Rivers of Living Water

I'm going to jump into today's message.

We're in a series of messages we're calling water works.

The origin of this series just came from a study I was doing in the book of John.

I started to notice between John 2 and John 7 that each consecutive chapter dealt with the theme of water.

I think I can I think I got it by memory.

John 2 is Jesus turns water into wine.

John 3, he speaks to Nicodemus.

He says, unless you're born of water and of spirit, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

John 4 is the woman at the well.

John 5, Jesus heals a man, a lame man at the pool of Bethesda.

John 6, Jesus walks on water.

And then John 7, which we're going to look at today.

If you have your Bible, you can turn there.

John 7, Jesus goes to the Feast of Tabernacles or the Festival of Shelters, which was a it was a huge event, a celebration of a reminder of God's faithfulness to the nation of Israel while they were lost in the wilderness.

And so what they would do is every year they would do this festival.

It was eight days long, and they would live in tents for a week, basically.

And it was reminding them of the decades that they spent in the wilderness.

And so a big part of even though that festival was the symbol of water, because when the nation was lost in the wilderness, obviously they they needed to drink water every day.

And so God would prov God provided water for them.

And so that was a part of their uh um uh festival and their event.

And so it's at this festival Jesus says something that uh we're gonna focus on and talk about today in John 7, starting in verse 37.

It says, On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, Anyone who's thirsty may come to me.

Anyone who believes in me may come and drink.

For the scriptures declare, rivers of living water will flow from his heart.

Verse 39.

When Jesus said living water, he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him, but the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.

Let's go ahead and pray.

Lord, we come to you in Jesus' name.

God, I pray that you would use me today, Lord, to speak your word.

I pray that the truth would come forward.

I pray, Lord, that every receptive heart would see what you want them to see and hear what you want them to hear.

Make it clear and plain to us, Lord.

Help us to distinguish between our flesh and your spirit.

And give us the courage, Lord, to walk in faith and obedience.

In Jesus' name.

All God's people said, Amen.

One of the things I've been trying to do a lot lately is to challenge assumptions.

Uh challenge my own assumptions.

I think often assumptions become blind spots.

They're things that we just assume to be true, and those create what we call assumed constraints.

In other words, you're not as constrained as you think you are.

It's an obstacle, it's in your way, and you go, well, I can't do that because of that.

But there's a lot of things that you can do that you're not doing because you just assume that you can't.

It's actually a lot more movable than you would think it is.

And so I've just been trying to challenge those things.

I've been trying to challenge them in my own mind.

When I read the Bible, what are the things I assume?

When I am in my family and things that we just think we can't do, I'm just, well, what's the assumption here?

I try to do this with our team, the people that I work with day in and day out.

Hey, here's an assumption.

Because if you're not careful, you just keep doing what you've always been doing.

Well, why are we doing it?

Well, because we've always done it.

We're just living in assumptions.

And so I've been just trying to think of these as much as I possibly can.

I I was thinking about one recently that you hear a lot in church or among Christians, and one of them is um the idea of like what would Jesus do?

And and sort of the the whole thing being like we need to read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and we need to look at what Jesus did, and then we just copy and paste that.

We want to do everything Jesus did exactly how he did it.

And I've been thinking about that.

Like, that's kind of an assumption, right?

Like, think about this.

Like, yes, we are on the same mission Jesus was on.

Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost, and Jesus came to bring grace and truth, and Jesus came to usher in a new covenant, and Jesus came, he's willing that none would perish, that all would come to repentance, and so there's all this good stuff.

Jesus came to bring love to the world.

Okay, we want to be like Jesus, but do you want to do tactically everything Jesus did?

Because there's a little bit different, there's some differences in Jesus' assignment and your assignment.

Like we're on the same mission, but think about the fact that Jesus was trying to get himself killed within three years.

Have you ever thought about that?

Like he was trying to get himself killed.

This is why in John 2, when his mom said, Hey, you ought to do this miracle, and he said, Eh, I don't really want to.

My time has not yet come.

Once I start doing miracles, and now people know who I am, it's going to be controversial.

And he knew the cross was on its way.

And so even Jesus felt a little bit like he wanted to kick the can down the road a little bit.

Uh he knew what this meant.

And so this makes a lot of sense because you look at how Jesus did what he did.

For example, Jesus spoke truth to power, which you should speak truth to power, and so should I.

