247 Resting In The V.I.N.E. (Aeronova Retreat 2023) - Mike Dugal

Our busy lives in a hectic world aren’t conducive to a restful soul. But we can find rest and connection with God through silence and solitude, vulnerably opening our hearts to the Father and letting him lovingly do the interior work. In this way, we find the way of the unforced rhythms of grace.
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This series of teachings is recorded live from The Retreat by AeroNova 2023. To find out more about how to attend the annual Retreat visit theretreat.aeronova.org. 

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Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors:




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I told others that you will probably need a lot of coffee, because I know the guy that is speaking after lunch, and you definitely want to stay awake because he has the ability to put people to sleep. But it is always a great honor to be with Rod and Beth. We're grateful for this invitation. And we're humbled to be with you to see the familiar faces and then to see new faces. And before I share, I want to encourage you know, Rod said the first night about, you know, sharing a word. And a lot of times, I know that we are skeptical, because we're not sure what it fully means. But let me give you an example in 2018, we were here for the retreat. And Lucy came up to Lynette and I, and she says I, I feel like the Lord has given me a word, but I don't know what it means. But I feel like I need to be obedient. And of course trusting her knowing her prayer life, we please please share it. And she said I see volcanoes all across the mainland. And the Lord is saying run to them. Because that is where my glory is. Now at that time, I had just retired from the military, Lynette and I we were praying, Lord, what is the future look like we had just taken over beyond the reef of ministry that her father started. And we really didn't know what it was going to look like. But since then, we have found out that that word has come to pass and is coming to pass. We have seen an explosion of Turkeys house churches and communities all over the mainland. And we truly believe that those are the volcanoes in the language that Lucy shared and Jn and grace. I mean, where do you find a Micronesian church in the middle of Iowa. They are a pastoring there and in a tumbler Ottumwa, as they say, and it's Iowa, you all had been saying it wrongly. So yeah, I'm trying to correct it. But we have seen this and you know, Rod and Beth, they have joined with us. And we are seeing the gospel is played out in recorded in Acts among this community. And we just pray that you would be obedient. Like I said, Lucy goes, I don't know what it means. But she was obedient. And the Lord has just allowed that to come to fruition. So sister, thank you. And I know you're rejoicing with us, as the Lord continues to do an amazing work. So this afternoon, what I want to do is remind you have the email that rod and Beth sent out, it was an invitation. And it simply said, the call of the Lord is strong ensure let's return to what is real and true through the refreshing rhythms of rest, relationships and revelation in his creation. And that is why we are here. And I think that as you hear what I want to share, you're going to see how the Holy Spirit has orchestrated all of this I was sharing with Rod earlier that the comments, the illustrations that have been shared, just tie in to what the Lord has given me. And I pray that you will hear as Janae said, what the Holy Spirit wants to speak to you. If I can definitely not be remembered that you would remember what Jesus spoke to you by the Holy Spirit when you leave this place. Then that is As for the glory of the Father, Amen, because it's hear His voice. And Jesus says, My sheep know me, and they hear my voice. So that's what we want to do. All of us would absolutely affirm that a refreshing rhythm of rest is needed. And a lot of times, that is an indicator that our soul has been strangled through the busyness, through things that we think are necessary through things we think are priority, through things that really call to us. And ask us to give our attention, energy and finances to. And if we journey that way for a while, then definitely it's going to affect our soul, is it not? No one has to tell you that you are tired in your soul. You know it, you know it. And this retreat is an invitation through Rodan bath by the Holy Spirit, for you to receive, for you to rest, for you to maybe receive a revelation, through His Word through creation. That maybe the Lord has been trying to reveal to you, but you were just too busy. So we hear of this, and many times, when when I think of pulling away, I think of going to a specific spot. And then I realize this isn't where it's at. And I've learned through the years, that I'm probably a lot like the beavers in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Remember when Lucy, not this, Lucy? When Lucy meets the beavers there they are talking about they're anticipating their return of Aslan. And how many of us, we have that anticipation because the Holy Spirit places that in us, because we are made for another country, we are made for a city whose builder