Do You Still Dream? | Sheryl Kloehr | EP 113

God didn't take stripes on his back just for physical healing. That's for emotional healing. Maybe the answers could be found just in being heard and being seen and finding someone else that understands. I was seeing God's hand in the prayers that I was praying for other people. When you are not focused on yourself, it frees you to actually be part of a miracle in somebody else's life. Welcome to iRefresh, where we talk about the power of prayer and God's Word. What is it to have a dream, to get so excited about a dream? Or if you wake up and you have this wild dream, like, what was that? What did I eat the night before? That was not good. Let's not eat that late at night. Or maybe you're like, I just don't dream. I'm just so tired. I just, I crash, I'm boom. I don't know. I don't remember a thing. A dream could be a vision in your life. Maybe you saw it in your mind's eye at some point in your life. I remember me doing that. 40 years ago in the first week of August coming up. And I'm still waiting for my dream, too. And so as a point of looking at what dreams are all about, they get us excited. There's an expectancy. Then there's a waiting process. What in the world is that all about? But I want to talk about even the stories of other people who have had dreams. They've worked really hard in their dreams, and they've been successful. So I'm going to tell you some stories. It's going to be like the rest of the story. I'm going to tell you who it is. You tell me as soon as you can figure it out who it is. Okay? Here we go. Okay, this is a dude. He wanted to make it big in Hollywood. And he was struggling in New York, so he went to Hollywood and And he was going through auditions, and he was like, hmm, he went to see, okay, this is going to totally give it away. He went to go see one day, witness a boxing match. And there's no name boxer. He went head to head with Muhammad Ali. And he's like, wow, that's incredible. Because the guy actually knocked down Muhammad once, and he almost made it to the very end of the fight. He's like, wow. This guy was so inspired by it, he went back to his home in a small apartment with his wife, and for three days he wrote a story based on the inspiration he got. Now, he was dirt poor. He was so poor that he had to sell his dog because he couldn't afford to feed the dog. He even, without his wife's permission, had to sell her jewelry just to make it. Now, he was at an audition, and he didn't make the callback. But when he was there, he happened to know these two men that they were part of a bigger producer, director. And he really thought, I'm going to hit them up for the script I have. They said, yeah, we'll listen to you. So he pitched it to them. And in that script, he said... What do you think? And he's like, we really like it, and we'll buy it from you. So the guy was going to get, hadn't seen this kind of money, over $300,000. Like, score! He's like, no. Actually, I'll take $25,000, but the condition is I'm the main actor in it. I'm like, okay, what a deal. He gave up all this over $300,000 just so he'd act in it. Who is that guy? Sylvester Stallone. And the rest of the story, you know what it is. But everything that it took, he says, it's all about dreams. Dreams cost nothing. They're free. Okay, let me tell you another story. I have a lot of them, so I'll get to one. Okay, this dude, he lost his job. He had a business. He failed at it. He got into politics. He got elected. Then the woman he loved died. He had a nervous breakdown. Then he got defeated as the Speaker of the House. Then he got defeated for the nomination for Congress. Well, then he lost his re-nomination. And then he tried out for a couple more roles in politics. And so as he was doing that, he realized that He was just not making it, except he even tried out for vice president, didn't even make vice president. I guess it was a little bit different back in the day. But one day, he would become the president. And he would have this really famous speech. And that speech would be called the Emancipation of the Proclamation. Abraham Lincoln, right? Okay, okay. It's kind of fun, isn't it? All right. So, all right. Here's a really cool one. I don't know if you know this one. Okay. There's this lady got married down in Texas, and they had three kids, military guy. They're married. Life's hard. He leaves. She's got all three kids on her own. She struggles, she's doing all kinds of different sales jobs, gets management jobs, but she keeps on seeing she's getting overlooked because she's a woman. So her kids get grown up, they're on their own, she decides, I am going to make, I'm gonna create my own cosmetic company. Okay, yes. The cool thing about her was that she become a multi-billionaire company who would then, what, inspired, wrote books, inspired