Latest / Reformed Thinking / David Brainerd’s Mission to the Indians at Kaunaumeek | Jonathan Edwards

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David Brainerd’s Mission to the Indians at Kaunaumeek | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reformed thinking. So imagine preparing for the
• 0:05
  most brutal, freezing, isolated deployment of your life.
• 0:09
  Oh wow. Yeah, I mean, your first
• 0:11
  instinct is probably to gather supplies, right?
• 0:14
  You want to plot your map and build an unshakable mindset.
• 0:17
  Right, you want to be totally ready.
• 0:18
  Yeah, you look at the hostile environment and say I have the
• 0:21
  strength to conquer this. You know, you pump yourself up.
• 0:25
  Which makes total sense, but. What if the only way to survive
• 0:28
  that wilderness was to systematically obliterate your
• 0:32
  own self-confidence? I mean, that goes against every
• 0:35
  single instinct of human survival.
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  It really does. We stockpile material goods and
• 0:41
  we stockpile emotional security too.
• 0:43
  We just want to feel capable before we step into the unknown.
• 0:46
  Yeah, that is the standard operating procedure for pretty
• 0:49
  much everyone. But today we are looking at the
• 0:51
  historical record of a man preparing for one of the most
• 0:53
  grueling assignments imaginable. And that entire playbook is just
• 0:57
  thrown out the window. It's totally gone.
• 0:59
  So our mission for this deep dive is to investigate the
• 1:02
  internal and external realities of a man named David Brainard.
• 1:05
  And you're looking at primary texts for this, specifically
• 1:08
  excerpts from The Life and Diary of David Brainard.
• 1:11
  Right, which was edited by Jonathan Edwards, and we are
• 1:14
  zeroing in on a very intense window of time.
• 1:17
  We are looking at N1742 to March 1743.
• 1:21
  Yeah, because Brainerd is preparing for a rigorous
• 1:24
  missionary deployment among the Native Americans at Konomique.
• 1:27
  And it is. Is not an easy place to go.
• 1:28
  No, not at all. So I want to speak directly to
• 1:31
  you, the listener, right now. Your daily life might not
• 1:34
  involve riding horses through freezing colonial winters, you
• 1:38
  know, and you might not be sleeping in the wilderness.
• 1:41
  But the intense internal battles, the mental friction
• 1:45
  Brainerd experiences, the feeling of being totally,
• 1:49
  overwhelmingly inadequate for the task set before you?
• 1:52
  Oh yeah, that is going to resonate with anyone who has
• 1:55
  ever faced an impossible standard.
• 1:57
  It's at the scene for this specific period.
• 2:00
  Brainerd is constantly on the move.
• 2:02
  He is everywhere. Yeah, he is traveling through
• 2:04
  New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
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  He is leaving behind the comforts of settled colonial
• 2:09
  towns. And his friends, too.
• 2:11
  Right. He is leaving all that to enter
• 2:13
  a brutal, unforgiving frontier, and the theological backdrop
• 2:17
  here is so crucial for understanding his diary it.
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  Frames everything he writes. Yes, Brainerd evaluates every
• 2:24
  single emotion, every physical ailment, and every interaction
• 2:28
  through a very specific. Lens, and that lens is
• 2:31
  humanity's total, absolute reliance on divine grace.
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  He evaluates his life through a standard that leaves, well, zero
• 2:39
  room for human achievement. Let us examine his diary entries
• 2:42
  from late November, specifically November 26th and 27th.
• 2:46
  The language is. It is jarring.
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  It is very epic. He refers to himself as dust and
• 2:51
  ashes. Wow.
• 2:52
  And he writes about an unspeakable unworthiness.
• 2:55
  He goes as far as to say that whatever outward sins other
• 2:58
  people might be committing, none of those people are conscious of
• 3:01
  so much guilt before God as he is.
• 3:03
  He genuinely believes he is the most vile person walking the
• 3:06
  earth. Yes, he does.
• 3:07
  And the intensity of his language?
• 3:09
  It only increases as he moves into early December.
• 3:12
  It is starker. It does.
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  He complaints of his leanness, barrenness, carnality.
• 3:17
  And then he describes his own heart as an unfathomable abyss
• 3:22
  of desperate wickedness. An unfathomable abyss.
• 3:25
  Just think about that phrasing. Then, on December 19th, he talks
• 3:29
  about experiencing A humbling sense of his own vileness.
