Pound for Pound with Mike Kai

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Mike Kai Radio broadcast here on pray
dot com. Thank you for joining us today for an
incredible word. Lean in, listen, close, and don't forget to
click the heart to save this message. To know more
about Mike Kai, head to mike Kai dot Tv. Let's
jump into today's message.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey, I want you to open your bibles to Judges
chapter six this morning. Judges chapter six, continuing our series
in the Book of Judges called he so Judgeye, He's
so Judgey. And it's not about being judgmental. It's not
being about being having a critical spirit because we don't
want to have that. It's about God being the judge,
the ultimate judge, and and how he would send a

(00:44):
deliverer to his people Israel. To bring us up to
speed on the Book of Judges, it comes right after
the Book of Joshua, and it is that next generation
that comes into the promised Land. All throughout the Book
of Exodus, God is promising his people that there is
a land flowing with milk and honey, and they all
know it. But for forty years they wander in the
wilderness because of their disobedience to the Lord, and as

(01:06):
a result of that disobedience of forty years of wandering.
That first generation fell away. They all died. But the
second generation, the sons and the daughters of the people,
who were supposed to possess the promised land, actually step
into that destiny. But God still leaves enemy in the
land in order for them to learn how to fight.
He didn't want a softer generation. He needed a stronger generation.

(01:28):
So as a result of them coming into the land,
they've got battles that they need to fight, and they
win some and they lose them. But the biggest thing
that happens here is in the period of the judges.
After Joshua dies, there is no clear cut leader for
the nation. There is not one person Joshua. Everybody knew
that God's hand was on Joshua, so everybody followed Joshua.

(01:49):
But when they all inherited their lands in all of Israel,
all twelve tribes, they went to the north, they went
to the south. They were scattered amongst the nation that
God gave them, they had allotted to them. But the
people who inherited, that new generation that inherited that land,
they did not fight. They did not push out the enemy.
As a matter of fact, they welcomed the practices of

(02:12):
those other neighboring nations. And as a result of that,
they began to intermarry with the different nations. They began
to turn their back on the Lord and follow the
other gods. And so as a result of that, now
you have the period of the judges. So the judge, remember,
wasn't a judge who had a gown or a gavel
like Judge Judy or Judge Wapner back in my time.

(02:33):
These guys were not those types of judges, but they
did lead that way at times. There were men and
women that God called according to his special timing and
raised up a man who raised up a woman in
order to defeat the enemy. And so the first one
we talked about was a hoo. A hood was different.
The lesson that we learned about a hood was a
hood was a left handed man. And there's everything right

(02:54):
with being left handed, nothing wrong with being left handed.
But Ahud was a left handed man, and he used
his individuality and his awkwardness to grab that weapon and
in order to kill that king. And I want you
to remember that God can still use your individuality, your difference,
the way that you are the way that you were born,
and use that for His glory, and use that to

(03:15):
conquer what God needs you to conquer. The second thing
that we learned was Deborah. God used Deborah. And where
a lot of people think that God, the churches, some
churches are believe that you can't use a woman. A
woman can't preach, I would strongly disagree because God shows
us in the Book of Judges of this woman named Deborah.
And not only does he use Deborah, who is the judge,
he also uses a housewife named Yael. And God uses Yael.

(03:39):
And Yael takes what she has in her hands to
fulfill the purpose of God. That proves to me into
you that God can use whatever's in your hand to
fulfill whatever in your heart. And she takes a tent
pig and the mallet, and she kills Cicera with that mallet.
But today I want to talk about somebody different, and
I want to talk to you about Gideon. Gideon. Now,

(04:00):
Gideon is really interesting because Gideon we're going to talk
about is threshing wheat at the bottom of a wine press.
And the great thing that I love about Gideon is
I've preached this message so many different times that God
gave me a different viewpoint on Gideon, where for years
I talked about the wine press and how the wine
press can be a place that you don't want to
stay in too long. But I wanted you to pick it

