Wilderness Shakers — Carter Conlon

Wilderness Shakers and the Need for Divine Empowerment

I want to talk to you this morning about wilderness shakers. Wilderness shakers. So, Father, thank you. God, as your word opens, I'm asking you for the anointing that only you can give. Lord, you are the one.

You have to move, Holy Spirit, in unison with the word of God. If you don't, Lord, there's such an element missing when we simply open the scriptures. And if you're not moving upon our hearts, God, we accumulate knowledge, but it takes us nowhere.

And so, God, I'm asking you for divine life. I'm asking you for an enablement in my mind, in my spirit. I'm asking you, God, for your people that we would be able to hear what you are speaking to your church at this time, in this moment of history that we're now living in.

You have a word for us, Lord. So help us to hear it. Help me to speak it. Oh, God, help our hearts to respond to it. God, bless everyone who's here today, Lord. Those who understand and those who just have a little bit of light.

God, bless everyone, Lord, with the knowledge of who you are. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Psalm 29, the Psalm of David. Given to the Lord, oh, you mighty ones. Given to the Lord, glory and strength.

Given to the Lord, the glory due to his name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord is over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful.

The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. Yes, the Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon. He makes them also skip like a calf. Lebanon and Sirion, like a young wild ox.

The voice of the Lord divides the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare.

Creation Through the Word and Spirit

And in his temple, everyone says, glory. The Lord sat enthroned at the flood and the Lord sits as king forever. The Lord will give strength to his people. The Lord will bless his people with peace. If you go right back to the beginning of the Bible, in the first chapter of Genesis, right in the first verses, the first, really the first three verses of Genesis, the Bible tells us that everything that exists in this world began with the spirit of God moving and God speaking.

Now I want you just to let that sink down deep. The spirit of God moved and God spoke. And when those two characteristics or persons of God, the word of God, we know to be Jesus Christ, defined as the word of God in the New Testament and the spirit of God moved together, miracles started to happen.

Darkness turned to light. Confusion suddenly yielded to divine order. And ultimately even dust yielded life when God spoke to it. It's truly amazing. And that's what happens to you and I, when we come to Christ, isn't it?

Suddenly our darkness turns to light. Those who know Christ as savior, you remember the day that light dawned on your soul. It's suddenly that you were taken out of one place and into another. You couldn't fully explain it, but something had happened to you.

And you know, in your heart, I remember in my life and I remember the date. It was the day after I had opened my heart and asked Jesus Christ to be my Lord and savior in May. That happened on May 12th, 1978.

And the next morning, it was the next morning when I woke up and I remember my feet touching the floor and I can't explain it to you, but something had happened to me. I felt like a different man. I felt like the old ways of thinking and living and somehow been given a death sentence and something new had begun in my life.

I couldn't put it into words. I didn't know the Bible, but something happened to me when the spirit of God came into my life. My darkness yielded to light. My confusion began to move towards that order of God.

The Image of God, Human Speech, and the Entrance of Sin

Now, not instantaneously, obviously, but it began moving in that direction and the death in my life started yielding to life that Christ himself only could give us. Now, in the beginning, God created man and woman, Adam and Eve, and they were created in the image of God.

And being in the image of God, they were given the power of speech. There's incredible power in speech, speech, reason, and free will. Nothing else in nature has that. Geese don't speak. African gray parrots can imitate speech, but they can't think.

They don't have a free will. We are the only thing in creation that can speak because we're created in the image of God. Now, I want you to picture Adam and Eve walking through the Garden of Eden. And in a sense, they're co-laborers with God, tending to this world that God had created in the capacity or speaking in the capacity that God had given to them, because they're created in his image, to carry on and work in unison with him in his creation.

I'm trying to just simply paint a picture as clearly as I can. But speech would have been in accord with the heart and mind of God. It's assumed that what God was thinking and saying, that's what Adam was thinking and saying.

What God was thinking and saying, Eve was thinking and saying. And there was this unison between mankind created in the image of God and God. And because of it, the order, the light, the divine order, life, everything was carrying on as it should, because mankind was working in unison with God until sin entered the human race, until Adam and Eve got it in their heads that apart from God, they could be godly, that maybe they could use their own voices to do things that perhaps they thought God hadn't thought of.

