Reward of Patience | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign.

Guess who's back. Back again. It's me. I'm back.

Long time.

Like three podcasts, I think. Yes, think so. But it's running Hope unfiltered.

I think you've been in, like one out of five or something, Ron. Cause before that, you'd missed a lot by three.

You always exaggerate.

Oh, no, women are exaggerators. Not.

No, no, no.

Exaggerators.

Oh, no, no, they are.

Tell everybody where you been. Cause I've been covering for you.

Covering?

Yeah, I've been covering. I'm like, all right, she's coming back. She's coming back. Then the next week, I get up and she slain back.

Well, I've just been trying to get. Keep my head above water because on the last weekend. Yeah, on the last weekend of June, my mom got rushed to the hospital, found out she had two valves that were not hardly working at all. Had to do open heart surgery.

Her mom's up in years.

Yeah, she's 80. Had to do open heart surgery, two heart caths, and put a defibrillator in. So she's had four surgeries. She's still in the rehab. Comes home tomorrow.

And in the middle of the.

And in the middle of that, I move them into a assisted living that she's never seen.

She'll come home.

I've packed up the house, moved them unpacked, got them set up. Still driving my daddy every single day because he can't drive.

The day this is released will actually be the first day she goes home.

Home to our new place, assisted living.

So she's 80 years old and coming home to a new place.

Yep.

I'm sure that, you know, I like having these little.

I'm sure it's a little disconcerting for.

Her, but it is.

I tried to get it just like. But I knew she'd want.

But they didn't. And you did a good job. I went over there for the first time last night, and it did feel a lot like the house. It's just not as big, but all the furniture, the colors you redid the same colors and same pictures and stuff. So you did make it homey. And we thought about doing a podcast like that. I don't know how many people had hit. I try not to do podcasts that hit a real small market. But we did talk about being in your 50s is unique because you got your own kids that you're still trying to help get established in adulthood. And then you got your parents, which, unless they're extremely healthy, can in many Ways be returning to kids. And so you're kind of in this world where you're kind of responsible for both.

You're just kind of helping everybody around.

Yep. But they didn't. When your mom first got there, they didn't know if she would even make it through the surgery. She's not only made it through the surgery, she's going to rehab and she's going home. And they talk about her energy should get better because her heart was only functioning at, what, 35%? So it's got to make her feel a little bit better.

So many people have reached out, called messaged social media. Yeah. Sent flowers and cards, and I'm so grateful for that. That's one of the great beauties of a church family is, you know, when you are in need, I don't know.

If people live without it. I would take anything for it. Our church family under the roof and around the world. Quite honestly, I am glad you're back. I tell everybody I'm not as good when you're gone.

I'm back for a minute. I leave again today.

Yeah, you leave today and you go in to preach and then you coming back for Medina's. And we got a power couple thing coming up on the west coast. On the east coast right now. We'll do that on the West Coast. So we do have something we want to talk about. And I don't want you to turn this off when you hear the topic because I don't know how many podcasts on this topic or pulling a lot of views, but when you've lived a little while, you start learning some things. I think because we had to grow up so quick. I want to say maybe we had a little bit of wisdom beyond our years. We were told that a lot because we were senior pastors in our early 20s. I mean, we were responsible for all of it and the people, the machinery, the shepherding, the budgets, the buildings, all of it. And we had to grow up fast. But there's still some things that I do believe only time teaches. Time is a teacher.

I agree.

And I tried to be wise. When I'm 28 and 33, I tried to. I still think I tell people I hope I made more right decisions than wrong ones. But as I look back now, Having just turned 56, I look back and there's some things that have developed in me that I did not used to possess as a person.

It's true.

And I think one of those is. And I hate to even say the word, you know, they say, don't pray for patience. And you certainly don't want to get on a podcast and brag about patience. And God say, well, we ain't quite there. Let me take you through another yet. That's not what I'm doing at all. I want to talk about the reward of waiting.