and architect is God. And you know, this is not that place. Even though Colorado is beautiful, you really have to come to Hawaii. Now that's not an invitation. That's not No, no, no. Yeah, but even you know, in Hawaii with the beauty, I realize that is not what God is conforming me to Christ for there is this heavenly country. But many times I confess, I've been impatient. Like Edward, I settled for the world's Turkish Delight. Because I could not wait for the promise. And I don't maybe you can relate to that. You can look in your rearview mirror and you realize, Wow, I thought that was the answer. But it was really just some Turkish Delight. And it left us empty, did it not? Because as we've heard, there are images. But then there's the real thing. And that's what I want saints. That's what I want. That is what I am hungry for. So let me share as a practitioner, not a subject matter expert, but as a practitioner, a lifelong learner, about what the Lord has taught me, and just spending time with him. And I pray the Holy Spirit will continue to form Christ in you for the Father's glory. My mother is 89 years old. She loves book ends. Now my mom lived in Missouri, we called it Missoura. The rest of you are wrong. But she would go to garage sales, and she would pride herself on finding bookends for a quarter. Now all through the house, we had bookends now for the digital generation. Let me tell you what the what they are. They are weighted figurines. And this one is smooth on this side and this one is smooth on this side. So what happens you put your books on a shelf and you put the book ends so the books will stand up straight. We had book ends of dolphins We had bookends of Elvis, excuse me, don't judge don't judge. We had bookends of giraffes, we had bookends of everything that you can imagine. For my birthday, my mom gave me a set of bookends that were German Shepherds, because I had a German shepherd. And I have no idea where those bookings are. And I am not looking for them. But there's two scriptures that I want us to use as bookends. And I want the Holy Spirit to put the books on your shelf that you need today. The first one is in Genesis, Genesis 28, verse 16, you've already heard Ron Beth refer to it. But let me read it. Genesis 2816, then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place. But it doesn't stop. Listen to what he says. And I did not know it. How sad sight to come, especially to a retreat like this, and enter the Lord and the Lord to be in this place. And, and then we, we realized, I didn't know that. I didn't know it. They say that hind vision is 2020. And I can definitely say that is that I look back and that, oh, that's where the Lord did this. That's where the Lord did. This was saints, I am tired of looking back. And I want to be able to see the Lord manifest himself in tangible ways. Not only in my life, but to the generation that he is allowing law that night to speak into, for him to speak and manifest His glory and to the two keys communities for him to manifest in a tangible way. He is glory, that we are thirsty, we are hungering for it. The second book in is in marked the sixth chapter, verse 31. Mark records then because many people were coming and going, that they did not even have a chance to eat Jesus said to them, Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place, and get some rest. Come with me to a quiet place and get some rest. That is my prayer for you this weekend. And when we look at these solitary places, when we think of a wilderness experience, we may be missing what God truly desires to do. And that is right in the middle of your of the young mothers changing diapers and taking care of the toddlers, or the littles that I heard this morning. Jesus is saying right here, right here in this space in this time. I want you to be quiet. And I want you to rest what would that look like? Those that wear the uniform you know, how many times does a certain major the commander come out? Say, Okay, timeout timeout. We're going to take a 15 minute break and everybody we're going to be quiet and rest and listen to what the Lord has to say. I'm sorry, Rod. Did you ever hear that? Never. Yeah. Is like we will go to the mission is done. And you know the thing about it, there's always another mission. But the Lord taught me through the years, there is a place there is a quiet place. And Michael I have shaped it for you to rest in Me and with me. Ruth Haley Barton, in her book, invitation to solitude and silence writes these words I quote, solitude and silence are not self indulgent exercises. for times when an overcrowded soul needs a little time to itself. Rather, they are concrete ways of opening to the presence of God beyond human effort, and beyond the human constructs that cannot fully contain the divine In quote, I love how Rod was open and honest with us. I tried to construct something for the Lord, to be doing. And that wasn't the plan of the Lord. I believe solitude and silence are God's gifts. But we have to learn what we have been taught. Many of us in the West, we have been taught that we are the ones who direct our steps in the solitude and in the silence. But it is the Holy Spirit, who directs our steps. It is the Holy Spirit, who desires to commune with us so we can