Rejecting Hope No Longer // Day 8

Where Did You See God?
Where Did You See God?
Rejecting Hope No Longer // Day 8
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In episode 215, we continue with 30 Days exploring 30 passages on hope. Each day I pray, pull out a mystery verse, and process live, so that I am not sharing as an “expert”, but one vulnerably exploring what hope is and how I may be rejecting it.

If this encourages you, or the Spirit reveals something to you, leave a comment to encourage other listeners!

Are you rejecting hope?

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One of these books will be relevant to your life right now:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Wear an amazing conversation-starter!

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The music in this episode is “You’ll walk, you’ll run” by Urban Doxology, from their amazing album “Bread for the Journey.”

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Learn more about how God’s calling us:

Pray: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tinyurl.com/GrangerPray⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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#authenticspace #dialogue #Godstillspeaks #WDYSG #conversation #invitation #Riversidefm #PodMatch #faith #stories #calling #invitation #faithfulness #ministry

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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.

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Actually go live on social
media, pull out a random verse

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and then read and process
through it on camera.

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This isn’t me coming to you as
an expert on hope, but me coming

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to you honestly as someone
wrestling with hope.

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And by witnessing that some of
you might feel less alone, may

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feel seen and understood, may
end up being encouraged in a way

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that is far deeper than the best
platitude.

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So join me as I spend 30 days
navigating 30 passages on Hope.

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This is day eight.
You’re listening to episode 215

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of the Where Did You See God
podcast.

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I’m processing the idea of hope,
and more specifically,

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confronting myself.
One if I’m.

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Rejecting Hope.
This is based off of something I

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did with Joy last year,
something I felt like that was

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inviting me to, something that I
put off until Hard Week prompted

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it.
But one thing I was thinking of

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this morning and I stumbled on a
video about grieving the death

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of a pet.
What set me over the edge?

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There’s a lot of things going on
in 2025.

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But what set me over the edge?
There was a night just was a

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very hard day.
And I was by myself.

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I read as everyone went to
sleep.

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My cat came up to me and she
does this whole thing where she

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like, stretches up for me to
pick her up and put her on my

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shoulder.
And then she was laying on my

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chest and just like, rubbing her
head on me.

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And I remember telling God how
much of A gift she had been for,

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I don’t know, 15 years and how
grateful I was to have that

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consistent source of, of love.
Like, I know it’s a cat.

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I know it’s an animal.
But every day, every day, she

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was always there and providing a
connection point.

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Even at the very least, if all
you think of a pet is an animal,

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something to pet and relax and
just.

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But man, that that catalogued
me.

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And then the next day she
disappeared.

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And on top of all the things I
was going through, that was not

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only a hard hit but felt like an
insult from God.

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And what’s made it worse is that
was mid November and here we are

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in March and we have no answers.
We don’t know if she’s alive or

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dead.
We don’t know what has happened

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in that time, whether something
was immediate, whether she died

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or got taken into a house, or
whether she’s been living out in

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the elements and we’ve had a
particularly freezing winter.

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But what that’s meant for me is
I have not been able to grieve

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because I don’t know what to
grieve.

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And someone could say, well, why
don’t you just move on?

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There are many reasons.
There are many reasons,

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legitimate reasons, but one of
them that I will share is I’m

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committed to loving my family by
being who I need to be for.

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I’ll put it this way, if there’s
somebody in my family that is

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not ready to move on, I’m going
to make sure they’re not alone

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in that.
Our kids aren’t ready to move

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on, but at varying degrees, but
one of the kids is holding to

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hope and does not want to let
go.

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And so I’m going to, I’m going
to remain in that with them.

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So that means that I’m not going
to move on.

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And I have a daily reminder.
Every day I’m getting emails

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from lost pet things saying, is
this your cat?

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Is this your cat?
And sometimes it looks close

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and, you know, heart racism.
And I’m like, no, it’s not.

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So all that to say, I tried to
hold the hope in many ways and I

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tried to hold hope loosely.
And there are moments that seem

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like they could be a miraculous
display of God.

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We had somebody that we didn’t
even know that there a series of

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events connected with and they
had been a year into the search

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for their lost pet.
They ended up feeling like God

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was inviting them to start a
GoFundMe or a pet tracker.

