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664 | God Meets Our Needs · The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast

• 0:07
  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.
• 0:34
  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.
• 1:03
  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 how God meets our needs in our wilderness.
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  Well, hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I am Erica,
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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 of Woman at the Well Ministries.
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  Yeah, so we're excited to be able to talk to you all today.
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  So as we normally do on Wednesdays, we are going to have a conversation about our Monday podcast.
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  So if you haven't yet listened to episode 663, it was called Peace That Comes
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  from the Gentle Whisper as God Meets Us in the Wilderness.
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  If you haven't listened to that episode yet, I strongly encourage you to go back and take a listen.
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  And if you have, or you're just not able to do it at that time,
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  we just invite you to stay with us and listen as we discuss some of the many
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  topics that came out of that podcast
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  and how they very concretely apply to our lives.
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  So when you get a chance to go back and listen, or if you did listen to Monday's
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  podcast, you know that in that podcast, Kim talked about Elijah,
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  And this account where Elijah is basically in despair and completely weak, and he.
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  Finds himself under a juniper tree.
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  And the account talks about how the Lord met him there and what the Lord did,
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  and then how Elijah responded and what happened next.
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  And Kim, in Monday's podcast, you brought out so many good points.
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  So again, if you haven't listened, I invite you to go back to listen.
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  But I want to just take this account of Elijah and to talk about what that looks like in our lives.
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  Elijah had just come off of a big victory.
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  Right? He had just won a big battle over Jezebel.
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  He is very victorious, and yet he finds himself in this point of despair and
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  total weakness, a point that I think if we wanted to use a modern term,
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  we might call it burned out. He was done.
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  What does that look like in our lives? How do we get ourselves into that place
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  of despair, weakness, and maybe completely burned out?
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  I think we don't do it purposely. I think for many of us, it is a slow process
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  of grinding day in and day out and not replenishing anything that's being taken out.
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  And I think for the vast majority of people who burn out as you call it it's,
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  they're burning out doing the right thing they're just not doing it in the right way,
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  you know the the statement too much of a good thing is bad it's hard for us.
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  To understand that but in in in the work of the lord.
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  There's so much work to be done, and we love him so much that we believe every
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  task is ours, every job is ours, and every person is ours to fix.
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  And that is a egocentric way to look at things, but it's just how we do.
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  And the truth of the matter is, we can't fix anybody. We can only put them in
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  front of Jesus. And it's really hard to take someone to the throne and put them
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  to Jesus if you haven't been there yourselves for a long time.
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  And so burnout happens by getting so busy working for the Lord that we forget the Lord of the work.
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  And you hear me say that fairly frequently, but it happens.
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  You're so task-oriented, you're so scheduled every moment of every day,
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  but we don't schedule rest, we don't schedule relaxation.
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  Somehow we think it's bad if somebody needs us and we're not there every moment
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  to help them. And the truth of the matter is, it is bad if we are not there
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  to do the job God has called us to do, but every job isn't ours.
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  And that's something that we only discern and understand when we have come to
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  the throne and we listen to him. We can't let other people tell us how we are
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  to do our work for the Lord.
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  That's so good. You used a term in the very beginning, you used the term grinding,
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  right? Which is a very, you know, modern term, right? We talk about that all the time.
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  And just as you said, others can't evaluate your work for the Lord.
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  I think we have this perception today that if we are working so hard at our
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  jobs, at our work for the Lord, that we are just literally grinding,
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  that that is a badge of honor.
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  Even if it is to the detriment of our hearts, minds, bodies,
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  families, relationships. And it truly doesn't work in the secular world or the spiritual world.
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  We are not at our best when we're not at our best.
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  And if we neglect time with the Lord, we really don't have anything to give.
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  And if we are not taking care of prayer time, we're not studying to show ourself
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  approved, that we're told in 2 Timothy 2.15, if we're not caring for the temple
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  of God, which requires rest,
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  then it doesn't really matter what we're doing because we're really not doing
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  it in the name of the Lord.
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  We're doing it for our namesake.
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  I want to be known to do that, or that's what I'm going to do.
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  I want this on my account kind of mentality, and that will burn you out.
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  Elijah was not immune to it, and he had just,
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  destroyed the prophets of Baal in a huge demonstration of massive spiritual battle that he won.
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  You know, it's interesting because you talked in the message on Monday's message
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  about how, you know, Elijah's perception of the truth was very much wrong.
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  He was, you know, sitting there like, I'm the only one who feels this way.
