Russell Gray - Sep 12 - 8:00 am

0:00Welcome to the morning news. I'm your host Russell Gray and today I am thinking about the word receive. And the way it came up is I had a session in my personal journaling time, which I highly recommend. For those of you that don't know, I'm of the habit of getting up every morning and spending the first 60, maybe even 90 minutes of the morning, taking an inventory of my feelings and how I feel about things and kind of my mood. And then I trace down through the thought processes that are leading to how I feel, good, batter ugly, and then what beliefs are drawing their strength or what's feeding those thoughts. And so it's been great for me to do a little weeding in my soul, if you will, because I can look at my emotions, which are the petals, the flowers that I see, dig down into the thought processes that are underneath them and connect them to the underlying beliefs and then ask myself, are those beliefs true?

1:07Are they real? Are they valid? Do they serve me or am I being deceived? We know the devil is the father of lies, and that's his greatest power against a believer. We have sovereignty to a degree, I suppose, from what I understand from Scripture over the devil, resist the devil and he shall flee. But what are we resisting? Well, we're resisting his lies because he attempts us as he did Jesus in Matthew chapter 4 when Jesus was in the wilderness, Satan came along and actually even quoted Scripture at him. But out of context and in rebellion against God's plan and purpose and the reason Jesus knew that this was in rebellion against God's plan and purpose is because Jesus had spent a lot of time with the father. He is the father, he and the father are one. So he knows what truth is and he knows what lies are and he knows what his mission and his purpose was and he knew that if he were to obey the devil, he would be giving up his sovereignty.

2:08And even though he was more powerful, if he voluntarily turned it over as Adam and Eve did in the garden, then that would give Satan a victory. And thank God Jesus didn't do that. Well, I think that some parallels in our own life, right, is in resisting. And so when I was thinking about where I'm at, in any time, if you've ever started a business, which is what I'm going through, not just one, but in this case, several at the same time. And I'm doing it in a season of life, form a little bit older. So the good news is I have a lot of experience. The bad news is, you know, I don't quite have the same energy I had when I was a young man. And sometimes I don't have the same drive. I'm motivated by my mission for sure, which is now the change that I want to be in the world and the impact that I want to have on people's lives. And I believe that that's a desire that comes from the Lord, which is what motivates me to want to do it. But it's not quite the same as just starting out in life and needing to figure out how am I going to pay the bills, how am I going to take care of my wife, how am I going to take care of my kids, how am I going to build a future.

3:15And you spend so much of your time as a young person, I think, at least I did deferring and pushing forward and thinking about someday, someday I'm going to do this, someday I'm going to do that. And I'm saving my money so someday I can do that. I'm preparing myself or building my business. So someday, someday, someday. And when you get to be my age, someday is now, right? There is, you're running out of some days. And at some point, the future is now. And that's been an interesting transition for me is, you know, I still think about the future. I still make plans. I'm still building, but it changes the way I play the game on a daily basis. And especially because now I've gotten to an age where, you know, seven years ago, I lost my wife of 41 years. And so I realized that life isn't forever, you know, you understand that conceptually. But then when you kind of see it firsthand, it's like, wow, this game could end quickly. Buddy, a mind died a couple years later. And that was, it was a year younger than me.

4:16And I thought, wow, that's crazy. I just had another friend who was killed in a tragic skydiving accident. 70 years old, still jumping out of airplanes. So God bless him, live in life to the fullest and went out doing something that he loves. And yet we just realized that whether through natural causes, through some unforeseen accident or some horrible circumstance that we don't contemplate, we just don't know when that day is going to come. And so we don't think about it. And we just live our lives. And I think that's the way we should. But along the way we have stresses, we have frustrations, we have doubts, we have discouragements. And I like to talk about those because to me, I mean, it's a little bit encouraging when I hear people say, oh, everything's going great. And God's really blessing me and everything I touch turns to gold. And I never have a bad day. And I'm so filled with joy. And I hope that's true for them. God bless them. I haven't figured out how to be that person.

