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Hi, I'm Leanne Friesman, and this is Restoring Word.

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Have you just given up on God? Are you just done with church? You're done with the Bible?

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Believers have broken your heart.

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I think I have a word today for you that will help you and strengthen you.

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Before I kind of get right to that word, I need to set the stage a little bit.

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I am in Acts 27,

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and I'm

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using

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illustrations right now from a sweet little sailboat. It's a Catalina 25. It's

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1987, and I'm using these illustrations

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from this sweet boat to

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encourage the body of Christ, and I recently heard the most

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amazing message about the four anchors, and it's from the book of Acts.

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Let me set the stage. I don't really want to read all of this. I mean, I

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have a lot of notes today,

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but I think more than anything, I just want to share from my heart instead of trying to read a bunch of stuff to you.

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Let me set up where I'm going.

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Okay, so Paul is on his way to Rome.

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He's on a ship. It's got

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267 men or 97 men, something like that.

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Big sails.

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They're going after the Day of Atonement, so it's late in the season. The storms are crazy, and

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yet they've got to get there quickly before the winter sets in.

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They've loaded up a lot of grain, a lot of men.

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The owner of the ship is there.

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There's other authorities there, and these people all come together to try to make a decision in the natural,

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just from logic, as to what they should do and should they go forward. Paul, the Apostle, though,

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he gets a warning. He gets a prophetic warning, and it starts off here in verse 10.

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Men, I can see that our voyage is going to be disastrous and bring great loss to the ship and to the cargo and to

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our own lives also.

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But the centurion,

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instead of listening to Paul, said they followed the advice of the pilot and

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the owner of the ship.

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Okay?

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And so they decided to go anyway.

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You know,

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I can't tell you how many times we as believers and non-believers, we miss it.

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We have someone who gives us a prophetic word or prophetic direction, and we just think

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we know better.

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So we're going to do it our way, and

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when you do it your way without listening to that prophetic warning,

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you're going to get in trouble. You know, a prophetic warning really is exhortation. A lot of people are like,

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oh, that's not a positive word. You're not speaking life into me.

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Let me tell you, when God tells you that if you don't do something, you're going to not do what he wants or

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ultimately what his plan is. You're going to get yourself in trouble, and you could get yourself killed, and

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you don't listen. That's really the love and the mercy of God in operation. That's another whole message, trust me.

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Because why? When God speaks something into your heart, you can stand on that promise.

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You can know that God's going to see you through. Okay?

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So they continue to go anyway, and

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it's looking bad, and they have to divert their path a little bit. They have to sail to the lee.

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It's interesting now, after studying sailing, how many

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things in the Bible have sailing

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terminology in it. Why? Because this gospel is going to be preached to the whole world,

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right? And then the end shall come. One of those Bible promises we stand on. Well here, Paul is taking the gospel to Rome,

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and he knows it's going to be dangerous,

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and

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they're running into storms, but he's got this word

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that no matter what happens,

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he's going to make it. And

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later on, I'm going to jump down here to verse 23 in chapter 27.

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Last night an angel of the God to whom I believe

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and whom I serve stood beside me. And he said, don't go, do not be afraid, Paul. You

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must stand trial before Caesar. So even if you're going to do something negative

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or painful, but you know he's in it, he's gonna carry you. God has

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graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you. So keep your courage,

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men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as it was told me. So Paul

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knows they're gonna make it. It doesn't matter what it looks like.

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Anyway, they continue to sail here, and in verse 29, fearing that they would be

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dashed against the rocks, they dropped four anchors. Now I heard a message

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recently that just lit me up, and it had to do with the four anchors. And you know

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there are things that we can ground ourselves to. There are things that will

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keep us stable and safe and strong. There are things in our lives that will

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enable us to endure the wind and the storm that are coming. You know

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in Oklahoma, we know how to brace ourselves for storms, right? It's tornado

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season. Everybody in Oklahoma knows what to do. But here in Scripture, they've got

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storms that are coming. They're not listening, so they drop four, not just one,

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but four anchors. So the message I heard that was just really beautiful was the

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four anchors. Okay, what's the first anchor? It's the immutability of God's

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Word. You know, no matter what goes on in this world, the Word of God is gonna

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stand. It stood the test of time. The Word of God stood through World War II,

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through the Vietnam War, through the founding of America. I mean, if you think

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historically about everything that has happened over the course of several

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thousand years, for sure, the Word of God has always stood. We don't get to decide

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what we like or what we don't like. It's immutable. It stands forever. So we can

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stand on it, too, and we can trust it. Number two, the second anchor is His

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mercy. Aren't you thankful for His mercy? Some of you might not even know what

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mercy is. Mercy is unwarranted or unmerited favor. You deserved something

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bad to happen, but something good happened instead. Mercy is when God

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sees your humble state. You know, when you humble yourself before God, and you cry

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out to Him, and you ask Him to come into your life, and you tell Him that you've

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screwed it all up, I'm telling you He will be merciful, and He'll turn it

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around for good. He is a merciful, loving God. You can trust in His mercy. Third

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anchor is His presence. No matter what we face, no matter where we go, no matter how

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difficult a situation we might get ourselves into, if you have the presence

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of God round about you, you're gonna be okay. That presence will give you peace

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in the storm. It will carry you through unimaginable difficulty. Isn't that

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good? You know, He's always there. Maybe we don't think He's always there, but

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He's always there. The fourth anchor is His sovereignty. God is sovereign. Do

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things happen that we don't understand? Yes. Do bad things happen to good people?

