Latest / Calvary Chapel Devine, Texas Podcast / Women's Study Lesson One Discouragement with Mary Ramos.

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Women's Study Lesson One Discouragement with Mary Ramos. · Calvary Chapel Devine, Texas Podcast

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  Through the years, you know, as me personally was growing in my faith,
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  and I don't know if it's just our American culture too, but in churches,
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  especially our Christian churches, we always tend to gear it towards self-help,
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  self-vettering yourself and whatever, if that makes any sense.
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  But as I've gotten older and growing and in the Word and stuff,
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  I realized that the Bible, this book, is not about me.
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  It's not about me. How am I going to, what can I get out of this to make my life right?
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  You know, it's not that. It's about, this is about God.
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  God and what does God want me to do in this life?
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  So once I kind of switched that gear and thought that way, I'm like,
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  okay, God, well, you're telling me that this is what I need to do for you.
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  Not for me. It's not for me. It's for you. And when I do it for you,
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  everything else is going to fall into line, right?
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  So let's try to think about, you know, try to think about it that way.
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  I don't know if you already have it. You're already ahead of me on that.
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  Awesome. But I wasn't. I wasn't. And it really was, I was pretty selfish when
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  I would come to the Lord, help me with this and help me with that. And thank you for that.
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  You know, I didn't, I never took it as God, this is about you. What do you want me to do?
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  So, okay. Anyhow, also, whenever Ms.
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  Teresa and I first talked about doing the lesson and I said,
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  I'm going to, I'm going to pick discouragement because I was kind of looking
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  at all the titles and like, I really don't, you know, I'm, I'm,
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  I'm going to pick discouragement. It's discouraging.
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  It's the one that always seems to be the one that I struggle with.
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  Not to say that we don't struggle with all of them always, but we need to be
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  careful not to allow the giants in this book to become our label.
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  Like Ms. Teresa said, this is not our label.
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  It's not a badge that we're going to wear. It's just we're tanging these giants.
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  They're going to be there.
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  We're supposed to tame them. We're not supposed to feed them,
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  okay? We're supposed to tame them.
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  So, you know, we have to understand that there's things that we struggle a little
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  bit more with in these giants that we have.
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  And there's things that we got and we can—that's not a big deal.
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  But they're always going to be there. they're never gonna they're
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  never gonna get until until the lord
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  comes for us right he's already he's already
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  won that battle okay it's just the war
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  that we're fighting putting out those little fires those little wars right yeah
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  so when we're going through these lessons and stuff i want it to be us up here
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  talking about how we're how we're gonna build each other up in this okay we're
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  gonna We're supposed to edify and bring each other up.
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  Not come and have a pity party because we all have stories.
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  We all can say stuff that really has affected our lives.
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  But we're here because God wants us to be strong women, strong in our homes, strong for Him.
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  So we want to come here and build each other up with these things that we're
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  learning in this book that Ms.
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  Kathy Dickinson has so graciously and wonderfully wrote for us.
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  What a beautiful thing so okay so let me just start with a prayer and then and
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  then we'll get into the lesson okay dear god i thank you first of all for this
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  beautiful day that you've given us this weather that we've had we've needed
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  the moisture i thank you father for.
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  For having every one of us arrive here today, even though we had other things,
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  you know, that we had to do and other commitments, other things,
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  you know, that we're here today to listen to what you have to say to us, Lord.
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  And I'm so thankful, Father, that you've given me this opportunity to share
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  with my sisters what you've shared with me.
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  And let it be you, Father. Let me not be afraid. Let me be courageous.
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  And let the words come that you've given me to share.
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  And I thank you for every single one of us in here.
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  And I pray that we are all, our hearts are open and that we're just ready to
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  move forward and to grow, Father, to be mature Christian women.
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  So that we are prepared, you know, when we're asked that we're able to give
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  a testimony, you know, of our life.
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  Because that's truly what changes lives, seeing other people and hearing their
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  stories and knowing that they've overcome them, Father.
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  And I thank you for that. So I ask that you bless this session that we're going
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  to have now and that you always are with every single one of us.
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  And we ask this all in Jesus' precious mighty name. Amen.
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  Okay, so the title of the first chapter is called Disarming Discouragement.
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  And so I looked up, she had asked us to define discouragement.
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  And so I first wanted to define what is it to disarm, right?