5:17I wake up every day and it's kind of like in this day you'll have trials and tribulations. But be of good cheer. It's not like, oh, you're not going to have these things. It's just how do you respond to them. And so I spend a lot of time with the Lord in the morning talking about my feelings or writing my feelings down and asking myself if is what I'm thinking, what I'm believing true. And the other thing that you find as you go through life is that you have programmed your mind either by designer, by default, and usually a combination of both books you've read, people you admire, brilliant quotes you've heard, and you think to yourself, I'm going to incorporate that. I'm really the first generation that really grew up watching TV. And you know, for you parents today and kids growing up on the internet and social media. And I know that a lot of people think, oh, my gosh, these kids are going to grow up. So impacted. So shaped by media. Well, you know, this isn't the first generation that's had that problem.

6:17My parents had the same problem looking at me and they grew up listening to radio and that had its impact. So, you know, if you just kind of look at it from the evolution of society, if you will, as media has come out, it's changed the way human beings think and the picture that they have and the world view that they have and how they think the world works and who they think they are, what they think is cool and interesting. I'm sure that before the printing press came out and people lived in little communities and there wasn't mass transit, you know, you grew up in a culture and it was reinforced. And so these things have cultural impacts. And inside of all that, you've got the Bible and the Christian faith and everything that has occurred since Jesus walked the earth. There was no printing press. I mean, certainly there was writing and people would gather to hear the writing. The papers were sacred because they were so rare. There was no mass production of written word.

7:19Most everything was oral and people would talk and they would share and they would discuss and they would gather together to have somebody who had the writings to read the writings and everybody would sit and listen. And then later we had the printing press and books became commonplace and there were people who got their power from controlling the writings and so they were resistant. They wanted to keep the sacred writings under their control so that they were the gatekeeper of God's wisdom and other wisdom and other sharing of ideas. And you know, you could make the argument, well, some people are sharing bad ideas. Yes, that's true. We live in a world where there's both good ideas and bad ideas and that goes back from the beginning in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve are there and Satan comes along and he shares a bad idea. He's like God says, this is the way it is. No, no, no, no, God didn't really didn't mean that way. You know, what he meant was this or did he say that? Well, that's, you know, what he's doing is he's keeping something from you. He lied. He lied to people. He lied to Adam and Eve and they bought it.

8:19And so they received the lie. And so this muse is really about receiving. And so I wrote down in my journal that I'm thankful. I'm grateful for the stress that I'm under for the doubts that I have for the insecurities because what they do is they draw me in to spending time with God and his Holy Spirit and his Word and asking him, what is it that I'm supposed to be believing? What is it that I'm supposed to be thinking? And what is it I'm supposed to be feeling because those feelings that emotion is what puts me into motion so that I can take the things that I believe, the things that I think and use them to create power of feelings and emotion to begin to take action. I believe that what you think and believe affects what you do action and what you do affects the results you produce. And so we want to be taking effective action. How do we do that? We have to have effective thoughts, effective beliefs that drive to effective emotions that drive us to take effective action so that we can be fruitful and multiply and take effective, produce effective results.

9:28And so as I have read many, many books in my life, I got this giant library and my version of heaven would be to have my mansion in the Father's House if this is the way it works. And I don't know that it does. And it would be full of nothing but books and I would have nothing but forever to consume them all. And I would be happy as a clam just reading the books and just gathering more and more information and knowledge and perspective. So I'm wired that way. And that's good. I think God gives people His creation a unique desire to learn and know. We're curious by nature. We are explorers. We like to dig in and think and contemplate. And one of the things we like to contemplate is where did all this come from? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? Right? These are important, deep questions. I don't know that animals think them. I think humans are unique in doing that. Had a conversation with the other day with a friend of mine, very good friend of mine, very successful guy, very influential guy.

10:30He's libertarian by nature. So he's kind of a live and let live kind of guy, which is great. And he was in this argument with this other man who was just kind of giving him a hard time because he felt like libertarianism isn't really practical. Right. It's great in theory. But when you have bad people, bad ideas in the world, then you're going to have to have some degree of controls in order to have safety. Right. And so I tend to agree with that, but I also tend to be a little bit libertarian. I think minimal amount of government, minimal amount of oversight. I think self-government is way better. Internal controls is way better than external controls, which is why I think preaching the gospel and introducing people to God and wanting them to understand there's accountability, even when no human is watching, when there's no surveillance, when there's no auditing, when there's no external control, there's no external punishment. The God of all creation is watching everything you do, understands everything you think and feel.