(04:21):
up with me in Judges chapter six, because it's very
important in verse one as we go there, and the
Bible says in Judges six, verse one, that the Israelites
did evil in the Lord's sight, so the Lord handed
them over to the Midianites for seven years. So listen
to this. So after each judge there's a period of peace.
After Debra, there was forty years of peace in Israel,

(04:45):
forty years in the land, forty years that there are
no enemies coming after them, forty years of prosperity, forty
years of great crops. You have to understand that agriculture
was so important to them, so they needed to follow
God and follow Yahweh, and Yahweh would bless them. That
was his name of the Old Testament, Yahweh. So as
they worshiped Yahweh, yahwe would bless him. But after that

(05:07):
forty year period, they got lazy, they got complacent, and
they actually did some evil. It says and again the
Israelites did evil in the side of the Lord. So
what is the evil? The evil was following Asterith, following Bail,
following Molek. And these gods, these three gods and one's
a goddess, these three gods were actually detrimental to the

(05:28):
spiritual health of an entire nation. Now, not only was
it like, oh do you chose, Oh you chose Buddhism instead, Oh,
oh you chose you know, you chose nothing. You know
what I'm saying. Wasn't that they actually willingly followed these gods.
And with these gods practices came prostitution, cults, came, child sacrifice,

(05:53):
came all of these things that the Lord was absolutely
displeased with everything that he began to see, so he
hands them over to the Midianites. The Midianites were their
long lost cousins. This is where Moses's family came from.
Moses married married a woman who was from midian His
father in law was Jethro, the priest of Midian. So

(06:15):
these Midianites, their cousins, actually become the ones that oppress them,
and God uses them in order to oppress his people
because of their sin. It's the only way that God
could get his attention. That's why the first thing I
want you to write down in your notes is number one
is our again will activate consequences? Our again? What is
he again and again? The Israelites did evil in the

(06:36):
side of the Lord. That is the common theme of
the Book of Judges. But also the other common theme
is this. In those days, Israel had no king, so
everyone did what seemed right in their own eyes. So
in other words, there was no clear cut ruler without vision,
the people perish and as a result of them following
whatever was right in their own eyes, what was right

(06:56):
in their own eyes was to do those detestable practices.
Now again again, the again actually initiates or activates the
consequences that God has. You know, if you're going through
any consequence, God loves you. You need to know that.
But also the most important thing that you have to
understand is keepers Chapter twelve, verse five says, and you
and have you forgotten the encouraging words God has spoken

(07:18):
to his children when he said, my child, don't make
light of the Lord's discipline, and don't give up when
he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those that he
loves and He punishes each one that he accepts as
his children. So if you are being disciplined by the Lord,
don't reject it, receive it. Why because he loves you.

(07:40):
So his your again activates what the consequences, but it
really activates his love. Because if you love your children,
you're going to discipline your children, because the Bible says
God disciplines those that he loves. So Number one, the
israel said evil in the Lord's sight, so he heads
them up to the Midianites for seven years. Let's look
at how bad the Midianites were. Verse two. The Minionites

(08:01):
were so cruey that the Israelites made hiding places for
themselves in mountains and caves and in strongholds. Look at this.
You inherit the land. You fought for it, Your grandparents
fought for it, your great grandparents fought for it, and
your great great grandparents wandered in the wilderness for forty years,
didn't get to see what you have. And now you

(08:21):
go into the land and you give it away, and
you go lift your heart's desire. And now you're hiding
in strongholds, you're hiding out in caves. You're fearful because
the Midianites. And this is how bad it got for Israel.
So they hid themselves in mountains and caves and strongholds,
and whenever the Israelites planted their crops, marauders from Midion
Amalik and the people of the East would attack Israel,

(08:44):
camping in the land and destroying crops as far away
as Gaza. And they left the Israelites with nothing to eat,
nothing to eat, where's my place? Nothing to eat? Taking
all the sheep, the goats, the cattle, the kuding, there's
nothing left to eat, auto balloot, auto chickens, everything gone,

(09:07):
and all the donkeys. And then these enemy hordes coming
with their livestock and tents were as thick as locals.
Can you see the enemy just came into the land
and just invaded, and they stayed. They stayed, and they
stayed until the land was stripped bare. So Israel was
reduced to starvation by the midy nights. And then the
Israelites cried out to the Lord for help. Can you