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  So the definition that I found is when you're going to disarm,
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  you're going to take away somebody's weapon, right?
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  They have a weapon and you're going to disarm them. You're going to take that weapon away from them.
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  It in effect demobilizes them. They cannot harm you once that weapon is gone, right?
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  Or it also means to remove a fuse from a bomb, right?
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  Yeah. Wow. Remove. Remove that fuse from that bomb.
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  That way it can't go off. It can't blow up. We're right away disarming that fuse.
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  It's not going to become a big bomb in our life, right?
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  And then it's also to remove dislike or suspicion. so when you're when you're disarming,
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  you're going to say, that's not a big deal.
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  We're not going to go there with that. We're going to step back and we're not
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  going to feed into that. We're going to disarm that right now.
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  We're not going to let that cause us to become discouraged.
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  So then when I looked up the word discouragement, so the Hebrew word for it
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  is rapah, and it means to weaken and to forsake or to let go or slacken.
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  So when we're discouraged, we become weakened.
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  We become we start to forsake that
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  dream or that thought that we have that that that
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  thing that we were hoping on it didn't
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  happen and so we start to forsake you
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  know i'm hoping it and or it's
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  let go or slack and also we just kind of like we give up on it you know we just
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  let it we kind of put it off to the side because it didn't it didn't happen
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  we're kind of sad about it you know so And those things are what is the definition of discouragement.
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  So for this study, it was pretty long, you know.
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  So I kind of just, you know, we've all gone through it. There's a lot of questions, a lot of lookup.
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  So what I'm going to do is just kind of go to the summary.
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  And I'm going to summarize it and kind of give you a summary of what I took
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  from everything that I studied through, okay?
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  So then I'll just kind of figure out
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  what I was going to do this so in
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  the back on our last page it's like the summary and it
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  wants us to break down like the days that we studied so
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  she wants us first to go through days one and two and the question is you know
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  what kind of things can discouragement come from you know and so from reading
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  days one and two and looking up the people that we were supposed to look at their lives.
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  We looked at Hagar and we looked at Moses and then the Israelites when they
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  were crossing the Red Sea, how Moses handled the complaining and the griping
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  of the people when they didn't want, when they were tired of the manna.
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  Jonah, we've been, pastors have been talking to us about Jonah.
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  All of those were the people that we were looking up, you know,
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  during, for this study that Ms. Dickinson had us look up.
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  And so I came up with a few things It's kind of an overview of what all of these
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  people had, the different kinds of discouragement that they faced.
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  So one of the types of discouragement that I feel that we come across in our
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  lives is when we get discouraged, sometimes it's because of our own disobedience, our own sin, like Cain.
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  I always wondered, why did God not accept Cain's offering, but He did accept
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  Abel's? It doesn't explain why.
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  It doesn't say what Cain's heart was.
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  You know, God obviously knew that it was not with a right heart, right?
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  So whenever He talked to Cain, because Cain was discouraged, obviously.
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  It said that not only was he sad, but he was angry. He was angry about God not
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  receiving His offering.
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  And the Lord addressed him and he asked him, you know, why, why,
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  why did you, why did you not give me an offering acceptable, right?
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  And the Lord explained to him the reasons that his offering was not acceptable.
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  And we don't, we don't, we don't understand exactly what he was doing,
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  but he was obviously doing something with the Lord.
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  He did not find well, right? We know that he was an adult and he was married
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  and they were all, you know, so he was, who knows what it was. was. It doesn't say.
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  But he told him that he needed to put it in check because there was sin that
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  was there, and it was crouching, and it was going to take him.
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  It was going to overtake him. And so the Lord—.
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  He didn't. He didn't listen. He let that anger brew. It turned into hatred for
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  his brother, and then he killed him.
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  And then the Lord had to remove him. He had to remove him, and he became first,
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  but the Lord put a curse on him.
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  So when we get discouraged because of our own sin, we need to take a step back
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  and look and say, God, I know I'm not supposed to be doing this,
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  and even though I feel like it's right,
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  you're telling me not to do it, and you're telling me that sin is crouching.
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  It's crouching and it's going to overtake you if you don't put it in check.
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  So that's one of the ways that we get discouraged out of our own disobedience,
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  just like with Jonah when he was fleeing from God, as we've been learning from Pastor.