women, and then women be able to do businesses at their own home. What is it that a cool dream affects so many more lives than just your own? OK, I'm going to tell you one that's probably not as funny, but it's really cool. And it's a story about this couple. And it's called Life Insurance. So there's a couple that are in a country that the It's a South Asian country and it's 0.01% of Christians. So the spiritual battle is pretty intense. So the husband is off and he has to go to some remote place for work. And he has to get back onto a bus. And so when he's waiting, he's talking to some guys that are around him. And they're talking a little bit. Well, it's about time for him to get on the bus. So they get ready to load up, and at the moment, he decides to give one of the guys a book about Jesus. Well, when the man sees it, he's enraged and fuming that he gave that to him. And so he gets on the bus. The guys follow him up onto the bus. The guy sits right next to him, and the other guy right across from him. He calls his wife and says, please pray for me, because the guy said he's going to kill me. And so the wife happened to be with some coworkers, and she's like, please pray. So they stopped, began to pray. 20 minutes later, he calls back. He says, you just won't believe it. We had a stop. 20 nuns got onto the bus. The guy refused to do anything because of all the nuns that were on the bus. He wouldn't do harm to him. And he just wanted to give a praise report. Wow. How God works in mysterious ways. Now that is a pretty cool accomplishment, right? God does unbelievable things in the most unique ways when we will call on him. Dreams come, they might go, you might have forgotten them. I'm hoping whatever your dream is or was, or if you forgot it, tonight is a night for you to stir it up. What God has put in you, he doesn't change his mind. Things happen, events take place, and then we just write it off and our minds begin to go wander a certain way. But you see, a dream is just a form of communications with God. It's not actually a spiritual gift. Did you know that? It's not a spiritual gift. Anybody can dream. And God uses amazing dreams. Matter of fact, what I found is I began to, that's why I was interested. I went through the Word and I began to look at every instance where there was a dream that was made in the Bible. And that's why I'm going to highlight to us what was the thing that was different about these dreams. That makes us like, what is it? How does it apply to us today? There were 14 dreams, dreamers. And I'm going to highlight a few of those. Because in the purpose of the dream, there are times when we will think, wow, not me, Lord. You're going to use somebody who's got this amazing gift or whatever. You know what? That's not true. The very first dream that's referenced is we're going to go there. And it's going to be in Genesis chapter 20. And we're just going to highlight, it's going to be verses 3 through 18. And as we're doing that, I want to ask you, have you done what Habakkuk tells you? Tell me what Habakkuk says. Write the vision. Write the vision. Write it clearly. Why? Why? Because that means you're committed. When you write it down and when you verbalize it, you're committed to that. It's a way to solidify it. You know what I needed to hear is the last part of this verse. And it says, for the vision points ahead to a time I have appointed, according to the Lord. It testifies regarding the end, and it's not going to lie. Even if there is a delay, wait for it. I've been waiting. Wait. Isn't there a song? He was there all the time, waiting patiently. Okay, it is coming, and it will come without delay. It will come without delay. Hmm. Okay, so, you know what? The first dream was from King Abimelech. No Jew to my knowledge. Was he a Jew? I don't know. I don't think so. He was not associated with God. However, the back story is what? Abraham was so afraid that he was going to kill him. So it's like, Sarah, would you just tell him that we're brother or sister? Now, is that a lie? Half lie. They're kind of like half brother, half sister. I'm like, OK, that's weird. But he says, just tell him because I'm afraid for my life. So what does God do? What is so awesome is that God uses a situation to give a dream to Abimelech to warn him. So dreams are here to warn us. Has anybody ever had a dream of like you woke up and like, wow, I'm being corrected or I feel an urgency. I have to do something. Yeah, I did. There's one that I remember still to this day. I don't remember the details of it. I just remember when I got up, I repented. And I did not like this person, this politic guy. I really, his views were so contrary to mine. But I felt the conviction to repent and get my heart right about that guy. To this very day, I almost felt like I would defend him. I'm like, that's