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I can't say I ever aspired to be a hospice chaplain, but that was the job that opened

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up after I finished my training and I needed an income, or otherwise my wife might kick

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me out of the house.

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Since that time I have fallen in love with that ministry.

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It's not as hard as you might imagine.

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I'm sure for some people it is, but you're coming in contact with people at a very vulnerable

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time in life and you get to make an impact.

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Not only are employed people utilized, but also volunteers.

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If you ever think you might like to sit with a hospice patient and provide a little extra

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support you can talk to Jennifer or myself.

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Many times we want people to come to us to minister to, but there are opportunities where

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we can go to them and meet them where they're at.

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Amen.

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Number of years ago I watched a movie about a dog and a cat who were separated from their

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owners.

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I don't remember the details, but I remember them making their way from one part of the

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country to another.

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And of course either these animals talked or we understood their thoughts or how television

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is and so forth.

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But it was a heartwarming story of advances, setbacks, fun times, and heartaches.

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The name of the movie I believe was Homeward Bound, The Incredible Journey.

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Does that sound familiar to anybody?

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Again, it's been probably 15, 20 years since I've seen it.

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I was probably only partially paying attention.

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You know we're fascinated by the tales of people's journeys.

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There's stories.

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When I was in the library I saw one of the books about the Adventist soldier that was

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in combat and saved so many people.

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What was his name?

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Desmond Doss.

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You know his story, don't you?

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We're intrigued and fascinated about people's journeys and their stories, their ups and

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downs.

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The story is pretty much a boring one if everything goes alright, isn't it?

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You're not going to stay and watch that or read that book.

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You're probably not even going to be able to relate to that.

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So today I want to look at a story, an incredible journey that begins in Genesis chapter 12.

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If you have your Bibles and like to follow along, we'll look at some passages along the

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way, just some highlights.

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I tend to use my phone these days, so if you have a phone that's welcome as well.

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Genesis chapter 12, as was read just a few minutes ago, Abram, and sometimes I'll say

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Abram, sometimes I'll say Abraham, you know he's the same person, heard God's voice which

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called him to leave the security of his father's home and go to an unspecified location with

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his wife and all of his possessions.

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God promises to make him into a great nation, to be blessed and to be a blessing to others.

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And in verse 5 we read, then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son and all

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their possessions that they had gathered and the people whom they had acquired in Haran

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and they departed to go to the land of Canaan.

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While in Canaan, God's voice, I don't know, can you say a voice appeared?

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God's voice was heard again and God promised Abraham that the land that was surrounding

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him, one that was a very luscious, green, prosperous, desirable land, would one day

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be his family.

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You ever been on a journey that started off as exciting, became difficult as you entered

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into it?

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Number of years ago, after I finished up my studies at Andrews University, it was wintertime

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and we were called to move to Connecticut, Bridgeport in Stamford, Connecticut.

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And kind of hated leaving Michigan.

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We made some friends, enjoyed the Great Lake there and everything, but that's why we'd

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gone to school was to serve and minister.

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And so we packed up our stuff, which for those who know is a very difficult thing to do,

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to get everything put into a truck.

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And not only our stuff, but my mother's stuff.

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And I can't remember why she wasn't on the trip with us, but we had her stuff.

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It was loaded in a truck.

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We drove the next morning and when we got up in the morning, I was sick to my stomach.

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I didn't feel good and I wanted to stay in the hotel.

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Well, my wife wanted to meet the truck to be able to tell them where to put things.

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And so her opinion prevailed.

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And we drove along, I think it was Highway 80 in Ohio.

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I'm sick.

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My son had been sick the night before.

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The journey was miserable.

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It was so miserable that when we pulled over to the side of the road, there was snow and

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I had to get down on my knees and do what sick people do on the side of the highway.

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A journey that was supposed to be exciting became difficult.

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But here you see Abraham on a journey and God has spoken to him.

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God has made some promises to him.

