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Uh Jobe 121 says naked came, I out of my mother's womb and naked. Shall I return? Thither? The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away? Blessed be the name of the Lord. I received an email uh yesterday, I believe it was yesterday morning uh from a gentleman who contacted me about seven months ago. And uh I I made a video in response to him in his email which was requesting prayers in behalf of his wife who after uh some time of struggling to have um a second child, she was pregnant again. And I guess they had just found out and he was um he was seeking some prayers to um to secure some blessings on , on that pregnancy. And um anyway, you can watch that video. I don't want to rehash the the content of it. It, it it was one where um what was actually said to the point was very brief. Um But many things were said that were extremely important before that. Um And to date, it only has something like 100 and 65 views. So that's really unfortunate. But um for those that did watch it Um hopefully you're you're benefited by it. So uh the email yesterday informed me that uh he now has a little baby girl. So that's good. I have a few simple rules regarding prayer. One of that I follow one of them is to always be at least as grateful in the fulfillment of something that I'm asking for as I am uh intent or, or um I'm sorry, I've lost the word for this. Um We'll say serious. It's not a very good fit. Um It's serious in asking. So just trying to balance out my gratitude with um at least balance out. I , I try to be at least as grateful in responses to prayers I am in, in what I'm requesting. Uh And because people will a a ask, um the other main role is to be very careful about what I ask. And I try very hard to figure out what the Lord's will is. Um And if I can't get high confidence on that, I, I don't pray about it or my prayers just so that I can find out his will. And if that doesn't occur, then I just don't care about it very much anymore because if, if I can't, uh if I can't figure out that the spirit is from him, then there's no point in pursuing it. Uh So that's a, a vague reference to D and C 50 for those who are playing along at home anyway. Um It seems that this gentleman is grateful to God for having heard his prayer. And uh when, when I heard about that, it gave me quite a bit of joy. So um in Jacob 722 Jacob says, now this thing was pleasing unto me, Jacob for I had requested it of my father who was in heaven for he had heard my cry and answered my prayer. And you know, that particular story is, is a little negative. What he was praying about was was uh well, seemingly negative. Anyway, what he was praying about was um trying to help someone see how um degraded the path was that they were on. But um in this case, it was a prayer for something wonderful, a baby girl. So um I made sure to take some time yesterday and uh not just express my gratitude but feel my gratitude. It's uh one of the faults of our mortal body is the time limitations of our feelings. They fade over time. And uh actually, I was just writing out yesterday. It's not the first time I've, I've processed these thoughts into words, but I was writing out yesterday amongst many other things, how, how our resurrected bodies differ from our mortal bodies in terms of what we feel and for how long and what that's all like, it's very important to understand. So you'll see that in upcoming books. But um we should try to tap into that as much as we can in mortality. It's really important when, when something nice happens, you, you really ought to relish the moment. Just take a second. I, um, I've, I've been painting my house. I've mentioned that in recent videos and some of the work has taken me up on the roof and, um, I've made a habit of while I'm up there and just sort of in, in mission mode to paint just really trying to do a good job. Uh And also not to take forever to do it because I have a lot going on. Um I've tried to take a second while I'm up there and just turn around and look out and enjoy the view and just be grateful to God for all that beauty because it radiates and the more you draw nearer to God, the more you can see and feel that. But it, you know, it still takes intent to tap into that and to hold it. So, um this is a case with this gentleman's prayer of the Lord giving and one thing that I'm pretty sure he already knew, but I tried to highlight when we had this interaction before seven months ago was um the one of the keys to plugging yourself into God subsume is a really powerful word. Um swallowed up in the will of Christ subsume is a very good word. It means to be absorbed into. I really like that. A lot of times we think about adopting the Lord's will. Like, it's, um, like we have a backpack of things and we just need to put one more thing in there. But, um, it's actually taking off our backpack and maybe one or two things can get transferred into his and then we put his on and to take upon yourself, the name of Christ, it's to adopt his purpose and it's in lieu of your own, you have to lose yourself to find yourself. It's not remove some minor portion of yourself to make room for. Um you know, the miniaturized version of God's purpose. It's not the way it works. In fact, to touch on a really deep thing. I'm just, I'm just hitting on a bunch of deep things right now. I feel bad because I'm just like a rock skipping across the surface, but we have places to go. So we have to go there. But uh the whole idea of sacrifice and the imagery of cutting, um you have to cut away a whole lot to