Walking With God Through Trials (Part 1 of 2)

Jesus entered into our suffering. He didn't say, pick yourself up by the bootstraps and get your act together. I've saved the world.

You should be fine. He entered into the suffering with us, and He suffered so we would know we are not alone in our suffering. So if Jesus, God Himself, could lower His eternal optimism, you could say, to enter into the places of our pain, and He did it knowing that's the only way that we could have healing, then we've got to slow down too and enter into that place with others. That's Michelle Cushat and she joins us today on Focus on the Family.

Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daley and I'm John Fuller. You know John, we all think we have strong faith and then something happens, something rocks our world that changes, perhaps, that attitude. Maybe it's an adverse diagnosis or an adult child who's made some choices that you strongly disagree with because you know, with your experience, it's a dead end and it's not going to help them spiritually or probably in any other way. Maybe a spouse that's decided they're done with marriage. I mean, we hear from many, many people every month and those are some of the pain points that they express to us. These storms of life leave us shaken, wondering if God is truly there.

That's the moment. That's the depth of the valley. Psalm 34 18, I often quote it here, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit and that should be a comfort to us that he's not, he hasn't left.

He hasn't disappeared. He knows where we're at and is probably trying to teach us some things in those valleys. So today we want to strengthen you and your walk and help you to be strong in those valleys.

Yeah, and Michelle Cushat has been here before. She's a very popular author and speaker and she and her husband Troy have six children and we're going to be talking today about her story and insights as captured in a terrific book. It's called a faith that will not fail. Ten practices to build up your faith when your world is falling apart.

Stop by the show notes or give us a call for more on that book. Our number is 800, the letter A and the word family. Michelle, welcome back to Focus. Thank you. It's so good to be here. It is good to have you and uh, you know, right from the beginning here, often a person that writes a book about pain, uh, sometimes those people have not experienced it and therefore it rings a little hollow. You're bringing a lot of truth to the table because of what you've experienced. People may even hear a little different voice in you because you had a cancer. Just express for us what happened and give the listener, the viewer an idea of that Valley, that particular Valley that you walked through.

Absolutely. Well, I was about 39 years old, a mom of kids that were in grade school, middle school, high school. Uh, it was an ordinary Tuesday before Thanksgiving when I got a phone call from my doctor the week before I had gone in because I had an ulcer on the side of my tongue that just wouldn't go away. No big deal.

We have stuff like that. I'm, you know, I was a very healthy 30 something year old woman, but that day basically the doctor said, I'm sorry, Michelle, but you have cancer and it was squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue. Cancer of the tongue.

Now I didn't even know that existed, let alone it was something that I could get as a young woman and a non-smoker and it's more typical of a smoker. I had none of the risk factors. I was very healthy, ran half marathons, did triathlons.

So like it was absolutely out of left field. Um, well that initial diagnosis proved to be cancer cut early, kind of a best case scenario. Um, the hardest part of that initial diagnosis was the reality that it could happen to me, right? That you can do all of the things right and still end up with a wrong result. Uh, the doctor said, we got it all.

You have nothing to worry about except that they were incorrect. And over the next four and a half years, it came back two more times. The most significant, uh, was it came back within seven months of my second diagnosis, very aggressive, much more advanced. They gave me about two weeks to get my affairs in order. At this point they put me in the hospital again, two days before Thanksgiving, took out two thirds of my tongue.

Um, then they had to do an incision in my neck and my arm on my leg to kind of put all the pieces and parts back together to give me some kind of semblance of a functional mouth so I could eat and drink and talk and swallow like we do every day. That is, you know, again, that's so formidable as an adversary that you got to confront this cancer and it strikes right at something you love to do and that's to talk to other people. So I've been doing ministry as a speaker, Bible teacher, mentor, coach, I coach speakers. Yeah. I mean the irony of that, but again, it does provide some authenticity to your story, some terrific authenticity that you've been there. It's not something you're just waxing about because it's the right thing to say. You've had to live it. So I really wanted to get to that and we're going to weave that story throughout the next couple of days and we'll talk about that. Let's get into some of the application of what you've learned, not only in that, but another family difficulty that you've had. And again, we'll unlock a lot of that as we move along. But, um, we often hear that it's important to have a solid foundation of faith.

