Latest / Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms / #152. All Your Children Shall Be Taught by the Lord | Isaiah 54–59 | Chronological Bible Reading for Christian Moms

Transcript

#152. All Your Children Shall Be Taught by the Lord | Isaiah 54–59 | Chronological Bible Reading for Christian Moms · Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms

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  Steph: This is a Dwelling Place from Entrusted Ministries.
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  Steph: I'm Stephanie Hickox.
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  Steph: Can you hear the smile in my voice?
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  Steph: Because today we're talking about one of my very favorite passages of scripture.
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  Steph: I know the last episode was certainly more somber, but today we get to focus on more of the blessings of dwelling with the Lord as we walk through Isaiah 54 through 59.
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  Steph: So let's get into Isaiah 54.
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  Steph: Some of these lines are the restoration of some truly desperate circumstances, but they reveal that no matter what happens around you, God is a sure and steady anchor.
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  Steph: And there's a particular reason I love this portion of scripture as a mom.
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  Steph: Beginning in Isaiah 54:4 Fear not, for you will not be ashamed.
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  Steph: Be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced.
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  Steph: For you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.
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  Steph: For your Maker is your husband.
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  Steph: The Lord of hosts is his name, and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer.
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  Steph: The God of the whole earth he is called, for the Lord has called you.
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  Steph: Like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit.
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  Steph: Like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God.
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  Steph: For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you.
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  Steph: In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting joy I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer This is like the days of Noah to me, as I swore that
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  Steph: the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you.
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  Steph: For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, But my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord who has compassion on you.
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  Steph: O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted.
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  Steph: Behold, I will set your stones in antimony and lay your foundations with sapphires.
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  Steph: I will make your pinnacles of agate, your gates of carbuncles, and all your wall of precious stones.
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  Steph: All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.
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  Steph: In righteousness you shall be established.
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  Steph: You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear, and from terror, for it shall not come near you If anyone stirs up strife, it is not from me.
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  Steph: Whoever stirs up strife with you shall fall because of you as I said, a lot of this is spoken into some truly desperate situations.
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  Steph: But in my experience, when we are the most desperate, it's when God's redemption is most magnified And I think that that's why this stands out so much to me It started out speaking to a wife that was rejected
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  Steph: But God says your maker is your husband.
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  Steph: He has redeemed you, and he's gathered you with everlasting love and compassion And because I think that our desperation most magnifies the Lord's goodness, I try to be vulnerable with you about some times in my life that have
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  Steph: felt hopeless, that I've despaired, and I wanna assure you that anything that I share personally about my husband, he signs off on, and I'm very thankful for that Several years ago God gave me a vision And in it,
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  Steph: my husband was holding our marriage certificate And I saw God's hands firmly take the document and I saw God write His own name over my husband's name I understood that this in no way negated my commitment to my
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  Steph: marriage and to my husband.
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  Steph: But instead, God was saying, "Everything that you need or want in a husband, I am going to be that for you."
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  Steph: And it was about that time that I saw Him show up for me in all of these incredible ways, I mean, my husband didn't have a job at that point.
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  Steph: We were about to lose our health insurance.
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  Steph: My son was in the hospital.
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  Steph: My daughter was needing physical therapy.
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  Steph: it was just nuts.
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  Steph: and then in the midst of that, God provided such incredible, amazing blessings.
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  Steph: It felt like the Lord was like let me show off a little bit about what I'm gonna be like as your husband So, if you, like every wife on earth should feel, that your husband sometimes doesn't live up
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  Steph: to exactly what you're hoping, yep, he's human.
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  Steph: And we can take every single desire that we have And lay it at the foot of Jesus and say, Lord, I have this lack is this something that I can find in you?
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  Steph: Or are you going to stretch my character as I endure without it?
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  Steph: And see, in that season when I felt like we had no stability in our family, financially, medically, this verse, "For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and
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  Steph: my covenant of peace shall not be removed," says the Lord who has compassion on you.
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  Steph: verse, along with verse 13, are why I named our homeschool Covenant of Peace Academy.
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  Steph: And if you've been with us long enough to remember me geeking out over Phinehas in Numbers 25 Guess what?
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  Steph: God said to him, "Behold, I will give to him my covenant of peace So you know, I'm a little bit excited to see that promise come up again.
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  Steph: These mountains departing and the hills be removed.
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  Steph: There will be a point where God will destroy this earth, and he will rebuild a new one.
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  Steph: But our trust is in him, not in what we see, not what we experience.
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  Steph: And I can so resonate with verse 11, "Oh afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted."
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  Steph: And unlike a lot of passages of scripture where he says, "The wise man builds his house upon the rock," ladies, here he is telling us that our foundation is sapphire, And our gates are gonna be precious stones.
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  Steph: I love me some sparkle, And my birthstone's also sapphire, so I kind of like that.
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  Steph: And then verse 13, "All your children shall be taught by the Lord and great shall be the peace of your children.
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  Steph: In righteousness you shall be established.
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  Steph: You shall be far from oppression for you shall not fear."
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  Steph: And from terror, for it shall not come near you.
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  Steph: There were a lot of days where I had reasons to be afraid of what was gonna happen to our family, not just physically and financially, but also what will this instability do to my kids?
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  Steph: And I just am so thankful that even when I felt like I was handling the situation really poorly or my adrenaline was on overload and God was holding me, but I realized, like looking back, He is the one
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  Steph: who was magnified.
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  Steph: It was in my weakness that He was made strong.
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  Steph: And to be able to take this pressure off of me that I had to be the one who brought peace to my children, or that I had to be the one that taught them everything they needed for life,
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  Steph: or that I had to create this family atmosphere that would help them thrive.
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  Steph: Instead, I have clung to this verse, All your children shall be taught by the Lord."
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  Steph: I love to teach my kids.
