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655 | Camping Out · 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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  or 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.
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  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 what life looks like when we choose
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  to move on from the places where we have camped out, because God has something better.
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  Well, thank you all for joining us in this podcast of Woman at the Well Ministries.
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  I am Erica Close, and I am here with Kim Miller.
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  Hello, and thank you so much for joining us in this.
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  We are excited that you are with us today. And these podcasts are some of my
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  absolute favorites because it gives us an opportunity
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  to go a little bit deeper into the application from whatever it is that we learned
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  in the previous podcast.
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  So if you are listening to today's podcast, then you most likely listened to
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  Monday's podcast, which was episode 654.
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  And it was entitled, Will Thou Be Made Whole?
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  And as we start today's podcast and we start our discussion,
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  there's just one question that I want to ask you, and that is,
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  where are you camping out?
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  And I believe that that question will make some sense as we move further into our discussion.
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  But before we move any further, I want to read a passage. So this passage was
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  included in Monday's podcast, but I want to read it again.
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  So that we're all on the same page. So we are in John chapter 5,
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  and I'm going to be reading verses 2 through 9.
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  Now there is a Jerusalem by the sheep market, a pool, which is called in the
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  Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.
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  In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt,
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  withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
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  For an angel went down at a certain seasoned into the pool and troubled the water.
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  Whosoever then, first, after the troubling of the water, stepped in,
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  was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
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  And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
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  When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case,
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  he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?
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  The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man when the water is troubled
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  to put me into the pool, but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
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  Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
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  And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked.
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  And on the same day was the Sabbath.
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  I absolutely love that passage. And I have to say that after listening to Monday's
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  podcast, I love that passage even more.
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  So in Monday's podcast, you talked about the parallel between the Pool of Bethesda,
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  and the man that was there waiting to be able to get down to the water for healing.
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  And these places in our lives where we have just gotten stuck,
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  where we are camping out, places that the Lord intends to be places of transition,
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  where we have just gotten stuck,
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  but we have gone stuck and we're there.
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  And so back to my first question, where are you camping out?
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  The follow-up question to that is, what is your pool of Bethesda?
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  And as our listeners are thinking about that, let's talk for a minute about
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  how we figure out what our pool of Bethesda is.
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  If the Lord's asking us right now, What is your pool of Bethesda?
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  I think it's the place we keep ourselves where there's no joy.
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  That's a really good answer. In the presence of the Lord, there are pleasures and joy forevermore.
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  And we may not always start out wanting to do the tasks that God has laid before us.
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  But when we are in the throes of doing it and we're full throttle faith and trust.
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  We're good with it. We feel his presence. Which is what gives us the joy.
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  And there's no place you want to be besides the center of God's will and you just know it.
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  But when you're doing things that even look right and your friends and family
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  and coworkers or anybody else
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  would say, Oh, that's great. You're doing a wonderful thing for the Lord.
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  And you feel like something's missing.
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  Not that you're not getting glory, not that your pride's swelling up.
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  It's just, something's not missing.
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  Something's off. Because when you're in the center of God's will,
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  there's nothing like it.
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  And I think we know when we are, and I think we know when we're not.
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  And a good indicator is the level of true joy in your life.
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  I'd like us to just think about that for a minute, because I think that's really, really important.
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  And I loved that you used joy as the measure,
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  because we often talk about how the Lord gets us as partners in ministry,
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  partners in crime, into what we call scrapes.
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  The Lord just gets us into scrapes sometimes.
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  Which is serving Christ regularly attracts personal emergency situations.
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  Which is really other people's personal emergency situations.
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  They become ours. Because you're called to help somebody.
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  And, you know, if we were to sit down with you, Lister, and tell you some of
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  the stories that the Lord has gotten us into, sometimes you just wouldn't even
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  believe it. I don't even believe some of these things happened and we were there.
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  But I think what's important is that there are some of those scrapes that were
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  hard, right? They were hard.
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  I mean, literally, they were messy. They were dirty.
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  They were scary. And I didn't have a clue.
