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Relish: Faith, News, and the Responsibility of Citizens · Relish: a Christian podcast

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  How should we take in the news and participate in politics?
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  Oh my goodness. Do we want our beliefs to like become laws? I mean,
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  you can put the Ten Commandments up.
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  There's really nothing in the Ten Commandments that should offend anyone.
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  I bristle when it's called marriage, but because marriage in my mind is one man, one woman for life.
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  Relish. Pleasing or zestful flavor. a quantity just sufficient to flavor,
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  to be pleased or gratified by, enjoy.
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  We are hoping that what we bring to your table today might add some spice to your life.
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  Welcome back to another episode of Relish. I'm Roan Miller. This is Pastor Don
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  Patterson. Don, how are you doing today?
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  All right. That one's doing well. Calculated.
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  Oh, this one I like. This question I like. Okay. I like this question for you. Okay. Yeah.
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  Mr. Graduate Dude. Yep. Yes, high school graduate dude.
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  How are you seeing God change you? In other words, sanctify you. Make you more holy.
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  Yeah, I think one of the ways I've noticed in this, like my senior year is,
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  um, how, like how I treat others, I guess.
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  Um, there'd be a lot of, I guess it's hard to explain kind of, but, um,
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  sometimes you meet for me personally, I would kind of put myself above other
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  people at times and kind of, uh,
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  I guess, yeah, I just elevate myself and maybe look down on others and that
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  would kind of show in my, not necessarily how I acted towards others,
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  but how I spoke to others at times.
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  So I think I've, I've definitely become more aware of that. Yeah.
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  Okay. I'd affirm that. Yeah.
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  Yeah. I think that's, that's been something I've, I've been working on.
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  And this, you'll be a freshman. Yeah. So you go from the top of the heat to
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  the bottom of the heat. Yeah.
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  I don't think it'll be a problem as a freshman, but. They'll keep you humble.
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  All those seniors in college yeah they definitely keep freshmen
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  humble that's all part of it often as well so yeah
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  yeah surely not surely no competition on the golf course yeah i can't imagine
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  competition on the golf course that's why i don't play golf i played in high
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  school and it was brief yeah and uh yeah.
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  I competition was just way more than I could handle. Yeah. Cause when the stress
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  went up, it affected everything. Yeah.
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  And of course then when everything was affected, you didn't golf very well. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
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  Say even tempered. Yeah. And I wasn't, I'm better. Right.
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  Yeah. A little more sanctified. All right. First question for you.
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  How should we take in the news and participate in politics?
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  My goodness gracious. Whoa, that's a loaded one.
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  Whose question was that?
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  How do we take in the news? Okay. I have, when I was young, your age,
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  that was a couple of years ago, Walter Cronkite. How long ago was that?
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  It seemed to me that the news was presented in a more straightforward fashion
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  with more of the middle of the road, no extremes. This is what happened. Yeah.
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  And that's the news. And you came away with an assurance it was.
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  And I think there was a lot of trust of the news for a long time.
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  And now we've found that the news itself that's put over the airwaves is actually
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  can reflect a mindset and maybe a political point of view that isn't the whole story, if you will.
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  In fact, I'm pretty well convinced that unless you listen to a lot of different
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  news reports from different angles, I'm not sure you're going to get all the
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  pieces. And you're almost forced.
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  There's a couple.
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  I'm testing some newscasts to see if they're actually getting all the little
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  pieces together. Very seldom.
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  I think It's something that's happened in this generation Probably the last
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  25 years Very seldom can you Trust any singular Broadcast to get all The.
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  Innuendos all the
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  details of any given event because it's
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  coming with a mindset it's coming with agenda so i listen to both i listen to
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  really left and lift really right and and uh listen to what details are part
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  of each and usually if they come from both sides they're pretty close to the truth.
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  You can verify that fact and then try to dismiss the banter around it that would try to politicize it.
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  That being said, the second part of the question, how do you engage in political?
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  I think we will always be political.
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  As human beings, we will always be political because that has to do with people
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  speak and our group of people and your group of people and how we do this.
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  And so we're always going to be political.
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  We should engage to a certain extent in the political.
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  Because if we don't, especially in this democracy, this federalism that we're part of, if we don't,
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  our voice will be lost.
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  Now, there's very few governments around the world that are like ours. Right.
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  And so if we don't honor the fact we've been given something very unique,
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  it's as if it's been given to us and we sort of spit on it.
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  I mean, if we don't take it seriously, not like we worship it, I'm not going there.
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  But if we don't take seriously the gift we've been given, how are we going to be good stewards of it?
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  And actually, we've been given
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  the stewardship of a political system as citizens in these United States.
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  That begets a certain participation that should never take the place of our faith in Jesus Christ.
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  And sometimes I wince when I think of maybe God blessing us more than any other
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  nation, but I sort of sense he does.
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  And so I'm going to honor God in that.
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  Not the nation or the political piece, but praise the Lord that he's brought
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  me to life or given me life to live in this time and space where we could positively kingdom,
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  use positive kingdom principles to bless others.
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  If you go back to Genesis 12 and you look at that original call on Abraham's
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  life, I still think we need to be living this way.
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  I will make you into a great nation. He's talking to Abraham and he's talking
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  about what would become Israel.
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  I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name
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  great and you will be a blessing.
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  I will bless those who bless you. I will curse those who curse you.
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  And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
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  And I think we as God's people, whether through politics or not,
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  should be a blessing to anyone on earth.
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  And we were talking about breaking the bonds of evil.
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  If we're talking about the evil that tries to take over nations,
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  if we talk about the evil that tries to oppress, we should be on the other side.
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  We should be the blessing so that God will bless through us, the earth.