Or maybe God's ways weren't the only way or the best way. Maybe there's a better way to do things. And they somehow, they succumb to the temptation that Satan sowed into them that apart from God, I can do what God does and I can be godly and I can become a judge in a sense of what's good and what's evil.

And human speech through sin became corrupt. Who can debate that now? Let me just turn on the news. Listen to much of what's being said by so many people and you realize how corrupted human speech is and how vile it can actually become.

The Hardened Human Ear and the Consequences of Sin

And when sin entered the human race and human speech became corrupted, human ears began to be closed to the voice of God. That's why, for example, John the Baptist, when the Pharisees came out to his baptism, he said, oh brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

In other words, the seed of the serpent is in you and a snake has no ears, you understand. The snake can't hear and is guided by his tongue. In other words, you can't hear the voice of God anymore and you are being guided by your own speech.

Does that not describe our generation that we're living in today? Closed to truth, closed to that which really does have life, closed to the one who holds everything in the palm of his hand, actually closed to the judge one day of every person who's ever lived on the earth, closed to an understanding that there really is a heaven and a hell, folks.

And that is the eternal destiny of every person based on their choice in this world to receive or reject Christ. But mankind in his sin and arrogance thinks that by his own speech, somehow he can govern his own life, he can be as God, he can be the arbitrator of what's good and what's evil, and everything will come to this utopian end, not knowing.

The Bible tells us in one portion of scripture that humankind is on a parade marching into the mouth of hell itself and has no idea where they're headed to. Now you take an unsurrendered human spirit and you combine it with man's corrupted tongue, perverted in a sense the image of the God who created him.

So we were created in the image of God, but when we're not hearing from God, when we're not surrendered to God, we pervert that image of God. And mankind with his words, having turned from God, this is exactly what happens.

When speech coming from our mouths is not in accordance with the word of God, when we're not hearing from God, when we're not moving with the spirit of God, we succeed in turning light to darkness. We turn divine order into confusion.

Humanity’s Return to Darkness and the Judgment of God

Now who can debate that now with a sound mind, that we're not living in a time of confusion, where light is turning to darkness and we're trying to proclaim darkness to be light. But folks, you turn the switch off in the room and you can try to recreate reality all you want.

It's still dark. All you've done is create darkness. Call it whatever you want to call it. It's still darkness. And ultimately humankind, unsurrendered to God, has succeeded in turning the earth back to that time that was dominated by emptiness, a lack of purpose or a lack of meaning.

In the beginning, it says the earth was void and darkness covered the face of the deep. The original translation says it was confused. There was no meaning to it until the spirit of God moved and God began to speak.

And when men are no longer moving in unison with God, they're not agreeing with God, they're not moving with the spirit of God. The end result is we start turning the world back to that place where it was before God began to speak to it.

And that's what's happening in our generation right before our eyes. Oh, the arrogance, the arrogance of puny man to defy the living God. One day, one day, you mark my words, every knee is going to bow.

Every tongue is going to confess. Now for many, it will be too late. The decision to reject God was made before they stood before the throne of God. They will suddenly realize the folly of their condition.

And so darkness, when mankind sinned, the Bible says the death reigned in a sense from Adam to Moses. I don't have time to explain it, but let's just, let's just leave it at that, that there was a reign, a sense of spiritual death until God began to mercifully start to lead man again.

Christ’s Cross and the Restoration of Spiritual Life

And this death that reigned, this darkness, this confusion lasted until God came to this earth as a man. The word of God spoke again. The spirit of God began to move again. Jesus Christ dying on that cross when he said it is finished.

When he took captivity captive and gave gifts on the band, he made a way for every human heart to hear and to know the voice of God again. Oh, thank God. Oh, thank God. Oh, thank God. Oh, thank God. One hymn writer said it this way.

He said, oh, for a thousand tongues to praise him. Oh, for a thousand lives to live for him. Oh, for a thousand more years to tell people who he is and what he has done and what he can do. Oh God. Oh God.

It's been the cry of my heart lately. Lord increased the borders of my tent. God increased the understanding of my mind increased. Oh God, my confidence in your word and let the presence and power of your Holy spirit begin to radiate everywhere.

