The Power of Praying Like Jesus

"Pray first, pray second, pray through." Join Pastors Carlton and Asa in this authentic conversation about how to develop a deeper prayer life, submit to God's will, and allow the Holy Spirit to guide our words and actions. Through stories and scripture, learn to pray like Jesus Himself - with reverence, persistence, and humility. This episode is not about adhering to a strict prayer schedule; it's an invitation to make prayer a natural part of your daily life, a constant conversation with God. Listen in as they share personal stories of struggle and growth, inspiring us to embrace prayer not just as an emergency lifeline, but as our first line of defense. Walk away encouraged and equipped to connect with God in a life-changing way - because the best time to start is always now​​.

If you're looking to get even more out of this podcast episode, check out the full sermon on the same topic on our YouTube channel https://go.clc.tv/ps49

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
Well, welcome to, what is this called between Sermons
podcast. I'm Pastor Carlton. We got Pastor Asa here
with me. We're going to be talking about prayer.
Praying like Jesus.
Pray like Jesus.
So Pastor Brent is gone. Well, he's not gone.
He's in Senegal.
Only reason we here.
Yes, he's gone. He's in Senegal, saving people, doing

(00:36):
the work of the Lord. And we're here being
goofballs or doing his work.
Doing his work. There you go. Somebody got to
back him up, man.
So this is a pastor Carlson, Pastor Asa podcast
takeover. We've taken over the church for the nine
nine s in.
We play uno all morning.
All morning. Play uno. So this is going to

(00:56):
be a fun podcast. We're going to just be
relaxed and we're going to go through a little
bit of your sermon. We're going to talk about
our own prayer lives and see where we land
with this. So hopefully this is a good, casual
conversation and we can make something happen out of
it.
So I think it will be. We know you
like to talk. Thank you. I'm going to just

(01:17):
sit back and I'm alone for the ride. Whatever
he do, just let him go. But it should
be good. I would assume that you have some
experiences in your life where prayer has been a
part of it or made a difference.
We should be good. It's funny how when you
have a devotional or a sermon or even a
podcast that God has you in the midst of
the thing, you're going to talk about.

(01:38):
Yeah.
And it's like, man, God, why are you giving
me a real life example of this? Just so
I could be invested in it? I'm already invested
in it, is your word.
So I'm not going to even jump into that
this early in the podcast because getting to the
stage on Sunday, all of my prayer abilities and
experience, it all had to come into play to

(02:01):
get to the stage on Sunday. You was there.
You was part of it. Yes. What do you
call that? Turn that corner around that circle.
Oh, no, we'll get there.
Around those wagons. There's a term meaning that we're
going to go back, circle the wagons.
There you go. Something, I don't know, familiar.
Might be racist, but that's okay.

(02:22):
He said that I wasn't a part of that
conversation. Whoever watches.
All right, so to get us started, I'm going
to present to you a problem that I have,
and I want you to let me know how
to deal with the problem, if it is a
problem, if you've experienced this. Okay. So in my
prayer life, I have such a position of relationship

(02:49):
with Jesus, right? So in my head, at least,
I do, right? I call him Jesus. He calls
me Carlson. We on first name basis. So Jesus
is my homeboy. He's my road dog. But with
that, I also have to be reminded to reverence
Jesus in prayer. Like, I talk to him casually.
I talk to the Holy Spirit casually. I'd be

(03:11):
like, man, jesus, I screwed up, man. But, you
know, I'm human. It's cool, you know, I appreciate
you dying for me, know, washing that away. So
I have a very casual relationship with the Holy
Spirit in prayer. But I struggle sometimes in my
own self that, Carlton, you have to make sure
that you have proper reverence for God in prayer.

(03:33):
So what's the balance there? What have you experienced?
And what kind of advice would you.
Give me right off hand? What you remind me
of is different ways of parenting. You can parent
some kids with the belt, and that might help.
Some kids you can give a hug and that
might help. So when it comes to relationship, what
I'm thinking as you're saying that is, it's not

(03:54):
one right way. The cool thing is, you do
realize. Let me check myself and make sure I'm
reverence God. But I think that God wants us
to be our real selves with him. He knows
who we are. And he knows your heart. So
is your heart in a position of reverencing God?
Right.
He knows that regardless of what we say or

(04:17):
how we say it. He knows your heart. So
I think being real with God is the way
to go. I think he wants relationship. I think
that's what it's all about is, man, I love
you. You're my child. Let's be in mean. So
that's how I see it. I don't think it's
a problem unless the Holy Spirit's telling you it's
a problem, right?
Yeah. Because I think about David and how he

(04:37):
positioned himself in prayer, right? Like he told God
all of his emotions, what he was feeling, the
pain that he was in, his struggles. He was
telling God what he wanted God to do to
his enemies. And how he wanted to kill them
and destroy them. He was very authentic and real
in prayer. And I find that that's a way
for me to really get out the emotion that

(04:59):
I'm feeling in a moment. It's like, listen, God,
this hurts so bad. I need you to come
through with this or I'm not going to make
it. The authenticity in being. I don't want to
keep saying casual but real with God in prayer
I think really helps me. But I also got
to remember how Jesus taught us to pray and

(05:22):
he first started out with understanding God's position and
reverencing that position and honoring that. So it's just
something that I've been.
Thinking about and I think it's so depending on
what church circle you come from, when you look
at how David did it, some people would think,
well, where's the lightning bolt that's coming for me

(05:43):
talking to God like this? And then some might
be in the ditch on the other side. Very
possible that a little bit too casual, but I
think that it's all of the above. So you
have the relational relationship with God where it's just
talking to God. I used in the sermon yesterday,
hey, I'm in target and talking to God about

(06:04):
a t shirt. He cares. He don't feel like
this is not serious enough. Don't talk to me
about that. He cares. He wants you to be
in constant fellowship. When his word tells us to
pray always, that do not mean be on your
knees with your hands up always because that's about
impossible for us. So I think that it's those
moments. Yes. Where I'm just on my face reverencing

(06:27):
God, giving God much respect. And then it's just
all of the in between. The majority of it
is going to be the conversation. The majority of
it is going to be, good morning, Jesus.
Moment by moment relationship.
Yeah, absolutely. It's going to be, you experience something
good and it's like, man, thank you, father, for
that. You know what I mean? You get a
revelation of how wonderful your wife is and it's
like, lord, thank you for blessing me with a

(06:48):
wonderful woman. You know what I mean? And that's
just relationship. So I think that it's. That I
think as long as your heart is positioned. Yeah.
I told my son, I said it's like if
our conversations were rhetoric only.
Yeah.
And you only talk to me either in the
morning or right before bed.
Good morning, Father Carlton. Right.

