Uh man, what a what a great day so far. It's awesome whenever you can just feel the Holy Spirit. That's uh that's always a good thing. I've got a couple quick announcements before Ken comes out and shares the message this morning. Ken's with us today. It's always a treat when he's here. Um I wanna I want to start by saying a big thank you to a bunch of people because we had our very first ever adventure week this past week here at the church. It was a lot of fun. We got some pictures of it. We had we had hundreds, and that's not an exaggeration, hundreds of children, ages two years, all the way through fifth grade, that were here on Sunday night through Thursday night. And it was it was a time, man. I'm telling you, it was it was awesome. Not only did these kids have a blast, I had this opportunity on Wednesday night, I think it was, uh, they were learning about the power of God's forgiveness. And as part of that, this group of kids, they they were all looking at each other and telling each other that that God has forgiven us of everything, that God forgives everything. And I watched a a girl who couldn't have been older than a third grader tear up hearing about that. And it it didn't even compute in my mind for a second, because I'm like, oh, surely in the third grade, dropping things, surely in the third grade, forgiveness, grace, it couldn't mean that much. What do you need to be forgiven for in the third grade, right? But you could just you could see that the power of God's love, the power of the gospel, the message of Jesus was having a huge impact. And so I want to thank you to everyone who helped with that. If if you were one of the volunteers that made uh Adventure Week possible, would you please stand up for a moment so we can we can celebrate you for just a second? I know you're in here because there were a lot of you. Thank you guys so much. Thank you, thank you. You guys can grab a seat. Thank you again, because it was uh it was awesome. It was so awesome. Um, a few things I want to talk about this morning before Ken shares the message. Number one, I want to encourage everyone to connect, to be, to be part of a team here at the church. Home group start back up in August. That's a great way to be connected. But in the fall, things get busier here. It's how life tends to be, right? In the fall we get busier, and in January we get busier, and it's the same way as a church. And so there's a few teams I want to talk about specifically. Number one, our welcome team. We have incredible people that stand at those front doors, at the side doors, every single Sunday, making sure that we all come in and get greeted with love. Uh that welcome team, we could use some more people on it for the fall. We need as many people there as possible because people will start coming in the side doors and all over the place. We need to have people everywhere. Uh, there's actually a new team that we need to recruit for, and this is this is an exciting one, so just bear with me because there might be a minor mutiny, and I'm okay with that. Um we need a parking team for the first time ever. We really do, uh, especially for this service for 11 o'clock. Uh, it's the summertime, and and you'll notice when you pull out today that the parking lot is pretty jam-packed. There's not a lot of open spaces, and that's actually exciting because I didn't really envision a day uh where we would have two services and one of the parking lots would be full and we have to think through that. And so, what that means is we need a great team of people to be here to make sure that every spot gets used and that the flow coming in and out is efficient and as fast as possible because no one likes waiting in lines, right? None of us enjoy that. And whenever people are here for the first time, if they have to drive around for 10 minutes to find a spot, that's just that's not what we want to do for our first-time guests. And so if you are a first-time guest and that was your morning, we know we're working on it, we love you, we're excited. If you're willing to be part of our first ever parking team, and this means you're someone that likes to be friendly and tell people what to do, okay? Right, then then we would love to have you sign up at the Connect Desk today. Um if there's a parking spot here at the church and you've been here for years, and you're like, that's my spot. It's just a piece of concrete. That's all I want to say. There's a bunch that look the exact same, okay? There's plenty of fish in the sea when it comes to uh to the parking spaces. But I'm how exciting is it that we've grown to the point that we actually need to do something like that in the fall? Is that not exciting? That's awesome. That is. We'll have to work out a carpool system if it keeps going. I've got we we got plans. We got plans. At the uh at the back four columns, you'll see cards today that that say, I will pray. I've got one in my hand, but you can see it up on the screens as well. We've been talking about prayer for the last month, and Ken's gonna wrap up our discussion on prayer today. We love praying for people. We love praying for one another. We have an incredible prayer team in the back that's there for the entire service every Sunday. So if you need prayer, you can get prayed for by someone right now. We also have four columns at the back where you can drop a prayer request in a box and you will be prayed for. We've been doing that for a long time. A number of people are on our email prayer team, but we've made some changes recently to that that I'm really excited about. Uh, here's the big change is we've taken our big email prayer