This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Hope in the Morning. turning tragedies and tears into testimonies of hope. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Welcome to Hope in the Morning. I'm your host, Emily Curtis. It's a strange paradox of the Christian life that we often see God most clearly when our surroundings are the darkest. In his book, On Eclipsing the Sun, Doctor Rick Holland warns us that lesser things, even good things, can block our view of Jesus, much like the moon blocks the sun during an eclipse.
But what happens when that eclipse isn't caused by our sin, but by our suffering? When pain demands our attention, how do we keep our eyes fixed on the Savior? If you feel like your view of the sun has been eclipsed by pain, this episode is for you. Dr. Holland, thank you so much for joining us today on Hope in the Morning.
Emily, you are so kind, and please call me Rick. Please, please.
So, I want to put a little caveat in here for the listeners: is that two special things about you. One is you were actually my college pastor back in California at John MacArthur's church, and you were a great college pastor, full of energy. And I remember actually you saying something. When it comes to marrying somebody, you said, find the person whose Bible is all marked up and worn thin, and that's the person you want to marry. And I grabbed me a seminarian, so pretty good.
You did. I listened to your advice. He is, he's a wonderful man. And the other thing that I want listeners to know about you is that at Hope in the Morning, we have a panel of pastors, is what we call them. And basically, it is a group of men, godly men, godly pastors.
And the reason why I asked each of you to be on that panel is because I wanted people that were very, very well informed with the Word of God, but also had this heart of compassion and this authenticity and vulnerability. Because as we've seen time and time again on this program, Especially when A pastor is willing to just be transparent and truthful about. Our walk as believers authentically, you know, what that looks like, what the struggles we go through. That's where we grow spiritually, especially as the sheep of the flock. Because we're seeing these leaders, and we see it's okay for us to say, I'm really struggling right now, I really need somebody to help me because I'm struggling with my theology in practice, I'm struggling with.
Actually, knowing that God is good, but believing that God is good amidst my suffering. And so, you are one of the pastors on that pastoral panel, and we are so honored to have you play a role there.
So, we just appreciate you partnering with our ministry in that way. Thank you. It is an honor to be with you. This is a little bit embarrassing, but I've watched you grow up. Yes.
And it's fun to see you become a wife, mom, someone who's serving people in this medium.
So thanks for what you're doing. Yeah, I appreciate all your support as well. And I know that your book, which I'm going to show the picture here, I know that it's not a new publication. But, you know, a lot of a lot of the best books are The ones that have been tried and true, that have been around for a while. But I think the topic of this book is an important one because we do often let the busyness of our lives, especially as Americans, Kind of take precedence in our lives.
So, can you tell us a little bit about your your heart behind this book and why you felt it was important for the church. No, thank you. The book came out of a sermon series I actually did to a group of collegians, that group that used to be in. called it crossroads at the time. And what it was, honestly, was a working out of my own um It kind of lackadaisical um Situation that I found myself in, even following Christ myself, where it just felt like I think I began the book talking about when you're in an eclipse, it's just dull out, but it's because the sun is there, but it's something's in front of it.
And that became a metaphor that worked in my own life to think, I see. different things that I end up putting between myself And the Lord, or that come up and I allow them to stand between me and the glory of Christ. And so the process of sanctification is really un-eclipsing it, taking those things that are in between us and our view of. of our living resurrected Savior out of the way and That's just become a very helpful way for me to think of my own sanctification and to look daily at what's standing. What am I allowing to stand between me and my love for Christ?
What would you say, in your experience? Because now you've kind of served the gamut of age spans, right? I mean, you've served people that are in their late teens, their 20s, all different phases of life. And now you're serving really people of all ages as a pastor. But.
What would you say are some of the the most common things that people have in their lives that eclipse the sun? It's a great question. And I think I would probably allow the Apostle John to answer that for all of us, which. He says in 1 John 2:14 to 16, all this in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, those are categorical things, the lust of the flesh, the visceral things, whether it's sexual temptation or hunger or anything that your body craves, the lust of the eyes, that's materialism. And boy, we live in a world that is constantly saying, if you will get this, you will be happy.
And then the pride of life is just that's actually kind of projecting ourselves between us and the Lord, where we want to promote our own. Glory, our own satisfaction, independent of that. But in those three categories, Emily, show up. In a child, in a junior higher, in a collegiate, in a young married, in an older, married, and in the geriatrics who are measuring their life in months, not years, those same three categories are there. They just have different expressions.
So, finding and isolating those, I think, is the first step in saying, what is really standing between me and the Lord?