Of course it is right. But you relate that to home renovation. Now I did a home renovation during COVID and it was just getting the materials. I mean, we could not find like a refrigerator and a dishwasher that matched and they said they deliver it like an 18 months.

Does anybody remember this? You could not get a washer, a dryer, a fridge and a two by four cost like a million dollars. So in this I share your pain, but what was your relationship to your COVID renovation? Yeah. So it was October. Well, it started around August of 2020. At this point we had been, you know, basically trapped in our home with three preteens, right?

Like it's like the worst nightmare. Actually my twins turned 13 the day that the world shut down. And so, yeah, so we're doing this and you know, I don't know what we were thinking, but one day my husband and I said, we ought to think about moving. We've got this extra time.

You know, we're home all day anyway. And we found a property with eight acres outside of like halfway between Denver, Colorado Springs. The problem was the house had been vacant for more than a year and the owners before us hadn't done any maintenance for 20 years.

20 years. Yes. So it's a fixer upper. This is a big time fixer upper. And so we walked through it and first of all, we had to walk through all the weeds to get to the front door, right?

Cause it was just a mess. But my husband's a contractor and a home inspector. And so he really evaluated it and he came to me after doing his inspection, he said, it's kind of a mess, but the foundation is good.

Okay. And he said, as long as the foundation is good, we can fix everything else. And that really hit me, right? Now let's just say it's been two years since then, two and a half years and we're still fixing it.

But the foundation is solid and he was absolutely right. And so how does that then translate to this walk of faith? Now you continue that story in the book about how that related to Jesus, I think, and the disciples in the boat in the storm.

Is that, is that fair? Yeah. That, that whole story, Jesus is with the disciples in the boat. All of a sudden, what the gospel, one of the gospel says is that a furious squall came up. So we're not talking the rainstorm.

We've had lots of rain here in Colorado. This is like hardcore squall, like hurricane force winds, terrifying. The irony is the disciples are panicked and Jesus is sleeping. And you see this juxtaposition between his calm and their chaos, right? And so they wake him up and their words to him were like, don't you care that we're going to drown? Kind of common to what we say when we're in trouble.

I find that fascinating. Like they're not even talking about the storm. They're talking about how they're going to drown.

They're making it personal. And so they look at Jesus, don't you care that we're going to drown? And Jesus, you know, sits up, wakes up from his sleep and just says a word and everything goes calm just in a moment. But what's so profound about that story is he looks at them and he doesn't talk about the storm. He doesn't talk about the panic.

He doesn't talk about the fact that they could have died. He looks at them and asks them a question that we all ask, where is your faith? And underneath that is a really important truth.

We get caught up in the circumstantial and understandably so it's terrifying, but we see all the rain and the wind and the thunder and the lightning. And Jesus is saying, what's really at stake is not that. What is at stake is your faith.

And where is your faith? And what does he say then to Peter that makes it? So then fast forward to the Last Supper. So Peter was on the boat that day. Fast forward to the Last Supper. Well, he tried to walk on the water.

He did. I mean, he's had lots of lessons. But you fast forward to that Last Supper and Jesus knows what's about to happen. Like he knows his time's coming. He's been talking about it.

Like I'm going to die. He's been letting them know bad things are going to happen. Disciples don't get it. And right at this dinner, he looks at Peter, which is so fascinating. The bottom's about to drop out. He's letting Peter know, but he's saying, you don't even know it's coming.

I know it's coming. I've already prayed for you before it happens. But the best part of all, and this is kind of the culmination of this whole scene, he goes, I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith would not fail. He didn't pray for Peter's health to be good. He didn't pray for Peter's family to be intact.

He didn't pray for Peter to be wrapped in bubble wrap when the arrest happens in the Garden of Gethsemane. He says, I have prayed that your faith would not fail. And when I read that, you know, and contrasted it with my own life story and life experience, I realized that God was trying to help me see these other things are terrifying. The devil is going to eat you for lunch.