(07:09):
And then you quote something that I said to
you in the past back to me, you tell
me what your needs are for the day and
then I don't talk to you until tomorrow morning.
Yeah.
Horrible. And I tell Spencer's like, that's not how
relationship works. And that's not how God wants us
to have relationship with him in prayer, our relationship
with him in prayer, because we can't make prayer
some kind of systematic, stuffy thing. We have to

(07:32):
have relationship and authenticity in prayer. And I really
do think, and it could be just my whimsical
sense of humor, that God enjoys that and he
responds to us when we come to him that
way. I even crack jokes with Jesus. I'm like,
God wasn't that know, I don't hear him ought
to be laughing in my head. But to me,

(07:53):
I'm like, man. Like, God gave me a sense
of humor I think he enjoys.
Absolutely. So. So I love to play golf by
myself, but it's never by myself. I'm hanging out
with Jesus. Like, I can be playing golf and
talking to God and hit a bad shot, and
Lord Jesus, help me with that. You know what

(08:15):
I mean? Like, just, man, I'm just doing life
with God. He wants us to do life with
him. I mean, good, bad, and the, that's. I
think that's the part that we need to get.
I think that's the part a lot of people
get the, or try to get into regimens of
how they need to have a prayer life and

(08:37):
pray an hour and do this and do that.
When, man, it's so much in between. Like you
said, waking up in the morning, praying and praying
before you go to bed. If I don't acknowledge
my wife from sun up to sundown, you have
a terrible marriage. Horrible marriage, horrible relationship. Yeah. So
that's not what God wants from us.
Yeah. I've even taken Jesus out on a date,

(08:59):
as crazy as that sounds like. I've gone to
a restaurant and sat down and I would have
a basis of my conversations with him during a
meal or something like that. I would read an
article or there'll be a passage that sticks out
to me that I want to just have an
open discussion with God about. And I find those

(09:20):
moments to be so fulfilling for me. And people
may think I'm crazy. I'm sitting there talking to
myself and I'm talking to God, and it feels
like his presence, just the fulfillment that I get
when I actually spend alone time with God. And

(09:40):
the other thing, too, my alone time with God
could be in an activity that I'm doing by
myself. Like, you play golf, I'll go out to
eat, and I'll be talking to God during a
meal. And I think that it is helpful for
a lot of people when they understand that. Okay,
do I need a prayer closet? There's going to
be some times where I come up here to

(10:01):
the prayer room. I'm pointing to our prayer room.
That's that way at church, we have a prayer
room. I invite you to come join me in
prayer.
Go that way.
Yeah, but a lot of people think that there
needs to be, like, a tabernacle, a place for
them to go to the holy of holies and
meet God. And it's like, well, you went to

(10:22):
the grocery store yesterday. Was God not. He was
there with you in the grocery store. That could
have been a time where you had. You walked
around Mariano's for 45 minutes trying to figure out
where the eminems are. That's a time for you
to talk to God.
Yeah, and I use that with parenting. Sometimes I
just give my kids reminders that God loves you

(10:44):
and he's always with you. Now, some of that
might be a Jedi mind trick, you know, God
watching you. Right? But it's really not that. I
always pray for their protection when they get out
the car. And Angel Lord isn't camped around you
and things like that. And it's really to make
them aware that that's real. Like, God is truly
always with you. So acknowledge that. And he wants

(11:05):
us to acknowledge that. That has saved my life
so many times. My mother just teaching me that
that's the most meaningful thing I got from my
mother. Follow your inward man, son.
Right?
God is with you. He's in you, and he
will lead you. Follow your inward man and man.
My inward man in the midst of foolishness would

(11:26):
lead me out of foolishness. My inward man in
the midst of just craziness would lead me out
of it to the point where people would. My
friends would be like, but you was right there
with us. Then all of a sudden you wasn't.
And now we go into jail. Where were you?
And I'm like, dude, the Lord got through to
me before I got there with y'all. So I

(11:47):
exited stage left out of the blue.
I had so many of those moments. And I'm
like, now in my maturity, I'm like, okay, the
Holy Spirit is telling me to do this. But
there were some times where I was so distracted
with what I wanted to do that I guess
this goes to being able to submit in prayer,
right? So we can start getting into this. It's

(12:10):
like I was so distracted with what I wanted
to do that I didn't hear the Holy Spirit
speak to me and to nudge me or move
me to do something different. Now, there was times
where I'm like, okay, the Holy Spirit was loud
and clear with that. And I look back and
like, okay, that saved me from that. But we
have to get to a place in our relationship

(12:32):
with God where we can submit to when the
Holy Spirit starts nudging us or speaking to us
in our inner man through prayer and outside of
prayer. I mean, we got to get to a
point where we're so used to hearing from the
Holy Spirit in prayer that we can also hear
from the Holy Spirit outside of.
Because it's because I say that story. That wasn't

(12:53):
when he started talking. God was talking long before
I got myself that close to whatever was next.
He started a long time ago. Finally, I would
say smart enough, but I don't even know if
I was smarter. Finally he got through to me.
You know what I mean? And it shouldn't be
that way. That's not ideal. That's just how much
he loves us. That's just his willingness to love

(13:15):
us unconditionally and do all he can to steer
us in the way that we should go. And
it's too late for him to steer us in
the way that we should go. He's trying to
steer you in the way you should go. And
if you listen long before you get to trouble,
you probably won't end up in as many things
that turn out bad as they do. And I

(13:37):
think that that goes to some of those hard
to answer questions. Some people look at it as
well. Why do God allow these things? I look
at it as some human is not listening to
God to end up there, whether it's the one
that's the problem or the victim.
Right.
I don't care if you know Jesus or not,
God is trying to save all man. Whether you

(14:00):
have a relationship or not, he's trying to save
you. It's interesting because if you actually chime into
some of the 911 stuff from different churches, there's
a lot of stories out there that, of course,
the tv is not going to show you, but
there's a lot of stories out there about people
who woke up that day and said, something inside

(14:20):
me just told me to go the other way.
Something inside me just told me to go to
Dunkin'donuts. I don't even go to Dunkin'donuts. Something inside
me, people that don't know God talking so much
about how something was just telling him to do
something else. So you don't hear those stories. You
hear about the tragedy, of course, but God was
trying to save everybody.
Yeah, man. I was like 19 years old and

(14:42):
I was driving home. I lived in my grandma's
basement, and something told me to take the long
way home. And I'm like, but it's right there.
And I kept going down the street to the
next light to go around back to my grandmother's

(15:03):
house. When I got to my grandmother's house, there
was a Chevy suburban that was halfway in the
house. It had crashed into the house in the
corner of the house where my bed was in
the basement.
Yeah, buddy.
And I don't know if I would have been
pulling up at that moment. He would have hit
me or if I would have been downstairs in
the basement at that time. And I'm like, man,

(15:27):
if I didn't take the action when something told
me to take the long way home, I could
have been in real trouble.
Yeah.
Now, there's other times. In hindsight, I know the
holy spirit was talking to me loud and clear,
like nearly shaking me to do something different. And
I did something anyway. And now I find myself,