make room for what God offers. And this isn't an iterative thing. And if you go through this process, even just a few times, so little of who you were remains, I've talked about this before. Um In one of the books, it might have been glory of God is intelligence. It might have been men are that they might have joy. Um But this, this analogy of calcifying or um fossilizing fo that, that was a fossilizing bone where over time, um, there's just a process of replacement and the one thing is replaced with the other and that's how it goes and that's why there's the cutting. And so things go out and down and things come in from above and you have to make room for them. So that's why the cutting happens. You know, there's our idea of sacrifice is very distorted because there is no loss with God ever. So there's, there's never a case where he takes something away without putting something better in its place. And I've, I've um have been led through enough to have great confidence in saying that. So I've yet to find a situation in someone else's life where I lack the evidence in my own to believe deeply that that statement is still true. So the key that I was emphasizing with this gentleman is that it's good for us to get to the place that's, that's not strong enough language. The key, the key to greater peace and appreciation and joy. Um A key is a requisite key is getting to the point where we are as grateful for whatever God answers as we would be for the thing that we're asking for. And this is another one of my rules that I try to live. Well, I do live, I don't try. But in my current repertoire, this is one of the elements is that um I need to get myself to the place where, no matter how much real intent I have and desire I have for something I have to get to the point where I would be equally grateful no matter what God chooses to do. And that's important. It's very important. That's, that's where he's taking us is to that point. And imagine the piece of that. He said he gives peace differently than what the world defines his peace. I think most people interpret that, that scripture as meaning that the peace that he gives differs. Um I'm sorry that the way that he gives the piece differs from the way that the, the world receives peace, but that the peace is the same in both cases. And that's, that's not true. The peace is very different. God's peace. The world's peace is defined as the absence of turmoil, strive pain, sorrow, whatever. It's this uh bland diet or I i it's just puppy dogs and rainbows. It's, it's all the good, minus all the bad, but there's opposition in all things. And so if you want greater joy, it has to co occur with greater sorrow and there's no other way about it. So God's peace isn't the absence of everything that we think of as the opposite of it. Instead, it is the ability to feel peace in spite of any of that. And so it's a, it's a, it's a quality that overcomes, it's um it's the ability to hold back to push against all the things that they counter joy and peace with at least as great strength. So I believe that this man got to the point where that was interchangeable what he was asking for and what the Lord was asking for. He, he said in his original email, I have a snippet of it in front of me. He said, um we pray not to strong arm God's will, but that our prayers might open up a way for God to act. But in everything we surrender to his will. And I said something similar about submitting to God in my own email to him. I mean, not email. I made a video but I said that in there, I rewatched that video yesterday. Otherwise I wouldn't remember what I said seven months ago. I, I can hardly remember what I ate for breakfast. Well, I ate the same thing for breakfast every day, but if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to remember what it is from, from yesterday. So there's just too much flow. Um So getting back to this idea of God giving and taking it away, um There are the scriptures that we could talk about. Um But I really like this one. This was part of a four hour video I made a couple weeks ago and due to technical difficulties , the whole video got corrupted and I had to had to delete it instead of uploading it. And I was quite disappointed in that but I guess this is a good meta example. I figured that God knew what he was doing and that I needed to make the video to help process ideas or something. But that it, it the content wasn't something that you all were prepared to hear or maybe I didn't do a very good job at explaining it and it would have caused more harm than good. Um But that video which was on different topics. I, I also addressed this passage from John two which I love, I, I really appreciate the stories of the mother of Jesus, but here's, here's just very briefly at the wedding in Ka, I'll just read these verses. So starting in verse three, when they wanted wine, the mother Jesus saith unto him. They have no wine, Jesus saith unto her woman. What have I to do with thee? Mine hours. Not yet come his mother saith unto the servants whatsoever. He hath he saith unto you do it. You know, um when I addressed this in that other video, I, I probably talked about it for 40 minutes. But um here I just want to zoom into that last line whatsoever he sayeth unto you do it. Uh Mary had had over the years with Jesus , obviously, she knew him his whole life. Uh She had come to the point where she had implicit, trusting in, in Jesus and um her trust was so great that after she expressed what she wanted from him. She immediately subsumed to whatever he said. And that did not imply that she was