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An in-depth look at the Word of God, the Plays On Word community, and the Plays - with original music - we perform, that are based on the Word of God. New episodes drop Fridays at 7AM EST! To find out how Plays On Word Theater can perform 'LIVE on YOUR STAGE' and to support this missionary & podcast visit: https://playsonword.org/
Plays On Word Radio
Ep 94: Divine Guidance in Uncertainty - Trust, Prayer, and Finding Peace in God's Plan
"Have you ever wondered how we can better discern between personal desires and spiritual guidance in uncertain situations? Today you’ll hear our story and how we found peace and divine guidance amidst uncertainty, with lessons from the Bible on trust, prayer, and aligning with God's will."
Imagine planning a dream trip, only to find yourself grappling with an inexplicable sense of hesitation. In this episode, we explore the journey of deciphering divine guidance and finding peace when faced with uncertainty. A personal story of a planned trip to the Philippines serves as a backdrop, illustrating how spiritual intuition can steer us away from our own plans and align us with God's will. Drawing parallels with historical and biblical figures, like Stonewall Jackson and Jonah, we emphasize the quiet power of God's peace as a compass, guiding us through life's trials.
The conversation extends beyond personal stories to the broader theme of trust and prayer. Teaching the Book of Matthew offers profound insights, especially when paralleled with unexpected decisions, like canceling a mission trip. We discuss the nuances of rapid-paced teaching and the joy of deeper understanding it brings. With a heart towards unity, we underscore the importance of praying for all leaders, whether they be allies or adversaries, fostering harmony through shared faith. Join us as we express gratitude for this shared journey, and remind listeners of the transformative power of prayer and unwavering trust in God’s plan.
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Lord you know. Hey guys, you are now listening to Plays on Word Radio.
Speaker 2:It's the best.
Speaker 1:Jesus, you're the only name.
Speaker 2:You're the only name. You're the only name. You're the only name. How can Christians today focus on heavenly pursuits while navigating today's complex global events? Pastor Teddy and Pastor John Durante encourage Christians to live faithfully amid prophetic challenges.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to Plays on Word Radio, where we discuss, analyze, work and play on the Word of God. Thank you for joining us on this excursion. Today let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr, the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God. Amen.
Speaker 2:Yep, amen, amen. Welcome all of you back to Plays on Word Radio. My name is Fred David Kenny Jr. That's right, that's me. We are back in the saddle and we're bringing the Word of God back to y'all. Actually, you have it. Thank you very much, katie Kenney and Mr Josh Taylor. I keep saying we need to have him on the show At some point. We're going to do that. Today we are going to take a look at something.
Speaker 2:We are supposed to be in the Philippines right now, but we had to listen to the leading of the Lord and we felt, through a few different indicators, that the good Lord was saying no on this one, or at least wait. It's either no or wait. We didn't get the green light on go, and it's interesting. I mean, I wanted to go, it was in my heart to go. I said, yes, sure, I'll go. When I was talking to my dear brother, pastor Tony, I said, yeah, we'd love to come out. That's what we do, it's part of our DNA, and so we set it up. So we were planning on coming out and the Lord was giving me just a little bit of uneasiness at first. Let's call it spiritual indigestion. Just a little bit of uneasiness, but I prayed through it. I was like man, I'm going to pray through this here and we're going to blast through and we're going to do what we're called to do. Okay, no big deal. So, as the months went by, tony asked me if we can come do it early in the year I want to say February, january, february, something like that and so we were thinking okay, that's what we'll do. And you know, as the months went by, though, I started feeling a little bit more uneasy about the trip, and I'm just like, ah, that's just me, whatever. And to make a long story short, I progressively got less and less peace about this whole trip. And, um, the Lord, he put it on Katie's heart, and Katie is like the barometer or the dashboard light for me.
Speaker 2:In many ways, the Lord's peace is something that we can use if we're trying to find out the Lord's will. We can, you know, we can go by whether or not we have the peace. That surpasses all kinds of understanding. It might seem make no sense, but the Lord gives us peace where he calls us and where the Lord guides, he provides that's not just financially, that's also peace where he's guiding. He's going to give you peace. Not that you will be in peace because he might be calling you into a battle zone, not that you will be in peace because he might be calling you into a battle zone, but you'll have peace with going into that kind of like Stonewall Jackson.