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  The Israelites, you know, in the story that we looked up, the Israelites,
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  they were very, very ungrateful, you know, about what God was doing.
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  They were murmuring, they were clamoring, like Pastor said, about leaving Egypt
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  and everything they had over there and the fish and the good food and everything
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  that they had, they were missing.
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  You know, they were being very ungrateful to the Lord.
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  You know, that's another way that they became discouraged because of ungrateful, being ungrateful.
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  Then we have Sarah and Abraham.
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  You know, Sarah and Abraham, they didn't wait on the Lord.
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  They became discouraged because the Lord had promised them a son that from that
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  seed there would be many, many nations, and they didn't want to wait.
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  So they went ahead and used Hagar as their concubine, and had another son.
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  So that sin, that discouragement led them to sin and then to disobeying God's,
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  what He wanted, and their plan, the plan for Him.
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  So another way that we can become discouraged is when someone else has done
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  it to us. You know, someone else let us down.
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  We were, we had an expectation of somebody and they let us down or they hurt
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  us. You know, we get discouraged from that.
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  It can also come from us being disappointed. We did, we did something wrong,
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  you know, and we feel disappointed and then that gets, we get discouraged.
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  And that's where we, we start to have that forsaking of, of a dream that we
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  might've had. It went wrong and we get disappointed in it.
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  Right. So examples that we got from our word were...
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  With Hagar and Ishmael when Abraham sent—this one bothered me the most,
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  by the way, it was so hurtful.
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  I thought, this woman didn't do anything wrong, per se.
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  She was probably obedient to Sarah. Sarah mistreated her after she had Ishmael.
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  Who knows what all she tried to do to appease her and stay there with them in
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  the safety of Abraham's home, you know.
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  And they sent her away, you know, and with her son. And I thought, how terrible, you know.
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  As a mother, you know, when you know, he sent her away with water and bread.
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  This man was rich. Abraham was a rich man.
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  He could have sent her off wealthy and set her up real nice somewhere else,
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  but he didn't. He gave her water and bread and sent her off.
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  And they wandered a while, and they ran out of water, they ran out of food,
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  and she was just desperate.
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  And then after a while, she just gave up. She was so discouraged and so hurt, and she just gave up.
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  And she put Isaac over by a tree, gave him a little shade, and she said,
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  I can't be near him, he's going to die. You can't watch this.
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  And then they both start crying and weeping. What else can they do?
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  It's a desperate situation.
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  And God, He hears Ishmael. It doesn't say He heard Albert. He heard Ishmael.
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  And the reason that, and I thought, wow, you know, a mother's cry and a mother's
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  prayer, and we always say He heard Ishmael.
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  But it was because He had already had a plan and a blessing for him.
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  He already knew He was going to make him a nation. He had already told Abraham that.
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  And so my initial reaction was to be angry at Abraham. Like,
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  how could you do that? You know, but.
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  God told him to do it, and he obeyed him. He obeyed him. He trusted him. Okay?
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  So I think that brings me to the next thing. Yeah.
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  So another way that we can become discouraged is when, like Abraham,
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  God is asking us to remove something, and we don't want to do it. We become discouraged.
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  But God, I love that thing. I love to do that. I love that person.
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  And I'm in a relationship that
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  I know I shouldn't be in, but you're telling me I need to get out of it.
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  You're telling me that this isn't a godly thing. This isn't going to benefit
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  my life. I need to get out of it.
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  And you're not. So you become discouraged. And this is a hard one because it's
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  a discouragement towards God.
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  And Abraham is an example of doing the right thing. You know,
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  he, as hard as it was, it said, when the Lord told him to do this, his heart was grieved.
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  It hurt him to have to put away his son Ishmael and Hagar and send them off.
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  And he did it in obedience because he knew that God was going to take care of it.
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  And that's hard for us. You know, we can put anybody in that situation.
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  It could be one of our kids. It could be a family member that we know.
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  They're just not. We're just, we're enabling a circumstance.
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  And God is saying, you need some tough love in this. You need to let that go.
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  Let it go. They've got to have some tough love.
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  You don't know my plan. I have a plan for that.
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  You need to trust me that even though I'm telling you, you've got to put that
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  relationship away. You've got to put, you've got to let it go.
