WHY DO BAD CHOICES STICK?

Well, here we are. Happy Mother's Day. One of the hardest callings ever. I don't know how y'all do it. I'm impressed. Most mothers, I just blows my mind. So I have mothers in my family. Miss Colleen. I have my daughter. I'm not going to say her name because I don't want to violate her privacy, but my daughter, excellent mother. Her mother, excellent mother. And uh Anne, I don't think you would mind if I said your name. You're an excellent mother, grandmother, great grandmother, Lynette, excellent mother. There's many out there that are phenomenal. Phenomenal moms. God bless you. May you, I pray you've been celebrated today. I pray you have. Deserved. Anywho, here we go. Are you ready? I'm not fooling around. Why do bad choices stick? Why? Why do they stick? You make a bad choice. It's different. You make a good choice, and sometimes a good choice. You know, sometimes a good choice. By the way, how's it sound? Sometimes a good choice is, you know, we think about it and we revel in it for a minute. Maybe it was an answer to prayer. I don't know. I don't know your life. But then we forget about those. But a lot of times the benefit we perceive, you know, we perceive this benefit. I made a good choice. I'm proud of me. Yay, me. You know, you make a good choice, and you're like, that wore off kind of quick. But the bad choices, these just seem to stick. They're tricky. I don't know what to tell you about it. Other than this podcast. So I guess I do know what to tell you about it. This podcast. So what if the consequence you hate is the mirror you need it? I don't know. You know your life. I don't know yours. What if the thing, apparently I'm the only one answering, asking questions right now. What if the thing you're angry about right now? It isn't God abandoning you, but it's God finally letting you see what your what your choices have been doing to you. All right, I'm on a roll. I'm gonna ask another one. What if the tension in your marriage, the ache in your family, the regret in your chest, exhaustion in your spirit, and the pattern you keep repeating, what if they aren't random? What if all those things aren't random? What if God is exposing the mess because he loves you too much to let you keep calling bondage wisdom? Well, this week in Genesis, we watched a family implode. Did we not? Between Monday and Friday at 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, between Monday and Friday, holy moly did they implode. And it was rough to read for me. It was emotional for me to read. Look, I I I I've and maybe you think this is weird. Maybe you do, huh? No, I'm sorry if you don't. I'm a weird guy. So if if you've got all queued up to text me in the live chat, you're weird. Thank you. Thank you, sound person. You're weird. Well, say that. Save your fingers, save your effort because, well, I know. But maybe maybe I am weird, but I definitely am. But but it troubled me. It made me sad. I owe these people a lot. I don't know if you feel like you owe them a lot, but I feel like I do. We as a people of faith most assuredly do. Isaac trembled, and by trembled I mean he he was terrified. What have I done? I've done the unfixable. I've done the unfixable. I don't know what to do. There really isn't anything I can do. I've done the unfixable. So he trembled, he vibrated, he it broke my heart for him. Eh, okay, he made his mistakes. Rebecca manipulated. Look, I liked Rebecca, but she manipulated. Call that what it is. Sorry, I was still bummed out. Jacob deceived, bummed out about that one too. But this next one, this next one, it gutted me. Esau wept. Esau wept. I don't know what to say about that one. That one was tough because the guy's a hunter. He gets after it, he feeds everybody, right? Feeds everybody. Hunter's the only one that feeds. You say, well, the farmer feeds. The farmer's farmer's blah blah blah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The farmer feeds. But you don't live in the wilderness without protein. Well, actually, there's a lot of protein up in all them vegetables. Y'all just don't even know. You know. You need protein. If you're fighting, you know, big, dangerous, deadly animals. You're doing hard physical labor every single day. All day. There's no grocery stores, folks. It's all down to the hunter and the farmer. And he wept because he was tricked twice by people that were supposed to love him. Look, I'm not saying he was perfect. He wasn't perfect. I don't for a moment think that he was perfect. Laban exploited. I used uh during the episode, I used the, I said, you know, uh Jacob was like a used car salesman, but and I said, no shade on used car salesman, that's a hard job. I have to tell you, Laban really was the dude for that. It was Laban. He exploited him. He exploited the fact that he knew he would do it. He would, he would, he, okay, I want, I want Rachel. I don't want Leah. I want Rachel. And he knew, you know, his family line, you gotta do what you're supposed to do, man. And Leah ached. She wanted to be loved. She wanted to be wanted, first of all. She's the sister that wasn't chosen. And that'll gut you if you've ever been in that place. But Rachel envied. You know, you think about it. I mean, would you be able to do it? Sisters with her. Well, I'm not talking about sister wives either. I'm talking about she didn't, she wouldn't be the only one. But then her d her own, you know, her own father tricked, manipulated, connived, schemed. It's a bummer. It's a bummer, and she had to she had to deal with that. There was no getting around it. There was no getting away from it. Can you imagine? There was no escaping. There was no turning it around, changing it. There was no Murphy or uh Mulligan or Doover. She had to live with it. Look, Rachel, Rachel loved Jacob too. I don't think Leah was a bad person. I can't throw stones at her. God bless her. She was in a exceptionally, exceptionally difficult, difficult way. I don't I just don't know how you manage that situation. She did. She was envious. You know, Leah goes in, you know, he goes into Leah's tent, but then he's gotta come go into Rachel's tent, but he didn't want to. Anyway, I don't have to make that one. And he didn't love it. He didn't love Leah except for the fact that he loved her as a human being. As time went on. Right. Jacob. Jacob the deceiver woke up one morning and realized he'd been deceived. In the dark, he did his own share of deceiving, right? You remember that. It did not go well. He woke up and realized, whoa, wait, what? Leah? What was reserved and held on to for all those years? He gave to Leah unknowingly.

You say, oh come on, oh come on. There was no way he didn't know. He was just trying to get two wives, two women to get with. Oh come on.