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  They were ugly situations. We didn't know what to do, but we somehow did it.
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  And there was joy in it because you 100% knew you'd gotten it right,
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  that you're where the Lord wanted you to be.
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  And there's no joy like that.
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  And one of the reasons why I use joy is because when I was growing up,
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  everybody spoke of joy as Jesus first, others second, yourself last.
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  And when he is calling you to your pool of Bethesda to lay down something to be washed away from you,
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  It's usually something you want. Right. Because you're.
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  And you can't imagine how anything else would be better or right.
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  Or maybe it's just you're comfortable. You've normalized it. It's easy.
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  You've normalized it. You've normalized. Even if there's some aspect of it that's not maybe 100% right.
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  For whatever reason. Maybe it's just not even right for you.
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  It might not be wrong. It's not going to be a right thing for you.
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  But you've figured out how to do it and you're okay.
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  Yeah, and you've normalized it. And you've just said, this is okay.
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  This isn't bad. So this must be okay. It must be good. It must be what the Lord,
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  wants. And I think it becomes something we're comfortable with. You brought that up.
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  And comfort is never a trampoline or trajectory to faith and trust.
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  Because if you're comfortable, you don't have to trust. I've always said he
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  never let me do anything I was really good at. Right.
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  Right. Because I would be inserting my own ideas. Yeah. Comfort isn't a trail.
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  When you just said trampoline, like big trampolines that launch you are not
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  comfortable. Little trampolines like those rebounder things that people jump
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  up and down on in their living rooms.
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  Right. That's a comfortable trampoline. A real trampoline. None of them are
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  on my knees. But a real trampoline that would launch you into somewhere really,
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  isn't that comfortable.
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  You know, you made a statement in Monday's podcast where you talked about those
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  places where we are as appointments.
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  You know, like we have an appointment. God has us somewhere for a specific reason.
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  And it's an appointment because if it's his plan for us, it's an appointment
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  with him, right? We're supposed to be somewhere for that time.
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  I believe that with all of my heart. And it's just, the question is,
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  How long are we supposed to be at that appointment?
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  And what happens is we get comfortable at the appointment, so we're not looking for him.
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  And so we just stay there because we're not listening, because we're not looking
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  for his information, because we're comfortable.
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  In Ecclesiastes chapter 3, in verse 1, he says, To everything there is a season.
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  And a time to every purpose under the heaven.
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  I think we think it's one and done, or I found my niche, I found what I like.
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  But he didn't say to everything, there is a place.
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  He says there is a season.
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  And seasons change, but seasons transition and transform the natural landscape through the transition.
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  Because they cannot be in December.
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  What they are in May. Just watch nature. It'll tell you there is a season.
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  You know, when you talk about those seasons, and I think to this idea of camping
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  out in a place longer than we're supposed to be there, you know,
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  it makes me think, you know, what is the thing you're trying to hold on to?
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  Like, we try to hold on to seasons. Sometimes. I do.
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  I want summer to be forever. Right, right. You're not happy when it's time to
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  go into like, you know, jeans and boots and flannels.
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  That is not your season. I do not own flannels. Okay.
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  Not that there's anything wrong with them. I don't want people.
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  I don't. You don't own flannel. And it is not your season of choice.
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  You are a warm weather summer person.
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  I love snow.
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  I love fall clothes. I love fall colors. You love flannel. I love flannel.
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  I love needing to put on a coat.
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  I love all those things. And so you may hold on to summer.
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  I often want to hold on to winter or at least spring. I don't love the heat.
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  And so sometimes in our lives there are seasons when we've been there for our appointed time.
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  And then it's time for us to move on because the Lord has told us to and we just won't let go.
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  And we get a little confused with our plans and his plans.
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  And we think, well, if I'm comfortable, that must have been his plan.
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  I've learned in my lifetime, if I'm comfortable, I need to recheck Absolutely.
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  You know, so many times when we stick too long in a place beyond the time that
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  God has appointed for us to be there, it becomes a negative situation.
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  And we often don't see it because we're comfortable, right? We often don't see it.
