Exodus pt. 4 | The Test

In our latest episode, we take a closer look at Exodus, uncovering the trials faced by the Israelites and drawing parallels to our personal struggles. The conversation flows through the theme of resilience and faith in adversity, exploring how God lays the groundwork for His people amid uncertainty. 

Chapters

• 1:20 Welcome back to the Extra podcast
• 1:23 God lays the groundwork for the Israelites
• 2:22 Discussing Exodus 15 and its implications
• 3:49 The nature of tests and how to face them
• 7:50 How expectations shape our happiness
• 17:38 Wrapping up: Insights and reflections

Transcript

Speaker 1 1:20

Welcome back to the Extra podcast, exodus, chapter 15,. God lays the groundwork for what comes next with the Israelites. Welcome to the Extra Afternoon. Ken, good afternoon, how are you feeling today? I'm good, and we most people don't know, I mean I guess nobody would know. Yeah, we just had like a 45 minute off mic. Yeah, pre-podcast, we should have been recording that whole time.

Speaker 2 2:03

It would have been. Yeah, that would have been nice.

Speaker 1 2:05

But we said some deep and profound things over the last 45 minutes. Just trust us. Just trust us.

Speaker 2 2:15

We got really good stuff Just trust us.

Speaker 1 2:16

We're really smart, we're really good at this we're super spiritual.

The nature of tests and how to face them

Speaker 1 2:19

Yeah, man, I'm glad to be here today. We're talking through Exodus 15. This past sermon, this past Sunday sermon, was about God laying the groundwork, and I say it that way because the next few chapters we get into, the Israelites test in the wilderness. So the waters at Marah is what we studied on Sunday. We kind of brushed over it, like we're zooming through this stuff, and I admit that we're zooming through some things. But remember, we're just focusing on where Jesus shows up in this stuff, how it mirrors and parallels the New Testament. So the waters at Marah in Exodus 15, god shows that he's going to be present with the people. He proves his provision over the people and he instructs them to praise him with the people. He proves his provision over the people and he instructs them to praise him with pure worship. Okay, if you, if you obey my commands, if you do my decrees, then I will not heap on you the diseases that I brought on Egypt.

Speaker 1 3:16

And remember that's fresh in the people's minds because, God just sent 10 plagues, including the last one, which was the death of the firstborn. 10 plagues, including the last one which was the death of the firstborn, and then the waters of the Red Sea, which isn't categorized as a plague, but over 600 of Pharaoh's greatest chariot-hears just got swept away in the ocean, Right? So the Israelites are thinking okay, if I just follow God, if I remain pure in worship to him, then I won't have to go through any of that devastating stuff that God just did to the Egyptians, Right? How does that turn out? Well, we're going to find out in next week's sermon. Stay tuned. But today, Ken, you have some questions. Why don't you kick us off?

Speaker 2 3:59

The first point that came to my mind is this sermon seemed to be about what it's like to be a human being in the Bible, like one of the many plights of being a person in the Bible is you're going to have obstacles and you're going to have tests. And what do you do in the face of those tests? And what do you do in the face of those tests? We've talked about the. What do you call it? What am I saying?

Speaker 1 4:31

What like the human condition?

Speaker 2 4:33

No, not the human condition, it's the. You don't want to take part in it. You don't want to take part in things.

Speaker 1 4:39

Oh, the reluctant, yeah, reluctant servant Participant Participant, yeah.

Speaker 2 4:45

We've talked about that and the lesson goes if you're reluctant at the beginning, you'll eventually come around and things are going to work out. That's usually the lesson. So what do you do when you're faced with a test? It's almost like there's one thing you want to do as a person Think spiritually, and that's what you should do. Yeah, I often tell people in my office the thing you thing you want to do as a person Think spiritually, and that's what you should do. I often tell people in my office the thing you don't want to do is the thing you should do A lot of times.

Speaker 1 5:13

That sounds like a direct quote of the Apostle Paul.

Speaker 2 5:16

Okay, so I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 5:17

Well, but Paul says I have to look it up.

Speaker 2 5:20

Forgive me, oh, is that the if I do the thing?

Speaker 1 5:24

I do not want to do, right. He says I do the things I don't want to do and the things I want to do I don't do. It's part of a bigger section in Romans 5, 6, 7, and 8. And you'd have to go back and read the full context of all those chapters. But yeah, okay, see, I didn't even know that I really right and drink more water.