11:32And one day there is a degree of accounting. Now, when you're in Christ, the accounting is a little bit different. Right. Because it isn't about like heaven or hell, we get heaven. At least that's the way I understand it. But maybe there's a different level, or maybe what we have is we just don't have the right peace. If we're incongruent with God and His character and His mission, we don't have as much peace in our life as we might otherwise have. I don't know. I don't know. I just know that I don't worry about going to hell. I worry about just being the man God created me to be when He conceived of me from the beginning of the universe. And discovering and doing the good works that He created for me to do beforehand that I might walk in them, and that I can be busy about the Father's business and the Master's plan, which is to love God, love your neighbor and make disciples. And then the various missions that I get assigned in my life, depending on the season and life I am in, the circumstances I'm in,

12:35the passions God gives me to let yourself in the Lord. He'll give you the desires of your heart. So He gives me desires, things that I want to do, things that I think are important causes. I want to fight for people. I want to support responsibilities that I want to take seriously and be a good steward of my time and all of that. So all of that is part of it. But along the way, you look for help. And so I've read these books. And one of the books that I read many years ago was called Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. And because I am a capitalist, I believe in capitalism, I believe in private property rights. I believe in free enterprise. I believe that it's my responsibility and my opportunity to get up every day and work hard and be productive and create wealth, create value, be in exchange with other people that are doing the same thing and then become a person who has resources and prosperity and has the opportunity to create more value in the world.

13:39And so I'm pro all of those things. And so you go looking for these people that either accomplished a lot in their life or have studied people who've accomplished a lot in their life. Napoleon Hill studied people that were very, very successful. Stephen Covey, seven habits of highly effective people, studies to discover what it is. How do these people think? Tony Robbins does a lot of that. And they write their books. And some of the stuff is really good. And so I was thinking about this concept of receiving. And then what popped into my mind was whatever the mind can conceive and to believe, it can achieve. This is a famous quote from Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich. And I was thinking about it. I thought to myself, well, what's missing is the word receive. And in my journal, I had written down the work that I do that I work on to myself is to become a capable receiver.

14:41So what I said is, I want to be blessed. I want to be healthy. I want to be prosperous. I want to be free. I want to be those things so that I can be generous, influential and effective for Christ, capitalism and the Constitution. So as I've gone through this metamorphosis of changing my business focus and learning to be back into a much tighter relationship with God and to really lean in, realizing the shortness of this life and the urgency that I have to finish the things that I believe God created me to be, that's really what I focus on to be effective for Christ's capitalism and the Constitution. So it's who I am. It's what I stand for. It's what I'm doing and want to achieve. That's when I, the word achieved popped into my mind as I was writing and I thought about Napoleon Hill's quote. And so then the question is, well, how do I plan to do it? Why it's important? And so I'm clear on many of these things. But then I realized that my work wasn't on the achievement.

15:43It was on receiving. And so the work I do is to become capable of receiving and stewarding the blessing that I believe God wants to give me to share with others. I say all the time, blessed to be a blessing. And so I thought whatever the mind can conceive, believe it can achieve, which puts a lot of power on you. And I know God empowers us and we can do all things who Christ who strengthens us. So I understand that. But I really felt like it was missing a word. And so I rewrote it. And I said, whatever the mind can receive, conceive, believe it can achieve. So whatever the mind can receive, which means that you have to think like a receiver. Well, I played a tiny bit of football. I can't say that I was amazing. In fact, I can tell you that I was quite below average. Now, I have a nephew who's a good Christian man and he ended up being a receiver at a very high level. D1, fifth round draft choice played for four or five years in the NFL.

16:48Had a really big game played for Texas and had a really big game on a Thursday night. I think it was against USC caught like, I don't know how many leaven catches for 191 yards. I thought, wow, this is amazing. And of course, he has some great physical gifts, but he also put the work in when you get to those higher levels. Everybody's a great athlete. Everybody is. And so the person who manages their mindset and really puts the work in that is the difference between two equal people with great physical gifts. But one who works a little bit harder. And so I looked up the definitions of these words and then I'm going to come back to the football analogy in just a minute. But to receive is to acquire or accept. And so we think about getting, but part of getting is also receiving. You know, if I'm in football and I want to carry the ball, that's great. But I have to have someone give me the ball and then I have to receive the ball. It's a two-party transaction. And I believe that's true with God. To conceive is to apprehend mentally to understand.