So. Good.

Because there is the reward of waiting. The Bible says when you wait, he will renew your strength. The Bible says in another place in Isaiah, when you wait, he will renew your youth. And we know that through faith and patience, we inherit promises, right? And when I get a prophecy, I don't want to immediately employ patience. I want this thing to come to pass. When God gives me a word or gives me a vision, I want this thing to come to pass in the mail tomorrow. And I. I have a personality profile that is not l. That doesn't lend toward that.

Sorry.

Well, I mean, yeah, you know, when.

You say, I got a personality profile, these names, these descriptive words just come through my mind.

I will pay more for a car that's. To get the process over, and that's new. To get the. I want the process over with because.

You don't want one to have to break some of them.

I don't want to fool with it.

Yeah, you don't want to fool with it.

Back when we took our kids to the lake lot when they were growing up, we had a boat and everybody said, why do you buy new boats? Go buy a used boat. You get it for half price. And I see them guys floating around out there in the water with the back of that thing up.

And, you know, your skills, too, you're not gifted in that area.

And I have such little time. When I hit the key, it's gotta work because I don't have time because of my schedule. And I never have had a whole lot of time. And so, you know, there are things that I did just because I didn't want to get caught up in a process. I don't want, you know. You know, you bought me. It was so nice of you. For my birthday, you took your very first advance ever on a book and bought me a classic car. I have struggled and struggled and struggled with that classic car, because you know why? Because it needs attention, it needs love, it needs tinkering. It needs tinkering with. All those things are qualities, although the car is amazing as things that I do not possess. And I don't want to dominate this. You can chime in anyway, but we just got a building on the east coast, and it's. It's it's major. It's major. Yeah, it's major. Didn't, didn't pay this for it. I mean, we paid a good bit, but we didn't pay this. But it, you know, the cost to reproduce this structure be 18, $20 million, what we just bought. And I was caught in a situation where, you know, I came back to Greenville. I reopened right after Covid, three and a half years ago, right after New Year's of 2021, with a quasi agreement. Not a promise, a quasi agreement.

Right.

With the leadership in Greenville that they were building a new convention center. And the one they had was going to somewhat be an albatross. It was not connected to a hotel or anything. It was a couple exits out of downtown.

That's what we were meeting in. Yeah.

So we would meet in it, rent it for a couple of years, and then we would buy it. And then three and a half years later, they had not even started the structure changed. Management who did not want us there, did not like us being there. And I'm making a long story short, because when I tell you they were putting the screws on us. They made life miserable. They made life miserable. And I'm watching my team set up and tear down. And we're not, you know, this was not a startup church as usual. Right. This was, you know, we're.

We've been here a while.

Yeah. We're setting up and we're going on worldwide television. So our setup and tear down was, you know, teams of people coming in hours at the time. And sometime they wouldn't get the building cleaned out till 2 o' clock in the morning on Saturday night.

And our guys recognize it just wasn't an easy process.

It was bottom line, all the time. It was something. And I saw that. And as a leader, I want to fix it right.

And you want to fix it quick.

Yeah. And that's not bad.

No.

To see our people that I care about, that you and I depend on for this vision or it won't happen. That we work with every day to see them struggling under the almost tyranny of this new management that he got, who just flat was making life miserable. And I told you, I said my. One of my greatest strengths is making something happen. Okay, let me finish. I'm not finished. Comma. One of my greatest weaknesses is making something happen.

Yeah.

It's not uncommon that your greatest strength is also your Achilles heel.

It's true.

It's not uncommon. Sometimes people's greatness, the thing that makes them great, makes them vulnerable. You know, it's one of the ironies of life.

You've said that about me over the years, which I think I've changed a lot in the last few years. But you said you would see it now. You would say, you know, you're very hospitable and welcoming and life of the party and bubbly, but at the same. And everybody loves you. But at the same time, you welcome people and let them in too quickly.

Too quickly. You create depth in the relationship at warp speed because of your personality profile.

