Let Me Not See My Wretchedness — Carter Conlon

Bless God. Wonderful to be here this evening in Canton, Ohio. I'd never heard of it until the invitation came. No offense to those that are from here. Lovely town. Wonderful to see people gathered because they want to see a fresh touch of Jesus Christ, not only realized in our own lives, but in our nation as well.

Thanks be to God. I have sought the Lord for this meeting. I had a witness of the Holy Spirit to be here this evening and I've sought the Lord and he's been faithful. I mean, he's given me a word and this word is exclusively, thus far at least anyway, for this evening.

The Cry for Personal Surrender

And I'm going to ask you to turn in your Bibles to Numbers chapter 11, please, if you will. And if I were to give this a title tonight, I'd like to call it, Let Me Not See My Wretchedness. Let Me Not See My Wretchedness.

Let's pray together while you're turning there. Almighty God, Lord, the hour is late. The need is overwhelming, but not to you, Lord. God, I ask you to do something supernatural tonight, something sovereign, something that can only point to the cross.

It can't be attributed to anything but the life of God being manifested in our midst. I call out to you, Lord, tonight. I call out to you, Holy Spirit. I ask you, God, to animate me. I ask you to put in my mind and physical body.

Lord, I can't deliver this unless you animate me. And it's pointless, Lord, if you don't cause our hearts to want to hear it and come and make it live. I'm asking you, Holy Spirit, to take these simple words and multiply them a thousand ways and may they speak to every heart, every mind, every situation.

God, undo things that need to be undone. Give strength where strength needs to come. Lord, I thank you for it, God. Thank you, Lord, that you're going to do something this evening. You've determined in your heart to do something sovereign.

God, we anticipate it and believe it, Lord, and receive it in my own heart. I thank you for this. I thank you that you've been speaking to me all day about this. Lord, you've taken me through this message personally, God.

You've let me apply it to my own heart. And God, I thank you tonight. Give me grace, Lord. Help me, God, to speak with grace. And I thank you for this with everything within me in Jesus' mighty name. Numbers chapter 11.

Moses Asks Not to See His Wretchedness

We're going to begin at verse 10. The scripture says,. Then Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent. And the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly. And Moses also was displeased.

And Moses said unto the Lord, Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? And wherefore have I not found favor in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of all these people upon me? Have I conceived all these people?

Have I begotten them, that thou shouldst say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father bears the sucking child unto the land which thou swearest unto their fathers? When should I have flesh to give unto all these people?

For they weep unto me, saying, Give us flesh that we may eat. I'm not able to bear all these people alone, because it's too heavy for me. And if thou deal'st with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favor in thy sight.

And let me not see my wretchedness. Now, folks, this, believe it or not, is a prayer that you would hope God will never answer. Moses cries out to the Lord, and he's distressed, he's grieved, he's tired, and something gets into him.

And he cries out and says, Lord, don't let me see my wretchedness. Now, I tore this apart in the original Hebrew text, and let me just expand it for you a little bit. Now, the word see means to see intellectually, to hear something, to feel something, to experience it, or to learn from it.

And the word wretchedness means something that is bad, something that's of inferior quality, something that is wicked, evil, mischievous, something that is injurious, something that will cause or give pain or unhappiness.

And Moses cries out to the Lord, he says, Lord, don't let me experience, don't let me see this. I don't want to know, in other words, if there's something in me of inferior quality, if it's mischievous in your sight, if it's injurious, if it will cause pain or bring unhappiness, don't let me see it.

Moses says, I'd rather die than to see this thing. You see, folks, there's some cries that we never want God to answer. These cries, they come from carnal reasoning. They come from the sense that I've seen enough, I've done enough, I've gone farther than most men, and I don't want any more pain.

Please accept who I am, and let's go on from here. Now, that gets into every heart. This is a difficult hour we're living in. And we come to meetings like this, and we say, Lord, I want you to bless me.

I want to be encouraged. I want to be picked up. I somehow want to come to a meeting like this. I want to be touched by the sovereign hand of God. I want to go out and be a dynamic evangelist, and I want to win thousands to Christ.