• 3:32
  Right, and he is wounded by the thought of his misimprovement of
• 3:35
  time. We really need to pause and
• 3:37
  analyze this extreme self critique carefully.
• 3:40
  Yeah, because a modern reader might look at these journal
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  entries and immediately diagnose Brainerd with severe clinical
• 3:46
  low self esteem. Or some sort of destructive
• 3:49
  mental health condition. But wait, I need to push back on
• 3:51
  this right away. How do we know this is not just
• 3:53
  a destructive mental health condition?
• 3:55
  That is a fair question. Because how does someone
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  function daily when they view themselves as an unfathomable
• 4:01
  abyss of desperate wickedness? It sounds awful.
• 4:04
  I have to imagine that kind of internal monologue would
• 4:07
  completely paralyze a person. It just sounds like
• 4:09
  psychological self harm. Well it would absolutely
• 4:12
  paralyze someone if their goal was self actualization.
• 4:15
  Oh sure, or personal empowerment.
• 4:17
  Yeah. But Brainerd is operating under
• 4:19
  a strict theological conviction. Right.
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  He perceives a massive infinite gap between God's absolute
• 4:26
  holiness in his own fallen human nature.
• 4:28
  That makes sense. In his framework, the closer he
• 4:31
  gets to God, the more glaring his own flaws become.
• 4:34
  Oh, I see. Is a matter of proximity to
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  perfection. The realization of his own
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  sinfulness is not the end goal, you know.
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  It is the starting line for communion with a Holy Creator.
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  OK, I was thinking about this like walking into a room that
• 4:49
  has been dark for a long time. OK, yeah.
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  Suddenly someone throws open the curtains and the room is flooded
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  with harsh direct midday sunlight.
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  I like this. That sunlight does not create
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  the dust in the air. That is a brilliant way to frame
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  it. The dust was always hanging
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  there, right? It was always there, but the
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  light suddenly makes every single speck visible.
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  You suddenly see how much debris you are actually breathing in.
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  Brainerd is essentially standing in the blinding light of divine
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  holiness. And because he is standing in
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  that intense light, he is seeing all the spiritual dust that
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  other people simply do not notice.
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  Because they are standing in the dark.
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  Yes, for Brainerd, this realization is not meant to
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  destroy his will to live. It is the exact mechanism that
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  forces him to rest entirely on divine provision.
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  OK, that clarifies it. Recognizing his abyss of sin
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  actively kills his pride. If he believed he was strong, he
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  would rely on his own strength in the wilderness.
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  And he would fail. Big time.
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  By recognizing his total inadequacy, he empties himself,
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  making room for divine assistance.
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  He becomes fit for his impending assignment.
• 6:03
  Spot on. But you know, you would think a
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  guy who hates his own sin this much, yeah, a guy who calls
• 6:08
  himself an abyss of wickedness would be incredibly forgiving of
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  the flaws of others. You would assume that, yeah.
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  You would assume he would look at his neighbors and think,
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  well, I am terrible, so I cannot judge you.
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  But paradoxically, his strict internal standard made him
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  fiercely critical of the religious culture around him.
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  Very critical. He is looking at the people and
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  the churches he visits and he is not holding back.
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  On December 14th, he is distressed over what he calls
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  the false appearances of religion.
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  He says they breed confusion. And hinder vital piety.
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  He actually preaches from First Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 8
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  to undermine this false religion.
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  That is a strong verse to choose.
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  It is that verse talks about how anyone who rejects these
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  instructions is not rejecting man, but God.
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  He is taking a very hard line. We have to place Brainerd in his
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  historical context to understand what he is is reacting against
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  here. Right, the 1740s.
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  Yes, right in the middle of the Great Awakening, which was wow,
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  the colonies are experiencing massive, noisy, highly emotional
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  religious revivals. You have traveling preachers
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  drawing massive crowds. Huge crowds for that.
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  ERA and people are having intense physical reactions.
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  They are fainting, crying out and experiencing dramatic
• 7:20
  emotional swings. So Brainerd is walking into
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  these towns, seeing people weeping or shouting in the
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  meeting houses, and he is highly suspicious of it all.
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  Extremely suspicious, he is drawing a razor sharp line
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  between vital piety, which he understands as authentic, humble
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  devotion to God OK, and what he calls selfish religion or
• 7:41
  extravagances. Extravagances.
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  That is a great. Word for it, on January 28th in
• 7:45
  New London, he finds people carried away with a false zeal
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  and bitterness. Bitterness.