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  All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
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  And then God will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.
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  But we're to be that people.
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  So how do we live as God's people in the current political climate? As best we can.
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  We live for God's honor and glory.
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  And praise the Lord for this blessing we've been given in this time and space.
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  The freedoms we've been given in this time and space.
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  And we do our best to not only preserve it.
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  But to hold it in such a way that it blesses another generation and another
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  group of people. Sometimes those peoples would be around the world.
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  But do it as a blessing rather than looking for places that we can blow each other up.
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  That really, blowing people up is not a blessing.
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  People do not feel blessed when you blow them up. It just isn't there.
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  But how do we do this? How we do this blessing piece?
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  Best that's where i my focus is politically and
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  uh yeah yeah so i
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  did how close did i come to answering that question good enough to move on okay
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  and maybe we should yes okay then that this this one's kind of following on
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  the same lines not quite but that's
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  scary do we want our beliefs to become laws. So they gave an example.
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  Example, same-sex marriage, we would oppose that biblically.
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  So then do we want same-sex marriage to be illegal?
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  Oh, yeah.
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  Um, okay. I guess I, yes.
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  Uh, how do we live as Christian people in a Christian, Judeo-Christian background
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  and live into the rights and privileges around us?
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  Uh, I, I, I, if we're going to call it marriage, I would, I still oppose it.
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  Uh, that being said, uh, uh, so there were, yeah, I'll go back in time.
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  There were Christian couples or
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  there were couples, gay couples who were cohabitating and with each other.
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  And then I remember one being on the deathbed and the other was not even allowed
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  in the room because it wasn't, that individual wasn't family.
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  Yeah and so it begat
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  the idea that well just like a spouse why
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  isn't that person given the privilege of being in there with their dying loved
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  one and that starts to pull on our heartstrings saying you know why that can't
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  somehow be worked out so i have a hard time with marriage right Right.
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  That being said, they identify with each other and they're together.
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  How do we work well with relationships?
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  If I wasn't your pastor and you were laying in the hospital dying, I wouldn't be family.
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  I wouldn't be able to come in. Now as your pastor, then I got to get into the room free card.
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  But uh how do we deal with those kind of things and uh i i have a i bristle
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  when it's called marriage but uh because marriage in my mind is one man one
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  woman for life that being said,
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  uh how do we work with these cohabitating individuals who have spent a great
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  deal of investment in their relationship even though i don't agree with the relationship,
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  that we're keeping them then from things that the rest of us enjoy.
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  So, that's about as muddy as I can get the water, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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  So I guess using my Christian pastoral piece, I'm not a real fan of it, of that.
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  And yet I have lived long enough and in enough communities and enough people I care for,
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  that I'm wondering how we go back.
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  Because if we go back all the way, then we wouldn't be able to have those individuals
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  visit their people in the hospital and be with their family and people they're
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  calling family because of close relationships.
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  Boy, that was a good question. That was a heavy question.
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  That was a tough one. But that being said, our, our government is written with
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  a Judeo-Christian background and the law is given there.
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  I mean, you can put the 10 commandments up and there's really nothing in the
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  10 commandments that should offend anyone.
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  Yeah. I mean, you know, maybe don't have any other gods before you if you're pantheist, but, uh,
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  As far as how we conduct ourselves, honor our father and mother,
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  don't steal, don't lie, don't kill. Most people don't like to be killed.
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  I mean, almost every government around the world has that.
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  And don't covet. Those are things that are common to any government.
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  So, yeah. That reflects our values.
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  That was a hard question. Yeah. That was a good question.
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  Don't get me wrong. It's a good question. But that's a hard question. Yeah.
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  All right. We'll close with this last one, which you'll get this one easy.
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  It'll be a yes or no? No, not quite.
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  Okay. What should we pray about?
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  We should pray for ourselves that we aren't swayed one way or another,
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  that our eyes are clearly upon Jesus all the time.
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  In everything we say, everything we do, how we act around others,
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  what our goals are in our life, first we pray for ourselves.
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  And we pray, well, a good way to start that is, our Father, which art in heaven, God's holy.
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  I i go from that prayer and say you know at the end of it says keep me from
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  evil i pray for myself i pray for my family i pray for my church i pray for my friends,
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  but the most of thing most effective thing i think above all of that is to pray
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  holy for god's will Thank you.
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  To me, it's the way we honor God as to who He is. He's God, we ain't.
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  And we might pray for our agenda, our will to be done on earth.
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  And really, true faith happens when we pray that God's done,
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  thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, rather than ours.
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  Yeah it's a it's a hard prayer but it's an effective prayer and have your own way lord,
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  i'm you're the potter i'm the clay yeah that was definitely key for me when
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  i was praying about college and yeah that decision just praying that as we'll be done,
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  Then it's easy when things are happening, say, yeah, thank you, Lord.
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  Even if you didn't end up going to the right school, but you knew that you got
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  there for the right reason.
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  Isn't it nice it came out the right school? Yeah. Good. It did.
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  All righty. Well, thank you guys for joining us. Is that the last of the Hillcrest?
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  That was the last of the Hillcrest question. Last of the Hillcrest?
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  Got it. Yes, you fueled us for five months.
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  Five months of questions from Hillcrest. It was good stuff.
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  And we do appreciate it, really. And we appreciate it when you invite us to
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  come. Those are fun times. Those are fun times. Yeah.
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  Yeah. Thank you, guys. I hope you enjoyed. Thank you, Don. And we'll see you
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  next time. Lord willing.
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  Thank you for joining us for this podcast. Feel free to become part of this
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  ministry by sharing it with others. Our goal is to help each other grow deeper
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  in our understanding of who God is and his calling to us in our daily lives.
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  Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.