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607 | Making Plans · The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast

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  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.
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  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 with Jesus Christ.
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  Hello, friends. Before we hop into today's message, I have some great news.
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  Kim's newest book, Bible Bits in His Presence, is now available.
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  You can find it on Amazon or wherever you buy your books.
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  Head to our website at watwm.org for more information.
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  And now let's go to the podcast. In this episode of the Woman at the Well Ministries
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  podcast, join Kim Miller and Erica Close in a conversation as we walk with Jesus.
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  In today's conversation, we are chatting about what life looks like when we
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  make plans with God as opposed to planning without Him.
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  Well, thank you all so much for joining us. We are having a conversation following
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  up on the podcast that we recorded and presented on Monday of this week.
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  So on Monday of this week, that would have been episode 606.
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  Kim's message was entitled, It is the Lord's Purpose That Will Be Carried Out.
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  And today we're just going to follow up on that and talk about making plans.
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  I know that Kim started that message talking about how she loves to make a plan,
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  and I would imagine that many of you, myself included, are also,
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  quote-unquote, happy planners.
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  And we love to make plans, but one of the points, Kim, that you made so early
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  on in that podcast is that we're often given a section of the plan.
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  God gives us our next step, and then we run ahead.
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  Because I think what happens is he doesn't give us the next step as quickly as we want it.
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  Right. Sometimes we want the next step while we're completing the last step.
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  And oftentimes that's not what he gives.
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  Sometimes there's no delay at all. Like you get the next step and you know immediately
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  what you're supposed to do next.
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  And then sometimes there's this period of wait.
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  And for the most part, especially for me, it's that period of wait that's most
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  dangerous for me because I can logically conclude what the next step will be.
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  And I forget that faith and logic are two different things. and I forget that,
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  I am supposed to follow, not lead. Right. And so you can see where I'm going with this.
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  When I choose the next step without him having given it to me,
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  I am in a whole world of hurt because I've already stepped ahead of him,
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  which means I'm on my own, and I've used logic instead of faith,
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  and I have limited amount of knowledge.
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  And so you get out of the gate on that. and in trouble.
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  There's no positive to that way of doing things, but it's very innate in our nature.
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  And for people who are planners, people who are not procrastinators, this is one time.
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  Procrastination might be a little bit of a help because if it gets in the delay
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  and you're not a person that has to move to the next step early,
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  then it might be easier for you.
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  But God has a plan and timing is essential to his planning.
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  I'm going to take that as a slight win as someone who does occasionally like to procrastinate.
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  Relative to me, big time.
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  Procrastinate on some things. I think one thing I just want to want to just
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  go back to is that you talk about how when we when we run ahead of.
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  We're on our own. Yeah. Right. Because you've stepped out of his plan.
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  You've stepped out of his boundaries.
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  Right. You've stepped away from him. He didn't go anywhere.
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  You know, he's, if you draw close to him, he draws close to you.
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  If you go away, he just stays there begging you to come back.
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  Right. If you veer off the path, he's got a plan, right, and a path for you.
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  And it's not like you veer off and he doesn't love you or anything like that.
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  But you have veered off that plan of safety.
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  And he will go after you because he left the 99 to go after.
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  But when you're there, you're still not in the center of God's will.
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  You're not in the place he's going to bless. And you're not in the place that you were supposed to be.
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  And we all know when you're not where you're supposed to be,
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  you're in the wrong place. Exactly.
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  You know, God's plan for us is ordered.
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  Peace. If you think about what God's plan for us is, it's a 20th verse Psalm.
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  He's leaning by the still waters. You're in the green pastures.
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  Everything is amazing and calm and sweet and wonderful.
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  And when you step outside the will of God, the bottom falls out of your life.
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  It's just not where you're supposed to be. You're not equipped to be there.
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  You weren't intended to be there you weren't called you're
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  not alone because he never leaves you but you are over there
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  where he said don't go right and you either accept his
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  his voice that says come back
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  or you hang out there facing your consequences where you don't belong because
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  he says be not deceived god is not mocked for whatsoever man soweth that shall
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  he also reap he's with you and he wants you to be over here by the still waters
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  but you have to choose to be where he ask you to be. Absolutely.
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  Let's hop over to that.
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  Concept of logic versus faith.
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  You just mentioned it, you touched on it in Monday's podcast,
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  but, you know, one of the things that you said on Monday is that God doesn't
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  ask you to deduce what happens next, right?
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  We are people that just want to figure it all out.
