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680 | Private Time with God · The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast

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  Hello, friends, and welcome back to another podcast of Woman at the Well Ministries.
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  Where we believe that all of us have to come to Jesus like the woman at the
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  well in John chapter four.
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  Our highest priority is making God real in your life. Whether you are listening
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  in our app, in your favorite podcasting app, or on our website at watwm.org,
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  we invite you to sit down with us as we look to the scriptures to learn more
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  about God and to strengthen your daily walk with Jesus Christ.
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  In this episode of the Woman at the Well Ministries podcast,
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  join Kim Miller and Erica Close in a conversation as we walk with Jesus.
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  In today's conversation, we're
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  chatting about what life looks like when we truly get alone with God.
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  Well, hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us in this podcast of Women
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  at the Well Ministries. I am Erica Close, and I am here with Kimberly Miller.
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  Hello, and thank you guys for joining us. I'm so excited about today's podcast.
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  Most of us have learned about Jacob in vacation Bible school or Sunday school
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  and him wrestling with the angel of the Lord, But this passage of Scripture is so rich.
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  And in this message, we have just determined lots of lessons that I really never
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  learned in vacation Bible school or in Sunday school.
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  I so love this season that we're in with our podcast as you,
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  Kim, are taking us through these,
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  what should be familiar stories and their accounts that we have read about and
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  heard about, but we're just seeing them from a totally different place.
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  I know I am hearing things and learning things as you are delivering these messages
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  and then those follow-up Bible bits that you are doing on the same content.
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  The richness of what you are drawing out of the scriptures is just, it's really exciting.
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  If, listener, you aren't someone who listens to the Bible Bit podcast,
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  I just invite you to do so.
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  You can also subscribe to receive Kim's Bible Bits delivered directly to your
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  phone via a text message. They come out every Monday through Friday at eight o'clock in the morning.
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  We would love to invite you to do that. And you can find both the Bible Bit
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  opportunity to come to your phone as well as the information about the Bible
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  Bit podcast on our website at watwm.org.
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  But let's get back to what we're talking about today.
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  So today we're having a conversation about Monday's podcast.
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  So if you listen to Monday's podcast. It was episode 679, and it was called Wrestling with God.
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  In that podcast, Kim, you brought out a lesson for us that comes out of Genesis chapter 32,
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  where Jacob is preparing to meet Esau, his brother, and he wrestles with the angel of God.
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  And there were so many things that I had never thought about that you brought
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  out in that podcast, and I absolutely just invite you all to listen to that.
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  But one of the things that you really brought out that just really,
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  really struck me was that you talked about the power of our lonely times with God.
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  You brought out a lot of things that in some ways made me go, ooh.
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  But you talked about the power of those times when we're alone with the Lord,
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  and the Lord is all we have.
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  I want to sit in that for a minute because I think sometimes we don't want to
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  get alone with God because when we do get alone with God,
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  I think we see ourselves really clearly because I think the Lord really exposes
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  things. I think he takes us to the woodshed.
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  He does take us to the woodshed. Well, exactly. So sometimes those are just,
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  really hard times, but there is such power in those times.
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  But Jacob didn't go alone with God because he felt like he was going to be.
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  Instructed, he had nowhere else.
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  Jacob had reached a place where his strength and his plans and his ideas,
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  his scheming and deceit and all that business had caught up with him.
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  And he was stripped of any inkling of an idea of what he could do next.
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  But then he remembered God's promises.
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  I'm telling you, the Lord will bring to remembrance those things that you have
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  need of when you have need of them.
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  And that is powerful.
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  And there's power when,
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  We get to a place where there's nothing we can do but listen.
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  I wish that I had the discipline to just be that way. Psalms 46.10,
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  be still and know that I am God.
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  But I don't sometimes. But one of the things that I really love that God really
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  placed in my heart that struck me in this account of Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord,
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  was there are some things he teaches us in private that he absolutely could
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  not teach us in public. Oh, that is so good.
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  I love that. That you have to get along with God.
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  Jesus oftentimes would get in a boat, row to the other side of the river.
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  He had a river between, I mean, or a lake between him or the Sea of Galilee
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  between him and everyone else.
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  He got himself alone with God and he did business with God. And that was Jesus.
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  How much more do we need to? A whole lot more.
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  I think it's important where you just, the way you just said,
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  you know, he did business with God.
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  Because I think so often when we run around in our own strength and we run around
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  doing all the things that we think are important,
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  we completely miss asking the Lord to direct our work and to speak to us and
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  to tell us what steps we are to take next.
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  And when we get alone with him, I think we're not running around looking at the rest of the world.
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  Like, when we really get alone with him, we can't compare ourselves to the rest
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  of the world or the things that we see on the Internet or the things that other people are doing.
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  When you're really alone with him, the only thing you can compare yourself to is him.
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  He becomes the measure.
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  I think when you're alone with him, his….
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  Glory is completely unmuted.
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  And it's so big that there's an instantaneous understanding that he is God and I am not.
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  I think that we need to say that again, that he is God and I am not.
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  But when we're with a lot of people or a lot of stuff around us,
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  we can be distracted. And that's the one thing that the devil definitely doesn't want you to know.
