Honest People Pray Honest Prayers — Carter Conlon

Honest Prayer and Psalm 22

I want to share with you this morning from Psalm 22. So if you have your Bible with you or any device, Psalm 22. And I've entitled this sharing today, Honest People Pray Honest Prayers. Honest People Pray Honest Prayers.

So Father, thank you, God, for the touch of heaven in this service, Lord. We are just refreshed even during the worship, God. We could go home right now and we'd be fully satisfied, Lord. We've been in your presence.

You have literally poured life into each of our hearts and into our minds, God. And now you're going to pour your word into us. And I do ask in Jesus' name. God, your word tells us that you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

So God, wherever there still needs to be freedom, when it comes to approaching you, when it comes to speaking with you in prayer, when it comes to things that maybe we don't yet fully understand. Would you just reveal something to each of us through your word today that helps us on our journey in the days ahead and delivers us from condemnation.

And all of the things that this world and darkness would bring against us to try to stop us as the people of God from achieving everything you've given our lives to be and to do. I thank you, Lord God.

You're going to answer someone's deep questions today, Father. And I do praise you, God, for the anointing of your Holy Spirit on my life, on this physical body. We just stand here for one reason alone, that you be glorified and that your church be edified.

And we thank you for it in Jesus' name. Psalm 22, a Psalm of David. We don't know exactly the point in his life when he wrote this, but we do know from reading it, it was at a time when he literally felt forsaken by God.

He felt like he was doing his part and God was not doing his part. Have you ever been there? Have you ever felt like that? Is there any honest people here today? All right, praise God. I've been there.

I know what that feels like. I know what it's like to feel exactly what David felt. Let's start in verse 1. Now, this is a Psalm. This is meant as an actual worship song. Can you imagine singing this thing in church this morning?

But here it is. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me? And from the words of my groaning, oh God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not hear. And in the night season, I'm not silent.

But you are holy and thrown in the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in you, they trusted, and you delivered them. They cried to you and were delivered. They trusted in you and were not ashamed. That means they were not triumphed over.

But David is saying, they trusted and you delivered them, so why are you not delivering me? That's the context of it. But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men, despised by the people. All those who see me ridicule me.

They shoot out the lip. They shake the head saying, he trusted in the Lord, let him rescue him. Let him deliver him since he delights in him. But you are he who took me out of the womb. You made me trust while on my mother's breasts.

I was cast upon you from birth, from my mother's womb. You have been my God. Be not far from me for trouble is near and there's none to help. Many bulls have surrounded me, strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.

They gape at me with their mouths like a raging and roaring lion. I'm poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue clings to my jaws.

You have brought me to the dust of death. I'm just gonna stop there. So this is a season in the life of David where this whole, the first 15 verses, and maybe a little bit more, is strictly an accusation against the faithfulness of God.

You would think that God would be offended by such a prayer or such a song. You imagine starting the service this morning singing this thing. You know, we're gonna start the service today with an accusatory song against the faithfulness of God.

Why have you forsaken me? So there's an inference like he's actually challenging the faithfulness of God. He's in a place of despair and says, God, you made promises to me that you're not keeping. You know, I've called out to you.

You promised that you would always be there. You said you'd never leave. You said you'd never forsake me. I knew you as a child or a youth, David could say. I knew when I called out to you that the power of your Holy Spirit came on me, and I was able to do amazing things.

But here I am now, you needed me in a sense to defeat Goliath, and you needed me to fight the lion and the bear, and now I need you. And so where are you? Why do you withhold your hand of power from me?

I'm doing my part. I cry in the daytime, he says in verse 2. But you don't hear. So there's a third accusation. You've forsaken me. You're not helping me. You don't hear me. I'm doing my part, David says, but you're not doing yours.

Now, he goes on and says, our fathers trusted in you. Others have, in other words, and you delivered them. They cried to you, and they were delivered. They trusted in you, and they were not ashamed or triumphed over.

In other words, David is saying, you've been faithful to others. Why are you not being faithful to me? You took me, in verse 9, he said, out of the womb, and you made me trust as a child. In other words, I have loved you, and I have believed you since I was young, since I was a child.

