Book of Psalms - Psa. 13, Vs. 1-6 (04/23/2023) | NOTE: Incomplete recording

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But here's what it actually means. It means to forget, to ignore, or wither.

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Have you ever thought that God was ignoring you? Maybe. I think most of us, we wouldn't allow ourselves to say that.

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We wouldn't say, oh, God's ignoring me. We would probably say more like, well, he's making me wait.

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You know, he's making me wait. Because we've been trained to think that, right? We wonder, though, why isn't

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God just giving us the answer? Why isn't he just bringing us the deliverance that we're asking for?

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David is using a word that literally means, why are you ignoring me?

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Really, there's two pieces to it.

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There's a forgetfulness and an ignoring. But it's not just that David is claiming that God has let him slip his mind.

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It's not like this passive thing. How long will you forget me? Like, oh, you forgot to take out the trash.

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Or you forgot to feed the dog or something. It's not that kind of forgetting where it just slipped your mind.

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That's not what David is saying God has done. You've let me slip your mind. It's more of an active, willful thing.

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Like, you're ignoring me. A ceasing to care, right?

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And if you read through all the definitions, that's one of the last ones there. It could actually mean ceasing to care.

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Which is much more pungent if you think about it. Much more pungent.

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This is way worse if David says, how long are you just not going to care about me?

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Which, if you think about what ignoring really is, what are you doing to someone when you ignore them? You're showing them you don't really care about what they have to say.

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Right? And that's the flavor of this word. How long are you going to ignore me?

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How long are you going to show me that you don't care about me, God? Here's my question. Does God care about his beloved?

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Does God care about the man who he calls a man after his own heart? Yes. A friend of God?

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Of course he cares. But David doesn't feel that right now.

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Right? So my question then is, if God does care about him, why is

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David saying this? Why would he feel like, why would he begin to believe that God is ignoring him?

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That God doesn't care about him? What could cause that? Okay.

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Walk in by sight, not by faith, right? If you walk by sight, then you look at the things that are going on around you, the things that are troubling you, and you say those aren't removed in a loving, caring

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God would probably remove them from me because, I mean, this is terrible. This is absolutely terrible, and God doesn't want me to go through terrible things.

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We can look back on Jeremiah 29 11 and say, I know the thoughts I think toward you, sayeth the

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Lord, thoughts to prosper you, not to harm you, thoughts to give you a hope and a future. Well, if those are your thoughts,

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God, why am I going through this trial? Why are you allowing this to happen?

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How long will you forget me? And then he really throws on some drama. Forever?

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Did you just say 20 minutes, God? Forever? No. Like how long will you forget me?

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Forever? And here's what's interesting. He follows it up with another question. How long will thou hide thy face from me?

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How long will thou hide thy face from me? What does that mean? Any ideas? There's separation there, right?

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Have you ever had a relationship where there was tension, and the other person didn't want to deal with it, so they just avoided you?

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Could be a friend, could be a spouse, could be a loved one, right?

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Where there's tension and the other person avoids it. How does that make you feel?

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Unloved, right? There's this elephant in the room. It's not being addressed.

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Maybe makes you feel unloved, but it also causes you to think like, what can I do? What can I say?

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What can I change? How can I fix it? I mean, this is, I'm speaking from personal experience. I don't know if everybody does that.

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Katie can tell you, I'm like, I have to fix it. I have to fix it now.

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And there are times when that's not the correct response, right? But like, I've just, I got to fix it right now.

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So let's deal with it right now. And I lack patience when dealing with tension, especially when it comes between me and her.

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Like, I do not want to sit here and dwell in this place. I'm going to conquer it, you know?

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And so I like patience and it sometimes gets me in trouble. But like, if you've ever been in a situation where there was tension between you and somebody else and that somebody else avoided you, it would cause you to just kind of think through like, you might play your last conversation through your head.

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What David's doing here is he's feeling ignored, but he's also in a sense feeling avoided by God.

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But not really like there's, there's a recurring theme in scripture where God hides his face.

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Does anybody know what, what usually is happening when God hides his face from his people? Usually it's a chastisement of some sort, right?