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  Yeah, and he notes they black at gospel temper.
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  He is seeing a lot of religious excitement, but he identifies it
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  as counterfeit because it is accompanied by harshness rather
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  than humility. This introduces a massive theme
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  in his writing during this period, which is the concept of
• 8:05
  frames. Frames, yes.
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  In January, specifically the 19th in Canterbury and the 26th
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  at Sternington, he explicitly tells congregations not to set
• 8:15
  up their own frames as a standard to try their brethren
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  by. We should define that for the
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  listener. Good call for you listening.
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  When Brainerd uses the word frames, he is talking about a
• 8:24
  person's internal emotional or spiritual state on any given
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  day. Your frame of mind.
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  Yeah, your emotional highs and lows.
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  He is warning people not to use their own emotional highs as a
• 8:36
  rigid measuring stick to evaluate the faith of the person
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  sitting next to them in the pews.
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  And the religious culture of his day was very prone to making
• 8:45
  those judgments. Oh, absolutely.
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  People who experience those dramatic frames often look down
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  on those who experienced A quieter, more steady faith.
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  They thought they were less spiritual, right?
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  And Brainerd saw this as a breeding ground for a party
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  spirit and division. It just creates factions.
• 9:02
  On February 20th, he preaches closely against selfish religion
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  that loves Christ for his benefits but not for himself.
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  He is warning against a faith that only exists for the
• 9:11
  emotional high it gives the believer.
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  Yes. There is a staggering level of
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  irony here, though. How so?
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  Well, Brainerd is a man who's obsessively monitoring his own
• 9:20
  intense internal frames. Oh, that's so true.
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  He writes down every single dip into melancholy, every spike
• 9:27
  into spiritual joy. He is hyper focused on his
• 9:30
  internal temperature. He's constantly checking it.
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  Yet he is the one standing in front of a congregation warning
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  them not to use their feelings to judge others.
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  It is wild. He knows exactly how volatile
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  his own emotions are, so he refuses to let emotions be the
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  ultimate standard of truth. His self-awareness is
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  remarkable. It really is.
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  He recognizes that true knowledge of God should result
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  as a kind disposition toward mankind.
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  He sees the harsh, censorious nature of these excited converts
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  as proof that their zeal is entirely false.
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  Because vital piety produces humility.
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  Yes, false appearances produce arrogance, bitterness and
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  division. He refuses to accept any
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  religious experience that does not make a person more
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  charitable. So Brainerd goes from warning
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  people against relying on emotional highs to experiencing
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  heights of spiritual fervor that are almost difficult to
• 10:22
  comprehend. They really are.
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  We see this in his diary entries where he describes penetrating
• 10:26
  the immaterial world. The contrast here is stunning.
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  He goes from being hyper aware of his own physical and
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  emotional corruption to experiencing these moments where
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  the physical world just ceases to exist for him.
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  Let us look at December 12th in Bethlehem, OK?
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  He notes that his soul scarce ever penetrated so far into the
• 10:45
  immaterial world. Wow, he says.
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  His devotions were free from gross conceptions framed from
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  beholding material objects. That is intense.
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  And he repeats this on December 21st in Derby, saying his mind
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  was unclothed of sense and imagination.
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  Unclothed of sense and imagination.
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  And LED into the immaterial world of spirits, he is
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  achieving a state of ascetic focus that completely bypasses
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  his physical surroundings. Unclothed of sense and
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  imagination. What a phrase.
• 11:15
  That is beautiful. I think about an elite musician
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  in a state of absolute flow. Yes, the concept of a flow state
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  applies perfectly here. When a master violinist is
• 11:25
  really playing, they are not thinking about the friction of
• 11:28
  the bow on the string. No, not at all.
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  They are not thinking about the wood of the instrument or the
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  sheet music on the stand. All of those material things
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  disappear. They fade away.
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  There's only the pure, invisible essence of the music.
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  And in Brainerd's case, he believes the Holy Spirit is the
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  one conducting that music right. The meetinghouse, the cold
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  colonial winter, his own physical fatigue, they all fall
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  away and he is just interacting with the pure spirituality of
• 11:55
  his faith. I am curious how an 18th century
• 11:57
  Calvinist practically achieves the state of mind amid physical
• 12:02
  suffering. It is tough to imagine.
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  We are talking about a guy who is riding a horse through
• 12:06
  freezing rain. He is constantly sick, yet he
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  manages to completely detach from his physical reality.
