All right, well, I guess we'll go ahead and get started. I had one more lesson to do on the subject that we've been covering. So we've been going through The Complete Husband, and we parked in the area of sexual relations and marriage. And I had one more lesson to just finish up all the material that I had on it. I just wasn't feeling it. So we are going to do that lesson eventually, but I don't know. I was just sort of thinking about something else. And I don't know what may be the reason why I'm not feeling that. Maybe it's because I'm tired. Maybe it's the end of the year. But I don't know. So I switched everything around this morning. That was why I was a little bit later than normal. But because I was actually doing something different. So this is sort of going to be like an end of year challenge. So this is the last time we're going to meet like this for the end of the year. So I wanted to do a lesson that sort of encourages and challenges you in the areas that I think is most important. So we've been talking about being husbands, but being men, and I don't think this is something that I need to like inform you that you don't know of. I mean, this is stuff that you already have knowledge of as far as the fact that you are to be the leaders of your home. And so one of the things that bothers me many times is that in the areas of most importance, many times are the wives. end up being the ones who are actually, while they're not out front and being like the scene leader, they are making us men sometimes really put to shame, and it's not their fault. I mean, how are we going to fault them because they have a desire to grow and desire for the Word? So my challenge for you is to commit this year to grow in these three areas, and so the three areas are common themes, but goodness, I mean, could they be more important? And that is prayer, Bible reading, or Bible studying and reading, and so I've learned through talking to some different people. Some of you know that I had a podcast for a little bit. I sort of stepped down from that this year, and my friend is running it. But in the process of doing that, I had the opportunity to sort of interview some different pastors and different counselors, and just talk to them about some subjects about, you know, when people are dealing with certain issues, You know, you hear the trite expression many times in church of, well, read your Bible and pray, read your Bible and pray. And one of the guys that I was talking to, I think it was a guy named Paul Talches, but we were discussing that and he was like, I can't, I can't emphasize. I mean, I can sit here and give you all kinds of answers to deal with this problem. But he said, what answer do I have for you that is going to do more for your soul and more for the cause of Christ in your life to grow in this area than reading your Bible and praying? He said, but I don't want to just say that. I want to explain to you that it's not just the trite what everybody comes to church their entire life and hears. Read your Bible, pray. but it's more than that. It's a prayer life, and a Bible, and a viewing your Bible in a way that it actually you desire. You're excited about it. So, just a couple of...and it's simple. It's simple, but A couple of things I want to run through here and I don't know, maybe we can just chat about it at the end if I don't take so long. I don't want to take long. Yeah, I just hope you know that I don't want to spend all the time talking. I'm saying I'm not. I said that one time. I'm gonna be short and I never am when I say it. So, okay. But I just want you to know I don't want to be long. So prayer. A couple things about about prayer is plan the time before it comes. I guess let me ask you this way. When you look back at January 1st of 2023. So you look back at January of this year. I'm not necessarily asking for testimonial right now, but ask this question of yourself. Is my prayer life in a better spot right now than it was in January? And a couple of ways to make that more effective is plan time before it comes. You know, this, I don't do this every day, but I did this to sort of see. So I knew what time, like a more accurate time of when I needed to get up and get going so I could get things accomplished, but make sure that I was doing this. And so what I did is I just took my phone and one morning when I didn't have a whole lot on my plate, I just hit the timer and hit start and then put my phone away. And I just spend time reading the Bibles, praying, doing my extra reading that I do. And when I was done, I hit stop. And I wanted to know how long it took me. Then I knew each day when I needed to get up to get everything accomplished. Because I know that for me, my quiet time, the encompassing time that encompasses prayer time, meditation, Bible reading, and then my extra supplementary reading is about two hours every day. For me, it's two hours every day. You say, well, I can't do that. I'm not telling you to do two hours. I don't expect you to do two hours. I expect me to do two hours because you pay me to. Right? I