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  And so I think one of the greatest tools the devil uses is busyness.
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  And he keeps us busy. And that means we don't have time for study in the Bible.
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  We don't make time for praying. We don't make time for having conversations and fellowship.
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  I mean, I am a strong proponent that you need to have people that you're just
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  talking about the Lord with.
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  That witness is very inspiring and encouraging to the ones who listen,
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  but also to you who are speaking it.
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  I mean, having a group of friends that you can just have a conversation about
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  God with is incredibly important.
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  It's powerful. It's really powerful. We need...
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  We need sort of that public space in our lives to where we can share and where,
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  we have people that can speak to us about what they know and what they're learning and,
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  to use your term of an accountability body, what they see in our lives.
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  It's huge.
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  One of the other lessons that you brought out in Monday's podcast coming out of Genesis 32 was,
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  this concept of the power of our weakness to draw us closer to God.
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  I think so often, and you even said it, I think you said it in Monday's podcast,
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  we think we're all that in a bag of chips.
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  And so, you know, that's not, that's not, you know, I am weak Lord,
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  you know, thou art strong. That's not, that's not what that's conveying there.
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  And I think so often we just run around, you know, in our own strength,
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  which means we're not drawing on the power of God.
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  All we can draw on is us.
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  And I'm nothing compared to him.
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  You made a statement in the podcast too, which really kind of floored me.
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  But you said that our strength is.
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  Is a statement of our lack of faith and trust.
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  That one kind of hit me when I heard it come out. Our strength in ourselves,
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  like my strength, not the strength that I draw on from the Lord. No.
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  But my strength. My fleshly strength and fleshly dependence upon me,
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  my self-reliance, is a huge picture of the status of our faith.
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  Because I think when I am fully self-reliant, I'm not going through my day talking to the Lord.
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  I'm not going through my day asking Him to lead and guide and direct the next
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  step, the next interaction, the next thing I say.
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  And when I'm not doing that, I will run out of my own strength.
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  And my own strength will take me in the wrong direction.
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  To that idea of our strength and the power of our weakness,
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  in drawing us to the Lord, you asked a really hard question of our listeners,
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  and I wanted to just ask it again.
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  And you asked us, what is it going to take for you to surrender to God?
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  I mean, it literally took Jacob running to the end of his rope.
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  And I think for many of us, he has to run us all the way out.
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  Of all of our self-fleshly pride and all of that business in order for us to live.
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  Depend on him. And that's so sad. It really is.
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  So often, I think it takes big events and a crisis in our lives for us to fully realize that we,
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  aren't in control and that we can't fix,
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  the things in our lives.
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  I know in Monday's podcast, you know, you shared about your knee.
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  And about some of the lessons learned in that.
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  You know, I've gone through a health crisis in the last couple of years.
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  And one of the things that the Lord really impressed upon me was,
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  holy cow, what are the lessons I have learned? I really don't want to learn them again.
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  Right? I mean, did I learn them, Lord?
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  Like, I don't want to waste. That was your mantra for about six months.
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  Yeah, I don't want to waste this experience not learning it,
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  because what if I really need to learn this and the Lord is going to allow me to learn it again?
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  I really believe, and I think I spoke or at least alluded to this in Monday's,
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  podcast, I really believe—,
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  That he prepares us for the next step.
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  And we have to get what it is we need in order to do what he's intended us to do.
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  I want to get it the first time.
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  Yes, absolutely. I think to your point, you just talked about God preparing us.
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  God is going to prepare us for the next step.
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  But that preparation is going to require us to change.
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  And change hurts. change does hurt and you made a statement on monday where
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  you said you know we often want often want god to change everyone else not us,
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  and i know you know it's it's hard to change well think about the little.
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  The little butterfly how what it goes through to get out of you know it's casing
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  i mean it's it's a lot it is a lot i actually shared this with you earlier today
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  that someone had shared with me,
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  a friend was talking about preservation her her pastor had been talking about
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  how the lord preserves us,
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  and she had looked at me and she said all i could think was about actual preserving.
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  She had been literally canning tomatoes.
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  And she talked about what happened to the tomato in that process.
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  And full credit to her, this is not me, but she said, you know,
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  when you can a tomato, you got to boil it,
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  you peel it, and then it goes under tremendous pressure to be preserved.
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  That tomato goes through an awful lot to be useful for us later. Amen.
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  God often has to really change us to prepare us for whatever is next.
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  And it's a bold prayer to say, Lord, change me into whatever you need for me to do next.
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  Because often, as you said, our next does not look like our now.
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  I'm just really understanding that in my life.
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  But He has a plan, and He doesn't give us all that we need from the beginning. We grow into it.
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  I really have had the—the Lord's really speaking to me about this idea that
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  our, you know, we're given gifts and talents,
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  but how they're used may not be the same all the way through our life.
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  And I've been very reminded of that recently, that so often the Lord calls for,
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  new gifts or new talents.
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  And maybe they're based on skill sets we already possess, but He's going to
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  use us how He's going to use us whenever He wants to.