• 12:13
  Well, Brainerd's goal was a faith entirely independent of
• 12:16
  material circumstances. OK, He practiced rigorous
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  fasting, intense periods of isolated prayer in the woods,
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  hoods, and constant meditation on Scripture.
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  Dad took work. A lot of work.
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  When he talks about being unclothed of sense, he is
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  expressing a desire to commune with God purely.
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  Without the distraction of worldly desire.
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  Or physical comforts. Or even his own mental imagery.
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  On December 27th in Branford, he experiences the pure
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  spirituality of the religion of Christ Jesus.
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  And he notes that if he ever felt the temper of Christ, it
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  was in that moment. Yes, and on February 17th in
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  East Hampton, he prays with a friend and feels as if he is
• 12:53
  standing on the brink of eternity.
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  Enjoying lively apprehensions of standing before the glorious
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  God. But this total radical
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  detachment has a terrifying flip side.
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  Oh, it really does. If your entire joy, your entire
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  reason for existing, is sourced from the perceived presence of
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  God, then the perceived absence of that presence is unimaginably
• 13:16
  horrific. Because you have nothing else.
• 13:18
  Exactly. You have no material comforts to
• 13:21
  fall back on because you have intentionally stripped them all
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  away. You have isolated yourself from
• 13:25
  earthly pleasures. So when the spiritual high
• 13:27
  drops, you are left with absolutely nothing.
• 13:30
  This plunges us into the darkest part of his diary.
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  The anatomy of spiritual melancholy and privation.
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  The plunge is sudden and severe. On January 14th, all those
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  spiritual highs vanished. Just gone.
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  Brainerd writes that his conflicts were heavier than the
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  mountains and overflowing floods.
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  Such descriptive language. He feels is enclosed in hell
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  itself, and he defines this hell specifically as a privation of
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  God. A privation.
• 13:54
  He says he was deprived of all sense of God, and he explicitly
• 13:58
  states that this distress was nearest akin to the torments of
• 14:01
  the damned. I have to stop and ask what this
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  actually? Means yeah, let us break it
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  down. How does a man who is dedicating
• 14:06
  his entire existence to God suddenly feel completely cut off
• 14:11
  from him? It's jarring.
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  Furthermore, his description of hell here is fascinating.
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  He does not go to the standard imagery of fire and brimstone or
• 14:21
  active physical punishment. No, he does not.
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  He describes hell purely as privation.
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  Total Abscess, the complete withdrawal of all good.
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  He is outlining a very strict theological framework.
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  He writes that the torment of the damned will consist much in
• 14:36
  a privation of God and consequently of all good.
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  This extreme distress, this melancholy, serves a precise
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  theological purpose in his preparation.
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  It is not random, no. He writes that this terrifying
• 14:48
  experience taught him the absolute dependence of a
• 14:50
  creature upon God the Creator, for every crumb of happiness it
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  enjoys. Every crumb.
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  By experiencing the terror of privation, he is stripped of any
• 14:58
  lingering illusion of self-sufficiency.
• 15:01
  He learns the hard way that he cannot manufacture his own
• 15:04
  spiritual peace. And the language he uses to
• 15:07
  describe this anguish gives us one of the most striking quotes
• 15:10
  in the entire text. On the toad comparison.
• 15:13
  Yes, the toad comparison. He says that without God, even
• 15:17
  if he lived forever and enjoyed not only this world but all
• 15:20
  other worlds, he would be 10,000 times more miserable than a
• 15:25
  toad. Wow.
• 15:26
  He says he felt like a poor Wretch going to the place of
• 15:28
  execution, and then on January 23rd he says he felt banished
• 15:32
  from the earth and shut out from the presence of God.
• 15:35
  Noting that this feeling is more bitter than death.
• 15:37
  Why choose a toad for this comparison?
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  The toad is a brilliant comparative tool here.
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  A toad is a lowly, simple creature that acts entirely on
• 15:46
  base instinct. It has no conception of the
• 15:49
  eternal, no awareness of a Creator.
• 15:52
  Therefore a toad cannot feel the loss of the Creator.
• 15:55
  Brainerd is arguing that a human being possessing an eternal soul
• 15:59
  capable of recognizing the divine suffers infinitely more
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  when cut off from God than the lowliest animal ever could.
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  Because the animal is completely content with mud and insects.
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  Yes, the human soul, built for communion with the infinite,
• 16:15
  starves to death in the universe without God.
• 16:17
  That. Makes a lot of sense.
