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Stories of Faith and Triumph · The World Knowledge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, good afternoon, listeners. Thank you for listening to Lament
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of Hope podcast. And I'm very grateful. This is going
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: to be a little unconventional, because if you're watching this,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: you're going to see it's just the logo for the podcast.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: But Dr. Katina and I really tried, and unfortunately, we
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: weren't able to do video, but that's okay.
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  Speaker 2: Pessimists or, you know, somebody who loves pain, but I
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  Speaker 2: think if we examine our lives and we're too comfortable,
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: you know, not just physically, not just physical comforts, but say,
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  Speaker 2: you know, everybody I'm with agrees with me and all
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  Speaker 2: my opinions fitting with the mainstream and everything is great
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  Speaker 2: and everybody's cool with what I'm saying, what I'm doing.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe we're not living the full Christian life. Christianity is tough.
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  Speaker 2: It's a hard gig. And I think if you really
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  Speaker 2: follow it, you're going to get a lot of pushback.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: You're going to get pushback in the culture. You're going
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  Speaker 2: to find sometimes your life is difficult. Things you choose
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  Speaker 2: to do will make things more difficult. But it's all
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: a process to get us closer to God. And I
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  Speaker 2: think when you do that, there are a lot of
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  Speaker 2: spiritual benefits to doing that. I think we always have
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  Speaker 2: to be careful about getting too comfortable with everything. No, I.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, I agree with you, and I'm saying that
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  Speaker 1: as I'm sitting at my desk chair, so I feel
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  Speaker 1: a little stupid, but I understand what you mean.
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  Speaker 2: Right, right.
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  Speaker 1: But I did want to ask you, when you were
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  Speaker 1: talking about sin struggles, because I resonate with that so much,
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  Speaker 1: and it's been such a comfort to me when I've
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  Speaker 1: talked with fellow believers and talked about struggles that I've
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  Speaker 1: had and asked them to pray for me, and had
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  Speaker 1: mentorship to kind of help guide, okay, what do I
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  Speaker 1: do to work on this, to be active in this,
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  Speaker 1: while at the same time trusting that the Lord, in
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  Speaker 1: his grace, is going to work this out because he
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  Speaker 1: promises he will. Is there something in particular for you,
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  Speaker 1: maybe in your work as a doctor, or... in Sudan
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  Speaker 1: being in this culture that, I mean, you have a
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  Speaker 1: whole new perspective. You have a deeper perspective in some
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  Speaker 1: ways of the world at large than your American friends
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  Speaker 1: would who don't live in Sudan. Right. Like what in
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  Speaker 1: particular personally do you think you find yourself coming back
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  Speaker 1: to over and over and something to grow in?
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  Speaker 2: I think our walk with the Lord, and again, that's
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  Speaker 2: more of an evangelical expression, but I think it's something
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  Speaker 2: we have to work on every day. So I, you know.
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  Speaker 2: For some reason, I think in American Christianity, we've gotten
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  Speaker 2: away from this idea that there's a spiritual struggle going on, right?
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  Speaker 2: It's well known. It's all through the Bible, right? Paul
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  Speaker 2: himself said it. Our fight is not with blood and
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  Speaker 2: human flesh. It's against the principalities and the powers of
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  Speaker 2: the spirit world. So we all know that, right? But
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  Speaker 2: we kind of forget about it. So if you take that,
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  Speaker 2: this is a battle. We're in a spiritual struggle. I
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  Speaker 2: don't care who you are. Everybody's in it. We've got
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  Speaker 2: terrible spiritual struggles here all the time. We have to
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  Speaker 2: equip ourselves to fight that. So how do you do that?
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  Speaker 2: You've got to be praying every single day. For us
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  Speaker 2: in the Catholic Church, we have mass every day. So
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  Speaker 2: I get myself in the chapel every morning at 7 o'clock,
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  Speaker 2: we have a mass. We receive communion in the body
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  Speaker 2: and blood of Christ every morning. We can go to
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  Speaker 2: confession to a priest. You can confess your sins to
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  Speaker 2: your friends or confess your sins to God. I think
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  Speaker 2: all that stuff is necessary. I think, you know, Protestant
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  Speaker 2: friends of mine, they have Bible studies.
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  Speaker 1: They have things.
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  Speaker 2: They have fellowship with other believers. All this stuff is
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  Speaker 2: very important because we're in a spiritual battle. And the enemy,
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  Speaker 2: which is Satan, is never as tired of fighting us.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: So approach it that way. Like, hey, I'm in a battle.
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  Speaker 2: So me sinning and me having negative thoughts or getting
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  Speaker 2: angry or having impure thoughts, all this stuff is normal. Right.
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  Speaker 2: Like it's going to be there. So don't be surprised
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  Speaker 2: when it comes. At the same time, steel yourself to
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  Speaker 2: fight it. To fight it, you can't be passive. You
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  Speaker 2: can't say, well, God will protect me. So I'm not
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  Speaker 2: going to bother praying today. I'm not going to bother
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  Speaker 2: going to church. My friends are having a Bible study,
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  Speaker 2: but I don't feel like going because I'm tired. My
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  Speaker 2: friends are having fellowship. I'm not going to go to
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  Speaker 2: that because I don't feel like it. I want to
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  Speaker 2: go out and do something else. You've got to actively
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  Speaker 2: fight it. And you've got to think about it, saying
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  Speaker 2: this is hard. It's a struggle. Let me fight it.
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  Speaker 2: What are the tools that are presented to us? Prayer
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  Speaker 2: and fasting, prayer and fasting. OK, we forget this stuff
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  Speaker 2: and we don't do it. We say, oh, that's what
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  Speaker 2: they did in the old days. You know, all these
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  Speaker 2: are powerful tools. We have to use these tools to
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  Speaker 2: fight this because that battle is ongoing. And, you know,
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  Speaker 2: I think don't be surprised if it comes. All this
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  Speaker 2: stuff is very biblical. I think we just kind of
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  Speaker 2: pushed it off to the side.