(09:29):
see what's going on here? See you allow this to happen?
And the enemy comes in and they don't just come in.
It's like a famacy. Can we just stay with you
guys for a week and kind of we just need
a place to stay and transition before our new rental.
And then they come, Can my daughter and her husband stay, yeah, okay,
all right? And then they come, would you mind if

(09:49):
my other son and his wife come with their five kids?
Oh my god, I guess for a week? Just a week.
Then a week turns into a month, and a month
turns into a year, and before you know it, you
got twenty five people leaving in your house, right, and
you're like, oh man, they can't they eat everything. No,
this is worse than that. This is a thousand times worse.

(10:11):
And they're coming from the east. They're coming from Saudi Arabia,
they're coming from Iraq, and they come in, these Midianites,
and they stay, they set up their tents and they're
they're like, hey, how's that. We're just gonna live it. No,
they are killing people. They are plim there. They are
doing everything. They're taking all of your crops, all of
your food. Can you imagine what it looked like after

(10:31):
just a month, gray and brown and nothing green because
they took it all. And they stay in the land
for days. And this went on for seven years and
then it says, and then the Israelites cried to the
Lord for help. So they cried to the Lord for help.
And then the Lord sends a prophet, a nameless prophet.
We don't know who this prophet is. But God sends

(10:52):
a prophet, and the prophet says this. He said, this
is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. I
brought you up out of Egypt in slavery. I rescued
you from the Egyptians and from all who oppressed you.
I drove out your enemies and gave you their land.
I told you, I'm the Lord, your God. You must
not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land
you now live. But you have not listened to me.

(11:15):
Then the Angel of the Lord came and sat beneath
the great Trea at Ophrah, which belonged to joe Ash
of the clan of Nbazer, and Gideon, the son of Joash,
was threshing wheat at the bottom of a wine press
to hide the grain from the Midiites. The first thing is,
even though our again initiates consequences. Number two, your cry
initiates redemption. He said again. The Israelites cried out to

(11:38):
the Lord for help. It doesn't mean that they repented,
but at least they cried. At least they called out
to Yahweh. At least they got to a final place
where they've come to the end of themselves and they
come to the beginning of God. And you didn't catch that.
When you come to the end of yourself, you finally
come to the beginning of God. When you come to
the end of yourself, you get to the beginning of God,

(11:59):
says God, I need you And these these Israelites finally
turned back to God, or at least they cry out
to him, and he sends the prophet, and the prophet says, yeah,
I told you, God said I told you. God said,
I told you. And he drops the mic and he
walks out. We don't know who this prophet is. But
then the Angel of the Lord appears and he finds
Gideon threshing wheat at the bottom of a wine press. Everybody,

(12:22):
this is a wine press. Okay, just pretend this is
a wine press. Use your imagination. We've built a wine press.
There's bricks all around this wine press. It's really a
baptismal But we know we just wanted to make a
wine press, so we could get the ideas. And he's
threshing wheat at the bottom of a wine press. Let
me explain to you what a wine what threshing looks like.
So in other words, Daniel, Daniel nel Greenacres is the

(12:47):
place for me. So anyway, what would happened is there's
something important. Let's put it upside down. Let's put it
like that. Okay. What's really important to understand is that
when it comes to threshing. Hi, guys, how you doing
all right? How's it hey? Landing? What's up? Landing? Was
it landed? Oh? Big? At your shoulders now landed? You've

(13:08):
been lifting weights that landed? Anyway, watch this. So, if
you harvested wheat, you'd bring in your sheaves of wheat.
You would transport them this is the food chain. You'd
transport them to the threshing floor. The threshing floor was
oftentimes packed down dirt and earth. The threshing floor was
very very important. It was either made of They put