really weird. But God did a work in me so many years ago. I'm like... It was done under the blood. I forgive. I have grace for this dude. But it's like, wow, a warning to cause us to repent. So this is what we get with the Abimelech. And the great thing is God was merciful to this man. And I'm going to highlight it in the voices, the scriptures I'm going to read out of. When it said that in Abimelech in verse, we'll look at 6. When it says God, yes, I know you did this with integrity in your heart. Because Abimelech's saying, hey, I didn't know that he was married with her. And so God was saying, I understand that. And because you did have integrity, it was I who prevented you from crossing the line. That's pretty powerful. Yeah. I protected you from yourself by not letting you touch her. Now, do the right thing. Wow. I don't know when I see that. I just like, isn't that the goodness and grace of God? And he will pay and intercede for you. He'll pray. Okay, so he'll pray for me. Okay, so the guy that lied to him, he's going to go back, give the wife back. And the great thing down here towards the bottom in verse 17, Abraham prays for him. And what happens? Abimelech gets healed and his wife and his household get healed. So the women who were having fertility issues were healed. Now, God used a dream to bring correction and protection to and not a curse, and then to bring healing. I don't know about you, but I want more dreams, and that's pretty amazing. So God uses all kinds of dreams. We're going to highlight some more. But here's the thing that we find, though, too, is sometimes those dreams of warning are great for us to get our hearts right. Job even said something about it in 33, Job 33, verse 12. In the message, it says, God always answers. So if you're asking a question, God says, he says, Job's friend says, God always answers in one way or another, even when people don't recognize his presence, even when people don't recognize his presence. In a dream, for instance, a vision at night when men and women are deep in sleep, fast asleep in their beds, God opens their ears and impresses them with warnings to turn them back from something bad they're planning for some reckless choice and keep them from an early grave from the river of no return. Are you hearing? That's what a dream is. It's God's way to keep you and to warn you, to protect you, your health, to protect you from harm. Again, there is the great thing about having a dream, a God dream. Now, what do we do with a dream? You know, sometimes I think about the dream I had 40 years ago in the prayer gardens at OREU. And I'm like, okay, Lord, it's 40 years. I'm still waiting for the full, full part. Part of it's come. Part of it's here. But I'm like, I'm not, it's not all done. I still am waiting for the full, full thing to happen. Well, I'm like, okay, Lord, I'm like, okay, Lord, I'm like, okay, Lord, I'm like, okay, okay, Lord, I'm like, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay I'm supposed to write it down. I'm supposed to pray over it. I need to trust the Lord with it. I also, I need to thank the Lord in the midst because I am really stubborn because he has to take us through a process and we're going to find some things that God does that we have to go through something to prepare us for what he's wanting to give us on the other side of it. So we need to ask God in the process, maybe you have a dream, you're like, I don't really understand what it means. I'm like, okay. Well, that's when we need to pray for it and ask God. Because God is interested in the process of teaching us His character. He's more concerned about creating the character of Christ in me than just fulfilling your dream. I was listening to my sister out in Boston area, Pastor Zenzo. Phenomenal teaching he just did recently. And I'll put it in our show notes on our website. Amazing about all things about dreams. Yeah. And he was talking about the dream killers, but he was also talking about the whole storyline about what God does. And that he will do, which we'll get to in a moment, about what God does to protect us and take us through the fire. But it's all the preparation for the ultimate glorious thing that God wants to do in our lives. So if we're patient, watch what he will do. Let's look at another one in Jacob. Go into Genesis 28. We're going to look at what God's doing in Jacob's life. Familiar passages, but I'm just going to highlight a couple of things that we see. Last month I talked about it. It was really cool about the stones of remembrance. If you haven't listened to it, it's out there. But Jacob in 23, 10 through 22, I'm just going to talk about it. Okay, here. Jacob's about to have an encounter with God, but he's got to do it in his dream. So it says that Jacob's looking around where the stones are at, and he takes a stone, and