But the way he did it, like he called them a bunch of snakes, a brood of vipers, you're a bunch of whitewashed tombs.

Jesus flipped over the table, uh tables in the temple, and he made a cord out of whips.

Jesus said cryptic things.

Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you can have no part with me.

They're like, hey, do you want to retract that?

You want to maybe clarify?

And then he gets more graphic.

And what I'm saying is, Jesus knew and was trying to get himself killed.

He died at 33.

If you want to get killed within three years, do everything Jesus did exactly like he did it.

You'll be dead pretty quick.

I mean, don't really think about this.

Don't really think about this.

If um if I had a podcast and I could have anybody on, it would be Jesus.

And here's the question I would ask him.

Hey Jesus, you were trying to get yourself killed in three years.

Good job, you nailed it.

Um if you were trying to have a 30-year career instead of three, if you were trying, if you wanted to have a 30-year career, if you wanted to live to be 85, if you wanted your 401k fully vested, Jesus, what would you have done differently?

Dealing with the same problems, still speaking truth to power, but if you wanted to, if it was going to be longer than three years, what would you have done differently?

I wonder what he would have said.

Think about this, by the way.

Let's say you work in a toxic environment at work.

You go to a job, toxic environment, you want to deal with that toxicity.

Well, you should deal with the toxicity, you should deal with the systemic issues, you should deal with the corruption, you should deal with the messed up culture, you should do all of that.

But you'll do it two totally different ways.

If you want to work there for 30 years or if you want to get fired today.

If you want to get fired today, I can tell you right now how to do it.

Go right into your boss's office, flip his desk over or hers.

Okay, make a court of whips, call her a snake, kick over her Keurig, and while the Keurig's in the air, your last check is in the mail, and they're cleaning out your desk.

Boom, it hits the ground, and you walk out with all of your righteous indignation.

Now, if that's your assignment, go do it.

Jesus knew it was his assignment.

And here's how we know when he was being crucified, he wasn't saying, Woe is me.

So don't go flip over the temple tables, tell call everyone a brood of vipers, and then start acting like a victim when you get fired.

Because when Jesus went to the cross, he uttered not a word because he knew he was on his way to his destiny.

This is what I'm here to do.

I've been working on this for three years.

I've been working on this firing for three years.

I don't feel bad for myself.

This is exactly what I'm called to do.

Your assignment might be slightly different than Jesus'.

Yes, we deal with the evil.

Yes, we deal with sin.

Yes, we come to make things right.

But if you want to keep for 30 years, you might want to introduce some diplomacy.

And I think Jesus probably would have done that had he had a different assignment, same mission.

This really leads us into one of the things Jesus talks about repeatedly, and I think probably one of the most relevant concepts that we have in the New Testament is this idea of the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

In John 3, when Jesus says, unless you're born of spirit and of water, we talked about that actually the word spirit and the word wind were the same word.

And so the idea of the wind blowing and the uniqueness, the uniqueness of each individual journey.

So yet think like Jesus thought.

There are certain things you take away in terms of uh walking in the spirit and being obedient to God and understanding your mission and all of that good stuff.

But but yet there's going to be uniqueness even in the execution of your journey versus Jesus' journey versus the person next to you, which is why we don't have a singular definition of success.

Because the success that God has on your life might be different than the person across from you because the wind is blowing you in a different direction.

And so, within that, if we are going to really be who God's called us to be and do the assignment God's called us to do, we have to learn how to walk in lockstep with the Spirit.

This is what Jesus is talking about at the festival of shelters, when he says, um, rivers of living water will flow from within your heart.

In other words, there will be a source inside of you, something that's guiding you, something you can drink of every day, something that's accessible to you, that does not run out, that will constantly guide you one decision at a time, one day at a time.

In fact, this isn't the only time he talks about the spirit.

Jesus talks about it over and over again.

We'd mentioned John 3, John 7.

Look at this.

John 16.

No, yeah, John 16, 12.

Jesus is talking to the disciples and he said, There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can't bear it now.

Verse 13.

When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.

Look at that.

He's talking to his disciples, and he's saying, There's so much more truth out there.

There's more that I want to tell you.

There's you have so much more to learn.

He's like, but you can't bear it now.

We we know that's how that works.

Human capacity for learning, you can only absorb so much, especially if it's deeply emotional, or you're having to kind of unlearn something, or you you you hold tightly to it, and Jesus is having this conversation in John 16, and he's been teaching them.

