A WOW Moment with Vicki & Tara

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Oh, Brittany is on. Hi Brittany. Brittany, my daughter. Hi Kim.
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We're going to give it just a few minutes and let some people get on. We're, um, excuse me.
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We are, um, in a different time zone than what we're used to being in.
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So, uh. Hello, Cynthia. We weren't really, well
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I, my phone didn't switch over time. My watch is still on Memphis time.
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Tara's smartphone is on Atlanta time.
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So, hi everybody from Atlanta. It's because you don't have your settings right in your phone,
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I'm sure. I just don't, I don't really, it's fine with me. That's why I ask you all the time, what time is it?
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Because I get confused. Well, if you change the settings, it would do it. It would be all right.
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Just saying. For future references. It's gonna be fine. But anyways, welcome to our
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Bible study. We are in Atlanta, Georgia. Louisa. And we came here,
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I kept having this feeling that I needed to make a trip to this area.
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And so, I got with Tara and I said, I think it's time to make that trip.
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She's been wanting to do a girls trip for a while. And of course, she was ecstatic, yes.
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Because she's been telling me, you need to get out of town. You need to get out of town. You need to get a break. So, I said, now's the time.
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We really haven't done much. We have, we got in yesterday and we took a
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Walmart trip, got water and Coke for the refrigerator and some snacks and stopped and ate and then came here and stayed here.
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Today, we slept in and then we got out.
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Got something to eat, did a little shopping and came back here.
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I had hopes in having a guest on from this area tonight.
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But as circumstances have it, she was unable to meet with us. And that's fine.
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Things happen and there's really nothing we can do about it. It just wasn't meant to be. But I'm hoping that she does get on here and I hope that she does watch tonight because I had already picked out the scripture that I wanted us to talk about tonight and I sent it to Tara, what, last week,
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I guess. And I just feel like it's something that we all need to really sharpen our tools on because it's something that we need to do more of.
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I, myself, personally, find myself struggling with it a lot of times and what that is is prayer.
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I tell people all the time, well, have you prayed? And it's not one of those things of, well,
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I need to pray about it because I don't need to pray about it. If somebody asks me a question, it's something that I just need to give a response to.
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It's not I need to pray about it. It's I need to do whatever I need to do to serve the Lord. But I'm talking about prayer.
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And what I mean by that is hardcore taking time out of your day and setting it aside for the
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Lord. And I'll be honest with you, a lot of us don't take that time out.
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I know that there are days that I struggle with it myself, so I'm not pointing a finger at anybody in particular, except for to me.
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But I just felt like that it's something that needed to be discussed and we need a better understanding of it and how we're to do it.
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And no, I'm not gonna go over the Lord's Prayer because I think everyone knows the Lord's Prayer. The model of prayer, rather, that's in Matthew 6.
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So we're not gonna cover that. We're just gonna cover basically where and how to pray.
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We're also gonna talk a little bit about fasting. That is something that I personally have not touched into within my spiritual life.
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But I do look, I am looking into doing such very soon and adding that into my spiritual life.
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So when I read over, we're gonna be in Matthew 6, verses five through eight.
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When I was reading over that, then I wandered over and read
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Matthew 6, verses 16 through 18, which is about how to fast. Everybody does the prayer whenever they're driving down the street.
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Lord, I pray that I have a good day or Lord, I pray that my kids don't get in trouble at school today.
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I mean, that's prayer because you're talking to the
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Lord, but I think that there needs to be more in -depth and with our country and the situation that it's in, of things being so up in the air.
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I think that as we as Christians need to be turning to God more than we need to be turning to anything or anybody else.
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That means sitting your phone down for an extra five minutes at night and just spending time in the bathroom praying or...
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I have a story about that. And she told me about it today and I wasn't trying to take it from you, but a lot of people, that's the only place, that's the only private place they actually get to go to, especially a lot of young, we have a lot of young mothers.