It's going to be rough. But I have prayed for you. And don't forget that what is most at stake here isn't your health. It's not your family. It's your faith.

Yeah, which is so good. And that is the basis of the book, a faith that will not fail. Ten practices to build up your faith when your world is falling apart. And we're going to look at some of those ten. We can't cover them all.

But I do. I do want to explore with you that feeling, because now you're on the other side. You've gone through catastrophes. You feel the Lord's presence. But taking you back to that pre-Thanksgiving diagnosis, when the doctor says to you, you've got cancer.

And eventually, you know, we're going to have to take a big majority of your tongue. That moment for you is probably what we would all want to do is, God, where are you? What's happened?

How did I fail you? We tend to turn that into a transactional situation with God, to say, I've lived my life as best as I can before you. And that this is the payback.

Why would that be? And, you know, I'm setting that up also as a valley walker, as an orphan kid. I think I've learned some things in there. But speak to that person who maybe just today or yesterday or last week or last month got hit. And they're in that spot where they're saying, God, I thought you were real. The presence of pain makes us question the presence of God.

Those two things, we think they cannot be simultaneous. We think if we feel uncomfortable, if we're suffering, if we're weeping, if we have tears, that that must mean that God is absent. And part of our faith journey is learning to understand, as you said at the very beginning of this program, that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and he saves those who are crushed. The cross itself, and this is what I want those who are listening right now, you may not feel it right now.

You may not be able to grasp it right now. But I want you to picture Jesus on the cross, not coming out of the tomb, but him suffering, because that is evidence of the fact that God came close to the brokenhearted. He is near those who are crushed. And if you are in a place where you are crushed and you are broken, then that is exactly where God is going to meet you. Michelle, the first of the practices that you encourage people to follow in those valleys they face is lament.

I think, you know, that can sound like a foreign word to some people because it's not in the normal lexicon of everyday language. So what is lament and then how do we put it into practice to help position our emotions before God? Lament is kind of an old fashioned ancient type of word, but very simply, it's the vocalization of grief.

It's simply allowing ourselves to give voice to and express the very real grief that we experience. The irony is, in my Christian heritage, there was this kind of maybe not overt message that to be full of sadness and grief was somehow unfaithful. Yeah, you needed to be strong. Yeah, you need to be strong. You need to say, God is good all the time.

Well, yes, he is. But you can also be sad. You know, lament is very simply telling the truth about your pain. He already knows, right? Now, why this is so important is, is we cannot even begin the process of healing and growing until we acknowledge that there's something that needs to be healed.

Right? So the more that we feel like we have to be strong, and guess who's our savior? Ourselves. When we can express grief, when we can lament, then we are placing ourselves in a place of dependency on the only one that has the power, the authority, the credibility to save us. Yeah, and the goal is to move closer to Christ's likeness, right? To be indwelling in him, so that we have those attributes of peace in our lives. Let's move to the next one humility. This one, you know, humility, it's so funny. I think pastors and Christian leaders suffer with a lack of humility.

You get a lot of adulation, you get a lot of people that say, Oh, if only my husband were like you, of course, your spouse is saying, he is like, we're all human. But that idea of humility and the importance when you're going through a grieving time, how does humility play into that process of grief? I believe in my experience of pain and suffering, and there's not just been one hard thing, cancer is not the only hard part of my story, there's been basically 30 years of crisis. One thing I've learned is that our difficulty with pain, our tension with pain is more a problem of posture than the pain itself.

Right? At some level, we've come to believe that we are entitled to a pain free life. We deserve we deserve it. And this is not entirely American, but it is a uniquely American problem that we feel that the American dream is owed to us. And if anything gets in the way of that, if there's any discomfort, if there's any waiting too long for some good thing to happen, right, we don't even like waiting, then we get annoyed and angry and upset because we feel that it's owed to us. Humility reminds us that even if God never did another thing for us, that his offering of salvation and relationship and grace and love through Jesus is more than what we need. I kind of shrink back a little bit to talk about the greatest attributes, those kinds of things. But when you look at humility, it's one of the top characteristics of God. I mean, he is humble. It's his nature to be and we're created in his image. But sin is entered into us. And man, does our flesh fight humility. It's like one of the great battles of everybody's life. All the time, like on a daily basis, I feel this, I feel the tension of this entitlement rising up in me and then wanting to demand of God that he does for me what I asked.