You know, I I deal with this every week, it's a challenge.

Like often my messages will start about two hours, and I gotta shrink them down to 30 minutes.

Because I realize, like, dude, if I get up here and I just bah and you're drinking from a fire hose, you might walk out and get nothing out of it.

And then you go to lunch, your family's like, How was church?

You're like, oh man, it was good, man.

He was in the pocket.

And they're like, Well, really, what'd you learn?

I don't know, man.

It was a lot, though.

I mean, it was a ton.

I mean, it was a lot.

I mean, it was a I mean, he read like 75 verses, and I mean it was a lot of big words.

I don't know, but it okay.

You you you can give what what you can handle, and and and this is how God works in our lives because there's some lessons, friend.

I'm gonna tell you, you need to learn, but you're not ready today.

You you you're five years away.

You you gotta go through more process.

You got you got three or four things you're gonna have to learn.

It's gonna take you three months to really absorb that.

It's gonna take you six months to even be ready to start thinking that way.

And so Jesus says to him, hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna teach you some stuff.

Fill in the blanks.

But when I leave, there's a lot of learning left to do.

Don't sweat it.

I'm gonna send the Holy Spirit.

Okay, now this John 16 is the same spirit that he's talking about in John 7 with the rivers of living water.

I will give you a source, the Holy Spirit, that will guide you, he says, into all truth.

There's much more that you need to learn, and you're gonna learn it over time slowly.

Don't worry that I'm leaving because you'll have this source in you that will be guiding you and leading you along the way.

Um, think about the idea of the spirit being wind as part of our learning.

And that's one of the things I love about these moments that we have.

You know, we speak God's word and his Holy Spirit is at work in the individual.

And what often happens is in a room like this, the same word can go out, the same written word, biblical word, scripture can go out, and yet the application is as custom as the diversity of the room.

It's as custom as the individuals in the room.

And sometimes I'll be preaching the same message to this uh a bunch of people, and and the Lord's telling some of you to stop and telling some of you to go.

He's telling some of you to slow down and grieve.

You need to slow down and grieve.

That's the word that some are getting.

The Holy Spirit's blowing that word into your heart.

And yet, others, it's you know what, it's time to dry it up, pick it up, and move on with your life.

For some of it, it's time to get serious and quit messing around.

And for some others, it's time to relax a little bit and take a break.

You know, for some, um, it's, you know what, you need to stop avoiding the conversation, steal yourself, and you need to go walk into the conversation, have the conflict.

And to others, it's you've said enough, time to be quiet.

For some, it's you need to attempt something new, and some it's you need to give away something you've been holding on to too long, it does not belong to you anymore.

You gotta let it go.

The Holy Spirit is like a wind, and he blows in and he speaks to us, and each of us are unique in this journey.

How do we how do we distinguish or determine or discern the voice of the Spirit?

Uh the Apostle Paul writes in the book of Romans, so Jesus talks a lot about the Spirit, that the Spirit will guide us into all truth.

Um, and then the Apostle Paul talks about the Holy Spirit, and and I want to just start reading uh in Romans 8.

I'll start in verse 1.

He says, There's therefore no condemnation to those who belong to Christ Jesus.

And because you belong to him, the power, look at this now, the power of the life-giving spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.

The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sin nature.

If you have a hard copy Bible, if you have a study Bible, when you see sin nature, you probably see an asterisk.

You see the asterisk, it leads to a footnote at the bottom.

If you go down there and read that, it says it's sin nature, also translated flesh.

So the weakness of our flesh.

This is describing the willing doing gap.

The willing doing gap is the thing I'm willing to do, I want to do, but I don't do.

The willing doing gap.

I'm willing, I know what's right.

It's not that I didn't know what's right.

Most of the time we know what's right.

I just don't want to do it.

It might cost me a relationship, I might not benefit from it personally.

It'd be hard.

I've been avoiding it for one reason or another.

It scares me.

I don't want to deal with it.

The willing doing gap.

So he said, there's nothing wrong.

The law of Moses was fine.

He said the issue was with our flesh and our ability uh to even do the things we knew we should do.

So God did what the law could not do.

He sent his own son in a body like the bodies we sinners have.

And in that body, look at this, God declared an end to sin's control over us by giving by giving his son as a sacrifice for our sin.