team, we divided it into a bunch of teams, and the way it works is really simple. Everyone who drops off a prayer request, they get prayed for today. That's something we've really worked to make happen. If you have something going on this week that you need prayer for, if you fill out a card today and you put it in the box, you will be you will be prayed for by multiple people today. It will happen right away. And so all the people on that team, they all get between between five and ten prayer requests. So it's manageable. So they're gonna spend time praying for every single prayer request. They're not just gonna look at a list and go, wow, that's a hundred prayer requests. God bless them all. That works. God uh God will He will honor those prayers, He will answer those prayers, He understands our limits, but we really want every single prayer request to get attention in prayer. And so today, if you fill out a prayer request at the back, you will you will have those emailed out to our teams, and there will be six or seven people that will pray for your request before you go to bed tonight. How awesome is that! That's exciting to know that you have that. If you would like to be one of the people who receives those emails, you can fill out the I will pray cards at the back and say, look, on Sundays, I want to get I want to get an email. You'll never get more than 10 requests, it'll always be manageable. But we're just asking that if you fill one of those out, that you're committing to pray on Sundays before the day is done for every prayer request you get because we want to pray for one another. That's one of the ways we prove that we love each other, is that we pray for each other. So I want to thank you in advance for praying and fill those out if you'd like to. At the back four columns, it is also where you can give financially. And I want to thank everyone who does that as well. I'm very thankful today uh because you're amazing people, you're generous people. I talked about this a few weeks ago. I want to recap it really quickly, is our giving has gone up by 60% in the last year, which is really exciting, and that's because of you. That's because of you. And we've been able to give, and I'm gonna talk more in detail about this in the next few weeks. We've been able to give about $60,000 away so far this year as a church, just to give that away. In fact, it's been more than $60,000, which is exciting. And this is actually a really important time for us as a church financially. I mentioned this in June. We we are now paying off our building much more aggressively than we've ever been able to do before. You know, the economy hit us hard like a lot of people back in 2009, and we had to do some some some maneuvering to make that all work and to have this building and to keep it, and a lot of people were involved with that. But we're at a place now where we've decided we need to start paying the building off much more aggressively, and that started this month. In fact, I don't mind being I like being honest. Our our monthly payment on our building went up by $16,000 a month this month. Okay? I know, right? And here's the thing we can totally do that because you guys, if you know us, if you've been part of this church for very long, we are frugal people. We are resourceful. We have we have five full-time staff members when the average church our size would have 15. So we we have learned how to do it. I'm excited about that 16,000 as much as a human being can be because we can do that. Because you have responded, because you have decided to give. Those of you that never gave before, but this year started giving every single month, you have made that possible. We're gonna have to pay this building off eventually. And you've made that possible. I'm proud of us for that reason. And to those of us that that have been on the fence that you're part of this church, you call this home, but you haven't started giving yet, I want to encourage you to do so. To pray, to let that be between you and God. There's no pressure at all, but to pray about that and say, you know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna chip in. I'm gonna be a part of the family and I'm gonna I'm gonna help make it happen. Because if we do that, we won't just have enough, we'll have more than enough. We'll have more to give away, we'll have more to bless people with, and I'm I'm proud to be at the place that we're at as a church. I mean, even with the parking team and and all this, I'm proud to be where we are right now. And I'm proud of where we're going and where we're gonna be. It's all Jesus. He's the one doing it, he's the one steering it, and we just get to be part of it. It's incredible. And so I want to thank you, those of you who serve, those of you who give, I want to encourage all of us to do our part and to be ready to see what God is gonna do this fall because I think it's gonna be amazing. Let's pray and let's bring Ken out to talk about prayer. Jesus, thank you so much. Thank you, Lord, for all that you do for us. Thank you, God, for how much you you bless us by how much you give to us. Thank you, God, for inspiring us to be people who respond to you. God, if we would just be people who respond to what you tell us, we will see lives changed, we will see miracles happen, we will see our lives transformed. So, God, right now we ask that you would open our hearts, that we would be soft-hearted toward you, and we would be people who are responsive to your leading. Be with Ken as he shares with us, Lord. Thank you for giving uh someone like Ken to us as part of our teaching team, Lord. He's awesome, and and we can't wait to learn from him. We ask all this in your name again. Amen.

