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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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00:00:21,320 –> 00:00:24,800
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 12.

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You’re listening to episode 219
of the Where Did You See God

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podcast?
I’ve already recorded.

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I could not find it on the page
at all.

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But then when I tried to start a
new one after finishing, it said

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it was still streaming.
So I don’t know.

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So this is going to be a little
different because I’ve already

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prayed.
I’ve already pulled a verse, I

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have already processed it, and
I’ve already prayed it out.

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So know that all those things
are in there.

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I’m still going to pray because
who knows, the Spirit might have

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something different.
I did laugh.

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Just something that I have found
comedic about this verse.

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Let me pray Father God, just
thinking that you were God and

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you were good, that you have
worked and you have moved.

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I thank you for the verse that
you brought today.

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I thank you for the processing
that has happened.

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But if there is more processing
to be done, this space is yours.

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I pray for the person listening,
that Holy Spirit you would speak

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and move within them.
Father God, we just thank you

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that you have prepared a hope
and help us to understand that

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more accurately.
Honest prayer was holy and

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precious name.
Amen.

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Alrighty.
There’s a reason when I read it,

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I laugh before I read it because
I already knew some very

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important things that we need to
sit with.

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The passage is Jeremiah 2911.
Somebody might be like, oh, I

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love that one.
Jeremiah 2911 For I know the

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plans I have for you declares
the Lord plans for welfare and

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not for evil, to give you a
future and a hope.

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00:03:08,640 –> 00:03:12,520
For I know the plans I have for
you declares the Lord plans for

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welfare and not for evil, to
give you a future and a hope.

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We have heard this many times.
You might even have it on a

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poster.
And the way that it is often

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communicated, the way that we
often receive it is God knows

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the plans He has for me and He
does not want harm to come to

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me.
He’s going to care for me, but

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also He’s giving me a future and
a hope.

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Some people take this even
further around how God is going

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to bless them in big ways.
I’m not here saying that God

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won’t do that, but what I am
saying is we are taking this

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passage, this verse out of
context.

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There’s two things that I want
to point out.

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It’s always good, by the way, to
get the context of a verse, in

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this case Jeremiah 2911.
Let’s jump back 10 verses to

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verse one.
All right, the first important

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piece of context is knowing what
the situation was that the

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people receiving this were in.
This is the text of the letter

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that the prophet Jeremiah sent
from Jerusalem to the surviving

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elders among the Exiles and to
the priests, the prophets, and

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all the other people
Nebuchadnezzar had carried into

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exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
So that’s the first piece.

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They weren’t just living normal
lives.

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They were in exile, and exile
was a serious thing.

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They had been pulled from their
homelands.

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They were under the control of a
foreign king.

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They were in a space with a
culture different than their own

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people, different than their own
expectations on them that were

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not the freedom they had known.
Context is important.

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These were exiles.
So knowing the plans that God

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had, the starting point was
exile.

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Now somebody might say, well,
that was 10 verses back.

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I mean, come on Paul, how far
back do you need to go with

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context?
Fine, fine.

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Let’s go one single verse back
because this is probably the

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most important piece that we
need to get verse 10.

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This is what the Lord says.
When 70 years are completed for

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Babylon, I will come to you and
fulfill my good promise to bring

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you back to this place.
For I know the plans I have for

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you, declares the Lord, plans to
prosper you and not to harm you,

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plans to give you a hope and a
future.

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Then you will call on me and
come and pray to me, and I will

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listen to you.
You will seek me and find me.

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When you seek me with all your
heart.

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I will be found by you, declares
the Lord, and will bring you

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back from captivity.
I will gather you from all the

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nations and places where I have
banished you, declares the Lord,

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and will bring you back to the
place from which I carried you

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into exile.
The verse that precedes Jeremiah

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2911 is when 70 years are
completed for Babylon.

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I will come to you and fulfill
my good promise, for I know the

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plans I have for you, declares
the Lord, plans for welfare and

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not for evil.
Plans to give you a future and a

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hope.
Elements of this promise would

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not be fulfilled for 70 years.
God’s plan to care for them,

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yes, that would be fulfilled.
And we hear more about that and

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their invitation to be a part of
it.

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But if something’s taking 70
years, that meant there were

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people hearing this letter that
would never experience the

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fulfillment of it.
The full fulfillment of it would

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never know the freedom from
exile, the freedom from

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captivity. 70 years is a long
time.

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Many people don’t live that
long.

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In that time, before modern
medicine, many, many people did

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not live that long.
Even if you lived 70 years, you

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were born as a baby.
You weren’t there when this was

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read, you weren’t understanding
it and you would be towards the

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end of life.
But it’s it’s a fair assumption

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that most of the people that
heard this promise did not see

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the full fulfillment of it.
Why is this important?

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We take this in two erroneous
ways.

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It says for I know the plans I
have for you.

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We take that as a singular you,
but it’s not it’s a plural you.

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It’s a community you.
I know the plans I have for

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y’all, for all of you, declares
the Lord.