• 16:18
  Brainerd is saying that even if you gave a human all the
• 16:21
  material wealth of 1000 worlds, it would be useless if they were
• 16:25
  experiencing the privation of God.
• 16:26
  All the material success in the universe cannot fill a starving
• 16:30
  soul. Spot on.
• 16:31
  This intense realization accelerates his separation from
• 16:35
  normal society. This internal death leads
• 16:37
  directly to an external severing of ties.
• 16:40
  We see this in the diary entries focusing on his weenedness from
• 16:43
  the world. And the immense physical cost of
• 16:45
  his calling. He is actively suffering his
• 16:47
  earthly ties and the. Concept of being weaned from the
• 16:50
  world is central to his ascetic demotion.
• 16:52
  Like a child being weaned. Exactly.
• 16:54
  A child is weaned from milk so it can eat solid food.
• 16:57
  Brainerd is weaning his soul from earthly comforts so he can
• 17:01
  digest eternal realities. That is a great way to put it.
• 17:04
  On February 2nd, he preaches A farewell sermon.
• 17:07
  He is riding toward lime, and he notes an uncommon pressure as
• 17:11
  mind. He realizes he is throwing
• 17:13
  himself into all hardships and distresses.
• 17:16
  He even admits it would be less difficult to lie down in the
• 17:19
  grave. Which is saying something.
• 17:21
  But he consciously chooses to go rather than stay.
• 17:24
  He is actively grieving as he leaves his friends in East
• 17:27
  Hampton and Long Island. It is hard for him.
• 17:29
  On February 15th, he walks into a Grove and says he feels more
• 17:33
  like a stranger on earth than ever before, dead to any of the
• 17:37
  enjoyments of the world. He is intentionally isolating
• 17:40
  his heart to prepare for the literal isolation of the
• 17:43
  frontier. And we cannot ignore the
• 17:45
  physical toll this is taking on him.
• 17:46
  His body is breaking down. It really is.
• 17:49
  On February 19th he writes that he is exceeding and firm,
• 17:52
  greatly troubled with pain in his head and dizziness, scarce
• 17:55
  able to sit up. That is rough.
• 17:57
  Yet just a few weeks later, on March 13th, he notes he is
• 18:01
  almost unable to stand due to weakness in the first prayer.
• 18:04
  But then he preaches for an hour and a half.
• 18:06
  On Enoch walking with God from Genesis chapter 5, verse 24, a
• 18:11
  90 minute sermon from a man who can barely stand upright.
• 18:14
  We have to ask what drives a physical body to push past the
• 18:18
  desire for the grave. Yeah.
• 18:20
  Where does that come from? We find the answer in his diary
• 18:23
  entry from March 7th. He has a realization that
• 18:26
  permanently alters his perspective on physical
• 18:28
  suffering. He writes that time appeared but
• 18:31
  an inch long and eternity in hand.
• 18:34
  An inch long. When you genuinely believe that
• 18:37
  your entire mortal life is just a one inch line drawn on an
• 18:40
  endless canvas of eternity, the physical suffering of that
• 18:44
  single inch loses its sting. That is a massive paradigm
• 18:48
  shift. The brevity of physical life
• 18:50
  renders his chronic illness, his dizziness, and his isolation
• 18:53
  insignificant compared to the eternal reality he anticipates.
• 18:56
  Time appeared but an inch long. If you hold your thumb and index
• 18:59
  finger an inch apart and you look at that tiny gap and then
• 19:02
  you look at the horizon, that is how Brainerd is viewing his
• 19:05
  life. He rejects vain amusements and
• 19:07
  frightful disappointments because they all fit inside that
• 19:10
  tiny one inch gap. This absolute mental dissolve
• 19:13
  combined with a breaking physical body sets the stage for
• 19:16
  his final grueling route to the wilderness.
• 19:19
  The geography of this route is astonishing when you consider
• 19:24
  the weather of early 1743 and his physical condition.
• 19:27
  It was not a paved highway. No, not at all.
• 19:30
  Brainerd is likely suffering from the early stages of
• 19:32
  tuberculosis at this point. Oh man.
• 19:34
  We are talking about hundreds of miles on horseback.
• 19:38
  During mud season. There is rain, sleet and
• 19:41
  freezing snow. Melt just miserable conditions.
• 19:43
  He leaves East Hampton on Long Island on March 14th.
• 19:46
  He rides 50 miles to Brookhaven, then reaches New York.