You know how dark it is in a tent with no lights? No light outside, no light in the tent. Probably a little triple. You know, it's probably a little trick-o-oo going on there. Jesus loves you too. Sumita 55. Jesus loves you too. Welcome to everybody. Welcome to everybody. All the different places listening. Glad you're here. So Jacob the Deceiver, he wakes up and realizes, oh man, the deceiver's been deceived in the dark. That's not ancient family drama. That's life. That's life then. That's life then. It was wild. It was wilderness. It was. I mean, I tried to, during the week, during the episode, I tried to really lay it out for you what the what the ancient people what it was about. I mean, it was tricky. That was real life. You know what? That's the bill that comes due when appetite gets a vote. Look, man, when appetite gets a vote, that's what happens. That's the damage done when fear gets the microphone. That's what happens when wounds become strategy. Strategery. That's what happens when wounds become strategies. That's what happens when people try to grab by deception what God promised by covenant. Bad choices stick. Bad choices stick because they don't stay where you made them. That'd be great, wouldn't it? If I made a mistake back there, I don't have none of that has to come over here. No? Sorry. Slow down, slam dancer. Doesn't work that way. They follow you into the next room. They follow you into the next relationship. Welcome, whosoever 67, welcome. God bless you. They follow you into the next room. They follow you in the next relationship. They follow you into the next season. And sometimes they follow you into the next generation. That's reality. How does white Jesus love me? Well, first of all, Jesus wasn't white. That's A. And B you should find better things to do with your time. Grow up, dude. Grow up. So here's the terrifying mercy of God. He'll let your choices catch up to you. Not because he's done with you, but because he's still forming you. And they'll hurt. Welcome to True Word, Faith for Life. I'm Sean. This is our Sunday summation and deepening through the Bible in a year. Walking the story of God. Tonight we're not just reviewing episodes. We're not just going, well, that's time, that's time. I mean, then we talked about, no. We're tracing the thread that God's been pulling throughout the whole week. Genesis 27 through Genesis 30 shows us one hard and holy truth. God's Murphy. Look. Look. Amen. Amen. Box alt the Axolotal. Man, I don't know what that means, but I like it. Jesus died for you and me, and he loves you, and it isn't too late to come to him. You can spend eternity with him. Amen. Choices have consequences. Look. Genesis 27 through 30. It shows us one very difficult, hard, and holy truth. God's mercy often arrives as exposure before it arrives as relief. That's why we're asking this one burning question. Why do bad choices stick? Why do bad choices stick? And before we go any further, you can do it if you want. You don't have to. Nobody's compelling you. I'd love for you to, but hey, it's your business. Your business. I have a real job. Tell me in the comments, where have you seen God use consequences, not to destroy you, but to wake you up? And yes, this episode is brought to you by my book. It's my latest book, True Word Faith for Life. You can find it at the store at True Word FaithforLife.com. True Word, Faith for Life. It should be hard to remember, all of these things. They're all true Word, Faith for Life. Look, this book was written for people who don't want religious performance. They want faith that actually holds up when life gets real. And it gets real. You know it, I know it. Let's pray. Father, may every word land where it needs to land. May the weary today hear hope. May the convicted hear mercy. May the drifting hear the call home. May the proud meet the mirror. May the broken meet Yeshua Jesus Christ. And in his name I pray it. Amen. So let's begin with the honesty of Genesis. Look, Genesis doesn't pretend the Covenant family was some sort of clean, polished, and spiritually impressive folk. That matters. They weren't. Life was hard then, by the way. Somebody sent me a message about my uh thumbnails. I take a lot of time to design the thumbnails and do them. I'm no AI wizard. Um, I'm learning. And um so, you know, I'm getting better here and there. But I take a lot of time with them because it matters to me. You know, it matters to me. I think it's important. So that said, I feel pretty strongly that they're coming along. Well, somebody said they sent me a comment. They didn't they didn't post it publicly. They posted it, they sent it to me as a comment on TrueWordfaithfullife.com, clicking on slash contact. They they left on contact. And they said, Why? This is I'm imagining the voice. This is probably not correct. Why do you all the time, why are you all the time putting them dirty faces on these people and dirty clothes? And their clothes is all wrinkled, and they they got torn clothes and stuff. Why you always put them in a nasty suit of clothes and they dirty all the time? Why they dirty all the time? They hair all messy. Yeah. So I sent a note back. I don't know what gender the person is, don't guess it matters, but I sent a note back saying, would you like me to clean these up? Is that what you're asking me to do? Because, you know, they weren't clean, God bless you. They weren't clean. I mean, they have showers and hot tubs and whatnot. Water was at a commodity. They learned as they went about the importance of hygiene. And quite frankly, they worked super, super hard. I'm sure they had their ways of dealing with it, but bottom line is in the ancient Near East, where this is happening, was gritty. It was a gritty life. And it's important for you to know that. I want to depict it as accurately as I can. Although this past week, there was actually, I threw one in on you to see if anybody caught it. And so far nobody's mentioned it, but I put modern clothes and modern haircuts, modern look. It's anachronistic. I put it in there in the scene. So anyway, make acronyms great again. I love that. I love that. I know it. That's a joke, grenade. Hello to you as well. To all of you. Look, some people think the Bible gives us plastic saints, no, flawless heroes, flowing hair. Well, as the one guy said, you know, white Jesus. How does white Jesus? That cracks me up. He wasn't white, but anyway. But what difference does it make? That's just a way of getting around coming to him, and it's massaging of everything. Um that's just a way to stay perpetually aggrieved. You know? I just don't live my life like that. There's no point in that. Anyway. Look, we don't have flawless heroes. We haven't we haven't been given those. The scriptures don't give us that. If you read it and you understand it, which is I'm trying to make it easier for you to understand accurately. Man. We don't have religious examples who never struggled like we do. Noob, hard noop, hashtag noop. Genesis gives covenant people a dysfunction in the kitchen, fear in the tent, manipulation in the marriage, and rivalry among children, grief in the bedroom, resentment at the family table. That's why, that's one of the reasons why it's so trustworthy. The Bible is so trustworthy. It doesn't sanitize its own saints, doesn't sanitize its own characters, its own people. It tells the truth. And this past week, the truth was heavy. There was nothing easy about this. In Genesis 27, Isaac is old. It says his eyes are dim. The covenant blessing, it's about to be spoken. It is about to be spoken. And in the ancient Near East, in the ancient Near Eastern world, a father's blessing wasn't some sort of casual sentimental prayer before dinner. You know, it carried inheritance. Carried everything. Inheritance, household authority, family direction, covenant identity, and not for nothing, future destiny. So in that world, the blessing functioned almost like a legal transfer of household future. Words mattered. Spoken words carried weight. So when Rebecca hears Isaac preparing to bless Esau, she moves fast. She knows what God said before the boys were born. The older would serve the younger. She knew what that said. Jacob, not Esau, was tied to the covenant line. But Rebecca does what many of us do. She believes the promise. Don't get it twisted. But she doesn't trust the process. She believed the promise, but she didn't trust the process. You gotta let that land. You gotta let that land. She believed what God said, but she feels responsible to make it happen by manipulation. How many of us have lived there? How many of us have been there? How many of us are there right now? We say we trust God, but then we grab the steering wheel. Jesus, take the wheel. Well, hold on in a minute. In just one second, let me well one minute long. I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna drive and turn, make this turn, make that turn, make that turn. Oh, and turn around. And wait, hold on, Jesus. You don't have to take the wheel. I'm never mind what I was saying. If it doesn't go good, take the wheel and fix it. Like it never happened. We say we trust God, but we grab the steering wheel. We pray, then we panic. We believe, then we scheme. We claim faith, then manage people, pressure outcomes, hide facts, soften the truth. We exaggerate details and we call it wisdom. Thank you, Talon Lacey 1302. How kind of you. Look, she's a covenant woman acting like God needs help. That's dangerous, right? We think that God needs help, right? We say, oh, well, let me just do this part. I know you said to do this, this, and this, but I'm just gonna do this part a little bit different. A little bit different. No? I said to do it this way. I said do this, do it this way. We did it back then, we do it now. Amen. Yoko Bed. Let go of the wheel. Look, she acted like this covenant woman acting like God needs help. That's dangerous. Because the moment you think God needs your deception or mine to fulfill his promise, you've already stepped out of covenant trust. Then Jacob enters the story. And and Jacob says something quite gently. He doesn't first say, This would be wrong. He says, in effect, what if I get caught?

