If We Perish

Todd Asaad: Thank you, um, Greg and Kathy.

Uh, so encouraging to be here with Orange County and all of our friends and

visitors that are here with us today.

A lot to say, uh, in a short amount of time.

Uh, do want to say a couple things really quick?

Um, you know, Greg and Kathy, we go back to Dallas days, I don't know,

25 years ago, 23, 25 years ago.

And I think, uh, our relationship, what I would say is, is an incredible

testament to God and his love for us.

Um, I think Greg and I, um, you know, we didn't have a great relationship

in, in Dallas, but because Greg is a disciple and I trying to be a disciple

is we've worked on our friendship over the last 15, 18 years and I could

absolutely say beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Um, that Greg is a great friend of both Patty and I and Kathy, and I'm

just so grateful for men and women like that, that are still standing,

uh, in their convictions of God.

And I have nothing but profound respect for Greg and Kathy and what

they've done and what they're doing.

Uh, one thing I'll add is that Greg got me to do something that no one

was a ever able to do in my life.

Um, as he mentioned, I'm a chiropractor by education.

I went to college for seven years to get my doctorate.

Uh, I was done with school.

I was tired, I was burnt out.

Uh, I was finished completely and Greg was such a huge

proponent to go back to school.

I mean, he wouldn't, he wouldn't nag me, but he would talk about the value

of it, and eventually he got me to go back and get a master's at a CU.

And I'm incredibly grateful again for that because I learned

so much, um, over the years.

Um, and because of his influence in my life, I'm very, very grateful.

So Pat and I, uh, we've been married almost 40 years, uh, baptized.

I was baptized in Chicago.

Uh, she was in Missouri, university of Missouri.

She's a journalism.

Okay.

Um, we've been outta the ministry now for three years.

Patty will share a lot about what's going on in our life.

Um, I'm now in real estate in Dallas, so if you move into Dallas, let me know.

Uh, yeah, so, and Patty's gonna share a little about our blog.

Uh, we might move here someday.

I don't know.

I know all the real estate agents and their hearts just dropped a little bit.

Great.

Another agent in Dallas are in LA but we'll see what happens.

Our oldest son and daughter, uh, daughter-in-law, uh, they're in

Dana Point now, maybe San Clemente.

We'll see how long.

Um, taxes and politics.

Keep 'em here.

Um, and maybe they go back.

I don't know, but we'll see.

So, amen.

Surrender.

Amen.

So the title of the lesson here is, if I Perish, I Perish.

It's about Courage in a Dangerous World.

And I know that, you know, we think about it is like, what lesson do you

do between Christmas and New Year's?

Well, a lesson on Esther is the way to go.

Um, now you read this book, it's a few chapters.

If you haven't read it lately, literally you can go home and

get it done, um, in, in literally half an hour if that 20 minutes.

Uh, and it's an incredible, powerful story, but it's over

a span of time of 10 years.

You read it and you're thinking, oh, it's a weekend.

It's, it's a couple days.

No, it's 10 years.

And we have this statement.

If I perish, I perish.

Uh, it's not that for a time such as this.

It's like, no, no.

We're gonna talk about if I perish, I perish.

Having courage in a dangerous world, you know, we don't live in a safe world.

It's uncertain, it's unpredictable, and often it is unfair.

And in our nature, we want long for and even demand safe places.

Oh, and I know probably a really good example is this Bucky's men's bathrooms.

How many of us in this room have ever been to a Bucky's?

All right.

Some of you have been blessed.

Many of you will be because they're taking over.

It is the amusement park of gas stations.

120 stations, they go in there Christmas time, you can't walk.

I mean, you're like walking like this.

And they have Bucky nuts, they have brisket, they have everything.

It's blow away.

And, and I was here to Bucky's and, and you know, this is the expectation.

You walk in the bathroom.

It's wide.

It's open.

You got pictures.

It's beautiful, it's clean.

This is what I expect in my world.

But see, but then you have reality.

And this is the women's restroom.

I'm sorry, this is the end of the line for the women's restroom.

And it was all the way down zigzagging all the way to the back of the wall.

And I was like, oh, I gotta take a picture of this because this is reality.

So in the Book of Esther, you see power abused.

Yes.