And I want to do it all without pain. I want to just see nice things. So, Lord, thank you for where you've taken me from, but I don't want to see wretchedness. I don't want to. And some folks are just sick of it.

Unresolved Sin Eventually Comes to Light

Perhaps you're in a place where it's just week after week, some new flaw, some new fault in your character, and you're just tired of it. And so, I don't want to see this, Lord. Now, Moses himself, in Numbers 32, verse 23, said, Be sure your sin will find you out.

In other words, everything that a man refuses to see in himself will one day make its way to the forefront of his life. Set your watch by it, folks. If there's an issue of the heart, if there's something in you, something in me that's not dealt with, it might be just a little burning coal.

It's never been dealt with. And the devil will just leave it alone until you're at the height of your ministry. Then he'll just suddenly fan it with his breath, and it will burst into flame. You find yourself overpowered by something that you thought you could deal with.

You can put it on the back burner. God is not going to touch this. He doesn't have to deal with it. Now, in Numbers 20, if you'll go ahead with me, please, in your Bibles. Believe it or not, I am talking about revival.

We will get there eventually. Numbers 20, verse 9. Now, keep in mind, Moses prayed earlier. I don't want to see this wretchedness. I don't want to see this anger in me. He had a burning anger inside towards the people.

And he did not want to see it. He did not want God to deal with it. Now, a little later into the future, Numbers 20, verse 9, says, Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock.

And he said to them, Here now, you rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock? Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod, he smoked the rock twice. And the water came out abundantly. And the congregation drank, and their beasts also.

And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, Because you believe me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.

You see, this anger that Moses didn't want to see caused him to miss the fullness of what God had intended for his life's journey to be. And if there's an area in you or in me that we will not let God touch, we will not let people speak to it.

The pastor can't preach to it. Nobody who knows us at work can talk to us about it. And ultimately, God can't speak to us about it. And this area that we don't want to see, I'm not talking heaven or hell here right now.

What I'm talking about is that God had a plan for this man. And this man was going to go further than he went. He was originally going to go into the promised land with the people that he was guiding to this place.

But now, because of this misrepresentation of God, and that's really what striking the rock was all about. He misrepresented God. God was being merciful, but he was portraying God as angry. And God said, I've often looked at the scripture and said, why such a severe dealing with this man?

I mean, he's paid a price. He's been 40 years in the wilderness. He's walked where nobody else would walk. And he's done what nobody else seemingly in his generation had the leading ability to do. And yet he seemingly makes a mistake.

And you deal so utterly, quickly and severely with him. Why God? Why this severe dealing? And I began to realize that, you see, this had been in him for a long time. I believe it was this impulsiveness and this anger in him that caused him to kill the Egyptian when he was 40 years of age.

He had an interior anger that was never dealt with. He killed the Egyptian. He spent 40 years in the wilderness. He came back out. We started with an opening scripture where he was angry, but didn't want to see the root cause of this anger.

And by the time he strikes the rock and misrepresents God, it's a moment. It's almost as if the time, for example, in the future when Samuel just simply turns from Saul and says, I'm not speaking to you about this anymore.

It's as if God saying to Moses, I've been speaking to you about this for years. And it's now come to the time where you've made your choice. You don't want to hear me. You didn't want to hear me. There's nothing more to talk about.

I intended on taking you somewhere. I intended on doing something through you. But now the fullness that you would have experienced, you're not going to experience it because you simply wouldn't let me look at this.

I can't tell you over the years, the number of people as a pastor that I've counseled that have deep unresolved issues in the heart, and they will not let God speak to them. They come for counseling, but God can't speak to them.

They are living in a manner that is going to rob them of what God has for them. But nobody can speak to them. He is right in his sights. He is right in her sight. And there's absolutely no way that God can break through this religious facade as it is and get through to the issue.

And when the Lord wants to point something out in your life or mine, he's not doing it to condemn us. He's doing it because we are supposed to be a people who live in such a supernatural manner. And I'm talking about his life being lived within us.

We so change, as Paul says, from image to image and glory to glory that the world literally has to stand up as they did on the day of Pentecost and say, truly, there is a God in heaven. That's how we're called to live.

