Latest / Gen Truth | Conquering Adulting through faith in Jesus / 61. Who Is Your Shepherd? Starting 2026 With God’s Guidance as a Young Adult | Psalm 23

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61. Who Is Your Shepherd? Starting 2026 With God’s Guidance as a Young Adult | Psalm 23 · Gen Truth | Conquering Adulting through faith in Jesus

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  Hey friend, welcome to Gen Truth Podcast show.
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  My name is Daniel Pemko.
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  I am loved by God.
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  I am called and gifted by God to teach His Word.
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  Would you be kind to allow me to speak into your life as we journey through the setbacks,
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  the opportunities and the mysteries we encounter as young adults?
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  I will be exploring timeless truths in God's Word that would strengthen us through our
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  adulting journey.
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  If you're ready, I'm ready, grab your earpiece and let's go for a walk as we told.
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  Today I'm going to be exploring who is your shepherd?
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  It's a question.
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  And if you're feeling like life is just overwhelming, if you feel like you don't know which way
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  to go, if you feel like you need a rule book, you need a manual to figure out life because
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  it's just been full of lots of turns and unexpected situations, well, this is the episode for
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  you.
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  Hey friend, welcome to Gen Truth Podcast.
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  I am excited that you're here with me today.
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  So we're going to open with some scripture and we're going to get into it.
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  In Psalm 23 verse 1, the Bible says that the Lord is my shepherd.
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  I lack nothing, which is David saying the Lord is my shepherd.
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  When I read it recently, I was just blown away because we're talking about David here
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  who is by trade, he is a shepherd.
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  Before he became a king, he was a shepherd.
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  He knows the trade of a shepherd.
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  So he's not playing around.
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  He's not just trying to fill in the space.
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  He knows what a shepherd does.
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  He knows who a shepherd is.
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  And David uses this word, he says, the Lord is my shepherd.
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  I lack nothing.
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  And I believe that this is a powerful truth that we need to latch on to because we live
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  in a world where there are so many shepherds out there, or you might say there's so many
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  wannabe shepherds out there.
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  Now, we live in an age and an era where it's an era of influences.
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  We're constantly being influenced by lots of people.
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  The numbers are staggering on different social platforms.
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  The rise and the amount of people influencing.
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  And in fact, if you want a product to go really fast in the market, one of the tools
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  that are working these days is to use an influencer to talk about the product.
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  And people believe influencers, people latch on to that.
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  And it's quite a fascinating era that we live in, the era of influences.
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  Anyone, anywhere can influence anyone, which is beautiful and amazing in itself.
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  There's some dangers to that, everything in the right balance.
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  But it boils down to there's so many voices out there, too many voices out there.
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  And sometimes we don't know which way to go.
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  Someone is saying this, someone is saying that.
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  It's so crazy sometimes, even like, for example, not a health professional, but sometimes
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  you're eating something, you're drinking something, and one day you hear it's really good.
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  The next day you hear it's bad, it could kill you.
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  It's like, what do you want us to do?
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  And so there are constantly lots of voices out there that are competing for attention.
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  They're competing to get our attention.
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  And we are prone to adjust ourselves to align with certain voices.
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  We're prone to easily be influenced by these voices.
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  I remember one time I was at work and someone was talking to me about something interesting.
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  And at the time, I had no interest in what they were talking about.
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  And by the time I got home and I was telling my wife about this situation, the way I was
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  talking about it, it was the same passion that person told me about this thing.
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  I caught myself in the middle of the conversation and I was like, whoa, like just a few hours
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  before this conversation, I had no clue.
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  I wasn't interested in this topic.
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  I can't even remember what it was, but I can remember the moment.
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  And I realized I had been influenced without even thinking about it.
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  And it reminds me of Romans 12, verse 2, where the Bible says in the message translation.
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  Let's read that.
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  Let's go over to the Bible and let's read that.
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  It says, don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without
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  even thinking.
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  Let's pause there for a sec.
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  Don't be so adjusted to your culture.
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  Don't be so adjusted to thoughts and ideas and ideologies out there that you just accept
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  it without actually thinking.
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  Just like I did, I just took this thing without actually having time to think through it,
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  to go, do I believe this?
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  Is this something I want to part in my life after?
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  It's so important as believers that we were able to, with the help of the Holy Spirit,
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  identify ideas and voices and thoughts to bring them under the microscope of God's Word
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  Is this in alignment with what God is saying?
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  Is this in alignment with God's character?
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  It might be popular.
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  It doesn't mean it's right.
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  And so there's so many voices out there, there are voices that bring condemnation.
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  You listen to something or you're in conversation with someone, and even though they might be
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  throwing scriptures in there, but it just brings condemnation.
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  And that's not what God came to do.
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  He didn't come to bring condemnation.
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  The Holy Spirit brings conviction, not condemnation.
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  We need to be able to pick up these things, their voices that bring bondage.
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  They might sound liberating, but they actually put us in bondage, put us back in slavery.