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And we see that there are times when God doesn't hide his face or he promises that he won't hide his face.

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If you read in Ezekiel, I think it's chapter 38 or 39, you read about the, the future battle still hasn't occurred yet of Gog and Magog where they, we believe maybe

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Russia that turns towards Israel and decides to come up against Israel. And there's some really interesting things in there where it indicates there may even be like nuclear warfare and stuff.

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There's, there's some, some clues in there that make it sound like nuclear warfare.

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It's really interesting things. But God talks about how he, his people, he will cause them to remember him and he will no longer hide his face from them.

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You say, well, he has hidden his face from them as a punishment, right?

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So David here has, has changed his complaint in a sense he's gone from how long will you not care about me to how long will you chastise me?

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Do you see the difference? Now, if you just read through this quickly, it sounds like God's doing both.

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But I think what you'll find is David is actually wrestling with his thoughts and he's changing his complaint.

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Why do I think that? Well, I first thought that because Charles Spurgeon thought that, and I read his commentary.

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If I'm honestly, that's the thought first occurred to me after reading Charles, some of Charles Spurgeon's commentary on this.

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But when I began to read through the chapter some more, I start to go, okay, now this does make some sense because look at what, what the next verse says.

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How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?

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Any ideas of what that means? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?

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Okay. So he's certainly, he's certainly experiencing a wrestling of thoughts, right?

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But that is also resulting in the same outcome. Every time sorrow,

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I'm having sorrow in my heart daily. Let's imagine that you are in a relationship with somebody, right?

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Maybe it's, let's just say it's a spouse or a boyfriend or a girlfriend or something like that. And maybe you text them or you call and there is no response.

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And that's unusual. And the lack of response lasts longer than what would normally be the case.

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Like if they were just busy or something, what might start happening in your mind?

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Interesting, right? Anybody else feel the same way? Like if, if you've got a loved one, a spouse or a, or a boyfriend or a girlfriend or something where you text them zero response and you wait for a while, maybe, maybe they're busy talking with somebody else, 30 minutes, an hour, right?

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Something goes by nothing. That's when you send the little question emoji to your own text, right?

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Like, did you, did you see what I put and put the little point of the finger up? Like, Hey, did you see this?

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Still nothing. Okay.

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Okay. So it could be that, right? Maybe it's a man. Something has happened to them.

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This is unusual, but you begin to worry for their own safety, right? So that could start a whole thing in your brain where you start wrestling with your own thoughts.

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Oh, what has happened? Where was, where was Katie last? You know, who was she talking with last? I need to call whoever's seen her, make sure she's okay.

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Where'd she go? Who'd she take with her? That kind of stuff, right? But what if you knew for a fact they were safe?

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What if you knew for a fact they were okay? You still weren't getting a response.

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Then where would your mind go? Okay. Would anybody else start to go?

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Okay. They're fine. I don't need to worry about their safety. So what's wrong between me and the person?

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Might your mind go there? The reason is insecurity, right?

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I mean, maybe nothing happened, but there's insecurity there. David is experiencing insecurity.

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And it's a little wonder, right? In these previous chapters we've read,

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David has called God his buckler, which means shield, right? And the lifter up of his head.

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So here's David feeling ignored by God, maybe even avoided by God.

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And there's a lot of insecurity there. Well, that would be the closest thing that might make us feel like, okay, this could be a result of sin.

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Some people, they read into this, they go, okay, these insecurities prove that this was written after David's big sin.

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So this would have to be like when he's running from his son, Absalom, as opposed to running from Saul. I still believe that would just be conjecture because you could go through some of these same thoughts in whatever trials that you go through.

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That could happen even if you are blameless in the trial that you're enduring. You could go, well, why isn't

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God delivering me, right? Is there something wrong? You could still have some insecurities there, but that ultimately is because we are not perfect, right?

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Our lives have been touched by sin. And until God has changed us in the air, we may still experience some levels of insecurity.

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So David is sitting here feeling insecure and wrestling with his thoughts.

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God's ignoring me. Is he mad at me? Is he avoiding me? Right. And that causes him to have sorrow.

