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In 2025, I found myself
wrestling with frustration that

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God was not giving me joy.
And then God very patiently told

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me what was actually happening.
It wasn’t that he was

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withholding joy, it was that I
was rejecting it.

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What followed was an invitation
to spend 30 days looking at 30

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passages on Joy and turning it
into a devotional called

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Rejecting Joy No longer.
You’d think I would have learned

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that coming into 2026, I was
wrestling with hope.

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God, why are you making me so
hopeless?

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And God very patiently let me
know the reality.

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He wasn’t withholding hope.
I was rejecting it.

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And so now here I am, spending
30 days looking at 30 passages

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on hope.
And my hope is that this

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encourages you.
One thing that’s different this

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year is I felt like God was
inviting me to be publicly

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transparent with my processing.
To actually go live on social

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media, pull out a random verse,
and then read and process

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through it on camera.
This isn’t me coming to you as

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an expert on hope, but me coming
to you honestly as someone

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wrestling with hope.
And by witnessing that some of

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you might feel less alone, may
feel seen and understood, may

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end up being encouraged in a way
that is far deeper than the best

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platitude.
So join me as I spend 30 days

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navigating 30 passages on Hope.
This is day 10.

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You’re listening to episode 217
of the Where Did You See God

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podcast.
All right, folks, hopefully you

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can hear me.
OK, I’m outside and there’s a

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lot of work happening, so I
brought the good mic out to

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hopefully make it so you can’t
hear what I hear, which is a

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whole lot of noise.
Enough that I wouldn’t want to

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be outside.
But I want to be outside because

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I’ve had quite a day which tell
you the brief version about just

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in case God has a verse for me.
Started with the wife of kids

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heading to school only to find
out they had a completely flat

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tire.
Dealt with plenty of flat tires

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in my time, so I knew what to
do.

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I pumped it up, listened, heard
it, felt around, found it.

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It’s a gash.
It’s coming out fast enough that

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I know that I can’t just limp it
over somewhere, so I got to put

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the spare on.
I won’t even get into all the

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details.
Lots of things happen, including

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the SU VS parking brake not
doing what I was supposed to do

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and the SUV coming off the Jack
coming towards me didn’t hit me.

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I’m good.
Is the car, I don’t know, Dealer

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saying they don’t accept the
warranty.

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I mean, a whole bunch of stuff.
I’m feeling a certain way today,

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so I want to sit outside even if
it’s noisy.

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So you’re joining me.
I prayed when I went up to grab

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the verse.
There is one just sticking out

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and like, all right, that’s the
one.

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It’s small.
So I’m gonna pray that I just

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think that you were gone.
You were good.

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Thank you for your protection
from falling.

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SU VS Thank you for a beautiful
day on the porch.

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Thank you that you work even
when the day seems to not work.

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And Holy Spirit, I invite you to
move.

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I thank you for the verse that
you’ve brought.

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Thank you for the wisdom that
you will bring for me, but also

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for those listening that they
may perceive something that I

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don’t even mention.
Thank you for very obnoxiously

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loud vehicles.
And I give you this time I was

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famous only name Amen.
We got a couple guys out here

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with obscenely loud cars that
pop like gunshots.

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OK Proverbs 1312 Hope deferred
makes the heart sick.

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But desire fulfilled is a tree
of life.

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And I think a lot of us out
there have experienced hope

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deferred, have felt that
sickness of heart.

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But a desire fulfilled is a tree
of life.

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You know, when I grabbed the
verse, I was hoping that it

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would be this phenomenal
spiritual truth that would

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suddenly change everything.
That verse doesn’t change

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everything.
It just names it as it is.

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If your hopes deferred, it
hurts.

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If your desire is fulfilled,
that’s like a tree of life.

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And I feel like what God is
saying sometimes we just got to

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name it like it is.
Day was a frustrating day.

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There were little things I would
have hoped for for today that

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did not include almost getting
crushed by an SUV and now

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dealing with tire warranty.
Oh, and I had to go to a

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doctor’s appointment.
That’s a whole other thing.