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  The Bible talks about that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
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  But sometimes when we take on certain ideas and thinking, we can go back into that space
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  of living under bondage, under the slavery of sin, under the slavery of the law, rather
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  than living in the abundance of what Christ has done with the finished work of Jesus.
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  And resting in that, we start to work.
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  We start to do things so that we can gain our salvation.
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  There are voices out there that glorify self.
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  They make us focus so much on us that we start to glorify ourselves.
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  We start to put ourselves on a pedestal and they don't glorify Jesus.
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  There are voices out there that empower us to live as victims rather than as victors.
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  Hey friend, if you've been listening to Gentry Podcast for even one episode or two, it is
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  time to subscribe and it is time to spread the good news.
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  How about you reach out to someone and tell them about the podcast, share an episode with
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  them and let's get as many people as possible on this journey, which is amazing.
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  And thank you for listening week in, week out, I appreciate it.
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  When Christ rose from the dead, we rose with him.
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  We died and we rose again with him.
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  The life we live now is not the life that we once had.
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  The life we live now, it's Christ that lives in us.
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  The old man is dead.
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  We need to be aware of the things that we're listening to.
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  It could be good preaching with a lot of scripture, but it could be out of context.
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  It could be manipulative.
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  It could be someone using scripture to prove a point.
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  We need to be able to be in a position whereby we are alert on what we're hearing.
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  We're bringing every, like the scripture says, bring every thought captive, like you take
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  it and you bring it to the word and you measure it with the word and go, does this line up?
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  Because it's so important that we remember that the Lord is our shepherd.
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  Not every other person, not even great teachers of the word, including myself, not saying
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  I'm great, but I'm saying the Lord is our shepherd.
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  No other person is our shepherd.
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  The Lord is our shepherd.
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  In fact, he says, I am the good shepherd.
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  No one else has that claim to be in the good shepherd.
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  It says, I am the good shepherd and my sheep know my voice.
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  The Lord bought us with his blood and he purchased us.
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  He chose us.
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  He changed us and he gave us his name.
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  He is our shepherd.
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  How does this relate to our lives and how we leave the Christian life on daily?
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  It's realizing that we don't have to figure out life for ourselves.
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  It's realizing that a sheep, when the sheep has a shepherd, the shepherd figures out where
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  he's going to drink, where he's going to eat, where he's going to sleep.
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  The shepherd protects, puts literally a shepherd will put himself, put his life in front so
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  that if anyone wants to attack, they have to go through the shepherd.
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  That's why Jesus says, I lay my life down because I was a good shepherd, good shepherds
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  lay that they put themselves in that position.
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  We don't have to carry this weight, this burden of trying to figure out life, of trying to
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  deal with different situations and the changes that happen through life.
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  We have a shepherd.
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  His name is Jesus.
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  And because we have him, we lack nothing.
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  We think about we lack nothing as because we have Jesus is going to supply everything.
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  And that's true.
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  But I want us to think about it in this way, that we have Jesus.
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  And because we have Jesus, we have everything because everything we need, we truly need
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  is in him.
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  It's him.
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  He is our one and he should be our one only obsession because in him is life, in him we
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  find our being, in him everything makes sense.
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  Jesus is our shepherd and we need to come to that space and come to that realization
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  that our shepherd is always with us.
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  He hasn't absconded.
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  He's always with us and ready to guide us through life in every situation, though there
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  might be a lots of voices, Jesus is our shepherd and our job is to follow our shepherd.
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  We know his voice, we can hear his voice and our job is to constantly follow his voice
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  Everywhere he leads, we go because we know that there's no other person, no person in
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  life, not your mother, not your father, not your siblings, not anyone can ever love you
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  like he does.
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  The way he leads us is the right place for us to be.
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  And he would always be there with us.
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  He said it, I would always be there with you.
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  What an amazing thought that the God who created the whole world, the God who made
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  everything as massive as he is, as glorious as he is, chooses to be our shepherd, chooses
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  what does that mean?
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  Chooses to hold our hands and walk with us through life.
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  Wow.
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  We have a great opportunity to walk with him.
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  I'll end with this.
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  I hope this is worth someone.
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  Proverbs 12, 15, this is what it says.
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  It says the way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.
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  The translation says a wise man listens to counsel.
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  You see, we don't know the way to go.
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  And we might think that we do, we might think we're a bit wiser.
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  We've been around for a while.
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  But the good shepherd, he knows the way.
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  And we will be wise people if we choose to realize that he's our shepherd and to follow
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  him and to listen to what he says.
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  Father, we thank you.
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  Thank you for this time we had to spend together.
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  Thank you for your word that's come with power and has opened our hearts and our minds to
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  acknowledge you as our shepherd.
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  We ask that whatever situation we are facing today, God, I ask that you bring wisdom, you
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  bring provision, bring miracles, you bring counsel into those situations.
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  We thank you that you're right there present with us and we pray whatever burden we lifted
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  off people's shoulders right now, we pray peace to fill their hearts and minds.
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  In the name of Jesus.
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  Amen.
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  Bye.