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  Step back from it. I have a plan. and that's
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  what Abraham understood that Ishmael
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  was going to be fine and God did make
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  it all right he told Hagar and he sent an angel get up and go get water and
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  her eyes were opened and she saw a stream of water and she gave him water and
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  him and they were able to move on and it says later on they became a nation
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  just like God had promised,
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  And Abraham lived to know that, I'm sure.
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  He lived to see that they were okay.
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  They became a nation, not a great one. They didn't follow the Lord,
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  but that's why the Lord had them leave.
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  He didn't want that to stay there because he knew that that was not going to
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  be beneficial to Abraham.
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  And I think he sent them with nothing because God was going to show them the
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  mighty thing that he was going to do.
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  They had nothing, and God was going to give them even more than enough provided
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  for them, got them out of that situation, saved their lives.
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  So we need to remember that when we're having to let go of something or someone
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  that God is telling us to let go of. Okay.
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  So it can also come discouragement from times when we're exhausted.
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  It can come when we're having fear about something.
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  And when that answer doesn't come, like I was saying, in particular,
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  healing, you know, that's a big one for us, that we get discouraged when we don't have healing.
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  We have something that's ailing us, and it could be something very serious.
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  A lot of times, that's when it is, when it's serious and it's not going away.
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  We're children, we're daughters of the Most High King, and that healing isn't
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  coming. And we can get discouraged about that.
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  I personally have had that. But, but God.
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  The examples that we were reading in our word, you know, are Elijah running from Jezebel.
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  He was fearful of her, even though he had just finished killing all the prophets of Baal.
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  He fell into fear, but it was because he was exhausted. He was just spent, and fear set in.
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  And he ran, and he was able to go and get rest. And God said he slept a hard sleep.
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  And he woke up, and he was still alive, and he was okay, and he slept again.
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  He was tired. He was just exhausted. And then again, God sends an angel of the
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  Lord and he feeds him and gives him a drink and says, okay, you've rested.
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  You fed your body. You're better. Now, come on, get up and go.
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  And he did it. And he followed and he obeyed.
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  The other example is the two that were on the road to Emmaus.
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  This was right after Jesus had been crucified.
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  Everybody thought that he was going to be
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  that warrior messiah that was going to
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  come in and take down the roman empire and be
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  you know the ruler of you know that the
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  promised messiah and he is but they
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  didn't they didn't understand the whole thing so
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  they were really discouraged and they were walking along
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  and talking about it and just didn't have
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  any hope and then jesus comes up they don't realize
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  it's him he starts asking him what's going on what do you
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  mean how do you not know it's been all over the news you
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  know didn't you hear and and as they're walking they have seven miles to walk
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  with this man that they don't realize is jesus and he's telling them every example
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  in the word of god about that coming messiah remember he's gonna suffer,
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  when he comes he's going to suffer he's going to
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  die he's going to be buried and
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  he's going to resurrect again and that gave them hope that discouragement that
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  he was building them up as he was walking with them and then they they asked
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  him to come he was going to keep on going and they asked him to come and stay
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  with them and then that's when he opened their eyes and revealed to them who was.
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  And they're like, no wonder, no wonder. So we have discouragement in times when
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  things don't go the way we think.
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  And then we have Paul that we hear about. God is asking him. He's obeying God.
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  He's obeying God. He's doing God's will. And when something goes around,
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  you know, that he's discouraged about that.
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  They're on their way in a ship. And the ship gets in a storm. It's falling apart.
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  And God says, don't worry. You know, I've got this. You guys are going to make
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  it. The ship's not, but you're all going to, I'm going to save everybody.
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  And he's the example of what you do in a situation where there's a life and
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  death thing and you're discouraged because you're doing God's will and it ain't going right.
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  There's a lot of things coming up against you.
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  And he said to everybody, calm down. He disarmed that discouragement that everybody was having.
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  God is going to spare all of us I trust God is going to get He told me We're
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  going to get through this It's going to be rough We're going to lose the ship
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  We're going to lose all the cargo But we're going to come out of this with our lives,
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  Because He has a plan for me to get to where I need to go I need to go to Rome
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  And I'm going to have to go there And that's going to happen,
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  And you know they were able to He was able to disarm that discouragement.
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  And then we hear about Job righteous man
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  this righteous man faithful to the Lord
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  he lost everything he's the
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  hardest one for me to read about because I'm like oh Lord please
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  don't don't give me that kind of don't give me that kind of trial he lost everything
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  but in all of that he still trusted no matter what it was he could take everything
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  and the enemy did Satan took everything but his life and he was still faithful to God,
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  So talk about being discouraged in that situation.