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  We're not a screwdriver, right? We're like one of those multi-tools. That's all the things.
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  And he is going to call upon whatever it is, whenever he wants that.
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  And it's our job to listen and be prepared for that.
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  I think in that, one of the things that the Lord asks us to be is willing to change.
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  And I think that goes back to the surrender. I'm doing better when I'm thinking
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  of it as transformation.
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  How is he transforming you? How is he transforming me into who his vision of
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  me was from the very beginning?
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  That helps me. I like that. Transforming is a good word.
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  One of the other things that you talked about on Monday, and I'd like us to
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  sort of close out today here,
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  is you talked about essentially the difference between demanding things of God.
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  And claiming His promises.
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  And I think that's a really important thing. And I want to make sure we all hear this.
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  I think when we pray a list of do do do do do it's about me,
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  I want you to do this for me I want you to do this for my people it's me me me my my my,
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  but when we are praying through his promises in scripture,
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  it's about him it's about what he said he will do and is asking him to do what
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  he said he would do in faith, knowing he will always do what he said he would do.
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  And it's the focus that is different. We're not telling God,
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  you do this, you do that, you do this. We're not managing God's works or his time.
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  But when we pray in earnest faith believing, We are praying that his word is
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  revealed through us and that his works are provided for us. Amen.
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  I've been really impressed lately in my times of prayer that when there is something,
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  that is so important to me that I would continually bring it to the Lord.
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  That I am asking it through the lens of who God is. Amen.
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  If I'm asking for healing for someone, I ask through the lens of,
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  as the scripture calls him, the great physician. And through the lens of all
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  the times that we know in scripture that Jesus healed people,
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  and all of the different ways that he healed them, and in all of the different
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  circumstances that he healed.
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  So that my ask is not so much an ask, but my ask is claiming that what God did in his scripture,
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  he'll do in this situation, and who God is identified as in his word,
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  that God would play that role in this situation that I'm bringing to him.
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  Which demonstrates a personal knowledge of who he is,
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  a personal face in what he can and will do and an absolute demonstration of your love for him,
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  you you talked about how jacob when jacob gets to when the morning comes.
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  Right when the morning comes he says um,
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  He says to the angel, I will not let thee go except thou bless me.
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  And you talked about how that was not Jacob making a demand.
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  But it was essentially claiming the promise of the blessing that had already been given.
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  The Lord had already promised blessings for his lineage.
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  It was also a statement of his clinging to God to be his only source. of help.
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  It was the only place his blessing was going to come from. It was an admission
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  that I'm nothing, and I need your God, and I need you to be God in my life,
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  knowing that he would be when he persisted through the prayer,
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  the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man, of Aleph Much.
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  Fervency is passion and persistence.
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  And I love this idea of how I think our fervent prayers are the ones that are
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  grounded in what we know about God's Word.
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  Amen. We can't just build a relationship on a laundry list or a grocery list
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  of prayers and asks. Say that again.
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  We cannot build effectual prayers and a relationship on a laundry list or a
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  grocery list of asks. Amen.
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  I invite you all to go back to Monday's podcast and listen to it.
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  It was episode, again, 679, Wrestling with God.
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  But I want to leave you with this question.
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  Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord at the brook of J-Bock.
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  We all have a brook, right? The Lord brings us probably multiple times in our
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  lives to a place where we honestly surrender,
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  where we may spend time and be very lonely,
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  where there's times- He's all you need and he's all you have.
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  And where there's time where our weaknesses draw us closer to him.
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  And I would just invite our listeners to figure out, you know,
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  where is that place for you?
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  Where is that place the Lord is calling you to, and you're not going?
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  Because He's calling, and He is drawing, and He is wanting to get into the nitty-gritty with us.
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  He's not calling us to a lightweight, fake faith.
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  He's calling us to getting to know Him to such a degree that our lives are surrendered,
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  and when He calls for whatever He calls, we're ready to go.
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  He's calling us to be people willing to change our lives and what we do because
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  we want to do what He's calling.
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  Do you remember the old hymn, I Surrender All? Of course. That's what this one is.
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  I know we've had conversations about that hymn. We should not sing it lightly,
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  because we're making a tremendous statement in that hymn.
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  I really feel like that's one that needs to be sung for this.
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  Remember, you are loved. Jesus loves you.
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  Thank you for joining us in today's podcast. You can visit the show notes for
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  quotes from today's podcast and scripture references.
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  We pray today has been a blessing, and we encourage you to reach out to us through
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  You can find our app by searching for Woman at the Well Ministries in your app
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  store or through our website at watwm.org.
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  If you visit our website, you'll be able to subscribe to Bible Bits,
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  a daily devotion written by Kim and delivered Monday through Friday by text message.
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  Woman at the Well Ministries is a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving our Heavenly Father.
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  And it is through your loving and generous support that our ministry continues to bless others.
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  To learn how to partner with Woman at the Well Ministries, please visit our website.
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  Thank you to the Gospel Group Fudge Creek for letting us use their hit song, Happy Girl.
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  We greatly appreciate your prayers. We are praying daily for our listeners.
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  Remember that God loves you. You are loved.