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And of course, I’m holding the
hope that the pet tracker, like

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something we never would have
been able to do, this miraculous

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thing happens.
We get a pet tracker and we find

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Chloe and that didn’t happen.
That was mid-december.

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So I share all that to say my
relationship with hope right now

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is, is interesting.
I simultaneously believe that

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God is a God of hope.
I, I believe that I am capable

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of holding to a misaligned hope.
I believe that hopelessness,

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total hopelessness is not what
I’m called tomb.

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But I, I struggle to know how
how to hope when definitely for

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the last year, hope after hope
after hope was dashed.

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So that leads us in today.
I prayed before grabbing this

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verse.
You get to see it before I do.

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I’m going to pray and then I’m
going to read this verse

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probably God, I was just
thinking that you were gone.

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You were good and for this space
you’ve provided to process your

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word and to process this idea of
hope.

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And I know it is something that
I need to do, but I’m sure I’m

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not alone.
So Holy Spirit move.

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Thank you for this verse.
But I, I thank you now for what

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you can reveal through ink on
this slip of paper.

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So Holy Spirit move, Holy Spirit
speak.

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So let me read this.
Hebrews 11.

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Hebrews 11133.
Some of you already know what

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Hebrews 11 is.
Let me just read now.

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Faith is the assurance of things
hoped for, the conviction of

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things not seen, for by it the
people of old received their

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commendation.
By faith we understand that the

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universe was created by the Word
of God, so that what is seen was

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not made out of things that are
visible.

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And the devotional, I might just
do that first verse because

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that’s the classic, it’s a
classic verse that talks about

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hope.
But I do want to touch on this

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in this last bit.
First, by faith, we understand

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that the universe was created by
the word of God so that what is

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seen was not made out of things
that are visible.

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Those that believe in God and
those that believe in The Big

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Bang both have this shared
understanding that all of what

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we know that didn’t exist and
then it did.

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What we see now I’m looking at a
laptop camera was not made out

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of things that are visible,
created by something unseen.

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That is hard for us to
understand because we can only

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comprehend what can exist.
We can’t comprehend something

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that doesn’t exist, making
things that exist.

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So this is a complicated thing.
All of this requires A

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willingness to hold to belief in
the God that does see and

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understand it.
Faith is the assurance.

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Confidence, I know.
Assurance of things hoped for.

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Faith is the thing.
Faith is the thing that makes us

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assured, that makes us say I
know.

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Which is weird, because faith is
not definitive knowledge.

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Faith exists in this nebulous
place, and yet that’s the thing

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that gives us the assurance.
Or put another way, faith is the

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assurance of the things we’re
hoping for.

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Not definitive knowledge, not
information, not clarification.

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So this is strange.
When we are thinking of

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something that we are hoping
for, we want to get details,

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clarification, information.
We want to get everything we can

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to make sure we know that it
actually is going to happen.

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What we don’t want is faith.
Faith seems too risky.

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Faith leaves us in this place of
wondering if we’re right or

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wrong.
Fate is a strange, strange

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place.
Faith is the assurance of

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things, so for that is what
makes us assured.

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And faith is the conviction of
things not seen.

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Conviction isn’t just an utter
confidence.

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An utter confidence conviction
leads you to hold firm to a

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decision or to a mindset,
regardless of what else might

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stand against it.
There’s a space before

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conviction where you’re
processing, you’re considering

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your thinking.
But once you hit conviction,

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you’re like, I know, I know, I
know, I know, I know that this

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is what it is.
So it is kind of strange to have

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conviction of things that aren’t
seen.

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I mean, it’s not strange.
I feel like conviction wouldn’t

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be needed if there is no
question.

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Conviction implies that there is
otherwise resistance, push back.

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Otherwise you wouldn’t need
conviction.

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You just like, Yep, that’s what
it is.

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So there.
Yeah, conviction of things not

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seen, that’s fair, but that
doesn’t make it easy.

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There are things that we cannot
see that we are convicted to

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say, but they are.
I can’t see it, but I know that

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I know that I know that it is.
Can’t remember if I mentioned

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this in one of the other hope
videos, but there’s a man that

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comes to Jesus and he’s asking
for healing and he says I

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believe, help me in my unbelief.
That kind of captures this.

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He has assurance and conviction,
assurance and conviction that

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Jesus can heal him.
And he also has many questions

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and a lot of unknowns and
probably a lot of self doubt.

