Latest / The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast / 686 | God Works in the Little Bits We Bring

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686 | God Works in the Little Bits We Bring · The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast

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  Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Woman at the Well Ministries podcast.
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  With Kimberly Miller, where we believe that every man, woman,
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  boy, and girl must come to Jesus just like the woman at the well in John chapter 4.
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  Our highest priority is helping you experience the reality of God in your everyday life.
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  Whether you're listening in our app, on your favorite podcast platform,
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  are on our website at watwm.org.
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  We invite you to sit down with us as we open the scriptures to learn more about
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  who God is and to strengthen your daily walk.
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  In this episode of the Woman at the Well Ministries podcast,
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  join Kim Miller and Erica Close in a conversation as we walk with Jesus.
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  In today's conversation, we're chatting about what life looks like when we choose
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  to live in a way that understands that God works in the little bits that we bring.
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  Well, hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I am Erica Close,
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  and I am here with Kimberly Miller.
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  Hello, it's so good to just spend the next few minutes with you guys as we thoroughly
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  look at John chapter 6 verses 1 through 15, hopefully in a way a little different
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  than maybe what you've heard it before.
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  It is so familiar about how Jesus touches the five loaves and two fish and feeds
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  the multitude, but he feeds the multitude in more ways than physically.
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  Absolutely. So we are having a conversation that's a follow-up to our podcast
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  on Monday. That was episode 685, The Miracle of Trusting Jesus.
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  And in that account, Kim led us in a study of the account of the little boy
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  that brought his five loaves and two fishes, and Jesus used that to feed 5,000 people.
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  And so I just wanted to dig into that a little bit more because you brought
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  up so many points that I believe our listeners really might want to just dig into a bit more.
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  Sound good? Sounds great. All right.
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  So, you know, one of the things that you talked about that I think is just so
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  important, you spent some time discussing how Jesus sees our needs.
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  And how we go to Him in prayer to bring our needs to Him.
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  And we're not doing that because He doesn't know what they are.
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  We're doing that because it demonstrates our faith in Him. Amen.
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  And I think that that's just incredibly important because I think that sometimes it's easy to.
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  For the devil to make us think there's no point in bringing our needs to the
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  Lord, because he knows, why should I pray? Why should I bring this need that
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  I have to him when he already knows it?
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  And I think that's just, it's a tool to keep us to stop demonstrating our faith.
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  It's very similar to significant others in your mom and your dad.
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  I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my mom and dad loved me and loved me
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  immensely, but I loved hearing them tell me.
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  Yes. It wasn't that they had to say, Kimmy, I love you, for me to know it.
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  It was, I love the reaffirmation. And when we come to the Lord.
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  He loves knowing that we know He's the source of our help.
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  That's where we're turning to. That's where we're coming to for our provisions,
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  for our directions, for our guidance.
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  He is the great I am in our lives when we humble ourselves and pray to him.
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  I love that. I love that. I just think any time that we can go to him and we,
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  tell him that we know who he is,
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  it demonstrates our faith to him, and I think it builds our faith. Amen.
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  You can't leave an encounter with Jesus the same way you came.
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  Amen. It's impossible. Amen.
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  And if you don't recognize how you're different, you need to ask him because he'll show you.
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  He says, little children, these things I have written that you may know. He wants you to know.
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  He wants you to know who he is. He wants you to know what he can do.
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  He wants you to know what he can do in his life.
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  And he wants you to know that he is your God. Amen.
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  One of the other things that you talked about in Monday's podcast was a statement
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  you made. You said that human reasoning can't solve spiritual problems.
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  And when you said that, it made me realize a lot of things.
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  Number one, it's very easy for me to lean on human reasoning, my own human reasoning.
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  But also, it made me realize that some of these problems that we think that
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  we as humans are able to solve are not solvable because they're not human problems.
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  They're spiritual problems. No doubt Philip was brilliant. Yes.
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  In every encounter of him, I get the impression that he was brilliant.
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  And he had to be a numbers guy right so here they are jesus comes to the disciples
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  he says to them guys these these people are gonna be hungry.
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  And we need to feed them and so he looks at philip and he even tells us in scripture
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  not because he needed to know the answer because he knew what he was going to do.