Right.

You're easy. You're easy to talk to. You're going to come in if you don't get around help, you're going to talk.

Yep.

And so.

But not so much anymore.

Yeah, those things. And it took some hard lessons, but those things were some of your greatest strengths, is the fact that you can walk in a room and light it up. I've always told you that. But it also turned in to be a real blind spot until, you know, time and God and wisdom. And wisdom. And older comes in and you begin to learn through hard lessons.

Yeah.

And this right here was a hard lesson to me. I had three things I put in my heart. I'm going somewhere with this. I had three things I put in my heart. I said, God, when we reopen on the east coast and you give us our landing spot as a church home, I said, there's three things that I asked God for. I said, number one. I had a number in my head. I'm not going to say the number. And which would be ambitious. To get the kind of building our ministry would need at that number in one of the hottest cities now in America was going to be tough. Number two is I wanted it to open us up to a new market of people, of people that we've never really reached before. And I said, number three. I wanted us to be a blessing to somebody. Because sometimes a large ministry can be seen as a bully, just rolling in town and scooping everything up. And I didn't want to. I wanted to be an angel. I wanted to be an answer to somebody's prayer.

God did it all.

And, well, as the pressure mounted, I felt the push to go out. Well, I'm just. I got to go get us a building. There were two or three. I mean, there was one building. We actually put a letter of intent on it. And I had to pull it right, because I watch what goes on with my team. I'm hearing not the complain, but just, man, so much energy being drained out of them through this and so you know what? I'm going out. We're going to get this done. And I probably had eight or 10 properties at the very least. I could have moved on and done something. But I waited. Yep, I did. I waited. I don't always wait.

You said it. You said, I am tired of making rash decisions and getting bit on the butt.

It bites me on my panic.

I want this to be God's perfect will for us. And we did have to wait.

Yeah, we did have to wait. And it has not been easy.

I don't know why God does that.

I don't either. And it's not been easy. The waiting has not been easy. And so that's maybe not your story, but what I wanted to help you is the old cliche, man, God always shows up.

He does.

He always shows up.

He may not come when you want him.

Yeah. But he's always right on time. The old gospel song. And I don't know why it's like that, because it has been true in my life. These last minute stress, miracles, midnight hour stuff. Yeah. And. And then even in that, it tips me back and forth about three or four times and I'm like, why can't this be easy? But after it was all said and done, it was exactly the three things that I asked God for and we were able to actually step in.

I think we get in our own way so many times. We just get in our way, you know, in our head. We try to figure it out, well, let's make this happen. Or, you know, or I can make this happen. I think anytime we get to that point and say, well, I can make this happen, you know, it's the wrong decision.

Where's that fine line, baby, between the people who I know, people who've been waiting on God 18 years and they never done anything right? And then you got your Ron Carpenters, who will help God out at any moment if he needs a little help.

Well, faith without words.

Yeah. Because you got to do something.

You do. It's faith without words.

Your faith has to be active.

Yes. So there are steps, and faith is a fight.

Yeah, there are steps.

Anytime you say you're operating in faith, there will be pressure and the wind's going to blow against your face all the time. It's not going to. It's not faith when it's tiptoeing through the tulips.

Faith is not creating something that don't exist. I've always said faith is moving things from one dimension to another. Because the Bible says that everything that we need is he has blessed us with in heavenly places. In heavenly places, Ephesians, it's in the spirit realm. So it's there, but I can't see it. And it's not tangible, but it exists because the spirit realm is actually the parent realm. And so everything I need is already there. But here's what Christians don't understand, and I don't know that I've understood until probably the last four or five years. To everything there is a time and a season. So he has blessed me with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. And it's got a countdown clock on it. And in God's not Kronos, but in God's Kairos, then that thing will come into my life. And during the Chronos, I have to be patient.

