Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hey, welcome back to Grow 10 show. We are in part two of a series that we are talking about when life gets hard and you're in some of the hardest moments of your life with grief or things have been put on you that you've never asked for, how do you relate to God in a healthy way? Thank you so much for joining us. How are you, my best friend?
[00:00:23] Speaker B: I'm great. How are you today?
[00:00:24] Speaker A: You look good. You look cool.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Well, thank you very much.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: You got a Johnny cashier of cowboy and a leather Indiana Jones about you today.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Hey, wasn't it nice that God gave me such a beautiful daughter as you.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Or a little fella, you know what I'm saying?
I said I either look like a junior high boy or a girl at some point, so.
Well, welcome back. So we had a very interesting conversation that we aired last month, but I want to continue it today because I think there is a reality that life can sometimes be extremely painful.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: And in the painful, it can be really confusing and hard to find ways to relate to God. I have a friend who years ago lost his brother in a very tragic accident and he came over to our house and he was basically saying, you know, if God was good, this would never have happened. He said that a lot more angry with a few little sentence enhancers in it, if you know what I mean.
But there is a reality that in the hardest times of our life, it feels isolating. It feels like God is not good. And there is an idea of wanting to withdraw.
So we talked last time about how do we deal a little bit with the confusion and this beautiful idea that there are two hands holding us today. I'd like to give a few more tools. And when I think about the grief in my life, I think I'm probably similar to a lot of people that when I am in pain or going through something hard, my knee jerk reaction is to isolate, is to pull myself away.
Are you similar to that? What is your knee jerk reaction in pain?
[00:02:22] Speaker B: No, my knee jerk reaction is to power up and just bulldoze my way through.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Keep going. Yeah, yeah.
So you're gonna fall in one of the two categories. Both probably unhealthy. Yeah.
Okay. But when we think about, when you think about the pain of life and that idea of isolating, what are your thoughts on that?
[00:02:45] Speaker B: It's the worst thing we can possibly do.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Isn't it funny that the worst thing you can possibly do is what you are innately drawn to?
Or is that just me?
[00:02:55] Speaker B: No, look, Christianity is a team sport.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: Christ never intended us to try to live the Christian life alone.
Paul made a big deal that we are a body.
And just like a body has many members and each member has its own function, the Christians are that way.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: So some Christians are strong where other Christians are weak. And we all have gifts and it's God's purpose that we relate to each other in ways that when someone is weak, those who are strong bear each other's burdens.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Yeah. So this is making me think maybe we have some listeners who they're not in the depths of hardship right now, but there's people in their lives who are. And I think one of the cliches of life is when things are hard, you go to these sayings that really aren't helpful. Yeah.
And you just want to be a good friend and you don't know what to say. So you end up saying, you know, whatever you've heard before. Can I ask, in your opinion, because you've been at a lot of bedsides, you've been through a lot of pain with people. What is one of the most helpful things you can do for someone who is in the depths of pain?
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Well, really the very best thing you can do is listen.
I believe in the talking care.
I believe that there are some things that emotionally have to be thrown up because if you don't, you continue to be sick.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: So the very best thing I can do is I've listened to people who were very, very angry with God and my mind wanted to debate them, but I knew that's not what would help. So I just listened and let them vent.
And when they vented, I said, you know, you're angry with God, but God has big enough shoulders to handle it.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I think I heard Rick Warren once say him and his wife Kay had a terrible tragedy. Their son Matthew took his own life and they had to go to the house and where he lived and tried to knock on the door and it was locked and they couldn't get in and the police had to come and break down and they said it was the most horrific filled time of their life. And they were just standing on the port on their son's driveway and their life group showed up and surrounded them. And he called it the gift of presence. He said they didn't say a word, they just were there with them. And I think that is a beautiful example of just showing up for people.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: And also knowing if you're the right person or not. If I don't know you very well, I'm not Going to just go show up. The idea of this is your family or if this is your close friend, the idea of listening and presence, I think that's really powerful.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah. It's because, look, there are no magic words.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: There are just no magic incantations.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: And we don't comfort people by trying to lesson.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Right. You know, preach our way into it. Yeah.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: But there is something powerful about how souls affect souls, you know.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: And the. And your soul just affecting the soul of the other person by being there is more powerful than.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: And I think everyone has so many good intentions, so it's never out of bad intention. It's just you don't really get taught how to help and grief. So I think that was extremely helpful. Okay, so back to the idea. If all we want to do is to isolate or to power through and keep moving, we are made for community.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: But what about when you really don't want it?