hear the father's voice. And please don't don't hear an indictment because I'm, I'm speaking to myself. And I'm the first one to admit the noises of this world, the demands of life, and the burdens of or the burdens of my heart, mind and soul. It's almost like a stranglehold on our spirit. It will suffocate us from being who God has created us to be. Now, my first time of solitude and silence was in 1981. Some of you weren't even born, maybe some of your parents weren't born. I don't know. I'm not bringing judgment. But we were working with when that's mom and dad. And I was so excited. I graduated Bible school, we were going on the mission field, and her dad comes by and says, I have a present for you. I'm thinking, Okay, what theological set of books has He given me? Is he going to give me and he had his hand behind his back. And I thought, Oh, well, okay. Maybe it's a one volume set. You know. He pulls out a Stanley 16 ounce hammer. I thought he was kidding. Really? I thought he was kidding. He wasn't. I never nailed it nailed. Or hammered a nail in my life. My my dad's side, they own grocery stores. And I knew how to stack cans and get the labels straight. But don't ask me to nail anything. Well, we we refurbished this old Methodist camp, which became beyond the reef. But one day he says, Okay, tomorrow, we're going to have a quiet day, we're going to pray. Okay, thank you, Jesus. You heard my prayer. I can get away. So we go over, he goes, I'm going to walk the grounds. He had 17 acres and he would just walk and pray and just literally enjoy creation, right in the middle of Oregon. And I go into the prayer room. Okay, Lord, I'm gonna spend time here, you know, I'm going to pray and I started praying, I started praying and thinking, wow, you know, I am hungry. It must be noon already. Wow, this praying just takes it out of you. Now remember, we started at eight. Okay, I look at my watch. 820 Wow, okay, this, this is not good. So then I open up the scriptures. I read through Paul's prayers. I'm praying them. You know, I'm reading the Psalms. I'm praying through them. 930 And then all of us, I was so exhausted. I actually fell asleep. Now, I don't know if I've ever confessed this to you. And so if it's real, you still love me. But I just fell asleep. And when I woke up, I felt so guilty. I missed it. I failed. I couldn't even pray for more than an hour. It goes Michael. Why do you think that I would want you to do all the talking. The Lord desires to speak to us. He desires for us to rest in Him and basically zipper mouth. But we can't believe that that's too good to be true. And yet it is. In 1993 Eugene Peterson released the first of the message. It was the New Testament and Psalms and Proverbs. And when I first started reading that, I came across this amazing verse, and it's from Matthew 11. And you all know it. Come to me you heard tired, heavy laden, I will give you rest. Let's listen to help Peterson paraphrases this. Matthew 1128 through 30 In the message are you tired? worn out? burned out on religion? Come to me, get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. keep company with me. And you'll learn to live freely and lightly. And, you know, I have always been fascinated with this paraphrase. And brother deck I I asked myself questions, you know, what? What is your relationship with Jesus look like that would mirror this? What what does the real rest even look like? Or feel like, if you will, the orange the unforced rhythms of grace? What are they? How would my life changed? If I learned those unforced rhythms of grace? What would be different in my life? What would be different in my marriage? What would be different in my family? What does it truly mean? To keep company with Jesus? For my 62nd birthday, I bought a 11 foot by 35 inch paddleboard and never took lessons. I rented one a couple times. And Lynette goes, Are you sure you really want to do this? I'm committed, I'm committed, I'm committed. And I was I surprised her. Wow, it's three times a week paddling in hicken Harbor. And I go out, you know, before right when the sun's coming up, so there's Diamond Head in the sun. And I know those that have never been to Hawaii, I'm making you envious. But you know, I'm out there paddling I'm alone. Every once a while I'll see see, you know, life. But I have to confess. I haven't paddled in over a year. Because I've traded my paddleboard. Now not for a nicer paddleboard not for something else. But at the Ministry house, we have a 16 by 26 paddle board, I mean deck. And between the firepit the coffee, the sun coming up, the birds chirping and me simply being with Jesus. I find I I no longer have the desire to paddleboard in the morning. Now maybe one day, I'll go paddleboard again. But in the morning, I've learned to carve that time to simply be with the Lord. And some of us are called to suffer, and some are called to suffer in Hawaii. I don't know where you are. But I want to share with you. And I really like what John says in his first letter. He says we proclaim to you what we've seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. As I said, I'm a practitioner, I'm still learning. But I want you I want you to know the fellowship, the fellowship of the Father, the fellowship of the Son and the Holy