And he did this so the just requirements of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer, look at this, follow our flesh.

We no longer follow, our flesh is out front, we're following.

No.

He said, instead, we follow the spirit.

Verse 5.

Those who are dominated by the flesh, sinful nature, think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit, think about the things that please the Spirit.

I'm gonna keep reading them, we'll talk about it.

Look at this.

So letting your sinful nature control your mind.

I want you to think about the word control.

Letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death.

But letting the spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.

What does it mean for the Holy Spirit to control my mind?

What does that mean?

Let's get our expectations right.

I think some people think that the Holy Spirit controlling my mind is like this the holy spiritual equivalent of being demon-possessed.

It's like, well, I'm demon-possessed, I'm foaming at the mouth, I'm out of control of my body, a blackout, bad things happening, cast a demon out, I come to and I'm like, what happened?

What happened?

I'm wiping the foam off my mouth, and they're telling me what I did.

I think some people think being controlled by the spirit is a version of that.

I'm convulsing, I'm foaming at the mouth, but just for Jesus instead of the devil.

And I don't even know what I'm just going around doing good and not sinning.

I'm just going around not sinning, not falling into temptation because I'm controlled by the spirit.

That's not what he's saying.

In fact, even when he talks about prophesying, Paul says the spirit of a prophet is subject to the prophet.

In other words, when you're prophesying, you're not doing it like, uh, I wasn't even, I didn't even know what I was doing.

What happened, guys?

What happened?

You're still in control of yourself.

So you still have a free will, you still have decision-making power.

What the Holy Spirit is doing is within your mind, he said a mind controlled by the Spirit, a mind that is is following the promptings of the river of living water that's informing you.

Follow this direction.

It's speaking to your mind, guiding you in the opposite direction of what your flesh would do.

It's guiding you in that direction, and it will lead you to life and peace, and the flesh will lead you to death.

Now, this is I'm gonna go deep with it.

And I'm about to tell you a story, and I just wanted to say up front, I have my wife's permission to tell this story.

Okay, I don't want anybody going, oh, I hope they're okay.

I'm gonna I'm just telling you, I have her permission.

We've talked about this.

A few weeks ago, I have my day off.

I want to spend the day with my wife.

My wife's like, hey, if you're gonna spend the day with me, we're going to Costco because I gotta go to Costco, I got work to do.

I said, that's fine.

So I'll go with her to Costco.

I don't normally go to Costco, I've been to Costco, I don't go to Costco very much.

My wife goes to Costco all the time.

She goes to Costco, she knows more about Costco than the people at Costco know about Costco.

You see, people with badges and stuff walking up, like, hey, where's the?

She's like, aisle four.

They know her by name.

I mean, it's like it's just like she's she's like the mayor in there, okay?

She's all over Costco.

So we get to Costco, and I'm just gonna tell you, my wife was a little edgy all day that day, that particular day.

We're in Costco, we're walking around, and as we're getting ready to leave, she's pushing, you know, some giant cart, and she's like, Do you need anything?

And I was like, Actually, I do.

Uh I think I'm out of pure protein bars.

She turns the giant cart, she heads to where the protein bars should be.

She gets to where the pure protein bars should be, the pure protein bars are not there.

They're not there.

My wife gets visibly upset.

She's angry that the pure protein bars are not where they should be.

She becomes verbally aggressive.

She's talking to me, like, what's wrong with Costco?

Why do they do this, man?

People got stuff to do, you know, and I'm a faithful person here, and I come here all the time.

And part of, you know, I do it because I want to expedite the process.

And then when I go to pure protein bars, what are you playing?

Where's Waldo with the pure protein bars?

Nobody got time for this.

And so she starts going in on Costco.

Now, it made me a bit uncomfortable.

People were starting to look a little bit.

I'm coming up on 20 years of marriage, so I'm not new to this.

I'm gonna give a little coaching here.

In my early days, I would I made a few critical mistakes, but I'm gonna say part of intelligence is pattern recognition.

You gotta recognize a pattern and then you gotta learn fast.

In the early days, I would have taken up for Costco.

Don't do that.

The battle lines have been drawn.

I didn't draw them, but they have been drawn.

You don't want to be on Costco's side.

I promise you.

You don't want to be on Costco's side.

So what I learned over time is I enter with her into her uh anger.

Some call it commiserating.

I'm down for it.