he lays on it, and he begins to sleep. Okay, I'm not, that's not a MyPillow. I'm like, that cannot be comfortable, right? I'm like, you're talking rough. That is a place of rest, but it's not comfortable. That's what God takes us, to places where it's not comfortable, because he's about to do something. So if we think, if you're in an uncomfortable place and you're not, you're restless, not feeling good, anticipate what God's about to do. Because it's at that moment when he began to be in the place of rest that the open of heaven, right, the angels ascending, descending. And it was so dramatic that that he, in the presence of God, he began to hear God tell him. He says, what did he promise him? What? I'm going to give you what? Land. Right? I'm going to give you the land. But was the land just for him and just the immediate family? Generations. Right? So it was not just to bless him. The dream was what for? Everyone. And it says what? Then your people will bless all nations. So now it's like massive. Right? And he says, and then I'm gonna watch over you and I'm going to be with you. That's what God did in that encounter. And when Jacob woke, he's like, I've been in the presence of God. So much so, what happened to that stone, that uncomfortable stone? He took the stone, he then changed its position The change of position, think about it. The change of position became a place of a monument of remembrance. He said it became a pillar. It was a pillar to remember the moment where God showed up and gave him a promise. That's what we need. We need to have a place where we literally realize shifting things into our life, even when it's uncomfortable. He wants us to be at a place of rest to trust him. But now look what we can do to encounter his promises of his word in our lives. And that God wants to be with us, to be present, to show us, I'm not going to leave you. You may think I'm gone. I am positioning things and I'm making a way for you in the wilderness. So, wow, Jacob's dream was phenomenal. So much so what he also changed the name of the town. It was no longer called Luz. It was called Bethel, the house of God. Now, Gideon is another dude. Now, he didn't have the dream. Who had the dream? Anybody remember? It was not Gideon with the dream. Who's the one that gets the dream right before the battle? Anybody remember? I'm going to give you a hint. It's in Judges 7, 13 through 15. It's a Midianite. It's his enemy. Oh, my goodness. Do you know that Gideon was so a nervous wreck, had no confidence that, oh, God, you know, he had all excuses in the world. How many of you or your friends have excuses under the sun of why you can't do something? Gideon was full of it, so full of it that God was so unique, he had to literally tap in and say, I got to use an enemy to get this guy to know. I keep on telling him over and over, I'm going to tell you where to go, what to do. And Gideon's like, you keep taking the people from me. You keep taking, we do that with God, right? We have a criteria how we think things are going to happen. And we're like, oh, but God, they left me. How can I possibly do what I need to do? We've had literally a whole bunch of people that couldn't make it tonight because emergencies and all kinds of stuff. I'm like, oh, Lord, I trust you. I will not do Gideon with it. Okay, I'm not going to do Gideon. He's like, he had to go eavesdrop on the Midianite, talking to the Amorite, and they're yakking. He's like, I had this dream, and it's like, their God is going to take us out. So there's Gideon now. I was like, well, yep, there sure is. And so there was the way that God used a dream of the enemy in order to reinforce, like, dude, I've got you. The victory is ours. Okay, let's go to a, who's one, who's the big dreamer that we all know? Joseph. Okay, we got to touch on it then. Okay, let's do it. It's 37. Genesis 37. Again, we're going to highlight something. with Joseph, and the one thing I wanted to do is I wanted to give you a comparison of Joseph with David. And you're like, what? I know. Kind of weird. But stick with me for a minute. I started... reading all the different dreams and stuff, and I started realizing Joseph in Genesis 37 and then David in 1 Samuel 16 and 17, there's some parallels with them. Joseph had the dream, but David, he didn't have the dreams, but he had the calling. And so Joseph was seen as a young man caring for the sheep in 37 and 17. David, it's 1 Samuel 16, 11, he was the youngest man, taking care of the sheep. So the culture of the time was the youngest young man would be attending to the sheep. So they both were at this, about the, David was 15, Joseph was 17. And they were seen as shepherds. Now, the only thing is Jacob favored Joseph, which caused a lot of family issues, right? On the other side, we have David. He has, what? What happens is like