Hey everyone, it's so great to have you with us today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope.

We are going to continue our very encouraging series today called Life's Healing Choices.

And in these lessons, Rick Warren will guide us through a deep biblical exploration of how to overcome the hurts, hang-ups, and habits that really hold us

back. So get ready for some practical insights and powerful truths that can lead to lasting change

and freedom in your life. All right, here's Rick with part one of a message called The Hope You Need for Change.

We talked last week about how we all have unhealthy areas in our lives, habits, hurts, and hangups that mess us up.

We talked about how the cause of the hurt in your life is when you try to play God, denying your humanity, trying to control everything.

When you try to control everything, it causes

frustration, it causes fatigue, it causes failure. And we talked about the first step last week,

which is to realize I'm not God. I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do things

that I know are unhealthy. I do them anyway. And my life tends to be

unmanageable. Now, if you take that first step, and last week I said, that is the most difficult

step for many people, because it means being honest about your pain, honest about your hangups,

your hurts, that you don't have it all together, that there's some emotional stuff in your

life that needs to be cleaned up, that there's some emotional stuff in your life that

needs to be cleaned up, that there's some bad things that need to be reorganized and refixed,

and that all of us have broken areas in our lives. That's painful. In fact, it can be downright

devastating, because if you've carried a hurt for a long time, you often begin to get your

identity from that hurt.

I'm a victim. I'm this. And it's very, very painful. And as you begin to take first step,

you start grieving over your past. Man, I wish that hadn't happened. I wish I hadn't done

those dumb decisions. I wish hadn't had that bad response. And you start to grieve over wasted time, wasted energy,

...