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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 16.

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You’re listening to episode 223
of the Where did you see God

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podcast.
Father God, I want to thank you

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that you are God and you are
good.

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And for the the ways that you
move.

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And right now, I just thank you
for these many, many snippets of

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your word that are between my
fingers.

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I pray for the Holy Spirit that
you would lean my fingers to the

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one and then there it is right
there.

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And I pray that you would just
move in my mind, my heart, soul

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strength.
Pray that you would give not

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just me ears to hear, but those
that are listening, for the

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deeper word that you have for us
must be my holy name, Amen.

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All right folks, where are we
going today?

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First, Peter 1/3 Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus

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Christ.
According to His great mercy, He

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has caused us to be born again
into a living hope through the

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resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead, A living hope.

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There’s a qualifier there.
We’ve been talking a lot about

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hope.
Broadly, this indicates there is

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an unliving hope, a dead hope.
It does touch on that.

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This is through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead.

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And so I think this is a big
part of it.

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Prior to Jesus, and without a
deeper understanding of

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eternity, our greatest hopes are
going to be bound by the extent

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of our understanding and
creativity around our physical

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lives, right?
There’s not much hope you can

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have beyond what you think
exists.

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And so if you think that you’re
born, you live and you die and

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that’s it, and there’s nothing
after you, particularly if

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you’re not thinking
generationally, then your hopes

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are going to be very bound to
your actual life.

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What you want to happen is is
attached to that because once

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you’re dead, you’re dead.
If you have a generational

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mindset, you might have hopes
for your children or your

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children’s children and make
might make decisions that don’t

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benefit you, but it is for a
hope beyond you.

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But even that if you don’t have
an understanding of eternity and

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you don’t have an understanding
of the resurrection of Jesus, is

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still bound to lifetimes, maybe
not yours, but the life of your

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children and the life of your
children’s children and so

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forth.
It’s still bound to this here

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and now life.
So all of that is a hope that,

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you know, we’re not going to
call it a dead hope, but it’s

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attached to something that will
not last and thus will pass.

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But God has caused us to be born
again to a living hope.

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So we were born to a life and
then we’re born again to this

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new life, this new creation.
Jesus said I’ve come that you

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may have life and have it to the
full, to the full extent,

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something beyond you’re born,
you live and you die because

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you’re born again while you’re
still alive.

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So this is beyond that here and
now life.

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We’re born again into that,
which means we’re also born

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again to a living hope, a hope
that is not bound to what is

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passing away, to what is fading.
And this is through the

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resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. 2 reasons.

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One, Jesus rising from the dead
changed everything on a

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practical, logical level.
Because prior to that, when you

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die, you die.
And Jesus revealed, no actually,

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death has lost its sting.
Death is no longer the thing to

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be feared.
Death is not the end of it all.

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Death couldn’t stop me.
I’m back and I’m better than

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ever, right?
Like it’s the resurrection.

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Through our human logic into the
garbage, he revealed A deeper,

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truer, fuller reality. 2 The
resurrection of Jesus give us

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access to that reality.
It’s one thing for us to see it,

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but we can’t access that in and
of ourselves.

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We can never be good enough or
smart enough or spiritual

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enough.
Humans throughout human history

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have tried and failed.
The apostle Paul says I don’t

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understand what I do because
what I want to do I don’t do and

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what I hate to do.
That’s the thing I keep doing.

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Sin is living in me.
What a Wretch I am.

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And he says what hope is there
for me Jesus?

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If even the apostle Paul
recognized that he needed Jesus

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and keep in mind he had the
scrolls memorized as unto the

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law, blameless, a Hebrew of
Hebrew, a Pharisee of Pharisees.

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If even this guy can acknowledge
that he can’t do it without

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Jesus, if even this guy
acknowledged he’s running the

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race, but he’s, he’s not yet
arrived or achieved perfection,

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but he’s going to still run as
though he is heading in that

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way, then how much more the rest
of us that see him as a super

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Christian sometimes?
Blessed be the God and Father of

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our Lord Jesus Christ, both
names.

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Father, that relational element,
God, that divine level,

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according to His great mercy.
So not because He owed it to us,

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not because we deserved it.
In fact, it was mercy.

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Instead of giving us what we
deserved, His great mercy caused

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us to not be dead in our sins,
to not be bound to this fleeting

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life and just be dead when it’s
all done.

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In His great mercy he caused us
to be born again to a living

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hope, living hope, not an alive
hope, a living like this.

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This sense of brain is not
working enough to give the the

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verb tenses, but a continuing,
an ongoing thing, a living hope,

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an actively living hope through
the resurrection of Jesus Christ

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from the dead.
So the question is for us, which

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hope do we want to invest our
heart, mind, soul, and

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strengthen?
Do we want to invest our heart,

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mind, soul, and strength into a
dying hope that is just about

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the here and now, about the
things that would make life

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easier, more enjoyable, safer?
That’s not bad in and of itself,

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but it is limited and it is
fading.

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It is passing.
Or do we want to invest our

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heart, mind, soul and strength
into a living hope?

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I hope that is not passing away,
in fact is more full and

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thriving than anything we know
or can comprehend.

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If we want to lean into that
hope, it requires us to lean

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into the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead.

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What that says about life, What
that says about who Jesus is and

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why He came, What that says
about what He’s invited us to

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post resurrection, It invites us
to something bigger than just

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living our life and
acknowledging God along the way,

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living our life and even praying
regularly.

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There’s something different.
It’s bigger than this life

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because Jesus died and he rose
into a new life that was beyond

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what the disciples understood.
We are invited to die to self,

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die to all the things, and live
into something greater,

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something immeasurably more than
we are asking for imagining.

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I would like to invest myself
into this living hope.

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I acknowledge that it is hard
often because the dying hope is

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just so much clearer, so much
easier to name and to plan out

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and sometimes to pursue.
Yet it will never last.

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It will never satisfy.
Only the living hope can do

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that.
Jesus talks about living water.

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Those who drink that water,
they’re going to be thirsty

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again.
But those who drink the living

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water will never thirst again.
We can’t comprehend this, but

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this living element of who Jesus
is, of what he offers, living

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water, living hope satisfies at
a level that we can’t grasp.

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It’s more than satisfying
thirst.

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It’s more than satisfying what
we are hoping for first.

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Peter 13 Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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According to his great mercy, He
has caused us to be born again

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to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ

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from the dead.
Father God, we just thank you

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that you are God and you are
good, and that you have such

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great mercy on us who don’t
deserve it, that you are

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inviting us to a full life, to a
living hope, to living water, to

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something beyond the here and
now, something that will not

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fade, that will not pass away,
that will not die.

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We acknowledge that we hold to
the dying stuff often, mostly

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because we can’t understand the
reality of the living stuff.

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Holy Spirit, move in our minds.
Help us, even when we can’t

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understand, to glimpse and to
hold on to that slightest bit,

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to say, even though this makes
no sense, I’m meaning it.

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Help us to not exhaust our
heart, mind, soul and strength

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on those things that will pass.
Hel us to learn what it looks

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like to invest our heart, mind,
soul and strength.

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And So what will last?
Oscar name Amen.