nobody sees him. He is like invisible. He's out taking care of the sheep. His bros, where are the brothers? Where are the brothers? I don't know. They're supposedly at some war. I don't know. Having a good time. All right. So they both are hated by their brothers. We see it though. And even when Joseph... How do we know that, like Joseph, remember, Joseph was so quick to tell his dream. And here I want to give you one little point. Can I tell you, please don't share your dreams with people unless God releases to you to do that. Okay? If you've done it, just don't stop talking about it. Protect your dream. Protect the vision God has for you in your life. I was so ambitious when I first started this. I was like, woo, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Every time I hear from God, oh, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. And I thought, everyone's got to be excited because God's going to show up. People are going to be, it's going to be touched. It's going to go global, yada, yada, yada. And yeah, I'm going to be like Joseph. And there was a process I had to go to. And this is what Pastor Zinzal talks about. Sometimes you got to go to the pit to learn some lessons before you can get to the palace, all right? So the lessons in the pit and in the prison is where I've been. I've been in the pit. And it's not really enjoyable because it's a kind of a lonely stage and it's probably not the most comfortable place. But the lessons we learn, because of his zealousness and his ambition, he created more chaos in his family. And it would land him in the pit. But the character of God that would transform his life, would prepare him. So when Potiphar's wife was tempting him, God was testing his character. You know, Joseph and Jesus are so symbolic, right? Do you realize the comparison? He's a foreshadowing of the Redeemer of Jesus Christ. And there's so many amazing examples. Just like Joseph lost his coat, Jesus was stripped of his clothing, right? Joseph, what did the brothers do? They, what, put blood goat on the coat? What happened with Jesus? Right? The blood and everything. Right? So when you look at Joseph, the rejection, the hate he would have, Jesus would be hated. When you look at everything that Joseph's life was, it was literally emulating and preparing us to realize Jesus would do the same thing, but he would finish it. And as Joseph was in the pit, Jesus would go to the grave. The great thing is Joseph rose up. And God would elevate him into the palace where he would have such great favor to save the nation. Just like our Jesus would be our redeemer and save us all. Glorious God, is he so good. But sometimes our zealousness and our dreams are like, I'm so excited, God. But there's the moments where it's so frustrating and we're so confused and we just don't get it. We don't get it. And that's where we call into the places where... There are places where we have doubt. We've got disappointments. We lack some time to go through phases where we lack discipline in our lives to fulfill what God told you to do. Sometimes we just get distracted. Like how many times were you on that phone every day? How much time? Your phone can tell you how much time you've been. Whoopsie. What is keeping me from doing everything God called me into? Those distractions, binge-watching something, or just my activities, way too many activities. Where do I have to start laying something down and laying my Isaacs down, laying things down for the greater what God calls me into? You see, sometimes those things, we just have to give them up. They might be great, but they're not what God has for you in this season. It's not part of the dream. But do we ask God? If we ask God, is this what you have for me? I could go over to Carrie and say, hey, Carrie, I think you're supposed to write a book. I've already planted that seed. But while I was praying for this, I thought, gosh, maybe she's supposed to write Bible study books. Yeah, I would like her Bible study books because she's such a teacher of the word. But now, for her, Carrie can just like, okay, if it's not a God thing, you shelve it. But when it's a God dream, God will confirm his word, and it has to align with the scripture. That's how we know it's going to be a God dream, right? So somebody can come and tell you and give you a word. You're like, I didn't know that I was asking God for a word. And you're like, it doesn't really confirm with me. I'm like, it's okay. Shelve it, pray it through, ask God for the interpretation, and wait on God for his timing. Because when it's his timing, it'll work. Versus me speaking death to something, right? So when we speak the doubt and the unbelief, we just totally annihilated all the faith and the hope and the trust we had in God. What we're speaking into the atmosphere, we've heard it, but boy, I have