mean, the church expects me to grow in that area. And so a lot of my supplementary reading is actually reading to stay ahead of the curve on a lot of things that are subjects that probably some of you are gonna come to me and say, hey, what do you think about this? And I need to know what's going on in the world or in the world of theology or some kind of thing like that, what current controversies are. So I add that to my time of morning time and focus time before I get started in my daily activities. But prayer. Plan your method of prayer. Plan your method of prayer. We did go through with Adam's small group this year on praying the Bible, and I can't tell you how much I'm on board with that. How many of you have ever heard of George Mueller? Yeah. Yeah, George Mueller. has all these amazing stories about how he never asked for anything, he'd say a prayer, this is what we need, and it would happen. And I never realized until this year that his method of praying was praying scripture. It wasn't like he was like, I'm gonna spend four hours in the morning on my knees begging to God. He didn't do that. And it was so amazingly refreshing how honest... I read a quote of him in a John Piper book about how, yeah, I told... and the way he described his prayer life, I was like, that's me. He's like, I would probably pray for an hour, but I could honestly say that about 30 minutes of that was my mind wandering. So focused prayer was probably only about 30 minutes. I was like, And then he said, my life changed when I started praying the Bible. And this is why I think this is so amazing, because I think so many times we look at Bible study on this hand and prayer on this hand, and then we look at doing both of those in the morning, I don't have the time. But watch this, when you're praying the Bible, you're putting both of those together. You're getting the word of God dwelling in you richly, and you're praying to God through it. at the same time. So if you're somebody who's crunched for time, again, I'm talking about eventually you're growing out of that, you're more dependent on God, you're growing closer to him, and that time is probably gonna grow in your life. But if you're somebody that's like, I just struggle with that time in the morning with all the things I gotta do and getting up and like being ready, look at that as an opportunity of like, hey, I'm accomplishing both at the same time and it's meaningful. So plan your method of prayer. Pray your scripture reading. Now, I think if I went around the room and said, tell me what Acts is, I think everybody could tell me what it is, right? Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, most common. And it's great. It's great. I don't know who actually come up with the concept. Channing, you know who come up with the concept? I've heard some people credit Spurgeon, but I almost wonder if it was before Spurgeon. But here's one that I read this year in a book by John Piper that he practices, and I don't think it's not a comprehensive prayer method like Acts, because Acts leads you into thanksgiving and supplication like praying for others and praying for things and that kind of thing. This is more along the lines of getting going. and he calls it I-O-U-S. The letters go with the first word, so incline, open, unite, and satisfy. And so I've followed this sort of method here recently with my adoration time, and then go into praying the Scripture. So Incline my heart to God. Praying each morning to incline my heart to God. I need God to work in my heart because my heart is naturally inclined to the things I want it to be inclined to and the things that are on my schedule. So I need God to incline my heart to Him. Psalm 119. 36 says, incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gains. So you could take that verse and put it on a three by five card, and that's where you look at it in the morning every day, and you're praying that verse to incline your heart to God. Then open the eyes of my heart. So Psalm 119 18. Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. God, open my eyes, open the eyes of my heart to get out of your word what you would have for me for this day. So I would put Psalm 119.18 on a 3 by 5 card. And so after I go to that, I go to the next card. And I'm getting Scripture in me. and I'm praying and inclining my heart to God. The third one, so incline my heart toward God. Open the eyes of my heart. Third, unite my heart to fear your name. And this is Psalm 8611. Unite my heart to fear your name. Psalm 86 verse 11, Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth. Unite my heart to fear your name. Okay, so unite my heart to fear your name. Do I fear what other people think of me? Do I fear what other people think of my name? the name of God and then satisfy my heart with God. Satisfy my heart with God. Am I so inclined to the Lord that I'm satisfied with Him instead of being satisfied with getting what I want out of that day? And that affects my relationships throughout the day. Because when somebody, my spouse, a co-worker, somebody, and it's