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This is a torturous experience. Literally torturous. In fact, if you begin to word study that phrase, how long shall

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I take counsel in my soul? You'll begin to see that there's a feeling of anxiety in there, right?

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It's dubious activity of the character, dubious. Dubious is used multiple times when trying to describe the word that's used in this, in my soul.

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So lots of insecurity. So how does he get to the point where boom, all of a sudden, I'm good.

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Well, believe it or not, that transition has already started to take place.

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Even while he's saying this. Anybody have an idea of how?

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How has the transition already started to take place? David has already done something that has caused him to begin this transition from a place of sadness to a place of gladness.

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Okay. He's definitely thinking about the relationship, right? Something's happening where he's thinking about the relationship.

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But the very first thing he did was he changed that question. See, the first question is, how long will you forget me?

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Forever? How many of us know that that's not the reality between God and David?

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That's not the reality. So his first question is all about how David perceives his relationship with God.

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You see, right now, it's like, it feels like God completely forgot me. But he quickly goes, all right, that's perception.

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What's the reality? And he changes it. How long will you chastise me?

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Isn't that different than being forgotten? Because God, yeah, if you're chastised by God, if he turns his face from you, if that's the thought there anyway, is that God turns his face from his people, that, in a sense, is out of love.

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Right? Like, you're sinning. You must be chastised. Like, I've got to bring you back into relationship with me.

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You're going to feel like, you're going to feel the pain of not being connected to me.

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Things are not going to go well with you. That's the whole point of, like, I set before you a choice this day, right?

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You can go with sin and death and destruction and poverty and being enslaved.

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Right? Or you can go with life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

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Right? Like, you can go with all this other stuff. But there's this choice, right?

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And if you make the wrong choice, you're going to feel the pain. Because when my face is turned away from you, there is no hope in your situation.

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So what David has done is he's gone from a truly hopeless thought, which is forgotten by God.

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That is hopeless. Because if you are truly forgotten, then there is no hope.

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If you did slip God's mind, which is impossible for his people, but if that were the case, you'll never make it.

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Yeah. In Romans, when it talks about God giving people over to a reprobate mind, that has an indication not just from giving them over to their own lusts and stuff, but also that he puts you out of his mind.

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So that's for people who are not God's people. You see, that's for people who are going to go down that road of sin and destruction to its nth degree.

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They don't glory. They don't give God the glory. They're not thankful. They don't honor God as God.

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And they go down this path and God ultimately delivers them over to that.

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It indicates that he also puts them out of his mind. That's hopelessness. That's a true forgotten -ness.

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And David is experiencing what those people would experience or what those people should experience.

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He thinks, he's going, they should be in utter torture because God has forgotten them.

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But I feel like I'm being tortured right now. So has he forgotten me? Well, he moves from that place to, no, he hasn't forgotten me.

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He has turned his face from me, perhaps. Do you have something to add there? I can relate to this.

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I mean, I didn't have people out trying to kill me. But when the situation gets to a point where you feel like you've been forgotten, you feel like God's not answering your prayers.

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I tend to, I think what happens here is you have to turn from situational thinking to salvation thinking.

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Going from, this might be my situation now, but I'm a child of God.

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There is hope in my salvation. The situation where I am might be bad, but I'm still a child of God.

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I think going from situational thinking to eternal thinking is the key.

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So mom, mom, for those of y 'all listening online, she said we may, it may be that David goes from thinking about the situation to thinking about his salvation, right?

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Thinking about eternity, like the situation may be terrible, but I know I'm still a child of God.

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So it can't be forever. And therein does lie the key. Because think about this.

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What is David saying over and over again? How long? How long? How long?

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How long? Well, if it's how long, the very first thought, how long?

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Forever? He doesn't say forever after that. He goes, how long? How long? How long?

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Without saying forever after that. So at first it's like, oh, hopelessness. How long will thou forget me forever?

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How long will thou hide thy face from me? Right? How long will thou hide thy face from me?

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How long shall I take counsel in my soul? How long am I going to have to wrestle with these thoughts? How long am

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I going to have to feel the sorrow? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

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So David has asked four different how longs. The first one, this is how it seems.