Thanks, Jeff. Talk about somebody who wears lots of hat. That's justin. I got a lot to say today. So uh get a comfortable seat. No, that's that's it, it is pretty darn cold. But uh, you know, some days just start off uh different than others and unexpected, and I was kind of going over my notes, and then I get in my car and I turn it on, and it goes, and I was at my Sunday morning place at Waffle House, and my car won't start, so I'm like, great. And uh so I call I call my wife and and then my son and then my daughter, and apparently the phone plan we have doesn't work on Sunday mornings. Um it's I I don't I'm not sure which plan that is, but it doesn't. So I had to walk home. And as I'm walking home, I literally I'm thinking, okay, I need to, what do I need to do? I need to I'm gonna probably take my son's car um because he sleeps till the crack of noon, so he won't even know. And uh no, but he's actually here today and kind enough to let me borrow his car. And um, so I'm sitting here going, I need to, I need to text Justin. And so I literally I hit contacts and my phone rings, and it's Justin. And I'm like, that's weird. And uh so I'm like, hey, and he's like, hey man, so it's uh how you doing? I'm like, great, and isn't it funny that we say things like that? How you doing? Great, great, just great. I'm walking and it's hot, and my car broke down. Great! I'm fantastic, but just the perspective, and uh Justin's going five different places, and I tell him, hey, I'm I'm gonna get home, I'm gonna get there, I may just leave you a little bit late. And uh so bless his heart. I mean, he's got he's got announcements, he's got stuff administratively, he's doing baptisms, and now he's like, okay, I'll uh I'll have a sermon ready. And I was just like on top of everything else. He's gotta do that. But say, you know, that's life. Life just happens that way. And and with that, I've I gotta tell you, I'm loving this series, and all really I'm gonna do today is validate what Justin's already shared in the past five weeks, and just kind of add my own personal experience with that because it's just tremendous. Uh just the pieces that he's put in place, and and really in the last few weeks, God's really been sharing with my heart uh about prayer. Just Ken, this is this is where just some clarity with the idea of prayer. And it really starts, and and he's been doing a great job with one word, but the one word I want us to see is the idea of trust. Prayer is a way to develop and unlock trust and experience fulfillment and success in life. That's that's what prayer is. And Justin put it incredibly well that a lot of a lot of scripture is some great principles. We can apply that, and that's awesome, and that's good. And you can even take the verses out and just share the truth, and it works. Prayer is not that way, it does not make sense unless you know God. And when you know God, then you have this amazing experience that we get to talk with the creator of the universe, and he cares about me. And that just sounds pie in the sky. And this morning, I want, I'm just my hope and my desire, my prayer is that we see the gravity of how real God is, how real he is, and through prayer, how we discover that. And the foundation of trust, I I gotta put it this way when I uh speak corporately, one of the talks I do is the three questions that every human being is asking at all times. We're asking one of these three questions at all times. And the problem is in most corporate worlds, we're answering the wrong question. And it's how to discern which question are people asking, and answer that question. And the number one question we ask subconsciously, and this goes back to the Roman and Greek philosophers. Jesus, if you look at any place he's talking, he is speaking directly to one of these three questions, and it's like, wow, it's kind of revolutionary when I read it. But the first one is simply this can I trust you? Can I trust you? And every person we meet, we're evaluating immediately on what level we can trust. By what they wear, what level would I trust this person? We begin to talk to them. How they talk determines whether it goes up or down, and our interaction with them determines this. There's two ways to develop or the way we answer this question of trust. One is reputation. What is the reputation? And I'll give it this way, explaining uh the simple name. Most of you who've probably never met Billy Graham. But when I say the name Billy Graham, our trust level for most believers goes way up. I just trust him because I've heard about him and his reputation. Now, I could name 10 different politicians, and every person in here is either gonna go, whoa, or meh, or whoa, and you know, just it's just this ideal of I don't trust him, because the other way that we develop trust is experience. It's experience. Now, I say that to say we can argue, debate, we can tell people this is the truth, it's proven for thousands of years. In the beginning was the word, and the word is with God, and the word became flesh, and it was Jesus, and we can we can talk all about the reputation. But when we get to that point in our life where we are experiencing an interaction with God Himself, it all changes. And I could I could drop some names here, and you and I would know who these people were, and we could have preconceptions about them, but if you sit down and you eat dinner with someone, you go from knowing about them to knowing them. Uh, my son's a great example of this. There's a uh gentleman that I had the privilege of getting to help get