Yes, that's what I was talking to somebody the other day and they were talking about something they wanted and they were like, well, no, I don't want to get this. I think it was about. I forgot, but I don't want to say who it was. But they were talking about something they wanted. They're like, well, I'm not going to get that if it's not all these number X, Y, Z element, O, P. And I was like, okay, I get that because it's kind of like the story you just said about the church. You wanted these three things. However, I also said to this person, well, the thing that you're wanting, that could be later in life, that could be a different season, just because you feel it in your heart right now. I mean, we felt redemption in our heart at 22, 23 years old. Right. But we still had to walk through the steps of a 500 seat sanctuary.

We had to go take our car and pick half our church up.

A thousand seats sanctuary, then four services. I mean, you don't. Just because you're believing for it doesn't mean that it's happening right in that season.

You're faithful in where you are and you master it.

You're faithful and little. And I think that's the key. It's not that, oh, I've been faithful doing this, but have you mastered it? Yeah, you might have been in this season for three years, but have you conquered that season? Have you been faithful in that season? Have you done everything you were supposed to do in that season, that season? Have you passed the test?

Nobody talks about mastery. The difference between good and great. The difference between being able to do something and mastering something is time and practice. Repetition. Yeah, that's the space in between the two. And I didn't plan on going here talking about mastery, but I do believe God sometime expects not you to survive a season, but master a season and.

Then do it and do it well.

Yeah, master the season and you know, basically, basically you graduate when there's nothing else on the previous level to be learned.

Right.

You squeezed everything out of it.

You can't go to third grade till you've mastered second grade.

It was very non spiritual. But you know, when I was a teenager, I loved rock bands. I used to call them hair bands. And Eddie Van Halen was just, you know, man, we all had the T shirts, we just thought he was. And you know, he passed away a few years ago. But I saw a thing on YouTube the other day where they had somebody who had never even heard of him, who was an up and comer. They played a guitar solo of his and let him hear it. And when the guy took his headphones off, he said, that's what you call mastery of an instrument. And I'm like, that's kind of what we're talking about. When that thing God has put in your hands at this level, you have mastered it, then you have qualified for the next level.

Right.

Not you endured it, not you got by, but you mastered it. And then he moves you on. And then you look back in your life, hope. And then you say, wow, look at all these opportunities God has laid at our feet. But what was it? It was doing our best to be faithful in a thousand things where nobody cared and nobody talked about it, nobody saw them, you know, do you remember when we used to take our two broke down cars and literally leave two hours before church on Sunday and start picking people up?

Yep, I did.

And then after it was over with, we'd take them home. It was like our car was two little vans and we were bringing. And then people had nothing to offer. Nothing to offer. Nobody talks about those seasons. No, nobody talks about it. No. Nobody talks about you being in there washing all the clothes in the, all the toys in the nursery in the bathtub while I'm in there vacuuming our warehouse. And that's happening at 11 o' clock Saturday night. Nobody talks about that. They talk about that.

We did it because we loved it. And we weren't, we weren't mad and we weren't mad that we had to do it. That's what blows my mind is that people resent the small things and resent the simple seasons and accept and think they deserve more.

Yes. And greatness springs out of common.

Oh, My goodness.

Common springs out of common. Many times wealth springs out of poverty. And, you know, many times, mastering poverty. Mastering. Yeah. So what I would submit to people, what I learned in this building process is by faith and patience, we inherit the promise. And you've said it right before we started, I think you quoted the verse, Galatians 6, 7, 9. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked.

Yep.

And I just preached on that.

You did.

For whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. And Bible says, then it says, do not faint, for in due season you shall reap if you do not lose heart. Okay, here's seed time. Here's harvest. But harvest is a season. In due season, you shall reap. Why would I faint waiting on that season?

That's right.

The fainting comes in the waiting. And when you give up waiting, hope you've given up on your faith.

You have. You have.

I don't like what I'm preaching right now.

I know.

