Latest / The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast / 637 | Get Out of the Way

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637 | Get Out of the Way · The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast

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  Hello, friends, and welcome back to another podcast of Woman at the Well Ministries.
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  Where we believe that all of us have to come to Jesus like the woman at the
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  well in John chapter four.
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  Our highest priority is making God real in your life. Whether you are listening
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  in our app, in your favorite podcasting app, or on our website at watwm.org,
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  we invite you to sit down with us as we look to the scriptures to learn more
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  about God and to strengthen your daily walk with Jesus Christ.
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  In this episode of the Woman at the Well Ministries podcast,
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  join Kim Miller and Erica Close in a conversation as we walk with Jesus.
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  In today's conversation, we are chatting about what life looks like when we don't get in God's way.
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  Well, thank you all so much for joining us today. I am Erica Close,
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  and I am here with Kim Miller.
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  Hello, and thank you for joining us in this podcast. I'm so excited because
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  it's God is our present help.
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  It is. So we are talking today about some of the things that Kim brought out
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  in Monday's message. So Monday's message was number 636, and it was called God is our present help.
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  And Kim, you brought out so many good points in that message that I just wanted
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  to take the opportunity to dive a little bit deeper into some of them and to
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  look a little bit deeper into some of the application,
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  for some of the scripture and some of the concepts that you brought out in that message.
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  So just in case you weren't able to listen to Monday's message,
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  Monday's message centered around Psalms 46.1,
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  which says, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in struggle.
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  And then you also talked to us about the account of Hezekiah and when the Assyrians
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  had attacked and laid siege to Jerusalem.
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  And there was a huge army coming against Jerusalem.
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  And Hezekiah sought the Lord. And when they woke the next morning, the huge army was dead.
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  So 185,000. Right. I got, I heard that big number.
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  And, and what I really, what was so just important there was like,
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  God worked while they rested.
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  And I think that's just so incredibly powerful.
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  I believe there's a lesson to be learned from that. A huge lesson. They rested. He worked.
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  The battle was his. It's not ours, as we're told in 1 Samuel 17, 47.
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  And he really demonstrates that. And what perfect peace that we're told we gave
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  in Isaiah 26, 3, when we place our faith on him, what perfect peace it must have been to go to bed.
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  At 185,000 people on your doorsteps. I mean, they must have been coming at them.
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  I'm sure they saw them coming. They were under siege.
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  And we do have to rest. But how many of us have a bill coming up and we're not
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  sure how we're going to pay it?
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  And two weeks before it's even due, we start not sleeping well.
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  Or you've got a big presentation and you can't do it. Or you've got,
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  you know, these things that are happening and you just don't know how God's going to do it.
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  Well, really, it is you're not sure he is. Or you'd be sleeping like Hezekiah,
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  and these, you know, how they had done.
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  You know, here they are, Jerusalem's under siege, and they're napping,
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  but when they wake up, they just won.
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  You know, you talk about Christmas. Absolutely.
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  So, you know, you made this statement in Monday's message that Hezekiah could
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  rest because he knew the promises of God, number one, and he believed them,
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  which is the important combination, right? Right.
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  It is, but it never ceases to amaze me, the number of people that don't read the Word of God.
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  It's as if they don't understand that there are promises in there that are just
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  for them, and you can't claim a promise you don't know. It's true.
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  In the midst of your problems, if you don't know that he says he'll supply your
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  strength and he'll provide all your needs, like he does in Philippians 4,
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  13 and 19, how can you claim it?
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  You cannot claim what you do not know.
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  And if you're totally confused, how do you know to go to God if you don't understand?
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  He says, Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty
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  things, which thou knowest not in Jeremiah 33.3.
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  I don't know. I mean, it's like it's like this incredible treasure chest and
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  you don't even have to dig deep to come out overwhelmingly blessed.
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  But boy, if you do dig deep, you will. It's incredible.
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  I don't understand. You will find it. You know, you made a point there and going
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  off plan here a little bit.
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  But you talked about claiming the promises of God.
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  And, you know, one of the things that I think is so powerful in prayer is when
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  we have God's promises and we know God's promises and we can sort of tell them back to him,
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  in a way that we say, Lord, you promise us that,
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  and you lay out the promise.