(15:51):
15 years later, praying to come out of, to
overcome the thing that I should have listened to
15 years ago. And it's so important that when
we in prayer and relationship with him that we
are hearing from the Holy Spirit that we have
to listen to what he's telling us, because hearing

(16:13):
can be easy. It's the unction in our consciousness
and his word. But we got to listen to
what is being said to us. We got to
save us some trouble.
Yeah, I quote it all the time because everything
to me just goes to proverbs three six. In
all your ways, acknowledge him. He'll direct your path.
That's simple. I know we're not going to do

(16:34):
it in all our ways, but that word, God's
word, that's so simple. And we do not do
it, not in all our ways, and we never
will.
But, yeah, we don't.
The higher the percentage that you acknowledge God in
your ways, the better off you'll be. And that's
just such the truth. I got such a similar

(16:55):
story to yours. I told it on the podcast
before, so I'll give the quickest possible way. Same
thing. Got in the car heading home. And the
Holy Spirit, from the time I shut the door
in the car, was telling me to take the
long way home. And I wrestled till I came
to that decision point. And at the decision point,
I start breaking to turn left on indian wood
like he told me to do. And this car
comes sliding through right in front of me, going

(17:17):
to the woods, I do a whole lord, thank
you, Jesus. Turn left the way he told me.
But at that point, I probably should have stopped
and helped the brother that just fled over to
the woods. But I was so shook from Lord.
You told me for a mile I'm driving and
you telling me to turn left. I can do
number just praise God on my way home, right?
So that's the thing, man. And a lot of

(17:38):
stuff happened that we're not acknowledging God in all
our ways.
And part of the reason why we don't acknowledge
God in all our ways is because we haven't
gotten to that first part of that scripture. That
verse is trust in the Lord with all your
heart. And I think that we have a problem
with that. I think in theory we understand that,
but in actual practice and trusting God, I think

(18:01):
that's where we fall short. And in practice, when
we're like, well, I don't know if God is
really saying that to me, but my desire is
to do this. And so when we don't trust,
when the Holy Spirit gives us a revelation of
something or nudges us in a direction, then it's
hard for us then to take that next step
in acknowledging him and everything because we going to

(18:21):
get to a point where we stop acknowledging him
because we don't trust him. It's not that we
don't trust God because we do trust God, but
our practice and our human cells and our lives,
we don't exhibit trust. We don't show that we
trust God because we want to do our thing
our way and then we stop acknowledging him.
And I hate to say it this way, but

(18:42):
we don't value that higher than some of the
things we want to do, right? We just don't
value trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not to your own understanding. That part
is so interesting because sometimes you lean out to
your own understanding and sometimes you do things to
not be seen in a certain light. You know

(19:03):
what I mean? You can be with a group
of people and the Lord tell you something and
you can be like, damn, I feel like that's
the Lord, but I don't want to look like
the strain you got to exit about this thing
right now. You know what I mean? So it's
a lot of factors that play into why we
don't actually act on because I feel like I
trust him wholeheartedly but I don't listen wholeheartedly. So

(19:23):
I don't know if it's the I don't trust
him or if it's the.
But we got to submit. We got to submit
to his influence in our life, his direction, I'm
going to call it influence his will for us
in our lives. We have to submit our hearts
to trusting him completely. We have to die to

(19:45):
our own desires and our own know the thing
that our own consciousness that's telling us. No, your
logic and experience will tell you, Carlson, that this
is right. Like, I have to die to that
and submit to the will of God. And it
takes some practice, some trial and error. And sometimes
God lets us experience the consequences of not trusting

(20:06):
him because he wants us to see if the
fire is not hot, we're going to keep burning
ourselves.
Yeah.
And so we have to experience the heat. We
have to experience a burn. Like, we pray for
God's mercy all the time, but sometimes it's his
judgment that helps moves us to trusting him. Know,
David said that his rod and his staff comfort

(20:29):
him. His rod is the, I'm saying, the rod
of correction that taps us in one direction or
another. And it's like we have to be able
to submit to his will and understand that for
us to move forward in our relationship with him.
Yeah, and you started that and you kind of
backtracked on it, but you started it by saying
his influence it is, but it's. Are we going

(20:50):
to allow his influence?
Yes.
Are we going to allow his will to be
done in our life? Strange thing popped in my
head when you said it. But in the same
way that you cannot be driving under the influence
unless you willingly get under the influence, God ain't
going to make you do nothing. You have to
willingly allow him to influence you. If you want

(21:11):
to be driving under the influence of the Holy
Ghost, you got to do it willingly. You have
to eat his word, drink his word, stay in
his word, and then be willing to obey. And
the more you practice it, the easier it will
probably be. And it don't get easy. But the
easier it'll be, the more you practice it. But
you can practice it and do well on it
for a long time in your life. And then

(21:31):
if you let go of that rope a little
bit, you'll be right back where you were. But
it's just allowing God's will in there because he's
not making us do nothing. He's not making us
do anything. Sometimes I struggle with the. It's his
judgment part of it, because sometimes I feel like
it's just more our stupidity. There's a consequence for

(21:51):
sin. So if I go out. Stupidity? Yeah. If
I jump off this second floor, it's going to
be a consequence. Absolutely. God didn't judge me. He
created the law of gravity. If I jump, it's
my fault.
Right.
You know what I'm saying? And so it's certain
things and the law of sin will kill you.
That's a thing. So the end result of sin
is always death. Sometimes it's slower than others. But

(22:14):
if you die of lung cancer from smoking, God
didn't judge you, right? Absolutely. That wasn't God's judgment.
It's a fact that you will get lung cancer
from smoking.
Yeah. And the beautiful thing about this is that
it's not like God doesn't want to hear our
hearts, because he opens the door for us to

(22:35):
express to him what we feel, what we're going
through, even what our desires are. He wants to
hear from us because we're his children.
Yeah.
And I'm reminded when Jesus is praying in the
garden that he doesn't have to take the path
of dying on the cross. And he's telling the
father how he feels, all of the range of

(22:57):
emotions that he's going through, and he's pouring out
what he wants to the father. But in that
moment, he submits to the will of God.
That's. Wow.
And so it's like, okay, I can submit to
the will of God. And sometimes, as difficult as
that may seem, God allows the door to be
open for me to tell him what's on my

(23:19):
heart and what's on my mind and the things
that I'm looking for and what I want. And
he will take my desire and he'll either correct
it or he'll align.
It with his will.
And now, because I'm fully submitted to him and
I want to do his will, his will slowly
becomes my desire. His will is the priority in

(23:41):
my life and not my own desires. And it's
so amazing that our savior was able to demonstrate
that for us.
Yeah.
That he was able to pray to the father
and give him what he desired, but then was
still able to submit to his will.
Yeah. So yesterday in the sermon, I read John
1227, part of 28. And after I read it,