Something less of the flesh, less of the eyes, or the pride of life? Because John says that's all that's in the world. That's a pretty comprehensive statement. Yeah. Yeah, I think too that there's a connection, even with each one of those things, to grief and suffering because so often we either have a pride of life, right?
That we think that we should not be the ones getting sick, we should not be the ones going through this suffering, especially if we have. Yeah. If we have allowed the prosperity gospel to seep into our thinking, which many of us have, whether we realize it or not, and we've talked about that a few times on this program. That we sort of assume that if we are walking with the Lord, if we're pursuing Him, then we're owed these blessings, right? That we are owed a life that is free of deep sorrow, free of deep suffering.
But that's not true. And actually, as I was thinking through your book and how it can also tie in with suffering, I was thinking about the fact that. At times, our suffering can eclipse the sun, right? It can make us focused so much on self, on our surroundings and our circumstances, that we forget who he is. And on the flip side of that, sometimes our suffering, when we allow it to mold us, can un-eclipse the sun because it uniquely allows us to see the glories of God.
What's the difference there? What's the difference between us allowing them to eclipse it or uneclipse it? That's a great perspective to have on it. You know, we often talk from Ezekiel about idols of the heart. These are idols that we have in our heart.
And what is an idol? An idol is anything that you will sin in order to get. Or sin because you don't get it. And like you're talking about grief. Health, lack of sickness, happiness in relationships.
Sometimes those can become idols that, if we don't have everything we want in them, then we'll sin in order to. To try to achieve that.
So it's all everything, everything. And I know you pound this on your broadcast, your podcast, is about perspective. How do I see that? Because sometimes grief can pull me to God like a magnet. And sometimes, just like the psalmist, just like David said, it can make us say, God, are you there?
Where are you, oh Lord? And it's all about perspective: how we're looking at God and whether we're taking that eclipsing thought between us and God out of the way. Yeah, I I guess part of that too is like Do we use our suffering as a lens to see God? And we've talked about this before on the program as well, but it's important is that. If our theology, our theology can't just be cerebral.
It can't just be stuck in our head. You know, that's what the scribes and the Pharisees did. But we want to put our theology into action. And when we grieve and when we suffer and we go through hard times, that challenges our theology on a very deep level. And when we come back, we're going to talk about how.
You know, you talk in your book a little bit about how we can grow complacent in our comforts and in just the routine of things. And we're going to talk about how that can be its own danger. We're going to talk about the flip side of it: how when suffering flips your world upside down and there's no routine. How do we keep our focus on the Lord?
So join us again in a moment on Hope in the Morning. Do you have a heart to comfort the hurting? Do you want to show the world that through Jesus Christ we can have hope in all circumstances?
Well, then we welcome you to visit hopeinthemorning.org and see how you can join us in these ministry endeavors. May you be encouraged by who our God is as you continue this episode of Hope in the Morning. To learn more, visit us at hopeinthemorning.org. John 13, 35 says, By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. Do you know how to best love and serve your hurting brother or sister in Christ?
Listen to hope in the morning and be equipped to offer the hope of Jesus to every hurting heart. To learn more or partner with our ministry, visit us at hopeinthemorning.org. What do you say when a loved one faces deep loss? How do you recover joy when you find yourself in the valley of despair? Learn from honest testimonies of trials and tears, and be encouraged that in Jesus there is hope.
Hope in the morning. Visit hopeinthemorning.org for grief resources or to make a donation in your loved one's honor. Welcome back to Hope in the Morning. I am meeting today with Dr. Rick Holland, and he is very near and dear to my heart because not only was he my college pastor back in California, but he also is on our panel of pastors here at Hope in the Morning.
And so I hope that as you hear Rick's heart that you will see the kind of men that we're putting On our panel that know God's Word, love God's Word, live God's Word, and want to challenge you to do the same.
So, as we open this next segment, I want to read a poem here that I wrote that's in our book, Hope in the Morning, and it's called Soul, and it says this: it says, O soul, are you weighed down with sorrow? Does grief seem your nearest of kin? Are you anxiously viewing to morrow with a heart that is aching within? O soul, do you feel the weight of this world as it moans under sin's dreaded curse? Do you long for the day when he'll make all things new, exchanging beauty for all that now hurts?
There is a day coming when all things will be beautiful, glorious, bright. where to eyes now darkened and filling with tears He will unveil His unfathomable light. O dear precious soul, remember the truth that will not waver nor wane. that the Lord is your God, He will redeem all your days, and what is lost here on earth will be heaven to gain.