going comedically. He now has over a hundred million hits on YouTube, and he's just skyrocketed, and it's incredible. And some of my son's friends at school is like, Man, have you ever heard of and they said his name. And they're like, Yeah, he's been in my house. And they're like, No, he hasn't. I'm talking about the guy who's got all these millions of hits. He's like, Yeah, when he came to visit, my brother and I had to share a room and he slept in my room. And they're like, No, he didn't. He's like, Yeah, he really did, you know, and they just couldn't believe it because they knew about him, but my boys know him. They they know him personally, they know that he's he's different off stage than on stage. They know he's a great guy, but it's there's a difference between knowing about and knowing. And for a lot of Christians, we spend so much of our time trying to know more about God, which is great, and the reputation of God and what he has done versus experiencing God himself. And I hope to kind of just clarify in Romans chapter 10, there's a great verse of God saying, here's the way I want to relate. And in Romans chapter 10, verses 11 and 12, it says this as the scripture says, anyone who trusts in him, Jesus, will never be put to shame. For there is no difference between Jew or Gentile. The same Lord is Lord over all, and richly blesses all who call on him. This is what God wants us to experience. He wants us to experience saying, Hey, I'm right here with you. I'm there. This experience, experience is everything. Experience with the truth and the reputation becomes where fullness is experienced. If I could put it this way, the the idea of knowing about versus knowing personally, uh, I'll never forget in high school we had to learn the capitals of every state in the United States. Anyone else have to do that? How many of you right now, if I were to go name all 50 of them, can name all 50 capitals of every state? Oh, welcome to America. All right, that's great. Uh but let me ask you this way: how many of you, if I were to tell you, tell me the capital of every state you've ever lived in, how many of you could do that? Raise your hands. That's most of us, because we have that experience. In high school, the teacher was going through them. She goes, you know what? And then uh, can anybody tell me the capital of Montana? Very good, very good. She was asking me though. It was my high school, okay? So uh, no, that was good. It is Helena, and it's probably a chance. Have you ever been to Montana? Yes, you've been to Montana, so you know the capital. Now, she asked, now, I I was not a great student. I was a CB student. I didn't like to bring attention to myself, but when she asked that, I'm like, oh, that's me. That's me. She goes, Yeah, what's the capital of Montana? I said, Helena, just like he did. I said, Helena. She said, Well, it's actually pronounced Helena. And I was like, No, it's not. She goes, No, it's pronounced Helena. I said, No, it's pronounced Helena. She goes, No, it's Helena. And I said, Well, the people that live there call it Helena. And she goes, Well, how would you know that? Well, because both my parents are from Helena, and both of them went to Helena High School, and my cousins live there, and my grandmother lives there. And every time I go from my grandmother's house to my aunt's house, I go by the Capitol building itself, and everybody there pronounces it Helena. She goes, Well, okay, it's, you know, some people call it Helena and some call it Helena. And I'm like, okay, you know, you can say face there, but those who know it, those who have been there, who have experienced it, call it by its right name. It's one of those where God is saying, Hey, I want you to experience me, and it really is based around trust. Now, I want to give some clarity, and where I'm gonna kind of camp out this morning is in Philippians chapter 4, verse 4. And if you don't have a Bible, they're gonna put it on the screen, but I want to encourage you to take this. Philippians 4, 4. Okay, everybody take your hand real quick because I want you to remember this. Take your hand, go like this. Philippians 4, 4. Okay? And then it goes 5 and 6. I'm gonna start in 4. I'm gonna keep going down because there's the the verse that tells us kind of how to pray in verse 6. She's gonna put four up there. It says, Rejoice in the Lord always. I'll say it again, rejoice. Let your gentleness be evidence to know to all. Get this. The Lord is near. In other words, he's with us. And then he goes on to say, Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And I want to just give some clarity here of what I'm learning right now. This is not something you need to know, it's something that I'm realizing about prayer. And forgive us, as those who teach, that we've made prayer something that is religious. And it's not. When God says prayer, look what he says, prayer and petition with thanksgiving. What we've done is we've religiosified prayer to where it's some position of the body. We say, let's pray, everybody bows your heads. Nothing wrong with an act of humility, that's fine. Close your eyes. Okay, it's a phow my head, close my eyes, and then I gotta say God in at least two or three different ways. God, daddy, Jesus, Father, and and then then I then I say something that I want, and then I hang up, amen. That's that's a prayer. And it's not, it's not. And then if you want to get really religious, then you gotta kneel, you gotta kneel, and then you gotta refer to God in as many ways as possible. God, Father, Jesus, Abba, uh, Jehovah, uh, you gotta come up with a lot of those, and then you ask for some really