(24:04):
I talked about how Jesus wasn't confused, but it
sounds like he was confused as he's saying this,
and he says, verse 27. Now my soul is
troubled. What shall I say, father? Save me from
this hour. Instead, for this reason, I came to
this hour, father, glorify your name. So it's like

(24:26):
in the same thing, save me from this hour,
lord. But instead I came for this hour.
Yes.
And now I'm going to do your will. So
it's like he's not confused. He's just telling them
how he really feels, like he's in a place
where his flesh wants to be saved and all
the things that go with that flesh, your brain,
your emotions. He's feeling that stress, that strain that

(24:50):
we feel, and at the same time, he's able
to say, but your will, not mine, be done.
Yeah, I mean, he didn't want to do that.
Nothing in him wanted to do it. Absolutely.
It's so beautiful for us as humans living in
this flesh that we have an opportunity to express
to the father what our desires are. And that's
a theme in prayer throughout the Bible. Being able

(25:11):
to share with God, this is what I'm going
through. This is what's troubling me. This is what
I think in my logic. This is what my
experience is telling me or showing me. But I
want to submit all of that to you and
let you do with it what you think is
absolute best. And I just think that that's part

(25:31):
of relationship, being able to hear us and receive
our desires and our thought process, and being able
to take that and say, okay, I get all
of that, but here's what I have for you.
And I just think that's just a brilliant way
to have relationship with God.
Yeah, it is. And it's so awesome that we

(25:53):
can tell him. He knows how we feel. And
so let's do the circle back that we was
talking about from the beginning.
Yes.
So he knows our will. Right? Buckle up for
this. He could go a lot of different ways.
He's about to get crazy over here. Okay, I
got to start at the beginning. After my two

(26:13):
months of research for this message.
Two months of research? Two months of research, because
Pastor Brent told me that you were going to
be out one morning because you were doing your
message. And I was like, his message is like
a month away. All right, I didn't mean to
cut.
You off, but he's confirming two months of research

(26:35):
and working on this message, and I show up
to our. We do sermon planning, which is two
weeks before I got to go. And then we
do it again the week before and where all
of the brilliant pastors of the church and the
great minds and the great theologians sit, and we
give our message to the table. We present our

(26:57):
message. So is it my pattern that I show
up with just, first off, just all scripture? That's
just my pattern.
20 pages of scripture.
20 pages of scripture. I don't know how else
not to do that. Right. So all my research,
I don't put all this hard time into it.
And that 20 pages that I brought was narrowed
down from what I had. And that's just as
far as I had gotten.
I mean, that's a great foundation. At least you

(27:18):
preach in scripture.
Yeah, that's just as far as I had gotten
in reducing that moment down to that moment. So
I knew that first time when I came. This
is as far as I've gotten, sorting through my
research.
Right.
No big deal. That boy got the King's x.
Bam. And I exit stage left. I'm a little
bit, actually, not a big deal. I'm somewhat encouraged

(27:38):
because I got to teach life you tomorrow. And
pastor like, you probably got half your life, you
sermon wrote, hadn't even got to life you yet.
So. Great.
So what happened in that first meeting?
In that first meeting? Yeah, what happened as far
as the response?
Yes, the response in that first meeting.
The responses were, you want the play by play?

(28:00):
No.
You got up and left, didn't you? You left.
You heard it in the car. So it's funny,
so when I was done, it was this awkward
silence. And then Pastor soul, with all her graciousness,
started to tell me a little bit about what
she thinks. But behind her is Pastor Brent getting
up, going to the chalkboard, to the whiteboard, and

(28:20):
he just start writing things on the board. And
Pastor Soul is trying to let me down easy,
but telling me what she thinks I should do
in a direction.
I think the why is important. So you're writing
a sermon about prayer.
Yeah.
You come with a dissertation on prayer from a

(28:42):
scripture. Like, if there was a Thompson chain Bible
in note form, it was your notes on this
sermon.
Okay. Right.
So you had all scripture spanning across the entire
Bible. But what Pastor soul was trying to do
was say, prayer is a practical application for everybody

(29:04):
that can be taught in a very simplistic form
and still be profound. So I think that that
was the nature of the context of it, that
prayer could be extremely complex. And we can present
prayer as being extremely complex, but from a practice,
a practical sense, we can take the theory of

(29:26):
prayer and we can bring it all the way
down to its simplistic form in prayer. All right,
go ahead.
So they gave the input, all what he said,
great. I left. I went, I reduced, I simplified.
I actually started over and then brought a little

(29:46):
bit of. Some of it back, but in a
reduced, more simplistic form, went through the process again.
Now, this meeting, second meeting, which is last Tuesday,
six days ago, right before you about to preach.
Right. Six days ago. And I presented my message,
and this wonderful fella, Pastor Carlton, he had notes.

(30:13):
He had notes on his phone. Pastor soul on
the iPad over there, writing down notes. It was
great. So they gave me their feedback, I would
say similar to the first one. Similar feedback to
the first one, but just trying to get me
to make it more. Trying to get what I'm

(30:34):
trying to say in my heart and put it
down clearly so people can understand, because it was
a few things that stood out. But Pastor soul,
at the end, after Carlton went, kind of said
how he felt, a few people said, pastor. So
went through it and said, when you got to
the end and said those three points, I was
thinking, this is what the message to be about.

(30:56):
And I was thinking, that's what the message was
about. So somewhere in there, there was a disconnect,
because I thought that's what the message was about.
She was like, those three points, that's what the
message should have been about. So I'm like, okay,
great. Everybody get a feedback. Joni gave some really
good feedback to me that ended up helping me
a lot. And Joni's feedback was simple. Asa, you're

(31:17):
a great storyteller. Just tell stories. That's basically what
she said. Okay. So I took everybody's feedback, to
be honest. And this is why I got on
this when it was over, because I was two
things. Working. Exhaustion. Because, yeah, I took the day
the week before, a month and a half, two
months into this sermon. It was all sermon.

(31:39):
Right.
It wasn't for a lack of working on this.
I was so fatigued. And then I felt gut
punched at that point. And I'm not a gut
punch type of person. I'm not a down type
of person. But moral to the story is, by
the time I got home and sat at my
island, my 13 year old daughter came down the

(32:00):
stairs, turned the corner, saw me and said, dad,
what's wrong? And came up and gave me a
hug. 13 year olds don't do that.
Does she listen to the Holy Spirit?
In that moment, she just saw that. What's the
word for it?
Destroyed.
I was in a bad way. It wasn't like
Jesus sweating blood, but I was in a bad

(32:22):
way for me. I was down. I was defeated.
That's the word. I was defeated. Yeah, I was
defeated. Right. So I had told Sol and Joni.
They was the last ones in the room with
me. I told soul and Joni, I'm about to
take 24 hours off from this, because I got
to make this life you class. I'm going to
come back to this on Thursday. I got to
take a full day off from this sermon. So