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  And we are claiming claim to that for our own lives.
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  But that's the peace and comfort it gives us. But I don't think that that's
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  something that everybody, number one, maybe is comfortable with.
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  Maybe not everybody feels like they have the right to do that.
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  And I think that's a tool of the devil.
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  But you're not throwing it at his face. You're showing him, here's, I know who you are.
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  I know what your characteristics are. I know what you told me.
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  And so here I'm claiming it.
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  When I was in high school, there
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  was a person in our school that had a situation happen in her life, and.
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  She stopped talking for a significant amount of time.
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  And so she was going to some sessions and some things, and the only name she
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  seemed to remember was mine. And so her family had asked me to come to counseling
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  sessions with her, and I did. and it was a group.
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  And there was an individual in
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  there who was one of the richest men or families in our area, uber rich.
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  But every so often, he was a member of the family,
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  he would live under the bridge. He would just somehow, something inside of him would snap.
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  And even though he had millions in the bank, and even though he had probably
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  an entire room filled with mega expensive suits, it didn't do him any good to have them.
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  He wasn't claiming it. Because he wasn't claiming them. He wasn't using them. He wasn't utilizing it.
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  He wasn't laying claim to it.
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  And every time I read scripture and I begin to think about claiming the promises
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  of God, a lot of time, very often,
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  that individual comes to my mind and it teaches me that having something is
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  different than using it and claiming it.
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  He had it. He had it all.
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  But he refused to claim it.
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  He refused to use it.
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  And I'm afraid that that individual...
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  Is very symbolic of a whole lot of Christians.
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  We have treasures unseen, wealth beyond measure, and we're living under the
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  bridge in the same clothes for 30 days.
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  You know, I think that there's a common misconception that we have all of this as a child of God.
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  And when we come to him with a promise and lay claim to it, I think so often
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  people feel like they are sort of demanding something of God,
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  which they cannot do.
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  But there is a difference between demanding something and laying claim to a promise.
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  We are heirs to Jesus Christ.
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  Join heirs with Jesus Christ. as the family of God.
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  We live below our privileges because we're not willing to hold the family name. So true.
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  So Hezekiah, we'll hop back to Hezekiah for a bit.
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  Yeah, he had that unwavering faith. He understood what it meant that God was very present.
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  Which meant he was involved.
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  And he wasn't like asleep.
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  The disciples that were left to pray for Jesus were present.
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  Sort of. But they weren't very present. They weren't aware and active and involved.
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  You know, one of the things that you talked about in Monday's message was this
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  idea of not getting in God's way and,
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  relying fully on him, but that there is a point at which we need to submit to
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  him in order to rely on him.
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  You made some statement in there where you said, Don't devise your way to fix the problem.
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  To lean not on your own understanding.
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  I think we bring God in after we've exhausted all of our ideas.
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  I think that's a common strategy.
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  Whether it's intentional or not, I think that's what gets played out.
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  And it doesn't get any dumber than that.
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  Because we are literally at that point getting in his way, right?
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  We are doing all these things and not allowing him to do the work,
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  which he would do if we would just get out of the way.
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  And so often we make things worse.
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  Let's talk for a minute about getting out of the way. What does that really look like?
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  Submission. Accepting.
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  What God tells you without kicking and screaming.
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  I feel like there's a certain aspect in there of sort of, as soon as we identify the problem.
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  We need to give it to him. We need to give it to him. We need to put a pause
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  in between seeking a solution and instead we need to seek God.
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  And that is so not my DNA. It's so hard.
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  It's so, so hard. and another thing we have to be happy,
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  it cannot be that we only think it was a good plan if it went our way yeah we
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  need to really just not devise any solutions and be excited when god sees us through,
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  oftentimes i just wanted to hurry up i think there's a measure a large measure of impatience.
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  You know, when we don't want to wait for him to fix something or bring a resolution
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  to something, it's just that we're impatient.
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  It may not be that we're not trusting.
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  And sometimes I know that I get in the way because I have a thing going on now with a delivery.
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  And in the whole scheme of things the delivery is fine.
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  But none of it went the way i thought it should right and so i have this sense of frustration,
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  And one little thing after another just keeps showing up that it wasn't correctly delivered, right?
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  So I'm now at the stage where it doesn't take anything for me to want to just wear them out.