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Abraham has responded faithfully with all of these things, what could possibly go wrong

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for Abraham or Abraham?

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In verse 12, we see the first one or two problems.

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We're told that there's a severe famine in the land that God had promised Abraham.

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Wow, that's got to be a disappointment.

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Fandome means no water, no fruit.

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This is what God is promising me.

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Which then led to problem number two.

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Abraham and his tribe had to move to Egypt.

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I can't imagine what it's like moving all your possessions and stuff without having

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a moving truck or a pickup truck or a trailer.

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But Abraham did it and other people during that time did it.

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They figured out they must have been great pathfinders.

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But without the equipment that pathfinders have today.

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And so they packed up their stuff and they moved on to Egypt.

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And at face value, it's an inconvenience.

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Except Abraham saw it as more than that.

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In verse 11, the second part, if you want to read along with me, I'm reading from the

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New King James Version.

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He said to Saraiah's wife, indeed, I know that you are a woman of beautiful countenance.

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Therefore, it will happen when the Egyptians see you that they will say, this is my wife,

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and they will do what?

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They will kill me.

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But they will let you live.

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They say that you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake and that I may

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live because of you.

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There are two things that go wrong here.

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A famine forces them to go potentially to a hostile place, Egypt.

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And the second thing that goes wrong is Abram's interpretation of the event and his fearful

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reaction which made the situation much worse than what it really was.

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Are you with me this morning?

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You ever do that?

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Interpret something to be worse than what it really is?

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People who study human behavior tell us we do it all the time.

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In fact, we have two encounters or two experiences of suffering for Abraham.

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One, the need to move to a potentially hostile place.

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But his suffering, his difficulty is increased by his response or his reaction to problem

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number one.

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He makes the assumption that the Egyptians are going to take his life and that the only

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solution is to pretend that his wife is his sister and hand her willingly over to the

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Egyptian leaders so that his life can be spared and his life can be spared.

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Think about that.

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Abraham has difficulty.

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It's not easy moving stuff around, traveling with a caravan of people.

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Who knows how many he had at this time.

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He assesses a threat which our brains are trained to do and need to do because there

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are real threats in this world.

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If you see a dog that's growling, you may want to protect yourself, make sure you're

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safe.

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And so our brains are wired and God's given us that instinct.

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But today I want to share with you we can't always trust our instinct.

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Amen?

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We have to be careful with our responses and our thoughts and our assumptions because sometimes

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in life we make a difficult situation worse by trying to fix the difficult situation in

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a way that isn't helpful.

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Imagine for a moment being there when Abraham turns his wife over to the Egyptians and says

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goodbye.

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Imagine the pain that's in his wife's heart.

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Imagine the pain that's in the community's heart.

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Those lot and others who bonded with her and were close to her and were used to having

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her around in whatever role she played.

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And imagine the pain of Abraham potentially never seeing his wife again or never living

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as husband and wife again.

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Because of his interpretation of a problem, he increased the suffering that actually took

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place.

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Many times we can increase our suffering by our reaction to a difficulty or loss.

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Thankfully God rescues them from Egypt, but the hardship does not end there.

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Abraham repeats the experience in a different setting.

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And then another example we'll look at of making something worse is when they were childless

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and decided to have a child through Sarah's servant.

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I'm not going to ask anybody here who has had trouble, who wanted a child, couldn't

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have a child, had to go through infertility and all that stuff.

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My wife and I were there and it bothered her more than it bothered me because I was kind

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of afraid to have children.

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Now I'm glad that I had them.

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But at the time, that interpretation of a lifelong desire to have children really was

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a struggle for my wife because she personalized it.

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And many times we can personalize our difficulties.

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Why me?

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What did I do?

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Why is God not allowing me to have children?

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And at the same time she was working in an office that worked with addictions, providing

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healthcare and she would see drug addicted women get pregnant that didn't want children,

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have abortions, and she had to live with this reality of here I am, I have a decent income,

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a stable home.