I don't like patience any more than I did before God gave me this big miracle. I still don't like it. I want things to be done. I want to get done yesterday. I've called my media director two or three times. You got that deal done yet? You got that deal done yet? You got. You know, he's. I mean, I probably asked him five times since 10 o' clock last night, but what does it mean? I want to get it in my rearview mirror because I'm accomplishment driven.

So you can move on to the next season of waiting.

I need to hurry up and get out of my way. But I think, you know, it's hard to lie in front of the person who lives with you. I'm better.

You are.

I've not mastered it.

You are better.

No, I do not demonstrate mastery, but I'm better at saying, you know what? Let's sit right here. God's got something special, and let's wait on it instead of birthing an ishmael trying to help God out. Don't want to do that.

We've done that.

Oh, my gosh. Ishmael's running around everywhere.

That's awful.

Yeah. So the fine line I talked about, the Bible says, faith without works is dead.

Yep.

So, okay, Pastor, while I'm waiting, do I just do nothing? No, no, you do the next thing put front of you. I always told people, I said, the way to get to your dream is to finish or accomplish the next. What is next? What is the next battle? Okay. I need to make sure that when it happens My financing is secured. Okay. When this breaks through, I need to make sure we've raised as much as we need to make. When this thing breaks through, I need to make sure my architectural drawings are empty. So I'm talking about.

It's like you want a house, you know, whatever. Say you're in your 20s or 30s, want a house, but you've been turned down by the bank because your credit's not good enough. Well, you can't go a year and not rehab your credit and expect an issue.

Yes, you got an issue.

That's faith works.

Faith with works. And I went back a few weeks ago. Now, I'm not sure what Sunday of priest is. The Bible talks about miracles, the gift of miracles in Romans 12. But in First Corinthians 14, it talks about the working of a miracle. Sometime a miracle's.

Yep. Out of the blue, just drop something.

Sometime God will make you work it. And the person who bam. And the person who worked it got the same outcome. But this had a process and this was immediate. So you say, why does God give someone the process? Because there was something that needed to happen inside.

Yes. Something they needed to learn.

Ron Carpenter thought, yes.

The process is always to make us learn something.

We always about destination. I think God's always about the process.

He is in our life, at least.

I don't think God's nearly about the destination as well. We talk about destiny, which means destination. I think God's all about that journey. Because usually in the journey is the character development.

It is.

It is the development of grace learned mercy. It's lessons learned. It's when you grow in wisdom. It's all these intangibles that happen on the inside of you. And, you know, the pressure on the outside develops glory on the inside. For these momentary afflictions are working for me a far greater weight of glory. Glory is an internal thing. So when the pressures of life come against me, I secrete glory. Glory comes out my pores.

I have a whole chapter in my last book, if you don't fight, you don't win, called pressure produces, if you let it. And that's what pressure is designed to do. Pressure on rock produces a diamond. Pressure on an olive produces oil. Pressure on grapes produce wine. Pressure will produce something beautiful if you don't resist the teaching season.

Let me tell you something else, and we'll start winding this down that I think we need to be careful about. And here's where I didn't do right. I don't really complain to anybody but you. My Staff don't hear Ron complain much. My congregation never hears me complain. I don't get up in my pulpit and air out my grievances. But when I get home, if I hadn't got it out of my system at the gym, you gonna catch the residue of it. And you are that because you are a calming presence in my life. I did during this process, my God, what?

We both did.

What in the world. We were frustrated because there was a couple of. There was a couple of instances where those three things would have been met in some other situations and just doors slammed in our face to the point of really. I mean, it was like, lord, what do you see what we're going through over here? You know? And you got to be careful, because God is not in the season of judgment. We're in the season of grace. But in the Old Testament, Israel was judged and was held outside of their promise for murmuring.

For grumbling and complaining.

I hear them murmuring. So while you're waiting, can you do what Ron Carpenter did and wait and complain? And I would always try to catch myself and, like, I just. I got to grab my tongue. I got to stop.

Yeah.

Because you're. You're speaking against the process.