You see, truth was twisted and God's people were under threat, and in

that environment we have a faithful young woman, probably a teenager,

beginning this walk, responded with courage and a dangerous world.

Yeah.

Esther didn't wait for the world to calm down before she stepped up

and she made this simple statement.

If I perish, I perish.

In other words, what she was saying is that I may not survive

this, but I won't stay silent.

So Patty's gonna share,

Patty Asaad: you know, for years I've known the world was a dangerous

place, but until it hit my family, I didn't really think about it.

But before I go any further, I have to give a shout out to Emily Alexander.

She is our babysitter in Dallas, Emily.

Todd Asaad: Oh.

Patty Asaad: She gets kind of, you try to stand up, Emily, just to mess with you.

I love it.

And she comes over to our house.

She's over at our house several times a week and we hang out and she's

helping out with our granddaughter.

I just had to give her a shout out because I love, but back to Esther, I knew the

world was a dangerous place, but for the most part I was going along, just living

my life, having a good time, pretty much.

And I didn't realize how quickly things could change.

I mean, when my boys, we have two sons that are grown now when they

were in high school, it was just fun.

I remember sometimes at dinner time we would be laughing so hard.

It would be hard to get someone to stop praying long, laughing long enough to

say our prayers so we could go on eating.

We were just having a good time.

Well, when our younger son went away to college, we knew he wasn't doing well, but

we didn't realize how bad he was doing.

He was, he played college rugby.

And just loved it.

But he had some injuries and when he had injuries, you know, they, they put him in

the hospital and he was given opiates, and he felt like it flipped a switch on him.

Some people, I guess, are just more prone to that and his addiction.

I, I have his permission to share all of this.

He got hooked on the opiates.

He just loved it.

It never occurred to me in a million years that he would love the.

Because I don't, when I have surgery, I just wanna get off

of 'em as quickly as possible.

And it became so expensive, you know, having this addiction, trying to keep

it hidden that a friend told him, oh, you can get high on heroin for about

10 bucks and stay high for a couple of days, and he became a heroin addict.

Never did.

I think I would be the mother of a heroin addict.

And it's such a dark, ugly, shadowy world and I was trying to count it up and I know

of now of 19 friends of his who have died.

I mean, we're talking suicide, murder.

I mean, a lot of us, I didn't know anyone who had been murdered

before, um, suicide or overdosing.

But there for a while, I was to the point, every time he was living in

Austin, Texas, we live in Dallas.

Every time the phone rang from Austin, I would jump.

If I didn't recognized the number, I was so afraid we were gonna get that call.

And he's been in and out of rehab right now, actually.

He's doing well.

He's been clean for about a year and a half, but it has been a long,

long, long process and because of the consequences of addiction.

We are raising his daughter.

Um, the mother has addiction issues too.

We've had her since she was about six, six months old, and

our life changed overnight.

All of a sudden we'd been empty nesters for years.

We were in the ministry doing all kinds of things, traveling

all over the place, doing, just living our lives, a lot of freedom.

And then all of a sudden we had a six month old baby with special needs.

Because she was born with a heart defect, severe heart defect.

She had her first open heart surgery at three weeks, and right after we got her,

we had to start making long trips down to Austin for her to see her cardiac

team there because she was going to need another heart surgery, and they were

hoping they would be able to repair it.

But her issues were very, very complex and.

So we, she got the surgery, um, it was not successful and 'cause of

complications after that surgery, she had to be on a feeding tube and it was

something I never thought I could do.

I mean, going back to raising a baby again, I'm in my sixties

and I'm chronically ill, I have lupus, and I thought never in a

million years could I do this.

But God had made it so clear by the time we were asked, Todd and

I hadn't even talked about it.

The person said, would you be willing to keep her long term?

And we both in unison said yes.

Because sometimes God just calls us to thinks we have no idea how

we're gonna be able to do it.

We never saw it coming, but that's what we need to do.

And I'm not gonna say it hasn't been hard.

I'm gonna be talking about that.

So after her surgery, she had to be on this feeding tube.

And I remember when they told us that, I just cried.

I was afraid of that.

We had to learn how to drop a tube from her nose all the way

down her stomach to her stomach.

