WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.000 Good day everyone. I understand there's been some issues with uploading and things, so I don't know when you'll get this, but we're going to continue on our journey together. 2 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:15.000 And we are in day 27, Friendship During Pruning. 3 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:20.000 Restful One, listen with your spirit to the word of God for you. 4 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:22.000 Jonathan said to David, 5 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:28.000 Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the Lord, saying, 6 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:34.000 The Lord is witness between you and me and between your descendants and my descendants forever. 7 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:38.000 Then David said, and Jonathan went back to the town. 8 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:44.000 Then David left and Jonathan went back to the town. 1 Samuel 20, 42. 9 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:49.000 You will go through seasons of pruning when your father removes from you good things. 10 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:56.000 Friendships, privilege, ministry platform, money, sustenance, hope, even your reputation. 11 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:59.000 Pruning is always very painful and very difficult. 12 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:12.000 Although you may have a clear conscience and know that it comes from God and that there are promises of a better and more fruitful future, it usually results in being very much alone. 13 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:16.000 Most people will shy away from you when you experience pain. 14 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:23.000 David was blessed to have one friend who stood solidly with him through God's pruning. 15 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:30.000 Six hundred friends stood with him and walked with him through the pruning season and into the season of abundance. 16 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:34.000 I bless you, Restful One, with the pruning of the Lord. 17 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:39.000 As painful as they are, they are for the best. 18 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:41.000 They come from your wise father. 19 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:45.000 I bless you with the right amount of pruning in the right season of your life. 20 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:51.000 For redemptive, eternal purposes, I bless you with deep, solid, life-giving friendship. 21 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:57.000 When you are going through a season of God's pruning, of God's pruning you, 22 00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:04.000 I bless you with friendships that are designed, crafted, nurtured, and given to you by your father. 23 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:13.000 Even at the same time that he has taken away other friendships that he has deemed important and necessary to your life. 24 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:23.000 Although you may be severely pruned, I bless you with at least one friend who maintains covenant relationship with you in your darkest hour 25 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:30.000 and is able to encourage you, strengthen you, and focus your attention on your father's promises. 26 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:37.000 I bless you with additional friendships with people who come alongside you in the desert times. 27 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:44.000 May they walk with you, encourage you, war with you, seek God's will with you, and wait with you. 28 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:53.000 I bless you with friends who understand God's ways, who can walk with you even when they don't understand His ways. 29 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:59.000 I bless you with encouraging love that reminds you of the love that your father has for you. 30 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:04.000 I bless you with these things in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 31 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:08.000 Father, I lift these to you. 32 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:14.000 We are all going through some form of pruning, some transitional time in life. 33 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:27.000 Lord, I believe I have been seeing glimpses and pictures and have a sense that each and every person here, we are all called to leadership in some way, 34 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:40.000 but each person that is hearing my voice, that is in this program, is called or being nurtured and groomed for leadership. 35 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:44.000 And leadership often has times of loneliness. 36 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:54.000 We all have our desert seasons, but in the time of pruning, for us to be most fruitful, sometimes we have to say goodbye to the things that we have become reliant on, 37 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:59.000 things that we have looked to, or things that have expired. 38 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:07.000 Whereas the Jewish people look to a new year, they reflect upon the old, as I've mentioned before, 39 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:13.000 and they intentionally look at what they did well and what they didn't, and what they're going to leave behind, 40 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:17.000 and what they're going to take with them into the new year. 41 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:23.000 But we have to make space oftentimes, Lord, for what you want to bring into our life. 42 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:29.000 Lord, I know some of this is by your design and is not comfortable, 43 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:34.000 so my prayer for these, Lord, and for myself, and actually for that matter, 44 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:46.000 would be that you would give us a certainty and a confidence to help us to recognize via a sense, a smell, a taste, or whatever, 45 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:53.000 that this is really a season that you have ordained from pruning to make us more fruitful. 