(13:29):
either some form of mud and they hardened it and
you'd bring your sheaves of wheat and you'd put it
on there, and then you would have a big sled
and the goat, so the animals would begin to pull it,
and the oxen would pull it, and then you would
begin to thresh out the wheat because you have to
separate the kernel from the rest of the stalk. Right now,
it's inedible. You can't eat the whole stalk, so what

(13:49):
you need to do is separate them. So now what
begins to happen is there is a crushing that happens.
And after you have threshed the wheat, then you go
to the next level. After threshing the wheat, and now
you take a winnowing fork after you have the next
level of that product. And with a winnowing fork, you'd
go to a place where there was wind. And if
there was wind, the wind would blow away the chaff,

(14:11):
and the chaff would blow away and the good stuff
and the kernels would fall to the ground. So, now
when God shows up and the Angel of the Lord,
you know this. Whenever the Angel of the Lord appeared,
the Angel of the Lord was a theophany. It was
a pre incarnate version of Jesus Christ. So, in other words,
Christ was not a concept that was born on Christmas Day.

(14:31):
As a matter of fact, in Genesis chapter two, God says,
let us make man in our own image. He's talking
to the Holy Spirit, and he's talking to his son.
Jesus is the Alpha, the Omega, the first and the last.
He is the uncreated one. He was, he is and
always shall be. In John chapter one, verse one, it says,
in the beginning was the Word, and the word was
with God, and the word was God. The word is Jesus.

(14:54):
Somebody say, amen, So he already was there. So the
preincarnate version of Christ, that is an appearing of God
before his real time to show up on the scene,
and that's Jesus. So whenever you see the Angel of
the Lord, it's Jesus himself. But when the Angel of
the Lord shows up, what does he find. He finds

(15:14):
Gideon threshing wheat, but at the bottom of a wine press.
He's doing the right thing. But there's something wrong with
this picture, because shouldn't a wine press be filled with wine?
Can you get a picture if you were to see
that in ancient times or even just maybe one hundred
years ago, or even maybe fifty years ago, you would

(15:35):
take all of your grapes from your harvest. But there's
a problem here. We have no grapes. Why don't we
have no grapes, because it's the curse. They are under
a curse for turning the back on God. There's either
curses or blessings. Now I'm not talking about a voodoo curse.
You know, I'm talking about evil eye you right now?
You know, oot on doll, make one doll buck you
right there. Oh no, I'm just sorry. Not that kind

(15:57):
of curse. But the kind of curse that we're talking
is in Deuteronomy chapter twenty eight and Deuteronomy chapter twenty eight.
God says, here are blessings for following me. Here are
curses as if you don't. The blessing is attached to
the land. The blessing was attached to prosperity, the blessing
was attached to safety from your enemies. And as a
result of turning the back on the Lord, now they're

(16:19):
threshing floors, are cursed and sore their wine presses, so
they have no olive oil, they have no wine, and
they have no wheat or barley. And as a result
that that was the sustenance of life for people in Israel.
So now Gideon is found threshing wheat at the bottom
of a wine press. So there is no wine, there
is no stomping, there is no grapes, there are no crops.

(16:42):
But he's somehow got his hand on some sheaves of
wheat and he's put them in the wine press to
hide it from the Midiy Knights because if the Midi
Knights hear it, if the Midi Knites see it, they
will swoop down and take it from him off and
possibly kill him. So what is Gideon doing. He is
doing whatever it takes in that season of his life
in order to survive and to make ends meet and

(17:05):
to provide for his family. He is hustling right now, everybody,
he is hustling. And rather than stay in the wine
press and have a wine press mentality and order or
hire an interior decorator to come in can Look, I'm
in a wine press right now. I'm just wanna stay
here for a while. I'm not feeling good. I'm just
wanna wallow in what's going on right now? Just let
me decorate my wine press and just stay here. And

(17:27):
God says, no, you're not staying in there. So what
does Gideon do? He threshes wheat. Now I want you
to know this that you when you're beginning to thresh wheat,
it's gonna make some noise. It's gonna make some noise.
Not only is it gonna make some noise, this is
a stalk of wheat right here. The kernel would be
inside here. So what he's trying to do is get
to the kernel. So all of this wheat or barley

(17:48):
that's here, and it's harvest time in May and June
because it's planted in November and December. And now somehow
he's got some So he's making some noise and he's
trying to keep quiet, and some dust is being is
being summoned. There's dust in the air, and he's very
very careful. But then the Angel of the Lord appears.

