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You're in the surf of life every day you're in the surf of life, and you're getting hammered by the world

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You're getting hammered by enemies. You're getting hammered by friends. You're getting hammered by circumstances

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You find yourself

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Getting smashed by waves, and I'm telling you to stand up

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Life is hard you guys. As a pastor, leader, father, husband, I can tell you from personal experience, I'm constantly confronted with difficulties and hardships, bad news, difficult choices, serious circumstances, and people are malevolent.

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I mean we live in a world where people are very mean. They can be cruel to each other. They can betray you. Even friends can betray you. I've had that happen to me. You get ripped off, and we go through times where things just don't go your way, and you feel like that you want to give up.

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If you haven't felt like that you want to give up lately, then you probably need to get out more often. Life's just tough, and Satan and demonic powers control our world, and don't be shocked that they're going to impact you.

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I would even say this, that the more you're willing to have relationships and friendships, the more you're willing to lead things, the more you're willing to kind of hang it out there and take a risk, then the more this reality is going to hit you of hardship and difficulties and struggles.

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So how do you navigate that? How do you navigate this reality? We all go through it. Do you get frustrated? Of course I understand that, but is that the world that you're going to just constantly live in is frustration?

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Blame someone. Blame your family. Blame your parents. Blame your childhood. Blame that you're not smart enough. Blame that you're not tall enough. Blame your bad luck, or even blame God.

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A lot of people have big struggles dealing with hardships, and the blame game is their natural go-to. That's what they do is they just blame God, and they blame everything.

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You look back at Adam and Eve. As soon as Eve ate of the fruit that Satan gave her, she then gave it to Adam, and then immediately as God comes looking for them, Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent, and everybody's in the blame game.

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So the blame game's been going on a long time.

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I have this phrase that I've been using for a while, and it's really helped me a lot. This is not some theory. This is actually right where I live, and I've used this phrase. I dial up this phrase when troubles come.

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I think about this when I'm tired. I think about this when I hear bad news. I mean, just yesterday, there was probably ten things, at least eight or ten things that happened that were bad news, and I actually said this out loud, and then I'll say it to myself, and I say, bring it on.

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And that's what I say. I say, bring it on. Today, I wrote it on the board, on the whiteboard in our staff offices. I wrote, bring it on.

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I say bring it on because in my spirit, these three words always comfort me, and it changes my perception from what the problem is to a solution.

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Like, bring it on. I've got what it takes. I can do this. God's got this.

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So the other day, someone said to me, well, just bring it on thing.

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I mean, I came to you, and you said, and I told you about this situation. It was a pretty bad situation between two staff on our team.

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One was thinking about releasing the other one, and some things like that were going on, and I said, bring it on, about that loud. I said, bring it on.

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And he said, what did you say? I said, bring it on. He said, bring what on? And I said, man, bring on the problems.

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And I said, I'm not sure that your solution's the solution that we're supposed to have, but bring it on. Let's work this thing out.

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And so we do that. So I want to challenge you that you're going to go through hardships.

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And I'm going to say this. Most of the time, it's relationships. Most of the time, it's some kind of a problem relationally.

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It's a relationship between you and your girlfriend or your boyfriend, or it's a relationship between you and your dad or your mom.

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it's a relationship problem with your grandchildren, it's a relationship

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problem with your boss, it's a relationship problem with your pastor. I

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mean I don't know your situation but I can tell you you're going to have a lot

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of relational issues and I'm going to challenge you to start saying to yourself

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say it three times like bring it on, bring it on, bring it on. So when bad

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things are going bad, even when good things are going bad, and maybe where

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you've made a mistake and you've blown it something, to instead of feeling

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guilty about it and getting all bummed out about it or worried about it for the

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next three months, say bring it on. So you didn't get the promotion, bring it on.

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Nobody called you back, bring it on. You got cancer, bring it on. Going through a

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divorce, bring it on. Just got another rejection letter, bring it on. He broke

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up with you, she broke up with you, bring it on. You've been rejected, bring it on.

