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July 29 – Giving Without Being Seen · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:04
  Well, welcome back everybody to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:07
  I am Pastor Mike, your host, co-host, along with Corey here, who's the host or the co-host.
• 0:18
  Take your pick.
• 0:18
  We're both here.
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  There we go.
• 0:21
  It's been settled.
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  Corey is co-today and I'm his co-host.
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  it is Wednesday, July the 29th, and we're talking again about giving without being seen. The stone.
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  Real generosity grows when I stop looking for what I can get and start offering what I can give.
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  Ripple one, practical. Today, I will look for simple ways to give. Kind word, a smile,
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  a small act of help. I will not wait for recognition or make it about being noticed.
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  I will carry my own weight and contribute where I can, even in small ways.
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  Ripple 2 is spiritual.
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  The Father shapes a giving heart within me.
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  Jesus often served quietly without drawing attention to himself.
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  The Holy Spirit moves me away from self-interest and toward generosity that is natural and unforced.
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  As I give without needing acknowledgement, I grow in gratitude and begin to experience the quiet joy of a life that is no longer centered on taking.
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  Ouch.
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  man, that talks to me. A life no longer centered on taking because, man, back when I was drinking,
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  I was always about taking. What could I get out of anybody and everything? But just to back up,
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  just overall, with our stone, real generosity grows when I stop looking for what I can get and
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  start offering what I can give. In our life of faith, following Jesus, in Jesus' most famous
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  sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, and we've talked about that on here quite a bit because we've got
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  the, what's the author's name again?
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  Emmett Fox.
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  Emmett Fox, yeah, Emmett Fox's famous book on Sermon on the Mount.
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  But within that sermon, Matthew 6, beginning in verse 3, says, but when you give to the
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  needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving
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  may be in secret.
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  Then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
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  And when I think about this, I also think about how many times, you know, as I'm reading
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  the Gospels and the Bible and reading about specifically the miracles that Jesus would
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  do early in his ministry.
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  And how many times did he tell the people that witnessed the miracles, don't tell anybody
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  about this?
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  Right.
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  You know, and I think that was for multiple reasons.
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  One of the reasons was it wasn't yet time for him to gain the attention, you know, from the
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  religious and political leaders that would be required for God's plan for his life, which
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  is, you know, suffering a death on a cross, but resurrection the third day.
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  But the other side of that is I think he might have been modeling a little bit of humility.
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  Even Jesus, God in the form of human being, didn't have to get fame for every single miracle
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  that he did.
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  Because the gospels that are written and recorded this, you know, they weren't written until,
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  you know, decades after, you know, the time that Jesus was actually, you know, on earth.
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  And so for decades, these things weren't recorded other than, you know, through word of mouth, through his disciples.
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  But so if even Jesus in performing miracles in the world isn't demanding attention and praise for every little thing that he does, then why would I?
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  Well, if I'm modeling my life after him.
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  But I don't know.
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  That's my initial thought on this.
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  Well, on page 98 in the big book, it says, it is not a matter of giving that is in the question.
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  but when and how to give.
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  Yeah.
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  That often makes the difference between failure and success.
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  So, you know, failure and success, you know, when and how to give.
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  Well, what if, you know, someone comes in and I give them a couple hundred dollars?
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  And, you know, that could mean in the difference in some moments in the difference of failure and success
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  because they could take that and go do some crazy stuff with it.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Mas, você também, como eu show o que eu estou dando, e hoje, eu try de ser uma demonstração.
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  E se eu estou dando um demonstração, e eu pensava sobre isso o outro dia, porque, como eu
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  eu faço isso, eu faço isso, eu faço isso, eu faço isso, eu faço isso, tudo isso, tudo
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  tudo isso, certo?
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  You know, and to think that, like, you know, man, like, I got, you know,
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  some days, like, you know, it's like, man, I can't be running around like a crazy person either.
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  And that, you know, to me, you know, because if I'm being a demonstration to dudes of how to beat,
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  like, you know, what would it say to me to be just running around cussing and acting like a fool?
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  Right, or trying to almost get in a fist fight every other day.
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  Right, you know, so, you know, but winning how to give, like, you know,
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  I got to give my time.
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  And, you know, when I get done sitting down with a dude anytime, you know, from anytime
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  if they just want to talk, the first thing I tell them is thank you for your time.
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  Because it was important to me to be able to do that.
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  And what's important about that is if they ever say anything about, you know, what can
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  I do?
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  You know, I tell them, you know, do this with somebody else.
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  That's all I ask.
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  But then it goes on to say the minute we put our work on a service plane, and I don't know if you like understand what it's talking about in that time, but talking about like going to feed the homeless.
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  And, you know, because at that time they had a lot of food kitchens and all that stuff.
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  Right.
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  You know, so they're talking about, you know, once we put this on a service plane, the alcoholic commences to rely upon our assistance rather than upon God.
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  so if they're just coming to me for money for food for this shelter and all this they're not
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  going to rely upon god they're going to rely upon me because well you know when i sat in jail cells
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  man i'll tell you who my higher power was at that time i mean it probably wasn't the right one but it
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  was you know it was the guards yeah yeah because they're the ones that make sure they certainly had
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  more power than you would right that's a higher power and you know so when i look at that and i
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  think you know when and how to give what am i giving the best thing i can do is give my time
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  well what am i giving you know because but that's another thing what if i'm sitting there and you
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  know i've seen dudes do this you know get an ego and you got people that come to you for problems
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  you're like you know what i think you should do this well what if that's not my experience how am
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  i going to go tell someone to do something that i'm not even practicing in my own life yeah and you
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  So when and how do I give?
