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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 2.

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You’re listening to episode 209
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, and that your word says

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that you are a God of hope.
And I concede that hopelessness

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is so often right.
They’re knocking at the door.

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So Holy Spirit, I invite you to
move in whatever reverse I pull

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out and however I process it.
And I pray for anyone who is

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watching this that they would
experience you in the midst of

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it.
Not any of my own words.

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That’s famous, only name, Amen.
And what I’m going to do now,

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while looking at you, pull a
random one out.

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One of them didn’t make it into
the mixed.

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It was not meant to be today,
but this one was meant to be.

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You ready?
Buckle up.

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Second Corinthians 312.
All right, we’re a New

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Testament.
I’m going to laugh at a lot of

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these since we have such a hope.
We are very bold.

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I don’t know.
I laugh because I do not feel

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very bold sometimes.
I feel very weak sometimes.

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And yet even as I say that
sometimes, the act of actually

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stepping towards hope when you
are weak is itself boldness.

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Because if it was just pure
weakness, then you wouldn’t move

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at all.
You know, fight, flight, freeze.

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There’s something to be said
about stepping towards hope when

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you don’t have any capacity left
to do so.

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So I’m pulling up the passage
because it says since we have

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such a hope, but what kind of
hope is that?

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What is it referencing?
So 2nd Corinthians 312.

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So we’re going to hop back a
little bit.

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How far should we hop back,
folks?

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You know, let’s just go to the
beginning of the chapter.

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My goodness.
So before that, Paul’s talking

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about being ministers of the new
covenant.

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So there is a way that they
understood the covenant before

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and now they’re understanding it
in a new way.

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Chapter 3, verse one.
Are we beginning to commend

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ourselves again?
Or do you eat or do little?

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Or do we need, like some people,
letters of recommendation to you

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or from you?
You yourselves are our letter,

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written on our hearts, known and
read by everyone.

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You show that you are a letter
from Christ, the result of our

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ministry, written not with ink,
but with the Spirit of the

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living God, not on tablets of
stone, but on tablets of human

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hearts.
Such confidence we have through

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Christ before God.
Not that we are competent in

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ourselves to claim anything for
ourselves, but our competence

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comes from God.
He has made us competent as

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ministers of a new covenant, not
of the letter, but of the

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Spirit.
For the letter kills, but the

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Spirit gives life.
Now if the ministry that brought

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death, which was engraved in
letters on stone, came with

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glory, so that the Israelites
could not look steadily at the

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face of Moses because of its
glory, transitory though it was,

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will not the ministry of the
Spirit be even more glorious?

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If the ministry that brought
condemnation was glorious, how

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much more glorious is the
ministry that brings

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righteousness?
For what was glorious has no

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glory now in comparison with the
surpassing glory.

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And if what was transitory came
with glory, how much greater is

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the glory of that which lasts?
Therefore, since we have such a

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hope, we are very bold.
We are not like Moses, who would

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put a veil over his face to
prevent the Israelites from

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seeing the end of what was
passing away, but their minds

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were made dull.
For to this day the same veil

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remains.
When the old Covenant is red, it

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has not been removed, because
only in Christ is it taken away.

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Even to this day, when Moses is
read, a veil covers their

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hearts.
But whenever anyone turns to the

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Lord, the veil is taken away.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and

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where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is freedom.

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And we all who with unveiled
faces contemplate the Lord’s

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glory are being transformed into
His image with ever increasing

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glory which comes from the Lord
who is the Spirit.

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I have been working through a
read the Bible in the year plan

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that is written blanket on the
word thinks it think it starts

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with AC but and and the order at
which it happened.

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Let me know in the comments what
that word is because a friend of

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mine, Dustin Campbell, wrote a
book called Step by Step through

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the Bible and it and it goes
along with that plan.

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And so anyways, all that to say,
I’m in some of the early stuff.

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I’m right now going through
numbers, Leviticus, where and

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even a little Exodus where God
is setting out who he is, who

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they are and what that
relationship looks like.

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And for them, it looked like a
lot of laws, it looked like a

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lot of restrictions, look like a
lot of different ways of living.

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And in the midst of this, Moses
is literally experiencing God,

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like to the point where he is
like glowing.

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I mean, everybody can see that
something abnormal is happening

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at the very least, but at best
they’re recognizing something

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supernatural is happening.
And even in this, it seems they

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had a very limited
understanding.

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Still, there is this veil.
You know, it says Moses put the

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veil on because he didn’t want
them to see what was fading

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away.
And there’s this idea of this

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new covenant, this new way of
actually not just understanding

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God, but relating with him.
And Jesus brought some very

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different way of engaging God’s
reality, engaging eternity.

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And it was so wild that people
resisted it, rejected it, killed

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him for it.
And he came back and showed that

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even death couldn’t stop what
God had put in place.

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And he made this pathway for us
who don’t understand it,

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wouldn’t even choose it for a
lot of reasons, to be able to

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access it through the Spirit.
Therefore, since we have such a

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hope, not hope as we’ve
experienced it before, not hope

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as we’ve understood it before,
not hope as we’ve defined it

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theologically, but this, but
this New Hope, this bigger hope,

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this deeper hope, since we have
such a hope, we are very bold.

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There is this boldness that
comes from says verse 17.

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Now the Lord is the spirit and
where the spirit of the Lord is,

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there is freedom.
There is this boldness because

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there is this understanding of
freedom.

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Without freedom we fear being
bound.

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We fear being imprisoned by fill
in the blank for you, fear of

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loss, fear of rejection, fear of
insecurity, fear of death, fear

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of dot dot dot, dot dot.
And the Spirit of Lord brings

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freedom, an actual freedom from
all those things that try to

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bring fear.
We are actually free.

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We are actually safe.
And because we are free and

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safe, we don’t have to fear
anything, even death.

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And if you don’t have to fear
anything, then you can be bold.

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Even if you have nothing to
bring to the table, even if

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you’re scrawny and weak, you
know you got the big guy behind

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you and in front of you and all
around you.

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You are safe and secure.
And this hope then, this hope

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then is tied to that reality,
the reality that we might not

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yet understand, might not yet
see, but our choosing, our

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choosing to live into.
And if we live into that hope

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that we actually are free
through the Spirit, that Jesus

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actually has brought life to the
full, that God actually does

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love us, If we live into that
hope, we can have a boldness.

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Even if life is falling apart,
even if we are falling apart,

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even if everything we see and
understand seems to say the

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opposite.
We’re able, because of this

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hope, to be bold enough to say,
yeah, yeah, I get what you’re

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saying.
Even so, I’m stepping forward.

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I do not feel bold sometimes.
I do not want to be bold often.

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And thank goodness, this is not
bound to just my capacity and

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desires.
This hope is not bound to me.

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This, this hope is bigger than
me.

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God and his infinite
incomprehensible love invites me

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to it. 2nd Corinthians 312 Since
we have such a hope, we are very

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bold.
I want to encourage you if you

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do not feel bold, there’s
something about this hope that

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we have access to that can bring
a boldness beyond this big

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picture, but also today.
All right, let me bring Father

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God is just saying that you were
God and you were good.

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And I thank you for this hope
that I do not understand.

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And I thank you for this
boldness that I cannot or will

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not muster, that I’m being
invited to something that is not

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dependent on me.
To help me to understand this

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hope and boldness more today.
That’s very much only name.

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Amen.