(32:44):
that was my intention. Wednesday morning, I wake up
now, we get into God and prayer and having
to put everything that I taught yesterday to use.
And I said, I'm not opening my computer. I'm
just going to hang out with Jesus, put on
some worship music and talk to God and pray.
And just. I'm just going to pray like Jesus

(33:04):
right now. So that's what I did. And in
that moment, I'm sitting there worshiping God, and he
just started giving me stuff. Well, actually, the first
thing he did is gave me therapy, which is
just so strange. Therapy from the Lord. Because the
first thing told me, I'm sitting there just worshipping
God, and he said, write down.
Plug into that.
He said, write down your feelings. And my response,

(33:25):
God, I'm a man. I suck it up. I
don't do feelings. What do you mean, write down
my feelings?
We don't journal our feelings.
Even though I'm in the middle of. At one
of my lows, like, questioning, like, man, lord, I
think you told me to do this.
You went to Bible school.
Everything was in question in that moment. And the
Lord told me to write down my feelings, and

(33:46):
I wrote all this stuff down. Didn't think none
of it. I grabbed the computer, opened it up,
and I jotted all that down, closed it, because
I'm like, I'm not doing this computer right now.
And then Joni's words spoke to me, asa, just
tell stories. Your gift is storytelling.
Yeah.
I was like, okay. So I started writing down
some of my life. Well, I really just started

(34:07):
writing down what I preached yesterday because it started
ringing out to me that it was a lot
of different parts of prayer that was involved with
that. So I left Wednesday morning when I'm not
even supposed to be working on this sermon with
just my therapy session. And I wrote down the
stories that I told from my life, from Karis,
and from hearing God. I wrote that. So I

(34:27):
had moved from it. Did Pastor Chris, did the
life university course, wrote that out on.
Where are we at?
That was Wednesday morning. On Thursday, I get back
to my sermon. I open up my notes. We
had kind of landed on the Lord's prayer part
as probably a good sermon part. That's where we

(34:48):
landed. I got it sitting there. Sitting there. I
can't go forward, can't move. I just erased it.
I didn't erase it. I copied and pasted it
over there. I'm like, that ain't where I'm going,
obviously, because I got nothing. And I looked at
the stuff the Lord had me write. This is
on the same in my notes. And my little

(35:08):
Bible sermon stuff I use. I got the therapy,
then I got the notes on my life. Not
the notes, but the stories from my life. And
then I got my sermon that I had tried
two, three weeks in a row sitting there. And
I pulled over the therapy and the stories. And
then somehow from there, it was like 1020 minutes.

(35:31):
I had this outline. And that was my whole
message.
Yeah, man.
And then I erased therapy session because my wife
was like, maybe that ain't for the. Maybe that
ain't for the stage. And that was Saturday night.
As it was Saturday night, when I had nothing
left. I had to go to bed. We looked
at him, we was like, maybe that part ain't
for this. And so I scrapped that. And then
I got more clarity. Finished the message at, like,

(35:52):
five in the morning yesterday.
Prayer.
But what was the point of all of that?
I finally stopped again. And now I started before
the research. Yeah, I started that way. I started,
Lord, what do you want me to do? Not
your will, but mine. I just want to preach
the message. You want me to preach, right.
So what changed? What changed from then to Saturday?
I have no idea what changed, man. I don't

(36:16):
know. I did all I knew to do, Carlton.
I have no idea.
You needed a therapy session with God. Apparently you
needed therapy.
And I feel like it worked. I mean, I
thought the message went over well.
It was great. So I had the same experience
when I preached the gospels. Yeah, both sermon planning
meetings were tracked. Were terrible.

(36:39):
Yeah.
The last one, the Tuesday before I preached, Pastor
Jerry was like, that's not it. He's like, I
don't know where you're going, but that's not it.
And I'm like, there's no more sermon planning after
you say that, Pastor Jerry, there's no more time
for me to meet with y'all as a group.
Tracy said that several times, but you're not meeting

(36:59):
with them again. How are you changing your message?
But anyway, keep.
So I still work on the same basis or
same structure. The outline that I had going into
Sunday, Saturday, in the middle of the night, like,
02:00 a.m. And I'm like, I'm not comfortable with

(37:21):
this. And I just stop. I close my laptop
and I pray, mind you, I have to preach,
preach in like 6 Hours.
Yeah, buddy.
Right? I close my laptop, and I just pray.
And the holy Spirit downloads the gospels in sermon
form, 35 minutes with outline, scripture, notes, the whole

(37:44):
nine.
Yeah. And I'm like, the same thing with you.
I'm like, God, I pray for that I pray
before I even started this.
Weeks ago, and it's like, okay, what am I
getting out of this? So I prayed then and
I'm praying now. Something changed, and the only thing

(38:05):
I could come up with is that I pray
that God would guide my ability and my knowledge.
This prayer was, holy spirit, I need you to
take over.
Yeah, don't guide none of mine. You take over.
And it shouldn't be like this when we're desperate,
but it usually comes out when we're desperate in

(38:26):
prayer that God, I can't do this anymore. Yeah,
total reliance. I don't know what I'm doing. But
the thing that I forgot was I should have
did that in the beginning. I should have said,
God, I give up myself completely. Don't guide my
ability. Become my ability. You are my attribute of
ability, not myself. Yeah, he's given us wisdom and

(38:49):
understanding and comprehension and ability to write and to
preach and all this other stuff, but I need
to lay all of that down and let him
completely take over, not just in a sermon that
I'm prepping. So I did the sermon at 04:00
a.m. Sent Joni the notes 5 minutes before.
I remember them talking about it. Remember somebody mentioned

(39:10):
it, like, probably I got your notes, like, late
choice words.
But it was wonderful. Pastor Jerry sent me a
text, was like, I don't know what you did.
Right.
But that was fantastic.
I did nothing.
I didn't do anything. All I did was lose.
Question that.
Submission and desperation and prayer created allowed the Holy

(39:33):
Spirit to actually move in my life. Instead of
me saying, God bless me as I do something,
instead of saying, holy spirit, do the thing.
Yeah. So my question to you is, from the
start, how long do you sit? Okay. I had
to put something in action, right. I didn't feel
like I was when I prayed at the beginning

(39:53):
that I took off on this me alone journey.
And I know that wasn't it from one because
I learned so much. My wife made the statement
like, so all that, you did all that work
for nothing? I said, no, I didn't. I said,
I learned so much in prayer and organized so
many prayer thoughts and I learned so much through

(40:15):
that journey. Right. So it wasn't in vain that
I was doing that. But my question to you
is, from the day I started it, and I
yield. I'm attempting to yield not my will, but
yours, God, on this sermon now, do I sit
back and wait till I know? It's like, okay,

(40:37):
this is God. Or do I go through that
process that I went through. Absolutely. Do I wait
to foy? Do I sit there like, lord, I
ain't got it from you yet, but it's because
Saturday night at twelve the.
Entire time, we have to be in prayer. Right?
Yeah.
And we can't give up the process of what
we should be doing during that time.