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  I give my experience.
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  I give this literature to them because I'm carrying this message.
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  What do you think?
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  Well, I think there's a lot of people that give really good advice and guidance
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  that whether or not they're living by it.
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  I can give you excellent advice whether I'm living by it or not.
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  However, I'm not going to trust your advice if I think you're not living by it.
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  You know what I mean?
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  So it's like empty words.
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  You know, the words to still be good advice, but it's not, yeah, it just sounds great.
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  You know, it sounds good, looks good on paper, you know, that kind of thing.
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  Right.
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  But if I don't trust that you're a person of integrity who, you know, lives and stands behind those words, then it's not going to register land with me at all.
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  But I was also thinking about this, you know, this concept of giving.
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  You know, when you say you give of your time, could you also say that you surrender your time?
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  You see where I'm going with that? Because one of the definitions of surrender is to yield control,
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  possession, or power to another person. Well, if I'm giving away something, whether I'm giving of
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  my time or I'm giving of my money or whatever the case may be to someone who needs it, I'm surrendering
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  possession of those things. And so I just found it interesting and ironic, you know, as we were
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  talking about that, because we talk in the program a lot about surrender. And for me, where it connects
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  is that until I was able to surrender my will, basically, in my life to the care of God as I
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  understand Him, which is God the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit in my view and by my faith,
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  until I was willing to surrender to God, I couldn't give anything to anybody, not truly give anything
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  to anybody, because I was doing it from all those things we've been talking about the past couple of
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  days, giving to get something in return. You know, even if I went to church those first, you know,
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  few years when I was coming back into faith, if I was, you know, giving in the basket, well, I
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  definitely had to make sure it was either in an envelope or by a check where they had my name so
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  I could get that, you know, tax write-off statement at the very least, you know, at the end of the year
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  kind of thing. And you see it happen in churches a lot too, you know, the difference between people
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  who give expecting in return and those who give without expectation. For example, you know, in the
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  life of faith and in a church, someone who gives expecting a return is they start to, if they tithe,
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  they start to expect certain kind of almost like benefits of membership. That's why I don't even
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  like the term church member, because membership implies kind of like a country club that you're
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  paying for the benefit of something. I prefer to consider the way my church that I first came through
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  called it, they called their quote unquote members, they called them partners, because it's people that
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  are doing the work with you not people that are just cutting a check to get a benefit but i don't
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  know that that's where my mind initially went with this you know well i heard you say some things it's
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  funny um you're talking about surrender you know we were talking about our i know is one of your
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  favorite words well no you know but i think you know i think you could make a better word to a
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  surrender i think or banded yeah because you know so oh yeah see what i think about surrender you know
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  And I was just, you know, thinking about this while you're,
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  because we were talking about it not too long ago.
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  You're like, when someone's talking, you're thinking about arguing,
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  and I'm like, it's funny that I, but I was thinking about it, though,
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  you know, because you were talking about the definition of surrender.
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  Yeah.
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  It's to yield, you know, but, like, surrender kind of says
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  I kind of came up against something, right?
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  That I came up in a fight, almost.
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  Yeah.
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  But I think abandoning is just abandoning it.
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  You're giving it away.
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  Yeah.
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  Without a fight.
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  There was no fight to be had in the first place.
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  The thing I like about your word there, abandoned as well, is that if I abandon something, it means I've left it.
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  It means I no longer have any control even of who benefits from it, right?
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  And so that's even more powerful, too.
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  And that's very much a theological word because if we abandon ourselves to this program, to this way of life, God's the one in control of who benefits from it.
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  Right.
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  You know, I mean, we initially benefit from it, but so do others who kind of see those things.
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  You know, we were talking about, like, how to give.
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  But, you know, I was thinking about, you know, another thing is how to pray.
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  Yeah.
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  You know, because, you know, I'm not out here, you know, praying for Ferraris.
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  But, you know, I do, you know, pray for people.
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  And, you know, I've had to come to some places, like, especially wording on prayer.
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  Because, you know, man, you know, he listens to this and he'll think it's funny, you know.
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  And I know he's cool with it.
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  So, Kevin, you know, I used to think, man, Kevin's, for a long time, Kevin was very tense.
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  Right. It was just all like, just go, go, go. And yeah, man, I would pray for Kevin's serenity and peace all the time. Yeah. Well, we pray for a lot of people's stuff. Yeah. But in one on page one or two in the 12 and 12, it says, even someone making specific requests, it will be well to add to each of them this qualification, if it be thy will.
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  But we ask simply that throughout the day, God placed in us the best understanding of his will that can be had for that day and that we be given the grace by which we carry it out.
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  And, you know, so I started thinking about these prayers.
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  I was praying for people just like we talked not to Paul too long ago.
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  It's like I want to pray for exactly how I want things to turn out.
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  You know, and, you know, same with Kevin.
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  Right.
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  But maybe Kevin or whoever needed that unjust time or, you know, I've been using this word conundrum.
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  I like that word conundrum.
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  But this conundrum of things going on, he needed that stuff to get to the other side of where he is now, right?
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  Yeah.
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  Because who am I?
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  I'm not God.
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  I don't know what's best for anybody.
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  I don't even know what's best for myself most.
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  Amen to that.
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  I don't know what's best for me either, Corey.
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  But anyway, that's definitely true.
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  Well, I think that is a good spot for us to cut it today.
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  And our prayer for today is,
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  Father God, teach me to give freely and quietly today.
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  Through your Holy Spirit, move my heart away from self-interest and toward kindness and generosity.
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  Shape my life through the example of Jesus and help me live in the joy of giving without needing recognition.
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  Amen.
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  Amen.