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  God never works impetuously.
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  He never just runs without thinking. He has a plan and he sticks to it.
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  But Peter then immediately tells the truth. Listen, there's nowhere to buy these things.
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  And even if you did, it would take more than 200 penny worth or denarii,
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  which is more than months of wages.
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  And then each one's just going to get a dab.
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  And every bit of that statement was true. The error came in that Philip was
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  trying to use human reasoning and human abilities to solve a spiritual problem.
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  And he fully, 100%, left Jesus out of the equation.
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  Because when Jesus is in the equation, it changes everything.
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  It's not regular math at that point. You didn't even need the denarii at all. Right.
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  Because a boy at the right place at the right time prepared the right way,
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  was all jesus needed you gotta show up you gotta show up and you gotta,
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  show up understanding that you need to attack the problems with the power of
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  god yeah i think you show up giving the problems to him and just saying, here, ma,
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  you tell me what I need to do in this situation.
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  Well, because I think what we need to do is sometimes we look at the situation
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  and then we think, I can fix this, or God can tell me how to fix this,
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  when it's not a situation that I can fix.
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  Well, also, the very moment you go to God and tell him, I know you can help me fix this,
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  One, you're saying he needs your help. And two.
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  You're suggesting or you're putting into the situation your expectations.
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  Because if you're going to fix it, you've determined what the answer is. You know what the fix is.
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  But you get you can't do it, so you need his help. But you're telling him,
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  this is how you're going to fix my situation.
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  Now, tell me how we're going to do this.
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  And your expectations may not have anything to do with God's blessings or plans
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  he has for your life. Amen.
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  And they could be the very things that are hindering you from having all of
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  God's blessings that he has intended for you to have.
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  In John 10 10, he says that he came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.
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  And there's a lot of us walking around today living below our privileges because
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  we don't have the abundant peace, love, and mercy, and grace that Jesus is pouring out.
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  But we're just not under the spout where the glory comes out.
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  Right. We're not in the right place.
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  Let's go to the next point that you made that really struck me,
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  which is that faith refuses to give facts more credulence—I think that's what you said—than God.
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  So often, we look at the facts of what we see and we give them more credulence, more authority.
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  They become our primary focus. And we believe that our facts...
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  Are greater than our God.
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  I mean, when you're looking at your situation and you're wondering,
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  wow, this is a fine mess I've gotten myself into.
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  How am I going to get out of this one? All you can see is how big and bad and
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  how impossible the problem is.
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  But God is not asking you to deny the facts about your problem.
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  What he's telling you to do is understand the situation, but you gotta know
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  and you gotta believe I'm greater than your situation.
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  I'm greater than your mountain.
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  I, you can understand. He doesn't expect us to be stupid and stick our head in the sand.
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  He doesn't expect us even to go blindly through something.
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  He just expects us to believe he's bigger than a problem, greater than the issue, and all that we need.
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  I think so often, you know, I'm a data person. I know that you are a data person.
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  And let's just say we are both trained to be data people, right?
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  And when you are a trained data person, there is a danger there to look at the data. It is.
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  Yes, there's a danger, but I appreciate, and I think one of the things that
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  you just said is that God never asks us to deny the data.
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  But instead, the data, you know, this may be the data. This may be what the data shows.
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  But he is so much bigger than what that data shows. What God has shown me many
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  years ago was it's okay for me to understand the data.
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  I just have to surrender the data to him. Oh, I like that.
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  And just like me and you and the devil and all of his minions,
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  we are helpless against the Lord.
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  So the data surrendered to the Lord has no impact or power.
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  He made me, he understands that data is going to be something that the devil's
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  going to throw in my head. Like, well, you understand, Kim, that,
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  you know, when you stick your hand on the stove, it's hot.
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  You know, when you got in this mess, you knew you were going to sweat,
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  you know, which immediate you're thinking, okay, well, what can I do?
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  I can wear short sleeve, you know, whatever. I'm talking symbolically here.
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  Okay, I can try to get this situation under control and put this little fire
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  out while my forest is burning down.
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  No, God is not. God is saying, okay, you understand how fire of works. You understand heat.