(18:08):
And I want to say this that your innovation, your perspiration,
your determination, all these things, in my opinion, attract the
attention of God. See not only does your again initiate consequences,

(18:29):
not only does your cry activate redemption, but number three,
your hustle gets God's attention. Woo, Let me turn to
this side, because you guys are allowed enough. This guy
is quiet. Let me, did you you get that? You
got that right? That all of this activity, all of

(18:49):
this crushing all of this. I'm just trying to get
some colonels. I feel like I'm being crushed. Sometimes I
feel like this Colonel right now, I feel like I'm
going through the wringer. I feel like I'm only in
stead one of the process. There's a few more processes
to go through. There's a grinding I need to go through.
There's all of this, And sometimes you can feel like
you're in this wine press and you're doing all of
this work, but you're wondering, does God see? Does God?

(19:12):
Is God aware? And I'm convinced that if Gideon was
doing what he was doing, was God was watching what
he was doing, that if God was gonna, if there
was something, then let me prove this to you. When

(19:33):
a threshing floor is blessed, Joe two twenty four says,
the threshing floors will again be piled high with grain,
and the presses will overflow with new wine and olive oil.
But let me tell you when a threshing floor is cursed,
it says in Joseah ninety one to two says, Oh
people of Israel, do not rejoice as other nations do,
for you've been unfaithful to your God hiring yourselves out

(19:55):
like prostitutes, worshiping other gods on every threshing floor. So
now your harvest will be too small to feed you,
and there will be no grapes for making new wine.
So what is happening here is now this threshing floor
is no longer blessed. This threshing floor has been cursed
because it says that the children of Israel actually began

(20:17):
to worship other gods on the threshing floor. So you
have to understand that the threshing floor wasn't used twenty
four seven. It was used only during the harvest time,
and after that it wasn't used very much. They did
they had other they had other things to do with it.
But the children of Israel decided that they're gonna worship
Bail in that threshing floor, that they're gonna worship Asterisk,
they're gonna worship Molech, all those different gods on God's

(20:41):
threshing floor. When you were threshing, it was communal. So
you had another family over here, they had their threshing floor.
You had a wine press over here, you had your
olive press over there, and it was all everybody did
it together. They all did it together. So you know,
you be on that threshing floor, you say, hey, how's
it going here. I'm just threshing, bro, how are you?
I'm just threshing too. You threshing? That's awesome. Hey, we're

(21:03):
just threshing together. Man, this is fresh. Come on, let's
fresh fresh thresh and you know what, And it would
be a family affair that people would thresh together. The
family that threshes together stays together. But I also want
to prove to you that the threshing floor was very spiritual.
Even though it was an agricultural place, it was also

(21:23):
a sacred space because if you remember then when abrah
if you remember then when there was a wh when
there was a plague in Israel, and David took a census,
and David wasn't supposed to take a census. So David
decides he was going to do it. And the Lord said,
that was evil in your heart that you took a census.

(21:45):
I told you not to take a census. So there
was a plague that came throughout the land, and in
order for the plague to stop, David needed to offer
a sacrifice. Where did he do it? On the threshing
floor of Arauna, because that's where the angel stopped. The
threshing floor of Arauna. A man had a threshing floor,
and there God met him on the threshing floor, and

(22:08):
threshing floors are actually very sacred spaces. God is jealous
of a threshing floor, and so now all of a sudden,
God brings a visitation to Gideon, shows up himself in
the wine press. Because Gideon is trying to create something.
Not only is he creating food, not only is he
trying to continue the food supply chain, but he's also

(22:32):
unknowing to him that his hustle, his work, his might
is actually not just providing food but also attracting the
attention of God. The Bible tells us that the eyes
of the Lord search to and from throughout the year,
second Chronicle sixteen, verse nine, to strengthen those whose hearts