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That's the only place they can go. And then sometimes that's not even, you can't even go there. No, because you got little fingers going, mommy, mommy, mommy, up under the door.
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Right, right. Cajun. Right. So, you know, just, so it's, tonight we may not go a whole 30 minutes.
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We may, we may go over, I don't know. We'll see what the Holy Spirit has to show us tonight.
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And you never know, you know, it's something that's just, this is his show, not mine.
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This is, we're here to serve, him and whatever he calls us to do.
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So if we go, if we start on prayer and we end up somewhere else, then just put on your seatbelt and enjoy the life with us.
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But I hope that it's, I hope this is something that you're able to get something out of as we talk about it, discuss it.
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We have not discussed it this whole trip, really, because I told
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Tara, there was a bathroom somewhere, wasn't there? Cracker Barrel.
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Yeah, Cracker Barrel. And I said, we don't study it before I study, that's why we study during the study.
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Then it's, go study. Right. So anyways, Tara, are you gonna read Scripture? I didn't even ask you if you were gonna read it.
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I mean, I'm not Mercedes. But, yeah, she was supposed to come, but her and Justin's anniversary's coming up.
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Yeah, thanks, Justin, you're watching. And all that stuff, they're going out of town, so.
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Anniversary? She gave that, she chose that over us, and you know.
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I mean, come on now. I guess, you know. My anniversary's the next day after theirs. You're not as young as they are,
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Tara. Um, well, Justin's not that much younger than we are.
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Sorry, Justin, you're not. I am, I am young. Look, Mercedes is still,
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I know, she's a baby. She is a baby. We love you. We love you.
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Wow, that was good. We really did. We didn't love you. That was great, Tommy. It was. We didn't even plan that.
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No. And you are being missed, we have missed you. Okay, so we're gonna go on, and we're gonna read, now that we've done, apologize for calling people out.
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It'll still happen. We're gonna read Matthew, verse six,
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No. Matthew, chapter six, verse five.
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There we are. You ready? Set, go.
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Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by the people.
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I assure you, they've got their reward. But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your father who is in secret.
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And your father who sees in secret will reward you. When you pray, don't babble like the idolaters, since they imagine they'll be heard for their many words.
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Don't be like them, because your father knows the things you need before you ask him. Okay, number one, a lot of people, when they, and I'm gonna call somebody out on this, because I love her, and she has such the sweetest heart, and that is
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Jordan. Oh, yeah. Jordan is a young lady at our church, and she's a young lady.
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She's, what, 21? Something like that. Yeah, 21, I think. And I love her.
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Like, we do a circle of prayer on Sunday mornings. Our men get together, and they do a circle of prayer.
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And when I became the women's director, I said, we women need to start praying.
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If nothing else, we need to be praying for our men that are praying. So, but a couple
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Sundays ago, I guess, or last Sunday, there was a couple, there was a
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Sunday that Jordan was in the circle. And if my thoughts aren't all together, or if I have just been approached by someone that I'm dealing with that's just not, and I'm not mentally there to pray,
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I will call upon a lady in the circle to pray. And I'll tell y 'all what.
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Jordan, I called on her, and she just kind of looked at me for a minute, and I bowed my head, and that young lady led a group of women in prayer.
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She wasn't comfortable at first doing it. You can tell. She kind of hesitated.
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But people, this is the thing. Our Father, God knows what you're gonna be asking for.
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He knows what's on your heart, I think, more than you do. Because He knows your needs.
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He knows what you're needing. He knows what the people around you need.
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And when we pray in this circle, to all the ladies that are in the circle,
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I will remind them that each one of them knows someone that's struggling with something, and each one of them knows someone that is probably struggling with their salvation.
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We all know somebody that lacks salvation. And during the time of prayer,
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I encourage each one of those ladies to either be thinking of those people, or that person, or to pray at the same time.
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Because scripture says, for when one or more than gathered, one or more.
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Two or more. That didn't come out right. No. Two or more.