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  Nobody else feels this way. And it was this this very you know oh woe is me
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  attitude but that was truly false but it was false and it was also just as egocentric as
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  i have to keep grinding and working because i'm the only one who can do this
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  like that that idea i'm the only one serving you lord right and look at me,
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  or and i'm the only one feeling like this everybody hates me nobody likes me,
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  you know i'm useless it's very you know that's a that's a toe stomper right
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  there but so many of those those,
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  those feelings and emotions whether we take them to the oh what was me or oh look at me,
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  they are all very egocentric and i i loved how.
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  His feelings were real, but his conclusions weren't accurate.
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  And I love how God just says, no, there's 7,000 people who didn't bow to the prophets of Baal.
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  Like, I'm all alone. No, there's 7,000 who didn't bow to the prophets of Baal.
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  And I just love that. I mean, he doesn't make a big kadoo out of scripture,
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  but he literally says, no.
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  There's 7,000 of you who didn't bail i mean do you know what i mean i love it
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  he wasn't the only one i mean his feelings were real,
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  but he just you don't make good sound conclusions and decisions
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  when you are completely burnt out his feelings were real but his perception
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  of the truth was wrong and he was holding on to it but nope nope 7,000
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  you're not one you got 6,999 other people.
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  That's a pretty big crowd. That's a big crowd. It's a big crowd.
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  You talked just a second ago, you talked, you know, about back when you talked
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  about grinding, you know, grinding without replenishing.
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  And I think that in the account of Elijah, there's a really good definition,
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  example of sort of replenishing.
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  You know, God met Elijah's very basic needs.
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  And I think so often And we ignore our most basic needs. I mean,
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  I'm talking literally food, water, sleep.
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  And even if we do eat food, sometimes we just eat terrible food.
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  We don't get enough water, and we don't get enough sleep. I also think it's
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  a red flag when it feels like grinding.
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  Paul and Silas were in prison, and they were singing.
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  And you don't sing when you're melancholy. That's true.
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  So I think it's a red flag when you get up and go, oh, I got to do this.
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  Or there's drudgery, or there's some kind of dread involved,
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  because there's pleasures evermore when you're in the presence of Jesus. Amen. And.
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  I think it's a gut check. I think that's the Holy Spirit saying,
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  hey, you're doing this on your own accord.
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  You're doing this on your own strength. I supply all your needs according to
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  my riches and glory, and I will give you the strength to do what I'm asking you to do.
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  And if you feel like you don't have strength and you don't have what you need,
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  even if it's just you don't have the body to do it, then clearly you're not doing what he's asking.
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  It's that whole temple thing. Absolutely. It's a real thing.
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  It is a real thing. And I think so often we think, especially if we're doing
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  the work of the Lord, if it's, you know, church stuff or ministry stuff.
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  That's tricky, man. It's tricky because I think sometimes, you know,
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  the Lord will sustain us.
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  But at the same time the lord also most likely is saying go eat your dinner
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  get your rest drink your water be ready for the next because it may be someone else's assignment yes
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  that that he's using to bless and to be blessed and and we're not we're not
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  like elijah was really saying was i'm your only servant god.
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  You know, and I think we live our lives like we are.
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  And I'm telling you, you should work and you should give 100% of who you are
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  and your very best service to the Lord.
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  But it will not feel like Elijah was feeling or grinding like we've been talking to or a chore or,
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  drudgery if we are doing it by his command, in his strength, as he's asking.
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  It won't. Amen.
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  Hey, I'm guilty. I know exactly all who that is. We know what we're talking about.
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  So I think that was one of the big takeaways for us, is that God,
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  meets our basic needs, but I think God also defines our basic needs,
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  and we need to listen to him about those things that are really about our temple.
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  Food, water, sleep.
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  The important things. I think one of the things that Elijah teaches us that
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  was very eye-opening for me was to silence the other voices.
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  And I think that gets to God meets us, our basic needs, and he meets us relationally.
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  Elijah's account in 1 Kings 19 is a real eye-opener.
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  You don't really recognize, I think as a whole, people don't,
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  the way they listen to other people's voices.
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  And some people's voices have very large impact, heavy weight.
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  And Elijah proves to us that the only voice that has any weight is the only
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  voice that has any weight.
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  Of any real importance is God's.
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  And then the other people, because he was a mentor, and he tells us how we're
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  supposed to speak into others and help others be more of what God wants them
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  to be than they currently are.
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  But we need to be careful as we're speaking into someone else that we are speaking
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  straight scripture, and we are speaking things that we have already prayed about
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  and really worked on before we speak them.
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  Because our relationships with others and their idea of our relationship with
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  God can really put more impact on our words than we should have.
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  And I think there's a real danger when we're in that position and we're working
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  with someone, talking to someone, counseling someone.
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  And what you said about we haven't prayed about it, or, you know,
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  we're really just coming from our own point of knowledge.