17:53And so when God gives you something, then the reception is getting it. But then the conception of it is to apprehend mentally to understand it. Of course, Solomon says in Proverbs to get wisdom and to get understanding. And we know that the Holy Spirit comes to give us understanding. The Holy Spirit is our mentor to help us understand the word and the principles of God. And so you can read the word. But if it confuses you, it's probably missing. And I think I've used on this before is the Holy Spirit. You may not be leaning into that part of the relationship. Some of us focus a lot on the Father. I'm one of those guys. A lot of people put a lot of focus on Jesus. And there's a lot of people that do that. And I think fewer people probably put an emphasis on the Holy Spirit, although many do. But I know in my life, I work to balance all three. And I think all three are important. All three are equal. All three are very, very important. And they have different roles to play in your relationship with God. And the Holy Spirit is the one that gives us understanding.

18:54At least that's in my experience. And then there's belief. So receive can see, believe is to accept as true or real. Hebrews 111, I believe. At least it's Hebrews chapter 11 says that faith is the evidence of things hoped for the substance of things not seen. When Thomas doubted, Thomas said, hey, I'm not going to believe until I see. And Jesus says, well, let me show you. And he says, Lord, I believe. And he says, that's great. Blessed are those who see and believe. But even more blessed are those who believe without seeing. In other words, more faith. And then of course, you can't boast about faith because Paul says faith is a gift from God. He says that by grace, you've been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, unless anyone should boast. And that kind of understanding that core scripture is the thing that made me push back a little bit to this idea, whatever the mind can conceive, believe and believe it can achieve.

19:55It sounds good. It's very empowering. And there's a lot of things that make us feel good that actually aren't true. And you have to be careful because sometimes we can seek. We say, well, we really want to be strong. And I want to feel strong. I want to feel capable. But if you feel strong and capable in your own might, then in our weakness, he's made strong and be strong in the power of God and his might, not our own might. And so it's crazy, like Moses, who didn't feel capable at all. God said, hey, I want you to lead the people out. He's like, me? I'm old. I can't talk. Like, no, send somebody else, right? And God kept encouraging him until Moses said he wouldn't do it. And then God got mad and said, okay, I'll give you your brother. And that turned out to be a little problematic, right? Because Moses goes up on the mountain to commune with God and get the 10 commandments. He leaves Aaron in charge and Aaron's got the people running around with the golden calf. Again, I'm not putting Aaron down. I'm just saying that Moses was not coming from a position where he felt qualified.

20:58He didn't feel like he was strong. He didn't feel like he was the man for the job. Now, sometimes people do. David went and fought Goliath. And he felt like I can do this. But he knew it was God who was going to do it because God had done it for him before. Right. I think Caleb came in when it was time to get his inheritance. And he's standing there. And he's like, you know, when I went into the land and I spied out the giants 40 years ago. And I was 45. I'm 85 now. And I'm just as strong. And I'm ready to go in and fight for my inheritance. And so I'm not saying you can't feel confident. I just know in my experience, probably for every time I felt confident in myself. And I believed in my own capabilities and my own strength. That a lot of times that was when I turned out to make the biggest mistakes. Because I didn't have the humility. I wasn't checking in with God. That's why I started out this session talking about being grateful for the stress. Grateful for the doubts. Grateful for the insecurities.

21:58Why? Because he drive me to seek God to pray for God. To receive from God. You ask and you shall receive. And so to receive is to acquire accept, to conceive is to apprehend mentally and understand. To believe is to accept as true or real. And to achieve, which is kind of what we all want is to accomplish successfully. And the foundation, if this is correct, is that in order to achieve, we've got to conceive, understand, we've got to believe. And then of course, we need to act on those beliefs. But to me, it all starts with receiving. And so I started thinking about just being a receiver, going back to the football analogy. And I was a lousy receiver. I played running back and it wasn't very good. But part of a running back's responsibility is to catch the football. And I have small hands. It hadn't had a lot of training as a receiver. And I remember we went to summer camp and I'm out there. They're throwing the ball. We do these little drills and everybody could handle the ball except me.