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Right. When there's more than one. When two or more than gathered, then
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He's there also. I mean, it's just the, so we.
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He's also there when there's just one. Well, He is also there when there's just one. But He hears all of them.
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That's the point I'm trying to make. It doesn't matter if you're in this group, and to the women of Witten, I'm speaking directly to you now.
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When you're in that circle in the mornings, bring your prayer requests with you. But don't expect everybody else to be praying for your prayer requests.
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You need to bring it to the table, and you need to pray for it. I want to know your prayer requests, because then it's something that I can pray for during the week.
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It's the only reason why we talk about them in the circle. So other people can pray when they go to their secret room, or when they have their prayer time.
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But at that point in time, you need to be praying for that in particular thing yourself.
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I'm going to challenge all of you to seek time during your day.
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Set aside time during your day. Because if you don't have it, then what's
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He gonna have to take from you for Him to get it? Mm -mm. Because honestly, if you don't mind
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His word, then you're gonna go through a whole lot for Him to get your attention to where you do mind
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Him. And I think it's a hard rocky road. And for some people, it's very devastating for them because they don't understand why they're going through the stuff they're going through.
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When I want to look at them and say, have you prayed? Have you talked to Him? Have you told
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Him? Well, the Lord already knows how I feel. But have you voiced?
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Have you used the words from your mouth? Have you used this tool He gave you to speak to Him and not just speak to everybody else around you?
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You're standing here telling me about your problems. Have you told Him? It's pretty cut and dry.
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In this scripture, it also says that the hypocrites, they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to where they're seen by the people.
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God doesn't care about you being up front in front of the crowd preaching or teaching or He cares that He's happy you're doing it if you're doing it for the right reasons.
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Excuse me, I had a root beer. That was awful.
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We'll stop that coming up. But when it says,
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I assure you, yeah, let me put these back on. When it says,
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I assure you, they've got their reward. I can guarantee you their reward was not from the
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Father above. Because it's a self -pleasing reward. Because they feel like they've done what they and they and they and not
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He. You know, I think praying out loud, I really struggle with that personally because I do feel like it's like all eyes are on me or it's all about a show.
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Like, not all about a show, but more so it's not personable.
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You know, even though I know what I say is what God needs to hear or what
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God hears, but and what I need to say, but I still, it's just like,
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I don't want to be put on like in the center. I feel like being.
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Right, but what you've got to also realize here is that when you pray, just don't babble like the idolatrous because don't repeat yourself over and over again.
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You only need to. That's my problem is. Where, am
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I here? Yeah. Yes. Squirrel.
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I just saw something crawling. But you don't keep, you don't, you don't say the same things over and over again.
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You don't have to use big words. You don't. I don't have big words.
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You don't have to, you don't have to use these extravagant religious, just talk to them.
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Just talk to them. And I didn't realize like how obedient it was to like pray going off to your own place.
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And like I was telling you earlier about, I'm not even sure I've ever shared this, but back in 2007, 2006 and seven, my husband was deployed to Iraq.
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And you know, when you're raising small children, husband in a combat zone, it's, it's scary, you know?
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So I had a lot of anxiety and depression over that because there were times where I would sit at my front window looking out the window, just waiting for them to come and tell me something happened to him.
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January, 2007, I got a call that my sister was on life support and they were about to pull her off.
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And then I need to get super low. So I did make it before she passed. And I had only met my sister not long before that.
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But for that year, I just struggled with, all right, so my husband's in Iraq.
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If something were to happen to him, would I be able to financially provide for my children?
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Again, like I said, I had two young children, now they're grown at the time, but so I did a lot of praying, lot of praying whether I needed to stay at the job that I had or I needed to go to school or Lord, you know, just Lord, what is your will for me?
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And I'll never forget one day, again,
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I've been praying, nobody knew. I didn't really have anybody that I was extremely close with at the time either.