Speaker 2 5:45

I don't want to do those things. Who does I should exercise? I don't want to. I should get up early. I don't want to. I should. You know, there's a whole list. Yeah, what do I want to do? It's all self-destruction. What I want to do is all self-destruction. Because of what happened in the garden of eden, you know yeah that's that's we're doomed to destroy ourselves without god. In a way, I've come to that realization for myself. Yeah, I'm not putting it on anybody else, it's on me.

Speaker 1 6:11

Well, there's this. Yeah, we definitely just being human. Yes, we have this self-destructive attitude. It really comes from selfishness, and so even things that are beneficial for us sometimes, you know, might even come out of just selfishness, and so even things that are, uh, are beneficial for us, sometimes, uh, you know, might even come out of just selfishness.

Speaker 2 6:28

Yeah.

How expectations shape our happiness

Speaker 1 6:29

Um, like I'm thinking, I don't know, for some reason my mind is stuck on like Jeff Bezos right now. So Jeff Bezos might be the opposite of you and me. He does get up early, he does have a workout regimen to, he does watch what he eats at least eats at least seemingly.

Speaker 1 6:44

I don't know him personally, he must and he makes a whole bunch of money and all this. He's a billionaire, amazon, and I would look at that and be like, okay if I would. That seems like it's benefiting him. But even Jeff Bezos, or whoever you insert here, is dealing with the same human experience that you and I are dealing with. There's selfishness which leads to self-destruction and ultimately, without God which is what you just said without God we can't realize wholeness in life.

Speaker 2 7:13

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. You're not going to realize anything truly without God behind it, without God helping you, without God being at the destination. There was one thing, so all the tests that you were talking about, it makes me think about. At every turn there's going to be something you have to do. There's this really good. It's like a bumper sticker. It says choose your difficulty. I think being fat is difficult. Being in shape is difficult. Choose the difficult you want. You know being being rich has its difficulties. Being poor has its difficulties.

Speaker 1 7:55

Choose the difficulty you know all those things.

Speaker 2 7:58

So I wish I was. You know, being alone is difficult, being in a relationship is difficult. Choose the difficult. So it's you're going to be tested, no matter what.

Speaker 1 8:07

Yeah.

Speaker 2 8:08

And there's. There was something that made me think of the research on happiness, and happiness grows up to a certain dollar amount per year. Then it flatlines. It used to be $75,000 a year. You would. You would get happier up until that, and then you're just as happy as you're going to be. It's up to you after that.

Speaker 1 8:32

Very interesting. I never heard that before.

Speaker 2 8:34

Yeah, I'm sure it's different now, because $75,000 a year is not what it was when the research was conducted.

Speaker 1 8:42

Yeah, well, I'd be interested to know what it is now.

Speaker 2 8:46

Well, because Okay go.

Speaker 1 8:50

Well, no, I was just saying. That's very interesting that we live in a society where happiness does coincide with the amount of money we make. We're a very consumeristic society, so if we were to take consumerism out of it, what is the thing that makes us so happy in life? Like, take money out of the equation, pretend that we're Israelites in Exodus. What is it that should be making us so happy?

Speaker 2 9:17

That's a great question. If you took the concept of money and trade completely out of it and you were a slave, what would make you happy? Freedom, yeah, the possibility of freedom, yeah.

Speaker 1 9:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2 9:30

And the possibility that there is something better on the other side of this tribulation and these trials Heaven. You know, there is something better on the other side of this life, in a way.

Speaker 1 9:43

That's a really hard mindset to get out of. You know. You're making me think of what's coming next in the Exodus narrative is the people's failure to be totally satisfied by God alone, by Yahweh, and I'm wondering if just food for thought, like I wonder if leaving the mindset of slavery behind was more difficult for them than we perceive, who are not slaves? Yeah, and we're not. You know, this is a different, uh, we're. I don't want to get off on a whole different topic here, but uh, we just don't know what it was like to be in egypt at that Right, and perhaps it was a lot more difficult for them to release that mindset, even though they were free.

Speaker 2 10:29

Well, there's institutionalization, there's Stockholm syndrome, there's all sorts of things that say people will adapt to whatever environment they're in. You can look at the prison system and go okay, there are things that happen in prisons that also happen in greater society, because humans will just find themselves into these niches any way they can. So they would. If I'm destined to be a slave, am I sad about it or am I going to find something to be joyful about?

Speaker 1 11:09

So I think we have a better picture now of why God needed 40 years to pass between the actual exodus crossing of the Red Sea and when the new generation went into the promised land. A new generation had to be built up with a brand new mindset.