What if I get caught?

That's the difference between conviction and calculation. Conviction asks, is this right before God? But calculation asks, can I get away with it? That's not just Jacob. That's us. When the heart is bent, the mind becomes a lawyer. No offense to lawyers. We argue our way into compromise. We rename disobedience as strategy. We rename appetite as need. We rename fear. Well, I'm just being cautious. Hey, we re- we rename everything. We rename manipulation as leadership. We rename impatience as discernment. And before long, after we've done all that co-option of the vernacular, before long, we're not asking whether we're faithful. We're asking nervously whether we'll suffer consequences. But here's the thing. God's world is moral. That is. We cannot like it. We could not like it. We could not like it all we want. We never like it. We never like it. We say we do. Well, I I am very appreciative of a moral God. I'm so thankful.

Well.

Look, we say we want a moral God until it turns on us. Look, you may dodge exposure for a season, sure. Sure, you could. You do. But you don't ever dodge formation. What you practice forms you. What you hide shapes you. What you excuse trains you. What you feed grows teeth. Jacob gets the blessing, but he doesn't get peace. He gets the words, but he loses the house. He gets the outcome, but he has he has to run. He has to run. Imagine. That's the cost of grasping. Hello there, Miss Carolyn. So nice to see you. You've made it alive. That's cool. Good to have you. Good luck with your Satan worship under Boss 25. Good luck with your Satan worship. And by good luck, I mean I pray to God you turn around and place your faith in him. Before that moment your heart stops beating. Eternity for you will not be good. Look, that's the cost of grasping. That's the cost of grabbing by deception what God intended to give in covenant timing. Sin always charges more than it advertises. The invoice is always more than what it was advertised. It shows you a shortcut, then it hands you a bill. It promises relief. Then it creates exile. Promises control. And then it leaves you running. Alright, are you ready? Here we go. Take a deep breath. Here we go. Then Esau enters. And this is where we need emotional honesty. Esau's cry is devastating. The man wept bitterly. It devastated me. I'm telling you, every time I read it, it brings me to tears. He wept bitterly, I wept bitterly. I felt horrible for him. I feel horrible for him now. Okay, not perfect. The man's not perfect. But imagine how hard he had to bust his hump to feed all those people. Ingrates as they were. His cry is devastating. He wanted the blessing. He wanted the blessing. And he worked his tail off. Not necessarily earn it, you know, being firstborn, but earlier he despised his birth rate for a bowl of flippin' stew. Red lento, I think. He made he just, I'm telling you, it blows my mind. It blows my mind. He despised his birthright. He traded the firstborn right for a meal. He trusted the covenant weight of his place as something disposable. Yeah, he he did. But I said it during the week. What about what about his brother? He knew how hungry the man was. He knew he was out there hunting in very dangerous circumstances for days and days and days at a time. He knew what he was facing, but but he didn't care. He manipulated him. He knew he's the reason he eats protein. Didn't care. He just didn't care. He was a conniver. He was sneaky. He could have said, hey man, I have some stew here. You look hungry. Because he came in saying, Woof, I need to eat. Here, let me get you some food. I got food right here. Tell you what, you take my bowl. You take my bowl. I can get another one. Let me get you some water, some clean water. You want some wine? Nope. Didn't do it. Saul him weak and took advantage. And that stinks. It just stinks. And Esau treated, I'm going to call it what it is, he treated the covenant weight of his place as something utterly disposable. And that had such a cost to him. Then later, when the blessing is gone, he wants the emotional benefit of what he once treated as worthless. Hey, that's a warning. There are moments in life when appetite speaks louder than inheritance. Appetite says, I need this now. And covenant says, remember who you are. Appetite says, one bowl won't matter. But covenant says one choice can reveal what you value. Appetite says, I'm tired, I deserve this. But covenant says, don't sell tomorrow because your stomach is loud today. Esau isn't merely hungry, he's spiritually careless. How many of us raise our hand and say, Yeah, I am. I have been. Yeah. Spiritual carelessness always looks harmless at first. Nobody wakes up and says, today I'm going to wreck my future. That's what I think I'm going to do today. No, they say, I'm tired. They say I'm lonely. They say I'm stressed. They say I've earned this. I've earned it. This belongs to me. They say God understands. Surely He does. And yeah, God does understand. But understanding isn't the same as permission. Mercy isn't the same as approval. Grace is not God pretending our choices didn't matter or that they don't matter. Grace is God meeting us in truth so that we can be made whole.

Yikes.

