Latest / Time with God with John North / How Pain Has Brought Me Closer To God Pt. 1

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How Pain Has Brought Me Closer To God Pt. 1 · Time with God with John North

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Good morning. Heading into a new week and every weekday
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  Speaker 1: at this time, we want to stop and spend time
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  Speaker 1: with God.
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  Speaker 1: Opening the Bible, God's word to us, and applying it
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  Speaker 1: to our lives, and we find week after week and
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  Speaker 1: day after day that God always has something to say
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  Speaker 1: that pertains to our everyday lives. He is so real,
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  Speaker 1: so close to us, and wants to be involved in
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  Speaker 1: your personal life. So let's take some time with him
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  Speaker 1: right now.
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  Speaker 1: This week I want to talk about 5 areas in
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  Speaker 1: my life where pain in my life has pushed me
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  Speaker 1: to God. Pain that has pushed me to God. I
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  Speaker 1: want to start off today by talking about loneliness. My
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  Speaker 1: life started off pretty lonely. I was born on the
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  Speaker 1: mission field in India. I went to boarding school. In
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  Speaker 1: boarding school, I arrived in boarding school.
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  Speaker 1: Several years after most of the other boys had arrived
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  Speaker 1: in boarding school, I didn't fit in. I was ostracised
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  Speaker 1: and felt very alone in boarding school. Treated quite negatively,
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  Speaker 1: I remember longing to fit in. And at one point
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  Speaker 1: I remember an experience where a group of the boys
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  Speaker 1: who I wanted to fit in with.
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  Speaker 1: invited me to come with them and said they were
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  Speaker 1: going to include me in something, and I thought, oh
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  Speaker 1: this is great. And we went out behind the dorms
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  Speaker 1: to this big bank that goes down, I remember sometimes
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  Speaker 1: we used to throw paper aeroplanes off it and see
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  Speaker 1: how far they would go. And when we got there,
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  Speaker 1: rather than, uh, embracing me in their group, they shoved
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  Speaker 1: me down the bank, and I went tumbling down this
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  Speaker 1: steep long bank.
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  Speaker 1: And just felt so alone, and I remember that experience
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  Speaker 1: was a significant experience because it taught me to not
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  Speaker 1: trust people to accept me into their group. When we
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  Speaker 1: left India then, when I was 10 years old, we
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  Speaker 1: moved 5 times in 2 years, involving two different countries
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  Speaker 1: that we moved to, and in every place I didn't
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  Speaker 1: fit in and I felt so alone. Loneliness.
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  Speaker 1: Have you felt that in your life? Has that been
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  Speaker 1: a significant part of your life journey? It's pretty tough,
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  Speaker 1: isn't it? It's a terrible feeling. I came to a
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  Speaker 1: place of real depression over it.
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  Speaker 1: I remember reading in the Bible about Hagar. You may
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  Speaker 1: not remember that name.
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  Speaker 1: God came to Abraham and said, I'm going to make
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  Speaker 1: you a great nation, and you and Sarah, your wife,
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  Speaker 1: will have children. Well, years went by, and Sarah didn't
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  Speaker 1: get pregnant.
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  Speaker 1: They were approaching 100 years old.
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  Speaker 1: And Sarah said, Look here, just sleep with my servant,
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  Speaker 1: woman Hagar, and have a child, and we can call
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  Speaker 1: that boy ours. Well, Hagar did get pregnant and had
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  Speaker 1: a child and started to be kind of proud towards Sarah,
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  Speaker 1: and Sarah kicked her out, and Hagar was left in
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  Speaker 1: the wilderness wandering around with nothing.
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  Speaker 1: And encountered God there. Then she came back, and when
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  Speaker 1: Sarah had a son, she said, I don't want Hagar
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  Speaker 1: here any more. So Abraham gave her some food and water,
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  Speaker 1: and off she went into the wilderness. She wandered around.
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  Speaker 1: She ran out of water.
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  Speaker 1: She thought she was about to die and that her
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  Speaker 1: son Ishmael was about to die. Genesis 21:15 says when
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  Speaker 1: the water in the skin was gone, she put the
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  Speaker 1: boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off
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  Speaker 1: and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought,
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  Speaker 1: I cannot watch the boy die. And as she sat there,
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  Speaker 1: she began to sob. Pretty lonely, hey, and God sought
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  Speaker 1: her out two different times.
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  Speaker 1: And when God had spoken to her, she said this,
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  Speaker 1: Genesis 16:13, she gave this name to the Lord who
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  Speaker 1: spoke to her.
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  Speaker 1: You are the God who sees me.
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  Speaker 1: For she said, I have now seen the one who
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  Speaker 1: sees me.
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  Speaker 1: I want to tell you, when as a teenager I
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  Speaker 1: came to know Jesus Christ personally.
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  Speaker 1: A light came into my dark life because I had
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  Speaker 1: found the one who sees me. My loneliness pushed me
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  Speaker 1: to God, and if you're feeling lonely today, I just
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  Speaker 1: encourage you.
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  Speaker 1: You're not alone. There is a God who sees you
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  Speaker 1: and wants you to be close to Him. Get close
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  Speaker 1: to Him today. I'm John North.
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  Speaker 2: To go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.