really, I experience it now. Like when I say something like, whoopsie, stop, control the tongue, because I don't want to speak death to your dream or my children's dream. but I want to speak the word of God and bring life to it and keep your mouth shut. If you don't have the ability to do it, the best thing is put some duct tape on that mouth, whatever it takes to get the point across. So how do we overcome the discouragement when we're waiting? Because the destructive thinking, Alex Seeley has this thing. We were reading a book, friends of ours, I was reading with Casey and Caitlin. We were reading a book and it said, Satan is on a mission to destroy your identity, to destroy the core understanding of who you are. He knows that because you are made in God's image, you are more powerful than an angel. If Satan can destroy your relationship with God and destroy your view of him, then his lies will affect the way you see yourself. Your default will become a negative self-image where you highlight your weakness over the strength causing you to live an ordinary life. It does not live up to the potential you were created and designed to live. If you're not living in the potential, then you're not living where God has you. we begin to devalue ourselves. How many have done that? You look in the mirror and you're like, ooh, Shunda Bakai. You know, like we devalue ourselves. You know, there's not enough makeup that's going to make that happen. I mean, seriously, we like to do that. And yet, sometimes we even devalue what's the help of the people around us. Again, Pastor Zenzel says, every dream has a dream helper. Every dream has a dream team. And if you are broken, you won't even see the dream team around you. There's times I have fussed with God because things are not happening with eye refresh. And I looked around when I was looking at this like, ooh, I repent. And I repent to all my prayer team members. I am so sorry. My being skeptical because I'm looking for the big, that's not what God had. And I apologize because I have an incredible dream team around me. And we're all to help each other. And we're supposed to move. Some of us, We might downplay it. And like, if something doesn't happen, we got a bunch of cliches and stuff. And really, sometimes it's just called disobedience. If I'm not obeying God and doing what he tells me to do, and I'm allowing myself to veer off to hear, it's just called disobedience. I'm just going to tell you tonight, repent and get it over, get over it. Here's your last opportunity to not literally look at your dream like it should be. And that is our age. On my side, we know it's, oh, you're too old. And some, you're like, I'm so young, people just overlook me. We're never too young. We're never too old. Abraham started out at 75. It was 75 when God told him to leave his country and his family to start on the journey. I'm like, wow. So let me give you this example that David gives us. and how we can approach when we're in the different phases of our life of discouragement. David, if we look at it in Samuel 17.26, I think it's 1 Samuel, let me look here. He said in the voice, it says, when David's about ready to counter Goliath, he says, no uncircumcised Philistine, which was a sign of covenant, can get away with taunting the armies of the living God. So now David puts into motion, puts into word, puts into the atmosphere a declaration. It's really important. What is it that you're declaring? So now the thing, the wild thing is here's the opposition. He declares something, but, We find, though, prior to that, in 1 Samuel 16, that the brothers, before all that happened, the brothers saw and experienced David be anointed for king at the age of 15. You know it causes a problem, a little friction, since you're the youngest and you're getting anointed. But, So that happened first. So there's a little bit of animosity happening. And then we see then right here at this point in time in Samuel, when he brings a declaration, he sees that his brother Eliab says in 1 Samuel 17, 28. He kind of looks at him, and David's trying to figure out what's going on so he can help to solve the problem. But his brother, a little bit on the passive side, overlooks him. And maybe this is what you experience as well. He says, why have you come down here? Who is watching your tiny flock in the wilderness? Wow, what a slam. I'm like, you're related to me, brother. And that tiny flock is the one you probably took care of at one point. But while you're talking, I was killing a bear, right? But see, we don't see David flaunting the truth, right? It was all the preparation that David was doing, right? Attending to what you're called to do in the process. They're learning and experiencing as a shepherd. He was faithful in that. And what that was, it was fascinating to me too, is the declaration