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569 | Conversations - Jesus is Present · The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast

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She's a happy girl. Hello, friends, and welcome back to another podcast of Woman.
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At the Well Ministries, where we believe that all of us have to come to Jesus
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like the woman at the well in John chapter 4.
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Our highest priority is making God real in your life.
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Whether you are listening in our app, in your favorite podcasting app,
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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 Kimmy Miller and Erica Close in a conversation as we walk with Jesus.
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In today's conversation, we're having a conversation about the presence of Jesus
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and what His presence looks like in our lives.
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Well, welcome back, everyone, to the Woman at the Well Ministries podcast.
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I am excited to be able to spend some time with you and with Kimmy Miller and
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to just talk a little bit about the presence of Jesus and what his presence looks like in our life.
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If you listen to Monday's podcast, you would have heard a message about Zacchaeus
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and about what it meant to know that Jesus was looking at him and what that means for you.
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What does it mean to you that Jesus is looking at you.
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So you listened to that podcast. You heard Kim talk about some really amazing
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truths that are about having the presence of Jesus in our lives.
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And I didn't want to let go of those.
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I wanted us to spend a little bit of time talking about them and about what
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it means in our lives, and therefore what it can mean in your life,
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to have the presence of Jesus.
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I think too often people just use the term and they don't really understand
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that he is as real as you are sitting beside of me right now.
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Now, I don't see him in a fleshly body, but I know that he is here.
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And I think, you know, we often talk about, like, meeting Jesus as our salvation moment, right?
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And it's kind of like this checkbox, right? Like, I've met Jesus.
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I'm saved. Check, check. I've met Jesus and I've received Jesus.
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And I've received Jesus and I'm saved, you know, three checks. But...
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His presence, his daily presence, his personal immediate presence,
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is so much more than a checkbox. Amen.
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Amen. So in your message from Monday, you talked about a number of things that
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are just such amazing gifts that we have because we have the presence of Jesus in our lives.
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And I wanted to just chat about those a little bit and what those gifts look
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like in your life and then, you know, in my life and how it could look in the lives of our listeners.
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So you talked a lot in that message about the fact that Jesus hears us.
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Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. So I want to know, like, if you think about
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your life and what your life looks like, what does it look like in your life?
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Him that Jesus hears you. Yeah. Well, I'm very scriptural oriented,
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as anyone who listens to me knows.
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And Matthew 7, 7 says, ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find,
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knock and it shall be opened unto you.
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And I ask him in prayer to open up my heart, open up my mind.
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I seek his word for answers.
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I'm also the girl that if i'm looking for a date
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not a date with a guy or something but like a calendar date
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or a timing i will ask the lord and he will often direct me to something in
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the bible and maybe it'll say on the seventh day of such and such and then i
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believe that's the lord saying to me do that on that date,
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you know, or, and then he says, if you knock.
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So sometimes I'm like everybody else and I'm praying and I'm not hearing what the answer is.
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Because he either will say yes or no or wait. That's really what he says.
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And if I'm caught in the wait, then I still have to believe.
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So for me, hearing what God says to me looks like my mind being filled with
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information that is scriptural and relevant.
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So if it doesn't go with what the Lord would say, then I know that answer didn't come from him.
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Right. And then there's this overwhelming peace.
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And the world doesn't give it to you, so you can't always explain it.
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I mean, there have been things in my life that I've prayed about,
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that we've talked about, and I've seen your eyebrows go up.
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And I've said, this is what I think he wants me to do, and I've seen your eyebrows stay up.
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And but you trust him in
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me and and you go to prayer and we and we do it and
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and it's like wow so for me hearing
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him involves all of
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the things that make up my relationship with him so it's his word it's it's
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a quietness like he says be still and know that i am god in psalms 46 10 and
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then there is just a prevailing thought in your heart or mind,
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as long as it matches with the Word. So what's it look like to you?
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Well, you know, it's interesting to think about.
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And when I think about what it means to know that Jesus hears me,
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it's, I don't know if I'm coming from the scientist part of me,
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but it's this building up of evidence.
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And we know that faith is the... Evidence of things unseen. Evidence of things unseen. But...
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I have always been amazed, and I shouldn't be amazed, right?
