I Obeyed and it all went Worse!

What are you doing?

You waited for a better moment.

I mean, they're blaming you.

They're blaming you. And the voice in your head? Well, it started asking the question you're you're afraid to say out loud. Did I misunderstand? Did I get it wrong? Why would God send me to do something that made everything harder? Exodus 5 doesn't dodge that question. It doesn't smooth it over. It walks straight into it and it tells us something we desperately need to hear. Obedience doesn't guarantee immediate relief. But God hasn't lost the plot. Shalom and welcome. I'm glad to have you. Welcome to True Word, Faith for Life with Dr. Sean. I'm Dr. Sean. If you're not a subscriber, click on subscribe and hit the little bell for all notifications. Maybe click like while you're there. This is day 58 in our journey. Now remember, I'm I'm uh I'm gonna be here tomorrow, then I will not be here Sunday or all of next week. The next time will be next Sunday, and we'll do the summation. And it's gonna be intense, it's gonna be unlike we've ever done, but we will do it next Sunday. Not this coming Sunday, next Sunday. So Sunday and all week long, I will not be here. Now, you might say, Oh, what am I gonna listen to? Listen to the episodes that you saw on the list and you said, if I get time, I'm gonna listen to that. Well, here's your time. You've already obligated the time, you've already you've already gotten the habit. Why not? They're free. Everything is free. You can listen to audio, any podcast platform there is, I guarantee I'm on it. So you can listen to audio only if this is visually disturbing. Day 58 in a chronological journey through the Bible. We're walking the story of God, and today we are in Exodus 5. Before we go in, my book, True Word Faith for Life. It's available now. You can buy it anywhere, but buy it at TruewordfaithforLife.com under the store. Be happy for you to do that. Be super ecstatic. You can buy it anywhere else. They just give us a dollar. We get a little bit more when we get it through the website. And yes, it's my website. So if this ministry has put something solid under your feet, the book goes deeper. Get a copy, get one for somebody else. Why not? So today's question: what do you do when obedience makes things worse? I mean, none of us like the sound of this. None of us want to think about doing the right thing, and everything gets worse. So let's go in. Moses and which is Mo Moshe and Aaron walk into Pharaoh's court. They've been commissioned by God. They've seen the burning bush, they've received the name, they're carrying the staff, and they say it plainly. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness. Did you catch that? Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness. Pharaoh's answer is immediate and it's contemptuous. Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go. Can you imagine? Now don't miss what's happening here. By the way, they were a workforce. They were labor, free labor. They didn't mean anything as people, but as work units. Yeah. So I don't want you to miss what's happening here. That I don't know the Lord is not just arrogance. It's the dramatic center of the entire Exodus or Shemut narrative. Because Pharaoh is about to know. Oh, he he don't know? You're gonna know. You finna know. The plagues that follow Exodus 5, they're not only judgment, they're revelation. God is going to introduce himself in a way Pharaoh, Egypt, Israel, and every surrounding nation will never be able to forget. And by the end of this story, the whole ancient world, oh, they'll know. They didn't know before, they'll know now. They will know who the Lord is. But that's not where we are in chapter 5. In chapter 5, Pharaoh doesn't yield, he escalates. He goes to the taskmasters. Don't give the people straw anymore. Let them gather their own straw. But the quota of bricks, keep it exactly the same. See, they used straw for the bricks. Same output, no supply, more labor. So when the people can't meet the quota, they're beaten, or worse. The Israelite foreman, they go to Pharaoh and they plead, and he refuses, they leave, and they find Moses and Aaron while they're waiting outside. And here's what they say to the man who came to deliver them. The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us. Yikes. The people Moses came to rescue are now accusing him of making things worse. And Moses, the man who stood before a burning bush, who threw down his staff and it became a serpent, who was commissioned by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses turns to God and says, Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? Since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all. Now, before you look at Moses or Moshe, by the way, good morning to all of you. I'm honored to have you. Some of you have woken up at three or four in the morning to listen live, and that is awesome. For those of you listening on playback, God bless you. For those of you who are listening on audio only, think of the money you're going to save on eye appointments, having to deal with having to look at this. So I'm glad to have you. Thank you very much. If you wouldn't mind, give us a rating, share, review, whatever, whatever you do. Look, Moses isn't performing a complaint here. So so sometimes we read this and we go, dude, he made a burning bush. Hilaire, a burning bush. You threw down your staff and it became a serpent, a serpent, and you grabbed it by the tail, became a staff again. I think I wouldn't mess with this Lord. We think that we can't, as long as we're respectful, we think that we can't express what we're feeling and experiencing to God. It's 100% incorrect. He's not making a theological statement for the audience. He is a man in agony, and he's taking that agony directly to God, and that matters more than we usually let it. Okay, come on. Take a deep breath, breathe it in. Here we go. This is the theology of the hard beginning. Now look, yes, I'm a theologian, but I don't love the hard beginning theology. I don't love it. Why? Because it hurts. God whispers to us our pleasure and whispers to us in our pleasure, and he shouts to us in our pain. Let's stay right here because Exodus 5 is one of the most practically important chapters in the entire Torah for anyone who is living inside an active calling. There is a pattern in Scripture, shows up again and again, and if you don't know it, it'll wreck you. A call comes. Some of you are there right now. The call comes. Obedience begins, and things got harder before they got better. How many? Some of you. Perhaps many of you. Joseph was faithful in Potiphar's house. His faithfulness didn't get him out, it got him thrown into prison. Go back a few episodes. You'll hear all about that. Abraham obeyed the call and left everything. His obedience didn't produce Isaac right away. It was a long, difficult time. It produced decades of waiting and a barren tent and a wife who laughed. David was anointed king by Samuel while Saul was still on the throne. That anointing didn't move him into the palace, it moved him into the wilderness, running for his life. Look, the hard beginning isn't evidence that you misheard. It's often the clearest sign that what God is building is too large for a quick fix. Pharaoh's resistance in Exodus 5, Shemot. It isn't God losing control of the narrative. It's God expanding the stage. Because the bigger resistance, the more undeniable the deliverance. Let that swirl a little bit. The bigger the resistance, the more undeniable the deliverance. When God finally moves in Exodus, nobody will be able to say that it happened on its own. Nobody will be able to say it was luck. Nobody will be able to say it was Moses. The resistance is what makes the rescue unmistakable. Now, in chat or in the comments, if you're listening on playback, has God ever taken you through a hard beginning that you later understood was preparation? Or that made the breakthrough undeniable? Has God ever taken you through a hard beginning that you later understood? Hey, I'm looking back now. Hindsight is 2020. That was preparation I was going through. That hard time, preparation. Or maybe, maybe that it made the breakthrough undeniable.