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  Well, you and I especially are, we're scientists, right?
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  We are trained to figure it out. next.
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  Two plus two equals, and there's a four beside of that.
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  You know, and we, if somebody just says, what's two plus two,
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  we don't need them to tell us that's four.
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  We already know immediately. And many of you listening have the very same personality,
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  but we all often have the same spirituality where we can,
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  oh, I've been here before when we do this and we do that. This is what's next. I'm going.
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  And God didn't say that.
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  Or this is a whole different plan.
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  And we've assumed it was the same purpose that he was having you do A and B for this reason.
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  When he's having you do A and B for a reason, you have no idea.
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  Because his reason is the underlining of our life.
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  His purpose in our life is the structure and the foundation He's using to get
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  the results that He has planned for us, which is directly associated with that
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  He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly.
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  If you're in the horse weeds, you're not having abundant life.
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  And if you're in the horse weeds, you've lived by logic and you haven't lived by faith.
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  Because by definition...
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  There isn't faith in logic. Right. Faith doesn't operate in logic.
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  And logic has zero room for faith.
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  Because it's not, you know, logic is figuring something out.
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  Faith is a conversation with an almighty ordered God who has a plan,
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  and I'm just asking for the next step.
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  And logic are predetermined facts that follow a natural order.
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  If God wants 2 plus 2 to equal 81. He can make that happen. And it's faith that lets us know that.
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  But you cannot, even in the new math, make 2 plus 2 equal 81.
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  It just doesn't happen. And so he says, but without faith, what?
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  Faith, it's impossible to please him. Impossible.
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  So when you find yourself using logic to,
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  Instead of walking in faith and leaning on the skills and knowledge you have.
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  If faith isn't what's leading and logic is leading and you're trying to catch
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  your faith up to the logic, you're past the point you're supposed to be. You're on your own.
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  You've got to lead with faith, bathing all your skills and abilities,
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  including your logic in prayer, submitted and yielded to his direction.
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  That's what he means when he says, many are the plans of a man's mind,
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  but the Lord's purpose for him will stand.
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  You talked in the podcast about humility and the importance of humility and
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  planning with humility.
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  And I think what you just said is something that we can't miss and that it's not about us.
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  It isn't. And that's what the humility part is. Faith is always a humble posture
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  because when you are walking and living in faith,
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  you have that in God who is greater, more superior, more sovereign, higher than you.
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  So the act of living and walking in faith, we walk by faith and not by sight, That's the plan, right?
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  That action of living and walking by faith immediately puts us in a posture of humility.
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  When you walk by logic, you, by definition, are submitting to the authority of yourself.
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  So you're not submitting at all. You're actually exhorting it.
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  That's scary. You're exalting it. So when you do something based on your knowledge
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  and how you have concluded it should be, you are authoritatively saying, because of what I know.
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  And the authority of who I am, I'm doing this.
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  And many of us have jobs where every day we are the expert in the room.
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  And you are exerting your authority based on the data of what you know and who
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  you are and all you've experienced.
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  And all of that works perfect in that setting.
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  But it will not work when we
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  are dictating or directing the
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  steps of our life because if i direct my steps based on me i have exalted myself
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  above god i'm no longer walking in faith therefore i can't be pleasing him and
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  i don't have all the information because i'm limited to what i know But in faith,
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  I have all the resources of heaven and God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit,
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  not only at my disposal, but actively working in my life.
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  So logic truly is of the devil because it will exalt you. It will puff you up.
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  It will, pride goeth before fall.
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  I mean, the devil's no idiot.
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  And he uses that. And we get confused between logic and faith all the time.
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  And we don't choose correctly a lot of times. Because every day we have to choose.
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  And no matter how complicated this may be sounding to you, we have one choice.
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  One choice a day. That's the last point we're talking about.
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  We have one choice. One choice.
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  Am I going to follow Jesus or am I not? What does that look like?
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  How do you start your day if that's your one choice? You started in prayer.
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  You started in Bible study. You started with an honest heart that's saying,
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  Lord, what do you want me to do today?
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  Now, I'm a little odd. If you know me, you know that's true.
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  My statement with him every day is, hey, what adventure are we going on today?
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  How are you going to lead me?
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  And if it's really out there, God, I need some real instructions right now.
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  You know, help me be in the right place. I'm asking for my heart to be in the
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  right place before I'm asking for the assignment.
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  Because your heart has to be in the right place to be able to receive the assignment.