So yea, though you walk through the shadowy valley, and your heart will be tempted to fear, Remember, a shadow can only be cast when the sun is drawing near. Take courage, O soul, and cling to the sun, when it seems only darkness surrounds. Hold fast to his promises, finding them true. And you'll find it's his grace that abounds. I picked that poem to read because it reminded me of your book, you know, where it talks about a shadow can only be cast when the sun is drawing near.
And we often forget that, that the Lord can use our darkest moments to draw us near to him.
So, can you talk about that a little bit and about how we can use our sufferings to really see the glory of Christ?
Well, let me first say, beautiful poem. And I love how it began, Emily, because you did exactly what. The psalmist says in Psalm 42 at five Five or six and five, when he says, Why are you in despair, O my soul? He actually preaches to himself. He talks to himself, he talks to his soul.
That's the whole foundation on Mark Moy-Jones' book, Spiritual Depression, where we often listen to ourselves more than we talk to ourselves.
So that perspective is so, so very important. Suffering, grief, dark moments are not if. As you were reading your poem, I was thinking about that one word. In James chapter one, where James says, Consider it all joy, my brethren. He doesn't use the word if, he says, when you encounter.
Various trials, and it's not if, it's when. They're all coming.
So. Part of what you're doing in your ministry here in this medium, this podcast, is you're helping people know that it's not if, it's when. How are you ready when it comes? Yeah. You know, Don Carson says, all you have to do is live long enough and you will suffer.
So having a strategy and a plan for that. Is really important. Being ready, not only when you're in the midst of it. but knowing that you're gonna need those principles. From God beforehand.
So that was a long answer that I don't even think I answered your question.
Well, I think that you alluded to it for sure, just about how we. We will see The glory of God and our suffering. And actually, I love James 1. James 1 is actually a chapter that my children and I memorized the year before my dad died, and we had multiple miscarriages. And when you hide God's word in your heart, it becomes just part of you, right?
And so, I love, I love the conclusion of that verse that you just said, where it says, Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
So, in the same way that it doesn't say if you encounter trials, it also doesn't say hoping that it will produce endurance and hope within you. We have a steadfast assurance of that. And that is one of the things that we want to encourage our listeners in is that. The Lord is faithful in all seasons, and how can we, in turn, out of love? For him and devotion to him, how can we be faithful?
How can we fix our eyes? on the Lord when It seems like everything around us is crumbling. How do we keep that steadfast focus? Isn't it interesting at the end of Job chapter 1? Job hasn't even got, hasn't been struck by Satan physically.
He doesn't have the boils. He's lost 10 of his kids and probably their spouses and grandkids in the collapse of that house at that party. And it's so alarming to me. I mean, it just rocks your world. This is.
He fell down and worshipped. Right in his grief that He had to be ready to do that beforehand, which meant his perspective. Was naked I came from the Lord, naked I'll return. Blessed be the name of the Lord. His perspective was bigger than the moment, even the trial that he was in.
Now, that doesn't minimize anyone's suffering. As a just a little footnote. This morning, my wife and I went to visit two ladies in the same hospital who are both one recovering from surgery, one who just found out she's probably going to measure her. Her uh Her life in months, not years, and going to be put in assisted living. And we had talked to both of them, and it was interesting to hear how both of them.
articulated what they believed about The gospel, what they believed about theology that was carrying them. It's so, it's a little bit embarrassing. The pastor went to encourage these gals, and we left more encouraged than. We left encouragement, and I think it's because. Of exactly what you're saying.
They were prepared. To understand the trial that was before them.
So you can certainly help someone in grief, sorrow, and suffering in the moment if they're not prepared. But if they are prepared, if their theology is lined up, if they know that God is good, He does good, Psalm 119, 68, if they understand He's sovereign and good. then it changes things. Thinking that God is sovereign over your sickness, but he's not good, would be no encouragement. But knowing that he's good and has no power to do anything, that he's not sovereign, would be no encouragement either.
All of our theology has connective tissue, especially when we're grieving and especially when we're suffering. Yeah, I think that that's a really important point, actually, because a lot of people, especially if they grow up in the church, they don't tend to have as hard of a time reconciling with the sovereignty of God. But they can really go through a dark season of wrestling with the goodness of God because. It doesn't feel good. And again, I think part of it is when we have kind of internalized without even knowing that prosperity gospel.
You know, where we think. That's it, because Horatius Bonner said in a famous Sutherman, a famous little tract on the sovereignty of God. He said, Our difficulty with God and His character and His sovereignty arises from our suspicion. Of his character, which means we wonder: is God really good? Is God really there?
Does God really know? Does God really care? Yeah. Theology has to bring us back to remembering that God is still there. The sun is still there above the clouds when you're flying up through a storm.