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  When that happens, it's very much our perspective. It's what,
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  this is what God said to me, did for me. Well, that's what he said to me or
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  did for me in my situation.
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  That doesn't mean it's exactly what he wants for you. So in those times,
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  his word is what we need to be giving.
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  It it really kind of gave me a gut check i have as you know two very very important
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  people in my life that are decades i mean decades younger than me,
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  and if the truth be told i would list them in my top five friends.
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  I spend time with them i love them they have such an insight for god such a love for God,
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  and they often spend time with me,
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  discussing scripture, often with me in prayer. And, you know,
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  I pray about it. I really do.
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  But I will be more diligent to be asking God, listen, you put these young ones
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  in my life, and I know what they are to me and what they're giving me.
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  But surely you have something for me to give them.
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  And I need to know what it is, and I need to know how to give it.
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  I think it was a lesson for me in how to mentor. And.
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  I wrote many books on mentoring, and I certainly led a national group of mentoring.
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  But studying for this message, I really felt that the key piece of mentoring
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  that we have in our lives,
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  is we need to know what God put them in our lives for.
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  And we stay the course. And the friendship and the love and all of that amazing
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  things are certainly bonuses, but there's a purpose.
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  And there's a purpose, I said all that to say this, there's a purpose for every
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  person that frequents your world.
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  You have a purpose for them, especially if they're not Christians, but you have a purpose.
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  And did you think about it? I go to the same cash register every time I go to
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  the store because crazy creature habit.
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  If that person is there, I don't know her. I mean, I know her name and we say
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  hello and that kind of thing, but I don't know her. But there's probably some
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  reason other than my crazy, you know, thing that I don't change.
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  That I'm at this lady's register. And I don't know that I prayed more than one
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  time about what I should be saying to her when I'm in there.
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  But I think Elijah teaches us that. I think he does. And I love that because, you know,
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  in the account of Elijah and, you know, very much in that time where the Lord
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  speaks to him with that still small voice, which is in and of itself such a
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  cool lesson for us about how God speaks, you know, he doesn't speak.
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  But God meets us relationally, right? But he prepares us to live relationally,
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  too, right? God meets with us.
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  We have a relationship with God, but we are acting in some sort of relationship
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  with every single other human on this planet that we come into.
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  There's a reason, there's a point. There's always an opportunity to point to Jesus.
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  But we have to be able to have that relationship with Jesus ourselves,
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  but also have the ability to listen, to know how we are to relate to others.
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  I also feel like that account there really gave a perspective of God.
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  He's not looking for the fame, the glory, the bright lights,
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  the big stuff, any more than he's looking for the small stuff.
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  It's not about the environment in which you're serving him or in which you are
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  meeting him. It's about meeting him.
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  You know, because you could kind of think of the earthquake and the wind and
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  the fire as these big productions.
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  And so if I'm not doing these big productions for the Lord, then I'm not serving
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  him. And that's a trick from the devil. Because the world is full of big,
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  noisy, flashing things.
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  And i think our current world specifically really trains us to value big noisy
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  things or to seek big noisy things not even big noisy things but you just think
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  about like scrolling our phones and.
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  All that we see and hear and doing so versus like opening a newspaper right
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  just the level of intensity and sort of stimulation, right?
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  The world is full of all of that.
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  And I think we're somehow geared because of how the world works to think,
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  okay, if you're on the platform or you're delivering the message,
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  or you've got a role that is defined or paid for or whatever in the church,
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  you're serving the Lord.
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  But if you're quiet and still and taking food to somebody that nobody knows
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  or driving someone to the doctor that nobody has ever heard about,
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  we have a tendency to push that down.
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  And I really feel like that passage of Scripture unfolds as it's not about what you're doing for him.
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  It's not about where you're doing it. It's about being with Him face to face
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  and following Him, His command.
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  I really loved how that just sort of jumped off the page.
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  I think that really gets to one of the other points that really stood out to
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  me in Monday's podcast, is that as God does speak to us about what He would have us to do,
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  Number one, like we just said, it will most likely be in a still, small, quiet voice.
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  But we got to listen. Because that means we're prepared enough to hear and not in a big flashy thing.
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  But also... Because he had big flash in 18.
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  In 1 Kings 18, when he took down the prophets of Baal, there's big flash. Yeah.
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  But that was also the same man that right after that victory...
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  Couldn't feel it. Couldn't function. Yeah. So after God speaks,
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  I think we need to be prepared to understand that when God speaks and he speaks
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  to you, he's speaking to you.
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  And this goes back to what you talked about mentoring, too. The message that
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  God has for you, the assignment God has for you may not be the message or the
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  assignment for someone else, which means stop doing everybody else's work.