Speaker 2 11:25

Yeah, from the ground up. They had to be booted from the ground up.

Speaker 1 11:28

Yeah, yeah, they had to learn to rely on God.

Speaker 2 11:31

Yeah, once you have somebody saying once X happens, then I'll be good. Yeah, that's a faulty mindset, because they're not in it for the journey and the destination is never what you think it is. I'm guilty of that. I'm not saying I don't, I'm guilty of that.

Speaker 1 11:52

Right, I'm tracking with you.

Speaker 2 11:53

Yeah, and I do it with the money thing. Once we make this amount of money a year, we're good.

Speaker 1 12:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2 12:02

Once we're able to buy this, then we're good. Once we're able to relax this much per day, we're good. As in, once the kids get this age and we're not feeding everybody and changing everybody and putting everybody to sleep and doing their necessities for them, that'll be a be. You know, that'll be a great day. But we're also going to miss these days.

Speaker 1 12:28

Mm-hmm. You know, boy, do I look forward to the day where we don't have to have diapers in the house anymore.

Speaker 2 12:33

Right, yeah, it sounds like a good thing, but then I'll look back and go. You remember when we had to change everybody all the time and they needed us so much. And now they're they're saying okay, bye dad, I'm going to do this. Or bye mom, I'm going to do this.

Speaker 1 12:46

Yep.

Speaker 2 12:46

And we're just in an empty house.

Speaker 1 12:48

Yeah.

Speaker 2 12:50

How you get, how you get rid of empty nest syndrome is you enjoy the little moments along the way and and you don't look forward to it, because that's just depression.

Speaker 1 12:59

That was part of how I opened and closed the sermon this weekend. I think we kind of can relate it to that. The letdown is what I called it, you know, because they had this monumental moment of coming through the Red Sea and then they get let out into the desert wilderness and it's like seriously, yeah, it's a now.

Speaker 2 13:16

What moment Is this it Now? What Now? What Is this it?

Speaker 1 13:19

Yeah, exactly, remember how nice it was in Egypt when we were oppressed as slaves. Remember how nice it was. And they're going to do this multiple times in Exodus, the very next chapter in chapter 16, they complain about not having food and they say remember in Egypt when we were slaves, but at least we had pots of meat on our tables. Now we're just starving to death in the desert. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly yeah. Me and faith starving to death in the desert.

Speaker 2 13:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly yeah, me and Faith. We just call it the what if game. What if I got what I wanted and you got what you wanted? Before we met? Yeah Right, yeah, it's depressing because we don't meet. I'm in Texas trying to slug it out. As a musician, I moved to Austin.

Speaker 1 14:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2 14:00

Right, and she would be on a stage somewhere singing, acting. Nobody knows what they want, right? They think they do, but not really. What do I actually want? I want a full life with my kids and my wife, and I want a simple existence. The life of a struggling musician is not a simple existence.

Speaker 1 14:27

Okay, so let's Jesus-juke this thing.

Speaker 2 14:29

Yeah.

Speaker 1 14:30

What does God want for our lives? So the human condition is that we have wants for ourselves, right, which is my desire, the thing that I want, my solution or my direction on how to get that desire, and then my doubt that God's way is good enough for me. My desire, my direction and my doubt about God's way Okay, that's a recipe for sin.

Speaker 2 15:00

Yeah, sin, in our life there's nothing positive, spiritually positive, that could come from that.

Speaker 1 15:07

No. So what does God want for our lives? Trust?

Speaker 2 15:12

Faith, yeah, obedience, like they just oppose everything you said, make the opposite of everything you said and then Is it that easy?

Speaker 1 15:23

Is it that easy to just I think so Do the opposite.

Speaker 2 15:27

Yeah, I will do the opposite. Yeah, like George, this is my religion. This is my religion.

Speaker 1 15:35

I will do the opposite, working for the New York.

Speaker 2 15:38

Yankees.

Speaker 1 15:39

I think I watched that last night, maybe. Oh, did you? I love Seinfeld, yeah, so I will do the opposite. Just do the opposite, I will trust I will do the opposite, just do the opposite.

Speaker 2 15:47

I will trust, I will be obedient.

Speaker 1 15:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2 15:50

I will follow where he wants me to go.

Speaker 1 15:53

Yeah.

Speaker 2 15:54

I've done that and it works.

Speaker 1 15:56

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 15:59

I have placed trust in God and it works.