spiritual things, like you know, heal everybody and help with this, and then, and then in Jesus' name, the Savior of all, and then add some adjectives and then hang up, say amen. It sounds so great, but it's religious and it's not real. I've got nothing against prayer, it's the attitude of the heart and the position of the heart, not the position of the body, not in the petitions. The petitions are great, and Jesus says, Ask me whatever you will, because it's about connecting with God Himself. But it comes back to this concept of connecting and trust. Fundamentally, prayer is about who am I going to trust? And those who kind of use it as a last resort trust ourselves. Until we get in a pickle, we can do more no more, then we pray. But that's not God's will. God says, Man, I'm with you always. I will, I will protect you. I will, I'm with you. And he wants this idea. Now, the best illustration I can give this, in the best verse, is John 10 10. And I know Jesus himself is speaking here in John 10.10, because if you look at the original language and the way it's written, and it's in red. So I know it's Jesus speaking. And he refers to himself in the first person. He says that this, and they're going to pull this up. He says, the thief or Satan or our flesh or this world, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. Now we have to make a decision. Which am I going to trust? Am I going to trust my flesh, what I think, what I feel, and what I reason with my experience at all times? Am I going to trust what the world's telling me? Or fundamentally, am I going to trust the creator of it all, his truth, which has been proven, and I'm going to trust him. I can tell you this, every time I trust only my flesh, what I think, what Satan throws out, what the set aside, every time I regret it. Every time I trust God, every time it's benefited me. If I can put it this way, in an illustration of animals, I have a dog. And he's a pug, and I call him Skittles the Wonder Dog, and he's just awesome. And he doesn't want anything from me. He's not begging for anything. He just wants to be with me. That's all he wants. He just wants to be with me. I was gone for almost 20 days in a row. And I opened the door. Who's the first person do you think that met me at the door? Skittles the wonder dog. And it's it wasn't just like, oh, it's just this, that guy again. It wasn't that at all. It was like, oh, and you're here, you're here. And he just turns around in circles 20 times. And he's just like, and he just comes up and he rubs against me and he turns around and just like, I can't believe it's you, it's you, man. You know, it's just it's amazing. It's amazing his reaction. And all he wants to be is with me. If I take him off his lease, he'll follow me. I go in the backyard, he goes wherever I go. And he is just like, man, I am with you. And I don't believe it's it's a mistake. The dog is God backwards. It's just, it's, it's, I mean, he's with us. You want to know what unconditional love is? Get a dog. I mean, they're just they're just there. Now, when I feed him, he's just like, man, this and food. This is unbelievable, you know. And I love the food, but he eats it real fast and he comes right back to me. And I'm just like, wow, this is awesome. Now, that's unconditional love, and nobody will love you like a dog, and nobody loves us like God. Now, I've I heard this one time, it was hilarious to illustrate how much a dog loves you and what unconditional love is. He says, if you think anybody loves you more than a dog, he said, Who would it be? And this one guy said, Well, my wife. And he says, Well, he said, I tell you what, I can prove it. Put them both in a trunk, leave them there for two hours, open the trunk, see which one's excited to see you. And I just, yeah. I don't recommend doing that. I'll go ahead and spoil the surprise. It's the dog. All right, that's it's very different. Now, um I I want to use this this cool hip word. I don't usually use slang. There's a word right now I learned this past week. I was at a student conference in Texas, and I started hearing this word. And these kids are like, man, that's bae. It's bae, dude. That's bay. And I'm like, Bay, there's there's the bay. What does that have to do with anything? No, it's bay, ba-a-e, bay, it's bae. I'm like, what does that mean? And it's an acronym. It's an acronym before anything else. And it's this, this uh, I don't know, this projection of this is the base, this is the best, this before anything else, it's bae. Food. And and they're like, you know, like food, like what's your favorite food? I'm like, pizza, like pizza's bae, it's bae. Before you eat anything else, you want pizza, it's bay. And I'm like, okay. And uh that concept of before anything else, trust before anything else, is is really bae. It's before anything else, trust God because man, before anything else, he just wants to be with us. Even before he wants us to understand the history and the foundation, he's like, man, I want you to understand, trust in me is bay. Before anything else, you can trust me because I have this unconditional love. Now, inversely, I found this very humorous to illustrate the other side that the enemy comes only to steal and rob and destroy. I was on the beach one day and uh I saw seagulls. Now, quick show of hands, just this kind of a rhetorical one, but how many of you have ever been to the beach? Raise your hands. All right. Now, how many of you have ever fed seagulls? Raise your hands. Okay. Most people do that once because they just come at you and they're like, oh, look at the birds. Oh, they're so pretty. Oh, that's good. Okay, here