going to get what she wanted. What it implied was she would get what she most needed, what would benefit her the most in whose mind, not her own. But in Jesus's mind, she subsumed to his will and the reason she did that we could go to other scriptures here. But um God knows what he's doing. Proverbs 1920 says here, counsel and receive instruction that thou mayest be wise in the latter end. Because in the latter end, he, you know, if you, if you yield to him, he will lead you to better things. He will lead you to be a better person. He will lead you to do greater good in life and so on. We're talking about job in job 4212 . At the end of the story, it says the Lord blessed the latter end of job more than his beginning. And then it denominates that blessing and sheep and camels and whatever else. But you can have all of that. Just give me Jesus sometimes in the process of the Lord leading us to better things. Um It feels like he's actually he's actually uh hiding from us, you know, scripturally speaking, or pushing us away or leading us into darkness, even in the various ways you could interpret that these are all feelings that people have had in this process. Uh But Isaiah 54 7. This is the Giladi translation. It says I forsook, I'm sorry, I forsook you indeed momentarily. But with loving compassion, I will gather you up and there's a lot to this and I'll explain it in time. But essentially, the idea is the world defines prosperity and the outcomes of prosperity. In a certain way, it tends to align with uh jobs restoration in the end for his affliction. But God does not define prosperity in those terms alone. He defines them uh in, in the purest sense, in the highest sense, prosperity is eternal life. It's the greatest gift he can give. It's uh the greatest outcome there is and, and that is um a condition of peace and joy that never ends and it, it continues to grow forever. And so um there's a beautiful scripture in Isaiah that talks about that, but it's, it's translated very poorly in the current translations. But it, it's the one about um in, in the King James, it says, and his name shall be called wonderful counselor , et cetera, et cetera. That that little passage, it all actually talks about the um the ever increasing. It's a beautiful thing, the ever increasing um flow of God's goodness to and through that being that person that's discussed there anyway, um God's prosperity is defined differently uh in outcome which we've addressed, but also in process. So the process of prosperity in the world is very different than the process of prosperity in God and in God's kingdom, the process of prosperity always includes affliction and, and it leans heavily on God's justice, but I don't want to get too deeply into that. I'm just bringing that up and, and it's, it's a little subpoint of giving and taking away. I'll also address that much further later on. Not, not in this video. All right. Um Go going back to job though just because I can uh in job 121. This blessed be the name of the Lord the Lord gave and the Lord had taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That's a little phrase like so many phrases in the scriptures, especially in the Hebrew portion of the Bible. It means so much more than it does in English. Um because a state of blessedness to be blessed, what does that actually mean? It's to be in the process of God's prosperity. If you go through the sermon on the mount, blessed are blessed are blessed. Are if you read through the conditions that follow that phrase, most of them describe what any normal person would interpret as an awful thing. Blessed are the meek blessed are et cetera, et cetera, the hungry and thirsty, the people who are persecuted for his name's sake, et cetera. Um Well, how is that a blessed state? Well, it's blessed in reference to the eternal. So starting from sometime in the future and going on forever. Outcomes of one who is like that. So that's the Lord's prosperity in a nutshell. Ok. So, um about uh 30 minutes before I started making this video, it was um a little after midnight and um I got up to check on um my dog after about half hour of sleep. Um So there's a lot to, to say about this. Um I'll do my best here, but I'm just trying to fulfill the Lord's purpose in this. Um He, he gave me what I just shared with you uh yesterday morning and uh I didn't know it was related to anything but I just, when he tells me things, I write them down and he always finds, I shouldn't say it that way. He always ends up having a plan for it, whether that unfolds that day, which is not unusual or that week, which happens a lot or sometime in the future, sometimes 10 years in the future, he always has a purpose in it. And that's why it's so important to write it down when he talks to you. Um And one blessing we have of electronic writing because we can search these things. And so it, it massively expands. If we do our part, it massively expands the degree to which he can use us. Whereas if we're just in the moment because what we're given, it's all through the rules that govern revelation, uh which, which all of that circles around faith. But if we use what we're given, he can use us to do many more things than he could otherwise use us for. And it matters a lot. Um The Lord doesn't need you but he needs somebody. So be that somebody, it's a wonderful gift that he offers us to be the person he can rely on. It's a very rare thing because um everyone seems to have a limit of what they're willing to do for him, were willing not to do for him. And as you progress with him, you will see that in your own