Speaker 1 16:03

Yeah, care to be more specific.

Wrapping up: Insights and reflections

Speaker 2 16:05

Sure works. Yeah, care to be more specific, sure. I think I've said on here that I've made big decisions in my life based on handing it over. Yeah, that's what they call in recovery language. You got to hand it over, let go and let God that's a popular term.

Speaker 2 16:23

So when it came time to even meet faith, I was like you know what? I'm going to go? I'm going to try, because my answers to these questions have not worked. So I need to go higher. I need to appeal to a higher power which I met faith through a friend from my old church. So I was like this is some sort of sign. I'm going to go with it, whether or not, to see faith again. I was like this seems right, I'm going to go. But it's not what I would want to do is just say you know what You're better off without me. That's what I would want to say is just say you know what you're better off without me. That's what I would want to say. But I was at a place in my life where I was interested in what if I did follow a little closer, what if I did follow God just a little closer.

Speaker 2 17:28

And here I am as happy as I've ever been. Same thing with proposing, Same thing with trusting to. We had five different wedding dates because we got married during COVID, oh man. So we kept pushing it up, not back. So it was going to be June, and then it was going to be sometime in May, and then it moved to like three different dates in April.

Speaker 1 17:57

Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:59

And really quickly, in the span of a week. So it was that too. I was like, let's just try. I love you, I want to be with you for the rest of my life. Let's go. That's a leap of faith. So maybe even taking a job I didn't feel like I was qualified for. So having kids where I had doubts about being a dad, yeah. So it's tons of things.

Speaker 1 18:25

So it's tons of things. So what you're describing is being a disciple. Yeah, you're just following God, you're releasing things and you're seeking him in all of those decision-making processes. Proverbs, chapter 3, verse 5 and 6, says Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, so that in all your ways, when you acknowledge him, he will direct your path.

Speaker 2 18:50

Yeah, my own understanding says you're not capable, my own understanding says you're not up for this. Sit this one out, catch the next one. But God's understanding is trust in me, follow me and all these things will be given to you, will come to you.

Speaker 1 19:17

All those things being everything we need to be satisfied for eternity. Yeah, Because I don't want to misconstrue that and say well, if you trust in God with all your heart.

Speaker 2 19:28

It's not prosperity gospel.

Speaker 1 19:29

You're going to get the house and you're going to get the bank account and you're going to get the car.

Speaker 2 19:35

Yeah.

Speaker 1 19:35

And the parking spot to go with the car.

Speaker 2 19:38

Yeah, it's not that. No, it's an eternal thing.

Speaker 1 19:42

Yes.

Speaker 2 19:42

It's not stuff.

Speaker 1 19:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2 19:50

I have not been given more stuff. I have not had more stuff laid at my feet. Right, I have been given. I have been given large concepts love, peace, um freedom from anxiety and depression. I struggle with depression my entire 20s after my dad passed away because I was like what is all this matter? Yeah, once you start asking that that's depression.

Speaker 1 20:14

Yeah.

Speaker 2 20:15

What am I to become in the future? That's anxiety and literally finding faith the thing and faith the person.

Speaker 1 20:25

Yeah.

Speaker 2 20:26

It washed all that away. And those things in themselves are everything. The person yeah it. It washed all that away.

Speaker 1 20:29

And those things in themselves are everything for us. Yeah, and so what God is doing with the Israelites is retraining their brains. He's recalibrating them to desire the things that he desires for them.

Speaker 2 20:46

Yeah.

Speaker 1 20:46

And it's going to be a difficult process. But he's laying the groundwork here in Exodus 15 that he will provide he will be present and that all we need to do is continue in faithful praise, with pure worship to him.

Speaker 2 21:01

Yeah, it's similar to when Vivian when we say no to Vivian or something like that, no, we can't do that right now. She's a toddler, she might get upset and she has to. And I say sometimes to her we're going to sit here until you relax and I like to let her sit in her discomfort. Yeah, because this is going to make you resilient later. I don't say that she doesn't know why. Right, because that's a difficult concept for a toddler to understand. You're going to have to relax. Once you relax, the things that you want to happen can happen.

Speaker 1 22:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:44

And that's true. That's true in life. You're going to have to sit in some discomfort and get through it. Don't find something to take it away, because that's drugs, that's useless entertainment, that's food, that's empty friendships, that's alcohol, that's I don't like how I'm feeling. I need something to take that away.

Speaker 1 23:04

Right.