So I'll get in there and I'll go, I'll see her energy and I'll raise her.

I'll be like, you know, what is wrong with Costco?

I don't even know how these guys have a business.

How do you even have a business?

You know, they have no respect for the customer or something, you know.

Now, often just commiserating for a little bit will cause her to chill out, but not always.

Sometimes she'll take and she'll raise me.

I'm prepared.

To see her energy and raise her as high as we need to go.

I'll take it up, man.

I'll go into conspiracy theories.

I'll blame the government.

By the time I get done with it, Costco's the centerpiece of the Illuminati.

Don't mess with me.

I'll go high on this thing to where my wife is trying to calm me down.

Once she's trying to calm me down, I know we're good.

So I know how to do this.

But it's like Paul in Romans 7.

The thing I know to do, I don't do.

The thing I don't want to do, I do.

He's like, oh, what a wretched man I am.

Who's who will free me from this life of sin and death?

Thank God for Jesus, you know?

That was me.

Romans 7.

Now, what I didn't do was take up for Costco.

I did not do that.

But also I did not enter with her into her misery.

What I did was, I don't remember exactly what I said.

But the spirit of what I said was maybe your righteous indignation would be better aimed at a more worthy cause.

But it was something like that.

Didn't work.

Did not work.

She got very, very upset.

And so then she turned her anger from Costco to me.

And we're in Costco.

And I'm like, now I'm overwhelmed.

I feel a little baited.

I kinda wanna, I kinda wanna get snarky and I kind of want to go back and have a verbal, but y'all have camera phones now.

I'm not trying to end up on somebody's Instagram story, you know.

Hashtag one church exposed.

The fours are having a big fight in the middle of Costco, you know.

Hashtag relationship goals, ha ha ha.

Hashtag Proverbs 31 woman.

In the past, I would have gone for it.

I thought, you know what, I'm not going to.

I I I bit my tongue, walk around.

Here's what's going on in my mind.

Straight up.

I'm just letting you in.

I'm telling you exactly what I'm what I'm thinking is I'm not gonna do this because I don't want to end up making a scene, but this is what I'm thinking.

You know what?

It's my day off.

I want a life and peace, dude.

Next time I have a day off, she's going to Costco.

You can have Costco all to yourself.

Not going, I'm not doing this again.

In my mind, I've already determined this will be my last trip to Costco.

And I got a little self-righteous.

Because it's Monday and the day before.

I preached three times.

The holy book.

And I'm building the body of Christ.

I wish I had energy to give to pure protein bar placement in Costco.

I start getting a little a little bit high on myself.

I start to diminish my wife and my mind.

I'm thinking, how petty are you?

I ain't doing this anymore.

My next day off is gonna be, I'm gonna do me really well.

So we start walking toward the car.

As I'm walking toward the car, I'm just gonna tell you, it wasn't like some, it wasn't some big dramatic thing.

A still small voice inside of me as I'm walking to the car and I'm I'm digging my heels in on my position.

I'm soothing myself with all of my nobility.

True story.

I'm walking to my car, and a still small voice inside of me said, You think that you're making decisions based on life and peace, but you're what the decision you're making is leading to death.

You think it's life and peace.

It's temporary relief to not do this and go to Costco with her again.

But here, it's death because she's gonna go to Costco by herself next time, and then she's gonna go again, and you're gonna just start doing stuff by yourselves because you can't figure out how to get along.

And so it will be the death of your marriage.

Now, listen, don't take this in armor up and go home to your husband and say, Pastor Ford goes to Costco with his wife.

Don't do that.

The man won't come back to church, all right?

That's how men hate church.

Don't be doing that.

But what I'm saying is, in my mind, the Holy Spirit said it's just a matter of time before you start thinking peace is apart from one another instead of dealing with the right problem.

Nothing in the clouds, nothing super emotional, just a simple like you gotta walk into this.

By the way, peace doesn't mean you never have conflict.

Peace doesn't mean you never have pain.

Peace doesn't mean that it's it's easy.

Peace is often difficult.

In fact, think about this now.

Jesus, Jesus, all of the antagonism, the flipping of the tables, the making of the whips, all right, the the whitewashed tombs.

Did he do it because he was trying to spite the world?

No.

John 3 tells us that God so loved the world that he sent his only son.

Whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

For God sent his son in the world, not because he's trying to whip the world or flip the table on the world, no, not to condemn the world, but to save the world.