What kind of steps in this grief when you know you should be around people or there are people who want to help you?
At what point do you say it's time to lean into some of this?
[00:07:56] Speaker B: All right. We can. We have to let people have a grief.
We can't.
We can't have it in our head that we have the magic cure for all grief.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: And if you would just listen to me.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: Right. I'll fix it.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Yeah. All right. So there has to be.
There has to be some time where we allow people to be overwhelmed by their grief.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: And ourselves.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Yes, and ourselves.
All right. But there's also a time to accept soul medicine.
You can't get lost in that grief.
I know people who had a tragedy and they got lost in their grief and they're. They've survived, they live, but their life ended.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Physically they're there.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Emotionally, they've never moved on from that.
So there has to be. There has to be a willingness to say, it's time for me to take the next step.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: And I think there is. To a reality, like if you lose a child or your spouse or something, there is a reality that moving on in the sense of getting on with it, it's not going to look the same because you are permanently affected by some things.
But the reality of letting your grief. You said this in a sermon a little while back, letting it fashion you in one way or the other. I can either allow it to make me a better person or I can allow it to ruin my life. And I don't think anyone really wants to choose the ruin your life. But I do Think sometimes we just end up living that way. And so in your history, in your life with mom and us, what has been your sense of how do we turn it? How do we spin it where the grief and the pain doesn't ruin us, but instead it, as you said, fashions us into the person that God wants us to be?
[00:10:25] Speaker B: I believe that's primarily affected by the thoughts I have about God.
If in my pain I can say, even though this is a terrible experience, God loves me, that's going to be fascinating to me. If I can say, even I'm totally confused. I don't know why this is happening. It doesn't seem right or fair. If I can say God is infinitely wise and this feels like evil to me, but God is able to make it good.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: If I can say I'm blind to my way forward, but the good shepherd, he knows how to make all things work together for good.
The way I think about God in my misery fashions my soul.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: This is making me think faith looks differently. Sometimes I think when we think about faith, it's the faith to believe that something better is going to happen, that my sickness is going to get better and I'm going to be healed. And so you think about faith as almost this one way street of like these beautiful things that are going to happen. But in reality, there's another side to faith, that even when it does not happen, you are going to trust in God, that he is God, that He is sovereign, that he knows all things, and in somehow, in some way, he will work it out for our good.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Right, Sarah? My faith is not in an outcome.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: My faith is in the nature of God.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: So spot on.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: If I put my faith in an outcome, I'm in real trouble.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: And we do that.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: And that is where I think some of the biggest breaks in our faith come is because it isn't an outcome. Instead of God.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: Gosh, that's. That's really good. Okay, so let's say you are a person who, you know, you're. How do you switch that lens? How do you switch the lens of. I'm putting my faith in this outcome versus I'm putting my faith in God. And now the hard stuff has happened. And now how do we make that shift?
[00:12:50] Speaker B: So we talked about this Sunday.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: This will be a couple months later. So a couple Sundays ago.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Okay.
Sometime in the past we talked about this.
I have the capacity to control my thinking.
I can direct my attention.
And even in unbearable sorrow, I may not be able to direct my attention as well as I can when life is good. But I can still direct my attention.
I can still. I can take. I can take one of God's guiding ideas, or I can think about the nature of God himself.
And I can say to myself, for just a few minutes, I'm setting aside all my turmoil. I'm setting aside everything that's overwhelming me. And for just a few minutes, I'm going to try to think about what kind of being is God.
And then I must think. Then I have. I gave the Westminster Confession definition as a guideline.
I'm going to say. I'm going to say God is infinitely wise.
There is the wisdom of God. Is somehow or another going to see me through this? My wisdom isn't, but his wisdom is.
Or if I can't do it myself, I have to be open to let a friend talk to me about the nature of God. All right. When we're helping our friends, we don't lecture them. Yeah, we, we. We don't.