life. And uh you'll come to understand what he meant when he said so often I looked and there was no man or something like that where there was something where his purpose is really needed someone else to help o help out. Um or even in the lightest of ways, couldn't you just sit here and pray for a little while while I'm literally taking upon myself, the sins of the world. Can't you just sit here and pray without falling asleep? So, you know, as I have become acquainted with the darkness in this world, um just about everything in that process is shocking for one who's never been told about it per se. Quite a bit of it is shocking because no matter what someone tells you about it, you won't understand until you go through it. That's a scriptural principle. I could lead you through those, but I'll do that at another time. But as shocking as it is, you can categorize all darkness in this world into two buckets. These aren't, this isn't the only categorization, but for our present purposes, it's, it's necessary and sufficient the one bucket, what I would call natural outcomes. You could think of this as the cost of doing business here. And I don't mean businesses in terms of, you know, Babylon or something. I mean, or, or even like a consolation prize like a, oh, well, um I don't know if you think of creation as some kind of watch like a bunch of gears machine just turning away. Oh, the, well, the creator was limited and so the machine has flaws. That's not what I mean. There, there are no flaws in this machine. It's, it's exactly perfect for what it, it's meant to do. It's designed to do this, there's a reason for it. So all of those things, whether it's cancer or, you know, getting hit by a tree or um a forest fire or you name it, whatever, whatever natural thing is going on. Um All of that, that's a pretty big bucket of suffering. But as God leads you through those things to comprehend more of those things that pales in comparison. Uh No pun intended the word pale. So I was talking about buckets, um, that pales in comparison to the bucket, which is the darkness in the hearts of men. And this, this is 100% connected to what I was saying about. There was no man. Um that darkness people use Hitler as this whipping boy, this, this archetype of evil. And , you know, I'm not here to be an apologist for Hitler. Um The, the only good thing I can say about the guy is that he had a couple of paintings that were decent, halfway decent uh of buildings. He didn't have the artistic empathy to do people, which is no surprise. But um he's got some decent paintings and buildings anyway. Um, that sort of embodiment of evil. It's actually, that's not the worst there is, it's not even close. Uh uh People say some people believe that Hitler was the anti-christ and every time someone like this pops up, they're like, oh, well, it must be him ever since the resurrection of Christ. You know, people have been trying to pin the tail on the donkey as far as who the anti-christ is, you know, uh a much better way of thinking about that. And it's converse, I think converse. I got my converses and my inverses uh jumble here. The opposite of that is the embodiment of good, right ? And the ideal we, it, he already came. He, he'll come back but, but not in the same form. He came. And that was, of course the Lord, the Lord's mortal advent when he comes, he'll come and resurrect a glory. Well, he comes a couple of times but, uh, the one you think of when we talk about the second coming that he, he won't come in the same form he was here before. Anyway, that's the embodiment of good. And the anti-christ is the embodiment of evil. And instead of thinking about that as a person, you should think about that in terms of a process and that's the key to understanding quite a bit about the end times. But I digress. So, um, why did I get on to that? I don't have a pause button because I'm recording on an iphone. Not an Android and Tim Cook has a few things he needs to work on. Um, the embodiment of evil, right? Ok. So people think that the pinnacle of evil, maybe it'd be more accurate to say than a deer of evil because you're going down is something like the evil of a person like Hitler, if that's not true at all, because the magnitude of something has to be coupled to its opposite. And that's probably an unnecessarily cryptic way of saying that you can't have the epitome of evil without the epitome of good. And in direct contrast and, and, and the epitome of evil is not something in and of itself evil can't exist on its own. It's like a parasite, um, that it needs a host, uh, in the, in, in the case of evil, it needs an, an opposite to manifest. You can't actually have great evil except in the face of great good. You can't, you can't um demonstrates not the right word, uh hatred, true hatred can't be manifested except in response to true love. And so, while the full measure of love, which of course is God's love, it's one of many things that come from and are fulfilled in God. In other words, they're part of the pyramid. So um when you find any trace of it, if you follow that filament, it will lead you closer to God. And as you find more of it, you are by definition, drawing closer to God. That's a very important principle. So love is like that beauty is like that truth is like that utility is like that we could go on. But these are all essentially wavelengths of perception of the path of God. So true evil can only manifest in the face of true good in love. And um so Hitler wasn't the anti-christ, although he was anti-christ, but that's different. It's a pro he was on the process. He