We're not called to be ordinary. We're called to show forth the praises, as Peter says, of him who's called us out of darkness and into his marvelous life. My life is to be a saver of praise to God everywhere I go.

I'm to be a different kind of a man. I'm to be a man who changes, not perfect, but changing, constantly moving forward. God, you want to speak to this area? Speak to this area in my life. One of the greatest victories I think I've known, I've known many over the years, but one of the greatest is the day, I don't remember when it was, it was years ago, when all my defenses fell and I said to my wife, who knows me better than anybody in the whole world, you have free access into my life to speak to me.

I will not defend myself. I will not make excuses for what I do or say or how I act. Speak into my life. And she's a very gracious woman, very kind to me and doesn't abuse that. But I do not raise my hands in defense.

And it's been a great, great source of strength into my life. I thank God for it with all my heart. The writer of Hebrews in chapter 12, verses 13 and 15, he says, make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but rather let it be healed.

Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. Now that's the root, as it is that the author of Hebrews speaks about, but it can also represent other roots.

Things that have never been healed. They've been covered, they've been theologically, a theological nicety has been put over it, like it's under the blood. And so I don't have to deal with it. I can't tell you the people come in for counseling, men beating their wives, but it's under the blood.

So I don't have to deal with it. Well, it happened yesterday, honey, it's under the blood. She may still have the scars in her face, but it's under the blood. I have one man, folks, I almost put him under the blood in my office.

I got so mad at him. Quoting scripture, I said, you keep your mouth shut. They said, don't you say another word. I said, you're like an empty can, quoting scripture, beating his wife, but it's under the blood.

And the whole time in my office, opening the Bible and trying to lecture her on what it means to be a Christian. Yet this man has got a root in him that is going to lead him to destruction, but stubbornly refusing to see it, stubbornly refusing to let God speak to him.

I had one couple come in for marriage counseling and I basically closed the Bible. And I said, I'm sorry, I can't do anything for you. Goodbye. And they said, well, you're a pastor. We came to you for counseling.

I said, you don't want counseling. You couldn't care less what the word of God says. You're just here to try to make me take sides with your opinion. But when I opened Ephesians 5 and I say, husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church.

And I say it where it says wives, reverence your husband. You said you're not even interested in what God's word says. I said, you've come to the wrong place. There's nothing I can do for you. Goodbye.

They were divorced very shortly after that. Those of us who stand for Christ are under obligation to let him look within and claim every part of these temples that rightfully belong to him. I didn't enter into a relation, a religion with Christ.

I entered into a relationship where he has bought me and he's bought you and he has lawful rights to every part of the temple. I have to invite him in and say, Lord Jesus Christ, you've got to overturn the tables where I'm selling junk, religious junk in my life.

You've got to kick out the goats and the doves, which are the nice little religious things that we think are acceptable to God. You've got to put them all out of this temple that the glory of God may come, that there might be healing begin to flow through this life, that you might be able to use this festival to make a difference in this generation.

God help us in this hour. We've got to rise up, Church of Jesus Christ. We've got to rise up in the power of our God. There's little time left. We've come to the day that Paul spoke about in 2 Timothy chapter 3.

Perilous Times and the Need for Genuine Godliness

He called it perilous times. Now, we're living there. We're not coming here. We're living there. Men are lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural, that means family affection, truth breakers, false accusers, incontinent, can't contain, can't retain truth, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.

In other words, having a form, going to church saying, I belong to God, but don't show me my wretchedness. Don't change my life. I like my life exactly the way it is. Thank you very much. Lord, you don't have the rights to this temple.

We've come to this day, and folks, I am saddened to have to say this, but I travel much of the world now, and the religion of our day in America has become a cloak of covetousness, self-love, and pride.

It's a religion largely that loves pleasure. It creeps into homes and entraps lust-laden people. As the scripture says, having a form of godliness but denying the power, denying the whole reason that Christ came to unlock prison doors and to preach the gospel to the poor and to see the blind given spiritual sight and to see the captive set free, to see the work of God go forward into the earth.

And of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins and diverse lusts, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. As Janice and Jammers resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth, men of corrupt minds and reprobate concerning the faith.