And remember that reality is where we put our hope and our anchor. And when we struggle with that, when we struggle with with Wondering about the character of God. I think a lot of that a lot of that really is us making God in our own image because we're unpredictable. We don't know.
Somebody might have been compassionate yesterday, but maybe today they're in a bad mood and they're not so compassionate and empathetic toward you. But God is holy, holy, holy, which means completely other. Than us and trustworthy. How have you counseled people over the years that really struggle with understanding? the fullness of God's character and how that plays into their theology in in action, in practice.
Yeah, great, great question. Psalm 50, God says to the Israelites: Your problem is you thought I was just like you. And that projection you're talking about is what all of us do. It's not just some people, we all kind of. Think without scripture to correct our thinking, we will naturally conclude that God thinks like us and is like us and intuitively kind of project that on God.
So, this is, I don't want to oversimplify this, but this really is the read your Bible sermon again. If you don't have your mind saturated and embedded in scripture so that we're understanding what God really is like, what He really has said, we will be left to our own intuition, and that never ends in a good place. That's true. Very true. Have you had times personally in your own life where you have had to kind of reconcile through a hard season?
What. What you have learned, especially as a pastor, what you have learned is true about God. And what you feel is true at that at that moment. Oh my goodness, yes, more times than I can tell you, not just one, but there have been, and we call them dark times, there have been some really low times in my life. And I remember I was a pastor.
I hope I'm not going to lose my ministry by telling you this. I remember. Laying in bed one night, I had gone to bed a little earlier than Kim, and I was laying there, and I just said, Out loud. This This is true, isn't it, God? I mean, I just was so down that it made me wonder.
And then you begin.
Well, you, I love that poem you started with. You speaking to your own soul. Wait, wait a minute, wait. What do I? In my whole counseling world, I'm pretty simple.
This is the way I counsel everyone, this is the way I counsel myself, is asking three questions. What do I feel? What do I think? What do I know? Usually, we live in the world of feelings, which causes us to think a certain way, which makes us doubt or question what we know or believe, and the whole goal.
Is to reverse that polarity. What do I know and what do I believe? That should influence how I think, which will help me with my feelings. It doesn't always change them. Yeah.
And that's With suffering, you have to get to what do I know, what do I believe? You said it in James, you highlighted it in James 1. Knowing that the testing of our faith produces endurance. If it's what we know and what we believe that we have to get to. Yeah.
Yeah, and being under good teaching consistently, I think is Highly underrated. Because you know so many people especially in In my generation, which you know, here we are. Bringing up children, right? We're starting the next generation of hopefully godly men and women, but. We've kind of gotten in this American rut where we're looking for these churches that are just these feel-good churches.
It's almost more of a hangout. Than it is, it is a challenge to our souls week after week. And, you know, having grown up at Grace Community Church and grown up under your teaching as well. I think that if you're going to a church where you never leave feeling. Bad about yourself, probably not going to the best church.
And I don't, I mean that in the right way. Like, I mean that in the best way because. Sin should convict us. If we're a believer, we should feel like, Lord, I want to honor you more. I want to love you more and know you more.
And it should be a call to action every Sunday where we feel like, how can we apply? How can we be again referencing James? How can we be doers of the word and not just hearers of the word? Not just having our ears tickled with what feels good. And sometimes That means hearing and absorbing hard truths in the midst of our suffering.
How can we come alongside people who are suffering or grieving and Speak those hard truths that sometimes need to be said without being Job's friends. Wow. Really important question. You know, I was just thinking about this issue in 2 Corinthians 1, which I know you've probably come back to many times. Comfort.
Those with the comfort with which you have been comforted. He doesn't say, comfort others with your experience of suffering.
Now, that can be helpful. But he says, comfort others with the comfort you received in your suffering, meaning that when we go through suffering and grief and trials well, We learn something about ourselves and we learn something about God that changes us. And those. Can I call them lessons, those truths that we come to grip? That's what we carry with us that becomes helpful.
For someone else in coming alongside them, we've been comforted by God. Let me tell you what He gave us. We had a drink of water from a thirsty moment. Let me give you that water.
Now, there's nothing wrong with telling people about our own suffering, but I do find that sometimes We try to help people by telling them how bad our suffering was. Not always the best. Yeah. But we can say, when I went through a trial, let me tell you what I learned about our God, how he helped me and ministered to me. He had changed my perspective.