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  So then we're moving on to day three of our lesson, you know,
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  and she's talking about us giving too much thought, you know,
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  when we're discouraged and we start giving a lot of thought to it.
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  We start thinking about the past hurts or we start thinking about things in
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  the future, theoretical, hypotheticals that could happen and we get discouraged.
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  We get in fear. We don't want to, you know, we start thinking,
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  well, if I do that, you know, or we start trying to want to fix it and make it right.
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  And that's also, you know, not what God wants for us. He wants us to trust.
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  And she gave us some good examples about, you know, having trust in God.
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  You know, don't get into dwelling on it. Don't dwell on the past.
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  I wrote down, we can't change. We can't change the past. and she gave the example
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  of that psalmist that was like, woe is he and this and that and don't you hear
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  me and where are you? Where are your miracles?
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  And clamoring, right?
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  Because he was just dwelling on whatever circumstance was going on.
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  He said, it says there that he would think on it and his spirit would faint.
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  He just went, oh my gosh, I just, how, where are you God? Where are you?
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  And then when we're not letting it go, we're refusing to let God comfort our soul.
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  It says that in that example, and let me go to it because I had written down exactly.
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  She wanted us to describe the psalmist's agony.
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  And it said in those verses 1 through 6 on page 3 is where I'm at.
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  And I'm looking at Midway Down, number two, at A in our lesson.
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  She wanted us to read verses 1 through 6. And this is where the psalm is just
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  kind of pouring out his heart.
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  And he's not allowed—it says that he's refused to be comforted.
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  He refused to let his soul be comforted.
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  God wants to do that when we're hurting about something.
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  And sometimes we don't let him comfort our soul. We want to keep on going,
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  no, God, with this and that, and look at what happened.
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  He's trying to comfort your soul.
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  And we're focusing on that thing that went wrong, that thing that didn't go right.
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  And we're discouraged about it when He's trying to comfort our soul.
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  It also says, and I talked about that, that He thinks about it in His heart. His spirit feels faint.
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  He's remembering the past. He said his spirit is searching, searching,
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  thinking about the past, dwelling on it, you know, so he can.
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  He can't receive any comfort from God when he's focused on that negative thing.
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  So he starts to complain, where are you going?
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  And then she wants, in the next, number three, you know, what are some of the
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  lies and thoughts that we've had, you know, that led you to be discouraged?
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  And I wrote a few down, and I'd like for us to kind of, if you'd like to share
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  a little bit of what, you know, led you in your writing. what you came up with.
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  For me, it was sometimes when I got discouraged, it was about something that
• 26:33
  I felt that I did and then I deserve what's happening to me. I felt that way.
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  There's times when I felt that I wasn't worthy of good things.
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  I'm just not worthy of that good thing. And that's not good.
• 26:50
  God's trying to bless you and give you a good thing. They're saying that I'm not worthy of it.
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  I feel when I get this discouragement is that I feel like I can't measure up,
• 27:01
  you know, like Moses, you know, he felt that he was slow with speech,
• 27:06
  that he had a stutter. I guess some people say that he couldn't.
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  And he felt like he couldn't measure up, you know, and that's where God is trying
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  to get us not to do that. He used him mightily.
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  He said, don't worry about your words. I'm going to put the words in your mouth.
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  Like today, like getting up here and talking, you know,
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  Having to say something that you know might be hard for someone to hear God
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  has to put those words in our mouth We need to let them, we need to let them and allow them to work,
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  Because when He does it, when it's not coming from us It's done with love and
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  it's heard And the Holy Spirit will also quicken that That that person is accepting
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  it at that right time If it's that time and he needs to hear it, he or she needs to hear it.
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  Or when I another way that I put down is
• 27:54
  when I felt like I went way off course I was
• 27:58
  not being obedient and I went off
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  course and then I'm discouraged because I'm way
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  over here and I know it I know it and then
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  I start to not want to not want to listen
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  to God and scold me because I know it so
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  I start not start making excuses for not
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  getting in the word and not not letting me comfort my
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  soul so we'll move on to day four of the
• 28:23
  lesson and this one is this one's
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  talking about the chisme right when we're
• 28:30
  being discouraging to others we'll be discouraging when we're the ones that
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  are making that situation bad right we're we're not we're not disarming it you
• 28:42
  know we're the ones lighting that little fuse and letting it go you know she wanted us to look at,
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  So, day four.