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  Or I'm going to be walking in logic. I'm going to be ahead of him,
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  and it's the situation, right?
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  We know what happened to Moses in a very distinct example of getting ahead of
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  God. He was given specific instructions.
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  And he was angry. So he struck the rock instead of just talking to the rock.
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  Because it couldn't have made
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  sense that you could get water to come from something by talking to it.
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  But if you crack open something, something will come out of it.
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  If I have a glass of water and I hit it and crack it over, people, that was a pure example.
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  That was logical. If this thing's got water in it, if I smack it,
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  it's going to come out really good. If I talk to it, we may have to have a conversation.
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  I mean, it might be a conjoling.
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  You know, it didn't make sense. Andy was angry. Andy couldn't wait.
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  Because think about in that example alone the amount of waiting that would have been,
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  if you crack something wide open whatever's
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  in the inside is immediately exposed but
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  if you talk to somebody it can take you a half an hour to find out
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  what the problem is they're trying to ask you do you
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  know what i'm saying i do i do he didn't
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  have time for that in his heart and mind people don't see all
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  of that they just say well he did the wrong
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  thing god said speak and he hit well that is
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  correct but the reason he did was because his logic overweighed his faith and
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  his impatience his inability to wait for the delay and what he knew was take
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  time he jumped all over that he believed there was water in a rock.
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  He believed that. That was the A and B. But God said, you need to speak.
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  And it wasn't that he didn't know what sea was. Sea made no sense to him.
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  And he thought, there's water in that rock and you can get it talking.
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  I can get it by hitting and it'll happen faster.
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  That's what I believe got Moses in trouble with this logic.
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  And God didn't stop loving him or speaking to him, but he had consequences.
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  Right. But he also still let the water flow.
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  He's still let the water flow. God will not impede his plans because of your disobedience.
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  He will find the obedient person.
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  He will continue down the path. Because the purpose of that whole thing was
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  not that water could only come from words.
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  It was that there are consequences for your behavior. Be not deceived. God is not mocked.
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  For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
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  There's so much goodness in this conversation and in Monday's podcast.
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  And there is so much that it seems like we have to learn.
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  But as we close, I just want to say there really isn't.
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  That's what we have to learn. It's one choice. It's one choice each day.
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  Now, let's be real. It's the same choice multiple times.
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  It's not an easy choice. And multiple times a day, you still got to go.
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  If you could live with the one choice and just say, OK, I've made this choice.
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  I'm not making any more all day.
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  That'd be grand or just fall back on it. But every day we're making that one choice.
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  And I believe it's like anything else. I believe you train yourself to be obedient.
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  And I think you train yourself. It's one choice, right? It's to follow God.
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  But you might have to talk to him about it 15 times in the day, 30 times in the day.
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  And as situations arise, it's still, Lord, what do you want me to do here?
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  Right? It's the same question. You've already decided to follow him.
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  Right. For me, a lot of times it's even more basic. It's not me asking him.
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  It's him trying to tell me.
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  Because I'm not listening. Yeah. Yeah.
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  But here's how it works when you're in the center of God's will. He speaks.
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  You listen. And you act. And you obey.
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  Yeah. And you can't, if you don't understand what he's actually asking you to
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  do, that's a legit question. You want me to do what?
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  Not you want me to do what? Like you don't agree with what he's asking.
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  But if you're asking, if he's telling you to do something and you need to know,
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  I don't quite understand, are you asking me to jump or hop?
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  You know, or skip or walk.
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  That's legit. Where we mess up is, I don't want to, that's not efficient.
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  I'm going to get in the car. I'm not jumping or hopping.
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  And I'll get there. And when we get there, that's what he did.
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  See, he spoke. I mean, he hit instead of speak.
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  We have to be careful not to question because we're trying to insert a better
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  way, like you do with your children or your friends or your work.
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  Or a meeting or a negotiation, you're asking a question for clarification,
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  not to interject a better way.
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  Really? He just says, pick up your cross daily and follow me.
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  Amen. Amen.
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  I hope that those of you that are listening take this and take it to heart.
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  Start each day asking the Lord what He would have you to do and make that choice
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  each and every day to follow Him.
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  It's one choice a day that can absolutely transform your life.
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  Friends, 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
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  references from this episode in the show notes.
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  We pray today's message has been a blessing.
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  If it has, please consider leaving a rating or review on your podcast platform.
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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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  Thank you for your prayers and support. Remember, Jesus loves you. You are loved.