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Been betrayed, bring it on. It's a stand you take in the surf of life. So I don't

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know if you've ever stood on a windy, stormy day at the beach, I have. I've surfed a

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lot. Sometimes when it's a red flag at the beach where you're not supposed to

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be surfing, I've been out there in it. I've done some pretty dumb stuff with

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surfing. I shouldn't be out there, I nearly killed myself once. But if you stand in the

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surf, if you go out into the surf, let's say up to your knees or up to your waist,

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and these massive waves are coming because of the storm, you get smashed. And

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it's even, you really feel it if you're carrying a heavy surfboard at the same

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time. But you get jolted by that, right? And if you're smart, you learn to turn

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sideways. That's what I've always done because there's less of your body to get

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hit. But to me, this is what I'm talking about. It's like you're in the surf of

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life every day. You're in the surf of life and you're getting hammered by the

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world. You're getting hammered by enemies. You're getting hammered by friends.

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You're getting hammered by circumstances. You find yourself getting smashed by

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waves. And I'm telling you to stand up. The scripture says in James 1, to count

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it all joy when you go through various trials, knowing that the testing of your

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faith produces patience. And patience will have its perfect result and you'll be

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perfect and lacking in nothing. In my next episode, I'll talk about that. But you're

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standing in the surf. And if you don't learn to say, bring it on and have that

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kind of a fighter mentality, you're going to get thrown back and you're going to

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get pummeled. One time I was at the Wedge in Newport Beach. It was 1978 and I was

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surfing the Wedge, which is a very dangerous part of Southern California.

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And it was a red flag day. There was only one other guy out there. And I went out

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there and I took a hit, man. I got hit hard. I went down and my head hit the

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Wedge. The Wedge is where, the way it works is the water, the sand kind of goes

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out and then it drops. So the waves come and they hit that cliff that's underneath

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the water. And that's where I got it. So I took this wave and I'm riding this wave.

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And then I lost my balance. I went down and I smashed into the cliff and it broke

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my board. That's how fierce the storm was. It broke my board. And I was gasping

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for air about every 15 seconds. I'd go down, just tumble underneath the water,

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losing my breath. I'd come up and then I'd get smashed again. And suddenly,

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during this one lull, there was like a lull between two waves of maybe like five

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seconds, I saw this surfer way off and he saw me and he threw his board over to me

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and it slid right up to my head, like right here. And I grabbed it and then I

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rode it in. And then he came up to me and he said, man, are you okay? And I said,

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yeah, thanks so much. And then he was gone. I've often wondered if that was an

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angel. That's where a lot of people live. They live like they're at the Wedge and

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they're getting smashed constantly. They're barely breathing emotionally.

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They can't think mentally. They're spiritually bankrupt. And I'm telling you

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that you have got to learn to say, bring it on. And what I mean by that is that you

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believe that all things work together for good. That God's actually using the waves

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and he's using your circumstances. He's using your shame.

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is using your failures to tell you

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that I'm gonna work out something greater in you

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through those hardships than you could have

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without those hardships, but you've gotta believe it.

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So if I really believe that all things work together

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for good, Romans 8, 28,

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then by saying bring it on is a faith statement.

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I'm making a faith statement of belief

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in the goodness of God, that God,

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I mean, it's not God's will that my parents got a divorce.

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It's not God's will that I lost my job all the time.

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It's not always God's will that I have cancer

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or something like that.

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I'm not saying that.

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I'm saying, though, that cancers do happen.

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Divorces do happen.

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You lose your job.

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What are you gonna do about it?

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You can't control what your boss decides.

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You can't control what your parents decide to do.

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In some case, you can't even control the issue of cancer,

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but you can control your reaction to those things.

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Bad things happen to us

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not because of the bad things we've done all the time,

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but because God's actually doing a good thing in you.

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He's actually doing something great in you

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by the bad circumstances,

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and that's why Paul said all things work together for good.

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That's why he says count it all joy.

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So when I say bring it on, this is what it means to me.

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It means I have what it takes to handle any situation.

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Bring it on.

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I'm fully confident that God will give me wisdom

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in this situation.

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Bring it on.

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I can decide to make joy out of this situation.

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Bring it on.

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I'm powerful and strong in Christ.

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Bring it on.

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I'm looking forward to what I will learn

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through this circumstance.

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Bring it on.

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I'm being made into a better person through the pain.

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Bring it on.

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Something good is going to happen.

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Bring it on.

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Let me challenge you to recite those three words.

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Write it somewhere.

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Bring it on and live it this year

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because you're gonna have some bad things happen,

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but God can turn bad things into good things

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by you being changed in the inside

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and realizing that God's making you a stronger person.

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So bring it on.

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♪ Do do do do do do do ♪

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♪ Do do do do do do do  gore ♪

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♪ Theme tune ♪