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Speaker 1: Hey friends, it's Kelly from Life Audio. We just launched

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Speaker 1: something new. It's called The Good Word, our free weekly

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Speaker 1: newsletter built for people who want to go a little

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Speaker 1: deeper in their faith. Thank devotionals, guided prayers, curated podcast recommendations,

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Speaker 1: and a little community all in one place. No ads,

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Speaker 1: just good content. This one means a lot to us.

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Speaker 1: We built The Good Word based on the audience survey

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Speaker 1: so many of you filled out a few months back.

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Speaker 1: You told us what you wanted, and we listened. So

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Speaker 1: thank you truly for helping us shape this. Head to

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Speaker 1: the link in the show notes and join our community today.

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Speaker 1: We'd love to have you Life Audio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, thank you for listening to your Daily Bible Verse,

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Speaker 2: the podcast that examines one verse each day to learn

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Speaker 2: more about God and his will for us. I'm your host,

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Speaker 2: Carol mccragen, and after a word from our sponsor, will

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Speaker 2: dive into today's Bible verse, Second Corinthians for eighteen. Today's

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Speaker 2: Bible verse is Second Corinthians for eighteen. So we fix

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Speaker 2: our eyes not on what is seen, but on what

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Speaker 2: is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what

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Speaker 2: is unseen is eternal. I have a blue healer named Moses,

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Speaker 2: and if you've ever known that breed, you know they

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Speaker 2: are intelligent, energetic, and convinced they shouldn't be involved in

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Speaker 2: everything you are doing. Moses follows me from room to rue,

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Speaker 2: especially when I'm writing. If he hasn't had enough exercise.

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Speaker 2: He finds creative ways to entertain himself, and I don't

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Speaker 2: always appreciate his creativity. There are afternoons when I finally

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Speaker 2: put him in his kittle because I simply need to

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Speaker 2: finish my work. The next morning, everything changed. I walked

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Speaker 2: over to let him out and immediately knew something was wrong.

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Speaker 2: Moses had gotten sick all over himself, and all the

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Speaker 2: years I've had him, he'd never done that before. He

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Speaker 2: wasn't waiting to creep me with his usual excitement. He

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Speaker 2: just looked miserable. Within minutes, I had him in the car,

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Speaker 2: and as I drove to the Veterinarian, I prayed almost

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Speaker 2: the entire way, Lord, please let him be okay. Later

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Speaker 2: that day, I couldn't stop thinking about how quickly my

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Speaker 2: perspective had changed less than twenty four hours earlier, I've

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Speaker 2: been frustrated because he wouldn't leave me alone. Now I

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Speaker 2: would have welcomed every interruption if that meant he was

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Speaker 2: healthy again. Moses hadn't changed overnight. What changed was that

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Speaker 2: I suddenly reminded myself how much I loved him. I

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Speaker 2: think most of us has experienced something similar. Sometimes we

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Speaker 2: become so accustomed to the people we love that we

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Speaker 2: notice their habits more than their value. We see interruptions

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Speaker 2: instead of relationships. We assume that there will always be

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Speaker 2: another conversation, another holiday, another ordinary tuesday together. Then a

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Speaker 2: phone call comes, or a diagnosis, or an unexpected crisis,

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Speaker 2: and everything that seems so important the day before suddenly

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Speaker 2: feels insignificant. There's an old saying that familiarity breeds contempt.

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Speaker 2: While it isn't found in Scripture, it describes a tendency

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Speaker 2: the Bible often addresses. Human beings have a remarkable ability

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Speaker 2: to stop noticing the value of what's become familiar, we

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Speaker 2: begin taking for granted the very gifts that once filled

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Speaker 2: us with gratitude. Paul speaks into that tendency in Second

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Speaker 2: Corinthians for eighteen. So we fix our eyes not on

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Speaker 2: what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what

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Speaker 2: is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

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Speaker 2: These words come near the end of a chapter where

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Speaker 2: Paul's been describing hardship. He's spoken about weakness, suffering, persecution,

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Speaker 2: and the reality that his body's wearing out. Yet, instead

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Speaker 2: of allowing visible circumstances to define reality, Paul points believers

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Speaker 2: towards something deeper. The hardships are real, but they're not

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Speaker 2: the whole story. The phrase fix our eyes comes from

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Speaker 2: a Greek word scope oh forgive my pronunciation. It means

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Speaker 2: to look attentively, to observe carefully, or to direct one's

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Speaker 2: attention intentionally. Paul's describing more than a glance. He's talking

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Speaker 2: about a choice left to ourselves. We naturally focus on

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Speaker 2: whatever's demanding our attention at the moment. Paul says, believers

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Speaker 2: must learn to look beyond what's immediately visible. That doesn't

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Speaker 2: mean ignoring reality. Paul certainly wasn't pretending suffering didn't exist.