I was cast upon you from birth from my mother's womb. You've been my God, and trouble is near, and there's no one to help. I'm poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. It's just like I'm coming apart, basically, is what he's saying.

My heart is melted like wax. I have no more courage. I don't know how to stand against what's up against me, and I don't know where to find the strength. My courage is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue clings to my jaws.

I have nothing left to answer my enemies. And then he finishes it off in verse 15 with one final accusation. You have brought me to the dust of death. In other words, he's saying, God, you are responsible for this.

I trusted you. I called out to you. You didn't deliver me the way you've delivered others. Has my confidence in you been in vain? I've trusted you since I was a child, but you've responded, in a sense, to my cry to you with silence, and you have brought me to the place where I'm going to die.

That's what he felt like. I'm at the place where my strength is gone. My heart is melted. I'm completely undone, and I don't know what to do. And his final accusation is, it's your fault. You brought me to this place.

Why have you forsaken me? Now, keep in mind, David, King David, is a Christ type in the Bible, and he is spoken about as a man after God's heart. It's amazing. You and I would think that God would be offended by such a prayer, don't you?

I mean, you go into your prayer closet and pray a prayer like that, you would honestly think that God's going to strike me dead praying that way. I mean, how do you pray like this and accuse God of being unfaithful, and yet, how do you get away with it?

Biblical Leaders Who Prayed Honestly

But he's not the only one that ever prayed that way in the scriptures. You don't have to turn there, but I'll just read it to you. Moses, in Exodus chapter 5, when he was, after 40 years in the wilderness, Moses is sent back to deliver the people of God out of the captivity of Egypt.

And, of course, when he first stood before Pharaoh, and I guess he had something in his head about how this is going to go. We all do, right? We all get this. We all craft this view of what our life is going to look like and how God is going to respond.

And so, he stands before Pharaoh as he's told to do and says, thus saith the Lord, with all the courage you can muster, let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness. The end result is the people are given more to do, their taskmasters are set over them, they're not given straw to make their bricks, and they come to Moses, the people, and they say, you have come and you said God's going to deliver us, but since you've come, things have just gotten worse.

And you put a sword literally into the hands of our oppressors to take our lives. So, Moses, in chapter 5 of Exodus, in verses 22 and 23, returned to the Lord and said, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people?

Why is it that you have sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to the people, neither have you delivered your people at all. Now, this is Moses. We know Moses as the great deliverer, but he comes back to God.

And I can honestly see, it's not stated clearly in the scriptures, but in my heart, I can see this. Moses is saying, oh, I remember this. We did this 40 years ago. You told me that my life was going to be used to deliver your people out of captivity.

And when I set my hand to do it, the end result is that I had to flee into the wilderness where I've lost everything. Even my ability to speak is gone. I was an eloquent speaker. Now, I can hardly put two words together.

You sent me back here one more time, and here we are again, Lord, 40 years later. No different than it was the first time. Why have you sent me here? It's you who's brought trouble on the people, and you've not delivered your people at all.

I obeyed you, and you have done nothing. And you think about, in case you think it was just Moses, Joshua, who was Moses' successor, when they went into the Promised Land, there was a little town called Ai, and they went up against this town, and they ended up having to flee, and ended up suffering defeat.

And in Joshua chapter 7, verses 7 to 9, Joshua said, Alas, Lord God, why have you brought this people over Jordan at all? Why did you even do this? To deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us?

Oh, that we had been content and dwelled on the other side of Jordan. It doesn't really sound like Joshua, the Joshua we know. Did you bring us here to destroy us? Why did you send us across the Jordan in the first place?

Oh God, I wish we had just stayed where we were and not trusted you. That's really what he's saying. I wish we hadn't trusted you and come over this river just so that you could allow us to be defeated before our enemies.

And he goes on and says, Oh Lord, what shall I say when Israel turns its back before its enemies? For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear it and surround us and cut off our name from the earth.

Then what will you do for your great name? In other words, you're doing nothing. We've done it right as far as I know and we've come into the promised land and you've allowed us to be defeated by this little wee city.