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But I've always been amazed when I have been in what I consider really sticky
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situations, and I ask the Lord to help me to get out of the sticky situation.
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I mean, it could be something as simple as finding a parking spot.
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I mean, that's not a sticky situation, but sometimes it's hard.
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It is. It's hard. Right. Sometimes it's hard.
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Or, you know, or needing the words to say in a difficult situation.
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Mine is not saying the words in a difficult conversation that could come out harsh.
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That's, and he answers.
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And that's the thing, right? When he answers, it's like, I need to note that, you know?
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So it's this constant evidence, this body of evidence that I have that he is
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hearing me because he's answering me and I can see his answers.
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And with each addition to the body of evidence, my faith is stronger and I see him answering.
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So to me, it's this, you know, what does it look like? It looks like,
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well, I know that he hears me because I ask. any answers.
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And he said he would. Because he did say that.
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Come only to the throne of grace that you may find help in time of need in Hebrews 4, 16.
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And I love that you talked about, too, the yes, no, and the wait.
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Because in the times of the wait, there's a lot of growth. There's a lot of growth.
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But also, I can lean on that body of evidence to know that he has heard and he will answer.
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And his timing is perfect. Yes. It's perfect. You know that you talked,
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too, in your message on Monday about how Jesus has a plan for our lives.
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And that's something that I think we talk about a lot, right?
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That's not— Yeah, that's not up for interpretation. That's not up for interpretation.
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That's kind of direct. Right.
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But I just wanted to just talk for a minute about, you know,
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Jesus has a plan for your life. It's not just something you write on a graduation
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card, right, or something like that. But it's true.
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So Jesus has a plan for your life.
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What does that look like in your life? Oh, my. It matches your calling. Oh, I like that.
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And your calling, you have to stick with me for a second, doesn't always match
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your obvious gifts. Okay?
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Sometimes your obvious gifts come into play later in your calling.
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But if he starts out with those, the leaning on him part doesn't get developed well.
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For instance, when I really first started working for the Lord,
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he had me working in nursing homes with older people.
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And they are my favorite people now. But when I first started,
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they scared the thunder out of me.
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And I especially sick older people. and I,
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It was one of those things where he worked through other gifts and developed them.
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And then I got to incorporate the one I knew I had and the ones that I knew I had.
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And it's important that we realize his plan is the doors he's opening.
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Because he will open doors that no man can shut. He shuts doors that no man can open.
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And he will, so he's giving you, and for me, and it has to do with my personality,
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he doesn't lay out six months of plants.
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And I never get the end. He starts
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from the end, maybe, and I don't get that. I get one step at a time.
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And sometimes it's in a dim light.
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But if not, I would either try to negotiate a different plan or I would add
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what I thought I could do to it.
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But he calls me to do what he wants me to do and gives me a deep desire to do it.
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And he lays that plan out because he makes a way where there is no way and you
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just have to look and say that has to come from God because I can't do that
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and I didn't do that and the devil wouldn't want me to do that.
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So, hey, that's his plan.
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That's as biblical as I got for you because that's how I live right there.
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But I love that because that's the being able to see that the things that are
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happening because they could not come from us must be coming from him. There's a faith aspect.
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There is not. It's the foundation. I'm telling you, if you would have asked
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the 17-year-old Kim what I'm doing for the Lord at this age in my life,
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I would have laughed you out of the water if you had laid out what it is we do.
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I didn't even grow up in a church where that would have been considered okay.
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Way and i had no i was developing a relationship with jesus christ for a personal
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reason i wanted to be his friend and who knew what that meant sing twice before
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you pray that prayer but who knew what that meant and.
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Who would have thought he would have used all of that to do all of this?
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And I think the big thing about he's got a plan for you is get in the center
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of his will, where you make him first, and you're praying constantly,
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and you're talking all the time. He wants you to know it.
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That's the thing people get messed up. It's not a secret.
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He said these things I've written unto you, little children,
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that you may know and believe.
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He's not like saying, na-na-na-na-na-na-na, catch me if you can.
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You know, that's not what he's doing. He makes himself known.
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And if you are praying, he will let you know. Absolutely.