You can answer if you want. I'm not gonna press it. Good evening, good evening, good evening in the Philippines.

So Moses' prayer. By the way, good evening in California and um good lands, I got people listening from all over the place. Good evening in the state of Delaware. Good evening in Surf City, North Carolina. Newark, Delaware. Oh yeah, we got a whole bunch here. Whole bunch. Good to have you. Wouldn't kill you to share this. Now, I want to spend some real time here because of Moses' prayer. Because what Moses does in this moment is something most of us don't do. And it may be the most important lesson in Exodus 5. When the wheels come off, we've all been there. We've been doing something, the wheels have just come right on off. Moses doesn't quit. He doesn't call a strategy session with Aaron, a Aaron, watching Key and Peel, a Aaron. Aaron. He doesn't write a letter to Jethro asking for advice. He doesn't go back to Midian. You know what? This isn't working. I'm going, I'm running. He takes, what's he do? He takes the confusion, the failure, and the pain, and he carries them directly to God, which is exactly where he should. Lord, why? Since I came to speak in your name, it's gotten worse. You haven't delivered. Why? That prayer is honest. It's raw, and it's not beautifully composed. It doesn't have a doxology at the end. At the end of this, I'm going to pray a blessing over you. Not that I'm anything special, but it's something that you might want to learn and uh and pray over your family, pray over your home, pray over yourself. It's a this is a man who did exactly what God said. And now he's watching the people he loves suffer more than they were suffering before he showed up. Because remember, Moses left opulence to roll up in this joint and to go back with his people. God doesn't rebuke Moses for praying it. We think we can't bring God our honest feelings. And God doesn't rebuke him. Doesn't say Moses. You better check your attitude. You better, I don't think God talks like that, but God doesn't say, Moses, check your attitude. God doesn't say Moses, you need to trust the process. Exodus 6 begins with God answering. The lament that goes to God gets answered by God. The confusion that becomes the complaint to the people just becomes bitterness. Moses chose right. He took the wound to the right place. And I'm going to ask you something right now, in the life that you're living right now, today, right where you are. Where have you been taking your wound? You say, Oh, I'm in so much pain. Everything is jacked up. I'm terminally ill. I'm in chronic pain. People all around me, my friends, my family, they're all dying. My job is horrific. I've got a boss that's horrible. My neighborhood has gone to crap. The crime rate where I live is high. The taxes are through the roof. Whatever the case may be. Or maybe you've been wounded, assaulted, taken for granted, ridiculed. And you've been doing everything that God has told you to do. Where have you been taking your wound? To your phone? To your friends? To a comment section? Let me get on social media and I'm going to pour around all of my stuff. Wrong place. Wrong place. I'm telling you that the algorithm rewards perpetual aggrievement and outrage, and nobody there is going to solve your problem. Take it to God, the ultimate social media. Listen, I've always said if your parents didn't have two nickels to rub together, don't ask them for financial advice. If your parents have argued the whole childhood, your whole childhood, they have not gotten along, look like you said, hmm, Lord, they should have gotten a divorce a long time ago before I came around. Right? It's horrible.