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  But you got to understand that I am an amazing fire extinguisher.
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  The fury of hell can't touch me.
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  And I am his, so the fury of hell can't touch me unless I just walk into it without him.
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  And we have to surrender what we know to be subject under what we believe.
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  And we must believe that all things are under his feet.
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  Amen. I feel like we could just drop a mic here and go home.
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  Thank you. I want to spend a moment talking about this idea of how the things
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  that we have that appear so inadequate,
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  are abundant in the hands of Jesus.
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  We can sometimes have so little to offer, so little to bring,
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  but what we have does not limit what God does with it.
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  You and I could not eat a meal on five olive garden breadsticks and two sardine
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  fish. You'd have all the fish. I don't eat them.
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  But we couldn't do that. It would not be a meal. You would still be hungry.
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  And I would still be hungry.
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  But it doesn't negate the incredible blessing this little boy has in knowing what he gave to God,
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  God miraculously used to do the impossible.
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  Who knows what that boy ended up being?
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  I can't wait to meet that little boy. He's on my list of people I really want to talk to.
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  He's on my list of people who have impacted my life extraordinarily. He showed up prepared.
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  And God did the impossible.
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  I just want to show up prepared so God can do the impossible.
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  I just want him to do the impossible. And the fact that he would let me be part
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  of his story is overwhelmingly confusing to me.
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  It's humbling. I understand why he's part of mine. He is my story.
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  Blessed assurance. Jesus is mine. Jesus is mine. I love to tell the story.
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  However, it's an incredible miracle that he lives in me and that he loves me, even though he knows me.
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  Amen. Amen.
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  All right. Last point. Last point. We need to show up.
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  I know we like to talk about show up. You got to show up. We talk about that a lot.
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  I have a plaque in my bedroom. Erica got me. It says, you got to show up. Yep.
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  We got to show up. That was something Kimmy said like every single day for about a year.
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  And I still say you got to show up. Got to show up.
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  You cannot do anything and God
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  cannot do anything through you if you don't show up. You got to show up.
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  And I think in this story account, we see you got to show up both prepared and surrendered.
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  The little boy came prepared, but he also willingly handed over what he had.
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  It wouldn't be a meal for us. It probably wasn't the big meal for him i'm sure
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  he was planning on going home and eating dinner right,
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  i mean the kid was out doing whatever but god had prompted in this boy's heart
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  he had he'd put him in the right place but every single step that boy had to obey,
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  and he obeyed and he came prepared for god to use him and god uses little stuff,
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  he uses me he'll use you it's all about the surrender,
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  it's all about just saying here my lord,
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  Use me. And here's my... Five loaves and my two fish. Right. Here's my...
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  This is scary, but here's my stuff.
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  Here's my time. Right. Here's my availability. Here's my bank account. Here's my bank account.
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  Here's all the things that I only have because of you.
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  And you've given them to me because if you notice in the account,
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  Jesus, the boy gives him the food.
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  Jesus blesses it then gives thanks for it,
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  then he hands it to the disciples to distribute
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  God has given us what he's given us not for us to consume but for us to distribute
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  and in the process we get to use it as well.
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  We are the ones who are just holding the deposits of his blessings so that we
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  can give them out when he writes the check for them.
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  Amen. It's who he is. It's who he is, and it's who we're called to be in him.
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  Surrendered, prepared, and willing.
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  Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Friends, we pray this conversation has been
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  a blessing to you as much as it has been a blessing to us to have the conversation.
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  We invite you to remember that you are loved. Jesus loves you.
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  Thank you for joining us for today's podcast. You can find quotes and scripture
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  references from this episode in the show notes.
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  We pray today's message has been a blessing. If it has, please consider leaving
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  a rating or review on your podcast platform.
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  Your feedback helps others discover the truth of God's Word.
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  You can connect with Women at the Well Ministries through our app at watwm.org
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  and on Facebook and Instagram.
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  While you're there, learn more about Bible Bits, Kim's daily devotional delivered
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  Monday through Friday by text message, and the Bible Bit Podcast.
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  Thank you for your prayers and support. Remember, Jesus loves you. You are loved.