We travel everywhere. We speak God. Let us be in unison with your voice. I had a chance to speak to a pastors lately. And I said to the pastors who were in the room, I said, gentlemen, in essence, for too long, we've built churches with thoughts about God.

As good as that is, you can build things with thoughts about God. But I said, the time has come in our society where we need to speak for God. There's a huge difference. We need to move with the spirit of God.

New Creation and the Power of God’s Word

We, we need the word that God is speaking to this generation. And when you and I came to Christ, even though we were dark and confused, God spoke to us again and he called us new creations. Oh, thank God.

Suddenly it's just, I'm hoping this is exploding in some measure in your mind, because through sin, we kind of devolved back to the beginning again, where we were dark and without meaning and confused and borderless.

May I put it that way? Because boundaries were created after God began to speak and, and there was no life and there was no meaning to anything. And then suddenly God spoke into our darkness. That's why you're here.

You didn't find him. He's never been lost. You were lost. He found you. He's the one who came to you. He whispered to you. He moved upon the person who invited you to church today or last week or last month or last year.

You didn't find him. He's never been lost. He revealed himself to you. And he started speaking to you in your darkness. And he called you something phenomenal. He said, if my spirit is in you, you become a new creation, a new brand new born again by the spirit of God, no longer part of the old order of death and darkness and confusion and lack of understanding and purposeless living.

You became a new creation. The old things in your life passed away. He said, behold, all things are become new, not by human effort. You can't change yourself by human effort. And God knows how many times a lot of us tried before we were Christians, right?

New Year's Eve, you know, you're half in the tank and you're making all these promises about how you're going to change and what kind of a nice person you're going to be. And then, you know, about 10 minutes after 12, you're cursing somebody out.

Everything has gone to the wind, but you were sincere. You were sincere, just powerless. Like a dead man in a coffin. If he couldn't make promises, can tell you all he's going to do tomorrow, but he's dead.

He's not going to be able to get up. Nothing's going to change. He's dead. He's buried. He's going back into the dust from where he came. Only the spirit of God can bring you and I back to life again.

And God, we open the word of God. And what happens is, is just as in the beginning, God speaks and the spirit moves. God speaks. That's why you have to get in your Bible folks. You can't live on sermon tapes.

You have to get into, they don't do tapes in whatever they do. I don't even know what they do. It's like Joe Biden said recently, listen, have your kids at night, listen to the record player. I understood that.

I understood that a lot of people might not, but I understood it, but you have to get into the word of God yourself. You've got to begin to read because it's the word of God. You see it. You read it. You want it.

You believe it's yours through the sacrifice of the son of God on the cross. And you say, God, I want this. I want to be a person who loves. I want to have meaning in life. I want my life to make a difference.

I want to believe as we sang that I can go in the enemy's camp and take back what's been stolen from me. And suddenly the spirit of God moves in your heart. You feel this surge of faith and confidence that you know is not your own.

And that's God moving again in his new creation, just as he did when creation first happened. And suddenly you begin to hear the voice of God again. Oh Lord, thank you. God almighty. It's occurred to me over the years my words can't do anything, but God's words can create a universe.

Speaking for God in the Present Generation

I'm telling you, when I stand in this public, you don't want to hear from me. And I don't want you to hear from me. You need to hear from God. I need a word from God. Every week at home, I go like this.

So here's the basket. It's empty. And your people are coming and they need a word from you. They don't need to hear from me. I've got nothing to say, but God, what would you have to say to your people that are going to gather in your name?

And there's nothing more beautiful than when your ears begin to open to the word of God. Listen to what David says, King David. He says in verse one of Psalm 29, he says, give unto the Lord. Oh, you mighty ones.

Now God calls you mighty and you don't feel mighty. Remember when he appeared to Gideon, when the messenger appeared to Gideon, he says, greetings, men of man of valor. In other words, he was saying greetings, man of incredible resource.

Gideon says, what were you kidding? You got the right address. Like I'm just threshing wheat in the backyard and trying to hide it from our enemies. And my dad's got an idol in the backyard and my father's house is the smallest house.

And we're the smallest tribe, but I'm the smallest guy. I said, you sure? The greeting was, you're a man of incredible resource because I'm calling you to do something that can only be done by the presence and the spirit of God.