Spirit. In Psalms 25. David writes, The Lord confides in those who fear Him, He makes His covenant known to him. Now I don't know if you've read any from the passion translation, but I love the Psalms. Listen to how the writer writes this verse. And it is so fitting to the songs that we have sung. There's a private place reserved for the devoted lovers of Yahweh, where they sit near him and receive the revelation secrets of his promises. Is that powerful. There is a private place reserved for the devoted lovers of Yawei where they sit near him and risk See the revelation secrets of his promises, Psalm 2514. And no longer ashamed of identifying myself as a devoted lover of Yahweh, as revealed through Christ, the Holy Spirit in the scriptures. But I've always been asking the question, how do I posture myself? How do I become like God's servant, as Isaiah said, as one who awakens my ear to listen, as one being instructed the early church fathers called wasting time with the master. And they were speaking of Mary and Luke 10. As you know, Martha was running around, but Mary chose to sit at Jesus feet. And the early church fathers, they call that wasting time with the Master. In the army, they tell us that we are to be no and do. And they forget about the B part. As long as you know, and you're doing, they're happy. But in the kingdom being comes first. One of the things I've had to learn since I retire is the army principles. And kingdom principles are not synonymous. You It's been a hard lesson. Because I thought I could orchestrate. I thought that I could get everything in motion that I could make sure that, you know, I've done the military decision making process and everything is there. And I come to Lord and say, you know, look at this, I got this great course of action. I've I've weighed him out, and he's, yeah, we're not gonna do that. But I'm always asked, Have I been guilty of spiritual plagiarism? Brother Mike, what what do you mean by that? Have I been guilty of taking another's experience? And owning it for me? Have I listened to somebody else's deep understanding of the Scriptures and say, Oh, I can quote that. I can cite that. And the Lord is saying, I don't want you to be a spiritual plagiarist. We know those in academics, there's a cost to that. Not only are you not learning, but you can get kicked out of the university. So I want us to ask the Holy Spirit. Show me the areas that I may be guilty of spiritual plagiarism. It's great to rejoice. It's great to hear the saints testimonies. But when we own them for ourselves, and we're not the one in the word and time of prayer, and spending time with the Lord. They're not real. As rod said, we have them cognitively. But here in the heart and in our spirit in our soul, they have not dropped. And I remember years ago, the Lord said, You're guilty of spiritual plagiarism. I said, Okay, Lord, show me how do I get past this? And he led me to John 15. So that's the introduction. Okay, so now we're going to look at you know, the actual teaching that I want to share with you this afternoon. It's raining anyway. You don't want to go out there. But John 15 Jesus says Remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine you are the branches if you remain in me and I and you you were bear much fruit apart from me, you can do nothing what does it mean to remain we've heard a by we've heard commune we've heard connection we've heard to spend time with to stay with to lodge to live in the presence of another to wait with an other but as we look at this, and I really love nikoloz phrase this morning, cheese bar. Now this this, you may think this is a cheese ball. This is not a cheese bar. Okay? I do not like acronyms. Just because I never remember what they mean. And but as I was studying this, there was an acronym that naturally came about, okay, this isn't a cheese bomb, okay. And it's the acronym vine. Large because I wanted to share that we enter into this solitude we enter into this silence by being vulnerable. V. But it's an interior work, I it is a nurturing work. And, and as rod has been telling us, it is an eternal work, ie vulnerable, interior, nurturing and eternal. Let us look at those quickly. None of us enjoy being vulnerable. Okay, show of hands. How many of you say I would volunteer to come up front and be vulnerable before everybody here? Okay. But when we abide when we come into the presence of the Lord, He is asking us, would you drop your guard? Would you drop your guard? You know, we come in like a boxer with our hands up. And because we know who we are, we know the brokenness in our life. And we somehow we've lied to ourself, we've deceived or we've deceived ourselves. And we say, Oh, the Lord doesn't know Hello. He sees us at our worst. He sees us at the worst that we could even be. And Paul reminds us why we were still sinners. Christ died for you and me. John says it's not that we loved him first. He first loved us. But he loves us enough. He doesn't want us to stay where he finds us. So being vulnerable, being open, being susceptible to another's words, or actions, being unguarded, trusting someone else with your frailty, and weakness. How many are in here that had been married less than five years? Okay, seven years. Yeah, your vulnerability now. It's only