By the way, while you're taking a deep breath, I want to say, welcome to the Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and all the 27 others, literally. Wherever you get your audio podcast, I'm there. So you'll be listening to this on playback because we download the video. We separate it from the video and we download that. We do some editing to make it, you know, better for audio. And then we present it and it goes out. It takes a couple hours. But I appreciate it if you just click on whatever subscribe or follow and click on the little bell if you have it. And if there's a place to do a review, if you've been listening, you like what you hear, do a review. I'd appreciate it. I really would. Same as if you're listening on, I see many listening on YouTube. True Word Faith for Life with Dr. Sean YouTube channel, the primary channel. That's the one you want. It's got 4,000 and something subscribers on a small channel. And then um, of course, you can follow us at True Word Faith for Life with Dr. Sean on the Rumble channel. If you're you say, hey, I'm not a and by the way, hello to everyone listening on Facebook, Live, LinkedIn, X, Instagram. Yeah. Welcome to you all. It's good to have you. It's an honor to have you. How would we see the light if there's no darkness or righteousness without evil? You have a choice to do good or evil. Your choices have consequences. Oh man. Razor S2W. Amen, brother. Or sister. I'm sorry. That could be a lady. A lady. Look, God, grace is God meeting us in truth so we can be made whole. Then Genesis takes us into Isaac and Rebecca's home after the explosion. And it was an explosion. And I want you to notice something because it's important. Every single person in that tent loses something. Isaac loses the illusion that he can override God's direction through personal preference. Rebecca, what does she lose? Oh, only her son. She loses her son. Jacob loses home. Esau loses blessing. And the whole family loses shalom or peace. That's how sin works. That's how hurt habits and hangups work. It rarely stays with the person who chose it. I know. Trust me. I know the consequences of me being the one that did the wrong things. And the consequences as they've traveled away from me and into other people. That's how sin works. Hurts habits and hang-ups and how it works. It rarely stays with the person who chose it. Even in the case of suicide, trust me, I know suicide has touched my family closely. More than once. Even with suicide, you say, well, I'm just going to take myself out. Usually it's, I'm going to end my, I'm going to end your suffering because of me. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. It just starts a new kind of suffering. That's just one example of it rarely staying with the person who chose it. It leaks, it spreads, it touches the innocent people, the ones you'd never want it to touch. It wounds the people nearby that you think, oh, God, don't let this hurt them. And then it does. That's why the Bible never treats sin or hurts habits and hangups as merely private. It's never private. In a modern Western mindset, we often say, it's my life, it's my choice, it's nobody else's business. That's not the Hebraic worldview, my friends. In the world of the Bible, identity is communal, covenantal, and generational. Your choices don't flight, they don't float in isolation. They echo through households. They shape children. They alter marriages. They end marriages. They change trust. They weaken witness. They teach patterns. They build culture. You don't just choose for you. You choose into a web of relationships, and that's why covenant faithfulness matters. Because God's people aren't called merely to believe correct things. We're called to embody loyalty, truth, justice, mercy, fidelity, and trust in the living God. Man. Stuart Gorham, thank you for listening. I'm honored to have you as well as the others listening. I'm putting this on the broadcast. Solid, straight up. I talk about that a lot. The parallel tracks of good and evil. Good and evil travel. This is Stuart Gorham didn't say this. Good and evil travel on parallel tracks. God has placed consequences in nature itself. It's so what you reap. Only his mercy and grace through Jesus can deter. Amen. Look, we're called to embody loyalty, truth, justice, mercy, fidelity, and trust in the living God. Faith isn't an idea you admire. Faith is allegiance you live. You say, hey, I can't be perfect. That's why I've never placed my faith in Christ because I know I can't be perfect. I can't be like those people down at the church. Those people are perfect. They have the best haircuts. They have the right clothes. I can't afford different clothes. They have this and they have that, and they have the bumper stickers, and they have nice cars, and they they don't have the knot all tatted up and that blah, blah, blah. Whatever the case may be. It is a daily thing, folks. Walking it out. We fall down, we get up. Saints are just sinners who fall down and get up. Thank God. I'd have I would have no hope. No. Faith isn't an idea you admire. Faith is allegiance you live. Well, are you ready? Are you ready? Because we're going deeper and it's hard. Well then Esau says, I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna kill you. And believe me, Esau could. He was strong, he was tough, gritty. He knew. How to kill. Maybe even with his bare hands. He didn't need a weapon. Not to kill his brother. So Jacob runs. Who can blame him? But this is where mercy breaks through. Jacob is in fact guilty. Jacob is in fact afraid. Jacob is displaced. Jacob is sleeping on the ground with a stone near his head. And there in the wilderness, God comes to him. Not because Jacob earned it. Not because Jacob has suddenly become noble overnight. Not because Jacob finally has his life together. No. And that take that home to yourself if you think, well, I'm not perfect. I can't ever be perfect. That's why I'm I'm not. I can't, I don't, I don't want to place my faith in Christ. I don't want to become a follower of the way because I know I can't do it. None of us can. Join the club of none of us can. None of us can. Saints are just sinners who fall down and get up. Look, it wasn't because Jacob finally has his life together that God comes to him. God comes because covenant rests on God's faithfulness before it ever rests on Jacob's maturity. At Bethel, Jacob sees the stairway. Remember the dream, the ramp, and the connection point between heaven and earth. Angels of God ascend and descend. And the Lord stands there and repeats the covenant promise. Land, seed, blessing, presence, protection, return. Take a deep breath. I want you to hear this carefully. Don't let anything distract you right now, in this moment. God doesn't excuse Jacob's deception. And he doesn't excuse ours. But God also doesn't abandon, he doesn't abandon Jacob to it. He says, that's it. You're done. I'm done with you. I'm just done with you. I'm tired of you. I'm sick of you. And I'm not ever, I forgave you and forgave you and forgave you. I fixed everything. I gave you another choice. I gave you another chance. Chance after chance after chance. I'm done with you. God never does that to us. Thank God for Yeshua Jesus. And He doesn't abandon Jacob to his deception, to all the things that he has done wrong. That's mercy, folks. Some people think grace means God says, well, it doesn't matter. No. Grace means God says it matters more than you know, and I'm still not leaving you in it. God meets Jacob in the in-between place in that dash. He's not home anymore. He's not at the destination yet. Guilty behind him. Uncertain before him. Stone under him. Heaven above him. That's where many of us are right now. You're between what what you broke. You broke it. It has come to your attention that when you blamed everybody else, you you you you insisted on blaming everything and everyone other than you. Ask me how I know. Been there. And finally, finally, after all that, after all that, you you said, wait a second. Wait a second. It's me. It's me. I did it. I did this. I'm the one that broke it. I'm the one that did the wrong thing. I'm the one whose hurt habit or hang-up jacked this whole situation up. And many of us are there. We've realized it. We've said, ooh, it was me. You're between what you broke and what God is building. You're between regret and restoration. You're between old patterns and new obedience. You're between the person you've been and the person God is forming. Look, if that's you, don't despise the wilderness. Don't despise the wilderness. Sometimes the wilderness is where the noise finally gets quiet enough for you to hear God and say. You can look, let me, I'll give you an example. My own personal life. I was did wildlife photography professionally. I sold, I still sell my stuff at our store and online and other places. There's links in the show description. Not for nothing. Then I got hurt. I couldn't do that anymore. But I used to go out into the wilderness, just me and my dog Buckeye. Almost always just me and her. Man. I'm telling you, when it's just you and him in the wilderness, things get real. Right? Things get real. And that's where I did most of my real praying. And that's where he confronted me and said, hey, this jacked up business you got going on. That's you. That's you. That's on you. That's not anybody else's fault. You can't blame past relationships for why you're where you are now. You can't blame this or that for the choice you made and the consequence that comes from it. You can't. Many of us were between the person we've been and the person God is forming. And look, if that's you, do not despise the wilderness. The wilderness. Sometimes that's that's where the noise finally, finally gets quiet enough. It gets quiet enough for you to hear God say to you, to you, I was quiet enough. I'm still here. Then Jacob reaches the region of his relatives, and we come to the well. And look, wells in Genesis are never just scenery. Thank you. She said, Buckeye. Carolyn said, Buckeye, great name for your dog. Wonder where I got that name. She was honestly, I have a great dog now, but she was honestly the best dog I've ever had in my life. I've had great dog after great dog, Buckeye, 14 years by my side. Wonderful dog. I miss her every day. I know you might think that's crazy, but I do. She was she was amazing. Not just for what she could do, but just how she was. Best personality. So I agree. I love nature. Love it. I love the creator for what he created, and and I called it sanctuary. When I would go out into the wilderness, I called it sanctuary. Amazing. So I said a second ago about Jacob reaching the region of his relatives. Okay, he had people. And I mentioned about wells in Genesis, never just scenery.