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  Steph: I love to learn with them, but I would so much rather have God take the lead And the fact that I can trust that in these circumstances, that if I walk in faithfulness to God and I submit to
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  Steph: His sovereignty in my life That I can trust that He will bring about good in my kids' lives through these circumstances.
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  Steph: I don't have to fear, I don't have to live in terror, and I don't even have to be nervous Okay.
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  Steph: I know I might be being a little bit much right now, but I just love this chapter, and I love my Jesus.
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  Steph: And I wouldn't have the love that I have for him unless I felt like the mountains were departing and the hills were removing, I'm just thankful that he taught me to cling to him through it, And I'm very
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  Steph: humbly aware that I need Him to keep me clinging to Him Because any good thing that he's done in me is a result of himself.
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  Steph: And along those lines of us needing God so desperately, let's move to chapter fifty-five.
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  Steph: Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come, buy and eat.
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  Steph: Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
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  Steph: Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
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  Steph: Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
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  Steph: Incline your ear and come to me.
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  Steph: Hear that your soul may live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
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  Steph: I think if we're honest, there are times where we know we need to fellowship with the Lord, and we're just tired after a long day of serving, and we'd rather get a bowl of ice cream and binge a
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  Steph: show Or scroll on our phones, probably all three at once and I'm not saying that those are wrong every time, but I think you and I can both admit that there are times where we do it where we
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  Steph: know that we need Jesus way more See, God's covenant with us is everlasting.
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  Steph: When I think about The fleeting happiness of sugar and screens It doesn't hold a candle to the sufficiency of Christ And one of the reasons that His presence is so incredible is because of what we read beginning in
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  Steph: verse eight.
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  Steph: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord.
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  Steph: For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
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  Steph: For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word
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  Steph: be that goes out from my mouth.
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  Steph: It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."
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  Steph: For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace.
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  Steph: The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
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  Steph: Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress, instead of the brier shall come up the myrrh, and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off I have a banner
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  Steph: in my Bible over chapter 56 that says, "This begins a section of Isaiah that prepares us for the coming glory."
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  Steph: And in this chapter, the Sabbath is mentioned three times as an indicator of righteousness now as New Testament believers, we are actually released from honoring the Sabbath in a legalistic way, but I still believe that honoring rest shows
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  Steph: humility of heart and recognizes that God is everlasting, and He is the God who does not grow weary, and we are not that might be a chapter for you to go back and meditate on for what God says
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  Steph: for that connection.
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  Steph: I'm so struck by Isaiah's words in 57:15.
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  Steph: For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to receive
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  Steph: the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.'"
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  Steph: God says, "I am high and holy And I dwell in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly.
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  Steph: To be contrite means to be humble It's such a beautiful thing That the high lifted up Lord Chooses to dwell with the lowly in Isaiah 58, God rebukes the Israelites' hypocrisy.
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  Steph: It seems like they're doing a lot of good things finally, but their hearts are not right And 58:6 begins, Is not this the fast that I choose: To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the
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  Steph: yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
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  Steph: Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house?
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  Steph: When you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh.
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  Steph: Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily.
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  Steph: Your righteousness shall go before you.
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  Steph: The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
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  Steph: Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer.
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  Steph: You shall cry, and He will say, 'Here I am.'
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  Steph: If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness.
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  Steph: If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness, and your gloom be as the noonday.
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  Steph: And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and make your bones strong, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail."
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  Steph: And this next verse is one that I have often encouraged my friends with When they haven't been parented biblically themselves, when they're coming from a family with a lot of brokenness and they're trying to start a new line
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  Steph: for the Lord.
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  Steph: I love Isaiah 58:12, "And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt.
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  Steph: You shall raise up the foundations of many generations.
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  Steph: You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in."
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  Steph: In 59, you may recognize verse two, But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear."
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  Steph: But thankfully, verse 16 tells us, He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede.
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  Steph: Then His own arm brought Him salvation, and His righteousness upheld Him And the chapter concludes, And a redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression," declares the Lord And as for me, this is
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  Steph: my covenant with them," says the Lord, My spirit that is upon you and my words that I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth or out of the mouth of your offspring."
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  Steph: Let's pray.
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  Steph: Heavenly Father, We come before you thanking you that whatever we need, we can find it in you.
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  Steph: and I pray that these moms listening would experience the nearness of you.
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  Steph: I ask for those that are trying to build a new line through their family, as they're trying to raise up the foundations of many generations and be the repairer of the breach.
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  Steph: Lord, we acknowledge that there is a warfare and a battle in this process, that there is opposition But we know you'll be victorious, and so I pray that you would give spiritual strength to these moms and dads that
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  Steph: are fighting for a new line in their families But sometimes it may look different than we expect.
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  Steph: and we pray for surrender And for wisdom to guide us to discern which battles you would have us fight lord, we pray that you would be our children's teacher as intentional as we long to be We know how
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  Steph: desperately we need your help.
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  Steph: Thank you that you've selected the schoolhouse and chosen the curriculum and provided the supplies.
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  Steph: And we pray You would give us eyes to see what You're doing in our families.
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  Steph: It's in Your mighty name we pray, Jesus.
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  Steph: Amen