you go. Ah, he made it, he ate it. Okay, here's some more. Okay, here's some more. And then they just start swarming. Well, I don't have anything else, but they don't give up, they just keep coming. And then you see these people do this lady on the beach in Texas, and it was so funny. I saw the people around her, she says, Oh, there's birds, you want to feed the birds, and her son's like, okay, and then she's like, Okay, she opens a bag of Doritos, and I'm just like, no, no, no, no. And everybody around her is like, oh no, don't do that, don't do that. And she's like, Oh, yeah, oh look, they're taking them, oh look, oh, I took it out of my hand, look at that. But then they just keep coming and they don't stop coming. And you can never, it's never enough, ever enough. And then after they've eaten everything you have, they keep swarming around, and and then what do they do? They poop on your stuff, and they keep flying around and keep pooping on your stuff. Now, I share that for two reasons. One, that is exactly, exactly what the flesh and sinful nature is. Satan will come and it'll seem like, oh, look how cool and bright and shiny and wonderful. That's so good. Oh God, where are you? This is great. This just feels great, it's so natural, and it's never enough. And then this is the crazy cool part about the word bay. It's actually, I looked it up online to see what it was at first. You know what it is? It's a Dutch word. It's it's a Danish word. I'm sorry, a Danish word, and you know what it means? Poop. That's what it means. So I'm like, wow. It's either bay or bay. Which bay are they gonna be? Is it the best anything ever? Is the before anything ever, or is it I'm feeding the flesh and it's never enough and I'm gonna end up getting pooped on? Uh I don't know if I can make that verse any more obvious than that. That's that's pretty much it right there. And this level of trust is the foundation of prayer. In Philippians 4, where it says, with prayer and petition. Prayer is this connection, this connection with God. I want to give you a couple verses, write it in the margin. Go back and look at these. It's it's God's identity of prayer and the way he wants to interact with us in Jeremiah 33.3. The first time I ever heard that, it was shared with me as God's phone number. And I'm like, what? And it's just one of the coolest verses. Jeremiah 33, 3. It says, this is God. He says, Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things that you do not know. He's like, just call me. I'm right here, I'm right now. Call me. Two of my favorites. And if you're ever in a time where you're struggling, Matthew 11, 28, it's one of my absolute favorites. Because sometimes in the religious version of prayer, we got to get cleaned up, we got to put on the right robes and the right face and be the right way and say the right words, and we feel like that's prayer. It is not. Look what he says in Matthew chapter 11, verse 28. This is Jesus speaking. He says, Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. God longs for us in our weariness, in our confusion. He said, That's when you come. Come, realize I'm with you always. I'm I'm always with you. And then one of my favorites ever is James chapter 1. I gotta look this one up. James 1, 5. And I'll tell you my favorite part of it. It says, if any of you lacks wisdom, have you gotten to that point where you're saying, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all, and here's my favorite part, without finding faults, and it will be given to him. God is saying, I'm right here with you. If you don't know what to do, pray. Realize I'm here with you, connect with me. If you're tired and weary, pray. That's when I, that's when you're most realizing I'm with you. That's the posture. And if you doubt that, you can go to uh 1 Thessalonians, I think it's five, where he says, pray continually. Well, if it's the religious, I gotta be kneeling and my head right and all that, and I gotta pray continually. I'm walking through life and I look like an idiot. That's not prayer. It's a part of prayer, it's a little prayer. I love that we stop and we pause and we reverently humble ourselves and then we talk to God. But that's not it. That's the beginning, that's not the end. It's it's the prayer that says, God, you're with me always. I want to give you an acronym. And and the acronym, mine are always really short, and that's what these binders are. I'm not gonna go through all of them, but the acronym is simply this prayer is high. Hi, H I. Honest and intimate. That's prayer. Whatever is most honest, and and Lord, here's what I'm going through. Will you help me? I I believe you're with me, but can I see you? And what I'm about to share from these binders, I'm not gonna open them all up, I'm not gonna tell you all, I just wanted you to see them, is where God gets very real. You may hear me or Justin or someone, or maybe just one of your friends go, man, God shared this with me, God told me this. It's not an audible, 99.99% of the time, it's not an audible deal. It's our soul where God speaks to the ears of our soul. He shows us with the eyes of our very soul that he implants in us. Until we accept Christ and He lives within us, we don't have those eyes and ears. But once we do, it always confused me when I was a new Christian. People would say, Man, God really told me this. I'm like, where did he tell you that? How did he tell you that? And they never told me. And I've started to realize and discover over the years that God takes what what that connection is. And this is just a couple examples. I started every week writing down a simple one, not even a page, a