• 19:50
  That is a long way. He crosses over to New Jersey,
• 19:52
  visiting Elizabethtown, Newark on March 19th, then Woodbridge.
• 19:56
  He double s back through New York, heading north to North
• 19:59
  Castle Danbury in New Milford. He is zigzagging across the
• 20:03
  colonial frontier. He stops at Scattacoke near
• 20:05
  Kent, Connecticut to preach to a settlement of Native Americans
• 20:09
  there. Then he pushes on to Salisbury,
• 20:11
  Sheffield and finally on March 31st he arrives at the home of
• 20:15
  Mr. John Sargent in Stockbridge, MA.
• 20:18
  He has finally made it. The preparation is over.
• 20:20
  The deployment begins. But notice his internal state
• 20:23
  upon arrival. Yeah, let us talk about that.
• 20:26
  Despite all the intense preparation, despite the divine
• 20:29
  encounters and the high spiritual flow states he
• 20:32
  experienced in the preceding months.
• 20:34
  He arrives at Stockbridge dejected and very disconsolate.
• 20:38
  He writes that on the last day of the ride, his mind was
• 20:42
  overwhelmed with exceeding gloominess and melancholy.
• 20:45
  I want to challenge this because it feels like a massive
• 20:48
  narrative irony. How do you mean?
• 20:50
  You would expect him to arrive at the mission field in a blaze
• 20:53
  of triumphant glory, ready to conquer the world.
• 20:57
  Right, like a hero. He has been preaching for 90
• 20:59
  minutes while sick. He has felt the temper of
• 21:01
  Christ. He has seen time as an inch
• 21:03
  long. You expect him to ride into
• 21:05
  Stockbridge waving a flag of spiritual victory.
• 21:07
  Yeah, you really do. Instead, he arrives completely
• 21:10
  crushed, despondent and melancholy.
• 21:13
  How does that make any sense after everything we just
• 21:16
  analyzed? It makes perfect sense when you
• 21:17
  tie it back to the core theme of his entire preparation.
• 21:20
  OK, lay it out for me. Arriving overwhelmed with
• 21:23
  exceeding gloominess perfectly encapsulates his theology.
• 21:27
  He is entering the work with 0 confidence in his own flesh.
• 21:31
  The wilderness has not yet broken him because he is already
• 21:34
  broken. He has been entirely emptied of
• 21:36
  self-reliance. This ensures that whatever
• 21:40
  happens next among the Native Americans economy, any success,
• 21:45
  any survival. It will be attributed entirely
• 21:47
  to God's grace. Not to David Brainerd's stamina,
• 21:50
  intellect or emotional stability.
• 21:52
  He arrives empty handed. He intentionally packed no
• 21:56
  self-confidence for the trip. None at all.
• 21:58
  Let us pull all of this together.
• 21:59
  We have tracked Brainerd's extreme internal life over these
• 22:02
  months. It has been quite a study.
• 22:04
  We saw his acute awareness of his own corruption, seeing the
• 22:07
  dust in the sunlight of divine holiness.
• 22:10
  We saw his firm rejection of selfish performative religion
• 22:13
  and false frames during the Great Awakening running
• 22:15
  revivals. We investigated his terrifying
• 22:17
  dips into spiritual privation, where the absence of God made
• 22:21
  him feel worse than a toad. And we witnessed his immense
• 22:24
  physical sacrifice, preaching through dizziness and pain.
• 22:28
  Seeing time as an inch long as he literally rode horseback
• 22:32
  toward the brutal wilderness while intensely desiring heaven.
• 22:36
  We focus heavily on measurable outcomes in our own lives today.
• 22:40
  We really do. We look at completed tasks,
• 22:42
  acquired wealth or social standing.
• 22:45
  But Brainerd spent months preparing his internal posture.
• 22:48
  Believing his soul's orientation mattered more than any external
• 22:52
  metric of success. What if our modern obsession
• 22:55
  with quantifiable success in our callings completely misses the
• 22:59
  reality that the Creator is more interested in the breaking of
• 23:01
  the instrument than the work the instrument performs?
• 23:04
  That is a heavy thought. If your frames, your positive
• 23:07
  feelings and your visible successes were entirely stripped
• 23:10
  away today, leaving you completely empty handed like
• 23:12
  Brainerd arriving in Stockbridge.
• 23:14
  Would you recognize your absolute dependence on the
• 23:17
  Creator for your very next breath?
• 23:20
  That is the question to consider.
• 23:21
  We will see you next time.