We don't preach sermons to them with, with. When they are open. We say, think about the goodness of God for a few minutes.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Dad. I think there is also in this same idea sometimes, if you don't have the Westminster Confession or it's hard sometimes there's the idea of remembering and going back to things that you can think about. So sometimes in my life I have to go back to the days that I heard the call from God in my life.
Maybe people said something mean or something hurtful. And I remember a moment that I sat in this auditorium and I told God, I said, I'm not leaving until I hear from you. And I stayed and I stayed and I stayed. But Psalms 56 appeared. And this I know that God is for me appeared. And it was as if God himself was in the room and talking to me. And then I sit and I remember. God is for me. He himself told it to me. And there's this idea of going back and just remembering the moments. Yes, Remembering the prayers of how much I wanted a son. And then the day that I got to hold my son.
That is the love of God in my life, remembering the days where I longed for something better. And now I'm living in these days where God is healed and restored. And that is the faithfulness of God in my life. And so when we remember and just go back, and sometimes it's the big things and sometimes it's the little things, we just remember, it's almost the same act of.
I don't know, a deeper sense of healing. Because you look back and say, if he. If he loved me then he loves me now. If he was faithful then he can be faithful now.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: He is the God of hope.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: And if I will let him, he will. He will let the rays of hope shine in some way.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: So good.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: If I will just open the shutters a little bit.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: He will find a way to shine hope in.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: Okay. So we open up our heart to allowing other voices in. If you're the other voice, it's the idea of listening and presence, then it's this idea of I'm going to allow myself to grieve, but I'm also going to take steps. I'm going to start moving. What's one more good idea?
[00:17:38] Speaker B: God has in some way prepared us for every position he puts us in.
I don't mean we're thoroughly equipped and totally prepared, because we're not. But God does not take me through experiences that he hasn't given me some strength and some abilities to handle.
So when I am overwhelmed with the sorrow, the grief, the remorse, whatever it is, that's when I have to say, God has granted me this spiritual gift. God has granted me this strength.
God has granted me this experience.
And there's some bit of information in what he's done that's going to help me through this.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: Like what have I been through that I can cling to or.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: And what are my strengths?
[00:18:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: What is the best work God has done in me?
And if it's whatever your spiritual gift is, God works in my life through this way. And so, for example, let's say your spiritual gift is service. You're overwhelmed by sorrow and you don't want to serve.
But if you do serve a little bit, the Holy Spirit works through you in that service and it is a refreshing to you.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Maybe we'll put a spiritual gift test in the notes, I think.
Or you can look it up. It's the disc D I SC test. I think we have a copy of that. I don't know if that infringes on something or not, but maybe even just the act of trying to find out what your spiritual gifts are. If you don't know, highly recommend the disc test.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: So I have to.
I have to draw upon the strength that God has given me.
And often I don't want to, but it's like medicine. Whether I want to take the medicine or not, I need to take it.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: Yeah, you're going to feel better.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Yeah. So somehow or another the Holy Spirit acts in us in a healing way when we draw upon the strength that God has already given us.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for this. I feel like it's going to be very helpful. I think sometimes you're just not taught a lot of things, and there are hard things in life that there's really not a rule book for or a playbook for. So thanks for taking this time to sit down and share some of your thoughts, and I think they're going to be incredibly helpful. So I'm going to do something I've never done before, and I'm going to end with prayer.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: I thought the very same thing.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: Did you really? Yes. Hmm.
Great minds.
Holy Spirit. Must be moving.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: Must be.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Dear Heavenly Father, you are a mighty and an incredible God.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: And in the moments of our deepest pain, you draw closer to us.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: I pray for every heart listening, every soul listening that needs you. Father, can they find your great presence, please? Can they find your hand wrapped around theirs? Can they find the gift of who you are in their sorrow? Can you show them? Can you show them your great love for them, please? Father, I pray that you help them find the strength that you have created them for this, that you have created them to overcome, and that if they can seek you and find you, that they will have a life that is incredibly more rich, incredibly deeper than any other way. Father, show them and guide them in your great steadfast love. We pray. Amen.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: All right. Thank you so much for joining us. We pray that this has been helpful. And if it has, please share it, like it and all the good stuff. I love you.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: I love you.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: Have a great day.