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I’m good and I’m driving
carefully because I’m on the

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doughnut and a car kicks up a
rock and it Dings the windshield

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and I’m just like, all right.
It’s just one of those days.

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Man, did I hope today, this
week, this month, this year

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would be better.
Sometimes we just got to name

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it.
Sometimes we just got to say,

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you know what, all this is
making my heart sick.

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And then we allow the naming of
that to help us to accept that

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reality is hard sometimes, often
times, and possibly find rest

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because because sometimes the
most restless, the most

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difficult moments are the ones
where I’m very focused on what I

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wish was happening instead.
And when I just accept and name

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what’s happening, there’s a part
of the wrestling that just

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stops.
There are plenty of desires that

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I would like fulfilled.
And I concur with the verse.

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It would feel like a tree of
life.

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But today my heart is sick.
Today your heart might be sick,

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and that’s OK.
It doesn’t even mean anything’s

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wrong, even as things are wrong.
Because in the bigger picture,

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we’re broken people living in a
broken world.

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And as Jesus put it, in this
world you will have trouble.

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So I’m trying to learn to name
the trouble instead of just

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always grumbling about it or
lamenting it, or exhausting

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myself to change what might not
be changed.

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I’m learning the power of naming
a reality and then seeking to re

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understand what hope can look
like in that space.

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I wanted the verse to be
profound.

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It was not profound in the way
that I had hoped, and yet it is.

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It’s one of those really simple,
profound truths.

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Sometimes you just got to name
it.

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Sometimes you just got to name
how junk a situation is so that

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you can not just exist within
it, but even stand naming it can

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give you a boldness.
Sorry for those that don’t like

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Harry Potter, but that’s where
my mind went.

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Voldemort for years and years
and years people would just say

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he who must not be named like
they did would not say his name.

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There is a fear of naming him.
And then Harry Potter, he just

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names it because he he didn’t
grow up in that whole

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environment of knowing about who
Voldemort was.

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Who’s the bad guy?
If you haven’t seen the movies,

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He didn’t grow up in that
environment.

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So he didn’t know the rule that
you’re not supposed to name it.

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But there’s this thing that
happens when people start to

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realize the power of naming it
is when they wouldn’t name him.

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It was like they were giving him
another level of power over him.

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They were leaning into fear.
If I say his name dot, dot, dot,

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and then Harry’s like Voldemort
and just said his name.

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That was awful, by the way.
And, and suddenly a power was

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taken back and more and more
people began to do it until that

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was the thing people realized if
they name him, he’s less

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powerful.
Fear is trying to come at us,

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folks, from every angle.
Hardship can bring us down.

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Sometimes naming it takes power
back.

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Now the question is, what do you
do with that power?

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Do you just keep it within your
own strength, understanding and

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efforts and at some point falter
again, or do you shift that

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power back to where it actually
was designed to be in the hands

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of a loving God, shifting it
back to Him so that after we

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name it and we still want things
to be different, we can say but

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not my will, but yours be done.
I am foregoing power to shape my

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own reality.
And I’m saying it is for you to

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determine.
So that’s my encouragement for

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you.
If you are just feeling the

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weight of things, if your heart
is sick, take a moment to just

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name it.
Name the things, and then I’d

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say even write them down so that
you could just look at it and

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find out just how much power
those things have had over you

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and how much power you can take
back.

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All right, it’s gotten much
louder here for me.

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Don’t know if that’s the case
for you, but I’m going to call

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it.
I’m going to end it.

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I’m going to see if I could beat
it before 10 minutes.

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Finally got to just send you
that.

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You were gotten, you were good.
And for this opportunity to sit

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with a verse that wasn’t what
I’d hoped but is what I needed

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today.
Help me and others to have the

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power to name the things that we
are giving power over to in our

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lives.
And help us to have the wisdom

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to give power back to you as
premise only.

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Name.
Amen.