Don't go to them for relationship advice.

If your friends aren't people that that are following hard after God and they they invest in study and and and pray and and they they they they just follow hard after God. Why would you go to them? Why would you put your lament and your personal business in a comment section of social media? You get some likes, people are like, oh sister, I'm sorry. Oh brother, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're going through with this. I know I've been going through it too. But you know, that's how it always goes. I do a thing, uh, it's an episode, it's back a ways. I've actually done thousands of episodes, so they're all free. YouTube, true word, faith for life with Dr. Sean. Couldn't be easier. Don't do the backup one, just put it in like that. True Word, Faith for Life with Dr. Sean. It's about 4,000 subscribers. Go to that one and go back and see what I talk about. And in who you don't go ask for advice. Maybe instead of the comments section, it's the bottle or the pills to something that numbs it but never answers it. Moses had access, and maybe it look, look, look, look, I'm gonna say this. Because maybe you go to food, that won't answer it either. Maybe you go to shopping that won't go, that won't handle it, that won't make it better. You go to anything, something other than God. But it numbs it for a moment, but it never answers it. Moses had access to the only one who could actually do something about the situation, and he used it, and you have the same access. Take the wound to God, not the version you think that he wants to hear. Stop buttering up your dad gum prayers. Dear Lord, we beseech thee. Lord, we petition thee. If it be your will, to resolve or insert yourself into this problem. Right, and we butter it all up. Go real to God. Take the wound to God. God is real, he's not some fluffy sky daddy. He's real, he's the creator of the universe. He created you. Take your real version because he sees you. And when you go to him with some sort of voice or some sort of living that is in some way not you, he thinks, we got a faker here. Take the real you to him. He can handle it. The one that sounds like Moses. Take that one. First, I'm gonna go a little deeper here. First, harder is not the same as wrong. Everybody's you know, anything worth doing, it's worth doing right. Well, that's true. That is a hundred percent true. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. If you had time to do it wrong and over again, you had time to do it right in the first place. But we pray for an easy journey. Is not asking for an easy journey, it's asking for a strong back. This faith thing, faith in God thing. I always tell people when I lead them to the Lord. I say, this is not an easy path. Harder isn't the same as wrong. That's number one. When obedience produces harder conditions, your first instinct is going to, you're going to listen, I understand. The first thing you're going to do is question. I get it. You're going to question, oh, hold on, wait, wait, wait. Did I hear? Because this isn't fixing it. This pain in my spine and and and my heart and or you know, whatever my health problem is, this cancer is not going away. I I don't know, God. I've served you my whole life. Maybe not my whole life, but the last several years, no, I haven't done it perfect. It ain't about that. It isn't about doing it perfect. That's your instinct. I understand it. Been there. That instinct makes total sense, by the way, but don't let it make the decision. Don't let the instinct to question whether you heard God correctly or not. Now, discernment, oh, there's so many people out there using that word. I wish they just wouldn't. Wish we could pluck it from the language. They don't understand discernment, what it means, how it works. Don't let instinct make look. Don't let it make the decision. Ask God. Stay close. Examine the fruit over time, but don't equate difficulty with error. You say my life's no easier. If you have wealthy friends, perhaps you're wealthy. I happen to know somebody that's listening right now, it's worth hundreds of millions of dollars, even on a bad day in the market. And I can tell you, life ain't easy for him either. It's, you know, there are a lot of things that go a lot smoother, and he has access to a lot of things that regular people don't have. But I can tell you, I know his life. Life has been hard.