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  But and it means that not everybody's going to understand.
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  Not everybody is going to understand. Praise the Lord. I know that one. Yeah.
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  And I think that that's incredibly important is that as the Lord speaks to us,
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  we need to realize he's speaking to us.
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  And the message that he's giving us may not be exactly what he would give to
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  everyone else. And that is okay.
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  There's a meme going around on Facebook that says something about,
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  don't worry about if nobody understands your assignment, it wasn't theirs.
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  It's true. It's absolutely true. Everybody has an opinion, but Elijah shows
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  us, to me, the biggest thing Elijah shows is do not listen to the other voice.
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  Silence the other voices other than Jesus.
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  I love that. Silence the other voices other than Jesus.
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  So you closed out Monday's message and you talked about,
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  Just about some really neat concepts. You talked about how restoration,
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  when the Lord restores us. So the Lord clearly restores Elijah in this account.
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  And you made the statement that restoration isn't necessarily relief from the
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  pain, but it's renewal for service. It's definitely not only relief from the pain.
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  The restoration is clearly if we were in the center of god's will and trusting
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  him like it tells us to in proverbs 3 5 and 6,
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  we would not find ourselves in such deep despair and we would be doing all the
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  right things so your body wouldn't you know fail on us and all those things
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  that is like the perfect storm to get you feeling burnt out.
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  But God doesn't just fix that and say, okay, you messed up, so you don't get
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  to work for me anymore. You're done.
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  No, he restores. And in that very same passage, he gives him a list of steps
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  to take to do the next thing.
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  And the wonderful thing about Elijah, there's so many things wonderful about
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  Elijah, But one of them is, is that Elijah knows how to obey.
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  And I think that's really key, is that it's always about obedience.
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  Like, God just doesn't restore us so we can get out of work the next day, right?
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  He doesn't just restore us so that we can cook dinner, right?
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  He doesn't restore us to go out and work in the garden.
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  All those things may happen, but God's restoration is always about moving us,
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  closer to where he would have us to be.
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  It's always about getting us to a point that we are obeying.
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  Because in all those things, whether we're working in the garden,
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  whether we're cooking dinner, whether we're going to work,
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  all those things are part of God's larger plan and call for us to be sharing
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  Jesus with others, to be meeting the needs of the people around us.
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  And I think what I see and what I'm
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  hearing from you as we talk about the obedience of Elijah comes to mind,
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  1 Samuel 15, 22 says, And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great a delight and
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  burn offerings as sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
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  Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of lambs.
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  To obey is better than sacrifice and elijah shows us that it was the sacrifice
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  the give give give give give give give to put him under the juniper tree,
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  but it was his obedience that got him restored and moved forward it wasn't the sacrifice,
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  it wasn't a godly sacrifice it was like a human sacrifice that got him right
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  he just kept going he sacrificed his physical self right instead of are staying in the power of God.
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  And I'm sure there's a lot of other things that are not written in Scripture,
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  that are around that. But God has given us everything that we need to know pertaining
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  to godliness and everything we need to know to be able to walk in His ways.
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  And Elijah just has so many things that he teaches us and teaching us to obey,
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  to do what God asks us to do.
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  To silence the voice of everyone else.
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  And to stay in front of God in his presence and to really keep our whole body fit.
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  You know, in Ephesians 6, we're given the armor of God. We've got to have a body to put it on. Amen.
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  Amen. I want to just close with just one last statement that was in Monday's
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  podcast where you talked about how we are not perfect, but we are purposed. Amen.
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  We all have a purpose. purpose, right? The reality is we all have one purpose,
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  which is to bring honor and glory to the Lord, tell other people about Jesus.
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  And in whatever else we're doing, in our work, in our families,
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  in our communities, in our towns, and in whatever it is, that's the purpose.
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  But I think it's important to know that we're not ever going to be perfect.
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  Praise God, because only He is.
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  But we are always going to have a purpose. to strive towards the prize of the
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  high calling of God. Amen, amen.
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  Well, thank you all so much for listening to today's podcast.
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  Again, I invite you to go back to
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  Monday's podcast if you didn't have an opportunity to learn, to hear it.
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  I also invite you to go back and read this account in 1 Kings of Elijah in the
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  juniper tree and what follows. 1 Kings 19.
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  1 Kings 19. Again, remember, 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
• 28:52
  references from this episode in the show notes.
• 28:55
  We pray today's message has been a blessing. If it has, please consider leaving
• 29:00
  a rating or review on your podcast platform.
• 29:03
  Your feedback helps others discover the truth of God's word.
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  You can connect with Woman 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.