Speaker 2:He got his name because he had peace in the midst of bullets whizzing past his face and his soldiers under him looked at him and they were like wow, look at this guy, thomas Jackson. He was up on his horse surveying the battle and bullets literally and cannonballs were going past him and his soldiers saw that and they were like yo, he looks like a stone wall. He looks like a stone wall. And they asked him later. They said how could you just be like that in the middle of the battle, with bullets coming at you? And he basically said, son, the Lord has determined the time of my. You know basically when I'm born and when I'm leaving, so I need to not concern myself with anything but what I'm supposed to be doing. And so the Lord, he grants peace.
Speaker 2:And you could look at the story of Jonah. The Lord called Jonah and he didn't have it. He had no peace. He was like I can't go to Assyria, I can't, no man, I didn't have it. He had no peace. He was like I mean, I can't go to Assyria, I can't, no man, I didn't, no. So Jonah didn't really have well, he didn't seek, he didn't really seek the Lord, he just kind of said no, right off the bat. The Lord called him, said I want you to go to Nineveh and speak to the Assyrians. Jonah was like nah, man can't do it, I'm out of here. Peace, I know about them people.
Speaker 2:And he goes down. And then he goes down from Joppa to the shore and down to a boat and then down into the boat. When he's on the boat he goes down into the guts of the boat and goes to sleep and the great storm kicks up. And finally, finally, jonah has peace and says throw me overboard. He wasn't flailing and grabbing onto the boat, he wasn't flailing and grabbing onto the boat and everything. He had peace with what the Lord was calling him in the midst of a storm. That's kind of interesting. In the midst of a storm, jonah had peace when he said listen, throw me overboard, I'm going to have to go with where the Lord's calling me. And there was peace in that call, even though there was no peace around and everybody else was suffering.
Speaker 2:And so this story not this story, but this trip that we found ourselves planning on going on, the lack of peace started getting more and more. In my prayer time I'm like man, I'm just all right. I'm going to try to act like I'm not hearing this, I'm not seeing this. The Lord wants me to be long-suffering here. I'm going to. Yeah, and I've been known to be hard-headed like that.
Speaker 2:Some of you don't seem surprised at hearing that. I just heard a couple of people say amen over the airwaves and over the internet. It's great to know I'm loved. No, but in reality it was getting worse and the Lord used Katie. Katie came up to me and she said listen, you can take this however you want. No-transcript, I just. I mean, my spirit is really disturbed and for me, I was so glad when she said that because it was a confirmation for me that I was hearing correctly from the Lord and I took it that way. So, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. He's talking to her in this in about us going. I've got no peace in this, um, and we, we let some people know and we, you know, we prayed about it. You gave it to him. But we said you know what we should. We need to listen to what the Lord's doing here. And I had just finished teaching our church on Sunday mornings we were going through the book of Acts and we were in chapter 16 of the book of Acts and Paul was.
Speaker 2:They were on their second missionary journey, paul, and now Silas, and they were moving through modern day Turkey today, and I'm just going to read part of it. It says in verse six it says and they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia that's modern day Turkey. And having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia, that's modern-day Turkey, verse 7,. So, passing by Mycenae, they went down to Troas. In verse 9,. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night A Macedonian, a man of Macedonia, was standing there, urging them, saying come over to Macedonia and help us. Now Macedonia was over in, you know, opposite of Turkey, the Greece side, the western side there. So he had to go over by boat, western side there. So he had to go over by boat.
Speaker 2:But the thing to take notice of in verse 6 and 7, it said having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. Now, on the surface it's like wait a second, paul. He's called to go speak the Word and that's in his DNA speaking the Word of God, speaking about Jesus. But yet here the Holy Spirit found it necessary to prevent him. He didn't allow him to go into Asia. And that's not Asia the way we see Asia. You know China and all that. You know the continent of Asia. It's Asia Minor, the modern-day Turkey, what we would call Turkey today.
Speaker 2:And he was forbidden by the Holy Spirit. How that happened we don't know, but he was forbidden. The Holy Spirit didn't allow him to go into Asia. And then he wanted to go into Bithynia, which they believe is the northern part there and the Spirit of Jesus, which is equated to the Holy Spirit in Scripture. Many passages did not allow them. Again, they were being directed with the no. Again they were being directed with the no.
Speaker 2:Have any of you been directed with the no of God? You know, sometimes he directs with yes and opens doors, but sometimes he shuts doors so that you can't. You know, and the guardrails are no and wait. Sometimes that's tough man. Sometimes that's a difficult.