Not just for a minute, for three, four decades. Look, the hard beginning. It often precedes the most undeniable deliverance.

Now, number two. Second, dose. The wound has to go to God before. Write this down. Somebody get a pen and write this down. Write it. If you don't have paper, write it on your skin. Write this down, somebody. Don't miss this. All of them are, you got, you gotta know. Go back and listen if you missed it. The wound has to go to God before you take it to people. The struggle, the pain, the decision, it has to go to God first. Look, Moses didn't gather the elders, you know, all the elders of Israel. And, you know, listen, I'm going to process my feelings about Exodus 5 that we're living right now, Shimot. No, he didn't do that. He went straight to God. Look, there's a difference between lament and complaint, by the way. Lament goes upward to God. It's called prayer. Complaint goes outward to people, it becomes poison. And some folks listening have been addicted to being perpetually aggrieved. There's always something you are whining about. There's always something. You're like, oh, my life. Nothing has ever been easy for me. Most of the time, that's decisions that you made. That ain't about a God thing.

We always want to put it on God.

Complaint goes outward to people, and it becomes poison. You'll always have people. Listen, there's no shortage of people you can complain to. How you doing? Well, I'm all right, but ain't you know ain't no use in complaining.

Nobody's gonna listen anyway. You always have a host of people that will commiserate, who will who will join you in your misery. Always.

There's a bevy of people, but only one place where complaint actually leads somewhere. Choose the right direction for your pain. Number three, if you're writing these down, you're not responsible for producing the deliverance. Stop believing that you're responsible for the deliverance. We're gonna hear in in in not too long, we're gonna hear about Jeremiah. Not one single convert. Did exactly what God told him to do.

Somebody.

You, this is number three. You are not responsible for producing the deliverance. You're responsible for the obedience. Do it to the best of your ability.

This is the one that'll set you free if you actually believe it. Look, I'm gonna give you a real example here.

And you may not like it. My wife reminded me the other night that we watched a little clip of video of a guy who's saying, look, you can you can get millions of subscribers just using your iPhone. That's it. Well, you know, I'm a little bit of a not a perfectionist, but uh I want to do things well. I want to do them with excellence. If I'm gonna do it unto the Lord, I want it to be excellent. I want it to be easy to listen to. I want the sound to be excellent. That's why I always ask about the sound. I want the video quality to be excellent. And I've invested heavily in all this stuff. We have invested heavily in all this stuff. I'm on a fixed income. Might not have been the smartest thing, but maybe it was. I felt the Lord leading me to do it. But I was frustrated for years. Yeah, I've been at this for years. I needed to be self-sustaining. I told the Lord, Lord, you're calling me to do this. I really believe you're doing it.

Well, it needs to be self-sustaining. I still am. I'm not modified.

I've hit the numbers, all the numbers except for the number of views. You got to hit 4,000 views in a rolling 365-day period. You have to hit it every rolling 365. So today you hit 4,000 and one. Tomorrow you got to hit 4,000. Next day you hit 3,999. Guess what? You're not monetized. You know how much money uh is in the till for me after all of these years? $100.14. For the month of June, one tenth of one cent. Why do you say, why do you tell me this? Because I'm studying my guts out. I'm researching my guts out. I'm writing my guts out, and I'm preaching my face off.

And none of the things that I needed to happen were happening. But every day I get a note from someone, some of you, saying, Look, I can't help you financially with it, but I tell you what. Every morning, I make sure I'm up and I pay attention, and it doesn't have anything to do with me.