(22:52):
are fully committed to him. The eyes of the Lord
search throughout the world in order to strengthen those whose
hearts to committed him. Someone say, Amen, when you look
at all the things that Guineon is doing, he's attracting
the Lord. What are you doing that attracts the favor
of the Lord on your life. You already, if you're

(23:12):
a savior, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you
already have the Holy Spirit inside of you. He is
already with you. But there is more. There is more.
There is a multiplication of the talents that God gave you,
the one talent, the two talents, the ten talents, the
five talents, whatever it is. What are you doing with
what God gave you to get the attention? Because your

(23:34):
hustle gets God's attention. So now Gideon says this, and
the Angel says, he calls him out, and he says,
mighty Hero, the Lord is with you. And Gidding replied,
if the Lord is really with us, then why is
all this happened? Is he doesn't even recognize that that's
the Lord right now. He has no idea that this Jesus.
He's inside his wine press and put the scripture back

(23:54):
up there. Yeah, leave it up there, he goes. He's
threshing wheat, and he's trying to keep quiet, and he's
doing everything that he can can imagine. If all of
a sudden, Mighty Hero, the Lord is with you, I'll
be like you ever had anybody sneak up on you,
and you just like all of a sudden like and
he goes, mighty Hero, the Lord is with you, sir.
He says, if the Lord is with us, then why

(24:15):
has all this happened to us? He's quoting verse seven. Everybody,
why has all this happened to us? Where are all
the miracles or ancestors told us about? Didn't they say?
The Lord brought us up out of Egypt? But now
the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to
the Midia nights, he goes, where's God when you need him?
Is this just a philosophical platitude? Or is this real?

(24:37):
Where's the Lord? Where's the Lord? And he's like, bro,
you gonna find out pretty soon. Where's Lord? I'm like
right here in front of you, But right now you
too blind to see that I'm in your midst. You
can't even recognize it because for seven years your country

(24:58):
has turned your back on me. And if you're really
in tune, you would fall on your face right now
in that wine press, and you would suck all that
straw up right now out of fear. But you don't
know yet. So you're gonna ask me for a fleece
on a threshing floor. You're gonna ask the fleece to

(25:20):
become wet, and then you're not gonna believe, and you
can ask me the next day, can the fleece become
dry where everything else around me is wet because you
don't recognize who's in front of you.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
And he goes, Sir, if the Lord was really with us,
would I really go through all this pain? If the
Lord was really with me, would I really be going
through this right now? He's saying what every single one
of us has asked at some point in.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Our walk with Christ, the Lord, if you're really really true,
then why am I going through all of this? He
says to him. He does not answer all of his
questions because he's God and he does not have to.
One day you get your answers. But right now, the

(26:19):
Lord says to him, He says, go with the strength
that you have. Go with the strength that you have,
and rescue Israel from the minion knights I'm sending you.
But Lord Gidding replied, how can I rescue Israel? My
clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manassa.
I am the least in my entire family, and the

(26:40):
Lord says, I will be with you and I'll destroy
the minion nights as if you were fighting against one man.
Can you see what he says, Let's go back to that.
He goes, How can I go? He says, go on
the strength that you have? What strength that do you have?
Go on the strength that you have? He says, Lord,
I'm from the tribe of Manassa. You don't understand, and
mylan is the weakest in the entire tribe. Can I

(27:02):
just give you, guys a little background about Manassa. Manassa
is called the half tribe of Manassa. That's the way
that they're referred to. They're not referred to the full
tribe of Manassa, there's Manassa. They don't even get the
respect of being called Manassa. They're called the half tribe
of Manassa. So he says, out of the half tribe
of Manassa, I am the weakest. We are the weakest klan,

(27:24):
and I'm the least of them all my family. He goes,
if you couldn't pick anybody smaller, you couldn't pick anybody weaker.
You could have picked somebody way better. There's you picked
the wrong guy. He goes, perfect, I love you. I'll
work with you because you take no glory when I
use you. He goes, the half tribe of Manassa. See,

(27:48):
they were called the half tribe because they were only half.
The other half state on the other side of the
Jordan when they inherited the land. So whatever they imagine,
there were a roll call, there's twelve tribes right. Bring forth,
the tribe of the Tribe of Benjamin, reporting, sir, bring forth,
the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Judah. Reporting, sir,
bring forth, the half tribe of Manassa, the half tribe

(28:11):
of Manassa.