(40:58):
Right.
So he says in all that ways, acknowledge him
and he will direct your path. And some translation
says, make your path straight.
Path straight.
He can't make a path straight. If there is
no path. He cannot steer a parked car. So
at some point in our lives, we need to
be moving forward with the things that we know
to do. We have a huge instruction manual with

(41:19):
66 books in it that gives us the direction
we should be moving in in our lives. And
we have to continue moving in our lives so
that we can get direction from God. And so
with our sermons as the example, we have to
write our sermons, we have to go through it.
In the process of writing it, we have to
stay in prayer. And then he will direct us,

(41:42):
because if we just bring God a blank sheet
of paper, he's going to say, I can't tune
the pen if you haven't picked up the pen
and started writing.
Yeah.
And so with that, I really think that in
all thy ways acknowledge him. Prayer needs to be
in every single part of our lives and every
step so that he can make the path that
we're on straight. He can't make a non path

(42:06):
straight because we're not moving, we're not doing anything.
And then also believe that. And I say this
to people sometimes that I know who have a
strong prayer life or a good relationship with God
is that you're stuck at this impasse and you're
trying to make a decision or you're trying to
do something. And I say, you know, all that
time you spent in relationship with God, you have

(42:27):
to believe that he's speaking to you and moving
you in a direction. You can't just be stuck
and say, well, your holy spirit hasn't given me
anything yet because that requires no faith. Right?
Yeah.
You would think it requires faith to stand still
and let the Holy Spirit just give you what
you need to do. But I think that real

(42:49):
faith comes in when you step out on it.
There's a scene in, what is it, Indiana Jones,
where there's the invisible bridge and he knows that
he has to get to the other side of
this canyon. It's a canyon, I guess, and he's
on one side and he knows that the opening
is on the other side. And he's got to

(43:09):
cross his bridge, man. If it's not Indiana Jones,
I'm sorry.
And I ain't the guy. I don't know.
But he picks up Harrison Ford, picks up sand,
and he throws it on the bridge.
Is this old Harrison or back in the day?
I remember that.
He picks up the sand and throws him the
bridge, and there's a bridge there. And it's like
if we stop and ask God to get us

(43:31):
to the other side without any movement, then how
does he reveal. He reveals himself to us and
us moving forward with the things that we know
that he has told us to do. We know
what his will is for us just by reading
the word, loving our neighbors, going spreading the gospel
to all the nations. We understand what our call

(43:53):
is and what he's asking us to do. And
in that writing sermons, going to work, taking care
of your family, be a loving husband in those
things. And me loving my wife. If I did
that in my own strength, and there's parts of
our marriage where I did that in my own
strength and didn't work out great at all, but

(44:14):
if I love my wife in the strength of
the Holy Spirit, in his direction, then I have
a better marriage. But it takes action from me
for God to direct and to lead and to
influence and to guide in order for that to
happen.
Yeah, that's 100% true. For one, if your heart
is on doing what God would have you do,

(44:36):
come a times where you got to take a
step of faith. Absolutely. And if it's left and
you pose to go right, he'll guide you. He
really will. But a lot of people do get
stuck paralyzed with, I got to do something. You
do, but is your heart pointed toward God? Have
you done what you know to do? You know
what I mean? You do all the things that

(44:59):
you can do, but at some point, you got
to take a step. It's time to take the
step. And sometimes you don't know. Still don't know.
Stop there. I still don't know. Right. I believe
I'm where God wants me to be. It ain't
easy, but it's fun. It's great. I'm fulfilled, but

(45:19):
it's not. This is an easy thing because I'm
in the will of God. That ain't necessarily it.
I mean, literally, I questioned, lord, I believe this
is where you have me. Am I in the
right place? What is the problem? Right. Oh, in
the middle of that therapy session.
I know, man. My wife and I have been

(45:41):
believing for something in prayer. And we just like,
well, the holy spirit is going to take care
of it. And the Holy Spirit is like, all
the practical things that, you know to do that
you're not like, I'm not saying don't pray because
we have to pray, but it's like, we pray

(46:01):
and then don't move, don't do anything that we
know that we should be doing. And Holy Spirit
is like, yeah, pray in the beginning, pray through
the journey, and then pray in the end and
watch how I work in every step in everything
that you do. And that's why our prayer life

(46:24):
has to be a part of our life. It
has to be a prayer life has to be
a life that we do. Prayer.
Yeah, a prayer life.
It can't be just a one time thing. Only
when tragedy happens, only when we need something, I
think. Did you mention in your sermon that you
can't prepare for war? In war, yeah, basically.
You can't prepare for a boxing match.
A boxing match, yeah.
That's the day of the fight.

(46:44):
Yeah. We need to be praying to God as
we train for it. And then we watch the
Holy Spirit give us revelation of what we need
to do when the time comes. And it's not
because God wasn't speaking to us before or that
our prayer was in vain before. But it's like,
I use this analogy. If you didn't talk to

(47:05):
a friend for 20 years and you called them
up one day out of the blue and said,
I need $100, what's that conversation like? You got
a whole around small talk. You got to say,
yeah, how are you doing? How's the kids? Long
time. And they on the phone like, what does
he want? We can't do that with God. If

(47:29):
you have relationship with your friend and you've been
talking to your friend every single day for 20
years, you can pick up the phone without any
greeting and say, hey, man, I need $100.
Yeah.
Because a relationship has been established that.
Entire time, and they usually say yes before they
even ask why.
Exactly. Right.
Absolutely.
And so we can't treat God like the friend

(47:52):
that we haven't talked to in a long time
because when it comes time for us to have
the boxing match or to be in war or
when tragedy hits or when we need a sermon
out of the blue the night before we speak,
we can't then just come to God like God,
well, I haven't talked to you in a long
time.
I got to preach tomorrow, and this.
Thing happened, and I need you to come through
for me and, oh, by the way, I worship
you and I glorify you and I magnify your

(48:13):
holy name.
And God's like, that's where so many people miss
it. God judging your heart. Yeah. Rest of that
stuff, who are you fronting for exactly?
God's like, how about you talk to me every
day? So when the time comes for you to
see the manifestation of my power in your life,
it's like you have built relationship equity with me.

(48:37):
Now, God is faithful to us no matter what.
But I'd rather have relationship with God and ask
him for what I need than to be coming
to God for the first time in a long
time and asking him for what I need.
Yeah. And, man, and I don't know if it's
just me. And I feel like based on the
fact that for this short window of my life,

(49:00):
and it's been six years where I've been committed,
I've been committed. And I feel like the longer
you're living in a committed relationship with God, the
less of those needs are going to be because
if you're following him.