Hey, hmm.

In the New Testament, there's a lot of things that happened at Wells. Water, it was life. You didn't have water in 127 degrees Fahrenheit. You were gone. You were dead. You didn't last a day. Neither did your livestock. You had to have water and lots of it. In the ancient Near Eastern world, wells were life. It meant your flock would survive. It meant your family would survive. It meant you had a household future because there were whole entire lines that disappeared because they didn't have water. You know what? Water also meant hospitality. It meant water meant contested blessing. Water meant the place where lives intersected. Everything happened at the well. Because everybody, everybody, no matter who they were, everybody had to have water. Life and death. And you know, Abraham's servant, I talked a lot about that in that episode. Abraham's servant found Rebecca at a well. Isaac's servants contended over wells. Jacob meets Rachel at a well. The Bible keeps bringing us back to water because life depends on what you draw from. And that question is still alive today. What are you drawing from? Fear? Appetite? Approval? Control? Anger? Old wounds? Social media outrage? Going from YouTube to YouTube. I'm going to look for something I disagree with. I'm going to hold, I'm going to find something I disagree with and somebody I can argue with and I can't. Social media outrage, same thing. Okay, political panic. Political panic. Family trauma. How about this? You've all seen them, maybe you are one of them. Religious performance. You look good. Sound good. Or are you drawing from the living God? Jacob sees Rachel and he moves the stone. It's dramatic. It's emotional. It looks like the beginning of such a beautiful story. But Genesis, it doesn't let romance cover formation because Jacob, he has now arrived at Laban's house. And Laban, he's going to be a mirror. He is going to be the mirror Jacob did not ask for and didn't want. Jacob didn't just meet Laban. He doesn't just meet Laban. Jacob meets himself in another man's clothing. Jacob the deceiver meets a master manipulator. Jacob, the man who used to disguise in the dark, he used a disguise in the dark, is fooled in the dark. The same guy. Same guy. He gets fooled in the dark. Jacob, the man who took advantage of his father's blindness, wakes up unable to believe what has happened to him. That's not karma. That's not karma. This is formation. Look, the Bible, the Bible isn't teaching some impersonal cosmic payback system. No. It's not that at all. The Bible is showing the moral governance of a personal God who forms his covenant people through truth, exposure, pressure, and mercy. And sometimes mercy has teeth. God lets Jacob feel the weight of being on the receiving end of deception. Have you ever been there? You were the deceiver, and then you got deceived. Why? Why does God permit this in Jacob? Because some lessons can't be learned through information. They have to be learned through exposure. I say often, we do not change from seeing the light. We change when we feel the heat of the flames of the torch. They have to be learned through exposure. God whispers to us in our pleasure and he shouts to us in our pain. You can know lying is wrong and still not understand what it does to a soul until someone lies to you. Oh, you know, you know, you you do all these things, and then all of a sudden it happens to you. Somebody does it to you, and suddenly you realize, oh man. That doesn't feel good. I get it now. You can know manipulation is wrong and still not feel its violence until someone uses you. Until someone uses you the way you've been using people. You can know favoritism hurts and still not repent until you watch a household fracture under it. I asked the question during the the um the episode when when I was airing the actual episode during the week. I said, you know, who's your favorite? If you got more than one child, who's your favorite? You know, my mom was amazing. She did the best she could with what she had. Circumstances she was she was in were not good. They were not easy. And everybody thought I was the youngest of five. Everybody thought I was the favorite. I wasn't. Not by a long shot. That's not just what we're talking about here. God's goal isn't to humiliate Jacob, by the way. God's goal is to transform him. And transformation, most often, it begins when God lets us experience the world we've been helping create. Genesis 29. Oof. Oof. It's brutal in its honesty. Jacob works seven years for his bride. Seven years. That was the deal. Seven years. The text says those years seem like only a few days because of his love for her. Wow. Right? That's we all want that. Man, the time just flies when I'm with you. Then comes the wedding feast. Look, in that world, marriage wasn't merely private. It wasn't some sort of private romance between two individuals. It was family allegiance, economic arrangement, covenantal responsibility, household expansion, and social obligation. It was all that. The veil, the feast, the nighttime transfer. And the Father's authority created the setting where Laban could weaponize custom against Jacob. And then morning comes. And behold, it was Leah. That lands like a hammer. That line. And behold, then morning comes, and behold, it was Leah. Seven years he labored, not just to have sex with her, but to be husband and wife. And in that culture, you're not married really until you consummate the marriage. And that happens right then. I mean, during the wedding, you kind of the party was drawing down a little bit. Maybe he had a few wines here and there. I don't pretty sure he was a red wine guy. Maybe a cab merlot. Morning comes, and behold, it was Leah, seven years of his whole life. Ruined. Morning exposes what darkness concealed. That's a whole sermon just by itself. Morning exposes what darkness concealed. Jacob confronts Laban as you would imagine. Can you imagine? Laban answers with local custom. He goes, It is not so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn. What? Are you kidding me? Do you hear the sting in that? The younger before the firstborn. Come on. He came out grasping his brother's heel. Trickery got him the blessing, the inheritance. The younger before the firstborn. Jacob spent his entire life in the tension of younger and older. He took the place of the older. He received what belonged to the firstborn. And now Laban turns the language back on him. That's not accidental. Look, the Bible is brilliant. God's word doesn't shout where a whisper will do. Jacob is being confronted by his own story. Isn't that often how God gets our attention? Not with thunder, with recognition. A phrase, a pattern, a repeated wound, of repeated conflict, a repeated consequence. A person who treats us the way we've treated others. Anybody? Anyone out there? Have you been there? I have. This is the moment where we say, why does this keep happening? And heavenly qu heaven quietly asks, are you ready to stop blaming everyone else? And look at what this is revealing. Then we need to talk. We need to talk about Leah and Rachel. Sisters. Two brothers at enmity with each other, Esau and Jacob, and now Leah and Rachel. And look, I don't throw any stones at Leah. Leah was lonely. She was lonely. And look, if you rush past this, if you rush this whole thing between Leah and Rachel, if you rush past that, you miss the heart of God. Leah isn't love like Rachel. She isn't. Look all that what it is. Rachel's loved, but she's barren. Leah is fruitful, but she's aching. Leah's womb, fruitful. She got babies all day long. One after the other. But