No matter what situation you might be facing right now, it's probably fair to say that Abraham Lincoln may have faced something bigger. In today's episode he reminds us of the incredible need to seek Jesus in prayer when we face the great storms and trials of life.
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Hey everybody.
Speaker:Jonathan Doyle with you once again.
Speaker:Welcome to today's message.
Speaker:So glad you could stop by.
Speaker:I don't know what you were doing.
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Speaker:I don't know, but whatever you were doing, you stopped it.
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Speaker:We can do a great quote from someone you may have heard of.
Speaker:It's a guy called Abraham Lincoln.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I heard him.
Speaker:Good.
Speaker:Well, we're going to talk about it today.
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that
Speaker:I had nowhere else to go my own wisdom.
Speaker:And that of all about me seemed insufficient.
Speaker:For that day, what do we say at this point?
Speaker:Boom.
Speaker:We say boom, because it's just like a giant of history, an absolutely central
Speaker:figure in the great annals of the human story, telling us that despite
Speaker:his extraordinary life and incredible sufferings and hardships that he lived
Speaker:through, despite his intellect and despite having a cabinet of incredible people,
Speaker:he constantly encountered his incapacity.
Speaker:And the complexity that's around that it was so vast and the stakes so high that
Speaker:he found himself driven upon his knees.
Speaker:Just give me a short, short message that I, cause it's so simple.
Speaker:The challenges that face us in culture pick any day of the week,
Speaker:like at the moment, at the time of recording this, I don't know when
Speaker:you'll be watching it, but yeah.
Speaker:Th there's huge stuff happening in the U S Supreme court around Roe V.
Speaker:Wade, Russia and Ukraine is still fighting.
Speaker:COVID still running around the world side.
Speaker:And when you're going to see this, but it's not like we're
Speaker:running out of problems, is it?
Speaker:It's not like, it's not like we're all sitting around going well, things are
Speaker:pretty quiet around this planet right now.
Speaker:We could certainly do with some entertainment.
Speaker:There's just so much happening, right.
Speaker:So much complex.
Speaker:And the social media stuff, right.
Speaker:Is like this endless wave of just anger and aggression and this
Speaker:perspective and that perspective and this opinion and that opinion.
Speaker:He's the thought it's just get on our knees.
Speaker:Let's just get on our knees.
Speaker:I want to tell you the truth for years.
Speaker:I've been praying every morning.
Speaker:Roundabout four, am I get up and pray?
Speaker:The divine office do a couple of night.
Speaker:Vinas prioritize.
Speaker:And I'm interceding for people.
Speaker:And I'm telling you this, not because I want to impress you, but
Speaker:because I was never into intercessory prayer, I was never someone.
Speaker:I was like, you know, dear God, look after this person, dear God
Speaker:help my team to win the grand final.
Speaker:But only in the last decade, have I really began to pray for
Speaker:people and press into prayer.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Because I am convinced that we have an enemy.
Speaker:His name is the devil.
Speaker:He is prowling like a roaring lion looking for souls to devour.
Speaker:There is darkness in the world.
Speaker:There is evil.
Speaker:There is great wickedness.
Speaker:There is an enemy.
Speaker:There is a sentience being dedicated to the destruction of human life.
Speaker:To solves to depriving God of his kids in heaven for eternity.
Speaker:And what I figured out is that I just need to pray into it.
Speaker:I need to beg for grace.
Speaker:I need to go to mass as often as I can.
Speaker:I need to pray it into seed and praying into seed.
Speaker:And I just want to tell you this, I don't know what the rest of my life is going
Speaker:to look like, but I can tell you that in the last few years I have felt a change.
Speaker:And I think that changes come by the grace that was given to me just to turn right.
Speaker:So the grace that was given to me, wasn't the grace to be super holy.
Speaker:The grace that has been given to me, wasn't the grace to like have profound
Speaker:insight into the nature of reality.
Speaker:The grace that's been given to me is the grace to just keep turning up.
Speaker:So no matter how I feel, I just keep praying.
Speaker:I just keep praying into the circumstances.
Speaker:I keep praying into the intercessory needs of my kids and Karen and my family.
Speaker:And you.
Speaker:So like Lincoln it's like, I just figured out that the problems are too big.
Speaker:They're too big.
Speaker:So why don't you start praying for your students every morning?
Speaker:Get a rosary before you go to school.
Speaker:Just a thought, I'm something you won't want to do it.
Speaker:I get it.
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:Whatever, whatever you, whatever the spirit moves you to do, begin to pray.
Speaker:Let me think about it, right?
Speaker:The scripture is really clear.
Speaker:It is a spiritual battle.
Speaker:It is hand-to-hand spiritual combat.
Speaker:It's a real thing.
Speaker:What do you think Satan's plan is for every single student in your class?
Speaker:I'll tell you it's misery.
Speaker:It's miserable.
Speaker:It's broken relationships.
Speaker:It's, self-harm, it's self hatred.
Speaker:It's, it's despair, depression and anxiety and, and, and eating disorders.
Speaker:It's all of it, right?
Speaker:That, that's what it is now.
Speaker:You're not responsible for all of that.
Speaker:It is not on you, but what have you began to press into the.
Speaker:Just that class.
Speaker:Not, not every school.
Speaker:You'd have to pray for every kid in the world.
Speaker:You can, if you want, but you get the point.
Speaker:You just got to start pressing into what's in front of you in the spiritual battle.
Speaker:I don't know how I got onto this.
Speaker:I got to know it because Lincoln figured it out too.
Speaker:I mean, what do you think Satan's plan was for slate?
Speaker:You never do you know why they call him?
Speaker:You know, we talk about Satan and evil being diabolical because
Speaker:diabolical comes from the Greek Diablo clean, which means to rip apart to
Speaker:tear apart, he is into destroying.
Speaker:Why was there a civil war?
Speaker:Because it was a ripping and tearing and a fracturing.
Speaker:And then you get a figure like Lincoln, who in all his own
Speaker:imperfections tells us that.
Speaker:The evil and the problems were so vast that he found himself
Speaker:constantly on his knees.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I hope you're all right.
Speaker:I wanted to tell you that because I, I just think there's so many issues we face
Speaker:that are so big and so complex and so loaded and so full of animosity and rage.
Speaker:That probably the best thing we can do is to press.
Speaker:And then to pray for our kids.
Speaker:All right, we're done.
Speaker:That's heavy one tomorrow.
Speaker:I'm going to make it unicorns and rainbows.
Speaker:I promise.
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