I'm ashamed of what American religion has exported around the world. We have a message that resists the true words and purposes of God. We've exported this profane religiousness into the far reaches of the earth.

And folks, we've touched the apple of God's eye. I've become aware of this traveling through Africa as never before. We've touched the apple of God's eye. In Proverbs 23 10 it says, don't remove the old landmark and don't go into the fields of the fatherless for the Redeemer is mighty and he shall plead their cause with thee.

I have watched as pastors largely in Africa have gotten the theology from America and from the media. And I've watched the poor coming into the house of the Lord and robbed of the last five cents they've got to their name.

Oh, it is heartbreaking. And one of my last times in Africa, not the last, but one of the last I was speaking in a pastor's conference, there were thousands of pastors and the Holy spirit came on me and I began to cry and plead.

I said, now you've got to deal with this. You have to deal with this godless theology that is teaching you and causing you to rob your own people. I said, you've got to deal with it. And if you don't deal with it, the judgment that you're going to soon see on America is going to come and touch your own nation.

I tell you folks, the Holy spirit came into that meeting. It literally sounded like a train came through the hall, men get under their chairs, other, some pastors get out of their seats and threw money at the altar because they've been stealing from the church.

God came, God came and bore witness to his word that he was speaking in that, in those meetings. Oh, how dangerous. I don't, I think we're in greater danger from the religion that we've exported than from the homosexuals and the abortionists and everything else that's going on in this country.

We are in danger from the religion that we have exported. And I'm ashamed to have to say it, but I'm not afraid to say it. Don't remove the landmark. And the Lord said, don't enter the fields of the fathers, 700 ,000 street children in Zambia alone, living in the streets from two years old and upward two years old children being cared for by children, 10 years of age, while the pastors believe that God has given them the right to drive a Mercedes Benz or a BMW.

While there's 700 ,000 children in the streets, almost nobody feeding them the church having completely lost its moorings because they're getting their theological feeding from America. Folks, the only way that God is going to set these people free, he's got to bring down the economy of this country.

He's got to bring it down to set these people free from this entrapment because they look and they believe that this is God. They believe that this must be the way that God does things and the way that God acts.

And yet 700 ,000 children can be dying in the streets and they're completely oblivious to what the word of and the work of God really is. We live in a society that's rejected godliness and will not see itself in the light of God's truth.

Revival Through the Pulpit and Repentance

The only hope now for America lies in the pulpit. There's no other hope now. Redemption is not coming through government. You've seen it. The religious right got into whatever they got into and it's powerless.

Christ has not worked. Thank God for good Christian politicians. Thank God for the little they can do. But the moral fabric of a country has not changed through legislation. The moral fabric of a country has changed through preaching of the word of God, through conviction of the Holy Ghost, through repentance of sin.

Every Christian in our generation must become a preacher now and every preacher must speak for Christ. It's come to that time, folks. It's time to stop playing all religious games. It's time for men and women to get right with God.

It's time for every man, every woman, every young person to say, God Almighty, whatever's hindering the testimony of your voice and your life within me, Jesus, deal with it now. This is not about heaven and hell for me.

This is about the future of others who need to know God. This is about the honor of God, the glory of God. If the trumpet, Paul says, makes an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself to the battle? How will they know?

How will they prepare if we preach to them as if there's a millions of morals when there might be only a few left? How will the people know if we preach to them and present a false image of Christ as if he requires nothing of the people, as if sending sanctification is good enough, as if a half-hearted following is acceptable to God when there's no evidence of this in the scriptures, folks?

God, help us to preach the Christ of the Bible again. God, help us to get involved in the work of the Christ of the Bible. God, help us to be able to stand as Jesus did in the pulpit and say, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me for this reason, to preach to the poor, to see the captive set free, to give sight to the blind, to see those that are bruised in heart given the healing that God offers to all men.

God, help you and I to stand again and represent the Christ of heaven in this generation. Jesus said, whoever seeks to save his life shall lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospels the same shall save it.

You see, Moses sought to save his life. He wanted to keep this thing inside of him, not realizing that it was going to cost him. It was going to cost others, perhaps. The wisdom, the leadership that he could have offered was going to be lost because he refused to deal with these things that were in his life.