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  We're not looking. We're not looking. And because it might be easy for us because
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  we know what to do in that situation.
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  When you're comfortable, you're not looking. You lose your vigilance.
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  And he says, be vigilant, be sober, because your adversary, the devil,
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  walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
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  And sometimes he uses, you know, distractions.
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  Sometimes he uses, you know, we are doing something out of our plan and our
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  agenda instead of his, and it may even be the results may even be there,
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  but we know we're not the ones supposed to be doing it.
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  You made it you made a question on monday you said how are you decorating
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  your pit of negativity and you were talking about how when we're in those times
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  when we're supposed to be moving past something and we're still there because we're comfortable,
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  but it becomes a negative situation because it's not where we're supposed to be,
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  we somehow in our own strength right are trying to make that situation okay.
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  We're literally like decorating a pit.
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  We're decorating and making a home in a place that is not supposed to be our
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  home. We're making something tolerable that was never meant to be.
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  Right, right. And these are hard questions.
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  I firmly believe that all of us that are.
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  Listening right now can think of places and times, and we may be in one right
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  now, where we know the Lord is moving, and for whatever reason,
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  we may be hesitant to make that move,
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  or we may just not be recognizing.
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  Maybe we don't realize the Lord is calling us to move.
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  Because we're not looking, and we need to be looking.
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  You know, one of the reasons I think that we often aren't looking is that,
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  to quote you from Monday's message, we're not willing to take on the pain of change.
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  I heard myself say that and it startled me because I'm anti-change.
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  You don't like change. I'm very resistant to change. And I thought,
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  oh, my, what's on the horizon?
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  Well, it's interesting because, as I say, you don't like change.
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  You know there are I like change I love to rearrange furniture I love I love
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  to you know paint a wall I love change I love that,
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  kind of change but we can I can be very honest and say that there are aspects of my life,
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  that I don't like change and if I know that a change I need to make is going to be,
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  difficult for someone else, right?
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  I'm such a people pleaser, and I know that.
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  And if I know that I am supposed to be making a change and it's hard on other
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  people, I might be hesitant to make the change.
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  But there is often pain in change, but that doesn't... Because there's pain in growth.
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  Right. Growing pains, literally. Yes.
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  And just because there's pain doesn't mean you're not supposed to do it.
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  And change orchestrated by God will always lead you forward and up.
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  It's gross. And when you make the change, you'll have the joy.
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  And you'll be equipped to make it, but you're not immune to the sting. No.
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  But even when it stings, when you know you've done exactly what you were supposed
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  to do, there is a point of joy in there that is unlike anything else.
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  I think Jesus really showed about transformation.
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  Transition, and change, and how there is suffering when the world went from
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  hopeless to full of hope when he said it is finished.
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  And he said, Lord, forgive them for they know not what they've done.
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  It's painful, but it produces far greater benefits than the pain of the suffering.
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  I'm going to go back to the questions that I asked at the beginning of this
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  podcast. Where are you camping out?
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  And what is your pool of Bethesda? Just like the man that was laying at the
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  pool of Bethesda made excuses. I don't have anybody to take me down.
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  People step over me. They get in front of me.
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  What are the excuses that you're making? because you're not yet moving in the
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  direction that God has called you to move?
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  Those are hard, hard questions.
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  And the last question that I want to ask is the question that points to the
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  joy, which is what is the transformation that he has for you?
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  When God is calling us from something, He's always calling us to something better.
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  He's calling us through a point of transition to a place of transformation.
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  Praise Jesus. And he's always going to bring the joy.
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  I'm going to say it again. There is no better joy than knowing that you heard
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  him right and you followed him and did what he asked you to do.
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  So friends, I'm just going to say, what's the transformation that he has for
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  you? What is your pool of Bethesda?
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  And what is he asking you to rise up from and walk?
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  Thank you for joining us today. 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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  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.
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  Thank you for your prayers and support. Remember, Jesus loves you.
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  You are loved. She's a happy.
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  Girl. She's a happy girl.