And some of you may be medical people and think, oh, that's easy.

That's just an NG tube.

Well, I'm not a medical person.

I know it was difficult and we were always so afraid we were gonna hurt

her, and we had to learn to drop this tube and then perform tests on it to

make sure that it was in her stomach and not her lungs, because if it

was in her lungs, we could kill her.

I was scared to death, and this is a tip by this point.

She's 10 months old.

She is a 10 month old baby.

Todd's fingers were just too big.

He couldn't do it.

So he would hold her down and, 'cause this was the only way she

could eat and I would have to feed this little tube through her nose.

Hope, hoping it's going down to her stomach every, they trained us in the

hospital, but for some reason, when we got home three hours away with all the

stuff, it was a different type of tubing and we didn't, we kept having mistakes.

I don't think the first two weeks we had a single.

Um, feeding time that went well.

I mean, she would throw it up and we, we had, we were feeding it to her too fast.

I remember I was, we were trying to, I thought I'd gotten the tube

in 'cause we'd always be shaking and lay things out ahead of time.

We thought we got the tube in and then all of a sudden she opens her

mouth and screams and it was all wadded up in her mouth and all these

wires started coming outta her mouth.

And I mean, I was probably this close to hysteria and so Todd was

thinking, well pull the, the tube out.

And after something like that, it's traumatic.

You wanna just kind of go recover.

But she still needed to eat.

So we had to start all over again.

And this went on for weeks, for, until eventually it ended.

But you know what I learned from that?

It was something I didn't want, never thought I could do any of this.

God gets us through the hardest times.

Amen.

Somehow he gets us through it and I'm gonna talk more about my

struggles believing all that when I get up next, but Todd's getting up.

Back up now.

Todd Asaad: Amen.

So this is Charlotte now.

Um, she's had three open heart surgeries.

And so that was her at church, I don't know, a couple months ago, maybe, uh, St.

Patrick's Day and, and, uh, October here.

Halloween.

And so, um, faith doesn't wait for safe conditions.

Now, one thing about Grant, Patty mentioned our youngest son, he's

actually at church this morning.

Um, you know, he loves the body.

He loves people in the church.

Um, so I'm very encouraged, uh, where he's at and what, how

he's trying to grow and change.

But faith doesn't wait for safe conditions.

You know, the city of Susa where this is happening was not a safe spot.

Um, Persia was not a safe place.

The king and the king's palace were not safe places.

You know, here in Esther, in chapter one, it says, and, and this is, they

had like a, um, like two or three month long celebration, basically a festival.

And this is one of the king's edicts, he said it in verse eight, says, and

drinking was according to the edict, to this edict, there is no compulsion for

the king had given orders to all the staff of his palace to do as each man desired.

I mean, imagine living in a society.

Imagine, you know, we start like in then Halloween, you know, and say, Hey, all

the way from holiday or Halloween, all the way to maybe Martin Luther King Day.

Hey, it's just a party.

And you're gonna have all the food, all the drink you want,

and there's no compulsion.

Imagine the environment that you would be in, in that city, in that nation, that,

that empire, you know, we want, we hope, we pretend that this is a safe world.

I remember, you know, just a few months ago.

I, uh, Patty and I, we live in, in Louisville, it's

right off or not Louisville.

We live right off of Lake Louisville, and it's about a mile to the lake.

And, and I was walking to the lake and, you know, my, my

philosophy is I love to read.

I have to pray.

I love to read, but my sanity comes from my walk with God because my

communication is not good enough.

And people's ability to understand is not good enough.

So the only one I can talk to, even if it's in grunt

noises, is God, I love to read.

I have to pray.

So I'm out there and I'm on prayer walk and, and I'm walking and, and I'm, you

know, talking to God and I'm coming up this little ridge and I'm coming up to the

lake and I hear commotion, I hear yelling.

And I'm like, what the heck is going on there?

And I get closer and closer and I, you know, I, I look there and, and

I come close and all of a sudden now there's three boats and, and

they're just right next to each other.

And they're, these two guys are literally yelling, screaming at each other.

And you can see the wake, the wake around him is, is the guy

in the one boat on the right.

Literally did like a donut around the other two guys.

And they're just like screaming, yelling.