And the kings around us are gonna hear about it. And you said you were sending us in here to glorify your name. But if you're not gonna walk with us, if you're not gonna give us the victory, then once we're defeated, what are you gonna do then for the great?

It was really an accusing prayer that Joshua prayed before the Lord God himself. And who can forget Jeremiah? Jeremiah chapter 20. I love this one. I love the original King James when Jeremiah says in chapter 20 verse 7.

Oh Lord, you deceived me. And I was, in other words, I had a vision. I'm gonna stand up and I'm gonna say, thus says the Lord. And something's gonna happen. The earth's gonna tremble and people are gonna fall.

They're all gonna repent. And Jeremiah finds out the people are resistant. They don't really care what he's talking about. It's not producing the change that he thought it was gonna produce. And he says, oh Lord, you deceived me.

That's the original King James and I was deceived. No, Jeremiah deceived himself. God never deceived him. But nevertheless, that's his prayer, as misguided as it was. He says, you are stronger than I am and you've prevailed.

I'm in derision daily. Everyone mocks me. In other words, he didn't think that was what his ministry was gonna produce. You know, sometimes we get into ministry. A lot of young folks are heading out of this Bible college soon and you have a picture.

You try not to have it, but you already have it. And when it doesn't turn out, you end up in this argument with God. You know, he didn't anticipate that everyone was gonna mock him. He thought, surely somebody's gonna know that God has sent me.

For when I spoke, I cried out, I shouted violence and plunder because the word of the Lord was made to me, a reproach and a derision daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of him nor speak anymore in his name.

In other words, I'm done, Jeremiah said, talking about you. I'm done speaking for you. You gave me a word. You gave me a picture that he thought, in my mind, it hasn't happened. So you're on your own, God.

I'm out. I'm not speaking for you anymore. Now, we all know that Jeremiah was the man that the Bible tells us, the word of God was like a fire shut up in his bones. And even though he tried to hold it in, he couldn't hold it in.

And then who can forget Jonah, the great missionary sent with one of the great revivals in the history of the world, a whole city so evil. They don't even know their left hand from their right. They have absolutely zero spiritual knowledge.

They are the avowed enemies of God and God's people. And Jonah went, and his message was not even a message of mercy. His message was a message of judgment. He didn't offer any mercy. He just said, 40 days, 40 days, the fire of God's coming down.

You're all gonna die. That was his message. And he walked through the city. It was quite a lengthy journey. Then he waited on a hilltop to see what was gonna happen. At the end of 40 days, nothing happened except for the mercy of God.

And God comes to Jonah, and he says, is it right for you to be angry, Jonah? And Jonah said, it is right for me to be angry, even unto death. I am so mad, I'd rather be dead than talking to you right now.

I'm so upset at your mercy. And you even took away the plant. Like, you gave me a plant to at least give me some shade, and the plant died. And he was so mad at everything around him. And earlier on in the scriptures, he said, I knew you were going to do this.

That's why I didn't want to go. I knew that they would, our enemies who have caused us immeasurable pain, would humble themselves and put on sackcloth. And I knew you, I know you, you would forgive them.

And so I'm just really mad. These people don't deserve forgiveness. And so God says, is it right for you to be angry? And Jonah said, yes, go ahead and kill me. I don't care. You know, I've been there.

You know, and when I was, when I went into ministry at the beginning of my days, I, we, Pastor Therese and I, we, we gave everything for God. I gave up my career. I gave up my security as this world sees it.

I, I gave up, we gave up everything. We opened our home. We did all of these things. And at the, and I started traveling east to west and north to south. I was up on Indian reserves. I was up speaking to Eskimos.

I was, I was in prisons. I was everywhere preaching the gospel. Of Jesus Christ and lost my strength at the age of 37. I came home from speaking in Saskatchewan, Canada, and this strange feeling on me.

I didn't know what it was. And I played on a community hockey team back then. And I went out to play hockey. And, and I remember I, I skated my first shift. And I, I came back to the bench and I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't catch my breath. And I thought, well, that's strange. I went out and skated another shift and came back and I couldn't, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't recuperate. I had no idea that I'd suffered a physical breakdown in my service to God.