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  And so far, I have held on to self-control because I'm praying my guts out.
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  And the worst I've done yet is said, I'm frustrated.
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  And I thought about that as we were talking I imagine if God had any human feelings
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  like I do at all he must go 24 7 frustrated with me,
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  he's fresh I'm sure he's frustrated with me I'm not making any judgment on whether
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  or not he's frustrated with you but I am I know he has to be because I mess up big things sometimes,
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  and he still just loves me the same and he'll go over and over and over the
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  same problem with me the same thing i haven't got quite right,
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  i need.
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  God's loving patience but i don't want the tribulations that help me grow the patients,
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  some which I will hard tomorrow as we're working with this delivery issue.
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  To be good with it. Regardless, you know, I had a conversation with someone
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  today and I was talking about someone that is going through a difficult situation and I've been,
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  praying for them and the individual that I was having the conversation with.
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  Basically said of this other person,
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  I'm so, they seem so surprised that God would allow this event to have occurred in their life.
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  They were going through a rough time.
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  And all I could think was, we're promised God's presence, but we're also promised problems.
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  They're not part of his promise, but everything is... In this world,
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  you will have tribulation.
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  You will have trouble with tribulation. It is clear, right? It says,
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  when thou passest through the waters. There's no ifs, right? It's always a when.
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  And so I think you make an incredible point that, you know, God allows these
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  tribulations and these trials to teach us to fully rely on him.
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  Hezekiah was fully relying on God. So he wasn't in God's way.
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  He wasn't standing on the wall. He wasn't even thinking about the battle,
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  right? He wasn't standing on the wall all night keeping watch.
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  Because if he had, God probably wouldn't have gone out and slayed the 185,000 people, right?
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  He was asleep, fully allowing God to work and not even assessing the situation.
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  I mean, he truly lived, cast your care. Yeah.
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  He let go of it and went to sleep.
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  You know, I'm praying that I can do that tonight over my delivery issue.
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  I'll be praying that for you as well.
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  You know, we were in the message on Monday, you were talking about giving God full reign.
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  And you made the statement that God is as active as we let him be.
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  I want God to be so active in my life.
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  But when you made that statement, what I really thought was, ouch.
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  Because the responsibility for how active God is in my life rests with me and not with him.
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  Amen. It's how much we let him have control. And Ephesians 3.20 says,
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  Now unto him that is able to do exceed abundantly above all that we ask or think
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  according to the power that worketh in us.
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  We got to let it flow and we got to have a clean pipe for it to flow through.
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  Some of us need the Roto-Rooter.
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  Well, yeah, exactly.
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  I think sometimes, though, we think that when things don't seem like they're
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  going well and we don't feel close to God or we can't see him working, we lay the blame on him.
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  And he's never to blame. He's never to blame.
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  Help us, Jesus. The responsibility lies with us.
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  All right. So as we're closing today, I want to bring up another one more statement
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  that you made in Monday's podcast, which also resonated.
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  And thankfully, it came shortly after your statement about how God was as active
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  as we will let him be. But you said, our flesh does not die easy.
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  We have to soak it in the word of God and shower it in prayer.
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  I think if there's any takeaway solution to this problem we have of,
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  having a wavering faith or getting in God's way or being one who devises ways
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  to fix things, one who fully relies on ourself and not on him,
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  and one who really holds the reins instead of giving God full reins,
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  It's that there is a way to crucify the flesh.
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  And that is to soak ourselves in the Word of God and shower our life in prayer.
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  Nevertheless, the nod of it, He lives in me.
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  We're hidden in Christ Jesus. We need to crawl in there and stay.
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  And we need to hide Him in our hearts. We need to fill up our lives with His Word.
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  Amen. And in doing so, I think we'll be able to recognize how God is our very
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  present help. He's active.
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  He's as active as we're going to let him be. And the responsibility lies with us.
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  I pray that this message has been a blessing to you all.
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  I hope that you are recognizing just how much,
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  of a present help God is in your life, and that as you listened today,
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  that God spoke to you about how you can fully rely on Him.
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  Thank you for listening. Remember, you are loved. Jesus loves you.
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  Thank you for joining us in today's podcast. You can visit the show notes for
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  quotes from today's podcast and scripture references.
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