she's aching for love. True, real love. Being wanted. Rachel's cherished. She does ready. She desperated. She just wants. And she can't have one. Seems so automatic, right? Doesn't it? Seem so automatic to us. Well, you just have a baby. Go do the deed. Have the baby. Easy peasy. Now for Rachel. And listen, when you were barren in that world, the ancient Near Eastern world, that was something. That was something. Rachel is cherished. She is. But she's desperate. And compassion turns, look, both women were in pain. And come I'm sorry, not compassion. Comparison. Comparison turns both women's pain into rivalry. Leah is given away by her father in a scheme. Can you imagine being the woman? How I got my husband? Oh, how'd you get him? Well, see, it was dark and there was a bunch of wine and a wedding. Well, who was getting married? Oh, my sister. Oh, okay. And then, well, my dad came to me and said, hey, look, we sneak into this tent here and uh just don't say a whole lot, you know. Just go on and get with it. And then um, well, yeah, then so sorry. Too bad. You done it. So you're married. Oh, that's how you got married? Who's your husband? Oh, my sister's husband. Um. I don't know where Rachel was during all this time. I don't know. I don't know. Probably a scheme to distract her, right? It's a bunch of scheming going on. Leah becomes part of a household where she's compared, measured, and emotionally diminished. Yeah, the only way I'm gonna get this daughter married off is if I tricked somebody. You imagine? You imagine how that made Leah feel. Bible says the Lord saw that Leah was hated or unloved, and he opened her wound, her womb. Don't miss that. God saw Leah, he sees you too. Look, in this ancient Near Eastern world, women were often valued through marriage, fidelity, household contribution, and sons. Look, you had sons. That was something. And Leah lived with a deep ache. She names her children from that ache. Reuben says, The Lord has looked upon my affliction. Simeon says, The Lord has heard that I am hated. And Levi says, now this time my husband will be attached to me. Judah says, This time I will praise the Lord. And that progression matters. Leah moves from trying to be seen by Jacob to knowing she has been seen by God. She moves from aching for attachment to praise. And Judah comes from Leah. The line of kings comes through Leah. Ultimately, Messiah, Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Messiah, comes from Judah. Do you see the mercy? The woman overlooked. She was overlooked in the household. She's not overlooked in the purposes of God. The one who feels second place her whole life is now carrying royal destiny. The unloved woman becomes part of the line through which Jesus Christ comes to us. Leah teaches us that being overlooked by people isn't the same as being unseen by God. You may be in that place. I don't know your life. But you may be in that place where you feel nobody sees you. Nobody sees me. Maybe you've got siblings that outshined you and in in athletics and academics and financial success. And they married well, and when you did get married, you didn't marry so well. And you have a lot of sorrow, a lot of strife, a lot of struggle, a lot of hurt. And everything seems so easy for them. But it's not. It's not. We always assume it's better for people than what it really is. We are very often wrong about that. Rachel teaches us that being loved by people doesn't remove every ache. You can be beloved by everyone around you and still have ache. You can still have a whole bunch of people around you and still be lonely. See, that's the poison of comparison. Comparison is the thief of joy. It turns another person's blessing into your accusation. Makes you unable to enjoy what God's given you because you're obsessed with what he gave someone else. It whispers, if she has that, God must be withholding from me. It whispers, if he got that opportunity, I must be forgotten. It whispers, if their marriage looks strong, well, mine is worthless. It whispers, if their platform grows faster, mine doesn't matter. It whispers, if their children are doing well, well, I must have failed. Comparison is a thief. It is a thief of joy. But in a covenant worldview, blessing isn't some limited commodity God runs out of. God isn't poor, God isn't panicked, God isn't rationing mercy because heaven is low on supply. The question isn't why did why did they get something? The question isn't that. The question is, will I trust God with my portion, my pain, my formation, and my obedience? Think on that for a minute. Excuse me. Look, Rachel's pain is real. Leah's pain is real. Jacob's formation is real. Laban's exploitation, it's real. God is working in the middle of all of it. That's the scandal of Genesis. That is the scandal of Genesis. God's covenant moves through messy people, wounded homes, complicated marriages, wrong motives, painful consequences, and unfinished saints, which means he can work in your life too. Look, if he can work in their lives and work in my life, he can work in yours too. Now, let's bring this home. You don't have all night. By the way, we'll be here tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. I will look no better than I look now. Sorry. 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. We're here live Monday through Friday. Let's bring this home. By the way, if you go to True Word Faith for Life with Dr. Sean, S-H-A-W-N, the YouTube channel, and you click on um subscribe and then click on the little bell for all notifications. You'll get notified, you know, when I post that I'm gonna go live, boom, or any videos, and then you have easy access to everything there, and everything is free. TruewordfaithforLife.com. Everything there is free. I did a um companion blog post. I wrote a companion blog post and study guide, and it's a detailed study guide for this episode and this past week. I would encourage you to look at that. It's heavily footnoted, bibliography, the whole, the whole schmear. It's done in Terabian style. The only thing I ask is if you can copy anything you want, but everything I do is copyrighted. Everything. Everything audio, everything written. Ask me why. You know, I had lots of stuff stolen. So I knew to do that, unfortunately. So here we go. Look, if this episode stays in the ancient world, well, I haven't done my job. We've missed the point. This week was about choices catching up to us. But it was also about God catching us before destruction as the final word. Some of you are living in Genesis 27. You're trying to control an outcome because you're afraid God won't come through. You're pressuring people, you're hiding facts, you're managing appearances, you're saying, I'm just being practical here. But deep down you know you're scared. I understand. Some of you are standing over Esau's bowl of stew, and you're trading long-term calling for short-term relief. You're letting appetite preach sermons to you. You're letting exhaustion become your theology. You're letting loneliness become your counselor. You're letting anger become your authority. Listen, let me say this about loneliness. I've said this many times. I've done entire episodes, which are all available to you on True Word, Faith for Life with Dr. Shaw's YouTube channel. Go there. Everything is free. I've talked a lot about the power because I was I was a counselor and I dealt with a lot of people who made decisions that you couldn't make heads or tails of. And the reason they made the decisions were because they were just lonely. Once you peeled away all the layers, it was because they were