I mean, I even think of you know, cancer came after we foster adopted kids. And you know, I remember, look, I'm doing good work for you, God. Do you hear how arrogant that is?

But that's kind of the wrestling. And, you know, I think of Philippians 2, where Paul talks about Jesus, that who being the very nature with God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant. There's a humility there. And Peter talks about it in 1 Peter, that humble yourself, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he will lift you up in due time. So you think of that formula, the Lord saying, Okay, I want to make you more like me, this is what life is about.

I want my likeness to be in you. And I know you're going to struggle with control and fear and power and these things. So what is the Lord going to do to teach us those things? Allow us to have the opportunity to practice trust, right? So how do you process that when you get that kind of diagnosis or your spouse says I'm done after 30 years or your adult child is wayward and prodigal?

I mean, how do you really learn the right lesson? Yeah, I'm gonna give you my three step process and, you know, kind of boil it down to what works for me. Okay, one, it really does start with the lament, which we talked about. We can't skip over to just being confident without acknowledging that this is difficult. So tell the truth and you know, say this is difficult.

I'm struggling. I have questions, God. Then two is to look for evidence of God's faithfulness in your past. As a reminder, as a reminder, and God instructs us and you know, with the Israelites and with Moses, do not forget what I've done. Go back and remember, Joshua and the Israelites set up stones by the Jordan and God said, so that your children and grandchildren will know, right?

So they will go back and know. So rehearse God's faithfulness up to this moment because that reminds you that as big and loud as the current crisis is, you have lots of runway where God has shown you his faithfulness. So to remind yourself of that and then finally, and this is something that's going to sound so simple, so trite and it works for me, but as I was wrestling with a lot of fear, not even knowing if I would live, acknowledge my grief, rehearse God's faithfulness, and then finally I would say out loud, God, I trust you. I trust you. And believe it. I would say it as many times as I needed to out loud until the fear started to go down and the belief and trust started to go up. Yeah. And it is so good. So we have lament, we have humility, and again, we're not covering all 10, but the next is relinquishment.

That's an interesting word as well. I mean, how do you relinquish control of your life, of your kids, of your spouse? Are you serious? If I don't control them, Michelle, do you know how they're going to behave? Tell me about it.

I have 16, 16, 17 year old at home right now as we speak, and I'm not even sure the house will be standing when I go back. Okay. Well, that's trust, but it's got a good foundation.

The walls will be decimated, but the foundation is good. Now, relinquishment is, well, first of all, as humans, we want to grab onto something, right? We need something to worship, something to hold on to, something to grab onto. It's just a fact. Relinquishment is choosing what we're going to hold on to most of all. You and I tend to want to hold onto outcomes. Outcomes are fickle. I can tell you that right now. I mean, I've heard you're cancer free so many times.

It wasn't true. If I hold onto that outcome, I am just waiting for disillusionment and disappointment because ultimately someday for all of us, the health thing is going to get the best of us. We know that, right? So relinquishment is about relinquishing outcomes and then holding onto a person, right? If God is who he says he is, that we are the apple of his eye, that he has given his very life for us, that nothing will ever separate us from his love, that never will he leave us or forsake us, that's a sure deal, right?

I mean, that's a no fail scenario. And so hold onto him more than the outcomes. The other aspect of relinquishment that you're touching on, I want to make sure I hear it clearly, is expectation. So relinquishment of expectation is part of that, I would think. Some of that is part of our normalization of life on this side of eternity.

And this kind of ties in with the entitlement thing too, right? The truth is, is you and I today, this sounds so morbid and I'm not a morbid person. We're one day closer to our death. Oh yeah.