And it took six months to recover. Six months of, of headaches so bad that after I would, I could hardly raise my voice in the pulpit. And if I, if I did raise my voice, I'd have to go home and take so many Tylenol and lay down to try to get rid of the, the pounding headache.

Six months of, of, of recovering. And one day I, in, in absolute exasperation, I, I went out on a gravel road near our home at that time. And I, I literally shook my fist at God. I was so mad. And here's my prayer.

I said, is there something, is there some crooked side to you that I'm unaware of? Do you get delight in doing this to your servants? I gave you my family. I gave you my future. I gave you my job. I gave you my home.

And I gave you all that I have, all the energy that's in my body. And you respond, you respond by taking away my strength. Is there something about you that I don't know? That was my prayer. And I said, if this, I remember saying, if this is the way you treat your friends, I'd sure hate to be one of your enemies.

I was so mad that day that if God had said, I'm going to turn you into a pile of dust, I would have said, go right ahead and do it. I was absolutely furious. But his response to me took me unawares. I was expecting a response in kind when I prayed that way before God, but his response to me was, I love you.

And it literally melted my heart. I never expected God to speak that way to me when I was speaking the way I was to him. And the immediate response in my heart was, God, what would you, what do you want me to do?

And he said to me, I just want you to do what I've asked you to do. You've traveled all over the country, and you've done a lot of things that I've never asked you to do. And he said, quite frankly, there'll be no reward for any of it when you stand before me one day.

I don't reward what I don't initiate. I gave you that church in the wilderness, and I gave you the list of people that are on that membership role, and I want you to seek me on their behalf. I want you to dedicate their children.

I want you to counsel them and marry them when they get of marriable age, and I want you to bury their dead and get them into heaven. And he showed me something. He said, when you stand before me one day, I'll not ask you about the crusades you did in the Arctic and all these other things, but I will unfold the list of names that I gave you to protect and to guide and ask you to give account for them.

And it changed from a place of anger on the road. I had no idea that God was leading me into an understanding of the new covenant. We don't go easily into where we need to go. None of us do. We, we, some, there are some things in our lives that he just, he leads me beside the still waters, and there's other places where he's got to put, as James said, a bitten bridle in our mouth, as with a stubborn horse, and he's got to pull us into that place.

And I was stubborn, and that was a place he, he pulled me into, and this was only a few years before coming to New York City, that he had to give me an understanding of grace and of mercy and of, that the, the eternal reward that he gives to us is not based on the things that we do for him.

It's based on obedience to what he's called us to do and giving our whole heart just to the work of God, whether it's raising a family, whether it's being an honest employee, whatever it is that he's given us to do, that we just simply do that with all of our heart.

When we go back and we think about these heroes in the Bible, we see David as the, the conquering king and the sweet psalmist of Israel. I find it ironic he's called a sweet psalmist with Psalm 22 being one of his psalms.

Moses is known as the victorious warrior who took the people of God out of captivity and brought them into the promised land. Joshua is known and remembered as the one who went in and, and conquered the promised land and divided it among the people of God and encouraged the next generation.

Jeremiah, of course, is known as the prophet who had the fire of God. God didn't take the fire, he didn't take the fire of his presence from Jeremiah. He actually turned up the heat when Jeremiah said, I'm not speaking on your behalf any longer.

I'm done. I don't get you. I don't understand you, so I'm not speaking. And God responds by just reaching down and turning up the dial a little bit and causing the heat to rise until either he speaks or he explodes.

Something's got to happen. And of course, we remember Jonah as not as the guy who was sitting on a hilltop saying, kill me. Go ahead, kill me. I don't care. We remember him as the great revivalist who went into a town, of course, he, he came out of a whale.

He was, I often, when I go to the, over to the UK, I said Jonah was the first evangelist from Wales. But anyways, Jonah went in and he preached for the short season he did and is known as a great revivalist that brought the presence of God.

Honesty Before God

Psalm 142 verse 2, the psalmist says, I pour out my complaint before him and I declare before him my trouble. See here's the point. Here's the point. Here's, here's the summation of everything I've said so far.