I'm not responsible for producing the deliverance. That's a God thing. That's you and God. This is the one that'll set you free. But you have to believe it, you have to understand it. Moses wasn't responsible for Pharaoh letting Israel go. Come on. Moses was responsible for going. Go and talk to him. Tell him this. He was responsible for speaking. He was responsible for obeying. God was responsible for the outcome. That division of labor, it hasn't changed. Your job is faithfulness. His job is the result. And look, and you know, we're going to jump right over the word faithfulness. Covenant faithfulness. We're too quick. We move too quick past that. Being faithful isn't easy sometimes. But look, I'm going to tell you something. I've learned it the hard way.

When you try to carry both, the faithfulness and the outcome, you break under the weight. You break under the weight. Carry your half.

Trust God with His. He can handle it. Now I want you to know, all of this points to Yeshua. Because the pattern of the hard beginning runs all the way to the cross. And first of all, I I just you know, I gotta say this. I can't stand.

We take too lightly the cross. We take too lightly the torture and the suffering Yeshua endured on our behalf. He did not have to. Didn't have to do any of it.

If I were him trying to save me, I wouldn't have done it. I'm like, mm, Lord, I'll be back. I'm coming on right on. I'm back in heaven. These folks down here, mm-mm, at least this one, Sean Greener, mm-mm, nope. Nope. Hard nope. Hashtag, no deal.

So don't go quickly over the cross. It's not some slight thing. And not for nothing. Think of hisima. His mother, Miriam. Think of her. Thirty-three years before she gave birth to that little boy.

And she was a virgin. And she gave birth to him, and she she w watched him grow and she raised him and she loved him.

She taught him. Extraordinary. Utterly extraordinary. For Yeshua, the more he obeyed his father, God, it produced harsher conditions.

He came to his own, and his own didn't receive him. Look, he went to his own people. His kin. His own brother didn't believe he was, you know, the resurrected, the Hamashiach, the Messiah. He didn't believe it until he saw him after the grave, because he knew he died, because his mama saw it. But all grown up, he didn't believe it.

He came to his own, and his own didn't receive him.

He healed and he was accused of working by the power of the devil. He spoke the truth and was charged with blasphemy. He loved with everything he had, and he was betrayed by one of the twelve. He obeyed the Father perfectly, and the path of perfect obedience led to the Roman cross. Look, from the outside on that Friday, in the darkness, it looked like the worst possible outcome. Like God had sent his son into Pharaoh's court, and Pharaoh had won. God hadn't lost the plot, folks. He was accomplishing it. And Yeshua cried out from the cross, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That wasn't doubt. That was the deepest lament in human history. Going to the only one who could answer it. He didn't look at those people torturing him. Why are you doing this to me? He didn't ask that of them. He asked of God, why have you forsaken me? And he said, My God, my God. He went to the one who could answer it, Moses style, raw, real, and taken to the exact right place. And three days later, God answered so clearly, so eternally. The resurrection is Exodus 6. The empty tomb is the covenant speech that follows the hard chapter. The God who answered Yeshua's lament is the same God who answered Moses' lament, and he is the same God who will answer yours.

This is where it gets personal.

Don't let this be another episode that you've heard. Maybe you think it's good, maybe you think it, eh. Mets it, metza. Let it be something that you actually do today. Concrete obedience. First, name the hard beginning you're in. Don't fluff it over. Come on, somebody. Name the hard beginning you're in. That's number one. You got to start at the start. You can't change what you don't acknowledge. And you can't bring something to God that you're you lie. If you lie to yourself about it and you lie to him about it, well, sorry. It ain't happening. Where did you obey? And find yourself in harder conditions because of it. Don't spiritualize it into nothing. Don't call it a season. Man oh man, I hate hearing that. Well, I'm in a difficult season right now. That's churchy fluff language. There, you know, and the Hebrew word, technically speaking, for season is Moedim. It's an appointment. And it's it doesn't apply when you're having tough times. Name it for what it is. Don't give it some fancy churchy label. God can handle the real version. He handled Moses' version. He can handle yours. Second, take the lament to God first. Before you call the friend, before you post the thought, before you let it curdle into bitterness. Go to God with it today. Not after the episode, right now. Say what Moses said in your own words, but with Moses' honesty. Lord, why? I came, I obeyed, and it's even harder now. I don't understand. But I'm bringing it to you because you're the only one who can actually answer it. Number three. Number three, third, separate your faithfulness from the outcome. Write this down, say it out loud. Put it where you'll see it today and every day. My job is obedience. His job is the result. That's not passivity. That's the right division of labor. Stay faithful in what he gave you to do today.