23:01When we started in summer, I dropped every single thing. I dropped pitches. You know, when you're running back and they don't hand the ball to you, I could handle that, right? They put the ball in your belly and just wrap around it. I could do that. But when they would pitch the ball to me, I would drop it. When they would throw the ball to me, I would drop it. And it was terrible. And so I thought, okay, well, this is going to be a long year. And I'm never going to see any action. And I didn't really see much action anyway. Because again, I said, it wasn't that great. I was proud of myself that I even made the team. There was like 33 backs that went out that year. And I hadn't played football in seven years. So I was the oldest guy on the team. You know, I graduated high school at 17. And that was the end of my football career. Seven years later, I decided to go back and try to be a freshman. Walk on it. This is a little junior college. And 33 backs went out. They were going to carry six. And I was number six. At least I made the team. So I was like, okay, I made the team. But I couldn't catch to save my life. So what I did was I started working. And I really started working at it. I would do these little things where I'd squeeze balls

24:03and had these gripped strengths to strengthen my hands and my fingers. So I could really catch the ball and have good hands strength. So I did that. I used to do these little drills where you just kind of toss the ball back and forth and just learn to get your hand on the ball and receive the ball in. And I did that. And then what I started doing was I would go out before practice and warm up the quarterbacks. And the good news is I had really done a good job conditioning myself so I could run and run and run and run forever. So I didn't try to save anything for practice because I could just go forever. And it was fun. I mean, I'd love to be back at that level of fitness. But you know, at 20, 24 years old, I had that level of fitness and it was amazing. And so I'd go out there and I'd just run these patterns. I'd run back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth catching balls. And by the end of the year, it was actually a pretty good hands. I could actually catch the ball. It was a pretty reliable receiver. And so I would end up playing these positions on the scrub offense, a practice offense to just get a chance to continue. And the good news is, is even though I didn't play that much, I really loved the game. And it was fun for me just to be out there pretending

25:05I was still young. You know, 24, I mean, I was young, I guess. But I was just kind of, you know, it was like my first midlife crisis. Football ended before I was ready for it to be over. So I said, I want to go back and play just a little bit more before I get too old. And so I'm really, really glad I did that. And I thought God was calling me to do that. I was a new Christian and I wanted to be a football coach and a teacher. And so I kind of winded down that path. And then, you know, ultimately that's not what ended up happening. And now today, of course, in the fullness of time, I can look back at my entire life. And I can see how God has his hand on me and was moving through me through just as highly eclectic, curriculum, if you will, to prepare me to be the man I am today and to do the things I'm doing today. And I would have never been able to script it. No career coach would have been able to go, oh, here, this is how we're going to develop you. But in hindsight, I can see God's hand every step of the way. And sometimes I didn't like it. Sometimes it wasn't what I wanted. And I've learned that I make my plans.

26:07And I have my vision. And I set my goals. And I go to work. And I think it's going to go a certain way. And then God takes it in a completely different direction. And I just have to accept that. You know, I learned playing football that every play is designed to succeed. But when you get on the field, because there's an adversary, that every play doesn't go as scripted. And sometimes you have to improvise. And sometimes you have to change your game plan. And sometimes you get completely redirected. And sometimes the coach gets fired. Sometimes the player gets cut. Sometimes you get injured. I mean, there's all kinds of things that go on. And it doesn't go as scripted. So I've learned to be a little bit more flexible and have a lot more faith. You know, Romans 8, 28 comes to mind a lot for me, which is all things work together for good for them that love God and are called according to his purpose. But it doesn't mean they work out the way we think. They should work out. And I've just had to learn to accept that. But coming back to the side of being a receiver, that well, you know, how do you become an effective receiver?

27:08Well, the first thing you do is you go into the huddle. And you get into the huddle. And the quarterback, let's call, in this case, maybe the Holy Spirit is a quarterback. The quarterback receives the play from the coach. And let's say the coach is God. So God gives the Holy Spirit the message. And they call the play. And so now you break and you go to the lineup and your responsibility is a receiver, if you're intended to get the ball, is to get open. Right? So you're going to be covered. You're going to have resistance. You're going to have temptation to go do other things to block somebody that isn't your assignment or to end up in an area where you're not supposed to be. And your mission is to run your route with precision to shake the person who's covering you and to get yourself where there's a little bit of separation between you and the defensive guy. So the quarterback has a place where they can place the ball where you have a chance. And the quarterback can put the ball right where it needs to be. And you can be right where you need to be, but you're not done yet.