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I want children.

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What did I do wrong?

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Why is God punishing me?

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So you have the event of difficulty, of pain, of hardship, but then the suffering can be

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increased by how we interpret that experience.

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Thankfully, God was able to help her work through that and actually reveal some assumptions

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that she had, some things, concepts that she inherited from growing up that had to be undone

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and unworked.

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But essentially we can increase our suffering with our interpretations and that's what happened

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to Abram and Sarah.

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They were so desperate to have children that they decided to set up a situation where Abram

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would impregnate Sarah's servant and they would claim that child as their own.

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I know it sounds kind of strange, although those things are still happening today in

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a different way.

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But then eventually they had to send that child and woman away to fend for themselves

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because of the strife that was created and that sending away increased their suffering

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even more.

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You know, you have to wonder if Abraham knew there were going to be all these difficulties

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along the way, would he have responded to God's invitation, God's call to leave and

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to set out and to create a new nation, a new people, go to a new land?

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Thankfully, God doesn't reveal everything to us at the beginning.

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We have to discover it along the way or we may not venture out on that journey.

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And so it leads us to the question, is the journey with God worth it and why are journeys

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so difficult?

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And I want to propose three reasons this morning.

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First, we live in a broken world where there's suffering, loss, hurt and pain.

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It's the reality that we live in.

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Second, we have an enemy that seeks to kill, steal and destroy and that's a reality.

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Third, we are flawed and in need of transformation and that transformation can be painful.

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Are you with me today?

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In my personal journey, I found myself at a place of disillusionment, disappointment,

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frustration, negativity, judgmentalism of myself and others and it placed me in a very

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stuck place in life.

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And here I was a pastor.

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I wanted things to change.

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I wanted my wife to change.

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I wanted my children to change, my, at that time, teenage, young adults.

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I wanted my church to change.

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I wanted my friends to change.

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I wanted the politics of the United States to change but none of those things were changing.

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And so I protested internally and sometimes externally.

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I ruminated on those things.

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I sought to argue for change of perspective, change of things that were done.

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I would retreat.

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I would withdraw.

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I would suck.

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I, you know, I tried all kinds of things to change everything around me but eventually

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I came to realize that the only thing I can change is me.

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Amen?

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I can't change my wife, although she's a wonderful person.

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I can't change my kids, although they're good kids.

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I can't, I couldn't change my church, although there were good people there.

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I can't change our society.

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I can't change our world.

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There are lots of things I came to realize that I couldn't change and so I had to come

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to a point and thankfully in my chaplain training and so forth, learn the concept of radical

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acceptance where you accept things as they are and you make the most of them.

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So what did radical acceptance look like for me?

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Instead of getting frustrated, ruminating, I just accepted.

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That's how it is.

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Where can I find something that brings meaning?

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How can I engage in meaningful activity?

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How can I find joy and purpose in this setting, in this environment?

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How can I, how can I respond differently?

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And when we learn radical acceptance, we can take care of two problems.

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One is the fact that we live in a broken world where suffering and hurt and loss and pain

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happen.

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When we accept that as a reality, that's just where we are.

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We're not going to change it, but we can find meaningful lives in the midst of it.

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That takes care of that.

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And then the second, we have an enemy that kills, steals, and destroy.

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When we accept that and we place our trust in God, that takes care of a lot of the problems

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that some of us experience.

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But then there's a third thing that needed to change, and that is me.

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The process of transformation is often painful.

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I've skipped around here, so I'm just going to catch up in my notes and see where I'm

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at.

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So when I began to accept life as it is, trust that God is in the midst of these things,

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working out his will and purpose, even though he did not necessarily cause certain things

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to happen.

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As I began to seek out more meaningful activities and work, and one thing I began to do was

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practicing gratitude at the end of the day by counting all the things that went right

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that day instead of ruminating on the things that went wrong.

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My mind, my heart, my life began to get better.