not going the way I want it to do, am I satisfied in God? But I've prayed that, and I've looked into that already that morning. So praying. Don't look at it so much as it is a time. I know I've said time it. Don't look at it as I must spend 30 minutes, I must do this. Do this. Set your plan. Do the morning. Find out how much time it takes and then plan accordingly after that. But don't look and say, I must be on my knees for 30 minutes. I must be doing this for this long. OK. Get the time thing out of your mind, getting going so you can focus on praying. I want to challenge you this year. Lead in your home in the area of prayer. Let it not be said that someone else in your home is praying more than you, whether it's developing prayer lists. I'll tell you how I do it. I have a prayer list for each day. So when I say that I pray for you, I don't mean that I pray for you every day. I don't. I pray for my family. I go through a detailed prayer list for my family on Mondays. On Tuesdays, I pray for friends. I have friends that are outside of this church. And so those friendships that I've cultivated over those years, I do this because I know that I have shorter mornings and shorter time on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which I go to the car lot, I have shorter prayer lists on those two days. So I pray for my friends outside of this church and their families and God to bless them and God to grow them and protect those marriages and those ministries on Tuesday. Wednesday, I pray for missionaries. Thursday, I pray for you and your families. Thursday, I go through our church roll and I call out every single name in this church, your kids, everybody. And so, whether it's prayer list when you get to that supplication, but prayer, okay? What could God do with our church if the men in our church were committed every day this year of 2024 to pray? So then this next one brings Bible, reading the Bible and studying the Bible. And I know I've already sort of been talking about this and getting this going in your life. Again, let me ask the question, is your time in God's Word better now than it was in January? And what goal or what plan or commitment could you make beginning January of 2024 that could spur that on? I'm not necessarily talking about reading through the Bible in a year and reading. Of course, I don't want to discourage that if you enjoy doing that, but I'm not saying that you must read, you know, four chapters in a day. I tell you what I've really enjoyed a lot is, I jacked this from the kids, it doesn't look very manly, but I was looking for something. I like the three by five card method, and one of the kids had like this little spiral bound three by five card thing, and I think they had got it from Bible Bee, but I stole it from them. And what I do is I put a verse on there, and I pray through that verse, but I don't just pray through that verse. I commit that verse to memory, and so I memorize it. But I don't sit there and say, I'm memorizing this, and I'm saying... I'm trying to meditate on its truth. So I spend five minutes a day. I take it to work with me and I put that verse up so I'm glancing over it by my computer screen and glancing over it throughout the day. And I'm going through Psalm 1, and I've been on Psalm 1 for a long time. But in the process, memorizing Psalm 1, but meditating on that verse and getting the truth. Eventually, it'll turn into a message that I'm going to bring to you because I love Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the Lord. The Word of the Lord. The Law of the Lord. And on it he meditates therein day and night. He shall become a tree planted by the waters. Now I thought this was... this is one of the things that I meditate on it because the next line is like, who yields its fruit in its season. And I was like, what does that mean? I haven't gotten to do the inductive interpretation on it yet. I'm just taking it in and thinking on it and meditating on it. And I have not been able to get past that. Yielding its fruit in its season. This is what I want. I'm like, think about it like God's word may seem to you like an effort that doesn't necessarily yield like you think it should all the time. but it yields its fruit and its season whenever you're a tree planted by His waters." That's good. Thank you. That sort of helps me with that. That's really good. So, what I'm saying and what I'm trying to get across is, go to the Word of God and use the Word of God, read your Bible, and study your Bible in a way that it develops a desire for it. not a boring towards it. I really struggle with even saying that because I wonder if like if we really truly think God's Word is boring. I mean are we in Christ? But don't take that too seriously. I mean that's just me musing. Okay. So I'm not saying that about anybody. But read, study the Bible passage that you're praying. You've heard me say this a hundred times. Answer the questions. What is it saying? What does it mean? What does it mean for me? Listen, our wives should not be studying the Bible better and more than we