God is not offended by honesty in our prayers. He is offended, however, by pretentiousness. That means fakery in our prayers. You think in Luke chapter 11 verse 8, the Pharisees stood, he uses them as a bad example and the Pharisees stood up in a prayer meeting one day and he said, oh God, I thank you that I'm not like other men are.

He's offended when we pretend to be something we're not. He's offended when we come to him with a dishonest heart. You know, a lot of people pray and you're going through all these struggles and trials and difficulties and questions, then you go to prayer and you feel like you've got to kind of sanctify the whole thing and make it look before God like you're trusting him with all your heart when you're not.

He's not offended by honesty and I've learned that over the years. If you're bummed out, say so. If you're having struggles, say so. Don't pretend you're something you're not. Don't pretend you have a victory you don't have.

That's the one thing that offends God. Be honest with God. It's the honest person who gets the victory. In chapter 20 in verse 47 of Luke, he said to the scribes, he said, in a sense, you devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers.

In other words, your ministry position, you're using it to enrich yourself. You're using it for personal gain, aggrandizement, that you love the chief of seats in the synagogues and you love robes and you love to be called teacher, teacher, and you cover it all up with long prayers.

The only thing that really offends God, and you'll see it as you study the scriptures, is pretentiousness. It's being dishonest because he already knows what's in our heart. Praise be to God. It's an awesome thing to know that we can come before the throne of God and we don't have to come and put on King James English and pretend that we have a faith that we don't have and pretend like we're not struggling or in trial or difficulty.

It's the honest heart that gets the answer. God is unoffended by honesty. You look at Psalm 22 and, I mean, realistically, you look at the accusations against the faithfulness of God in those first 15 verses and you say, well, that's horrific.

How can you accuse God of forsaking you or not helping you or not hearing you, not delivering you from the power of your enemies, of bringing you to a place of false trust even from the day of your birth, and accuse God of leading you to a place of death and not life?

I mean, it's a phenomenal thing. And yet, the proof that God was unoffended is that he put it into this book as inspired text by the Holy Spirit. Think about it for a moment. It's almost like when David wrote this or sang it, God said, I want that in my book.

I want other generations to be able to read this because if they read it under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they're going to learn something about me that you can't learn just from a textbook. They're going to learn something about my character.

Not only is it written in the book as inspired text by the Holy Spirit, but Jesus Christ himself quotes it on the cross. It shows you how much he is totally unoffended by the words that God had given to his servant, David.

So, Jesus himself validates it by quoting it. And Psalm 22 also reveals that every struggle that comes into your life and mine has a higher purpose. All things work together for good to those that love God and are called according to his purpose.

All things. Our struggles, our trials, our questions, our anger, our disappointment, all things work together for good. You know, David goes on in Psalm 22, he has absolutely no idea as he's writing this that he's been given a preview as it is of the cross of Jesus Christ.

That he's been taken into the suffering of the Son of God. His Psalm that starts out as an accusation ends up with a revelation that is absolutely astounding. The honesty in this man's heart opens heaven to him.

The dishonest heart finds a closed door to the revelation of God. But the honest heart, all of, you start reading this, dogs surrounded me, the congregation of the wicked have enclosed me, they pierced my hands and my feet.

He's now, he's now moved beyond his own complaint, may I put it that way, and he's now being given a pre-incarnate Christ view of the cross, may I put it that way. And nobody debates that. Psalm 22 is about the cross of Jesus Christ.

I count all my bones. They look and stare at me, verse 18, they divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots. Remember in the New Testament, the soldiers gambled for his garments at the foot of the cross.

But you, O Lord, do not be far from me, O my strength, hasten to help me, deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog, save me from the lion's mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen.

And then something phenomenal happens in verse 21. Out of nowhere, you have, you have 21 and a half, or 21 and a half verses of literal complaint and talking about weakness and challenging the faithfulness of God, and suddenly a line appears there and says, you have answered me.

Amazing. Thank God. That has to be a revelation of the Holy Spirit. How else could that, how do you get to that? How do you do these first 21 verses and get this one line? You have answered me. And then he goes on.

He says, not only have you answered me, I will declare your name to my brethren. In the midst of the assembly, I will praise you. You can't even account for the shift in this psalm except for the fact that there's a sudden revelation.