28:10Because that ball, when it comes in, boy, you got to lock your eye on it. You got to see it. You got to reach out for it and make sure that you capture it before anybody has a chance to get in between you and the ball. You want to shorten the distance and you want to receive the ball into your body and protect it and then begin to advance it. And so there's a whole series of things you do in order to receive. And I think that if you go off to achieve and you want to achieve things in Christ, if you want to receive from the Holy Spirit and be effective ball carrier, if you will, then I think that there's some preparation you have to do in order to prepare your heart. Just like preparing the soil to receive the seed, there's things that you do in terms of your habits and your disciplines so that everything is muscle memory and it goes very quickly. I don't have to open up the Bible many times to think about a scriptural reaction to something going on because I've hidden the word in my heart as David wrote

29:12that I might not sin against God or that, you know, so we David wrote it, but so that I know what to do. And so that comes in all these many years of waking up early and reading scripture and thinking about it and then researching topics and seeing what God has to say and trying to understand more and more asking the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of my understanding, but all of that, all of that activity is receiving. And so I go back to this idea that I want to be an achiever. Well, to be an achiever, I need to go back and understand the food chain. And I think this scope and sequence of how to become an achiever has got some validity to it. I think Napoleon Hill was on to something and I think many people throughout the decades since he originally wrote this. I think it's maybe even a hundred years old at this point, close to it, have had great success managing their mindset based on the idea that whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.

30:12However, if you believe a lie, now think about that. If you receive a lie and you conceive that lie, and James talks about receiving sin and it conceiving and then that conception leading to action sin, right? So if you receive a lie, conceive a lie, believe a lie, then what you're going to achieve is not probably something you're gonna want. It's going to be a false promise. It's going to be a dead end. It's going to be something harmful to yourself or to other people. It's going to be dishonoring to God. I know because I've done it many times and it's embarrassing to admit it. But when you do the post mortem, you do the troubleshooting, you're like, what went wrong? What wrong is I believed a lie? Well, why did you believe a lie? Because you received it. Why did you receive it? Well, because you did not focus yourself on the discipline of being a great receiver.

31:13And so when I wrote this muse and I was thinking about where I'm at in life and what I need to focus on, even though I'm an older guy, even though I've had a lot of time to practice and think and develop skills, I don't care if you've been in the NFL if it's your first year or if you're 15th year, you go to camp and you work on the core skills, the old famous story. And I don't know if it's true or not, but it's become legend and it sure makes the point is Vince Lombardi, the guy they lean the Super Bowl trophy after the Lombardi trophy, considered one of if not the greatest football coaches it ever lived and there's been some great ones. But he would, in the very beginning, it's the beginning of the season and his team last year won the championship. They're the best football team on planet earth. And he would look at them and say, guys, gentlemen, he would say holding up a football, this is a football. This is a football. And this is a game about running and blocking

32:14and tackling and catching and throwing and kicking, right? It's pretty basic. And what we want to do is learn how to do those basic things at a very high level. We want to be the world's best at doing that. And so when I think about walking with the Lord as a Christian capitalist, wanting to be successful in my business ventures, so I can be blessed to be a blessing. So I can receive the ideas I need to practice and develop and hone and never take my eye off the fundamentals of receiving so that I can conceive truth, believe truth, then act on truth so that I can achieve the blessings that I believe God has for those of us that are willing to do the work. And the good news is, is that God tells us how to receive, ask and you shall receive. And so to become diligent in prayer

33:15like the persistent widow is to ask and keep asking and just not stop asking Jacob wrestling with the angel and not wanting to leave until he received the blessing. I think it's that kind of tenacity, that kind of desire that I believe God wants us to have. I mean, I don't know, I don't speak for God. I'm just speaking for myself and my own experience. But I think that there is something to be said for being passionate, for desperately wanting to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to want to know the truth, to want to know what my purpose is, what my mission is to spend time on the mountain, getting the plan and then to come back and being diligent to work the plan and understanding in the difficult times like when Jesus was called to do something that was difficult. Even Jesus himself, praying in the garden. If there's any way Lord that this cup can pass, please, I know this is gonna be hard, but no God said you gotta do this.