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The second one, this is probably more like reality. The third one, this is what it does to me.

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It's torturous. And the fourth one, here's what it does to my enemies. My enemies feel exalted when

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I feel separated from God. Right?

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If I'm not one with God, my enemies are winning.

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They're exalted. So David has gone from a place of hopelessness to a place of there's a problem, but can that problem be fixed?

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Being forgotten by God, that can't be fixed. Truly forgotten.

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Right? Which I think is why it's kind of interesting that even in his first question, there's this flavor of maybe ignored.

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Right? A willful ignoring is different than a slipping of the mind. Right? So David, even in his first question, there's a kernel of truth in there that God, there's something wrong with my relationship between me and God, and he's not really gonna forget me.

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Sure feels that way. So maybe there's something I can do to fix it. So then we see

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David begin to try and fix it. In verse three, Consider and hear me,

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O Lord, my God. Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. The word consider here means to almost like pay attention, like turn face me like it's here.

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I'll give you the exact definition. I had it in my notes and effort. It means to look or regard.

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And think about this. If God's going to look on you, where's his face going to be turned?

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Towards you, right? So he's literally asking God to fix the relationship between him and God, right?

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He's saying, look on me and also hear me. Don't ignore me.

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Don't turn your face away from me. He's going to, in a sense, nag the

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Lord, which we have other scripture that talks about being the woman that constantly knocks on the door until the master just can't stand it anymore.

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And he gets up and goes and answers the door. Her persistence was rewarded, right?

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And David is like, look at me, hear me. That's a pretty bold statement.

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If you think about it, how many people in this world would look at any false

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God and go, I'm going to tell him what to do. Now, this isn't necessarily like a command, but it's certainly a plea, but a declarative statement for sure.

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God, look at me, listen, hear me. Kids will do that with their parents sometimes.

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They are so secure. If they've got a good relationship with their parents, they're so secure that they will sometimes forget to say please and thank you, right?

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But it's just like, I can just ask mommy for something. Or tell mommy. I can just tell daddy.

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And they almost forget a sense of manners in the process.

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David isn't worried about manners. He is so worried about, let's get this fixed. Let's do it now.

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God, pay attention, listen, help me, right? And then he starts to give reasons.

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He's like, lighten my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death because if you don't do this,

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I'm gonna die. He's pretty dramatic. I'm gonna die.

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That sounds like the kids in the car, doesn't it, babe? If we don't pull over, I'm starving. I'm starving.

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But it's interesting too because he knows that his enemies are also God's enemies.

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He's done this before, right? Where he brings the fight to God and he says, they're gonna think that you don't love me, right?

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Here he says in verse four, lest mine enemies say that I have prevailed against him and those that trouble me rejoice when

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I am removed. Or when I am moved. So in other words, if you don't help me, they're gonna think they're stronger.

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They're gonna think they're better. They're gonna think they won. You don't want that, God. You don't want the enemy to think that he's won.

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You wanna win this too. I know you do. So then he goes to verse five, but I have trusted in thy mercy.

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My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. There's that salvation thinking, right? He's like, okay.

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Because of who I am in God, I receive this thing that no one else receives, mercy.

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I'm God's kid. I get mercy. And when do you need mercy, by the way?

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All the time, but like, when you're in trouble, right? So pops in trouble all the time.

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That's what that means. So you need mercy when you've done something wrong, right?

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So he's trusting in mercy, right? You need mercy when you've done something wrong and you're in trouble.

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So he starts there. He's like, okay, I'm feeling this way. God's turned his face away from me because of something

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I've done. I'm gonna trust that he's gonna give me mercy. And the reason he's gonna give me mercy is because of who

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I am. I shall rejoice in thy salvation. God has already saved me.

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I am his. And think about this. Like even if David dies in battle, even if he's caught by Saul and killed, right?

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If Goliath squashes him, if he pursues the

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Amalekites and he fails, he's still

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God's man. He still got a relationship with God.

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Salvation is still on the table for him, but he doesn't just go headlong into battle.

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He usually consults the Lord first. And that's what he does with the Amalekites, right? He asks, hey, should I pursue?