That's why David says, give to the Lord. Oh, you mighty ones give to the Lord, glory and strength. In other words, live in a way that God has brought the glory through you. You can't do this in your own strength and don't try to do it in your own strength.

Don't strategize it. Go into the word of God, go into a place of prayer, let God speak, get up and let God through you begin to do what God's going to do. Give him the glory. That's what David said that's due to his name.

The Voice of the Lord Breaking Strongholds

Then he goes on to talk about the voice of the Lord and verse two, verse three, rather, he says, the voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord is over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful.

The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. In other words, all those places of confusion, everything that has tried to attach itself to you, the voice of God is above it. He's above your self view. He's above the words that others have spoken over you.

He's above the critics that will want to surround you. He's above all of the doomsayers of our present day. The voice of the Lord is above all of that. Give glory to him. Let him speak to your heart again.

The God of glory thunders. The urgency in the heart of God for you and I to begin to hear his voice and to discover what we are called to do as parts of this new creation in Christ Jesus, just as Adam and Eve at one time walked in unison with God in his original creation.

We are called by God to be parts and to walk with him in this new creation. Verse five and six says, the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon. In other words, there are certain things in our lives that seem to be rooted deep.

And one thing about cedars, it seems to last forever. If you're a farmer here, there's not many farmers in New York, but if you were a farmer, I used to be, you put any other kind of post in the ground other than cedar and it will literally rot off and break in probably two, three years or less.

You put cedar in the ground, it seems to last forever. You build a fence with cedar posts and it probably lasts long enough that when your son or daughter takes over your farm, it'll still be there. And that's what he talks about.

That's why he uses this illustration. There are certain things that are just entrenched. They've been there a long time. And you wonder, oh God, this is so part of my character. How's it ever going to change?

But the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars, not just breaks them, he splinters them. He splinters them like just simply dissolves them like fluff on a dandelion. Just blows it away. The things that would try to entrench themselves.

And out of that, he says, he makes them skip like a calf, Lebanon and Syria on like a young wild ox. And he breaks these old strongholds and brings new life. New life. I wish Elder Vicki could testify while she sings because I know her story.

I know what God's done for you. I know he's done for your family. When she's talking about going into the enemy's camp, she knows exactly what she's talking about. The voice of the Lord divides the flames of fire.

Those places that stand before all of us, where there's this prohibitive sign of darkness that says, you can't go through here, you're going to get burned. It's not possible to go through this, but it's the voice of God that opens this window through everything before us that we think is impossible.

Everything that we think we can't do, God says, no, hear my voice and let my spirit lead you. And you watch where I will take you. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forest bear. And here's where it gets interesting to me because as a co-laborer now with Christ called to speak for him, I want you to think about this for a moment.

God’s People as Co-Laborers in the Wilderness

God doesn't need me, but he's chosen to need us, right? I mean, he could have angels floating through the air, preaching the gospel in New York city. He could do it. He could have cats preaching on the street corner.

He could do whatever he wants to do, but he's chosen to speak through us. We are his body on the earth. And he's chosen to call us to speak again to this barren, lifeless wilderness called planet earth or this lifeless barren wilderness called New York city or your block or your workplace or wherever it is you go or whatever country you live in.

And he says, I'm calling you to allow my spirit and my word to speak through you to this barren lifeless world. Your part is to speak and to believe and to move in the Holy ghost. And my part is to cause new birth to come.

My part is to bring new life and strip bear those things that try to hide people from the presence of God. That's the part of God. That's what God will do. Speaking to this world, not about just about God, but God speaking through us.

Amen. I agree with you. Thank God. Bible says, unless you become like a little child, you'll not enter the kingdom of God. That's the only amen I got in that, in that, that thought Acts chapter two, 120 people weak failures.

Pentecost: The Word and Spirit Empowering Witnesses

I'm going to keep saying this till you get it made promises. They couldn't keep talked of a love and loyalty that failed them in the time when Christ needed them the most in a place waiting. They had a word from God.

The word was wait there and what you will be given power. The Holy spirit will come upon you to be given power at the time. So again, we see the word and the spirit moving together. I want you to see this because we're right back to the creation.