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But I was at work and my boss now asked my mother, where was
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I? And she said, in the nursery. She said, well, if Tara's looking for another job or if she ever thinks about it,
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I'm hiring. I was like, hmm, mom told me about it.
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That afternoon, I went home and I'll tell you, like there was this thing that I was in the bathroom because again, the only time
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I can have by myself in a room where nobody's around. I just fell to my knees, like totally fell to my knees and cried out to the
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Lord. Lord, what is your will for me? What you make away, like I literally had tears falling and I was verbalizing it.
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God, what is your will for me? What, do you want me to go to school? Do you want, Lord, it's your will.
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Whatever your will be done. So I wrote a note for my boss now and put it in her child's cubby and almost 14 years later,
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I'm still there. That God provided. But I didn't realize how obedient was just going into your own place.
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Yeah, I mean, it could be anywhere. It could be on your front porch, it could be.
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In your car. In your car. I did all that in the car. Oh, I pray every morning in the car on the way to work.
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Yeah, a lot of times I'll just sit in my car when I get home from work.
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But yeah, I didn't realize how obedient I was being.
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Yeah, but you need to do that every day. Every single day.
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Oh yeah, most definitely. Definitely. Sometimes two or three times a day. Sometimes every five minutes.
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Sometimes, it doesn't matter, he's always there. He never hangs up. He never sleeps, nor does he slumber.
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So now let's look at how to fast. In Matthew 6, 16 through 18,
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Tara, let's learn how to fast. Whenever you fast, don't be a sad face like the hypocrites, for they make their faces unattractive, so their fasting is obvious to people.
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I assure you, they've got their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that you don't show your fasting to people, but to your father who is in secret.
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And your father who sees in secret will reward you. So again, you don't need to advertise it, because you're advertising it, then you're gonna gain a reward that is not of the
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Lord, I feel like. Because that's what I feel like it's saying here, is that when it says,
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I assure you, they've got their reward, exclamation mark. And then when it says your father who, okay, and put your father who sees in secret will, and your father who sees in secret will reward you.
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That's the kind of reward I want. Most definitely. But then too, it's not even, fasting isn't just necessarily food.
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Something, fasting is giving up something that you love. Giving up something you enjoy. Giving up something that brings you pleasure.
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Giving up something, let's say I enjoy chewing on the pins.
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Let's just say, let's say that's something that I did all the time. I'm gonna watch and see if you do that actually.
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I don't chew on pins. Okay, let's try that. But let's say that's something that I did. This is something
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I did. Well, if I said, I'm gonna fast away from chewing on pins, and use the time that I would use of chewing on a pin and praying to the
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Lord, that's fasting. Yeah, I'm like video games.
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Right. Needless to say, traveling. Well, honey, let me tell you, and then you're praying,
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I prayed, it's fine. And I'd be praying on the way home. That's a good point though.
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Was a good point. Landing was kind of steep, but it's a good point. Yeah, my brain couldn't work.
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Tara had her brakes on, and we was on third, fourth row. I was like, that's the accelerator,
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Tara, the brakes on the other side. Unless they're opposite. Anyway, be sure to know that Saturday on our way home,
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I'll be praying. But I just wanted to, this is just something I wanted to cover tonight.
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I just wanted y 'all to really look into prayer and fasting. And I wanted to make sure that everyone understands how important it is.
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And I really, really, really hope that you start scheduling time with Lord.
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If you want to call it scheduling, or if you want to call it setting aside time.
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Or some people are so busy, they need to put it in their calendar. That's fine.
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But I'm going to tell you something. If you do that, and you do it for the right reasons, and you know what
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I mean when I say the right reasons, He will reward you.
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But do me another huge favor, okay? And this is going to be the end of it. Make sure that you pray for His will.
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Yes. That's the big thing. Don't pray for what you want. Pray for what
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He wants for you. Or for what He wants for whoever you're praying for.
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If you're praying for someone that's sick, and they have a disease that is terminal, pray for the
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Lord's will. Because His will is going to be done.
