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Today's talk comes from Pastor Ben Stewart.

Well, I was a youth pastor right out of college, and I used to take our students'

whitewater rafting.

And every year we'd go to Colorado, and we'd go to one of those outfitters that had the

guides and had the gear, and we would jump in, they would split us up, and then we would

go down the river.

And afterwards, we would always get out, and as we got into the bus, there was always a debate that would break out among my students

as to who had the coolest rafting guide,

except for one year where I, without question, had the coolest rafting guide.

But I didn't think so at first, because when we got there,

he took all my friends and put them in one raft,

and then he stuck

me in a raft with a bunch of middle school kids, which I was like, I have nothing in common

with these guys, other than at the time we were all single and loved video games.

But beyond that, almost nothing.

And yet we started down the river, and it didn't take long before we realized, like, I don't

think we got a normal guide, because he would start to do

these hand motions. And when he did him, every other raft would instantly obey in unison.

And we began to look at each other going, who is this man, that even the rafts obey him?

And yet we continued down the river, and as we got to the first set of rapids, there was a boat in front of us that, bless her heart, there was a girl that maybe didn't understand the water was going to get rapid. So when they hit it, she just sort of bounced out. And this water, this is Colorado. It had been snow like five minutes ago.

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