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  So, she wanted us to read Deuteronomy and Numbers and Joshua,
• 29:01
  and they're all talking about the promised land. You know, they're already there.
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  Moses has led them up there, and they're supposed to go out and spy and check
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  out, you know, the region.
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  And they come back, and they're given a bad report, and there's only two.
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  There's 12 that go out and only two that come back with a good record.
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  And so this example she's using for us is when we are being the ones giving a bad report.
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  When we're not, you know, we're not being encouraging, you know.
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  And I think more it relates to a body of people.
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  It's going to be one-on-one to discourage each other. But I think this is when
• 29:44
  you're coming and you're putting that seed in everybody's mind,
• 29:49
  you know, oh, wow, you know, I thought it was good. Let's go, God, let's do it.
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  And somebody says, you know, I don't know, that ain't going to work.
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  And look, we don't have the money for that or, you know, it has a body, you know.
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  So, you know, she's talking about how we need to not do that.
• 30:08
  Also just personally about fathers provoking their children,
• 30:17
  so down to number three you know she
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  talks about how you know she wants to know what can some of the effects of that
• 30:25
  discouragement be you know that we face from our mothers and fathers or you
• 30:31
  know not even that it could be somebody in the higher authority you know that has discouraged you and,
• 30:38
  Two that came to my mind is, you know, sometimes, not just that,
• 30:43
  having to measure up, but in our families, especially Hispanic family cultures,
• 30:49
  you know, for me personally.
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  My, there is no incentive to do better.
• 30:56
  You know, sadly, if you graduate from high school, man, you have,
• 31:01
  you've done good. But, you know, it was never like, you do whatever you can
• 31:08
  to get out of this situation.
• 31:10
  And mine wasn't so bad. We were poor. And my grandparents were married and together.
• 31:16
  And I didn't, you know, I personally did. I didn't have my parents in my life.
• 31:20
  I had grandparents and aunts and uncles, and they loved me, you know.
• 31:23
  But there was never, nobody cared about graduating high school.
• 31:28
  They were going to just get out of school and go to work, you know.
• 31:32
  That family cycle is a big one that just causes people not to get out of that
• 31:39
  situation, not to do better, not to grow.
• 31:43
  That's a big one that I thought could cause just discouragement in a person.
• 31:50
  And then just society, you know, we see people getting away with bad things
• 31:54
  and that's so discouraging, you know, that we just can't.
• 31:58
  How is this all going on right now, you know, politically?
• 32:02
  All of this wasteful stuff and the corruption and
• 32:05
  you're like how these people get away with this stuff then
• 32:09
  they stand there and act so self-righteous you know but how
• 32:12
  you know that is so discouraging like nobody even
• 32:15
  i think even the the ones that go in trying to
• 32:19
  do something good get discouraged because they see all
• 32:22
  of them all of the yuck that's going on you know
• 32:24
  yeah it's overwhelming yeah so day five is
• 32:27
  this is where we we're learning how to defeat
• 32:30
  all this stuff you know through god's word right these are the this day was
• 32:36
  okay we talked about the different ways and the different things that we do
• 32:40
  we don't do that are done upon us but now we're going to learn how we're going
• 32:44
  to battle it and she gave us you know homework to look at the psalmist.
• 32:50
  From from psalm 77 and the
• 32:55
  way that one way that we defeat
• 32:58
  discouragement is that we get out of thinking
• 33:01
  about that thing get out of that get out
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  out of your feels you know get out
• 33:07
  all your feelings and start praising God
• 33:10
  remembering his goodness if you have to go read songs and they're wonderful
• 33:16
  at praising God they just worship him worship and praise and that's for me personally
• 33:23
  when I when I'm discouraged and I just start doing that it it falls off like you said Go to Him.
• 33:29
  You just go to His feet and praising Him and thanking Him and bringing to remembrance
• 33:35
  all of the good things that He's done for us. That's how we get out of discouragement.
• 33:41
  And then she also wanted us to read verses 16 through 20.
• 33:45
  And what I got from that is we have to have a reverence for God.