Speaker 2 23:06

That's all those temptations, but if you can sit in it and get through it on your own, that's important. And I know I'm coming across as preachy, but in all my depression in my 20s I never once touched alcohol, never once touched drugs, and I'm a pretty resilient person now. And it took a decade, but I did get through it. Yeah, and I had some outside help through faith the person and faith the thing. Yes, but I did get through it. I didn't, I didn't seek a way out. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 23:42

Yeah.

Speaker 2 23:43

And escape. I didn't seek an escape. Yeah, I didn't seek an escape. Yeah, I didn't seek a trap door or a secret tunnel. I was like, no, I got to sit in this and work my way out.

Speaker 1 23:53

Well, um, I I first of all thank you for sharing all that about yourself. To be so open on a public platform like this, I think that's awesome, man, and you know I just feel a little bit compelled that if you're listening right now and you find yourself in one of these places like Ken is describing, first of all you need to know there is a way out yes, there is a way out of that deep pit that we can find ourselves in, and I truly believe that not only is Jesus the answer on how to get out of that stuff because he demonstrates it for us in the New Testament but he's also set up a mechanism by which we don't have to be alone anymore and we can get out as part of a community. We can seek God and trust and rely on him to lead our path in community, and that community is the church. I just truly believe that the church, through Jesus, is the hope of the world.

Speaker 1 24:52

We're not just preaching the gospel to lost people, but we are creating communities of people who want to seek God with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength. And if you want to be a true disciple of their heart, soul, mind and strength, and if you want to be a true disciple of Jesus, like that's where we got to be. We got to be in church community with each other At Crosspoint. We rely heavily like we talk all the time about small groups and being a part of a study group or just some kind of a relational group, as well as being there in person on Sunday mornings and worshiping together as a large community. So I could keep going on a soapbox of why church is so important and why you need to be there, yeah.

Speaker 1 25:27

At 1030 on Sunday mornings, right. But no, I just genuinely, I genuinely believe that the church is the place for you to be. So, ken, let's take one small pause and then we'll come back. We kind of digressed a little bit, but that was good, that was great. I'm so glad that we went off on that. Take a little pause and then we'll come back and finish out the topic on Genesis excuse me Exodus 15 and so on. Okay, all right, ken, as we wrap up today, where are we going to land this plane?

Speaker 2 26:29

I would ask. Just this is inside baseball. If you know that term, I'm sure you do. If somebody comes to you and they're struggling with depression, as a, I know what I would say as a counselor. What do you say as as a, a preacher?

Speaker 1 26:47

as a minister, I say call Ken Pierce. No, can't do that.

Speaker 2 26:54

That's, I would have to refer them. You know I would have to. They would have to either enroll in the clinic or I would have to refer them. But that's funny.

Speaker 1 27:04

I do wonder what would it be like to have a? I shouldn't even ask this question, but I've already started. I would love to have a counseling department at our church.

Speaker 2 27:12

Wouldn't that be. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Speaker 1 27:13

I would like that there is a church down the road that has been part of our community for a long time. That has, and so an honest answer to your question it depends on where they're at in their depression. Okay, if we're talking about just kind of like what I would I'm no clinical psychologist, I'm not a clinical counselor, nothing like that yeah, so maybe you can fill in the words where.

Speaker 1 27:33

I'm lacking here. I would just call it like surface level depression. Like you know, it exists, exists, but we're not like, we're not manic, we're not in peril. Um, we can pray through those things together. Yeah, we can. Um, we can guide people into groups. We can connect people to each other that have maybe overcome some of that stuff in their own life maybe an elder, maybe an elder yeah, that might be another be another layer down to connect people a little bit deeper. If the depression has become like this manifest, like it's controlling, somebody.

Speaker 1 28:11

I really, actually genuinely, will refer them to a Christian counselor or psychologist. And we have relationships with people in our county and a neighboring county of counseling clinics that can deal with that kind of stuff. As a pastor, I think a lot of people just assume that like, oh yeah, I can do counseling hours. I'm not I mean, I can sit and listen.

Speaker 2 28:38

And then I can.

Speaker 1 28:39

If necessary, I can guide through the scripture, yeah, but I am not a clinical counselor by any stretch of the imagination, and I think it would be wrong for me to pretend to be one. Yeah, that's not helpful for people who are going through serious stuff.

Speaker 2 28:54

If you're a good listener and a good question, asker, then that's 70% of it.