lonely. And I've said a bazillion times. Fentanyl, heroin, all those things, dangerous, very addictive drugs. They cause destruction, but not like loneliness. Not like loneliness. Mr. Negative, that's funny. Orange sunrise. That's funny. Condemn yourself in silence. Well, maybe you should listen for a minute. Maybe you get the point. Look, don't let anger become your authority. Some of you are, you're living right now in Jacob's exile. You got what you wanted, but you lost peace. You lost Shalom. You won the argument. Sure, you won. But you damaged trust. You made the move, but now your soul is restless. You've protected yourself, but you've hardened your heart. You've escaped one problem and carried yourself right into the next one. Some of you are you're living in Laban's house. You're being used. You're tired. You're giving years to people who keep changing the terms. You're doing my cousin, my my dear favorite cousin Dave. You're doing the impossible for the ungrateful. They always used to say that. I'd say, how you doing? How you doing? He's a master plumber. He does the best plumber I've ever seen. He's great at what he does, and he's also happens to be my favorite cousin. And the fact is, there's no prize for that, being my favorite cousin, but some of the things he says are just priceless. Doing the impossible for the ungrateful. And maybe you're living in the middle of that. You're giving years to people, they keep changing the terms on you. You're wondering whether God sees you. Well, he does. He does. Some of you are Leah. You're doing your best, but you still feel unwanted. You keep hoping one more achievement, one more act of service, one more sacrifice, one more gift, one more child, one more success, one more change will finally make someone love you the way you ache to be loved. I've been there. God sees you. Some of you are Rachel. You're loved in one area, but barren in another. People think you have everything, but they don't know the private ache. You know, I've protected billionaires. Um, I've protected, you know, international, internationally known people who are regarded in the very highest regard. And thought of as, you know, billionaires, and well, they've got it easy. They've got everything. Maybe you're that person, maybe you're not a billionaire, but everybody around you thinks you have everything. You got it easy. But they don't know your private ache. God hears you too. And some of you, some of you, in fairness, are all of them at one time. You're afraid like Isaac, strategic like Rebecca, grasping like Jacob, hungry like Esau, used like Leah, desperate like Rachel, and manipulated, manipulated by Laban. And still, despite all of that, you are still pursued by God. Here's the deep truth. God doesn't merely forgive people so they can keep being deformed. He redeems us to transform us. And in Hebrew thought, faithfulness isn't some abstract some abstract belief floating in the mind. It embodied loyalty. It's covenant allegiance. It's walking in the way. You shouldn't call people to admire him from a distance. Well, that means your calendar comes with you. Your appetite comes with you. Your family patterns come with you. Your money comes with you. Your mouth comes with you. Your anger comes with you. Your online behavior comes with you. Your wounds come with you. Your excuses come with you. And then under his lordship, all of it gets confronted by grace. Not condemned into despair, confronted into freedom. That's why consequences can become mercy. When God lets the mirror show you what's really there, don't curse the mirror. Repent. When God lets the bill come due, don't only ask him to remove the bill, ask him what you kept buying. When God lets a pattern repeat, don't only rebuke the situation. Ask what the pattern is revealing. When God lets you feel the pain you've caused, don't sink into the shame. Let conviction lead you home. Shame says, hide. Conviction says, come into the light. Shame says, you are what you did. But God is calling you to be made new. Shame says, run like Jacob. But grace says, even on the road, God can meet you. And that brings us to the coming week. I'm excited. Tomorrow morning, Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Yeah, I know it's early. I know. What a way to start your day, right? So in the coming week, Jacob, his life isn't going to get simpler. It's about to get fuller. It's going to get louder, it's going to get more complicated, and it's definitely going to get more dangerous. Well, there's going to be more children, for sure, more rivalry, more manipulation, more wealth, more fear, more family tension, more evidence that blessing doesn't automatically mean maturity. God bless you too. Thank you for listening. Look, Jacob will eventually have to leave Laban. He'll have to face the past. And he will have to face Esau. And then before he can fully walk into the future, he'll have to wrestle. And that's where this is going. One long night is coming when Jacob will discover that the real fight was never only with Laban or with Esau. It was with God. God isn't merely moving Jacob geographically, by the way. God is forming him spiritually. And that may be exactly what God is doing in you. You keep asking, Lord, when will I get there? God may be asking, who will you be when you arrive? You keep asking, when will the door open? God may be asking, will you walk through it as a healed person or as a clever manipulator? You keep asking, when will they change? But God may be asking, will you stop using their dysfunction to avoid surrendering yours? You keep asking, when will this season end? God may be asking, will you let this season form what comfort never could? That's hard, but it's holy. There's nothing easy about it. But it's holy. But God loves you too much to give you a promised future while leaving your soul enslaved to the old patterns. He doesn't just want to bless your destination. He wants to redeem the traveler. You know, I have for you this summation episode of why do bad choices stick for last week's Monday through Friday. And here we are at a challenge and a choice. And this one this one isn't easy. There's nothing about it that is easy. I wish I could say that there's some easy part to it. There's not. I guess you could say the prayer is the easiest part. We have to understand the gravity of our choices. We have to understand the gravity of our decisions. So tonight, here's your challenge. Tonight, don't ask who caused this. First, ask, what is God exposing in me? Stop calling every consequence an attack. Sometimes it's not spiritual warfare. Most of the time it's decisions coming home to roost. Stop calling every single consequence spiritual warfare. Some consequences are harvest. Stop calling every exposure humiliation. Well, how could they humiliate me that way? Well, some exposure is mercy. Stop calling every delay rejection. I can tell you, and maybe maybe you can identify. By the way, Vandever79, you are most welcome. Thank you. Look, some exposure is mercy. Sometimes we don't change till it all comes crashing down. Stop calling every delay rejection. Look, we we we want we want the thing now, we want the job now, we want the this to work out this way and that way and this way, but we want it now. Some delays aren't rejection, some delays, in fact, I would say most delays are formation. Stop calling every painful mirror cruelty. Oh, you look at yourself in the mirror and you see clearly. Look, some mirrors are grace. So ask yourself plainly, where have my choices been catching up with me? Where have I confused faith with control? Where has appetite