Right? And our kids, guess what? They have a will of their own. And no matter how well you think you were able to control them, at some point in time, they're going to be 18 or 21 or 35 and making their own decisions. You will lose control. In fact, everything, your body, your appearance, your relationships, your career, everything will change and someday you will die.

That sounds like really bad news. And yet Jesus said, in this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world. That is reorienting our expectations so we can relinquish outcomes and hang on to a person. And in that context, when those things are being accomplished in you, then contentment, which is another practice, and we'll end today.

And if you can, we'll pick up next time and go through a couple more. But contentment just sounds like such a sweet spot. It's like your favorite pillow.

It's where you want to lay your head down. Contentment. I'm satisfied.

Everything is in a good place. What's the practice of contentment? Almost seems like we shouldn't be.

It's not Christian to be content. Well, and we live in a society of achievers, right? That we're always chasing the next thing. It's never enough.

It's never enough. We always have to work harder. We have to try harder. We have to be thinner.

We have to whatever. Contentment is, you know, this concept of the kingdom of God will come and has come. Like there's experience of God's reality and kingdom right here in this place. I didn't need to wait to be cured of cancer to experience him. There was something of God that I could only experience in the present.

And that means in the pit of pain, right? And when I start to realize that there's some, you know, Isaiah talks about treasures and darkness, secrets and hidden places. When we can start to realize that as awful as this current reality is, there's some kind of riches or treasure right here. I don't have to wait for something else for me to have it. It creates a sense of contentment in this place. That doesn't mean you have to like your circumstances, but you realize that there is some kind of goodness that we can mine for even in the darkness.

Yeah. And I think my sense is when you can give that to the Lord in that pit or that Valley, it's what puts a smile on his face. Cause I feel like he recognizes that and says, you're mine. Cause no matter what Satan does to sift you, as you mentioned earlier, your heart is for him. That makes him smile in my opinion, cause you're his at that point. Right at the end here, I've got to be mindful of that person that's listening to this going, okay, I'm living in my grief right now.

And this sounds good, but it's like something beyond my grasp. Can you pray for them? Yes. And ask the Lord to help them.

Absolutely. And before I even pray, I remember Jesus prayed for you before this even happens. Jesus, we come to you right now and we bring all of our grief to you. And even if it's ugly and messy and overwhelming, we know you can handle it. So we bring it to you and we lay it at your feet.

We pour it out to you. Thank you that long before Satan sifted us as we in this moment that you prayed for us, that you have had our backs, that you were fighting for us and that you were praying that our face would not fail. I pray for those who are suffering right now, God, who can't find the strength to reach for you, that they would feel and see and recognize your presence with them in a new way right now, this moment, that somehow, wherever they are, God, that you would speak to them like Romans 8 says that nothing will separate them from your love, that their pain is not evidence of your absence.

In fact, you are closer than you've ever been. I pray for their peace and I pray for their faith that no matter what happens, it would not fail. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Michelle, thank you so much. Thank you for your courage to live through this and to fight for the right things and for that steadfastness of faith that is clearly evident in you. It's awesome. And it encourages the rest of us that maybe have not gone through something like that yet.

Yet. And we will. And let me turn to the listener and the viewer. We're here for you. What people need in that moment is someone to talk to. And we want to be that for you.

If you don't have that friend or even if you do and want that additional input, give us a call. We have caring Christian counselors who can schedule a call with you, call you and talk with you, pray with you, most likely provide additional resources to help you. And we want to do that. Also, you can pick up Michelle's great book, A Faith That Will Not Fail.

That title alone is enough to motivate most people to say, OK, that's the kind of faith I want. Get in touch with us. We're a Christian ministry. And if you can't afford to take care of the cost of that, we'll get it into your hands.

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Dean and John, you do it that way. And in that way, you help us kind of even out the budget for the year. Literally hundreds of thousands of people will contact us.

And I want it to be millions. So get a hold of us. We're here for you.

Yeah. Let us know how we can help. Join the support team if you can. Our number is 800 the letter A in the word family 800-232-6459. And we'll have details in the show notes and program description. And on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, I'm John Fuller thanking you for joining us today and inviting you back next time. We'll continue the conversation with Michelle and once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.