• 33:51
  He is God Almighty, the creator of the universe. You know, we have to have that
• 33:57
  reverence for Him, you know, when we're thinking about the things that discourage
• 34:02
  us, that we feel like it didn't go right.
• 34:04
  God, you know, I don't know. You know the end from the beginning.
• 34:07
  So I have to have reverence in that, that you're going to work this out for me.
• 34:13
  And I need to just step back and not try to bulldoze my way and do the thing
• 34:20
  that I think I want to do, because I'm that way. I could be stubborn.
• 34:23
  That's my bad habit. My husband—,
• 34:29
  But I'll just want to, like, fix it. You know, it's not happening fast enough. I'm going to fix it.
• 34:33
  And I need to make sure I have to reverence God.
• 34:36
  You know, God, I need to quit doing that. You know better than I do.
• 34:40
  I'm not going to let myself get in the way.
• 34:45
  I talked about remembering God and all of His goodness. And then, let me see, define hope.
• 34:52
  She said she defined hope that we have because of God. And I said,
• 34:58
  we can always have hope because God is faithful.
• 35:02
  His ways are not our ways. He is just.
• 35:06
  He's slow to anger. He's patient. He's loving. He's kind. He's merciful.
• 35:11
  So many, so many things that give us hope, you know, when we're discouraged.
• 35:17
  Just knowing all of His beautiful attributes towards us, you know.
• 35:23
  It's always good. it's never going to be to harm us or to lead us wrong.
• 35:29
  And three, she wanted us to read Psalm 61 to learn what did David do when he was discouraged.
• 35:37
  And David was, wow, he was a good one.
• 35:39
  He was the only one in the Bible that you hear. He was a man after God's own
• 35:43
  heart. So he's an example of what not to do and what to do when you've done wrong.
• 35:50
  He knows how to go back in repentance. And that's a good example for us to follow.
• 35:58
  He would call on the Lord when his heart was faint.
• 36:01
  He wouldn't stay there. And he had a lot of very, very hard hardships in his life.
• 36:08
  That's what we're reading in, you know, in the—that was Abraham or Jacob.
• 36:15
  Anyhow, he did things out of his own sin and disobedience. He had things done to him.
• 36:21
  He's had it all, just everything that we talked about. And yet he was that example
• 36:25
  of how we go back to God in reverence and thanksgiving and faithfulness and
• 36:30
  trusting that he's got a plan for this.
• 36:33
  He's already told me that he's got a plan for me.
• 36:36
  And I need to just trust him that it's a good plan. He's a good God.
• 36:43
  And four, what can we find in the following verses?
• 36:48
  And she gave us Psalms 55, 22, and John, and Romans.
• 36:54
  And thessalonians and i think i kind of
• 36:56
  already talked about them and
• 36:59
  just what i just said but it talks about that
• 37:02
  god will sustain me he never permits the righteous to be to be moved so we know
• 37:09
  that we're righteous we're right standing with him so we can trust that he'll
• 37:13
  sustain us you know he will he will whatever it is that we're going through
• 37:18
  we're going to be sustained by him We're going to get through it.
• 37:23
  And John is Jesus in this situation. And Jesus, I have peace,
• 37:28
  even when there's trouble.
• 37:30
  I know that there's always going to be peace when we're in Christ,
• 37:35
  even in the troubled times.
• 37:37
  And from Romans, I got that if God is for me, it can be against Caesar. Right.
• 37:43
  And 1 Thessalonians 5, 24, he who calls me is faithful. He will surely do it.
• 37:51
  So when he's telling you he's going to do something, you can count on it, but he will.
• 37:56
  Oh, I did want to, she had a question for us on the very last page,
• 38:02
  and she wanted us to come up with a verse.
• 38:04
  It might have been in, it was on day five,
• 38:07
  and it was number three, and it was a challenge to us to use something in scripture
• 38:14
  to support your answer about the question,
• 38:18
  what will we find when we go to him so for
• 38:23
  me and i i said it already that there's when i
• 38:26
  go to him i find rest i find
• 38:29
  peace i find joy i find
• 38:33
  the truth and i find safety when i
• 38:36
  go to him and my scripture that i chose for that was john 14 27 peace i live
• 38:45
  with you my peace i give you not as the world gives do i give to you let your
• 38:52
  hearts not be troubled neither let them be afraid.