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And if I pursue, can I win? And he's ultimately told, yes, pursue, and you will recover all.

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And if you read the rest of the story, not only does he pursue the bad guys, he does not quit when half of his army can't make it across the river because they're too tired.

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So he leaves them and says, all right, let's keep going. I'm still gonna pursue him because God said I should, and I could, and I would, and I will, and I'll win.

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So I'm going. So he, in faith, continues forward, continues the fight, and he ultimately recovers everything plus some.

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And it's because of who he is and the fact that God deals mercifully with him. So even before David is able to get up and continue the fight, he's able to begin this process of shifting his mindset from despair to hope.

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He's able to go from crying to rejoicing. And last verse here says,

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I will sing unto the Lord because he hath dealt bountifully with me. If you feel like you're forgotten by God, you certainly don't feel like God has dealt bountifully with you.

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So David has changed his mind about his situation. It started by looking at the situation for what it seemed.

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Seems like I'm forgotten by God. And you ask yourself, what's the reality?

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That's a good thing to ask, regardless of what the situation is. All right, I can tell what it seems.

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Let's look at what's actually occurring. What's the reality?

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Okay. Why do you chastise me? Why do you turn your face from me?

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God certainly has done that with his people in the past, right? And they have experienced a lack of God's presence, which was often indicated by the ark, right?

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Like the ark represented the presence of the Lord. And if the ark was stolen, then they no longer had the presence of God with them, is how they viewed it.

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So if there was a lack of God's presence, it often was due to sin in the camp.

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Okay, now that's something we can deal with. We can't deal with God forgetting us. That's hopelessness. But if there's sin in the camp and we are experiencing a lack of relationship with the

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Lord as a result, can we deal with sin? Yes. How do we do that? Well, we cry out to God and say, help us deal with this sin.

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And then we actually begin to take steps to deal with the sin here. Believing something false about God, is that a sin?

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What do you guys think? Something that you know to be false about God. If you choose to continue to believe it, are you sinning?

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Yeah. Okay. So if David decides

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I'm forgotten by God and he continues with that thought, he will continue to sin.

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Right? So he does his part. He begins to change his thinking. See, David encourages himself in the

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Lord often. He goes, all right, based on who God is and who I am, what should the reality be?

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Because it's not what I perceive. I perceive that God has forgotten me.

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That can't be right. Because I'm God's child. So I am not going to allow myself to think that anymore.

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He may have turned his face from me. Who knows? Maybe because I was sitting there believing something wrong about him.

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Right? So God turns his face from me. What can I do to get him to turn it back?

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I'm going to change the way I think and I'm going to change the way I talk and I'm going to change who I'm talking to.

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So self, David says this in other chapters, he has a self -talk.

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Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? He begins to talk to himself and he'll often start with that self -talk and turn it into talking with God.

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And so he encourages himself. He goes, that's not reality. God doesn't do that.

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That's not my relationship. Here's my relationship. I mess up, but God is merciful.

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He's merciful to me because I am his, because I have salvation. So I need to get right with him and I need to ask him to turn his face to me and hear me and things will get better.

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And sure enough, he begins to get to a place where he's able to sing into the

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Lord because he knows God has dealt bountifully with him. Just about out of time here.

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But I have one other thought that I wanted to share. Let's see if I have it in my notes here.

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He was sharing his joys in his salvation.

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Okay. So here's my other thought. If you're looking at a situation and you go,

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God is mad at me. Maybe God has even turned his face from me. I want you to realize something has changed since the cross.

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God now pours his spirit onto his people and puts his spirit into his people and there's an indwelling of the

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Holy Spirit. What did he say? I will never what? Leave you nor forsake you.

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So if you begin to think, God has left me. God has forsaken me. God doesn't love me.

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And you might even recognize it's because of sin in your life. You know,

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I have sinned. I made him mad. I took it too far. I didn't repent. Now I'm being chastised.

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But maybe it's not just chastisement. Maybe he doesn't really love me in the first place. Maybe it's like, maybe it's like,

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I'm not really one of his. Right? If you've ever dealt with something like that, that's, that's what

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Satan uses sin to do. He'll say, do it, do it, do it.