Speaker 2:You know, we're all happy about the yes when he answers the yes, prayer. How about when he says no? Can we be as happy that we're being guided by the Lord? Let me tell you I was so happy when Katie told me what she felt the Lord was putting on her heart because I was like, amen, awesome, that's a direct interaction right there with the creator of the universe. He's taking time out of his busy schedule to direct our steps. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding In all your ways. Acknowledge him Right, and so that was a reason for us to be happy, like, yeah, okay. And that was a reason for us to be happy, like, yeah, okay, all right. It's kind of weird, but he gave us a no, all right. Praise the Lord. Can we be happy when he says no? We need to be Thank God.
Speaker 2:He said no for some of the things I've asked for. Oh my goodness, lord, have mercy. Some of the things that I've asked for in the past. You know, oh, lord, you know, thank Lord. Let me just go on record now and publicly thank him. Lord, I thank you for the no when you said no. You know I thank you for the no when you said no. You know I thank you for when you said wait.
Speaker 2:I mean when he says no, it's not because he's trying to be mean or trying to hold something back from us, the way Satan tried to lie to Eve when he said you know, god just doesn't want you. He doesn't want you knowing good from evil like the way he does. You know he's holding back from you information Anytime he says no. It's for our benefit, and I'm sure you parents out there completely understand the loving no, yeah. So when God says no, I mean we can be disappointed from our perspective, where we are in that moment. Oh man, I wish, I wish that it would have been great if he did that. But we need to know his character, his nature, who he is, what he is, who we are in him, and once you do that it takes the disappointment away and it can make it so that you can actually be happy with a no. You know it's kind of like you're, you're celebrating the, the fact okay, he said no. That means he's got something better in mind and that if he would have said yes, that would have been bad for me as much as I would have loved. Whatever, dot, dot, dot, whatever it was I was asking for pleading for. Let me tell you, before I make 80, you know, there were a few people that I said, oh, that must be my wife, thank God. He said no, thank you, thank you, lord. Oh, now I'm getting a bunch of more amens coming over the air. Yeah, amen, I'll amen with you guys on that. Yep, just came right over the air.
Speaker 2:I could, you don't know, this is a two-way radio program. I can hear you. Anyway, back to our regular scheduled program. Here we regular scheduled program. Here we were okay, we went with the decision. Okay. He said no. So now I've got to let my man, tony, know, because we were coming out there to. It was a plays on word operation. We're going out to do plays.
Speaker 2:But we were also going out to teach at CBI, calvary Bible Institute, and that was also part of the plan where I was going to go out and I was going to teach the book of Matthew at CBI in the Philippines and it was going to be a two-week teaching of the book of Matthew and through the book of Matthew. And so I was like, man, I need, I don't want to leave them high and dry, and I, I mean I want to Lord, what am I supposed to do? I want to take care of the responsibilities that I've agreed to here. And the Lord just said, you know, he put on my heart. I didn't hear an audible voice. He said you know, just offer to do it online. Okay, okay, I'll do that. And so I reached out to Tony and he was very gracious and completely understanding and accommodating. He said, yeah, we can do that online, no problem, that'd be great, that'd be fantastic. He said, yeah, we can do that online, no problem, that'd be great, that'd be fantastic.
Speaker 2:And so, as we speak right now, I have two more days of teaching for the, the book of Matthew, and we're on chapter 22,. And we did four days last week and we did two days this week, and so we have two more days left and then we're going to finish up the entire book. But to do 28 chapters of the gospel of Matthew in that short amount of time, we had to survey some stuff, we did drill down in a few things and we had some fantastic discussions, but it's, um, it's kind of like drinking from a fire hose and uh, I mean, for example, and I mean, for example and I'm going to do this in another podcast I want to just share a couple things on the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount particularly. I was going to try to do that, this program, but I've been long-winded here so we'll do it on another program. That way I won't cut it off and I won't have Christy Ackerman saying, hey, it's too short. Hello, christy, yes, one of our supporters there and other people that are like, yeah, what are you cutting it off? Too short for? Believe me, we have something planned for our 100th episode.
Speaker 2:Okay, anyway, something planned for our 100th episode, okay, anyway, back to our story here, giving it up to God and trusting in Him and saying, okay, I'm going to leave the consequences to Him, but I'm feeling the leading of God here, I'm feeling the leading of the Spirit. And then we had a dear supporter of ours I won't mention her name because I didn't ask if I could on this one. I didn't ask if I could mention Christy's name, but that's okay, christy, she's like family, so she won't be upset with me. But another dear sister of ours who's a supporter of Plays on Word. We let her know we're not going to go to the Philippines and we were going to return her gift that she gave for the trip and she said you know, I want you to keep it for the ministry and I want you to know I didn't have any peace about that trip. And so that was even more confirmation and we were just so grateful. So it sounds weird, grateful for a no, but we're, we are grateful for the no, and I've seen the Lord's hand in um in a bunch of a bunch of scheduling things. Without going into detail, just a bunch of scheduling things that we have going on and that, uh, I don't know why he kept us from going completely, but, like Paul, we just we just read that section.