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It doesn't mean that we don't have hardships and losses and we don't grieve, but our vision

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of life can become very small and narrow, and we can miss out on the beauties that still

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exist.

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Currently, I'm reading a book, it's a psychological book that talks about resilience.

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And one of the things that says it's fascinating to me is we can become resilient by developing

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a couple of skills, a couple of dispositions, outlooks.

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One is radical gratitude, learning to be thankful for all kinds of stuff.

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Thankful that we have running water, thankful that we have heated running water, thankful

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that we have a shelter, thankful that we have transportation, thankful because we take these

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things for granted, we just assume that they're there and they should work and when they don't,

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we get upset and so forth.

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But when we can fill our lives with a sense of gratitude and appreciation for what we

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do have, we become more resilient in the difficulties of life because the difficulties don't overshadow

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everything else that's good and beautiful in the world.

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And the other thing it recommended was developing a sense of awe and wonder.

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And I think both of these are biblical concepts.

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Science, good science only observes how God has created and organized and makes things

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work.

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And so it says to start appreciating the little stuff that happens, the beauty in nature,

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the beauty in personalities, the beauty of art, the beauty of poetry, the beauty of music.

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Create and develop wonder of how electricity works and other kinds of things.

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And one exercise that actually amused me was imagine yourself in your home and someone

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from a hundred years or a thousand years ago comes and asks you about things in your house,

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explain it to them.

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Yeah, that microwave, that cooks food.

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It draws electricity.

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Well, what's electricity?

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Well, electricity is something, you know, and trying to describe this, oh, that smoke

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alarm, that warns us if there's a fire and there's smoke and it sets off an alarm.

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Imagine explaining this to someone who's never seen or heard of these things.

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A bathroom, a toilet, what is that?

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Well, that's, you know, where you do your business and well, where does it go?

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Well, it goes down some pipes and into a tank and then, well, where does it go from there?

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And I found myself amused explaining these things to this imaginary person.

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Well, where does it go?

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I mean, what happens to it?

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Well, it gets carted away by a truck.

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Well, what's a truck?

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Well, that's in, we need to cultivate a sense of awe and wonder for the ordinary and the

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beautiful things that we have and that are around us.

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And it can help us along the journey of life when we face these difficulties and disappointments.

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Amen?

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In the Bible, you read in Psalms in different places the sense of awe and wonder and appreciation

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and gratitude, but it's also a mixture with disappointment and grief and loss and they

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seem to balance each other out and make life more palatable.

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And so we see in Abraham a mixture of radical faith, but also distrust in God.

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Distrust that God would allow someone to take his life after God had made those promises

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to him.

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We see it as a mixture of radical faith and joy and resentment and anger and need for

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control and pessimism and judgmentalism and impulsivity and fear and you name it.

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And the journey with God challenges us to grow often without providing the details of

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how to do it.

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There are principles in God's word that help us.

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Time spent in meditation and prayer can help.

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Also advice from others, experiences can help.

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Learning to manage our responses and our reactions can be key because when our feelings are intense,

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when there's a strong sense internally of anger or resentment or disappointment or judgmentalism

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or whatever it is, and it can happen in split seconds, we have difficulty thinking clearly.

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We react in ways that we might not have reacted as if we were at peace.

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And God has given us the gift and ability to calm and soothe those emotions so we can

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pause and make thoughtful choices and decisions.

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One of the things that was helpful to me was the acronym STOP.

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When you're facing some strong feelings or whatever it is, stop what you're doing.

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That's the S. Pause, don't react.

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Take a step back from the situation mentally.

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T-O is observe what's going on inside of me.

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What am I feeling right now?

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Well I feel angry and I should feel angry because they did this and that or I feel hurt

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because of this and they didn't invite me to that or I feel whatever.

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We can come up with all kinds of ways to justify our feelings.

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And we don't want to discount our feelings but we want to remember that our feelings

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are things that come and go.

