Latest / Jessi Morgan Devotions for the Christian Heart Podcast / Caleb and Joshua: How Shared Faith Builds Strong Christian Friendships

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Caleb and Joshua: How Shared Faith Builds Strong Christian Friendships · Jessi Morgan Devotions for the Christian Heart Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello.
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  SPEAKER_00: You're listening to the Jesse Morgan Evotions for the Christian Heart Podcast episode 109.
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  SPEAKER_00: New series titled Friendship Series, focusing on amazing friendships and relationships in the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_00: First one, Caleb and Joshua.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Jesse Morgan.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I used to just share home decor and renovation tips on social media, but now I'm sharing something even closer to my heart.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: My journey in love for Jesus Christ, my savior.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Jesse Morgan Devotions for the Christian Hawk Podcast.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is a weekly devotional I started back in May 2024, but the inspiration for it came much earlier.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was rooted in a faith journey that began when my daughter was born four months early in 2023.
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  SPEAKER_00: Through that challenging time, God worked in ways that truly amazed me.
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  SPEAKER_00: On this podcast, I share personal stories of faith woven together with Scripture to show just how incredible God's word can be in our everyday lives.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: My hope is that through these stories, you'll be encouraged, uplifted, and reminded of God's love and presence, no matter what you're going through.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I invite you to spend less than 15 minutes with me each week as we reflect on these devotionals together.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let's all pray within.
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  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello, welcome back to the podcast.
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  SPEAKER_00: I am Jesse Morgan.
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  SPEAKER_00: So excited for this new series, going to be focusing in on friendships, the friendship series.
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  SPEAKER_00: Going to be um excited to share and learn about the different friendship relationships in the Bible and how some of those key, you know, lessons from those friendships you can apply to your life now.
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  SPEAKER_00: And how God really does care about friendships.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes us in society, we think about the more friends, the merrier.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's not the case.
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  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's sometimes great to have a small unit of friends that really are of the same values, of the same spirituality.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think that's really important.
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  SPEAKER_00: So excited to share and really get this going.
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  SPEAKER_00: So today I want to talk about something that often starts a friendship, but isn't always talked about as much as a friendship matures.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I would say it's shared goals.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think many people in middle school, high school, and even college begin because two people share similar dreams.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a career aspiration, a passion, a desire for marriage and a family, fitness goals, vision for the future, etc.
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  SPEAKER_00: Shared goals often create an immediate connection.
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  SPEAKER_00: But what happens when um life evolves?
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  SPEAKER_00: What happens when one person reaches a goal before the other?
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  SPEAKER_00: What happens when life takes two friends down different paths?
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  SPEAKER_00: Are we willing to adjust as life changes while still supporting one another?
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  SPEAKER_00: One of my closest friends be or like one of my closest friendships began in college, my freshman year.
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  SPEAKER_00: We hit it off quickly after I complimented her haircut, and she was fashion forward, and so was I.
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  SPEAKER_00: So we immediately connected.
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  SPEAKER_00: We were also both hopeless romantics who loved the idea of love and desired health and desired healthy, grounded relationships that would one day lead to what?
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  SPEAKER_00: Marriage.
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  SPEAKER_00: Life, however, wasn't always easy.
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  SPEAKER_00: We both experienced difficult relationships along the way.
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  SPEAKER_00: There were guys I dated that she didn't approve of, there were guys she dated that I wasn't thrilled about either.
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  SPEAKER_00: Um, we had disagreements, not just on men, but just other things, and we hurt each other's feelings at times.
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  SPEAKER_00: Um, there were seasons where the friendship felt strained.
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  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of my senior year, we found our way back to each other, and we have both grown up and still close to till today, as we're still close today.
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  SPEAKER_00: And after graduation from college, um, she moved up north while I stayed in Florida.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our lives looked different, but many of our goals remained the same.
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  SPEAKER_00: We focused on our careers, financial stability, personal growth, and health.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then in our early 30s, we both began taking our faith more seriously.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: I got married first.
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  SPEAKER_00: The one thing I will never forget, though, is how genuinely happy she was for me.
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  SPEAKER_00: I always admired the way she celebrated my marriage, even while she still she was still praying and waiting for her own future husband.
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  SPEAKER_00: My goals changed somewhat after marriage.
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  SPEAKER_00: I had a child, as we know.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to become a better wife, strengthening my faith and you know, building my family.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yet, even though our time, our timelines looked different, my shared des our shared desires for healthy relationships and spiritual growth remained between me and my best friend.
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  SPEAKER_00: The specifics changed, the support never did.
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  SPEAKER_00: I remember a story my best friend um shared with me years ago that has always stayed in the back of my mind.
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  SPEAKER_00: Um, she was she had a childhood friend she had known since like elementary school.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I really liked her too.