Again, there was an old system created. It failed. It died in a sense, sin, sin dominated. It died in Christ. Life came again. The desert began to blossom as the scripture tells us the spirit of God and the word of God began moving together again in unison as it did at the beginning.

And so here they are in this upper room and they're believing the word of God and they're there in obedience to the word of God. And they're believing they're going to give, be given power to be witnesses because they don't have enough power to be witnesses.

And they know it. And suddenly as they prayed the sound of a rushing, mighty wind filled the room and cloven tongues of fire, which is a representative of the presence of God's Holy spirit sat upon each of them.

And these former cowards, these, these, these former people have more or less lived by their own promises, but couldn't keep them said things that, that they were not able to perform. Suddenly by the spirit of God, they step out of that place of hiding in the upper room and they're standing in the open marketplace and enabled by the spirit of God.

And with the word of God, they're speaking about the power of God available to all men, to every man, to every woman. And they're speaking about it with an enablement of God that is obvious because people from other countries are hearing them speak these mysteries in the languages that they know that these Jewish people have never learned.

They understand that. So they not only a declaration, but there's a demonstration in their lives of the power of God at this time, 3000 or more, probably 5 ,000 or more people are coming home from the temple.

They are, they are most likely sincere seekers of God. And so they've, they've gone into the temple and they've, they've read, they probably on, they probably unrolled the scroll of Isaiah and other scriptures.

And they've heard things that are true. It's not like they were getting up and speaking lies that were true, but they were just thoughts about God. And suddenly 5 ,000 people on their way home, having been in a place of hearing thoughts about God are suddenly confronted by 120 people that are speaking for God, or God is speaking through them to a generation.

This is where we need to go again in our generation. Thoughts about God are not going to win the moment as wonderful as thoughts about God are. I'm not downplaying that at all. But what I'm saying is this generation needs to one more time, hear the voice of God through a people who are walking in unison with God and empowered by the spirit of God.

Surrendering Sin and Yielding to God’s Voice

Now it's a, it's a, it's a whole realm of God that you, you can't, you can't get through that door unless you're willing to be the person that God calls you to be. You can't drag a, your wagon of sin is too wide.

It can't fit through. You got to leave it behind you. You understand? You're always the thinking can't go through that door. The proud man can't go through because the door is low and he hits his forehead.

Can't get through. Requires a humility. Say God, I need you. I need your spirit. I need your word to govern me. I need this new life. I need to turn away from sin. I want to glorify your life on you on the earth through my life.

I want you to speak through me to this generation. And when we begin to move in unison with him again, he begins through us to strip away the falseness. He said, he strips the forest bearer. He strips away the false coverings of this world, strips away the, the ideologies that in ourselves, we can be as God is or somehow our speech can create a reality.

What hogwash. And through people who are speaking for God, suddenly the, the forest is stripped bare. You can see all these, these people coming home and many of them have long robes and they've got tassels and they've got things on their forehead and the whole deal.

And it's, it's really sincere in a sense they're seeking of God. And suddenly they just meet 120 ordinary people empowered by God. And you see, that's the only thing that will turn this generation. It's a spirit led, spirit filled, word centered church of Jesus Christ.

Again, speaking what God speaks. And as the scripture says, bringing forth the voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth. Thank God, bringing forth new life and everyone coming together in worship. What did they say?

Glory, glory. Sometimes there's just no other words to save it. Glory. Even if you don't know what it means, even not fully aware of its context, how are you just committed to say, hallelujah. I don't even know why it sounds like, I didn't even know what it meant at the beginning.

Halle means glory. The U in the middle means to yah is God. When you're saying hallelujah, you're saying glory to God. You're coming in and saying all the glory to God, all the honor to God, all that I have, all that I am, all that I ever will be, every victory that's been won, every fire I've walked through, every trial I've been able to endure, every person I've been able to share with, glory to God for his power, his mercy, his strength, and his life.

And there's something about it when you get to know the glory of God, that there's a cry comes into the heart. Oh God, use my life for your glory even more. Use me, oh God, in a deeper way than I've ever known.

Speak through me in a way such as you never have. Let me discover your voice again and let there be no resistance in me. This is the key. This is what I want to close with this thought. Let there be no resistance in me.