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And as soon as you do it, he'll go, what kind of Christian do you think you are? You know, you really think you're a

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Christian? Look what you just did. Do it, do it, do it. Oh, I would have done that.

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Shame on you. Call yourself a Christian. If you start thinking that, that's how you perceive your situation.

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You got to remind yourself. He will never leave you nor forsake you.

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Right? And so maybe I'm not right with God, but I have the ability to get right with God.

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If I confess my sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us. My sins, right?

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I said that wrong. It's right, but it's wrong because it put my in us. You guys don't need to be forgiven for my sins, but if we forget, confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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And if we will do what David does, if we will first look at the situation and say, yuck, this seems terrible.

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And just ask ourselves this question. Is it true though? Is what I think happening actually happening?

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What's the reality of my relationship with God? How do I encourage myself in the

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Lord? Well, first I'm going to have to know the Lord. Second, I'm going to have to know, like, how does the

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Lord view me? And third, I'm going to have to know, like, what does the Lord tell me to do?

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The only way I'm going to know those things is if I get into his word. Right? So I've got to have a relationship with him and then

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I got to be in his word. And the more I'm in his word, the more I'll know about him, the more I'll know how he views me and how that relationship is supposed to work.

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And then I can look and see what the reality is. I'll close with this last, last thought.

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Counterfeiters. They create, uh, money. They can look very realistic.

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Right? And there are people who are trained to spot counterfeits.

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Guess how they train to spot counterfeits. They only study the real thing.

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They don't study the counterfeits. They only study the real thing.

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And that way, when they get a counterfeit, they may not even know why it's counterfeit, but by the way, it looks the way it feels, the way it smells.

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Something's not right. This one's not real. So get to know the relationship.

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God wants you to have the reality of that. Know what, what, who God really is, how he operates, how he sees you and how he tells you to operate.

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And once you know the truth, the truth shall set you free. Right? Once you know the truth of what it really is supposed to look like, then when you have a situation where you start to go, oh, did

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God forget about me? You'll go, no, that's counterfeit. That thought didn't come from God. That came from Satan.

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That's not right. I need to change my question. And that will begin to shift your thinking from a distraction.

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And what isn't the problem to what actually is. And then you can begin to get on that road from despair to gladness, sadness, to gladness.

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If you want to be all right, I mean, okay. Any last thoughts before we pray?

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What's that? I'm thinking that. God's love just is.

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It just is. It's not always something that he. I mean, we look around.

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We look around in this creation. And we can remember things that have the

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God has provided for us, but it's not like he's always. It's always there.

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We see him as humans. We relate love to spending time with someone.

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That's how we relate to them. And so we don't do that. And we are busy with other things.

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And we don't do that. And then. Not hugging that person, right?

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So I'll, I'll share that real quick. So those online can hear basically when we think that God.

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Has removed his presence from our lives. We might want to rather think of ourselves and go, am

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I pursuing the presence of God? Right. Because he's there. But if I don't give him my attention,

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I might start to feel forgotten by him, but really that's not the case. Right? Usually the problem lies with us.

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That's true. All right, let's pray. Heavenly father. Thank you for this day and for your word.

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Thank you that you do love us and you'll never leave us. You'll never forsake us. Thank you that you give us the ability to think.

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Help us to think more strategically about our relationship with you. Help us to really compare what we think is happening with what you say is actually happening.

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And help us to study the truth so that we'll know when there's a lie. Because the truth always chases the lies away.

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So help us to understand that and help us to pursue a better relationship with you. Because ultimately that's where our joy resides or we love you.

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We thank you. It's in Jesus name. We ask these things. Amen. You're welcome.

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How are you? How are you? I'm good.

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How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good.

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How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good.

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How are you? I'm good. How are you? How are you?

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I'm good. I'm good. How are you?

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I'm good. How are you?

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I'm good. How are you? I'm good. How are you? How are you? How are you? How are you? I'm good.

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How are you? How are you? Yeah That's a good angle

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Okay Yeah, you have a little bit you can turn you can turn that that direction some

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Okay, you're in it I think that's got everybody

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Davo dave For me