Speaker 4 (28:12):
Reporting, Sir says, you're not even a full rack of ribs.
You're not even a half rack of ribs. You're not
even a corner rack of ribs. You're more like a
riblet sandwich from McDonald's. Here's that's who I am. This
is all that I am. God says, go go on
the strength that you already have. I'm gonna use you,
and you're gonna defeat the middy Knights as if you

(28:32):
were scrapping with only one guy.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
And I will be with you. The third thing I
want you write down, or the fourth thing or the
seventh thing. I've lost my place, but here it is
number four. Your willingness brings God's intervention. Your willingness brings
God's intervention. I wonder if there was any other candidates
God was looking at. I wonder, Frank, you can come

(28:56):
up now. I was wondering if was there any other
candidates just Frank God was looking at. I wonder if
there was anybody else's you know what, there's like five
guys right now in Isralm trying to pick which one? Father,
who do you think? I'm not sure, Son, what do
you think? Well, there's this one guy. It's making a
lot of noise. There's some dust being kicked up every

(29:21):
now and then. I can see it. I can see it.
I see a little dust cloud. I see a little
barley in the air. Who is that? Let me find out? Father,
I enough just pretending. Jesus, the Angel of the Lord,

(29:41):
is watching this guy trying to just.

Speaker 5 (29:47):
Make a living, watching him trying to create his own wind.
This guy's trying to hide everything that nobody will take
what he's got, because that he's got to get that.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Barley or that wheat, get that kernel and whatever he's
got and he's gonna find a place that he can
grind it and pound it to make it into flour
and so that he can finally make some bread so
that they can live just a little bit longer.

Speaker 6 (30:22):
And he's hustling, and he's innovating, and he's doing whatever
he can because man, because his nation.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
Is dependent upon whatever he is doing right now. Maybe
you think that you play such an insignificant role at times,
how can God use you? I felt like I was
Gideon every time I would read this, you know what

(30:57):
I'm saying. I was nineteen when I became a dad father.
I was twenty one when it became when I was
known as a single father raising my daughter. And I
felt like I was in wine presses, and I felt
like I was making some noise and cutting up some

(31:19):
throwing up dust and wondering if God is real. And
those times I had three jobs then equal to maybe
one point two full time jobs. I was a valet
at a restaurant. I worked for American Airlines. I was

(31:42):
I was doing my amoy business because that's what I had.
And I remember just going I could stay in this
wine press and be depressed, or I could use this
wine press and maybe one day God will turn this
into something pretty awesome. And in the middle of my

(32:04):
desperation of God.

Speaker 5 (32:07):
Do you see what's happening?

Speaker 2 (32:09):
You have any idea how much this hurts? They have
any clue if you real do something?

Speaker 5 (32:18):
Well.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
He didn't answer all my questions, and he didn't give
me back what I prayed for, but he ended up
giving me purpose and he changed my life. In my
life at twenty one, when from my fear to slowly
up the right side of the graph and to the

(32:41):
right and look at me, because what God has done.
I'm from the smallest town on the Big Island with
not even a full college education and in complete college.

(33:01):
But what God can do when you make some noise
and when you throw up some dust and you try
to create your own wind. The great thing about the
Lord is he comes into your wine press and he
brings healing, and he changes the course of your life

(33:23):
if you let him. And you don't have to be
twenty one and lost like I was. You can be
fifty and accomplished a lot. We all need Jesus to
jump into our winepress at some point.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Thank you for listening to the Mike Chai Radio broadcast
here on pray dot com. We hope you were encouraged
by today's message. You can find leadership books, webinars, masterclasses,
and more resources at mikechi dot tv. And remember you
can find the Mike Chai channel here on pray dot com.
Until next time, May God continue to bless you