34:19And Jesus did it and he did it for the joy that was set before him. Can you imagine? But that was the depth of his love for you, for me, for all of the people that he died to set free. His love for us, his passion for us, his desire for us, was greater love has no man, than to lay down his life for his friends and that's what Jesus did. And so sometimes we have to receive from the Lord by letting go of the things that we think we want or the way we think we wanna go about doing something or what we think the world is or the way the world works or the way we think the world should show up for us. Big downtime in my life was getting confused about who God was and instead of letting him reveal himself to me, I felt like he had left me because he didn't fit in the box that I had created for him. He didn't fit the mold that I thought he should fit in. And because he didn't, I couldn't hear him, I couldn't see him.

35:21I wasn't interested in receiving any input from the Holy Spirit that didn't match my concept of who God was. If Satan comes along and tries to impune God's character, I mean, yes, you have to be careful. You can't just believe everything. But the flip side of that is that you do not give the Lord the chance to show himself who he is. And going back to the football thing for those of you that played football or watched football and really understand football, sometimes there's a little bit of improvisation. And so the quarterback, when you're out there running your route, we'll see because he can see more than you can see. You're engaged with the defender. You're working your little area and the quarterback is standing back in the pocket, surveying the field. And he'll put the ball someplace. You don't think it should be. You're like, hey, that's going to be a hard catch. Yes, but that's the place where it's open. And so you make a move on the ball because a quarterback's job is to put it in a place where you can catch it. Your job is to catch it.

36:22And sometimes the place he puts it, isn't the place you were expecting it. It isn't the way you expected the ball to come in. But the quarterback can see more than you can see. And so they make that decision. Your job is the receivers to adjust. And I think that that's true as a believer. So I will just encourage you to think about this concept, this modified Napoleon Hill quote, whatever the mind can receive and conceive and believe it can achieve. And if you're an achiever, if you want to achieve, then make sure you're receiving from the Holy Spirit, being in the Word, being in prayer, asking diligently, and then measuring what you receive against the truth of God to make sure that it's believable because it's true, not just because you want to believe it. And then once you're sure, then you can begin to take aggressive action. I think I'm at a place in my life right now where I'm pretty sure I've received from God a mission and a plan and the doors are opening, but I pray every day.

37:22I pray every day, Lord, give me abundant faith, give me abundant wisdom, give me abundant understanding, give me strength, endurance, knowledge, give me favorable circumstances, guiding providence, so that a joy, I ask for joy because the joy of the Lord is my strength. And so I have a very consistent, persistent prayer. And at the risk of being wrote, and I believe me every time I pray it, I pray it with passion. It feels fresh and new every day, every day I pray it. It never feels like I'm just saying the words to say the words. I am saying it because it's a burning desire of my heart. Asking you shall receive. I'm asking and asking and asking, and I'm gonna keep on asking, and I'm not gonna stop asking and I'm gonna work. And then I'm gonna understand the Holy Spirit may put the ball someplace where I don't expect it, and I'm need to make an adjustment, but I want to be a great receiver. And so that's my mission right now in my personal life. I'm sharing to you with you out of my personal journal.

38:23Some of the things that I go through, I hope it blesses you and encourages you to do the same. I'm not saying that what God teaches me, he's teaching you. I'm telling you it's thrilling to be in communion with the Lord and have him speak to me in a language I understand and give me direction that's specific for my own life. That's the encouragement I wanna leave you with. I can't imagine it would be against God's will for me to encourage you to put time and effort and to becoming a great receiver of faith, a great receiver of truth and insight and wisdom and let God give you Psalm 37, 4 and 5 to light yourself in the Lord and He will give you or assign to you the desires of your heart. I hope He does that for you. It's fun when you wake up every day, fire it up, even though you have doubts and even though you have insecurity. So until next time, may you be blessed to be a blessing, send me your feedback at feedbackatrustlegray.com. Thanks for listening.