going to grow. The intimacy that Lynette and I share after 44 years. I've never read about it in a book. I've never heard other men talk about it. I didn't even know it was possible. But saints, it became possible because I was willing to be vulnerable with her. And she was willing to be vulnerable with me. And dig in Mary, you know, you know, that is what creates intimacy. And usually the most vulnerable place that we find ourselves is when we're confessing our sins when we've been confronted when we've been convicted. And we lay it out on the line. And I remember the Lord asking me, Why are you only vulnerable when you're confessing your sins and you're seeking forgiveness? Because I need your forgiveness. Yes, yes. But can we have this relationship? Then that even as you're walking in the light as I'm in the light? Would you be willing to trust me with your vulnerability? As we enter into solitude and silence, the Lord is asking, Will you be vulnerable? There is a beautiful course that we've seen majority of the two keys, worship services. And I'm not even going to try to pronounce it into keys but it's here I am, Lord. Listen to this. Here I am Lord. Here I am. I give all myself to you. Here I am. Here I am, Lord. Here I am, let your spirit move in me, here I am. I pray that that becomes your prayer. Lord, here I am. Here I am. All the flaws all the brokenness. The second one interior, not only are we dropping our guard concerning vulnerability, but the second one is, it's an interior work, we are opening the door to our inmost being. And we're welcoming the Holy Spirit to do that interior work that only he can do. Jesus made three statements and, and Matthew records all three of these regarding the interior territory of who we are. In Matthew 621, Jesus says For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also in Matthew 12, verse 34, he says the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. And then in Matthew 15, he shares Isaias prophecy. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain their teachings are merely are merely human rules. And I love how Solomon encourages us. And proverbs 423 Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. It's not that we have bad thoughts. It's not that there may be, you know, abusive language coming out of our mouth, those are only symptoms of the heart. And I got tired of asking the Lord again and again and again. Would you take care of the symptoms? It says, Michael, you need a heart transplant. You may not know but I deal with afib. And my heart has been shocked at least 10 times to put it back in rhythm. They have finally reduced my meds through prayer and I believe definitely through prayer. I have no symptoms whatsoever, even though it is there. I have no symptoms. And the Lord is saying can you trust me? With Your Heart? Can he trust? Can you trust him? With Your Heart? Now you may say well, you know I don't have physical eighth ambulation. And if you want to know what that is just talk to Natalie. I mean nailin. Natalie, well, Natalie may know also, Natalie and alien. But what about spiritual? A fifth? He's the great physician. Can we trust him? Can we ask him to do that interior work. One of the greatest books I've read on the interior work is by Dallas Willard, title of it is renovation of the heart. This is what he says. He says the Lord calls believers to allow the Holy Spirit to do an interior work and not be satisfied with a mere outward moral expression of what of what he calls sin management. In quote. I don't want to just manage the sin in my life. I want it to be crucified. I want it to be eradicated. I want it. I want a change of heart. And only then will I be able to understand what Richard foster calls this life with God. Orientation. But you know, there's something that keeps us from that. And it's not the veil that was there in the Old Testament because we know as Riley told us, Hebrews has told us that he through his flesh has removed that veil but AW Tozer in the presence of God. He writes this, there is a veil that is still living in our flesh. that has been on judged within us and crucified and on repudiated. It is woven into the fine threads of the self life, the hyphenated Sins of the human spirit. And then he lists them. The self sins are self righteousness, self pity, self confidence, self sufficiency, self admiration, self love, and a host of others, like them. Listen to these words. They dwell too deep within us, and are too much a part of our sinful natures, to come to our attention, until we are in the full light of God, and the Holy Spirit focuses on them. I want a heart that is renovated for the glory of the Father. The solace in Psalm 131, he says, I have calmed and quieted myself. I'm like a weaned child with its mother. Like a weaned child. I am content. There's a chorus that we would seen years ago. And here are the words change my heart. Oh God, make it ever true. Change my heart. Oh, God, may it be like you. Are you allowing him to do that interior work? Are you vulnerable enough before him? For him to do that interior work, you will find that it leads to nurturing. If we stopped with vulnerability, and then interior work, we would conclude that maybe the Holy Spirit's work is harsh and full of pain. But if we