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  SPEAKER_00: I thought she was a really cool person to get to know that my best friend adored.
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  SPEAKER_00: Um, but anyways, her and her childhood friend, you know, they had years of memories together.
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  SPEAKER_00: But one day, my best friend called her and was my best friend, I'm sorry, my best friend called me frustrated about a conversation she had with her friend.
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  SPEAKER_00: At that time, you know, I'll be honest, my my best friend and I were navigating similar challenges.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, budget, just adulthood.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was a lot going on.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we were always, you know, we were talking about paying bills and career decisions and where are we gonna live next, like stuff like that.
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  SPEAKER_00: And life was just stretching us, and it was just really hard.
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  SPEAKER_00: So a few days went by, like I said, my best friend called me, and she was, you know, a little upset with the conversation she had had.
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  SPEAKER_00: She had called her childhood friend and just like wanted to vent a little bit and was just upset about stuff, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: And she was talking about some financial pressure she was going through, some work issues and things like that.
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  SPEAKER_00: But all of a sudden, the conversation shifted.
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  SPEAKER_00: Instead of talking about what my best friend, you know, was experiencing and just having a really tough day, her friend focused on and shifted the conversation to um reality television drama, like Nini leaks on Real Houseways of Atlanta.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I said that, celebrity gossip, and things that honestly had very little to do with what my best friend was trying to process and deal with.
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  SPEAKER_00: And she shared that with me.
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  SPEAKER_00: And now let me just say this there is nothing wrong with reality TV stuff and lighter conversations.
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  SPEAKER_00: We all need those sometimes.
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  SPEAKER_00: But what struck, you know, my best friend was that she didn't feel understood.
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  SPEAKER_00: She didn't feel like her friend really cared.
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  SPEAKER_00: And basically, from what she it's, you know, that whole conversation and how that just always stuck with me was her friend wasn't in the same season of life.
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  SPEAKER_00: She wasn't carrying the same responsibilities, she wasn't pursuing the same goals.
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  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, she couldn't fully relate to what her what my best friend was walking through.
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  SPEAKER_00: That story always stayed with me because it reminded me that friendship naturally evolves.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the people we've known the longest aren't necessarily the people who understand our current season the best.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as we as we grow, our goals change, our priorities change, our responsibilities change.
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  SPEAKER_00: The challenge becomes whether what whether we are willing to grow alongside our friends and make room for who they are becoming, or do we just, you know, we still don't have hate for that friend.
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  SPEAKER_00: We just have to somewhat distance ourselves because we're just not on the same, you know, we're not on the same um path at the moment.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I will say this the strongest friendships are not often the ones that have existed the longest.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're the ones where both people are willing to evolve together.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's why shared goals matter so much, I feel, when it comes to friendship.
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  SPEAKER_00: When two friends are pursuing similar things, whether that's growing spiritually, building healthy families, strengthening their faith, improving their health, or just simply trying to be more Christ-like, they develop a deeper understanding of each other.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's why God loves friendship.
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  SPEAKER_00: They encourage each other because they're walking similar roads.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's why God puts people in your path.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they put that person in your path because you needed that type of friendship at that moment.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you know, friends like that, they're praying for you specifically because they understand the struggle.
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  SPEAKER_00: They celebrate your victories because they know what it took to get there.
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  SPEAKER_00: Shared goals create shared um understanding.
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  SPEAKER_00: And shared understanding creates often deeper friendships.
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  SPEAKER_00: And today I'm overjoyed to share that my best friend has met the love of her life and is preparing to get married.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I'm so excited.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if you are listening, my best friend, I love you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for years of friendship, prayers, encouragement, and support from your end.
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  SPEAKER_00: So excited to do the same for you.
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  SPEAKER_00: So, just in all this, your friendship, your friendships um are gifts from God.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when I think about shared goals and friendships, I can't help but think about Caleb and Joshua.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's the friendship I really want to feature today, you know, from the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_00: So many people know them as the two of the 12 spies sent by Moses into the promised land.
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  SPEAKER_00: But before that, they were men who had witnessed God do incredible things.
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  SPEAKER_00: They experienced Egypt, they had seen the plagues, they had walked through the Red Sea, they had eaten manna in the wilderness, they had fought battles, they have seen God's faithfulness over and over again.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when Moses sent twelve spies into the land, God had promised, ten spies returned with fear.
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  SPEAKER_00: They saw giants and obstacles and convinced the people that going back to Egypt would be better.
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  SPEAKER_00: But Caleb and Joshua saw the same giants and came back with different with a different report.
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  SPEAKER_00: In Numbers 13, 30 it says, Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then in Numbers 14, 8 through 9, Joshua and Caleb declared, If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us.
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  SPEAKER_00: Only do not rebel against the Lord and do not fear the people of the land.