been making decisions? Where have I used fear as an excuse? Where have I called manipulation wisdom? Where have I wounded others while trying to protect myself? Where have I been angry at God for the very consequence he's using to wake me up? And then I want you to ask the deeper question. What would repentance look tonight? Not vague regret, not religious emotion, not I'll try harder. I'm talking about real repentance. A phone call, a confession, an apology, a boundary, a deleted contact that you know you should delete, a closed browser, a surrendered appetite, a truth finally told, a prayer. Finally, prayed honestly. A pattern finally made. A lie finally dragged into the light. A choice finally made under the kingship of Yeshua. Because the goal isn't to feel bad. But it's also not. Look, the goal is to become free. Be free of all that. God isn't asking you to perform some sort of shame ritual. He's inviting you into truth, and truth is where freedom starts. And maybe tonight the mirror has shown you something you can't unsee. Not just a bad choice, not just a painful consequence, a heart that needs rescue. Maybe as we walk through Jacob, Esau, Rebecca, Isaac, Laban, Leah, and Rachel, you've realized something deeper than I need to improve. I just, I need to improve, I need to get better, I need to be better. Maybe you've realized tonight I need to be rescued. Not rescued from responsibility, rescued from the old self that keeps choosing bondage and calling it survival. Maybe the consequence you've hated has become the mercy God used to get your attention. Maybe the mirror has shown you your fear, your appetite, your deception, your bitterness, your pride, compromise, and despair. And maybe for the first time in a long time, you're not asking God merely to fix what's around you. You're finally ready to let Him redeem what's inside you. That's where Jesus, Yeshua, meets real people, not polished people, not fake people, not people with perfect families and clean histories. I'm talking about real people like you and me. People with regrets, people with secrets, people with appetites, people with broken trust, people who've been hurt, and people who have hurt others, people who are tired of running from tent to tent, from excuse to excuse, from consequence to consequence. Yeshua didn't come to decorate your whole life, he came to make you new. And if tonight you know you need him, don't hide. Come home. Prayer isn't asking for an easy journey, it's asking for a strong back. And if you're ready to place your faith in Christ and finish this fight right now. Now's the time. Tonight's the night, right now. Pray this prayer with me and mean it. Father, I know I've done wrong things, and I need your mercy. Oh, how I need your mercy. I believe Jesus died for me, was buried, and rose again. And I bring you my sin, I bring you my shame, my hurts, my habits, and my hangups. Today I turn from my sin and I place my trust in Jesus as my Lord and my King. Please forgive me. Make me new, fill me with your spirit, teach me to follow you in truth. From this day forward, I want to walk in your way. In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, if you prayed that prayer in a minute, I'm super excited for you. Because this decision is the most important. Look, it's not the most important decision you made today. It's not the most important decision you made this year. Not even in your lifetime, in your existence, your eternity. You don't have to walk this road alone. You don't. You might be afraid of that, but you don't. Just reach out to me. I'll help you. True WordFaithforLife.com slash contact. There's not some hidden charge there. There's all kinds of resources, and there's me. You reach out to me through that. I promise you. I've helped so many. I've helped so many take their first steps as followers of Jesus. And I'd be honored to walk with you too. Whether you need help understanding the Bible, finding a Bible, finding a community of believers, learning how to even how to pray, or simply taking the next step. I can help you. And I will. That's all you need to do. So before we close, I wanna I want to leave you with this. I laughed because this Yehul. Please remove that false name of Jesus. Well, you lost me, fraud. That's one of those people that goes from see, people have their different thing. And and I tend to think they're either just too bored, they just don't, they're not industrious enough. So they go from YouTube to YouTube. This is how they spend their time. And they, well, let me find something I disagree with. And they have copied and pasted and all the things, and they just move them over and put them there and they try to disrupt. You might say, well, he was successful because he disrupted you. No, let this be a lesson. Let this be a lesson. Those people exist in your life. That same type of person will try to trip you up. If you've placed your faith in Christ tonight, he's he's he's one of those people who's never listened to this show. He's just gone from, you know, YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. He's looking for lives. There's a bazillion of them that do it. And his thing is, well, if you say Jesus, well, you're a fraud because it's Yeshua. Or Yeshua. The idiot knew two things about me. He'd know that ancient Near Eastern language, culture, and context is my specialty. But not everybody's gonna understand, especially in day one, in minute one of their faith. Not everybody's gonna understand this. Don't become like him. Don't be like Mike. Be like Jesus. Be like Yeshua. Little by little, as you listen to this channel, you'll learn the Hebrew words. I mean, his name wasn't Jesus, it was Yeshua, but you know him as Jesus. So that's how we'll introduce him to you. And little by little you learn all the words. Look, I want to leave you with this tonight. We'll be here tomorrow morning, 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Look, Jacob's choices caught up with him. Make no mistake. Let there be no doubt. Jacob's choices did catch up with him, but God caught Jacob too. And that's mercy. Look, your past, it may explain some things, but it doesn't have to own everything. Your wounds may have shaped you, but they don't have to rule you. Your consequences may be real, but they don't have to be final. It's just silly. Doesn't have to be final. Doesn't. Your consequences don't have to be final. Yeah, they have pain. And sometimes we it doesn't, it doesn't get turned around in such a way that we feel no pain from our what we've done. Consequences don't have to be final. Your story may be messy. Look, we can stipulate to that. Your story may be messy, but God isn't a He's not afraid, as evidenced by Genesis so far. He's not afraid of messy stories. So come out of hiding. Come out of hiding. Tell the truth. Break agreement with appetite. Stop helping fear lead. Let consequences become instruction. Let conviction become repentance. Let repentance become freedom. And let Yeshua form in you what shortcuts never could. Because Jacob's choices caught up with him. But God caught Jacob too. And if you'll if you'll stop running, he can catch you too. If this message touched your heart, share it. I can't imagine why you wouldn't. It's free. Think of one person who needs hope or truth and send it to them today. Post the link too. Your share might be the very thing that God uses to reach someone with his word. Until tomorrow morning at 7 a.m., this has been True Word Faith for Life with Dr. Sean. For more teachings, visit True Word FaithforLi.com. Until tomorrow at 7 a.m. Shalom Shalom. Shalom Aikum.