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You know, it's interesting. You know, there are these things that are just absolute truths.
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And yet I think, you know, Jesus honors also just how unique we are.
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Because our answers to this, that Jesus has a plan for your life,
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might look very different.
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And I think they also look very different at different points in your life.
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And, you know, I... I mean, you're still working. I am still working. In a professional job.
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So you still have that mission field. I'm retired from a professional job going on three years. So...
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My field is very different than it was seven years ago.
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I mean, I was walking the halls of government, and Jesus was being seen,
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and that was my mission field.
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But it's not my mission field today.
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And I did many of these things, too. But that was my primary work for him.
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And, you know, growing up, it was different in different places.
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It's the same God. I believe the same call, but it manifests in the ways that
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he needs to use it at the time.
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And so as a Christian wanting to follow the Lord, the thing you have to be most
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aware of is you really have to be Sam, here am I.
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Send me, and try not to orchestrate the path.
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And if you can get yourself to trust him to
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get you where you need to go to do what you need to do then
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that plan works and it never ceases
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to amaze me how I can trust him to get me from here to heaven a place I've never
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seen I never got to talk to anybody that's ever been there but I worry about
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sometimes how he's gonna get the
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next thing done for me it never ceases to amaze me But that's who I am.
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And that's how we are, right? We are human.
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I know the plan, and sometimes I just can't get on board.
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And, you know, I think, too, when we're thinking about the plan,
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you know, we're often thinking about, like you just talked about,
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like the call that God has on our life and, you know, what the purpose that he has for us.
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And I think we also need to remember that part of his plan is...
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Sometimes, you know, really hard things. You know, when I was reading the sentence
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that I wrote down for the podcast on Monday, that Jesus has a plan for your life,
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what I wanted to write after it, which is just this constant phrase that I have,
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you know, heard in my heart and my mind and in my physical ears,
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you know, for the last few years, is that none of this surprises him.
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And shocks the socks off of us. It does shock the socks off of us.
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And, you know, I don't care to tell anybody, but, you know, I've gone through
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quite a couple, two years.
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I haven't really talked about it on the podcast at all. But,
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you know, I've gone through a breast cancer journey in the last two years.
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And I'm okay. And I'm at the end of that journey.
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But it was a journey. and, you know, Jesus has a plan for your life,
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you know, that's certainly not something you want to see written on a graduation card, right?
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This is what's coming next or something like that. But that same truth stands
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in those points of such pain and hardship, right?
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When those hard things happen, Jesus has a plan for your life.
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When the diagnosis comes, when we lose someone, One, Jesus has a plan and he
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has a plan for you in that he's not surprised at that moment when we are so surprised.
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Because his plan knew that was happening. He knew that was a blip on your journey. Exactly.
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And that is such a valuable truth, Erica, that you have shared with us is that,
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you know, we hear it sung.
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He's this God on the mountain. He's a God in the valley, you know,
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and that's a great song. And.
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And we sing it. We do. And we can say, oh, he's the same God yesterday,
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today, and forevermore.
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But you, if you're riding on the mountain and then you drop to the valley.
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Between the mountain and the valley, something happens to that information. It does.
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But the reality is he's not surprised, which means, number one, he's ready for it.
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He's prepared for it. And he's prepared you for it. And he has prepared me for
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it. Oh, how he walked through that. Of His plan.
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And, you know, I'll be the first to say He has walked me through that.
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And I am so incredibly, incredibly grateful.
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It, you know, it amazes me how the Lord has walked me through that.
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And to your point about, you know, the calling on your life—,
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You know, God often uses things that we have experienced to bring about another call on our lives.
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And you've better used it because you can reach people.
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He says, you've walked this journey, so now you're going to walk this journey
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with other people. And for that, I'm grateful.
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So there's one more question that I just want us to talk about that comes out
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of Monday's podcast. and I think we've touched on it a lot.
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But in the podcast, you talked about Zacchaeus. You talked about Mary and Martha.
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And you talked about Zacchaeus, you know, he made haste, right?
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He came down from that tree really fast and Jesus was coming to his house.
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And he didn't mess around. He did not mess around and he made haste.
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So you talked about Zacchaeus making haste. And then you talked about,
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too, about what it meant for us to move towards the Lord.