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And just because you say, okay, Lord, it's Your will, so Your will be done.
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If you don't really feel that in your heart, He's going to know. Because, I'm sorry, I'm just, I cannot be selfish with people's lives.
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If it's their time, and the Lord's ready for them to go, He's going to take them. He's going to take them.
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So anyways, that's about all we got here from Atlanta tonight.
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We wanted to represent Atlanta. We went out today, and we were going to buy some
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Atlanta Brave shirts. Yes. Guess what? We couldn't find none.
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Now, mind you, we are on the outskirts of Atlanta. We're not in the heart of Atlanta.
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Because me and Tara being the women that we are, don't want to be all caught up in Atlanta traffic and all that stuff.
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No. Yeah. And I don't want to be looking behind me every time I go to the store.
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I don't know if Atlanta crime is, but I mean, just a big city, I don't want to take that chance.
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So we're staying right on the outskirts of Atlanta. But it has been a nice getaway.
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It's going to rain tomorrow. We may not even get out tomorrow. The hotel we're staying at, they serve breakfast, and then they serve dinner.
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Really, like barbecue. Tonight we're having barbecue. And baked beans and chili.
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Baked beans. And broccoli. And chili and broccoli. May be a little dangerous in here in a little while, but it'll be all right.
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But I mean, that's what we had for dinner tonight. And they provided it. So we're very blessed with that.
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So I hope that y 'all have enjoyed tonight's study.
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I've enjoyed tonight's study. What are you asking? Brother Jeff has asked where we are.
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I told him we were in Atlanta. But he said, where? Pastor, I'm not going to tell you on this
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Facebook feed where we're staying. We're at a hotel. Can't you tell by the brick wall behind us that we're not at home?
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This is the new room in the church. Hey, I love you so much.
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Did I tell you we were coming to Atlanta? Ooh. You didn't tell me.
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Sorry, Glen. I was being smart. And I'm sorry. I just got in trouble. No, I think she's telling you smart because you didn't tell her where you're staying.
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Oh, thank you. She's not telling you you're being smart, though. She's calling you a smarty pants.
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I'm so scared I'm going to get in trouble. Not. But she can make herself wear a
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Georgia Bulldog shirt. I could not wear a Georgia Bulldog shirt. That was not happening.
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And then Tara found some NBA basketball. She says, we're not wearing the
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Hawks either. I am not wearing the Hawks. So. Not. I cannot, mm -mm, no.
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No. So, we didn't have any, there's no Brave stuff, so we didn't wear any of that.
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I've got on a Whitten shirt. And I've got on a curly curl. She's got everything. But it's a Christian one, though. It's good.
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Yeah, it's got a scripture on it. So, I love you, Pastor. You're awesome. We're awesome because you're awesome.
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Thanks for not watering down the gospel with lesser. Gospel, lesser
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Christians. In other words, you're speaking truth. Well, that's because that's what he's taught me to do.
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God. Thank you, Aisha. Aisha's got to tell them where we're at. Okay, thanks, guys. I love you very much.
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We're going to get back to watching some cooking shows. Oh, yes. On Food Network, because being two women in a room, we can watch chopping shows.
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I mean, cooking. Pray for us, maybe. Chopping shows.
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Chop is a show on the Cooking Channel. Anyways, we're going to watch Chopped. So, I love you guys, and I hope everybody has a safe night.
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And y 'all pray for us. We're coming home Saturday at noon. I think our flight leaves at noon.
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And it gets there at noon. Yes. We leave here at noon, and we get there at noon.
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So, and we're on for Spaghetti Saturday. Yes! I saw that MLG and W lifted everything, so we're good.
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Anyways, I love y 'all. Have a great rest of your week. We're going to stay in tomorrow, and probably stay in the bed.
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Ciao for now. Toodles. Terry, you going to push a button? Which, where's the button? Right there.
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Oh, where it says finish? Yeah, thank you. Thanks, guys. Love y 'all.