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How Pain Has Brought Me Closer To God Pt. 2 · Time with God with John North

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Good morning. Here we are on Tuesday morning, getting into
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the week, and I want to get into the word
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of God, the Bible with you, as we take some
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: time with God here at the beginning of our day.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: The beginning of your day is the best time to
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: spend time with God because it sets your mind for
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the whole day.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: This week, we're talking all week about 5 times in
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: my life where pain has pushed me towards God. And
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: today I want to talk about financial difficulties.
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  Speaker 1: Something relevant to many of us. Maybe right now, you
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  Speaker 1: look at your life and you say, I do not
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  Speaker 1: know how I'm going to pay my rent, I don't
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  Speaker 1: know where my food is going to come from, I
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  Speaker 1: am in a pretty desperate place financially. Well, I grew
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: up in a missionary family that trusted God for our
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: financial provision. People who believed in the ministry we were doing,
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  Speaker 1: would send money into our organisation.
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  Speaker 1: My parents stepped out in faith, trusting God, and as
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  Speaker 1: a family we were in that environment. But I want
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  Speaker 1: to tell you it was totally different when I had
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  Speaker 1: to make decisions of my own that put me in
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  Speaker 1: that same dependent position. I remember coming out of high school,
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  Speaker 1: our family.
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  Speaker 1: Uh, didn't have a lot of money. I didn't have
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  Speaker 1: a lot of money, and I went off to Bible college. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: our church sponsored me a little bit of my tuition
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  Speaker 1: and board, but I didn't see how I could possibly
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  Speaker 1: make it through Bible college. And semester after semester, year
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  Speaker 1: after year, God provided what I needed all the way
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  Speaker 1: through Bible.
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  Speaker 1: College. In a sense, I was still being taken care
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  Speaker 1: of by my parents as well, so I had that
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  Speaker 1: to lean on. But once I finished Bible college, I
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: travelled for a few years in ministry, travelling ministry, and
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  Speaker 1: then I went on for postgraduate theological studies. And by
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  Speaker 1: then I was of an age, my parents weren't taking
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  Speaker 1: care of me at all anymore.
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  Speaker 1: I went to a place that was pretty expensive to
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  Speaker 1: go to for my studies, and I just trusted God. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I went through one year scraping by. I was painting
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  Speaker 1: houses to earn money, uh, that didn't, didn't nearly cover
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  Speaker 1: my costs. But I scraped through for a year, and
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  Speaker 1: it came to the first semester of the next year,
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  Speaker 1: and I said, I have to take out a loan.
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  Speaker 1: And so I took out a loan, but I made
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  Speaker 1: a commitment. I won't start another semester of study unless
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  Speaker 1: I've paid off my loan for the previous. And so
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  Speaker 1: I did that for that year. When I finished that year,
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  Speaker 1: I thought, I'm so foolish. If God can provide for me.
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  Speaker 1: To pay off my loan before I start the next semester.
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  Speaker 1: Why can't I trust Him to provide for me before
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  Speaker 1: the semester starts so I'm not going into debt? So
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  Speaker 1: I made a commitment. I wouldn't start the next year
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  Speaker 1: without my funds. Well, I trusted God, and the funds
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  Speaker 1: came in. And as I went through that term, I
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  Speaker 1: just didn't have the painting work to pay my bills
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  Speaker 1: for my food and my rent.
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  Speaker 1: And time after time I would just call on God. God,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm going to do. And a
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  Speaker 1: pastor of a church I'd had ministry in would ring
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  Speaker 1: me up and say, John, how are you? And we'd
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  Speaker 1: catch up and then he'd say, I'm going to send
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  Speaker 1: you some money to help you out, and it would
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  Speaker 1: be just what I needed. Or someone else would provide
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  Speaker 1: in some way, or at the last minute I'd get
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  Speaker 1: a painting job, and all the way through my theological training,
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  Speaker 1: I saw God providing for me.
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  Speaker 1: It got even more intense when I became responsible for others,
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  Speaker 1: and I got married, and then we had kids, and
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  Speaker 1: we joined a ministry, where we had to trust God,
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  Speaker 1: the ministry I'm working with right now. And all of
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  Speaker 1: a sudden, we've got house payments to make, and my
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  Speaker 1: wife and kids have to be fed, and sometimes we
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  Speaker 1: were eating peanut butter for a month.
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  Speaker 1: But do you know something? Every time I've come to
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  Speaker 1: a financial crisis, even more when I was leading our
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  Speaker 1: ministry and had to provide for our whole team, we
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  Speaker 1: come to a financial crisis, and we try everything, and
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  Speaker 1: we cannot provide our needs. And finally, in desperation,
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  Speaker 1: We say, God, we thought you'd provide through these things,
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  Speaker 1: but now we've come to the end of ourselves. What
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  Speaker 1: are you going to do? We're totally dependent on you,
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  Speaker 1: and God has always provided. Always.
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  Speaker 1: Financial difficulties have pushed me towards God, and I want
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  Speaker 1: to say to you, as you put God first in
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  Speaker 1: your life, not just ask Him to bless your plans,
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  Speaker 1: but you step into his plans, you can trust Him
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  Speaker 1: to provide what you need as you bring those needs
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  Speaker 1: to Him. I'm John North.
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  Speaker 2: To go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.