are. I know that we're in different situations many times where maybe whenever they're doing the things at home that they may be able to have more time because of work schedules. But let it not be said that if they may be studying a passage of about six or seven verses, that you were not meditating on one verse throughout that day. I mean, it doesn't take a whole lot of effort to carry around a three-by-five card with one verse of Scripture on it from Psalm, Proverbs, or, you know, another book that can just... Leviticus. Leviticus. Yeah. I could get distracted. Okay. All right. Funny. But I'll tell you one thing. We'll just take a couple more Saturdays for this book right here. And I've already determined, like, when we finish it, we're going to take a little bit of short excursions, maybe two or three times. And we're going to talk about just interpreting the Bible. We're gonna talk about Bible study. And then I was thinking about going into like, since we did the husband, we'll go into doing fatherhood. But before we jump into fatherhood, I want us to spend some time on just studying the Bible. I've already actually, I got an appointment to talk with a guy this week that me and Adam were able to go to a thing at First Baptist in Oklahoma this past year. And it was just an intensive seminar with the men of their church. And a couple of area pastors came and we were two of those. It was so much fun and it was very cool. But the guy just sat there with the men and they brought him in and he just walked them through doing Bible study together. And I was like, we need to do this here. And so we are. All right. So we're going to get that going this year. But I am very, very convicted. as an under-shepherd about the status of our men and studying the Bible. And so, I mean, again, do you guys know to pray? Do you know to read the Bible? Yes. But what I want you to do is challenge you to plan. You have from now to the end of the year. It's December Ninth, to put a plan together that at the beginning of the year you're going to have a plan that will make your Bible and prayer more meaningful. and in a process where it's growing in your life. And so memorize the verse, meditate on the verse. This is sort of like the idea of carrying that verse with you throughout the day. You look at it, you're thinking about it, you're meditating on it. And this is the whole idea. Listen, I do this in counseling all the time when I'm trying to get them to understand, because I'm always giving them scripture with every assignment. And this is what I tell them. When you're doing this process, this is what it's doing. What is Romans 12.1? Romans 12, 1 and 2. Present your bodies, a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable worship. Right? Verse 2. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. So how does that happen? He says, we see that. Yeah, I know I don't need to be conformed to the world and want what the world wants. And I hear all the stuff that's being taught and preached in church, and I want to be transformed. And how does that happen? by the renewing of your mind. So then we ask the question, how does our mind get renewed? Bingo, right there. And this is what's gonna happen. And I always do this when in the counseling room, whenever I see this happen, like you're going over this verse and you're reading it and you're meditating on it. And if you were doing that, then what's gonna happen is you're gonna find that when you find yourself in a situation, Your mind will recall that scripture and it'll stop you in your tracks from saying something or doing something in that situation that you typically normally would have done, but the truth of God's Word was brought back to recall in your mind and it stopped you. And every time that happens, after I'm talking about how their week went, I was like, Okay, we need to stand up and do a happy dance right now and praise the Lord. And you're like, why? And I was like, do you not realize what just happened? Sanctification just took place in real time. That is so awesome. And your mind just got renewed. And so that's why I'm so on board with this idea. Alright, so the third thing I wanted to do was just challenge you. This might be a little bit more difficult with the aspect. And it's nowhere near on the bar of importance as Bible reading and prayer. But challenge you to read. read and read and I'm not just saying like read because I know some people can read like my dad and I always grew up my dad would read like you know Tom Clancy books and you know novels and that kind of thing or or books that help you in your career. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about reading solid Christian whether it's Christian growth or theology and so if you're not a reader I get it. You say, no, you don't, John. How many books? I could tell you how many books I'm not going to that I read this year. But I surpassed the goal. I did better than I did last year. That was sort of my goal, just a little bit more. But here's the thing. I was there. From the time I was a sophomore in college to the time that I was my third year in ministry in West Virginia, I never read a single book. Never cracked a book. In fact, my first year of college, I never read a book through high school. I lied my way through every report. Hey, we're talking about my college, okay? Yeah, there you go. I read the books that were assigned my first year, and then after that I was like, ain't nobody else doing it, so I didn't. So I didn't read at all. I never cracked a book, never had a desire to read. And I was in a dark place my third year of ministry there in West Virginia. I was low. The longest probably spout of depression that I've ever been in. I did struggle with depression for a long time. In and out, in and out, in and out. And I can't say that I've had a bout of it probably in the past six or seven years. But I struggled with it. Like I had very many episodes and I was in a dark, dark spot. My brother gave me a book and I'm not even recommending this book. But he gave me a book called Ordering Your Private World by Gordon McDonald. Again, I don't recommend it today. But I do believe God used it in my life at that time. I read the opening illustration and I still use the opening illustration because it was really good and it gripped me. And so then I read. So that was the introduction. Then I read the first chapter and I was like, I'm where this guy was. And he because he told a story and I was like that. And then I read the second chapter and I read the third chapter and I'm just crying as I'm reading this. And it was like something awoken me. And I was like, as soon as I finished that book, I was like, I've got to I've got to find something else. And so I just begin to read whatever. And it was like it's like a muscle. All right. It's like you go to the gym and you get on the barbell. All right, you're not gonna put 350 pounds on that barbell. If you're like me, you're like, I'm trying to get the barbell up, you know? All right, you're barely able to do that 45 or 50 pound barbell. And you're like, is anybody looking? All right, but you work yourself up, right? And then you're like, all right, I can put two fives on there. Or maybe two tens. And then before long, you know, you're building that muscle. And so that's what it's been with me as far as reading. It's been a building. to where it was, for a while, it was just one book at a time. Now, I read probably about eight to ten books at a time. It's grown as far as the depth, too, like the theology. I tell you, the recent challenge that I've had that's grown my literary comprehension is reading old things. reading Puritans, which was a challenge for a while, but I've really gotten into it this year, and so I have enjoyed it, but it's stretched me. I was in a pastor study group earlier this year, and we had tried to do it three years ago reading this book by this guy who did a theology of the pastor. It was like three volumes, and each volume was like that thick, and we were going through his first volume, and I remember reading it three years ago and thinking, this guy crafts the longest sentences I've ever seen in my life. Does he not know what conciseness is? And I would get so lost, and I really wasn't getting a whole lot out of it. And what I found when we went back to do it again this year, because I'd been reading Puritans in between that and growing that, when I picked up his book, I'm like, This is not as complicated as I remember it being. And it was just sort of like then the light bulb went off. It's because you've grown reading in this area. So, I don't recommend picking up and starting with a 300 and 400 page book. I've told people this, if you're wanting to start a habit or a discipline of reading Christian work, theology, I say this, go to something you're interested in. If you pick up a book that somebody recommends you, but you have zero interest in it. You are going to get so bored, and you're going to put it down, and you're never going to pick it up again. Okay? So whether if starting off that book that gets you going is on marriage, then do it. If it's on a certain theological topic, then do it. So I know a lot of people start with devotionals. Full disclosure, not a huge fan of devotionals. Although in the past two years, I've gotten back to sort of like trying to find some value in them, and I have enjoyed it. There is a string of devotionals that are put out by PNR Publishing. They're really short, so each day's reading. They're 31-day devotionals, so it goes through 31 days. Each day is like a page and a half, maybe two pages. They're great. They're on all kinds of different subjects. There's probably... This one's by a guy named John Kratz. It's called Hope. living confidently in God. But they have probably, at this point, they have about 25 different subjects that they're on, whether it's marriage conflict, whether it's contentment. And I've read 10 or 11 of them last year. I think they're fantastic. I did not read one that I thought was not good. In fact, my favorite one that I read was by a lady named Megan Hill that was on Contempt. I thought it was fantastic. Love this book. You've heard me speak about this book. I love this book. Gospel treason. Look at this. This is what I want to challenge you. Commit to reading, if you don't read at all, commit for 2024 to read one. Now, I don't read on the weekends. I read Monday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday, I don't. Because I need the recharging to look forward to doing it again on Monday. So I don't read on weekends. So this book has 215 pages. 