Jesus was willing.

Think about this, he's in Gethsemane going, please take this cup from me.

He walked into tremendous amount of stress.

He's sweating like drops of blood, he's going into hard conversations, taking on tons of weight and stress.

Why?

Ultimately to find deeper peace.

To bring to make a way for us to have peace with God.

Didn't mean it the whole process was peaceful, but he didn't kick the peace down the road and become selfish, which is exactly what my flesh was doing.

So what I had was an open and shut case in my mind, how my actions were leading to life and peace, but my flesh was being deceived because it was leading to the death of my marriage.

Even if we end up till death do us part and we live together forever, you know how this is.

Two people committed to one another can have a dead marriage.

So I get in the car.

I say, I owe you an apology.

I say, when I when I when I said the thing about the your righteous indignation probably belongs in a more worthy cause and all, whatever I, whatever I said there, I don't remember.

I blacked out.

I don't remember what it was.

That wasn't me, that wasn't me.

I was like, you know, what I said there, I'm sure, I'm sure felt like an accusation that you're petty.

I was like, you're not petty.

I know you better than anybody.

If you were petty, I'd know it.

You're not petty, you're not petty at all.

In fact, I know whatever was coming out of you in there had nothing to do with Costco and had nothing to do with pure protein bars.

What triggered you?

No.

Because of the work the spirit has done in my life and the process of maturity and the process of trying to tune into the voice of the spirit, I've come to a different place.

Ten years ago, I probably would have gotten the car and said everything I wanted to say on aisle four, just that no one had camera phones.

I'd have got snarkier and I'm good at it.

And I'd have given it to her, and I would have done it away because I want her to feel bad, because she made me feel bad and hurt people, hurt people.

So I would have wanted to do that.

Or I would have said something maintaining plausible deniability as, well, no, I didn't really say this, but but what I want to do is just get just get your drama out of my life, get it off my plate.

I don't want to deal with that.

But the work of the spirit will take you deeper to life and peace and maturity.

And so what I so I actually wanted to know what was triggering her because I do believe she's not a petty person.

And so, but she then had to decide, does she believe me?

So she said, you know, you're right.

I don't know what triggered me, but I let me think about it.

So we drove in silence for about five minutes.

She's an internal processor.

She said, I I think I think I found the path.

I said, What is it?

She said, everything in my life right now that's important to me, that matters, isn't where I think it is.

I'm trying to find solutions for my my kids.

Everywhere I go to find the solution, it's not there.

Everything I try doesn't seem to work.

I'm trying to help you, Greg.

I'm trying to help my kids.

Everything, like all my deathbed decisions and all my values I give my life for, everything, I'm trying to help it, and everywhere I go, I I try to find it, it's not there, it's not there, it's not there, and I don't have it, and it feels out of control.

And then I go to Costco, and all you asked was for pure protein bar.

And I know exactly.

Here's one thing.

It's like Greg, I know it sounds dumb, but it's one thing that I know where it is, and then I go to where it's supposed to be, and it's not there.

I said, That doesn't sound dumb.

I get it.

Now, by the way, life and peace.

I was locked into my my self-righteousness and my wife being petty.

All of a sudden now she doesn't look petty at all.

All of a sudden now I get exactly where you're coming from.

I felt love for her.

We we in the car, we we we bonded.

There was there was an intimacy to our conversation, there was an intimacy, our hearts were knit together, there was a unity.

My wife, I could feel as she was talking the pressure release valve.

There was peace coming into her mind and heart.

She now didn't feel distant from her husband, she felt connected to her husband.

We it was life up to our marriage, it was peace.

I felt peace with myself, I felt peace with her, she felt peace with herself, she felt peace with me.

We came together and we prayed together about it, and we could feel each other's pain.

Life, peace, real peace that came through conflict and pain.

Which voice are you gonna follow?

The voice that's gonna isolate you, that's gonna push people out, the voice that you oh no, you got an open and shut case.

You can make your case, you've been making it, you've been believing it.

The Holy Spirit will shine a light on that thing and show you something that's in the opposite direction.

That's life and peace.

So Jesus says, Hey, I'm gonna teach you all you can handle today, but don't worry.

You're gonna have a river of living water inside of you that will give you the drink you need tomorrow.

The Holy Spirit will guide you and direct you into all truth.

Paul says that spirit will lead you and guide you to a life of peace.