You are.

And you gotta. You gotta. You're giving life against the process that God obviously has a season attached to.

So that's why it goes longer.

Right.

The waiting goes longer because of murmuring and complaining.

Your mouth is perpetuating the season that God intended you to end probably a month ago.

Yes.

And so I would always try to catch myself, but I would find my. You say, well, Ron, when you're aggravated, can you get it out? Yes, but you have to make sure you're not speaking against what God's trying to do in your frustration. Frustration. Everybody feels it, and it's all right to let it out. But I'll tell you what I've learned to do. I even carry that to God because he's been touched with the feelings of my infirmities, and God can handle my frustration. And so instead of airing it out in my tent, so to speak, I go in the backyard and I'm like, God, I don't know what you're doing.

Yeah. You talk to him about it.

Yeah, I don't know what you're doing. I'm coming to you, telling you I don't know what's going on. And, Lord, I've missed you a couple of times, and I've told him this. Now I don't trust myself to hear you.

Yeah.

Because I've swung and missed a couple of times. And, you know, people are following the fact that I'm supposed to be hearing you.

But, you know, I think, too, Ron, this is a whole nother. Let's turn left and go another direction. But maybe we can talk about this the next time is in the waiting season. In the seasons where you don't see him, when you don't hear him, when you don't understand, that is when praying in the Spirit is so important.

Yeah, you're right. We have to unpack that.

Yes, that right there.

Because he says specifically, when you don't know what to pray, as we ought to, the Holy Spirit himself intercedes for us. And the Bible says he does it in perfect accordance with the will of God. So, you know, and I do usually invoke that. Here's what I normally do. If you're at bed at night and I walk out on the back porch, and I'm just so frustrated because here, again, I got another door slammed in my face. After a while, you get tired of hearing those doors slam. And so, you know, I'd walk outside and so, you know, God, I'm frustrated. I'm really frustrated. I'm not understanding you. I'm a little bit confused. I need clarity. And then I will begin my heavenly prayer language. Because I realize after I've told him how I feel, that's the way I get heaven and earth on track.

Yeah, that is amazing.

I'm releasing my faith that while I'm praying, there's something being said in my prayer by the Spirit of God that is making a connection between heaven and earth. And they're starting to agree. Yes, because my complaints are not agreeable.

And it is the strangest phenomenon. When you get done in that kind of warfare kind of prayer, peace comes immediately.

I have never prayed in the Spirit where I didn't have peace.

And you just lay down and go to bed.

Why? Because the Holy Spirit did the Word. Yes, he did whatever need to be said.

I didn't have to pray things or come up with things or pray this will or that will. It was his will.

Whatever needed to be said. The Holy Spirit. That's a great point, baby doll. And we're just throwing things out today because what are we doing? We're throwing out our life. This is the way we live. Yeah. I'm telling you.

And everybody has seasons of waiting and frustration. Everybody does.

So, Pastor, what do you do? Okay, I've heard your sermon, but what do you do? Well, this is what we Do. I am so excited that I waited. Not pat on the back, but I know me. I know of two things. I almost just went and did it. Now, the other seven or eight. No, there were two things. I almost went and did it. And you are a lot of times more spiritual than I am. But there was a one time where I think you just wanted me to go ahead and do it.

I said, ron, just go buy some.

Just go do it. You know, because we were. Everybody was frustrated, and your nature of a father, of a leader, of being responsible just kicks in. And I didn't like the price that was being paid to be a part of this team and fix it.

And patience.

With faith and patience, we inherit the promises. Inherit means it's prearranged and it's already there. Yeah.

The blessing that has your name on it.

It's already prearranged.

Right.

You don't have to beg for it, but what? You have to wait for it.

Yes. Ooh, that's so good. You won't have to beg for it, but you will have to wait for it. Guys, this has been amazing. I pray this has helped you. Yes, it has. It really has. It's encouraged me.

I can't wait to see at the bottom of YouTube how many people you know.