God, help us today to deal with the half-heartedness that is so rampant. American society, which I am part of and I love, has in it the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And so, we've taken that and we've brought that into the church and now the whole reason for Christ and the church is for life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The culture now has formed the church instead of the church forming the culture.

Sad to say, but there's always hope as long as you live and I live. What has God's remedy been? God's remedy has always been a man, a woman. God's remedy has always been a person who lays hold of the hem of his garment one more time and say, God Almighty, I want you to do something in me that nobody else can do.

I want you to give me a testimony. I want you to put the burning fire that's in your heart in mine. I want you to be so intertwined in my life that when I stand and speak or when I just simply walk down the street or when I just interact with my friends and family, that you are seeing Jesus.

That there's a reality, that a conviction of sin comes, that there's an understanding, there's a righteousness that's far beyond anything that can be produced with human effort, that men become aware there's a day of justice coming.

The cry of my heart and yours has got to be, God, let me see what I'm trying to save of myself that will cause me to be an unclear or unfinished testimony of your purposes and your grace. You've got to help me see what am I trying to save.

What am I not willing to give? What area of my life, Jesus, can't you touch? There's no revival without this. Talk about it. Plan about it. Have 100 ,000 seminars about it. But there's no revival until God's people get face to face with God and say, you have the rights to my heart.

You have the rights to my life. You have the rights to everything that is mine. You have the right to send me to Africa. You have the right to cause me to die preaching the gospel on the street corner.

You have the rights to my life. I'm not my own. I'm bought with a price. You have the right to examine my heart. You have the right to prove me and try me and test me and see if I'm in the faith. You have the rights to take me where I can't go in the natural and to make me what I could never be in my own strength.

You have the right, oh God, to send me where I couldn't go and make me what I could never be. You have the rights. Jesus Christ, you are the Lord of my life. That's where revival comes from. That's where young men and women go to the mission field.

That's where preachers who know how to preach Christ are born again. It's men and women who say, you have the right. You have the right to this temple. You have the right to overthrow my image of myself.

You have the right, oh God, you have the right to make a fool out of me if that's what it takes for you to be glorified. You have the right to my life and every part of my life and everything in my life.

Mighty God, you have the right to speak to me. You have the right to have others speak to me. You have the right to lay me low that you may be lifted up high. You have the right to my finances. You have the right to my future.

You have the right to my life. That's revival. I live in revival. I'm in revival. I'm not looking for it. I live in it. I just come back from Burundi. I've just preached on television and radio to four nations, Tanzania, Burundi, the Congo, and Rwanda.

The very airways that the voice of the devil used to have people rise up and slaughter one another. I've been there just recently. I've seen thousands of people dancing in the field as tootsies and hooters and people chose to forgive each other.

I've been in pastors conference where pastors chose to stop preaching hate and embrace one another. I've seen the joy of the Lord break out. I've watched the president dance before God. I've seen revival.

I've been there throughout the world. We're almost the only place in the planet that doesn't know that revival is happening all over the world. Now, the Lord took Moses and he showed him the promised land.

And then with his own hands, God took him and buried him, Deuteronomy chapter 34. And he said, the scripture says he buried him in a place where nobody could find him. And that's what the Lord will do with our failings.

If we are willing to be put into the hand of God, he'll take us and he'll show us all the promises you see, because it's by these, Peter says, we become partakers of the divine nature. I'm not talking about reading more, praying more, doing more.

I'm talking about something that God has to do. And he promises to do it. That's what the New Testament is all about. The Old Testament was a you do I do covenant. The New Testament is you believe in I will do.

That's why it's called good news. It's no longer works. It's no longer what we do for God. It's what we allow God to do through us. Thanks be to God. That's the greatest revelation I've ever had in my life.

And I don't have to do this. I just simply have to agree with God and let him do it. Blessed be his holy name. He took him and showed him the promises. And then by his grace, he buried him where nobody could find him.

And that's exactly what God does with our failings. If we deal honestly with God, he buries our failings where nobody can dig them up. Nobody can find them. There'll be no history of them. There's no record of them.