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  SPEAKER_00: But Israel refused to trust God.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because of their unbelief, God declared that generation would wander in the wilderness for forty years, the famous forty years wandering, and everyone who was like twenty years old and older would die before being able to enter the promised land, except Joshua and Caleb.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you can find that in Numbers 14, 29 through 30.
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  SPEAKER_00: Think about that for a minute.
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  SPEAKER_00: Year after year, people knew they people they knew died.
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  SPEAKER_00: Friends died, family members died, an entire generation disappeared.
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  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, younger people who were raised who had never experienced Egypt, they had never seen the Red Sea split, they didn't know slavery, they didn't know how to really, you know, fight battles, they hadn't witnessed all that Joshua and Caleb had witnessed.
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  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine what that must have felt like?
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  SPEAKER_00: The only other person who truly understood what you had experienced was one other what one other man.
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  SPEAKER_00: Joshua knew what Caleb had seen, Caleb knew what Joshua had seen.
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  SPEAKER_00: They shared memories, they shared disappointments, they shared waiting, and they shared faith.
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  SPEAKER_00: And after and after forty years of wandering in the wilderness, those two men stood together, still believing the promise God had made decades earlier.
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  SPEAKER_00: I often wonder if there were moments when Joshua, after Moses died and leadership fell on his shoulders, found comfort knowing Caleb was still there.
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  SPEAKER_00: Someone who remembered, someone who understood, someone who had walked the same road, someone who knew the faithfulness of God because he had witnessed it too.
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  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps that's why I love their story so much, because friendship, companionship aren't always about having identical lives.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're about having shared goals and shared faith.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's about having someone who can say, I remember when God brought us from brought us from that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Don't give up now.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get through this, etc.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's why God allowed Caleb and Joshua to enter the promised land together.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe God knew that Joshua was going to be leading his people into the promised land, but Joshua was gonna need some comfort, someone to relate to.
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  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's why God put Caleb there.
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  SPEAKER_00: But even after 40 years of waiting, disappointment, funerals, leadership changes, God allowed the two faithful men to finally see the promised land together.
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  SPEAKER_00: Two men, one God, one promise, one shared goal.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what friendship at its best looks like: someone who remembers with you, someone who waits with you, someone who believes with you, someone who enters that promised land with you.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: In many ways, my best friend and I experienced our own version of waiting for a promised blessing experience.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we trusted God to bring the right people into our lives in his timing.
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  SPEAKER_00: The timelines were different, the journeys were different, but the shared goal of trusting God never changed.
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  SPEAKER_00: And now we can both look back and see that faithfulness.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Friendships, you know, are strongest when they are rooted in something deeper than convenience.
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  SPEAKER_00: Shared goals, especially spiritual goals, create incredible bonds.
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  SPEAKER_00: When one person is discouraged, the other can remind them of God's promises.
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  SPEAKER_00: When one person is celebrating, the other can cheer them on without jealousy.
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  SPEAKER_00: When one person is waiting, the other can help them keep believing.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful piece of friendship.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so the key lesson here is seek friendships that encourage you toward godly goals.
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  SPEAKER_00: Your goals may evolve over time, but when a friendship is rooted in Christ, you can continue supporting one another through every single season.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the greatest gift isn't reaching the goal itself.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the greatest gift is having someone faithfully walk beside you while you wait.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's why friendship and companionship is so important to God.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I want to leave this with you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Here's something I would love for you to do if you can do it, and if you if you do, I would love to hear from you of how that went.
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  SPEAKER_00: Reach out to a friend this week and set a simple goal together.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's reading a devotional together, getting healthier, having a coffee, just uh, you know, voice notes to each other in the morning to just say that you're awesome.
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  SPEAKER_00: Um, is it praying together, serving others, etc.?
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  SPEAKER_00: See how God uses that shared purpose to strengthen your friendship.
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  SPEAKER_00: I just want you to really think about that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because, again, shared goals with a friend is just something that I can't even explain how priceless that is.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just so excited to be able to really elaborate even more on what friendship really means to me and what it could mean for you.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, love you all.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for the gift of friendship.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the people you place in our lives to encourage us, challenge us, and remind us of your promises.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Help us to be faithful, Lord.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Help us to be faithful friends who celebrate others well, support one another through changing seasons and point each other back to you.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Give us friendships like Caleb and Joshua, relationships marked by faith and courage and trust in your promises, even when the circumstances just seem so difficult.
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  SPEAKER_00: Help us to recognize the importance of shared goals and shared faith.
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  SPEAKER_00: Teach us how to grow alongside the people you have placed in our lives.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your faithfulness, Lord, and for every blessing you bring in your perfect time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Father, we love you and we praise you in Jesus' name.
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  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you all for listening.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Excited to continue friendship series.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Till next time.