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It's our mind trying to predict and anticipate and respond to the past and to the future

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and it floods into the present.

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And so we want to pause and observe what's going on inside of ourselves.

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I've learned to label it.

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Oh I notice I'm having fear right now.

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Oh I notice I'm having judgmental thoughts right now.

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Oh I've noticed and so I'm pausing, I'm slowing down my mind, I'm slowing down the physiology

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because some of us can have real strong internal reactions.

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Especially if you're like me, you've had some ADD and some childhood trauma and a brain

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injury.

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You have to learn to slow down and pause and calm yourself so that you can make good choices

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and good reactions.

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There are things like breathing exercises where we can slow our physiology down.

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We can learn distress tolerance and practice present moment awareness where we're just

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dealing with this now.

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Not the past, not all that has happened, not our fears and anticipation of future but right

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now what is going on?

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It's interesting in Psalm 46 it starts off with the words, God is our refuge and our

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strength, a very present help in trouble.

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And then it describes this world shaking calamity and though the earth be moved and the mountains

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go into the sea and all this and so forth and then it wraps up by saying, be still and

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know that I am God.

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So in the midst of this chaotic world, this stressful disappointing world, God wants us

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to be still, to slow down, to be thoughtful, to be mindful and not to react because when

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we react we find ourselves doing like Abraham and bringing more suffering into the lives

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of our own and into the lives of others.

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So Abraham faced all these difficulties, was the journey worth it?

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We have this interesting insight in chapter 24, I think it's verse 24, where at the end

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of his life his son hasn't got a wife yet so he calls his servant and says, you know,

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I want you to find a wife for my son and so forth and in chapter 24, 24 the writer makes

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a comment that probably we could rush right by it and not even pay attention to it or

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notice it.

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It says, now Abraham was old, well advanced in age and the Lord had blessed Abraham in

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all things.

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Who would have thought the mistakes Abraham made, the choices, the mixture of the faith

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and the not faith, the hostile environment around him, who would have thought that his

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life would end up being blessed in all things?

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Interspersed between those big mistakes and hardships and disappointments, God was able

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to work with Abraham and change him.

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A high point was when God instructed Abraham to sacrifice his son on the altar and Abraham

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practiced trust and God intervened and confirmed Abraham's transformation.

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If Abraham had not entered the journey, he would not have had those encounters with God

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out in the wilderness.

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He would not have witnessed God's work in amazing ways and most of all he would not

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have become a close friend of God.

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Today in our circumstances, God invites us on a journey of faith and trust and most importantly

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personal transformation.

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It's tempting to hold back, it's tempting to take another journey, a lot held back,

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he took another journey and he lost everything sadly.

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It's tempting to take on a side route, what I call elder brother ministry.

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Anyone know what elder brother ministry is?

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You know the prodigal son and the elder brother?

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A ministry of criticism of others, which is no ministry at all.

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There are lots of other routes that we could take, lots of ways to get off the journey,

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half-hearted responses with God, but the real joy is in the journey of struggle, personal

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change and learning to trust God deeply with our existence, no matter what comes our way.

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I believe that we're going to have some difficult times ahead of us that will challenge us in

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ways we've never been challenged.

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But the word of God and life experience confirms to me that if we respond to God's call, practice

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acceptance, learn to calm our reactions and to make thoughtful choices in faith, spend

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time with God in prayer and meditation, we too can be deemed blessed in every way and

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be guided by God in the midst of a broken world and be a blessing to others.

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May God help us to be on the incredible journey.

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Dear Lord, we thank you for these testimonies, these experiences, and as we seek to find

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our own way, help us to slow down, to reflect, to seek wisdom and guidance, and that trust

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no matter what happens, even if we were to lose our very lives in a situation or circumstances,

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that we too will ultimately be blessed, either in this life or in the life to come, but most

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likely both.

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And we thank you in Jesus' name.

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Let everyone say, Amen.