I love babies. Yeah, I could hold babies all day long. That would make me very happy. And I said
, I'm sure there's a place you could find that needs some people to hold some babies, you know, or a person that needs somebody to hold some babies, even if it's not an organization now. Maybe, maybe what I'm saying here seems like, I don't know, a mouse versus an elephant in terms of trying to, to conquer
the limits of, you know, the potential landslide of a life of regret, which is, you know, worst case scenario. I'm not saying that that's everybody's position versus some little thing. And you're like, well, what difference is that going to make? You have no idea. You have no idea. You know, I, I fill
my schedule up pretty well. I, I try hard to, that's the wrong way of saying it, but I tried hard to use every moment to the maximum value. And the other day I found myself in town, which I hardly ever go and I had, I was between timed appointments and it's almost always the case that in circumstances
like this, which is super rare. It's like once a year, I, I make sure I have a book in the car I drive so that there's never a wasted moment and I didn't have a book and I was so tired that, that my next thing was, well, just intentionally shut everything down and just sit in quiet for 10 minutes or
15 minutes or whatever, it actually had like two hours to burn. And I said, I'm so tired right now. I can't do that because I'll just fall asleep. And I said, Lord, I'm here, use me for whatever you've got. I don't care. You tell me, tell some random person out there, you know, I'll go to the ATM, I'll
get some money. You tell me what to do. This is, I, I don't have any orders. Tell me what to do. If there were a set of people doing this on a regular basis because they actually didn't have anything in their schedule. I, I'm, I'm not trying to say that that anyone in this situation doesn't have things
in their schedule. I'm just saying if you have vacancies in your life for your time, talents and efforts, imagine what God could put in there. If you really believe that he can use you, you're not gonna have to look very far to find ways that he can use you. And you are going to be shocked at the things
that he changed together in using you for other people. You're gonna be like these little hazelnuts and to you, it's just like who cares about this little nut. Do you know how much money and time I've spent trying to grow hazelnuts here? And I found these, these didn't even cost that much on some obscure
website. I was looking for pine tree seeds and I found hazelnuts and the things that you see in your life is useless without value. You know, God sees you as these chestnuts that have exactly what it takes to uniquely help somebody with something. I promise you. I promise you. So, whatever your situation
, it doesn't matter if you're not old, doesn't matter if you're not busted up if you're alive. God has a purpose for you. In news flash, that purpose is not you, it's not you, it's not about you. And that's the key. That's the key. You know, life in a way, in a way. It's like falling out of a really
tall tree. And as time passes, you just keep hitting branches and breaking ribs trying to hold on for your dear life. But the ground's coming whether you like it or not. But every time you hit a branch, it's an opportunity to make this place better than it was when you found it. If you're still kicking
, even if you're not kicking because your legs don't work. If you're alive, you have the ability to make this world a better place. You just need to figure out how and the good news is we have a good father and he'll help you. He'll help you find that. So turn to him and stop complaining about what you
do or do not have and ask him how you can give what you do have. And you have an awful lot. This lady I was talking about, I said you're on disability. You worked your whole life and now all of a sudden you don't have to work anymore for the rest of your life it's taken care of. You got a place to live
, you got food to eat. What I wouldn't trade. I said I would take all of your physical afflictions. Times three, I couldn't multiply it by more than that because I'd be dead. But I take it times three to have the time that you have. And she said, yeah, but what can I do? I mean, I can't walk for long
periods of time. I can't do this. I gotta be around. I said, you can think you can speak. She said, well, I'm tired all the time and I said, then sleep, sleep. When you're tired, you got nothing else to do. You can sleep anytime you want. What a blessing, right? But she got excited about the volunteer
thing. I had to check with her to see how that's going. But don't short change. God. You know, if life's gonna disqualify you from certain opportunities, you let life do that. Don't do that to yourself. Open your mind, open your eyes, get on your knees and pray and say, Lord I'm here. Use me, got a couple
of drops left in the tank. Let's do this. This is not an attitude that has to wait until something hits you in life that you feel is limiting in some way. There's an attitude that the Lord helped me take upon myself when I was fully able bodied. And it has continued with me through waves and waves of
things that have, have not been as easy. But you know, you go until you can't go anymore and then you take a break and then you get up and you do it again. I was gonna talk about the story of uh Simeon and Anna in the, in the, in the temple with the baby Jesus. But I guess I won't do that. There's still
more you can do. If you're still kicking, there's still more you can do. So if you wanna feel better, go do something for someone else and the more you do for other people, the better you're gonna feel we have this all reversed and we think that how we feel determines what we do. You get to determine
what you do right now. It's full of your choice and how you decide to act right now is exactly what's gonna determine how you feel later. So if you want to feel good later, do good now and just keep doing that no matter what. And you'll find that over time, everything gets better, do everything you can