couple sentences worth of a prayer. And it's based on Philippians 4, 4 through 6. It says, be anxious for nothing, but in everything through prayer and petition with thanksgiving. So I would just go, okay, God, I'm gonna read your word. Uh so speak to me through that. And I would read until I found a verse. I'm like, oh, that's a cool verse. Uh I need to do that. Help me do that. With Thanksgiving. Every day I try to say, Lord, I'm thankful for X. And if I can't think of anything, I think of the most base level. God, I I have a place to live. I am not out in the elements. God, thank you for that. I don't want to take that for granted. So I'm thankful for this and then petition. I'm like, Lord, here's what's on my mind. And I get very honest. Very honest. And I've shared this before, but it bears repeating. I have another acronym called WE, WE. And it's it came from a time where I literally was laying in bed one morning going, God, I stink at prayer. I'm not any good at it. And I really sense, looking back now, I really believe it was God because here's the deal: the way I've started to identify God speaking is when I have thoughts that I didn't have before, thoughts that I don't think, questions come to my mind that I wouldn't ask. And then they prove to be something that really adds clarity or or provision. I realized, huh, well, that was God. That was him. He's speaking to the ears of my soul. And I'm laying in bed going, God, I stink at prayer. I hate, I just hate that I'm not any good. I'm supposed to ask you for things that you already know. You're already going to give me what I want. I don't get it. And I really sensed, in retrospect now, but it was in that moment, I really sensed the phrase, stop, quit. I'm like, well, Lord, I know you want me to pray. So is that you or is that just indigestion? Or is it what is that? And and then the thought came to my mind that was not there before. What are you worried about? Well, you know, Heather and I were this thing with our finances that, and then the thought came to my mind when I'm driving around and my mind just wanders, where does it go? What am I worried about? What am I looking forward to? And that's where it came from. I said, Well, there's this. So I came up with two or three things. Lord, this is kind of where my mind is, where I'm worried about. And then the thought came to my mind, what are you excited about? What are you looking forward to? And I'm like, oh, you know what? I'm so looking forward to me and some buddies I hadn't seen in years, we're gonna go play golf, and for a couple days, I'm like, I'm so excited about that. And again, in retrospect, here's the thought that came to my mind, and then a phrase that came to my mind that I didn't think that just it was just there. It's like, Ken, that's prayer. That's prayer. And here's the phrase if it's on your mind, it's on my heart. I'm with you.

I'm just like, huh.

And I wrote that down. So on my my page, once a week, I'm just thankful. And then I put truth, here's what I'm reading, and I just write the verse out or whatever. And then I put we, worried and excited. And every week I write down, here's what I'm, here's what's on my mind. Lord, I'm this is gonna be on my mind all week. And I write it out. Every day. I try to, I don't always hit it every day, but every day that I get to it, I write down, I'll just read that, thankful. Lord, I read something, and Lord, here's what I was worried about. Here's what's on my mind. And anything that's happened in that area, I write it down. Sometimes it's days, sometimes it's weeks, but I write it down. If it continues on my mind, I can tell you this, and over, I think it's 14 years now of doing this once a week, writing that down, writing it out. Every, every time I write something out, something happens in those areas. Every time. Every time. These binders I keep one a year. This is just five years worth right here. And it's just we time. And what I do is I write down, here's what's on my mind, and then I write down, I turn it on the back, here's what's happening. And it's amazing. And this one, I just want to give you one example. I'm not gonna read all of them, I'll give you one example. In 2005, I wrote down on in January, March, April, April 20th, I think it was. I said, Lord, this week, this is gonna be on my mind all week. I've got all these accounts receivable, people that didn't pay me yet, and yet I've got all these bills I've just paid, so I've got like next to nothing in my account, and I'm supposed to get paid, and I'm not gonna get paid. That's gonna be on my mind. So I wrote that down. The next day, I'm like, Lord, you know, help me this week if I need to manage my money better, if I need to shift something. I I don't know what to do. Will you help me? That day, I got one of the checks in the mail. I had several. I'm like, so the next day I'm like, Lord, I got a check. How cool is that? Thank you for that. The next day I saw another one. It was like, I got two deposits for events that haven't even happened yet. Wow, that's gonna really help. And by the end of the week, I had literally, I think it was five or six checks that came in that totally covered enough so that I get paid that next week. And I'm like, what a coincidence! That's fantastic. See, what I'm beginning to realize over time is that God is moving. He is intimate, he is personal. I'm just not looking and I'm not listening. I'll give you another example about how intimate he is. I had this one area of my life, I'm like, Lord, I'm struggling here. Will you? I lack wisdom. Will you show me where I need to change? Because I continue to