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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 three.

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You’re listening to episode 210
of the Where Did You See God

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podcast.
Oh my God, I just think that you

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are gone.
You are good and for the

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opportunity to explore your word
and to sit with us.

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So Holy Spirit, I thank you that
you have already moved.

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I’m trusting that this is the
verse you have for not just me

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but for those listening.
And I invite you to move even in

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how I respond.
Precious name.

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I’m tired, did not get much good
sleep.

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Also past 2 verses I’ve I’ve
audibly laughed.

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Not because I’m laughing at
scripture, but I’m laughing at

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the truths that are being
revealed.

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So let’s see what’s revealed.
Today we got Galatians 55 for

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through the Spirit, by faith, we
ourselves eagerly wait for the

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hope of righteousness.
I was when I started, I didn’t

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think I was going to laugh.
I’ll tell you what I laughed at

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in a second.
All right out the gate.

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That first part is, is vital.
It’s the thing we miss so often

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when we’re trying to to seek
God, to live for God.

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It’s that through the Spirit we
think we can muster the strength

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and knowledge and energy and
desire to be righteous, to be

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good at the very least.
And we need the Spirit.

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We need the Spirit by faith, you
know, being confident in things

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we can’t see, we can’t grasp
that sometimes make no sense.

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The wisdom of God is foolishness
to man.

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So we are stepping into this,
this foolishness, and inviting

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the Spirit to help us to step
and to keep stepping.

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For through the Spirit by faith,
we ourselves eagerly wait for

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the hope of righteousness.
And I laughed at eagerly wait

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’cause it’s one thing to wait.
That’s hard enough, especially

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if you’ve been waiting and
waiting.

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David in Psalm 13.
How long, O Lord, will you

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forget me?
Forever?

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I mean, for him to say forever
means it’s felt like forever

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already.
He has been waiting for God to

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do something for so long.
Waiting is hard when we’re in a

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good mindset.
We can muster patience.

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We can have a resolve to wait,
but eagerly, eagerly wait.

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You know what, God, I don’t want
you to do anything now.

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I want to wait.
Come on God, make me wait for

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this.
We ourselves eagerly wait for

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the hope of righteousness.
There is this excitement about

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what is to come that is far
greater than the here and now,

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for our light and momentary
troubles are nothing compared to

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the surpassing glory.
And I’m trying to get my tired

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mind to grasp at this thought
that it isn’t just a weighing

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out of kind of conceding, OK?
Like even though I would like

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this year, this decade, these
decades to not be wasted.

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And I mean, it’ll be worth it in
the end.

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Like in that mindset, it can
still be easy to begrudgingly

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wait because we still know what
is lost.

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We still lament what is lost.
To be eager implies what is

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ahead is not just better, but is
the thing, as the apostle Paul

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puts it.
He lists out all the

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qualifications, all the things
that made him special, that made

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him better.
Hebrew of Hebrews, Pharisee, a

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Pharisee unto the law,
blameless.

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Then he meets Jesus and he calls
all of that stuff rubbish.

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It wasn’t that Jesus was better.
And so he could have continued

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living as a Pharisee, but life
living for Jesus was better than

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that.
So he made the shift.

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A career change, if you will.
No, it’s that suddenly when he

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really understood the hope,
everything else he was chasing

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and grasping that’s outside that
hope was rubbish.

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So that I think is the big
question for us.

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Is it possible that the stuff
that’s making us hopeless, the

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expectations, the dreams, even
the needs, What if what God has

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for us isn’t just better?
What if that stuff we’re holding

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on to is actually rubbish?
That’s hard to say when we know

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that some of that stuff is
important and good and seemingly

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healthy.
Not garbage, not something

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worthless to be tossed out, not
even worth holding on to.

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Could it be that there are
things that we’re holding on to,

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that we’re valuing?
That actually aren’t just

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worthless.
You know, there’s sometimes when

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we think of garbage, like right
now I’ve got balled up pieces of

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paper in this trash can.
I’d have no problem picking

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picking him up.
But let’s say I’d eaten an apple

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a month ago.
The core was in there and it was

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all slimy and nasty and I
wouldn’t want to pick that up.

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Like what if the the source of
our hopelessness, the stuff that

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we are holding on to that we
think needs to happen?

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What if it is actually that
level of garbage, Not just not

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worth picking up, but disgusting
in comparison to what God has

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for us?
And if that’s true, how in the

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world do we make that mental
shift?

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And the answer is at the start.
We don’t do it merely by

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positive thinking.
We don’t do it merely by

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tactics.
It is through the Spirit, by

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faith.
So if you’re feeling hopeless,

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the pathway to being able to
eagerly wait for the hope of

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righteousness necessitates the
spirit that comes by faith

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actually choosing to believe
even when we don’t.

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Lord, I believe, help me in my
unbelief.

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I am not eagerly awaiting right
now, so this verse is a valuable

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one for me today.
But maybe you are in the same

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boat.
Maybe it is very hard to eagerly

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wait.
Maybe the best you can muster is

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begrudgingly waiting.
So thank goodness, thank

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goodness this isn’t dependent on
us.

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So Galatians 55 for through the
Spirit, by faith, we ourselves

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eagerly wait for the hope of
righteousness.

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I want to encourage you that
Spirit isn’t part of a buy in

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system or anything like that.
It’s it’s a gift.

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He’s a gift.
Jesus said I’m sending a helper

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and an advocate already been
sent already the mailbox waiting

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for you to accept delivery by
faith.

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All right, well, I’m I’m going
to pray, pray for me, but I’m

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also I’m going to pray for you
too.

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I got to thank you that you were
God and you were good.

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And I thank you for the spirit.
I thank you for the invitation

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to faith, something that is
beyond our understanding, our

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logic that you put before us,
that you entrust to us.

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And I thank you that a byproduct
of that can be the ability to

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eagerly wait for hope.
And so we acknowledge that we

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don’t want to wait.
And when we do wait, it’s often

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begrudgingly.
It’s a Holy Spirit move and our

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ability to become eager for what
you are doing, to not rush it,

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to be grateful for your wise
timing even as we don’t

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understand it.
That’s Grandma’s holy and

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precious name.
Amen.