(49:21):
You don't fall off the cliff.
Less needs. Yeah. And I understand some circumstances they
sustain such a deficit, but you can at.
Least eliminate the things that, the deficits that you
create when you have relationship with.
Yeah. And you cannot do it from a place

(49:41):
of, oh, man, there's benefits to God, right? That
ain't it. The benefit is a relationship with the
father.
Right.
Not the benefits, not the promises that he gives
you. Not none of that. That can't be your
relationship with God. It got to be simply you've
come to the realization that you love God.

(50:01):
Exactly.
Absolutely. I want to live my life because I
love you, Lord.
Right.
You got to get there as a believer.
And I've been going through this now. I'm more
of, let's read the Bible than prayer. My prayer
life needed help for a very long time. I
love studying the word. The word of God speaks

(50:23):
to me like nobody's business. And so I've been
journeying through this recently. I've been like, man, I
need to get in the prayer room and pray.
I need to go pray. I need to pray.
I need to pray. I talk to God periodically
during the day. I have relationship with God conversations,
but I always tell myself, man, I really need
to set some time out to really spend with

(50:44):
God because I hadn't been. And I can tell
the holy spirit telling me, Carlton, hello, wake up.
I need you to spend some real time with
me. And so it's not that I ignore it.
I just don't do it because I get to
work. We have a prayer room here on the
second floor at CLC and my office is right

(51:05):
next to it. So I passed a prayer room
to get to my office.
And they speak to you every time.
I'm like, well, I know ace is in there
this morning, so I'm going to keep walking past
it and go to my office. You know what
I'll do? I'll make coffee first and then I'll
go to the prayer room. I'll check my email
real quick because I saw this morning pastor Brent
emailed me. So let me respond to him and

(51:26):
then I'll go to the prayer room and it
doesn't happen. And lo and behold, I got something
that happened in my life that I need to
go to the prayer room for. And I'm not
saying that that tragedy was planned or anything like
that, but something happens in your life where it's
like now I'm forced to go to the prayer

(51:48):
room. In a sense, it's like I'm knocking down
the door of the prayer room. I'm not even
thinking about my office. I'm not thinking about coffee
or emails. I don't even open the second door
into the building. I don't put down my laptop.
I don't do anything. I go straight to the
prayer room and it's like, how come I didn't
have that heart before this moment, before this time?

(52:11):
And I think that's what God wants from us
is that we should be seeking him. We should
be breaking down the door to seek him over
all the other things that we put in our
head that we need to do before we pray.
Because when a time comes, that should have been
a habit of mine, and now I'm apologizing to
God for dissing him for so long. Yeah, I'm

(52:32):
saying, God, man, I'm sorry, man. I'm human, first
of all. Second of all, I was disobedient. Now
I got to position myself to say, and he
hears me, I feel his presence, but he wants
me to feel that feeling, that man, God, I
let you down. This past year, I haven't really

(52:55):
been giving it to you. And he receives me
and I feel that he received me, but it's
like, why did I have to start there?
Yeah.
How come I couldn't break down the door and
say, God, you know what happened? And we pick
up where we left off.
There's a couple of things in there that I
want to comment on. One question to you. If

(53:17):
you did put prayer first, how much of a
difference would it make in everything else?
What do you believe, man? I believe that that's
a great question, Asa, because it's not that the
thing may have not have gone away. Maybe we

(53:39):
would have gotten through it better, or maybe there
would have been some equipping in me that would
allow me to get through it better than starting
from scratch when the thing happens.
In the middle of the fight.
Right? Because I don't believe that necessarily. God removes

(54:00):
suffering, but he allows you to go through suffering,
and because he allows you to go through it,
I may have been better equipped to deal with
it. My family may have been better equipped to
deal with the thing that comes. So I don't
know if it goes away. That may not have
been your question.
Goes away, yeah. And it wasn't necessarily specific to

(54:20):
that thing. It was specific to everything in your
life. What benefit do you think it would be
for you to pray for? Oh, man, that's really
the question. So you're aware that that's a huge,
you know that. Are you kidding? Okay, right. Yeah.
You didn't hear it, right? Because it was a
quick response. You know, everything could be better.
You do that to myself differently in this podcast,

(54:41):
right? Do you have any idea how different my
life would be if I prayed first?
Yes. Okay.
But not just prayer, because there was some times
in my life where I was doing dirt and
praying. Yeah, I was doing dirt while I was
praying. Praying while I was doing dirt, both. Yeah,
right. But if prayer was serious and I completely

(55:04):
submitted myself to God and listened to the Holy
Spirit, not only my life would have been changed,
the people that I've hurt, lives would have been
changed or not have gone in the direction that
it's gone in. Like, I think about, what do
you call it in war when people die outside

(55:25):
of your targets, man, it's a term for it.
Oh, no. All the people that were hurt, collateral
damage.
Collateral damage.
Collateral damage.
All the collateral damage that have happened because I'm
not listening to the Holy Spirit.
So you know the benefits, man? Benefit Iso. So

(55:45):
you know the benefits tomorrow and the day after,
if you start doing.
That, I man, yeah, okay.
So you should start doing that. And you know
that we don't do it sometimes. I don't know
why now where I.
Was, I'm so hyped about that moment. I'm sorry,
you got a second point there.
It was a few more. I was just trying

(56:05):
to get the quick answer to that, you know,
the benefits. Why is it so because we crazy,
man. And that's a huge thing that the enemy
fights. Hey, Carlton, you got an email to check?
Yeah, man.
Hey, Carlton, you got so much work to do.

(56:25):
He don't fight your work. He fights your prayer
and your flesh. Obviously, we know the flesh don't
want to do it. It don't want to do
God. The flesh don't want to do God. The
Bible tells us that it's opposite. It's trying to
go the opposite way. So we know the flesh,
but the enemy fights that boy 100%. So when
I first got on staff, my training.
What training?
You got training? Yeah, I had training, my training.

(56:49):
Pastor Brent gave me this pastor university. Larry Stockstill,
50 videos, 50 things he learned in 50 years
of that's more training than you got. I got
to pass them to you. They great. 50 years.
50 things that Larry Stockstill learned in 50 years
of ministry.
Right.
The first is in four sections. The man, the

(57:11):
lion, the four beasts.
Sure.
So anyway, prayer is the first one, right. And
there's so many powerful things he say in there.
One from just how he set his whole life
up to make sure that before he answer email,
do anything. He done spent time praying. But then
some of the examples that he give of David

(57:33):
Cho, Dr. Cho in Korea, biggest church in the
world, how he talks about how he don't show
up to work unless he spent a whole lot
of time praying. And he sees clearly the difference
because over there, they are aware that he prayed
for people and people get healed, that he don't
show up to the office without having prayed. Or
he sees that these people ain't getting healed today.