He buries them with his own hand, that hand that was nailed to the cross. Thanks be to God. We'll bury our failings and make us into the men and women that God needs in this generation. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. If you can lay hold of this simple truth, it'll change your life. If you can put away unbelief and put away having to maintain a religious image of some sort in your church or community or home, and say, Lord, I'm open now.

God, deal with me. You begin to realize this is a work of grace and love. This is not something that comes to drive us angry. It's a work of love. You say, Lord, just deal with me. Help me. Change me.

And then you begin to realize this incredible grace. Oh, Lord God. You see, I know what I'm talking about. I was saved at 24. I was a police officer, actually, in Canada. And I was saved when I was 24 years of age.

A Testimony of Freedom from Fear

When I was 15, I started suffering panic attacks. And if you've never known these, it's the closest thing to hell on earth you'll ever experience in your lifetime, where you have a sense of doom, the sense that everything, there's no hope for the future, the sense that tomorrow is dark and foreboding.

And at 15 years of age, I began to suffer these, and I suffered them until I was 24. I would survive by taking pills and drinking, and I exercised like a maniac to try to keep this tension down within my body.

I went to college and studied undergraduate law, and I had to take so many pills to be able to just go to class. And if it was a class of 12 students, if the professor would single me out, I had two choices.

Single me out to ask a question. I'd either run out of the room or pass out. I had such an entrapment of fear on my life. When I turned to Christ, I began to read this word, and I saw a promise in the Bible.

Paul had written, if God be for us, who can be against us? I didn't know anything in the Old Testament. I knew very little of the new, but I was reading it, and I believed it. And that one scripture, you see, David only had one stone to take the giant down.

You don't need to know the whole Bible to stand against darkness. And one night I felt this attack coming into my life again. I was now a born-again believer in Christ. I went downstairs into my living room, and I just stood up to darkness and said, I'm not living this way anymore.

I said, Satan, I said it out loud, you can kill me, but you can only do it if God allows you. And if he does, I'm going to heaven. So it's win-win for me. I said, so you throw everything you've got at me, but I throw back at what I now have at you.

I said, in the name of Jesus, the Son of God, I resist you. That's all I knew how to pray. And I had a touch of God come onto my life, and I was set free that night. That's, well, I'm 54 now, so that's 30 years ago.

I have, I'll only say this to you because I don't like to say it. I'll say it to boast in the Lord, but I preached all over the world. I preached the first-ever outdoor evangelistic crusade in Siberia, in a city called Novokuznetsk, where Russia sent all the criminals into.

Had the privilege of leading, seeing many, many people come to Christ, seeing a lot of soldiers who were sent there to intimidate us begin to weep. As God touched them, I preached the crowds as loud, as large as 500 ,000 in Africa.

I stood in difficult places. I've been in war zones. I preached after the Kosovo War in a Muslim village. The interpreter, the deputy mayor was so scared because this was a radical Muslim village, and I made a deal after the war because they lost their bridge to get over to their fields, and I shook hands with the mayor of this town of 8 ,000.

I said, if you'll let us, if we build a bridge for you, you have to let me come back and dedicate it. You have to call together the town, and I'm going to preach to them in the name of Jesus Christ. Now, he shook with me on it.

I didn't know if his word was any good, but he was good to his word, and we went to the bridge. The day of dedication, he called the men of this community together. The women couldn't come because they're not allowed out of the yard in this society, so the men came.

I brought my own translator, and when I dismissed the translator, that's when fear hit the organizers. I knew their translator would tell the people he's crazy, don't listen to him, Allah's great, and all this stuff, so I just brought my own translator, and I began to preach to them.

The deputy mayor shook so bad, he shook the whole platform, and he kept hitting me. The whole time I was speaking, he kept hitting me to stop. But you see, what I'm saying is I've chosen all my life now to let God be God.

I boast in Christ, as Paul said. I don't have the skill to do what I do. I've never had the skill. I just simply have let God be God. I've chosen to believe that what he says he will do, he will do, and I've not been afraid to be challenged when my heart is wrong and my attitudes are wrong.