Thanks for tuning in, it's an honor to be with you.

As we study God's Word together, may our time uplift and encourage you.

If you could use some hope, I pray you find it here today.

Thanks so much for joining me for another episode.

We have a tendency to try to negotiate with God.

We say things like, if I get this job, I'll be kinder to my spouse.

I've done this, probably you've done this, Jacob did this.

We see it in Genesis 28 when he says, if God will be with me and will watch over me

on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear

so that I return safely to my father's household, then the Lord will be my God.

The God isn't like us, he isn't transactional and I'm so glad he isn't.

He had not kept his end at the bargain.

He had failed to honor our agreement and I was upset.

I had upheld my end of the arrangement.

I had done what I said I would do, but God,

well God could not make that same claim.

So it was time for reckoning, it was time for a comeuppance.

The hour had come for me to air my grievances to file a complaint.

And so I did exactly that on a cold December night in 1985.

I drove to the vast West Texas prairie and I parked my father's

blue Chevrolet sedan next to a pumpjack.

I did not live in West Texas at that time.

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