Um that's that's what second Corinthians 1 is really about. It reminds me of when people give their testimonies, and you have sometimes you have people that they give their testimony and they want to really linger in all that the Lord brought them out of, but they're really lingering there, and you're thinking, Let's get to the good part, let's see, let's see what God actually did and how God has transformed you. And that's what we want to do with our testimonies, even here on Hope in the Morning. That's what that's how we hope to steward people's testimonies of suffering is not to create some sort of um emotional riling up. From people's stories, but instead to point to the goodness of God every single time so that people that are in those hard, in those hard seasons can see: okay, God was faithful.
God was faithful. God's going to be faithful. Because again, going back to the fact that God is not like us, He never changes. He's the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. And so when we can hear.
The testimonies of people who've gone through hard times and can come out the other side and testify: God was good, God was faithful, God was compassionate. And even, like, I love the song, He Will Hold Me Fast. I think I'm sure you're familiar with that. I love it. Because it points to the fact and the truth that we We Waver, we wane in our love.
Scripture says that, right? None seek God, none seek after Him, and yet. Christ in His compassion and His faithfulness, He holds us fast. Amen. Very, very In those seasons where we feel like Um We feel like Everything around us is darkness.
And the sun has been eclipsed by either our suffering, or maybe we're in a season, you know, even we've talked about this before as well, but Christians go through depression, Christians go through anxiety, and just because we're believers doesn't mean we're immune to things like that. And so sometimes you are in a dark season like that, that maybe it doesn't look like. A loss or a chronic illness, but maybe you're in a dark season of depression, which has led you to a season of doubting. Your faith in who God is, what would you say to that person who is just feeling surrounded and almost suffocated by the darkness that they find themselves in. Uh well I'm going to give a gross overstatement, and I'm going to confess that before I give it.
By and large, we feel depressed because we're looking at what has happened in the past. And by and large, we get anxious because we're afraid of what we don't understand about the future.
Now, those are you can be the Depressed or anxious about the past, those can go back and forth. But what happens with those two categories: being down and depressed, looking back, being anxious about what a fear of what's going to happen or not going to happen in the future, we're looking back and forward, but we're not looking up. And I don't want to be too trite with that, but. God is there and God knows and God cares. I mean I know you've dealt with this so often in this subject.
God is good, he does good, but everything he does is for our good. Romans 8:28. And if we believe that, it's perspective. Talking to my wife about this. At the hospital this morning, we had to park pretty far away from the hospital to get in.
There's a. and a divided. The truth is, Emily, it was probably about 100 yards. But if we went to the Royals Stadium, the Kansas City Royals, and we had a parking place 100 yards from the stadium, I'd feel like I've won the lottery. It's completely a different perspective.
So, learning to change, orient your perspective around what's true from above. That's where we grow is believing that God is who He says He is. Does what he says he does. And is there for us And it's for us, not against us. Those are game changers.
Absolutely. And for those that are listening on the radio, again, I'm going to invite you to join us on the podcast portion, which our podcast drops every Tuesday. And we also have a YouTube channel, which is Hope in the Morning Backstage, because we're going to continue this conversation and we're going to talk about how that perspective affects the way we praise and what does it look like to worship in the midst of weeping.
So join us next week or join us on the podcast on Hope in the Morning. All right, so going forward with that, Rick, is that. There really is There's a huge connection between our perspective and our praise, right? Whether or not our perspective, I mean, you see it with Moses even very clearly. The perspective of whether we're going to grumble.
Or Praise, right? And whether or not we see God, whether or not we believe that God is. Supplying all of our needs in the way that we feel he should, or for trusting him, if we are truly trusting him and obeying him in the wilderness, to continue the metaphor with Moses. How How crucial is it? to our praise and our ability to actually worship God.
in the midst of our suffering. That's great. Will the people listening in a moment have heard what we just talked about? Yes. Yes.
So this is the continuation. This is the podcast.
So they'll hear everything we've already discussed and everything going forward. Good, good, good.
So how can our perspective affect the way that we praise and worship God.
Well it's going back to that Parking lot illustration, which is which is a little silly. If I'm parked, think about this: if I'm parked 100 yards from where I want to go. That can be, I can grumble about that if it's the grocery store. Right. But if I'm at, you know, the the uh Kansas City Chiefs game, and I'm 100 yards from the stadium, it's incredible.
So, the point of reference and what you're seeing that same position, 100 yards from your destination, can cause you to grumble and it can cause you to praise. It's how you look at it.
So if I'm looking at a trial, a grief, What is God doing? Is God doing something? Does he, is he care? It's all for my good. Then that.