(57:55):
But that day that I was spending time with
the father folks is getting healed. Then he also
just talks about how the whole, when he spend
times, when he goes to God, about his daily
decisions every day, how he's kind of figured out
he can get eight things done in an hour

(58:16):
when he's been in prayer and when he's not
in prayer, he can get eight things done in
a day or whatever. Eight things done in 8
hours. So he's just showing you all these examples
of as much as it be, the pressure be
on you and he's talking as a pastor, but
this is for anybody, as much as the pressure
be on us to do something other than go

(58:36):
hang out with Jesus and spend time talking to
him and getting the assignment, I don't know where
I was going with that. But as much as
we do that other stuff, we'll be able to
do everything else so much more efficient and better
if we would do Jesus first every time. And
I believe that wholeheartedly. But since I listened to

(58:58):
that video in November of 2022, that's when I
was on staff, but it wasn't out yet that
I was the campus pastor, man, it's a fight
every day, still a fight. And I believe it.
Why, man?
What's wrong with us? I don't know.
Oh, Richard, man, that I am.
Who would deliver me heartedly.
The bondage of his death case. I believe the

(59:18):
bond is of his death, man, what's wrong with
us?
We got to change it, man. We got to
change it. It got to start with us, Carlton,
do you understand? Pray first. We give out books.
Pray first.
You understand how my life would be different? And
people look at me like, okay, you pastor Carlton,
executive pastor Clc. Like, how could your life be

(59:41):
different? I'm not saying that I would be a
millionaire or anything like that. Not like that. But
there's heart issues and trauma and brokenness that would
not exist that at 41 years old I would
not be having to try to pray myself out
of, right.
It's like praying out the ditch when if you'd

(01:00:02):
have just prayed up there to begin with, he
wouldn't have been in the ditch and I wouldn't
have.
Dragged everybody in the ditch with me.
Yeah, it's so true.
People fall into the dish that didn't.
Even.
Shouldn'T be there. You know what I'm saying? Prayer
is so important and we dismiss it all the

(01:00:28):
time. And I'm even saying more than just daily
communication with God, like our daily moment by moment
talking to Jesus, that's so important for us because
the Holy Spirit is helping us live every second
of our lives. But that time when we start
our day at night, just taking those moments, like

(01:00:49):
just taking a break from everything and putting everything
down into the side and saying, let me just
give God.
Some time because that's the thing. You ain't there
to beg. No, that ain't what we talking about.
I'm talking about taking the time to just go
spend time with Jesus, just acknowledge love on God.
Yes.
We ain't there to beg. If we do that,
there would be so much more or less to

(01:01:09):
beg about if we would just go spend time
with Jesus in his presence, talking to, what we
doing, man, lifting him up, telling him how much
we love him.
What's wrong with us?
Let's get it together, man. We're going to have
to end this podcast soon because it's been an
hour and because we need to go pray. I
don't know. We ain't got a timer. They left
us in here alone.
They shouldn't have did that, man. I could talk

(01:01:30):
about this forever, but just like the. I don't
know, man. I don't know what to say, man.
It's just. Prayer is vital. It's our connection to
eternity. It's our connection to our father. God died
on the cross, and he removed the barrier between
us and the father, and he gave us full

(01:01:52):
access to him. And we treated like, take advantage
of no, man. We are so small in his
infinite self that we have access to him and
we treat it like it's, like, it's just something
to do, like a calendar thing.

(01:02:14):
And when you do it, it's great.
It's amazing.
So it ain't even like, it's like a task
when I actually stop and just go with nothing
on the agenda, turn on some worship music and
just praise Jesus and hang out and just bask
and give God glory. It is an awesome time,
and I still don't do it enough.
I prayed this morning. I wanted to pray this

(01:02:36):
morning to pray. And I was like, man, God,
I have nothing to say. I don't know what
to say. I got a lot of things on
my heart. Burdens, heaviness. I didn't know how to
put it in words, so I prayed in tongues.
I said, man, the Holy Spirit knows what to
say. And so I just prayed in my prayer
language.
Yeah.
And the prayer language was so I could feel

(01:02:58):
the Holy Spirit actually praying for me. And I'm
like, man, that's what I needed. I needed to
engage the Holy Spirit.
You builded yourself up on your most holy face.
Yes. Praying in the.
Come on, somebody.
You did.
All right, man, we need to go, man. I'm

(01:03:20):
taking the rest of the day off. Sorry, Pastor
Brent. I'm taking the rest of the day off.
I'll put it in bamboo, hr put in my
PTO. I just need to spend some time with
God.
The rest of the stuff going to be there,
the emails, it's all going to still be there.
We should just come to work and pray.
We should.
We shouldn't do anything.
It would benefit ClC if we made everybody come,

(01:03:42):
actually pray for an hour, find a corner and
go spend time with.
Come on.
You the executive man. Do you think it would
benefit us? Yes. If we said your first hour
of.
Every day at work, go spend apologies on the
podcast.
None of the bosses around. But chime in and

(01:04:03):
let us know what that.
Yeah, put it in the comments.
DLC?
Yes.
I mean, it would benefit us, but.
Somebody need a giving statement and somebody offering they
transfer what part of spend.
Time in prayer and you'll get more done. You
forgot that part that quick? Yes, it's the truth.
When are we ever? Look, I've been working in

(01:04:25):
church for a year and it's this saying two
years now. And it's a saying, Sunday is always
coming and it's never going to stop coming. It's
never going to get where we ain't got a
lot of stuff to do. It's always too much
to do. So it ain't like we getting ahead,
ignoring Jesus in the morning. No one is ahead
if y'all don't know it. We show up on

(01:04:47):
Sunday, church go great. But then we go back
to living lives of never being ahead, running behind,
trying to get to the next Sunday.
As soon as we unplug the mic on Sunday,
we back at it.
We back at it because we should be praying
first. We got to practice what we preach around
here.
I know. Let's do it, man.
Come on.
Is that the end of the podcast?
I guess that's the end.
We took a long journey to get to this

(01:05:07):
point. We should have started at this point.
This is what we should say. I'm the host
now for all y'all out there. I think the
Lord is telling us that we need to pray
first. Oh, Jesus. And he's telling us because he's
telling you. So if you learned anything today in
this podcast, it's pray first, not pray, not beg
first. Go spend time with Jesus.

(01:05:29):
Not pray after whatever it is. Fill in the
blank.
Pray first. Pray second. Pray through. Pray at the
end. But make sure you pray first. That's the
lesson for today. Forget everything else we said. Pray
first.
And you see how the Holy Spirit worked in
this podcast to get us to this point worked
out.
Yeah, he's good.
Yeah, man.

(01:05:50):
All right, well good. All right, you have an
end on a high five. Let me close it
out.
Tune into the next podcast. Rewatch this so you
could get to the thesis of this podcast. Came
in the end. We need to pray. Your lives
will be changed, man. I guarantee it. I know
that. Not only from the revelation, for the Holy

(01:06:12):
Spirit has given us in his podcast, but in
hindsight, I know that. But it's not just enough
to know that in hindsight, the Holy Spirit is
speaking to you now that you need to build
that relationship with him and pray because your life
will be changed. All right, well, that's it.
That's it.
Let's wrap it up and get out of it.
Peace.