Speaker 1 29:00

And I can right, and I think that anybody in the church can do that. You don't have to be a preacher to sit down and just be a listener and question asker, especially somebody that's gone through it.

Speaker 2 29:12

Yeah, because a lot of depression is. You can extrapolate and you can generalize a lot of depression. You're worried about something you did in the past and how the past went for you and it led you to this point and you're depressed about it and anxiety is the same thing, but about the future. Yeah, and you can generalize that way. Everybody has things in their past.

Speaker 1 29:36

Absolutely. That's why it's important for everybody to have somebody that they can talk to.

Speaker 2 29:41

Yeah.

Speaker 1 29:42

I have somebody I can talk to. Right, you know, maybe it's a mentor, somebody for you or a best friend, or maybe it is an actual licensed counselor or therapist.

Speaker 2 29:53

Yeah.

Speaker 1 29:54

It's important for everybody to have somebody to be able to talk to about that stuff.

Speaker 2 29:57

Right, I was curious of what is there not a script? But is there just a go-to thing that you would do for that generalized depression? Maybe not. You're not in crisis yet. You're not in active psychosis, you might say. But depression is dealt with in the Bible this way and by Christianity this way.

Speaker 1 30:24

That's a really good question, okay, and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to answer it on the spot. Okay, because we record live. You're right, yeah, so let me allow me to do the cheap way of answering the question and turn it back to you. Okay, what do you perceive that a pastor should say?

Speaker 2 30:39

A pastor. So we're dealing with the past. That's depression in general. You would want to triage first, like you said, and go okay, where are we in the depression? Is it impairing daily functioning, like we say? Is it insurmountable? Is it making you not literally live the commercial out and look out the window in the rain and be sad and you feel strangled by life. I don't want to live this life today. I don't want to play this character called Ken, right yeah, because living that character got me here and I don't like. Right yeah, because living that character got me here and I don't like here, yeah.

Speaker 2 31:25

So let's get to that point, and that could take two weeks. That could take two full blown one hour sessions, if you're really, if you're pretty good at questioning and pinpointing, and then after that you go okay, we've pinpointed where you are. Let's ask how you are and then why you are. Okay, is it my dad passed away? Okay, tell me about your dad. What was that relationship like? Well, da, da, da. And then, okay, well, it's understandable that you feel the way you feel. You're actually not depressed, you're actually going through protracted grief and you haven't dealt with that Depression. Is this big umbrella for negativity about the past, so you have to parse it out. That's what I would do, and that could take months. You're not lying on a couch like Freud for years, right, because nobody can afford that and ugly secret insurance wouldn't pay for that.

Speaker 1 32:30

But five sessions and you would be pretty well taken care of yeah, can I just sidebar for a second and say you hear that wind blowing outside?

Speaker 2 32:42

Sounds like a ghost in the headphones, I do hear the wind Studio's on it.

Speaker 1 32:47

It kind of ruined right at the end there. Yeah, I think what I was trying to get across with the sermon on Sunday is that we go through hard things in life and I likened them to, I called them trials or tests, and I'm gonna bring some more clarity next weekend about the trials and tests. Aren't always depression and grief and just life circumstances Like life is hard and just life itself is a big trial. It's a big test, right? And God wants us to discover what's in our hearts, right, ultimately, that our hearts would be pointed toward him in all things. But next week we're going to look at how the tests and temptations that come our way are an even more pointed test for us to say we will reject evil when it shows up in our life, not just when circumstances go wrong, but when temptation rises in our life. Are we going to mark God on the test sheet or are we going to mark ourselves on the test sheet? And so we're going to discover more of that next week.

Speaker 1 33:57

Cool Satisfied? Yeah, I hope so. No, that sounds good. Ken, you brought some awesome insight today. I'm so thankful no, seriously, people who are listening like I'm so glad to have Ken and his expertise and counseling, and clinical.

Speaker 2 34:15

What is your actual title? Clinical? I'm a medication assisted treatment, therapist treatment therapist.

Speaker 1 34:18

Okay, that.

Speaker 1 34:20

That's what I'm happy to have on our team Level five. Hey, if you appreciate Ken as much as I do, send us a text this week and just say thanks so much for your words. Or, if you were encouraged today, reach out and let us know what you're walking through and how God is starting to shape you, maybe in a new direction. Thank you so much for listening to the Extra Podcast today. We hope to see you in church this weekend as we continue our study in Exodus. Ken, we'll see you Sunday, see ya, thank you.