struggle. Well, just show me where it's changed. And I read the James one where he's like, I'll give you wisdom and I'm not finding fault. I'm not gonna go see, I told you so. God never says that. And here's the cool part. So I have a devotion, I have a quiet time. I usually try to read a chapter, and this one verse really stuck out. I'm like, wow, Lord, that speaks directly to what I'm going through. That is so cool. Thank you for that. So I write it on the truth part. Three days later, I go to church. Guess what the pastor's speaking on that Sunday? In a sermon that he had prepared and a series that he had prepared like six months before, that verse. And I'm sitting there and he said the verse, and I went. And I literally, like, that's for me. And I listen. Two days later, I go to breakfast with a good buddy of mine, hadn't seen him in a month. I'm like, hey, and I'm gonna share with him, hey, this is kind of cool what God's doing. I said, God teaching you anything. He goes, Man, this is great. I gotta share a verse with you. This is so cool. And it was the verse. I'm like, how cool is that? I said, that's that me too. And then a couple days later, I open a book written by a gentleman I love to read, John Ortberg. He had written 12 years before, and I'm just getting through it. I opened the chapter, and the entire chapter is on that verse. And I'm like, I get it. I need to read this verse. And God continued to teach me. Somebody calculate the odds of a seven-week period that that verse would come to one person, four different directions, completely and totally unrelated. That's God speaking to the ears of my soul and the eyes of my soul if I'll look and listen. And and just writing it down. I don't say, hey, you need to keep a journal. I'm not a writer, but this one page has made all the difference because it opens up my hearts to what prayer really is. It's God's way of connecting and communicating to me. And if I could put it this way, I would put it in a couple different verses. One is in Isaiah 49, 16, and I just I love this. I'm gonna paraphrase it, but if you get to that point where you're like, God, do you really hear me? Do you really know what I'm going through? I feel like I'm I'm I'm talking, but it's bouncing off the ceiling. And I think God would say, Yeah, it is, because I'm below the ceiling. I'm right here with you. And and I love, and if you get a chance, go back and read Isaiah 49, 14 through 16, because God speaks to that. He goes, Can I forget you? You you invite me into your heart, you think I've forgotten you? He said, A mother will forget she's just had a child that is nursing before I forget you. And he says, I have your name engraved on my hand, and it's always before me. You're you're right here. I've got this, I've got you. And then I want to show you one that's one of my one of my favorites in Isaiah 65, 24. And I want to just wrap with this one because it's just uber cool. It says, before they call, before they call, I will answer. While they are still speaking, I hear you. And if you can picture that dog right there, and God is like, not only do I hear you, I I got the answer before you even start. All I want to do is connect. Will you let me speak to your heart, to your soul? Have you opened your ears? Have we have we listened to what he's saying? And I gotta tell you, that has been one of the greatest encouragements to me about prayer, whether it's big or small, personal, dynamic, intimate, God longs to speak to us. And I realize it in the moments, but the clarity is usually going, wow, that was God. Here's my challenge to you and I this week. What is the greatest concern on your heart right now? What are you worried about? What are you excited about? Write it down. Simple prayer when you wake up. God, let me read a verse. I want to, I want to just notify that part of my soul that I'm listening to you. And Lord, anything that happens in that area of my life this week, I'm gonna write it down on the backside of that page. You can use a sticky note, you can use one page, it doesn't matter what it is, but write it down. It can be a three by five cards. You can write it on the back when something happens. Write that and say, God, will you show me what you're doing? You may have resolution, you may have perspective, you may have peace. I don't know what he's gonna do and what he's gonna say. I just know he's right there. He's gonna be with you for all those who know him personally. If you don't know him personally, this makes no sense at all. And don't try it because there's nothing there. It's gotta start with going, God, I give up. I've tried everything and I need you. And if if you really do care about me, and he does, will you please come into my life? I want to hear you. I want to hear you. I want you to guide me, I want you to forgive me. I need you. That's the cry that God hears. And he's right, he says it this way in Revelation 3. I'm standing at the door of your heart and I'm knocking. I want to come in, but I'm not gonna be down the door. There's only one doorknob and it's on the inside. You gotta open it. And and that's paraphrased, but Revelation 3.17. You can go read it. But let's pray as we wrap up. God, thank you for your amazing truth, but even more, thank you for your presence. Thank you that you sent your comforter to walk with us and and to not just be with us, but have comfort to those of us who are hurting, have clarity for those of us who lack wisdom. And and you long to do that intimately as we get honest with you. I pray that we would be this this week. And it's only through Christ we can pray. Amen. God bless you guys. See you next time.