Absolutely. Because everybody is in a waiting season.

You think patience comes natural to anybody?

I think some people do. I know some people who seem to be very patient. Not you or me, but.

But, you know, I was patient. I was, like, patient with my kids.

Oh, yes, you were.

I was patient.

Oh, my goodness.

But when it comes to Holy cow, I wasn't. No, I never was. Let's get this done. Let's get this done. Let's get it done. And any semblance of a process just seemed to frustrate me to no end. And that's what I hope I've grown out of. But anyway, I want you to, like, I want you to subscribe, I want you to share, I want you to comment in the comment section. And hope, before we go, I got one thing I want to tell them about, because we're making some changes in the way we advertise a little bit. Instead of advertising everybody else's stuff, we said, you know what? We got so many things out there we think can help people, and we just want to take 30 seconds for you and 30 seconds from me and tell them, don't click it off yet, because this is good stuff. Tell them about Inner Circle.

Oh, well, it's growing day by day. And what it Is is just a group of people all over the world. I mean, in five countries right now, 34 states and five countries, people all over the world in inner circle. And it's just a group of people, hundreds, over 600 people who have said, I just need some mentorship. I need somebody to lock arms with me and to help me on this journey. And we started last October. We have men and we meet twice a month. We have different guests from time to time. You're gonna be a guest next week.

That's a different forum.

It is. No, it's teaching. It is very much teaching and empowerment. So if you'd like to be a part. If you say, I need somebody in this journey called Life, go to HopeSinnerCircle.com and join. Today. You get my book for free. You get the first month for free. It's less than a dollar a day. So I want to help you. I want to be there for you. Not that I'm perfect or have the answers, but it's good.

I've set in on. It's your best stuff.

It is. It's great.

Quite honest. And you've even told me lately because of it, sometimes when you ask to go preach, you wish you could just sit down and do inner circle talks instead of having to get up. Preach.

It's more impactful.

Yes. Because I think it's more substantive in a way. And mine is we're going to really, really start talking a lot about the Vault again. It's my whole life's archive. But you can only get it through my app, Ron Carpenter website. We're going to change that. But right now you've got to download the Ron Carpenter app. And then I have a monthly subscription of everything I have preached for 33 years. Every conference we've done, every special event we've had.

That's a lot of preaching.

Oh, my gosh. Every Wednesday night service, 25 years, everything, every study on every topic imaginable. It is in there. What a resource to young preachers. It could be. I would give anything for something like this. Used to sell CDs, $9.95 a piece. Now I sell everything I got for 9.95amonth. But would love to see you get a subscription to the Vault. I think it's an ultimate discipleship tool. Other than that, we're going to call it a day. Thank you for being with us right here on Running Hope Unfiltered. Real, raw and relevant. Baby, I'm so glad you're back.

Me, too.

You're a lot easier to look at than it is. Me and you make it more fun. So we came back and we talked about patience and let's go employ it. Yeah, it's taken a lot of patience to deal with what me and you have been dealing with lately. That's true.

But there's a reward on the other side.

There's a reward. You inherit something on the other side. So God bless you guys and we'll see you real soon. On next time with Running Hope Unfiltered.

An enemy server Pastor doors and enemies go together. Help me identify these these adversaries, these enemies. Help me identify One enemy is anyone who wants to strengthen a weakness in your life. God desires to remove it. Sometimes we totally ignore the people that we call best friends pull out the worst in us. The people that we so desire to hang around cause you to do the things you most regret. Friends are people refuse to let you operate in foolish behavior. Friends are people that believe in your future too much to let you hit your sabotage button. Everybody has a self destruct button and it is not your friend when they'll let you hit it every weekend. Friends are people that know there's too much greatness in you to let you continue in things that cause you to destroy yourself. Those are friends. So an enemy is not just a person that you think is resisting you, cussing you out. Or an enemy is anybody who strengthens something that God knows can destroy you.

It.