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Speaker 2: He was saying that visible circumstances should never become the

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Speaker 2: only lens through which we interpret light. They are unseen

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Speaker 2: realities that are even more important. And that's exactly what

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Speaker 2: happened to me with Moses. The visible reality one afternoon

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Speaker 2: was a dog interrupting my work. The visible reality the

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Speaker 2: next morning was a sick dog who needed my care.

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Speaker 2: Beneath both situations was the same unseen reality. This was

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Speaker 2: a creature God. It entrusted to me when I deeply loved,

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Speaker 2: even when frustration temporarily became louder than affection. The same

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Speaker 2: thing happens in ourn relationships. The coworker who tests your

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Speaker 2: patience is still someone made in the image of God.

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Speaker 2: The aging parent who repeats the same stories someone whose

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Speaker 2: time with you is limited. The child whose questions seemed

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Speaker 2: endless today won't always be asking you to spend time

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Speaker 2: with you. When we focus only on what's immediately in

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Speaker 2: front of us, irritation often becomes larger than gratitude. Paul

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Speaker 2: adds another important word. He reminds us that what seen

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Speaker 2: is temporary, and there's a Greek word in that verse

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Speaker 2: that means something that lasts only for a season. In context,

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Speaker 2: Paul's talking about present suffering, but the principle reaches beyond hardship.

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Speaker 2: This life is temporary. The ordinary moments we often overlook

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Speaker 2: are passing much faster than we realize. That realization isn't

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Speaker 2: meant to make us anxious. It's meant to make us attentive.

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Speaker 2: When we begin seeing people through an eternal lens, our

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Speaker 2: perspective changes. We remember that every relationship is an opportunity

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Speaker 2: to reflect the love of Christ. Every act of patience matters.

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Speaker 2: Every ordinary day is a gift from God and not

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Speaker 2: a guarantee. The same is true of our relationship with Him.

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Speaker 2: We can become so familiar with God's faithfulness that we

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Speaker 2: stop marveling at it. We expect his grace because He's

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Speaker 2: never failed us. We expect his presence because he's always

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Speaker 2: been near miliary. He can quietly rob us of wonder

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Speaker 2: unless we intentionally fix our eyes on what's eternally true.

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Speaker 2: Perhaps today God's inviting you to look again. Look beyond

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Speaker 2: the habit that irritates you, and remember the person you love.

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Speaker 2: Look beyond today's interruption, and remember the relationship God is

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Speaker 2: entrusted to you. Sometimes the greatest change doesn't happen in

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Speaker 2: our circumstances. It happens when God opens our eyes to

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Speaker 2: the value of what's been in front of us all along.

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Speaker 2: Will you pray with me, Dear Lord in heaven, you

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Speaker 2: didn't teach us familiarity breathe contempt and a proverb You

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Speaker 2: taught it to us through prophets that taught us a lesson,

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Speaker 2: that taught us a lesson that we're supposed to learn

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Speaker 2: and we're supposed to practice. But yet God, I myself

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Speaker 2: don't practice it all the time. Lord, the things and

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Speaker 2: people in circumstances that you put before us are something

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Speaker 2: that you want us to see your presence in. For

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Speaker 2: lack of a better term, you created people in your

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Speaker 2: image and we should of respect them. But Lord, sometimes

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Speaker 2: those closest to us get the least we have to give,

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Speaker 2: because we give so much. Help us, Lord, to live

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Speaker 2: in the present, to notice what you put in front

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Speaker 2: of us, to see things with an eternal perspective rather

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Speaker 2: than the day to day that we sometimes give our

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Speaker 2: direct attention to. Because it's louder.

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Speaker 3: Lord, take all these words and lift them up and

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Speaker 3: shift us and let us see the perspective that you

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Speaker 3: want us to have when we just slow down and

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Speaker 3: see what's in front of us.

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Speaker 2: In your precious name, we pray. I'm Ben