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There’s so many things standing
against that assurance and

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conviction.
But the key is, is that he is

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standing there.
He is standing before Jesus.

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He is inviting Jesus to heel.
He is putting himself out there.

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If he’s wrong, he looks like a
fool.

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But he is so assured and so
convicted that he’s he is

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willing to do that.
He has faith and who Jesus is

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and what he can do, even as
there’s a lot that he doesn’t

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know or understand.
And for by this the people of

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old received their commendation.
I laughed earlier because

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Hebrews 11 is the heroes of the
faith.

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And the reason I laughed is I
know the end of that passage is

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they did not get what they were
promised.

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They did not get to see the
thing that was promised, which

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puts that whole chapter in an
interesting light because we

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will celebrate these people as
years of the faith that did

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amazing things.
But we forget two things.

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One, that they didn’t get to see
the process.

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Like that’s what we what we
think is if God invites us to

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something, we faithfully do it,
then we get the reward.

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Moses didn’t get to cross into
the promised land until what was

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it all for?
If Moses didn’t get to

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experience what, what Moses knew
is it wasn’t about him.

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It was about something bigger.
So hold that conversation.

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But the other thing that we miss
is we call them heroes of the

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faith and put them up on
pedestals.

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But they’ve wrestled.
They wrestled.

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They were humans with questions,
humans facing things that were

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unseen, but they had faith to
put their lives on the line for

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something that they had an
assurance and conviction around

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that went against their
understanding and went against

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the better judgement.
Noah had an assurance and

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conviction around who God was.
And so when God said build an

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ark, a giant boat, something
you’ve never been before in a

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place that doesn’t need a boat
for an event that has never

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happened before, everything,
everything, everything would say

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for him to not do that, that he
must be losing his mind.

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His faith said, despite all of
this, I’m going to step in.

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But you got to imagine it was
hard.

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I’m not going to go too deep
into that because I wrote a

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whole book about it.
One of at least four parts

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called Encouragement for Foolish
Christians.

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So if you want to go deeper in
that it basically fictionalizes

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the accounts of some of these
heroes of the faith.

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That might have been a good way
for me to do it is just to use

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that list, but I’m going to roll
with the way that I did it.

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But no is one of them and it
just kind of sits with them in

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that space, in that moment.
How would they actually feel?

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How would a person feel in their
situation when everyone else was

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saying they were foolish and
sometimes God wasn’t even

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affirming them, they were just
living faithfully.

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This is not a a sales pitch.
So if you want that and you

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don’t want to spend money, let
me know and I’ll give you a free

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PDF of it.
But the point is, the people of

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old received their commendation
not because of the things they

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did, but because of this faith.
And this faith was not from

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their understanding or their
capacity or anything other than

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really from God.
This faith allowed them,

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equipped them to be assured of
the things they were hoping for

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and holding to conviction of
things that they could not see,

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could not hold.
My encouragement to you is that

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having the plans in place, the
understanding, the strength, the

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capacity, having all the human
things that’s out of our reach

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most of the time.
But that isn’t the trick here.

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The trick is very simple and
small.

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It’s just faith, Jesus puts it.
You have faith the size of a

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mustard seed.
This much is the difference

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between hopelessness and hope,
between waffling and conviction,

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between doubting and assurance.
This much and this faith is not

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by our design or building, but a
gift that we can receive.

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And we receive it by saying I
believe helped me in my

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unbelief, by acknowledging the
reality that we are rejecting

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the faith often, but we don’t
want to.

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But also we need God in order to
not do that.

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Hebrews 11/1 through three.
Now.

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Faith is the assurance of things
hoped for, the conviction of

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things not seen, for by it the
people of old received their

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commendation.
By faith we understand that the

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universe was created by the Word
of God, so that what is seen was

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not made out of things that are
visible by the God.

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I just pray for the person
listening to this.

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I pray if they were in that
space where they want to have

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faith, but it is so hard that
you would give them wisdom to

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understand what it looks like
for them to lean in.

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Nonetheless, to say I believe
helped me in my own belief.

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I thank you that this mustard
seed sized faith can bring up

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assurance and conviction that’s
beyond us.

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So pray today that we would
experience what that faith can

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look like in our situation.
Famous only name.

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Amen.