And I did what any American would do is I pulled out my cell

phone and I started videotaping.

And so they're yelling each other and, and evidently the guy on the right who did

the donut around them did something that really ticked off the other two boaters.

And I'm like, my goodness.

And the last words I heard across the lake.

And that's why Jesus preached on off the, the, the lake a lot of times.

'cause he as clear as glass.

I heard the guy in the middle boat say I'm going after him.

'cause the other guy took off and sure enough he went after him.

And, and I'm walking down along farther down the, the peninsula I was walking.

And sure enough the other guy found him.

I mean, this was, these, these guys, they had their boats.

They had their trucks, they had time to get away and get on the lake,

and they made it unsafe.

You would think of all the places in the world, this would be a

safe environment, but it wasn't.

How about driving down the five?

Is that a safe place?

So Esther, chapter two, verse one, 10.

Esther had not made, known her people or Kindred for Mordecai had commanded

her not to make it known here.

The, the issue is, is that, is that it was so dangerous that Mordecai said,

Hey, don't tell anybody who you are and where you're from, your people,

because it's not a safe spot here.

And so in this, we see Esther, a teenage girl stepping up into the middle

of danger, but not when it's over.

But during, and, and if you know the story is that, you know that.

The Vasti, the, the king's, um, wife basically got kicked out from being

the queen, and somebody came up with a grand idea like, oh, let's go get

all the virgins in Persia, the really beautiful ones, and let's bring 'em in.

And you get to pick from this group of women and you get to pick one.

But all the other ones, they have to stick in the harem for the rest of their lives.

That's bad guys.

Yeah, that's really, really, really bad for everybody.

And so God never promised safety, but he did promise presence.

The safest place was not in the palace.

It rather was in the purpose of God.

So when we talk about faith, you know, it's not about avoiding danger.

It's about advancing through it.

And we're not talking about a weekend, we're talking about like

over 10 years this story unfolded.

You know, imagine, think about the last 10 years of your life where you were

10 years ago, and everything that's happened, you know, 10 more years from

now, it's gonna be the same thing.

It's gonna be crazy.

In 10 years from now, your life is gonna be dramatically different.

Courage comes from calling, not comfort.

And see, we see in the story of Esther, that she wasn't fearless.

She wasn't like this little pit bull that go in, went in

there like, I'm taking charge.

No.

It's like she was faithful and she knew that she was living in a dangerous world.

Verse nine.

I think it kind of helps us understand why Esther succeeded when other girls didn't.

Verse nine, it says, and the young woman pleased him.

He's talking about the the eunuch who is in charge and won his favor, and he

quickly provided her with her cosmetics and her portion of food, and with seven

chosen young women from the King's Palace and advanced her and her young

women to the best place in the harem.

And in verse 15 B, it says, now, Esther was winning favor

in the eyes of all who saw her.

And if you look at this, it says, there's actually eight times in

the book of Esther winning favor.

She was winning favor.

What does that mean?

It means that she was living a life of wisdom.

It's her, her actions, her demeanor, how she spoke, how

she responded, how she engaged.

She did it in wisdom.

She wasn't flippant, she wasn't rash, she wasn't, she was wise.

She listened to Mordecai, her uncle or her cousin.

She listened to the eunuch, said, do this, do this, do this.

She did it.

She engaged.

She didn't react.

Patty's gonna come up and share more.

Patty Asaad: It's amazing how God gives us what we need.

When we need it.

You know, I mentioned earlier all of this stuff that's happened.

I'm gonna get into more of it in just a minute, but it's revealed the gaps

in my faith and the things I needed to learn and, and for that I am so grateful.

I mean, with like what I shared about the feeding tube earlier,

I think about the scripture.

It says God gives in Isaiah 40 29, he gives strength to the weary.

It increases the power of the week.

I mean, he's taught me how to do things I never would've thought I

could do, but it seems like early on when Charlotte came to us, I went

through a long season where it seemed like God wasn't answering my prayers.

Anything I prayed, it felt like, I'm not saying this is accurate, but

it felt like he did the opposite.

Our church was having this thing where we were all doing, you know,

10 impossible prayers and people at midweek, they're sharing about it.

They're practically dancing in the aisles.