219 pages. OK, 219 pages divided by 365. We'll let Ben do the math. But you're talking about, do what? Less than a page. Yeah, you're talking about less than a page a day. That doesn't take very much time out of your day. Or if you said, you know how a lot of books, they have like these little spots where it's like, all right, so that's the heading and then you go. to that heading. That's what I would say. Just read that little segment and just do that each day. Read the segment and you'll get through the book in a year. This is one that I was looking at my bookshelf and I was looking at this one. I love this. This is probably, I talk about all the time, my top five books. This is probably number five. These two sit at number five and six and they teeter depending on what day it is for me. But it's called A.W.E. All by Paul David Tripp. All right? Why it matters for everything we think and say and do. Okay? This is understanding what we've been covering on Wednesday nights, the theology of God. You get a theology of God unto you, then this takes the theology of God to the practical. And it is so good. It is so good. I really, really love this book. I thought about going over just some of the ones that I've read this year, but I know some of the ones that I read this year wouldn't necessarily be applicable to some of you. So this year I read a lot of books that had to do with marriage and family because many of you know that I took a class this year on that subject. So I've read a lot of books on that that are out there. Two books that I want to, one that I finished this year that I had already started in a previous year, but I recommend is called Twelve Ordinary Men by John MacArthur. It is probably his most famous book. It's probably his best-selling book, but it is very good. So we were talking about the disciples, Channing had brought that up. Very good book on that. A lot of these are some theology books. The series that I preached earlier this year on grace, I read a book by Jerry Bridges called Transforming Grace, and I recommend highly anything by Jerry Bridges. I've read about four or five of his works, and every single one of them have been great. So I've actually got a personal plan to work through all of Jerry Bridges' books. So the next one on my agenda is Pursuit of Holiness by Bridges, but The Puritan work that I read this year that was very good, it's 65 pages, but again it's a Puritan work, is Doctrine of Repentance by Thomas Watson, and I loved it. I actually got excited about the Puritans because I listened to Joel Beakey do an entire seminar on reading Puritans, and he gives out a a whole sort of plan on how to start reading it from the easiest to the hardest. And so I'm sort of working through his plan. So I'm starting with, he recommended Thomas Watson as the beginning point. It's the easiest to digest and that kind of thing. So this coming year I'm reading two Thomas Watson books, Heaven Taken by Storm and The Art of Divine Contentment is two that I want to read this year. One that I thought that may not be like for everybody, but I really enjoyed it was Psychobabble by Richard Ganz. His testimony is fascinating. He wasn't just a psychologist. He was actually one of those guys that worked in the mental homes, the mental facilities where people went, and how he came to Christ and then decided to use the Bible to help a patient that didn't speak for six years. And he got the guy talking and the guy was communicating and actually studying. And then the people and they were like, what did you do to break through with him? And he's like, I just started challenging him with scripture and his concept of God. And then, of course, his boss was like, you can't do that. And gave him, you know, you leave or I'll fire you. And he tells his journey about going to what's the guy at LaBrie? Yeah, he went to Francis Schaeffer's and grew and then went to seminary, but very, very good book, Psychobabble by Richard Gantz, which we actually have a copy back there that you can grab. Well, the last one that I was actually going to recommend was one that I finished this week, and it was written in 91, so it's a little bit older. relatively, but it's called Our Sufficiency in Christ by MacArthur, and I loved it. I thought this was excellent. I just started my last one that I'm going to read this year. I started this week and plan on finishing it next week, one, two weeks, and then it's called Overcoming Bitterness by Steve Byers. He was my supervisor. So I've already enjoyed it, but I'm telling you it's just it'll change your life. It really will. It is one of