allow the divine surgeon's scalpel to continue to cut, we're going to find out he's actually purging and nurturing us. Jesus said in John 15, I'm the true vine. My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. I like how he says he's not pulling weeds. But he is pruning. And that word pruning can mean cleansing. When I was praying the Lord, I never thought of this example. But the Lord reminded me that my great grandfather had great vines in the backyard. And the Lord took me back to what 1963 64 I know I look 29 It's okay. But I remember my great grandfather going out to prune the grape vines. And normally he worked with garden gloves. And they were his work gloves. And he goes and he takes them off. And then he gently holds the leaf of the vine. And he doesn't take huge clippers. He takes these little special made scissors. And he just sort of hold that vine. And then he would gently clip it. And I've always wondered, Oh, Grandpa, why did you not just cut them off? And the Lord show me our Heavenly Father. Is that gentle with us when He prunes our lives? He was able to touch the vine, he was able to recognize if the leaf was nourishing or not. And he would only remove those that we're restricting the flow of the vine to the fruit. That's what our father does, does he not? How can we not be vulnerable to one that is that gentle. How can we not just ask for any interior work to be done by one that is that journal? Gentle but it requires us to be silent. You Psalm 46, we are told, Be still and know that I am God. Stillness is more than an absence of noise. Stillness is more than an absence of noise. Because, you know, there can be no noise around you but your mind is racing Wayne oats in his book nurturing silence in a noisy heart, he describes me very well. Quote, we run from silence because we meet our real selves there. To do so scares us, we have too much terror as it is to look for silence in the graveyard of our inner selves. When I started learning, that I could trust the Lord, then vulnerability was not some great task. I realized he wanted to do an interior work. You have read Paul's prayers, to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians. And he's constantly praying that the Lord would simply grow them in the spirit and the knowledge of their word, so that they could reflect Christ. I invite you to go back to those prayers of Paul and read them again and hear the Holy Spirit speak to you. So we've looked at vulnerability, we've looked at Interior we looked at nurturing and now the eternal rod has already made reference to this verse, John 17, three says, Now this is eternal life that they know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. Notice, Jesus is saying, this is present tense, not some future, this will be eternal life. This is eternal life, that they know you. And that word in the Greek is an experiential knowledge, not a head knowledge. But it is an experience. It is a knowledge that is gained through interaction through spending time together, through seeing each other face to face. This is eternal life that they know you. What would it be like? If we continued to give ourselves to know the Lord, until we took our last breath, what would it be like if we dared to enter into such an intimate relationship with Jesus, that our exit from this world wouldn't be a quantum leap, but a mirror walking through a doorway? If you don't understand quantum leap, talk to Dan. And that's my desire. That's my desire for you. When you take that last breath, you're just stepping from the temporal to the eternal. Why? Because you have been abiding in eternal life all ready. And I know it's going to be a quantum leap anyway. But I want to know, I don't want to just know His voice. I want to know his face. I longed for that. And when we were singing the song of home this past week, my niece died. Sport. She was crippled all of her life. She was home in the presence of Jesus and saints. I want to be there now because and she's there, but because Jesus is there. Remember the song that Gaither quartet used to sing? I don't want to talk to Timothy. I don't want to see you the others. I want to see Jesus the one who bled and died for me at all, that is what we talk about. Eternity is not something that is waiting for us. The Holy Spirit is bringing it into reality now because he have been AIDS in us. Listen to what Paul says to the Philippians. He goes, I am confident of this, that He who began a good work and you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Do you have that confidence when you look in the mirror? Do you have that confidence? There is a do that do Oh. They go by Shane and Shane. And they have a song, I will wait for you. Listen to this. I will wait for you I will wait for you on your word. I will rely I will wait for you surely wait for you till my soul is satisfied? Are you tired? Are you worn out? Have you realized religion? Karis, no promises? Then I invite you to come to Jesus. Get away with Jesus. Let him show you how to take a real rest. walk with Jesus work with Jesus. Watch how Jesus does it. Let him teach you by the Holy Spirit in Scriptures, the unforced rhythms of grace. keep company with Jesus and your life will be a life of freedom. And your load will be light. Are you