Now I'm 100 yards from the stadium, not 100 yards from the grocery store. It's how you're looking at it and how you're perceiving God, how he impacts. the way you see your grief and your suffering and your trial. And speaking speaking about worship, I think that that's something that In large As believers, we don't necessarily know exactly what that means, right? We think of worship as just like the worship pastor, and that we worship at church during the singing time.
What's the biblical definition of worship and how does God desire to be worshipped by us? This is such an interesting question because I'm preaching through the book of Revelation. I'm at the end, verses 9 to 11 of Revelation 4 this week, where the 24 elders see that the four living creatures are giving God worship, and then they. They offer God worship. They throw their crowns at Him.
They fall down, those three things. And so, what made them do that?
Well, worship is contagious, first of all. They were doing what the other. Creatures we're doing, which means we should be around worshipers. But worship is simply this: God is amazing. But we're called to be amazed.
And if we're that's worship, being amazed at God. And if we're not amazed, it's because we haven't seen that He's amazing.
So it comes back to finding the truth about God as revealed to us in His precious word. My grandmother, who I know that you are familiar with, she is one of the, like when I think of my grandmother, I think of her as being synonymous with a worshipper more than any person I've ever met in my whole life. And one of the things that is very true about her, and we've actually done an episode with her on the importance of scripture memorization, it was with her and with Logan Carr. And That, I really firmly believe that that's the reason why she is the embodiment of a worshiper because she knows God's word. But not only does she know God's word, she has hidden it so deeply in her heart that it has just become who she is.
And actually, in her interview, she talks about the fact that it was like she was eating God's word. And so it becomes part of her makeup, part of actually what sustains her. Um You know, and she had walked through a very long journey of MS, got pregnant with my mom and got MS during that pregnancy. And my grandfather, who had a brain tumor at 25, she didn't think he was going to live. And then, just within the last year, losing my grandfather.
And that has been an immense trial. For her. But I have seen even though She is grieving him deeply. They were together for 75 years. It's all she ever knew.
You know, they were together from the time she was 18 years old. And But Mm-hmm. there is something so incredibly um challenging and powerful. To see her continue to worship. While weeping, and man, if you talk to her about the Lord.
There's just this fire that comes up. Like there's this excitement. And it's exactly what you're saying. She understands because she knows his words so intimately. She understands how amazing he is and how worthy.
of our worship. He is despite where we're at. And I want to say one other little caveat here is that That doesn't mean that she's not weeping. It doesn't mean that she is not grieving deeply. And I would love to hear you as a pastor talk about that a little bit because.
I do think that there is sometimes that pressure within the church to feel like if you are grieving in a godly way. then it means that A, your grief is short. It means your grief is not um it's not Super deep or overwhelming at any point because you're trusting the Lord. And we hear that, and I feel like there's that pressure. Can you speak to that a little bit as a pastor?
Yeah, look, let me speak to it first as a Christian who serves as a pastor and to say that. Grief is not a respecter of persons.
Sorrow is not a respecter. Trials are not a respecter of persons. God has promised that we will all go through them and we'll go through those doubts and dark times. You know, I. One of the things that most encourages me, can you imagine me being more down or depressed than knowing that you're about to have your head cut off, you're about to be beheaded?
Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist, was that. And in that moment, it's so fascinating. He sends word to Jesus and he says, You you are the one, aren't you? He doubted. And Jesus' response back wasn't, oh, I can't believe you're doubting, John.
You know that it was, there's not been a greater man on this planet. Yeah. And that really helps me that doubt is a normal part of our faith, but doubt. Leads us to ask the questions that secure confidence. Yeah.
And that's okay, but hurt is real. You know what part of this is, Emily? Part of what God does in allowing us these difficulties. If we didn't have them, we would want to stay here forever and heaven wouldn't be attractive. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I They're God's grace in our life. Yeah, it's true. And I think that goes back also to your book about it on eclipsing the sun. That sometimes there are things in our life that we need to. We need to remove.
And sometimes the Lord does that through suffering.
Sometimes, I'd say oftentimes, actually, the Lord removes our distractions, He removes the dross in our spiritual lives. Yeah. And actually, I did an interview yesterday. I'm not sure at the time of this airing, I'm not sure if that one will have aired yet or not. But I did an interview yesterday with.
With Greg Barshaw. And we were talking about the suffering that he has seen in Haiti.
So he has a ministry, connect two ministries, and he has seen immense suffering. over there. And not only that, but he has lost a granddaughter. But he talked about the fact that he actually Feels somewhat sorry for people that have not been broken by grief because it allows us to see. The glory of God in a different way.
It allows us to witness and experience. Aspects of God's character that we just. we don't we don't see to the same extent When we're in the sunshine, per se, rather than the darkness. When we're in seasons of darkness, like you're grappling for the light. Yeah.