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But here’s the other piece.
Even if we get that far, that we

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take it as a plural you, it’s
not just a communal you, it’s a

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generational communal you.
I know the plans that I have for

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you in terms of not just you, of
you hearing this, but you, your

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people, your children, your
children’s children, the future

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generations.
And suddenly the singular you

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become smaller and smaller.
The singular you on its own is

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the biggest thing to us.
I am the most important thing.

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My life is the most important
thing.

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God, I need you to have good
plans, a future, and hope for my

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life.
If you understand it communally,

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suddenly you’re a part of a body
still matters, but it’s like

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smaller.
But if suddenly you take this

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body and expand it out, the
singular you rightfully

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diminishes.
Scripture calls us to love God

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and love others, but our default
too often is to love ourselves.

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So we will take Jeremiah 2911
and the hope that it talks about

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and make it ingrained in the
singular you.

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This is what God is promising to
me.

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Jeremiah 2911 was a promise for
generations of a community, and

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the hearers of it would not be
the recipients of the fullness

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of it.
Does that mean that they heard

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it and they’re like, well, this
isn’t for me and walked away.

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No, because if you read all of
Jeremiah 29, they are invited to

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be a part of the process of the
restoration.

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He invites them to seek the
welfare of the city in which

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they are in exile, to care for
the people holding them in

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captivity.
They are actually part of God’s

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plan for welfare, for the
future, for the hope.

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This is a important thing for us
to name and a hard thing for us

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to name.
It’s important because if we

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operate, if our hope is
operating from only that

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singular you, we are going to
misunderstand God and His will

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and we are going to demand
things from Him that He never

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promised.
But it’s hard because, man, we

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really want the singular youth
stuff.

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We really want welfare, not
evil.

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We really want a future and a
hope for our lives.

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And then leaning into this way
of seeing it, this generational

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communal element of seeing it,
we have to let go of some of our

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own personal understandings of
welfare, our own desires for

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future.
And I hope we let it go for a

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greater purpose.
We take that singular you,

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squish it down as part of a
body, squish it down as part of

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generations, squish it down in
light of eternity.

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So God does have wise, wise,
loving plans, but their scope is

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far beyond what we expect, what
we understand, what we even want

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sometimes, and yet He invites us
to be participants in it.

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So Jeremiah 2911 for I know the
plans I have for you declares

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the Lord plans for welfare and
not for evil, to give you a

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future and a hope.
One more thing, and this is a

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bonus from the recording that
was lost.

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The greater passage that I read,
there is an element of it that I

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think we also miss when we only
take this verse.

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This verse is about us in our
minds and what God does for us,

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but it’s actually framed within
a passage where the main focus

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is getting back into right
relationship with God, where we

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are communicating with Him, He
is hearing us and we are

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together like that.
God is not just trying to make

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their lives better.
The whole reason their lives got

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messed up is because they broke
relationship with Him.

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00:11:06,280 –> 00:11:08,960
They did not trust him, They did
not like his ways.

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As you see throughout Exodus,
they knew who God was and how he

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00:11:12,760 –> 00:11:14,720
worked, but they kept saying
well why did he drag us out here

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just to die?
We are better off than the other

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place.
There is an opportunity here in

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our lives as we are seeking hope
to understand that the bigger

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00:11:24,640 –> 00:11:28,360
invitation is not for the
situation to be fixed, but us to

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become more and more in right
relationship with God and

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00:11:31,000 –> 00:11:33,920
healthy relationship with God
and loving relationship with

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God.
Because I want to pull back on

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00:11:35,080 –> 00:11:37,360
that right relationship thing.
Because for some people that can

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00:11:37,480 –> 00:11:39,000
carry a lot of stress and
anxiety.

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00:11:40,000 –> 00:11:43,440
What we’re talking about is
authentic relationship with God,

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00:11:44,000 –> 00:11:49,320
actually wanting to seek God and
know who He is, actually joining

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00:11:49,320 –> 00:11:53,160
with him in meaningful ways.
That is where this future and

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00:11:53,160 –> 00:11:56,560
hope lives.
That’s where it exists that they

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00:11:56,560 –> 00:11:59,840
stop just doing their own thing
and only leaning on their own

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00:11:59,840 –> 00:12:03,440
understanding and they actually
say maybe God actually does love

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00:12:03,440 –> 00:12:06,360
me and know better than me and
maybe he actually does have

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00:12:06,360 –> 00:12:10,320
plans that are bigger than me.
Finally, I was just thinking

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that you were gone.
You were good.

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We thank you for double, double
hit on this reflection, and I

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00:12:17,880 –> 00:12:20,360
pray for those listening that
are very focused on the

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00:12:20,360 –> 00:12:22,560
singular.
You help us to understand not

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just a plural you, but a
generational eternal plural You

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00:12:26,800 –> 00:12:30,320
help us to understand our
positioning in that and our

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00:12:30,320 –> 00:12:33,600
invitation within that so that
our understanding of hope can

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00:12:33,600 –> 00:12:35,520
mature.
That’s famous holy name.

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00:12:35,720 –> 00:12:36,080
Amen.