Removing Resistance to the Spirit of God

You see in Genesis chapter one, there was nothing there that could resist God. There was nobody in this purposeless world as it was then that had the power to say no. And God knew that when he created man in his image, he was creating something that had the power to say no to him.

When there was no resistance, then suddenly when he said to the seas, this is where your borders are, that's where the borders were. When he told the birds to fly, they just flew. Nobody said, how do we do this?

Are you sure this is going to work? Nobody said anything like that. They just did what they were told to do. When he commanded the sun to shine, it shone. When he commanded light to permeate the darkness, that's what happened.

Everything that God said as the word of God moved in unison with the spirit of God happened. Then humankind comes on the scene, something created in the image of God, which he foreknew. I won't even get into the depth of that, but he foreknew he'd have to die for humankind before he even created Adam and Eve.

Suddenly you have somebody in creation that says no to God and everything that's being created starts going backwards in a sense. The light, the tunnel starts getting dark and it starts getting smaller until we end up in places like we are today with conversations like we have to endure in this present reality.

But in Acts chapter 2, we have a Genesis 1 moment again where you have 120 people. What is the similarity between those two moments? There is no resistance in that room to the word of God and the spirit of God.

Those 120 people stepped out of that room and changed the world. Those 120 people stepped out of that room and brought even Rome to its knees eventually. Those 120 people passed the torch and that's why you and I are here today.

One Surrendered Person Can Change a Community

So when the Lord finds a heart that won't resist him, when he finds a mind that doesn't have to reason absolutely everything out and figure it out before undertaking the journey, when he finds a man or woman he can speak to and his spirit can move upon, there is no limit to what God can do through that life.

We look at our present day and we see the debauchery. We see this procession of evil being called good. We look at the culture in our present country and we realize that as I shared in Washington recently, I said the culture is we're not losing it.

We've lost it. The battle is already lost. Darkness already has our children in its grasp. But all God needs is one person to turn it all around. All God needs in your community is one person. All God needs in your family is one person.

All God needs in your neighborhood is one person. All God needs in your town is one person. You understand? All God needs. All God needs. You say, how do you know that? The book of Ezekiel, the Lord said it had become so corrupt, the society had to judge it.

But I sought for a man that I could give it a moment of pardon and mercy. I sought for a man that I should not have to judge it. Not for a hundred, not for a prayer meeting with a thousand, not for a 10 ,000 gathering in the streets, not for a political petition or not for a court to make a new judgment.

I sought for a man. I sought for one person to stand in the gap. And yes, in your family, you might look and say, God, this place is, this whole family is such a mess. I don't even know what's going to happen.

I fear for the future. God says, I'm looking for one person to stop the judgment. I'm looking for one person in your neighborhood, one person, one person, one person who move in unison with my word and my spirit, one person who still believes that I'm God.

One person. Years ago in the United Kingdom, and it had gotten so dark, the people were fornicating in the streets. People were lying drunk in their vomit in the gutters. The society had degenerated into an almost unthinkable condition.

That's what happens when sin is unchecked. And God found the people he was looking for. I don't need to go into the history, but there weren't many, but he found them and they trusted him and believed him again.

And they stood up and England became a dominant force from that point onward throughout the world and became a mission sending country and enabled the gospel of Jesus Christ to gain root in many places.

It may not have had the Lord not found these people. And so what about you? What about me? We can all have our excuses, right? I can say, well, I'm too old. And the Lord looks back and says, what about Moses?

I'm just a girl. What about Esther? I'm just a teenager. The Lord says, what about David? In other words, it's all there. If you want to see it. Well, I'm so captive. What? And I feel so mediocre in my career.

What could I do? What about the little girl that was in the home of Naaman, the Syrian, the captain of an army who said to her captain, when he got sick, I know where healing is. To see there's so much that God can do through a surrendered vessel.

The Call to Become a Wilderness Shaker

Who's not ashamed and can hear his voice. And so I want to pray today for those who just like me, like me, I want to be a shaker. But the rest of my days, I prayed this prayer recently. I said, God, maybe I've only got 10 strong years left.

Maybe, but I'm asking you to spend wisely what you've deposited in my life. You've been, you've been putting coins in this, in this vessel for, since I was 24 years of age and there's a, there's a buildup.