But when you have light seemingly all around you, It doesn't seem as important. It doesn't seem as valuable. to us. And so when God puts these hard circumstances in our life and we we have that darkness, there's this insatiable desire to see the light. Um Have you seen that as a pastor, that when people go through hard times, maybe even people that aren't believers?
Do they seem to be searching for the light and maybe a little bit more open to things of the Lord? They are, yeah. In fact, it's the big question: why? Why is this happening? Why is this happening to me?
Two months ago, and I can barely move it now. Two months ago, I had rotator cuff surgery. And just let me give you a silly illustration, if I can. That's my shoulder was a mess before that, but That was as much pain as I've ever been in the first month after that. And the recovery was awful.
The PT is. Everything that hurts, they make you do. If I didn't know why I was hurting. I would despair. But I was just thinking, what if someone had that surgery and they had no idea their rotator cuff was torn or why this was happening or why they were in a sling and why?
We know the why, Emily. We know what God is doing. Back to your James 1, knowing. We know what God is doing. And that.
He's doing something. If we didn't know, you know, John Piper says, God is doing 10,000 things in everything we see. We believe that we know that we're looking for that. If we didn't believe that, that's the light that you're talking about. We see the light that God is there, even if we don't see Him.
Light and darkness are alike to thee, Psalm 139 says.
So it's believing that he's good, that he does good, and that my good is in his focus. Even if I don't feel it. Yeah. Believe that. How do we effectively remind each other of that in the church on a consistent basis?
You know, I mean, the one and others, and even. I guess Um, you know, the part in scripture where it talks about how different people have to be approached differently.
Some people need exhortation.
Some people need encouragement. How can we develop that discernment to know How to give a timely word, as Psalm would say, the Psalms would say. Yeah, you're describing what it means to grow, grow on the grace and knowledge of Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Peter 3.18 says. And growth is Growth spiritually is rarely highly accelerated. Um it's it's a little bit at a time and it's it's It's setting the expectations that I want to improve my understanding of God today a little bit more and a little bit more accurate.
That's why we read our Bibles. That's why we pray. That's why we fellowship with other people.
So, that reminding that you're talking about. Comes from a self-reminding, but it also means this is what we tell our kids. The people you hang out with make a difference in who you are and what you're going to become. And this is why we go to church. This is why we go to Bible-teaching churches.
This is why we go to healthy churches. It's so that we're around people who are bumping us back toward the center of truth and back toward the person of God in His accurate. Uh rather than projecting our own, you know. Sinful proclivities toward him and thinking he's like us, yeah, and that goes back to finding a good church, right? And that not just being in a good church.
But be active in that church. And we've talked about that on this show before, too. The fact that, You're going to know best how to serve somebody if you actually know them, you know? And so when you're when you're in a church, not only is it such a blessing to be known and to have people minister to you, but When you know other people, you're much more likely to know. How they would most likely desire to be ministered to in their suffering.
Some people are very private.
Some people want you to leave that meal on the doorstep, ring the door, and leave. You know, some people are not. I mean, like my grandfather, when my grandfather was on his deathbed last year, I don't know if you know this, but it was kind of funny because my grandfather is such a people person. You know, he loved people and he really got his energy out of people.
So here, here, I think it was, was it May? I think around May. Anyway, we all thought he was passing away. We thought he was going to go to glory right away. He kept saying, I'm ready to go home.
I just want to go home.
So we're like, okay, well, we better fly out to go see Papop because, you know, he's going to be in glory soon. Anyway, so we get there. We had told all these people that, you know, we think that he's probably going to go be with the Lord soon. And so this whole train of people, especially people from Grace Church, just came and visited over and over and over again.
Well, that gave my grandfather such joy and rejuvenation in his spirit that he lived like two more months, three more months. And, you know, it's like he loved that. He craved that time with people. Um But It's so neat when you know people well enough to know this person is going to want me to actually come in and eat the meal with them and fellowship with them. It's very valuable, but it's Christ-like too, because Christ knows us.
Christ is intimately acquainted with us. He does not treat us like we're all cookie-cutter people, he knows us all individually. And when you're part of a good church. That's how you can be known and how you should know other people as well. Um What are ways that you would say are practical ways that we can discipline ourselves Daily, like in little ways.
Obviously, you had mentioned reading our Bible, but what are some other ways that we can start to discipline ourselves now?