Every one of my 10 prayers had gotten worse and I was just discouraged,

and this went on for a while.

Then after Charlotte's second surgery, a few months later, we

had to get her hearing tested and, and it turned out she was hard of

hearing and needed hearing aids.

And I was so discouraged.

It was one of those times I had prayed.

I thought, this little girl has enough.

God, please don't let her be deaf on top of it all.

Please, please, please.

And then it turned out she was, and it seemed like this was just

the last, in many prayers like that where I felt like I just said no.

Like when her, her heart was not fixed during that second

surgery, and I was so discouraged.

Well the next year how it works when the child has to have heart surgery is

they want 'em to get as big as possible without it being completely dangerous.

And so we had to watch Charlotte's blood oxygen level.

We're having to take it all the time.

And when it got down into the low seven.

Is when they were gonna do the surgery, and that's really, really bad.

She was turning blue all the time.

It was very scary to watch it, and it was just a very difficult time.

Well, we got this.

She was gonna get a third open heart surgery.

They had told us that a repair would be impossible.

This was gonna be another stop gap measure we thought.

But it's amazing how God works things out.

We kept having, they kept having to delay the surgery for different reasons.

At one point, Charlotte had a virus and it's a, um, a, a

very, they do, uh, transplants.

And so a lot of it, several times they had to cancel our surgery.

It had gotten canceled six times before we finally had it, and that may not

sound like that big of a deal, but this was very, very risky surgery.

Todd and I were both afraid she was gonna die on the table to be honest about it.

And so we would have to gear ourselves up emotionally, be praying about it.

The last time it was canceled, we had made it, we'd unpacked in our Airbnb,

we'd driven to Austin where her team was, which is three and a half hours away.

We'd unpacked.

We were in pre-op, and again, they tell us they're gonna have to cancel the surgery.

This was only about a year ago, almost exactly a year ago, and Todd and I,

I don't think we could have been more discouraged and with all the moving the,

the surgery around, I was also in the middle of cancer treatment for breast

cancer, and it was affecting that.

We were having to move all that around and we were just so discouraged.

I don't think we said more than a few words to each other,

all the way back to Dallas.

We didn't even unpack.

And I was supposed to go to a, um, well Charlotte had an audiology appointment.

I thought they were just gonna adjust her hearing aids.

I'd meant to cancel it 'cause I thought we would be still in the hospital in Austin.

I'd forgotten to.

I thought we might as well go pull myself together.

We'll go and I take her in there and they're like, we wanna do a hearing test.

And I was still struggling so much.

Honestly, I was mad at God.

I was ashamed of myself for that, but I was, and I just was stuck.

I felt like I couldn't work through it.

And so we're there and they decide, well, we'll just give her a quick hearing test.

I'm sitting there in the booth with her and I could hear what

they, they're saying to her.

She's following all the directions that they're giving her.

All through earphones and I could, I could hear it from where I was sitting

and she said, I didn't even know at that point she could follow directions.

But anyway, it meant she was hearing everything.

I mean, I'm sitting there with tears streaming down my face.

She could hear we weren't even supposed to be at that appointment.

And remember, they're done with that.

They send us out to the waiting room and they didn't even know what to tell us.

Finally the doc, they were all conferring with one another.

All the different doctors, they go, we've only seen this happen once before.

Her hearing loss was neurological, not because of blockage, and all

of a sudden she could hear a can and I just couldn't believe it.

I mean, as we're leaving the hospital, I'm telling strangers even she can hear.

We just found out today the strangers were very happy for us

and, but I just couldn't believe it.

And that night, because I.

Was probably one of my lowest of low days, but I think about when I had been trying

to work through my anger with God and all of this, and we get some more good news

from her speech therapist on the way home while we're in the car, and then her other

grandmother was keeping her that night.

As I drop her off that night, I look at Charlotte to say goodbye and I

didn't even know she knew this sign.

She goes, I love you.

And I mean, after that day, God had been with me all along, but I felt

it that day and I think God knew that was what I needed on that day because

I had just done everything I could.

I was just done.

But God gave me the miracle I needed and it got us through the next week,

her neck surgery, even though we'd been told it could never happen, that the

surgeon was able to repair her heart.

Wow.