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Unfortunately, yes. We live in a fallen world. We live in a world where people

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who are evil do evil things, and God doesn't have anything to do with it, and

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you can't blame Him for it. There are things that are happening that you

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just don't understand. There's things happening right now in our nation that

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just look kind of wonky and crazy. But you know, I believe with all of my heart

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God's got a plan.

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Maybe things are being exposed for a reason, and that's always a good thing.

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Okay, so I'm listening to this message on these four anchors. I'm like, Lord, I want

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to share this message. This is so good, but I just don't want to copy somebody

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else's message. I want this message to be uniquely mine. Well, you know, when you

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ask God into something, He'll do it. So last weekend, the kids and I go up to

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Genova, and Sean and I would go up to Skytook Marina, and we're going down on

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beautiful Little Rayo, and we want to go out on the water to watch the

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fireworks. I thought, this will be easy. We'll just go out, drop our

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an anchor, watch the fireworks, pull the anchor back up, go back in, put the boat

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in her slot, and we'll just have a beautiful evening, and there was live

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music, and it was wonderful out, and everything looked amazing. Only when we

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got out on the water, I went to let the anchor out, and it just dropped in the

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lake. I'm looking at Jen. Jen's looking at me. I said, I don't know what to do. We

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got to go back. We got to go back. Okay, so Sean turned the boat around. We came

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back in, pulled the boat in. We get the boat in, and all of a sudden, we can't

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figure out. We can't actually put the boat in the slip. It won't go forward. We

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can't figure out why. We can't tie it up to the cleats to keep the boat safe. What

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is wrong with this boat? Well, Geneva, she says, Mom, something just doesn't feel right.

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She took this big flashlight spotlight that we have, and she shined it down

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underneath the boat, and you know what had happened? The anchor had actually gone

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in between two, the fork in the anchor had gone between a steel beam in the

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frame, and now the anchor that we thought was still out in the lake, the anchor we

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thought we lost with the rope that was amazing because it could measure depth,

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we thought we had lost all of that only to find out, you know what happened?

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Somehow or another, the rope got wrapped around the front buoy on the front of

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that sailboat, and then the rope somehow, don't ask me how because it's really,

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really long, it got tangled around the winged keel. I am not making this up.

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There is no way this should have or could have ever happened. I thought this

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was the strangest thing ever, and I, in the dark, I'm laughing. I'm frustrated. I'm

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overwhelmed. We're all kind of sweating it out going, what do we do? And I go,

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there's got to be a message in here somewhere, and I thought about it for

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quite a while. Next day we went to Arkansas, and my grandson was dedicated,

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and I'm sitting talking to Jen and, I'm sorry, Gabrielle and Josiah, and it

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just rolls out of me. What about the people who have abandoned their anchors?

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Are you one of those people? Are you one of those people that used to trust God's

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word, used to trust His mercy? You knew His presence. Maybe you were even a

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worship leader. Maybe you were in ministry. Maybe there was a time in your

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life where you loved God, you served God, and you trusted Him, but you don't trust

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Him anymore, and you've turned your back on Him. It's looking kind of dark, and you

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know what? Things just aren't working right in your life. Just like us trying

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to pull that boat in, and it's not working. Why is it not working? Why is

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this so hard? Why can't we tie this boat down? My kids, we're just, we're just

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shaking our head. I'm like, guys, we're just gonna do the best we can. We'll

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figure it out. I'll come back out. So I come out, I don't know, a day or two later,

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and I jump in the marina, and I get on my mask, and I snorkel down there, and I'm

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looking at that goofy little anchor thinking, ah, I'll just pull it out. It'll

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be okay, and I'll un-jar it, and I couldn't move the dumb thing. I could not

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move that anchor. It's lodged underneath that sailboat, and I could see the rope,

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and I figured out how the rope, I had to look at it for a while too, the rope

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somehow, how did it wrap itself around that boat? And here's what the Holy

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Spirit said in my heart. You might have abandoned God. You might have had your

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heart broken by people. You might have had your heart broken by people in the

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ministry. Been there. You might have had your heart broken by, by God. You're, and

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you're wondering, where is His presence? What happened? Like, I thought everything

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was good, and now it's a mess. Do you know that anchor is like the Holy Spirit? That

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anchor underneath my sailboat is like God the Father. No matter where you've

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gone.

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No matter what you've done, no matter how hurt you may be, no matter how broken you

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may be, discouraged you may be, you may no longer want to have anything to do with

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God, with the church, with ministry, with Christianity. I'm telling you He has not

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let go of you, and He loves you, and He has a plan for your life, and He's gonna

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use you in ways you can't even imagine when you don't even know it, because He's

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a loving, merciful God. And even when it looks like He's not doing anything, He's

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doing something. Why? Because He's sovereign.

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It's heartbreaking, I know, for many to hear something like this, because maybe something's

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happened that you just can't explain or express, but I can tell you from experience,

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when you get your heart broken, step back, try not to get too emotional, and ask the

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Lord to give you insight. Ask Him to show you what you don't understand. And I can

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promise you, if you will humble yourself, His mercy will be poured out in your life,

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and you'll see Him, His presence will come flooding back, and you can once again have

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a beautiful relationship with Him. You can trust Him. He's faithful. Thank you for listening.

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Like, subscribe, and share. I'd like to get some feedback from the message today, so if

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you could leave some comments there for me, I would appreciate it. Thank you for listening.