He hasn't stopped working on the rest. I want to give you a moment to decide something. This is your challenge and your choice. I want to give you a moment. Breathe it in. I want you to breathe it in. I want to give you a minute to decide something.

Not tomorrow. Right now. You've been carrying something, a wound from obeying, a confusion from a hard beginning, a bitterness that has been building because you don't know what to do with what didn't go the way you thought it would. You have a choice about where that goes from here. You can keep carrying it sideways to people, to distractions, to anything that numbs it temporarily, or you can do what Moses did, take it straight to God. Pharaoh said no in Exodus 5. And in Exodus 6, it opens with God saying, Now you're going to see what I will do. Now you will see what I will do. Listen, the hard chapter always has a next chapter, but you have to keep going to get there. Keep going. And it would not kill you to put a smile on your face in gratitude. I'm not talking about pretending. I'm not pretending about faking it. But if your face is always downtrodden and you say you're a Christian, if you're a follower of the way, you're crabby. I got a news flash for you. People are waiting for a countenance of joy from Christians, from followers of the way, from people who claim that they have Jesus in their heart. I want you to pray with me. Father, in the name of Yeshua, thank you for Exodus 5. Thank you for your word. Thank you that your word doesn't pretend obedience is always immediately easy. Thank you that you gave us Moses, raw, confused, faithful, so that we'd know that honest lament isn't the same as faithlessness. Father, for everyone listening now, right now, for that person who's in a hard beginning, please, Father, tell them clearly this is not the end. I ask you to sustain their faith, protect their obedience. Let them bring the pain to you before it becomes bitterness for everyone who obeyed and is secretly wondering if you've noticed. You noticed, you see, you're already writing Exodus 6 in their life. I pray this in your matchless son's name, Yeshua. Amen. Before I close, I want to speak to someone who's watching or listening, and you're not sure you have what Moses had. You say, Oh, that's all good for Moses. That ain't me. You're not sure you have the access, that relationship, that place to take your wound. Moses could take his pain to God because he knew God. He'd been in the bush, he'd heard the name, he had a covenant, and that same access is available to you right now through Yeshua, Jesus. If you've never surrendered your life to him, today, right now, is the day. Not because everything will immediately get easier, but because you'll never face the hard chapters alone again. I want you to pray this with me.

Pray it with me. Talk with God. He's listening. Yeshua. Yeah. Just talk to him. I believe you died for me. And rose from the grave. I surrender my life to you today. Forgive me. Fill me. Lead me. I am yours. Amen. Look if you just prayed that. Welcome. Welcome. You have questions? You don't know what to do next?

Contact me. It's free. True WordFaithforLife.com. Contact. Little button up at the top, little thing on the side. I make it easy. Doesn't cost you anything. I pay so you don't have to. Look, and for everyone who's been following this series, if this is your first episode, you can listen as we go, but go back to day one. We're building something here. We're building something big here. Every chapter connects. You don't want to miss what's already been laid. Subscribe. Follow. Tell somebody.

This is day 58, and there's a long road ahead. Pharaoh said no.

The people blamed Moses, but Moses took it to God, and God answered. The hard chapter always has a next chapter. The lament always has an answer coming. The deliverance is already in motion, even when all you can see is Exodus 5. Keep going. Keep going. Take the wound to God. And then wait for Exodus 6. If this episode has blessed you, share it. I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to. Have social media for a reason. And it ain't for all that other crap. If Exodus 5 is where someone you know is living right now, send this to them. Someone who's they've obeyed. They're watching things getting harder, but they've obeyed. Someone who's starting to wonder if they got it wrong. What did I get wrong? Someone who's been taking the wound to everything except the one who can actually answer it. Tell them the hard chapter has a next chapter, and God has not lost the plot. Send it today. Now, I'm going to pray an ironic blessing over you.

I'm going to pray it in Hebrew, the language of God. And then I'm going to translate it in English for you. I'm nobody special, but I want you to hear this.

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Until tomorrow morning, the last time we'll be together. For for quite some time. Tomorrow's episode you do not want to miss. Until then. Shalom shalom. Shalom elecum.