of, He had to be opposed at that opposition by his own family. Many of you may have experienced that. But what was David's response? He ignored him. It's the best thing to do. Just ignore him. Don't fight it. You won't win. You'd be fussing. Well, you might be a good fighter. I don't know. But my suggestion, follow his suit. Just ignore him. Go on to the next guy. So I'm asking you, what are you declaring over your life? It's so important what you're declaring, what you're speaking into the atmosphere, and what is the scripture you're holding onto with your dream. It's so important. It's life-giving. We have to know our authority. We have to speak it out no matter how many years it takes. Because see, it took David when he was anointed, right? It would be another 15 years before he'd become king at 30. Amen. Interesting that he was 30 and Joseph was 30 when he took over the palace. Kind of cool. That was another little thing I thought was fun. And the cool thing, the difference, Joseph, when he was tempted, he ran out of the house. When David saw the battle, he ran towards the battlefield. When he heard, he ran towards it. And the other great thing, he didn't want anybody to have fear in the process. And not to fear. So in 1 Samuel 17, 32, he says, don't fear. Don't fear man's words. I'll go and I'll fight. Because he already knew who he was in the Lord. And he knew who his God was. Now, Saul's response was in verse 33. He says, but you can't. So now he's got somebody in authority, somebody he looks up to and he honors, also speaking against what he thought. Who's speaking against you? It's time to close those ears off to that. Because David runs towards the battle. He runs towards knowing that God is going to help him and walk through it. That's what we need to do. If it's kind of like where, you know, to get a horse focused, what do you have to do? You have to put that, what is it, a bridle? What is that, right? Yeah. We've got to get that so that they stay focused and do what they need to do. So they've got to be able to stay focused. and go the path that you want them to go in, right? Sometimes that's what we need. We need to not be so distracted by so many things that are taking our time, and we just need to be like Nehemiah. I just can't come down off the wall. I've got to finish the wall. I've got to finish building the wall. You cannot get discouraged. I am a hero of discouragement. I have mastered it quite well. But I'm also saying, I am also declaring like him, and I am running towards a battle, and I will not quit. And I'm asking you, you don't quit. Because you know what? It doesn't matter how many years it will take. It just doesn't even matter. You know, Abraham got a late start? Me too. You know, and I know that God is true to his word, the power of his word. And this is the scripture I want us to close in. Two scriptures. First Chronicles 2820. It says, be strong and courageous and do the work. Don't be afraid. Don't be discouraged. For the Lord your God, my God, he's with me. He will not fail you or forsake you. He will see to it that all the work related to the temple of the Lord. Who is the temple now? We are. He will see to it that all the work is related to you. It will be finished correctly. That's, you are the temple. He's got to work to complete in you. And then I just want to, in this other scripture in Isaiah, is also our declaration. And it says, the eternal says to you, now look here. I am creating new heaven and a new earth. The weary and painful past will be as if it never happened. Ooh, can you just hear that? The weary and painful past will be as if it never happened. No one will talk or even think about it anymore. So take joy and celebrate with an unending gladness on account of what I am creating. Look carefully. I am making this place. I've chosen this Jerusalem, a city of joy. I'm making her citizens, you, my people, a people of gladness. This Jerusalem, you, my pride and joy. That's what he's looking to you as, is pride and joy. I can't think of how much more that I can stay the course, have the hope of knowing that he will fulfill what he's called you into. And we are here to come alongside each other. No judgment. Wow, no judgment. It is time for, to help you understand the processes. You might be in the pit. You might be in the running out from the temptations. He's testing you. He's trying you. Well, oh, the palace is on its way for you to walk in the favor of God, to begin to restore and to store up the resources to touch many lives. that's what our God has for you. And I hope that you will understand it. Simmer on the scriptures. Simmer on what the truth of what God has for your dreams. They will be completed. And it is the past as though it never happened. So Father, we are just so grateful. We are grateful that you call us your pride and joy.