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So I want to just close up today and talking about that. Like, what does it mean for us?
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If I need to make haste toward Jesus like Zacchaeus did, what's that look like in my life?
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I think, first of all, you have to realize that you've got a purpose in your
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heart that you're going to embrace whatever God has for you.
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And that you love him so much that even if it doesn't make logical sense in
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your mind or in your heart, or if it hurts and it's sad, then you just got to
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believe that this is what is best for you because the greater good's coming out of it.
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I think you walk through your cancer journey very well with that attitude.
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So the first thing I think you are doing with this is that you have to have.
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Complete and utter trust. And you, when it says make haste, it's, I'm not negotiating.
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I'm not asking clarifying questions.
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I'm not, you know, piddling around. You know, I can ask 30, as you know,
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clarifying questions and buy my, you know, some time.
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I can buy 15 minutes with you trying to tell me, you know, this is what you
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need to get at Home Depot.
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And you know and i'm asking enough clarifying questions
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well during that time you probably could have gone to
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home depot got it and left and i've been back and i think what we do when god
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tells us something that we don't want to do yes we ask something like clarifying
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questions you know or are you sure hey do you know you dialed me up i'm not
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the one with that skill set But,
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you know, or we'll just, I need to pray about it.
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Now, praying about it is always the right answer, unless it's your excuse to delay.
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I don't think Zacchaeus prayed about it. I don't think Zacchaeus had a counteroffer.
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I don't think Zacchaeus wanted anything except to be in the presence of the Lord.
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And so for me to make haste is where I want to be in the presence of the Lord
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more than I want anything else.
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And making haste means he says that I do it.
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There's no lapse in there. It's that lapse of time that I think demonstrates lack of making haste.
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It is you're so prayed up, so in the center of God's will that he says that you do it.
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It's like pressing the button on your car. It starts.
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And you're freaked out if it doesn't, you know, because car always starts.
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Somebody thinks it's not going to start.
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And I think it's the same thing. Making haste is he says that you do it.
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He says that you do it. There's no lapse in between. I love that.
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You know, in your podcast on Monday, after you talked about making haste,
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you talked about making, about moving towards Jesus.
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And, you know, when you were talking about that, I was thinking,
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you know, there's always an opportunity,
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no matter where we are in a day in our life, wherever we are,
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there is always an opportunity to move towards Jesus.
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There's also an opportunity to move away. Right. Because we're walking that path, right?
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We're walking the straight and narrow and we can always make a move,
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you know, in either direction. In either direction.
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Choose you this day. Right. You're making a choice. And I think that,
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you know, so often we don't think about how every moment of every day is an
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opportunity to move closer to him.
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We might think of moving towards Jesus, you know, as, you know,
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our morning devotion, our nighttime prayer and, you know, Bible study and going
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to church and things like that.
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But in every moment, there is always a way to move towards him.
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And the Bible tells us, right, that if we draw an eye to him, he will draw an eye to us.
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And the reality is, if we're talking about having the presence of Jesus in our
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lives, it's that moment by moment,
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minute by minute, day by day presence that is so incredibly powerful.
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And that's what we want. That's how we want to live. We don't want to live by checkboxes.
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I did my morning devotion. I did my nighttime prayer. I went to church.
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It's not obligatory. It is out of love. Yes.
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Love and relationship. This Christian walk isn't do's and don'ts.
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He didn't give us the Bible to punish us.
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No. He gave us the Bible so that we would stay in the lane, so that we would
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live the abundant life he promises in John 10.10.
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Because that abundant life is a life lived with the presence of Jesus. Amen. Hallelujah.
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Oh, my goodness. If you had not had the opportunity yet to listen to Monday's
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podcast on February 16th,
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that was podcast number 568 of the Woman at the Well Ministries podcast,
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I invite you to go back and listen.
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And thank you. Thank you for choosing to spend some time with us.
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Thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk about how these things that
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are just so true actually work out in our lives.
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We thank you so much for all your support of Women at the Well Ministries.
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But thank you for listening. Remember, you are loved. Jesus loves you.
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Us in today's podcast. You can visit the show notes for quotes from today's
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