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Welcome to episode 26.

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Today, we're going to take on a posture of peace

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by strengthening ourselves in the Lord.

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Hi, I'm Lindsay Van Zale.

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Posture is a podcast that serves as a short, audible fist bump

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to remind you that God is in everything.

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Together, we're going to be emboldened to take

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a daily posture of perfect peace.

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You know, for so many of us, life has radically shifted right now

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with the global health crisis of the coronavirus.

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And so many of us are just trying to be strong throughout it all.

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And some of us have gotten to a place where we may be asking,

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how is it even humanly possible to be strong in the middle of this crisis?

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It may not be humanly possible today for you to be strong,

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but it is supernaturally possible.

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That is good news.

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You and I are not required to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps

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and try to be strong today.

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Instead, we have been invited into a relationship with strength himself.

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And that's what we're going to be talking about today.

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I'm going to be reading from a story out of 1 Samuel 30.

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As always, I encourage you to read the story in its entirety.

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I'm just going to be pulling out a few portions for us today.

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So in verse 6, it says,

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And David was greatly distressed.

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Can you relate?

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For the people spoke of stoning him,

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because all the people were bitter in soul,

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each for his sons and daughters.

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But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.

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Quick backstory.

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David and his men returned from the war front

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to find the city that they left behind destroyed

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and all of their families taken captive.

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So understandably, they all lost it.

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It says in verse 4,

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that they all wept and raised their voices

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until they no longer had the strength to weep.

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I just want to point out,

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these were mighty warriors, okay?

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And they were in such a place of grief

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that they wept until they no longer had strength to even weep.

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And in this place, David finds himself

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not only facing his own tremendous loss of his city

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being destroyed and his family being taken,

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but he's also facing potential betrayal

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because his men are looking to him as a leader

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and they're blaming him for what has happened.

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And it's in that place

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that David decides to strengthen himself in the Lord.

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And it says in verse 8,

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that David then inquired of the Lord what to do.

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Here's what I find so interesting.

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David did not know what to do,

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but he knew the Lord.

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So he went to the Lord for a solution.

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And God says, go, you're going to overtake them

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and you're going to rescue them.

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And David and his men obey the Lord.

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They go, they recover all of their families

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and they don't just regain what was lost,

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but they also get spoils from the battle that they win.

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So they leave with more than what they came for.

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I'm left asking two questions.

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The first is, what would have happened

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if David had not strengthened himself in the Lord?

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Like what would have happened to David or his men?

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Or what would have happened to the families

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that had been taken captive?

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And then with that sobering thought in mind,

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I'm left asking, well, how did David strengthen himself

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in the Lord?

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Because I need to know how to do that,

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especially now, especially today.

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And we find in the book of Psalms,

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we get great insight into how David engaged with the Lord,

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what their relationship looked like.

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And I find this, there's this constant theme

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throughout the Psalms.

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The Lord had David's focus, his attention, and his affection.

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David had a constant posture of total trust in the Lord.

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You know, I think about the time that we're living in right now

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and the fear that is so widespread.

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And I think, what is feeding the fear?

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And I know for me, it's been the unknown.

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You know, it's all that we don't know about it

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that's been feeding this fear

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and tempting us into a place of total torment.

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It's we don't know how widespread it's going to be. We don't know how long it's going to last.

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We don't know what's going to happen to the economy.

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We don't know what life will look like when all this is said and done. You know, we don't know what's going to happen to us.

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But isn't it interesting that trust isn't really needed when everything is known?

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Trust is most authentic in the unknown.

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In the Psalms, David is constantly declaring his trust in the Lord through praise and worship and

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thanksgiving. And while David most definitely mentions his problems, crises, and losses,

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he marvels at who the Lord is for him. Today, let's ask ourselves, who or what has our focus,

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our attention, our affection, our emotions? Perhaps we need to reset today and redefine

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our focus. Let's today stop fixating on all that we don't know about this crisis and instead place

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intense focus on who we know the Lord to be. He is good. He is faithful. You know, we find all

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scriptures prove that he is powerful. He's a redeemer. He's a restorer. He loves us. He is

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for us. You know, this type of focus reset may require that we unplug from some other sources,

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even for just a bit, so that we can reset our focus on the one who is most worthy of our trust.

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Let's acknowledge today that the Lord is way more worthy of our trust than our Facebook friends.

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The Lord is way more worthy of our trust than our bank account. The Lord is way more worthy

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of our trust than the latest news reports. The Lord is way more worthy of our affection and our

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attention than the disappointments of all that has been canceled, postponed, lost, or stolen

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because of this coronavirus. Let's be quick to strengthen ourselves in the Lord today by placing

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a total trust in him. We mentioned in the last episode 25, God has never lost a battle. Let that

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thought, that truth, have your full focus today. The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26 3,

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and in Hebrew it is shalom shalom, meaning complete wholeness, nothing missing, nothing broken.

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This is who you are in Jesus. Let's declare this together. Today, I am kept in perfect peace.

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With my whole heart, I trust the Lord. I am strong. I am victorious. I am whole. Remember friend,

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you are a living testimony of Jesus's ultimate win, not because of anything you did, but because of

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what he did for you. With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus's victory on display

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and Satan's defeat on replay.

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you