46 00:04:53.000 --> 00:05:00.000 And, Lord, I would pray in maybe even my own humanity, 47 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:09.360 Lord, that you would bring people, life-giving people, covenantal people, into our lives 48 00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:16.520 in these seasons to remind us that you're with us, that you often use people as your 49 00:05:16.520 --> 00:05:23.760 hands and feet to demonstrate, to offer, to be a conduit of what you're doing, what you 50 00:05:23.760 --> 00:05:28.920 feel, and how you're wanting to be for us in that season. 51 00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:34.040 Lord, most of us have made a choice. 52 00:05:34.040 --> 00:05:38.160 We've chosen you over our own comfort. 53 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:39.160 We've chosen you. 54 00:05:39.160 --> 00:05:48.880 We've said yes without even knowing what lies on the other side or even what we're saying 55 00:05:48.880 --> 00:05:53.040 yes to or what the cost may be. 56 00:05:53.040 --> 00:06:03.720 Lord, I pray also, and I know this is partially just my own humanity for all of those here, 57 00:06:03.720 --> 00:06:09.920 Lord, that there will be a quickening spirit released, that during the times of pruning, 58 00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:15.640 Lord, that much be done in a shorter period of time, that they not last any longer than 59 00:06:15.640 --> 00:06:16.640 it needs to be. 60 00:06:16.640 --> 00:06:21.760 I pray, Lord, that you have patience with us and give us a grace to be able to endure 61 00:06:21.760 --> 00:06:28.760 and walk through these seasons so that we don't try to exit before our time or try to 62 00:06:28.760 --> 00:06:35.040 make our own way. 63 00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:40.400 They said that the Pauls had Timothys and Timothys had Pauls. 64 00:06:40.400 --> 00:06:47.080 There's an unusual relationship that exists between David and Jonathan, Lord, that many 65 00:06:47.080 --> 00:06:54.040 of us have never witnessed, at least between two men. 66 00:06:54.040 --> 00:07:01.560 And David, as a depiction of a leader, is uncommon in the definitions and the observations 67 00:07:01.560 --> 00:07:07.560 of leadership and any leaders that we may know personally in this era. 68 00:07:07.560 --> 00:07:15.320 He was a poet and a warrior and a psalmist and a writer. 69 00:07:16.200 --> 00:07:25.000 He played the harp, but he was a slayer of giants and killing of 10,000 Philistines. 70 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:30.760 And he was very sensitive and seemingly all over the map with his emotions. 71 00:07:30.760 --> 00:07:36.320 He was altogether human, but he was a man after your own heart. 72 00:07:36.320 --> 00:07:43.680 So I pray, Lord, that there be something transcendent in this season, in this particular season 73 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:48.360 of pruning, that there be something different and that, Lord, that there be something active 74 00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:55.800 about it that we can choose in some way to participate with you as a training ground 75 00:07:55.800 --> 00:08:03.440 of what lies ahead and what we can expect to do and experience with you and in that 76 00:08:03.440 --> 00:08:10.080 partnering with you, where we choose to walk into that with you, Lord God, that there be 77 00:08:10.080 --> 00:08:13.320 a deeper fellowship with you. 78 00:08:13.320 --> 00:08:19.280 That there be a deeper connection that there has ever been and an understanding of you, 79 00:08:19.280 --> 00:08:21.240 understanding of your ways. 80 00:08:21.240 --> 00:08:26.000 And we choose it even if we don't understand, but that we're choosing you in the process 81 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:29.280 and that we want to walk with you through it. 82 00:08:29.280 --> 00:08:35.600 And I pray, Lord, that there be flesh and blood people and we'll just say beings, spiritually 83 00:08:35.600 --> 00:08:42.419 speaking, that are assigned to us in this time that we can find fellowship with. 84 00:08:42.419 --> 00:08:49.300 And that, Lord, not only would I say that there be people to walk with us during our 85 00:08:49.300 --> 00:08:54.580 time of pruning, but, Lord, that you would give us a heart, that we would be honored 86 00:08:54.580 --> 00:09:03.060 enough by you to allow us to walk with other people during their times of pruning, that 87 00:09:03.060 --> 00:09:07.620 you would give us the word for the hour, that you would give us your heart and your love 88 00:09:07.620 --> 00:09:14.540 to be able to bestow upon other people, that you would give us hope to be able to deposit 89 00:09:14.540 --> 00:09:19.820 into people that feel like it's being hope-deferred and their hearts are sick, that, Lord, that 90 00:09:19.820 --> 00:09:24.100 we not just bring encouragement and just to be polite or nice, that, Lord, that there 91 00:09:24.100 --> 00:09:29.820 be life-giving words that we can offer up in a time of absolute drought, seemingly, 92 00:09:29.820 --> 00:09:34.140 in the lives of other people that we know and we don't know, those we love and those 93 00:09:34.140 --> 00:09:38.140 we barely know or maybe even don't particularly care for. 94 00:09:38.140 --> 00:09:42.940 Some of the most powerful words you've ever given me to give were to people that weren't 95 00:09:42.940 --> 00:09:45.140 my favorite. 96 00:09:45.140 --> 00:09:54.180 But, Lord, we want to be fruitful and we're really grateful for the fruit after the process 97 00:09:54.180 --> 00:09:58.580 of the pruning, but the pruning isn't a lot of fun. 98 00:09:58.580 --> 00:10:00.020 Lord, I pray. 99 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:03.800 Pray that you give us eyes and bring people into our lives that have the eyes to see what's 100 00:10:03.800 --> 00:10:05.480 really going on. 101 00:10:05.480 --> 00:10:14.080 Because in the swirl, in the midst of the process itself, it can be bewildering, confusing, 102 00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:17.600 and very difficult to be able to see and understand what's going on. 103 00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:19.480 Is this being something that's being done to us? 104 00:10:19.480 --> 00:10:20.480 Is this the enemy? 105 00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:21.480 Is this us? 106 00:10:21.480 --> 00:10:22.480 Or is this you? 107 00:10:22.480 --> 00:10:29.640 Ideally, Lord, we'd recognize it's you and choose to walk in it with you. 108 00:10:29.640 --> 00:10:37.040 But regardless, Lord, that we would be people to see what you're doing in the lives of others 109 00:10:37.040 --> 00:10:40.280 and that they would bring people into our lives to help us understand what you're doing 110 00:10:40.280 --> 00:10:43.200 and to walk with us through these difficult times. 111 00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:45.800 Lord, we bless you and we love you. 112 00:10:45.800 --> 00:10:46.880 In Jesus' name.