And we only got this to surgeon because of all the delays they

had to switch surgeons on us.

I, I thought the picture was, we have a picture of Charlotte with the

surgeon after the, um, he saved her life basically after the, the surgery.

But God has taught me so much through all this.

Sometimes I am hurting so bad I can, I can't see where he is working.

But he still is working and all the time, and I had trouble believing.

I knew God.

Just sometimes I wondered if he was really good because things just

seemed so dark, and then when he let us have that miraculous day.

I saw God is always good.

I tried to work through it before, but then it just went deeper than ever and

we're still in the middle of all this.

Honestly, Charlotte was diagnosed with autism just a few weeks ago.

We're trying to get her into new therapy.

She's in children's ministry right now as we speak, and she's adorable.

She's a little sweetie, but she's still nonverbal and she's four years old now.

She's wonderful.

But I think about everything God has taught me about who he is, about

seeing the gaps in my own faith.

I wouldn't trade this for anything.

So many times when we're putting Charlotte to bed, it's been a hard day.

We're exhausted.

But Todd looks at me and says, we wouldn't want it any other way.

And it's so true, and that's only because of God and all the lessons he's taught us.

And I'm sure we'll have more dark days and he will teach us new lessons.

But I've learned in a way like never before, how God is always

working and he's always with us.

Todd Asaad: Good job.

Amen.

So that's a picture of Dr.

Frazier there.

Um, this is like six weeks after the, the, her third surgery.

There is a possibility she could have another open heart surgery.

It depends, uh, her heart is restored, but they left her procedure, uh, in her, um.

Glen g Well, it's called a glen line and they might take it out, they might

leave it, they don't know, but that'd be number four if she had to have it.

It just depends on the pressure in her lungs.

So pray for Charlotte if you get a chance.

You remember that.

But this guy was like the guy and um, he was training someone that actually

went to, um, Vanderbilt to open up a heart surgery, pediatric heart surgery.

So he actually ended up having to do the surgery when we moved back up to Dallas.

Um, our new heart cardiologist, pediatric heart, um.

Sorry, pediatric heart surgeon basically had a man crush on this guy.

He's like, oh, Dr.

Frazier.

I mean, it is like, it's like quick gushing.

Stop it.

You know?

So he, um, this guy, that's, that's how impressive this guy is.

So, back to Esther.

So long story short, um, Mordecai, her cousin reminds her or reminded

her that her calling was, you know, you were born for such a time as this.

And I think, you know, for, for us, I think as disciples, you know,

we can forget that, that literally we are in places for a reason.

And Esther was reminded that you were born for this time.

And I think courage doesn't come from confidence.

It comes from conviction.

You know who you are in God's eyes.

And before I get, and I'll show a QR code of Patty's Substack that Greg

talked about, which I really appreciate.

Um, but this is Patty, Patty [email protected].

That's, and I'll put a QR code up there if you wanna follow her.

Um, what's that?

Patty Asaad: It comes out weekly.

Todd Asaad: Weekly.

Thank you.

So Esther knew her position was not an accident.

And she risked her comfort for a cause.

God didn't put you where you're at.

For you to play it safe.

He put you there to make a stand.

You're not stuck, you're stationed.

So the last thought here is when you move, God moves.

When you move, God moves.

Esther, chapter four, verse 16.

How does God move?

Well, we know Esther's moving.

Mordecai is moving.

How does God move?

Well, verse 16, here we see Esther talking to Mordecai and she goes, go gather all

the Jews to be found in Suse and hold a fast on my behalf and do not eat or

drink for three days, night or day.

I and my young women will also fast as you do.

Then I will go to the king and though it is against the law,

and if I perish, I perish.

Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him to do.

You need to think about that.

When was the last time you had a really big decision?

Something really massive, uh, a decision you had to make?

When was the last time you called all your friends, maybe all your Bible

talk and says, guys, I need you to fast with me for the next three days.

For me to make a a, the best decision.

I don't know if I've been in the kingdom like for 40 plus years.

I don't, I can't think of one time anyone's ever done that.

And I'll just, let me throw a, a freebie at you here.

A little tidbit when we talk about job and his friends, you know, we

could sit there and do a belly laugh.

Oh, job's, friends.