So that we understand who God is, so that we are prepared for those trials when they come. No, what a sweet question. If our theme today in our discussion is really worshiping, even in suffering and dark places and trials and grief. And worship really is Recognizing that God is amazing and then being amazed, then it all goes back to seeing. What is amazing, what is excellent, what is perfect, what is precious.
about God, especially in his son. Lord Jesus Christ. To be amazed by him is worship. But I think that that's the eclipsing. That's the dull, when the vision of God becomes dulled.
And not as acute in our mind, that's when worship stops. But when we see great things about God, We're amazed. And being amazed at God is worship.
So it just comes back. You started the whole discussion today with telling my soul something about God. If that's true, having the anchor, getting our eyes off of this world. and putting it on to the Lord, knowing that we have to come back to this world. But we have a vision of a perspective of God that changes how we see.
Good times, bad times, suffering. They're all It's all on ramp to heaven. Yeah. So so So, you would say keeping our focus primarily on heaven, knowing that this is our pilgrimage, you know, just like pilgrim's progress is our pilgrimage. We're going to go through hard things, but we have that end destination.
And that's what gives us hope, right? That's that is our hope because this is not all we have. The here and the now is not all we have. The suffering that we're going to go through, just like we said at the beginning in 2 Corinthians 4, when it talks about that, that's a momentary and light affliction. And it doesn't mean that it feels momentary and light at all times.
When you lose a child, that does not feel like a light affliction. And as brothers and sisters in Christ, we don't want to minimize the affliction, but we want to help put it in perspective, as you said, so that our perspective. Leads to praise that we can say it's momentary and light affliction in light of the eternal glory that awaits us. And so it's like, it's like we can be like those kids that are excited about that trip that we know. Is coming, and it is, it is with a hundred percent certainty.
As we wrap this up a little bit, first of all, I want to ask, can people still find your book? And it's on Amazon, yeah. It it's it's that again, that was just me working out my own Getting the Lord central in my life, but yeah, you can get it on Amazon. I think it's a great book, though, because that's something that we all struggle with, right? We're, we're.
We're very easily distracted. And I think that it's great for us to be able to recognize what those common distractions are so that we can be more aware of them. Um And that does help prepare us for whatever the Lord has in our path. And, you know, and again, it's like. worshiping and suffering It doesn't mean that we're pretending that the pain is not real.
It just means that we're deciding that God is greater than the pain we're going through. And that it's basically like a defiance of faith that you find in Habakkuk. And, you know, he talks about how. All of these things can be taken from us, and yet we can exalt the Lord and we can rejoice in Him because He's the God of our salvation, and ultimately, that is the most precious thing we could ever be given. It's something that cannot be tarnished, it doesn't fade, and And we're secure in that.
I would like to say a quick thing before we leave, because as you mentioned before, sometimes our suffering can lead to thoughts of doubt. It can make us unsure, even about where we stand before the Lord. Um I think, was there a John MacArthur book that he had put out called like Saved Without a Doubt or something along those lines? It is. Save Without a Doubt.
Okay. Would you say that that's a good resource for people that are struggling with that concept? Great resource. Great resource. I would put that right along with Jerry Bridges' Trusting God, which makes you see that God is there and He's working even when life seems to be falling apart.
Mm-hmm. I mean, it's great for us to have those resources in our arsenal too, because That's something else that I want the listeners to come away knowing is that. When you face times of doubting because of Your grief, you're not alone in that.
So many believers feel alone. They feel like I'm the only one that struggles with doubting, and then they hide it because they're ashamed. They don't want to talk about it. And that's part of why the Ministry of Hope in the Morning exists. We want to have these open conversations and We want we want to just live Honestly, before the Lord, and help each other on this journey, which is not always straight and narrow, right?
It's narrow, but it's oftentimes winding and confusing and dark in places. And so, When we walk alongside one another, in truth, And in light of his truth, Even the darkest paths can be illuminated by the sun.
So thank you for your ministry. It has helped so many men and women, young and old, think differently about. Their trials that God said are always going to come under us.
So, thank you for serving us. Thank you for serving us today and sharing all this with us. We really appreciate it. And if you're listening to this, I would suggest that you not only go and pick up this resource, Uneclipsing the Sun, but also go and pick up Saved Without a Doubt by John MacArthur and Trusting God by Jerry Bridges.
So, thank you for joining us today, and I hope you'll join us next week on Hope in the Morning. Hope in the Morning is a non-profit ministry that seeks to encourage the hurting. Equip those who walk beside them, and evangelize the lost with the hope of Jesus Christ. To partner with our ministry or to make a donation in your loved one's honor, please visit hopeinthemorning.org. Your donation helps keep these stories of hope on the air.
and helps tangibly meet the needs of the hurting.