the methods God's people that God has worked in their life being able to put it on the written page and then pass along. I mean I could go to Scripture and say like you know go to the story of Paul when Paul was at Philippians or 1st Timothy or 2nd Timothy. He's given, it was first Timothy, he's given instructions to Timothy saying, you know, when you come bring my cloak, bring the scrolls, which scholars and commentators meant that he was referring to God's word. So he wanted the scriptures and he said bring the books. Meaning that he had supplementary reading that he felt was necessary for him and encouraged him. And so here's the challenge. You may not be a big reader, you may not read it all. If in 2023 you did not crack a book, I'm not getting on to you, but I want to challenge you. Grab one, start with one. Make a personal goal to get through one this year. And we actually have a couple of books. We got books you can borrow, but we got a couple books that are like we have plenty of copies of that you can take in there. One is Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund. It's great. It's not like top tier for me, for a lot of people it is, but it's really good. It's really about, it's not about the doctrine of Christ necessarily. It's basically saying, I think at the beginning he says, this is our doctrine of Christ. And it is saying, how does the doctrine of Christ impact us in our hardest times, in our sin and in our suffering? And he just loads it with quotes from Puritans. It's really good. I'm actually working on that. So when I was, I was going to shut that off, but whenever I was at the biblical counseling conference, I talked to the representative of 10 of those, which is now sort of running at every major, I think they're at seeing as well. But he said, he told me, he said, we actually will work with you and you can set up your own bookstore for your church. It doesn't cost you anything. He said, and you go through us. And so instead of going to Amazon and giving money to that pagan company, which we do a lot, you then will actually be funding, you know, Christian people. And he said that, you know, you can put, that you can give them the link or even a QR code. There we go. Getting fancy. A QR code, and it'll go straight to the bookstore. And it's only loaded with books that, you know, I or some of the leaders, like we put in there and say, this is the ones we recommend. And so if we say we recommend a book, you can scan that QR code, go find that book at 10 of those. And so it's like your own personal online bookstore. So I'm working, that's one of the things I got planned to work on this year. Yeah, so it's something I've thought about. Audio books, you still get to, and I understand different people have different ways of like, they can handle audio books that are good. I will challenge you guys this. If audio books is the way to go for you, do it. It's better than nothing. All right. Do it. But I would challenge you to this. At least do some type of reading where it's this. Because when you when I always this this is always a convincing sort of whether you want to call it argument or just point that that I was at God who in all of his sufficient knowledge and wisdom and knowing that we'd have so many different forms of media at some point in human history, chose His revelation to us to be done so by the written Word, and there's got to be sort of a, there's a reason for it. And so therefore I think, and listening to the Bible, you know, there's a lot of audio Bibles. I don't discourage that. Listen to the Bible. If you're not doing, if you're not doing anything, listen to it. I actually would, will do that from time to time. I'll just listen to it because I want to hear some different, like different ways that it's, it's being, you know, I enjoy it. But, uh, I think that reading helps us just understand our comprehension, and it helps like reading the Bible as well. It's just great. How many of you know who Ben Carson is? Ben Carson was very illiterate growing up, like having struggled, but his mama was determined that they were not going to be like another statistic in the world of the ghetto. And so he struggled with grammar, all of this stuff. And he said from his mouth, they say, what do you credit, you know, just being able to come out of the slums and becoming a doctor? And he said, my mama made me read. That's what he said, my mama made me read. And he said, I didn't want to read, but she made me read. And he said, you know, when I, the more that I read, the more my spelling got better, the more my grammar got better, and all of these things sort of, because he was seeing how it, you know, was seeing, the more and more he took that in, he saw, well, this is, I've seen this so many times in my mind, but like his mind, his brains are automatically putting everything together that this is how a sentence goes. This is where punctuation goes when you're saying it this way. And so it's just, I can't, I don't have all the science behind like why reading is that important. I just, it's so good.