When was the last time someone sat with you for seven days and didn't speak a

word because your suffering was so great.

You know, theologically, they might have been off, but man, to have friends like

that that'll sit with you for a week and not say a word because they're grieving.

Because of your grieving.

That's intense.

Yeah.

So when you move, God moves.

Esther moved.

Here it is.

Do this.

Once Esther acted, God began turning everything around.

The decree reversed.

Haman was exposed, God's people were protected.

Literally, in one act of courage became the spark that saved a nation.

Chapter six, verse one.

It says on that night, the king could not sleep.

And he gave orders to bring the book of memorable deeds, the Chronicles,

and they were read before the King, and it was found how Mordecai saved

the king's life like 10 years ago.

And he forgot.

I mean, you read about this king, it is like this guy.

He, he, he, he drank all the time and he listened to the wrong people.

Yeah.

And we're, if someone saved your life, do you think you would

remember that like every day?

Oh, they saved my life.

They saved my life.

I, I got a good friend of mine, Mike Ostrom.

He used to be here in, in, in Ca, California, in the

ministry for a long time.

And my youngest son, grant that Patty shared about actually when

he, the, um, Ostrom's son, when he went, he dove into the deep end.

He couldn't swim, fell into the deep end.

My son Grant jumped in there, saved his life.

Every time I talk to Mike Ostrom, Hey, tell you Grant, tell your son Grant,

thanks for saving my son's life.

So here, the king just couldn't sleep and, and we, you know, Hey, I can't sleep,

so hey, let's, let's read something.

Hey, get the book of memorable deeds.

And they just turned it to where Mordecai saved his life.

And then a little bit later, verse four, it says, and the king says,

'cause he wants to honor Mordecai now that he realized what happened.

He goes, oh my gosh, I gotta do something.

I, I need some advice again from the wrong person.

And it's the king says, who's in the court now?

Haman, who's the bad guy?

And it's really cool if you ever go to this, uh, uh, pur is like,

they, they had celebrate this, this festival still in Israel.

And, and whenever Haman's name would come up, all the little

kids that were dressed up as their favorite actors would start hissing.

Oh, Haman.

And it was like a little theater for the kids.

And, and when they act this out, and so Haman, when he entered the outer

core of the King's Palace to speak to the king about having Mordecai hanged

on the galas that he prepared for 'em.

So Haman was in there all excited, happy.

He is gonna walk into the King's president, Hey, king,

I need you to do me a favor.

I need you to kill this Jew named Mordecai.

Well, before he can get those out of his mouth, those words out

of his mouth, the king is like, Hey, I need to honor somebody.

And Mor or Haman thinks it's obviously it's him.

And it wasn't.

It was Mordecai.

And when he realized after telling the king what he should do to someone

like him, if he wanted to praise him, he realized it wasn't for him, it was

for Mordecai, and now he is petrified and we know that he was killed later.

So what's the encouragement of all this?

You know, your faith doesn't have to be massive, it just has to move.

Yeah.

When you take one step in obedience, God opens doors that no one can shut.

Wow.

You know, I've had a number of people tell me like, man, I'm so glad you

didn't call this lesson for such a time as this, because it's, if I perish,

I perish, I'm gonna have conviction.

That if I die, I die.

But my conviction's based upon God and his way and not my way.

You know, the world's still a dangerous place, but this is your

time, just like it was Esther's.

You don't need to have all the answers.

You just need the courage to say, if I perish, I perish.

Because when you trust God in dangerous times, he turns danger into destiny.

I don't know what challenges you're facing right now in your walk with God.

I don't know what environment you are living in right now.

It's no better or worse where we're at.

It's just what it is.

But at the end of the day, God's kingdom isn't gonna move forward unless

more and more people are willing to have that attitude of, you know, if

I perish, I perish, I'm gonna do it God's way and not the world's way.

This is Patty's Substack, what just happened?

That's a QR code.

If you want a follower, there's a free version.

You know, you can just read up and it's very helpful and I appreciate Greg's word.

But again, this is an honor for us to be here to spend time with you.

It's so encouraging coming in and I'm seeing people El Paso Albuquerque

here, and I'm like, good night.

I love the kingdom.

So I love you guys.

Thank you very much.

Amen.