Speaker 2:You know, paul, he wanted to go through Asia and the fact that he did not go through Asia and preach the gospel, you know, some many scholars believe he was really sick, he got very sick. Not just scholars believe that. I mean it says it in the scripture that he got really sick and he met up with a doctor whose name is Luke, dr Luke, and Dr Luke stayed with him from Troas to over by boat, over to Macedonia, to Philippi, and this Luke would become the same Luke that writes the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts itself. And it's interesting because, you know, through his sickness, he meets up with Luke. Maybe he would have met up with a different doctor had he gone into Asia and preached, but his desire was to go into Asia. And guess what? He makes it into Asia in his third missionary journey. He goes throughout Asia.
Speaker 2:He goes throughout the area there and the gospel does go through Asia and that's why it's important to just okay, it's not my will, but your will be done, lord, I don't know what the plan is, my will but your will be done, lord, I don't know what the plan is, we just do what we're and it's noble to have the desire to go preach the gospel in an area, but the Lord sometimes says no, hold on man, wait, I've got a different plan here. I need some other things to happen and I need you to just trust me and be faithful to my call and don't make your plans. Listen and feel out my plan. So that's what. That's basically what we're doing and that's what we have done and that's why we have not. You know, we ended up not going on this mission, up not going on this mission.
Speaker 2:Now, as far as plays on word, we do have some stateside mission stuff coming up. We're going to be? Um, north Carolina? Yeah, we're, we're Genesis. We have some Genesis Joe stuff happening coming up in November here and then we have some Christmas Joe. Christmas Joe season kicks off end of November, december and the early part of January. We did last year I think we did, or technically it was this year we did Christmas Joe in January and then we come back to Genesis Joe and so we're looking forward to that. We've got some stuff lined up. We're doing Genesis Joe in our home, where our home base is in Southport, north Carolina, and that's coming up. So please, if you could just pray about that, and we're inviting a bunch of people to come out and try to let people know about it, and so just keep that in prayer and you will be able to find at some point. You will find the rest of the schedule we have happening with the Christmas Joe coming up. We're even doing Christmas Joe at Calvary Chapel, clayton, north Carolina, on Christmas Eve this year, which is going to be really special and spectacular. It's always fantastic. We've done it before, we've done Christmas Joe on Christmas Eve and it's just, it's extremely just a special event. So we're looking forward to that and yeah, so I've had a lot of rambling here. That's because I love talking to you guys and I miss you.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I wanted to share is we just had a national election and stateside election and there are believers on both sides of the aisle, and something that we need to remembers that we should not allow our political preferences or political positions divide us. If we're in Christ, we need to be united in Christ. It doesn't matter who's in the White House. We need to be concerned with God's house. If we concern ourselves with God's house, we can deal with what either comes out of the White House or who's in the White House. So I just want to challenge you comes out of the White House or who's in the White House? So if I just want to just challenge you, many of you are ecstatic and happy and some of you are bummed out. If you're in Christ, let's be ecstatic and happy because the King is reigning and ruling, first in our hearts and then throughout this entire universe. That we see Amen.
Speaker 2:Can I get an amen? Hey, listen, many of you know my political stance and where I stand, and all that, and no matter who wins or loses, we need to pray for our leaders, right, I did it last time and doing it this time. Let's pray. How about this? Let's pray that our leaders come to a saving knowledge of Christ Jesus, and not just the president, but the people around the president how about that? And the advisors? Oh, can you imagine? God saves the soul of the advisors so they're given godly counsel? What Are you kidding me? Could you imagine? It can happen. Yes, and it's not going to happen unless the people of God pray.
Speaker 2:So pray for our leaders, pray for our enemies to come to Christ. He's the solution to everything, man, if our enemies come to Christ and we're in Christ, hey, there's common ground there we can work with. Can I get an amen? Wow, that looks like that might be all the time we have. So sorry I talked so long. Forgive me Until next time. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Speaker 1:This program was made possible by the Plays on Word family of supporters. To find out more, check out our website at