was not the fulfillment of the process. Very important. We could go into more detail about that, but it's not relevant to our current topic. So sorry, I need a drink. Now, I'm trying to remember why we were talking about the epitome of evil. Oh the bucket. So natural evil, which there's probably a better description. But whatever we wanna call that first bucket, it pales in comparison to the second bucket because you don't know evil until and unless, and to the degree to which you know, God's love. And as you know that and here's another key as you live it, as you flow to others, the same degree of love that God shows to you. That's when you start to see real evil. You can also see that when you see other people who have and flow out God's love, that one's tricky because your ability to perceive is coupled to how much like God, you are very important principle. You can only see anything as correctly as you have become like God. This is a massive important idea. So as God leads you to comprehend more of that bucket, what what happens is He, you live up to the love. He has already shown you that you see the amount of love that he flows out doesn't change. He's just always radiating full blast. Our perception of it starts at almost at zero, just minimal. Now, it's more than enough. It's not withholding anything from us in terms of what we need. It's not uh putting us at any disadvantage. It's actually quite the opposite. He provides ways to filter that down so that we are not overwhelmed . And then iteratively we go step by step and he reveals more and more and more and more of how much He loves us. And each time he does that we have the opportunity to respond to that and we can choose various options. The best thing to do is to immediately love all people the same way that becomes pretty difficult, pretty quickly for, for most people, for, I mean, for, for basically everyone, it's contrary to our nature and then the various other reactions include ignoring it. That's a super popular one. It's really sad. Um, or, you know, the, the word gets planted in our hearts and then it gets choked out by the, by the world. Or we, we just, we get into this situation where we decide something else is more important than loving God right this minute and loving our fellow men. And so we just try to hit pause. We don't realize that that's not temporarily setting something aside and picking it up again . We're basically smashing something that's taken a very long time to build and, and then you're back at square one only. It's worse than square one because it's harder to rebuild that than it than it is to just keep it anyway. There are a lot of ways you could react to that. But um the more you respond to it by flowing out God's love to other people, the more you will see the evil in the hearts of men. And we already touched on John two. If you go to the end of that, this is one of my most cited versus um so this is one reason why one reason of many that I don't particularly enjoy when people um compliment the, the work that I do um in ministry. Uh in verse 23 it says now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover and the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men and needed. Not that any should testify of man for, he knew what was in man. And again, this is put more cryptically than it needs to be. But a piece of this is he was old enough and he had lived this way his whole life um to the extent that that he was, he was completely familiar with how unreliable people are. And someone can praise you up and down left and right in one moment. And what I mean by that is can sincerely appreciate the things that you do that are from God. Um giving full glory to God in, in, in all the right ways. Uh But valuing who you are, I didn't do this very well. Let me, let me back that up in whatever form this takes, they value whatever it is that you're helping make more available to them. And that's, that's a better way of saying it because it's so general, this could just be, you know, you hold the door for someone and they say thank you. Uh or it could be some huge spiritual thing and, and everything in between just, you know, you put food on the table and your family is like, hey, thank you for this. Our culture has been directed to believe that saying thanks is gratitude. In my opinion, that's one of the lowest forms, if not the lowest because it's so rarely coupled to what, what gratitude ought to be. Um Part of that is the fact and this is what I was trying to say about Jesus, is that so often? And you see this in the story, you see this again and again so that the the rich young ruler runs up to him runs and then does some kind of a slide into a kneeling position. And he says, master, master , what can I do to good master? What can I do to inherit eternal life? And that's a very honorary title, good master in, in that culture, it's a big deal. He was, he was um anyone watching this would have thought, huh this guy um he sees Jesus as highly as one man could see another. And um but Jesus responds to him cuttingly and he says, why do you call me good? There's only one good. And that's the father if people read this and they think, well, uh Jesus didn't want to be recognized as like the father. He wanted to put himself below the father. Um What's the best way to address this? Jesus said he came to demonstrate the father, his purpose was so that when people saw what he did, heard what he said and so on, it would illustrate what the father would do, say, et cetera in his place. And so to have someone recognize him as fulfilling that.