vulnerable? Are you allowing him to do that interior work? Do you realize he desires to nurture you into the image of Christ Himself? And can you lay hold? Today we are participating with eternity. You received a handout. And these are suggestions. Divine invitations for posturing in his present. And you notice about the only action that you are giving yourself to is inviting the Holy Spirit inviting the Holy Spirit. So this afternoon My prayer would not be as Jacob's Surely the Lord was in this place and I did not know it. My prayer is that you will be able to say the Lord is in this place. And I know it full well. Amen. Amen. Lord bless you. Thank you. Thank you so much. You know, we know when we do the min sabbaticals just like this time of which is a time of Sabbath. There's no way we can get enough Sabbath in one weekend, I mean, we eat a lot of good food while we're here, but there's no way we're gonna be able to feed you enough for the rest of your life, right. And it really the intention is to set rhythms and establish patterns. And what I find is each time I come away, God does something to calibrate those rhythms or to establish more, let's call them DNA strands in my way of relating and resting and connecting with the Lord. So as we're connecting with him this weekend, and we take into this the impartation like what Mike's just sharing with us. One of the things I'm always looking for his Lord, what are you integrating or bringing into my life in this time in this place? Because I don't want to just do it this afternoon. I want it to become part of my rhythms and lifestyle. From the here on out and we're just practicing while we're here this weekend. For me personally, what you just spoke the thing that God just kept pressing in my heart. I don't remember receiving any teaching, and maybe I did and you know When you're young, you just don't you miss a lot you're taught, you just don't receive it, you don't hear it or whatever is on vulnerability. I don't remember any teachings or sermons on vulnerability. And I wished that I did, I probably had some and don't remember it, but I may not have. But I just that's one of my big takeaways today is to seek the Lord. Because this is a whole new area. And I just pray that whatever that is, and maybe it's been vulnerable. But you know, there are a couple of things came to my mind, I want to just share because it's it's hard to be vulnerable with people you don't trust. You have to surround yourself with people you trust. And that's how we become vulnerable. If I surround myself, or I don't surround myself, it's, it's hard if you don't surround yourself with people, and I don't mean like sitting next to him in his seat. I mean, relationally it's people who forgive, it's people who are gracious, it's people who call me to my higher self and God, not just, Oh, y'all I accept you for who you are in the world today. That means do any sand, you want to kill yourself, I don't care. That's what it really means in today's world. And that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about people who accept us, as we are, but also call us to who God's called us to be, and are gracious and are loving, and are merciful, but are also truth, mercy and truth, speak into our lives. And so I want to encourage us to not just surround ourselves with those people, but to be those people. Because if if I if I'm that way, people will be vulnerable. It's easiest for me to be vulnerable with people, man, when they share their story. And I always said this when we were doing small group work. Throughout the years, I said, you want to get people to start sharing their hearts, share your heart, just go ahead and share it, just go ahead and say it. And that leads me to the last thing is to be vulnerable. The other piece is you got to be humble. I guarantee you with the amount of time that I stand in front of you this weekend, in the amount of time that we put stuff out to the world. People can see your freckles like they can see like, Man, this guy's got an issue here. What what do you say about that? You know, they're gonna see it, right? You got to be you got to have enough humility. Get over yourself to get out there and touch people's lives and reach them. Because the one person who never makes a mistake in the football game is the armchair quarterback. The armchair quarterback never makes a single mistake. He just sits there and watches the game and says he should have done that. And she should have done this and all of the mistakes and everything but never makes a single mistake. But never scores a single touchdown, right? So the Lord bless you, you guys, be blessed in the Lord. Have a wonderful afternoon. And just be free. There's no agenda here. It looks like it's not raining, if you want to hike, if you want to rest if you if you want to connect with people, if you want to connect with your pillow, if just whatever the Lord lays on your heart, just go for it. And let's just trust the Lord. And Mike, thank you so much. You've given me a lot to think about and to pray about. Because I see areas of my life that that's how I know it's a great teaching when the Lord when someone speaks and you're going, I gotta look at this in my life. And something's going to change in us because of it. Amen.