Suddenly God speaks to the honest heart and says, no, David, I've not forsaken you. I'm showing you something that's beyond you, like the arrow that was beyond you in the day that Jonathan shot that arrow into the field.

There's something deeper than you can understand. But I'm telling you, David, I have not forsaken you. I'm leading you into a place of victory that will astound you and astound many others that come after you.

David says, I will, in the midst of the assembly, I will praise you. And you who fear the Lord, praise him. All you descendants of Jacob, glorify him. Fear him, all you offspring of Israel. He has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted.

In other words, David is saying, I poured my complaint out before God and he has not despised my honesty or my affliction, nor has he hidden his face from him. But when he cried unto him, he heard. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. It may seem like he's a million miles away, but let me tell you, he never is. He hears everything. He knows every sparrow that falls to the ground. He understands every thought and intent of every heart.

David goes on to say, my praise shall be of you in the great assembly. I will pay my vows before those who fear him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied, and those who seek him will praise the Lord. Let your heart live forever.

All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to now. He's gone beyond his immediate circumstance. He's now gone from his circumstance of feeling forsaken. He's now gone into this great assembly. And in this great assembly, which we are part of today, he is now declaring the faithfulness of God.

God took David and his words and brought them here today. He saw something. He saw himself in this great assembly, praising the goodness of God, praising the faithfulness of God, talking to the poor and saying, no, God will feed you.

Talking to those who are seeking the Lord, saying, no, you seek him and your heart will live forever. And then he goes from there, from his circumstance to declaring the faithfulness of God, to going into this great assembly, now going into the ends of the world.

Now think this one through for a moment. All the ends of the world, verse 27, shall remember and turn to the Lord. All the families of the nation shall worship before you, for the kingdom is the Lord's and he rules over the nations.

What a journey he's taken from verse one. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now he's in the world and he's seeing China, he's seeing India, he's seeing Europe, he's seeing South America, he's seeing Asia, he's seeing people all over the world beginning to worship God.

All the prosperous of the earth shall eat and worship and those who go down to the dust shall bow before him. Even he who cannot keep himself alive, he sees the judgment of God at the end of time. A posterity shall serve him that shall be counted to the Lord for the next generation.

They will come and declare his righteousness to a people who shall be born that he has done this. You know what, David is not even sure what the this is, but he knows whatever the this is that God's about to do is gonna be spoken about in the whole world, hallelujah.

Glory to God, glory to God that he has done this. It starts with why have you forsaken me and finishes with the whole world. Well one know that he has, one they know that he has done this, but he doesn't know what this is yet.

All things work together for good. I want to tell you there's a this in your life that you don't know anything about yet. There's something that God is about to do. There's a place that God is about to take you.

There's a song that God is about to give you. There's a this in every life, hallelujah, and if you trust him, he'll take you there. And all you need to have is an honest heart, hallelujah. Just an honest heart, and don't be afraid of honesty in the presence of God.

When you go to the throne of God, don't be afraid of honesty because there's a this coming into your life, hallelujah, hallelujah. I hope you're as happy as I am today because I see this, I love this, I love the word of God, I love the faithfulness of God, I love the fact that we can be honest with God.

We don't have to put on a show in the prayer closet. You can go out in the field of those who are part of this Bible school, or you can go out on your street, those that have come in for Sunday morning service, and you can just have it out with God and he's not offended.

I don't like this, I don't like what's happening to my family, you know, and you don't have to play a game with God. You can be honest with God. Praise God. Now, I'm not giving you a license to just turn your whole prayer life into a constant complaint, but from time to time, when you feel overwhelmed, talk to God about it.

Just tell him you don't like it. Moses did, David did, Joshua did, Jeremiah did, Jonah did, I could take you to others if we had time in the Bible, they all did the same thing. But you see, honest people pray honest prayers.

Trusting God Beyond Understanding

So Father, thank you, God, today. Thank you, Lord. You are leading us in this generation into a victory that we don't understand. Just like David didn't fully understand where you were leading him, and he never really got to experience it, but he saw it in the Spirit.