For some of us, personal finances aren't just personal. They include loved ones, neighbors, the communities we call home, and the causes we hold in our hearts. At Thrive Int, planning your finances is bigger than just money. We help you put your plans into motion and faith into action so you can do more for the ones in your heart. Because sometimes all you need to make a difference is someone to help you make it happen.
Thriveant, where money means more. Connect with us at Thrivant.com. Uh Life Audio Hi from the Salvation Army and you're listening to Words of Life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life.
Welcome back to Words of Life. We are nearing the end of a series that we've been in with author and podcaster Nicole Yunes. Throughout this series, we've really been following along with her latest book, Not What I Signed Up For.
So, this series began on April 27th. If you've missed any episodes, subscribe on your favorite podcast store, scroll back to April 27th, and get caught up. Nicole also has a study guide that goes along with this book. To grab that study guide, learn about her other books, her podcast, check out the show notes for this episode, and we'll have links to her website, her podcast, so you can learn more about her ministry. And there, we also have a link to our website, wordsoflifodcast.org, and there you can learn about upcoming series, more about the show, and you can subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
Just Redemption always centers on God and extends beyond ourselves. God holds together a bigger plan than the one we each live in. Welcome back to Words of Life. I'm Bernie Dake, and we are joined once again for the fifth week in this series by Nicole Eunice. Welcome back, Nicole.
I was trying to lose my voice there. We've had a long chat. It's been great. I've loved being here. It is great to have you.
We are privileged to have you. For some of us, personal finances aren't just personal. They include loved ones, neighbors, the communities we call home, and the causes we hold in our hearts. At Thrive Ent, planning your finances is bigger than just money. We help you put your plans into motion and faith into action so you can do more for the ones in your heart.
Because sometimes all you need to make a difference is someone to help you make it happen. Thriveant, where money means more. Connect with us at Thrivant.com. This week we're talking about redemption and here's a question for you. How can redemption set you free from blame and shame?
Mm.
Okay, so this is really the most incredible to me part of the story of Joseph, or the part that maybe I love seeing how it's so real and so human. In the story, we talked about this before. At the very end of Joseph's story, he's got this moment with his brothers and he's giving them words of comfort and of wisdom. And he says, Am I in the place of God? We talked about what humility that is to really recognize where we belong in God's eyes.
And then he says, What you intended for evil, God intended for good, for the saving of many lives. And this word intend here in the Hebrew is the word make. It's like a creation word. But there's two words for creation in the Hebrew. There's the word that we find in Genesis when God makes something out of nothing.
That is an essential God quality that none of us have, which is that he out of his own light, his power, actually creates the world. He creates humanity. And that word is that he talks about create. But the word used here, which also is translated make or create. is a different word.
And this word is A-S-A-H-A-Sa, when God refashions something out of something. And what an incredibly powerful concept that our God can make something out of nothing, but he can also make something out of something. And so when Joseph says what you, something made, what you made for evil, God basically remade for good. And the reason I love this phrase is because what we see here is sort of what we understand to be redemption. And there is no sweeping under the rug of the actual trouble.
So many people think that if they are to forgive, they're also to forget. That if I'm going to be a Christian, if I'm going to express sacrificial love, then I have to express that love and forgiveness to people who have harmed me or continue to harm me. And there's no acknowledgement of what was truly evil. And I think what we learn in this story in Joseph is that there is room for acknowledgement when things actually were bad. You know, the Bible lets bad things be bad.
And Joseph lets the bad thing be bad, but he doesn't stay there. And redemption. Is the ability to see that God has the power to not only make something out of nothing. But he has the power to make something out of something, which means that we always have hope. And the story is never over.
Like, it's just not over. It's just not over yet. Wherever you are in your story, and I don't know about you, but that, I just feel so much hope. about that reality. Yeah.
Yeah. Uh In your study guide, which we've tried to tell our listeners about, you ask how your family handled conflict and forgiveness growing up. That's a question for our listeners to ask yourselves. If you were reading and studying with Nicole, how did your family handle conflict? I think a lot of parents may try to hide disagreements from their kids, but couldn't it be healthy to see disagreements and show examples of how to have conflict and resolve with forgiveness?
Yes, absolutely. And I think that does connect exactly into this moment with Joseph, because what we see him do is not ignore or minimize the past. But also not to stay in the past, right?
So the hero in the story is always still God. And so when we think about, okay, if I'm following Jesus and I'm thinking about that same concept, maybe actually how we do forgiveness in our family is much more important than not needing forgiveness at all. Maybe actually the way we handle conflict is really the main matter. Because what we see here in this story is this idea that even when things are bad, God can be using them for good. And so I can acknowledge my own weakness, my own sin.
I can apologize for my own ways that I've caused trouble and still have hope and confidence to know that God can use that.
So many parents, I think, particularly when I was working as a therapist, so many parents have this deep fear that they're forever ruining their children, like they're permanently messing them up. And the permanently messing them up actually makes things worse because they're not willing to be honest and to say, I did that out of insecurity or I shouldn't have yelled at you or yeah, your dad and I didn't agree on that, but we worked through it. And that's what love looks like. And it actually takes a good amount of security and confidence. To be a person who can engage like that with vulnerability, but that is the invitation I think that we're invited to as followers of Christ is to be able to do that.
I'm trying to think of my own time. Whether I saw that in my family. Mm-hmm. I saw disagreement for sure. Mm-hmm.
But it was mostly because of the way I was acting. My parents disagreed with my behavior. And helped me understand how to get to some higher ground. Otherwise, there would be consequences. For some of us, personal finances aren't just personal.
They include loved ones, neighbors, the communities we call home, and the causes we hold in our hearts. At Thrive Ent, planning your finances is bigger than just money. We help you put your plans into motion and faith into action so you can do more for the ones in your heart. Because sometimes all you need to make a difference is someone to help you make it happen. Thriveent, where money means more.
Connect with us at ThriveEnt.com. I've heard people say, God will redeem it. Mm.
Here's another one. In spite of ourselves, the crazy thing about God, the Father, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things. Is that he can take our feebleness and make it good? And use it for his good, but it's even more powerful when we surrender to him and we're acting in faith based on God's. Leading.
I just wonder for you if someone were to say, well, God could redeem that. How would you respond to something like that?
Well, I wouldn't respond well. I'll go with that first. Yay.
So, and part of that is because I do think that's true, but I also think it's in God's time and in God's way. And it also, this is a, you know, this is a bigger conversation, but a lot of times I like to say to people too, like, hey, do you know what the Jesus dream is for your life? Like, do you understand Jesus's dream for his believers? Like, he prays for his believers in John 17. He imparts to his believers a purpose and a plan.
Because if we're talking about redeeming something that's outside of what God's after, then I don't know how he's going to redeem it. I don't know how that's going to work out. I don't know if that's a consequence of sin and disobedience. And yeah, it's not going to disqualify you from the kingdom if you're, you know, following Jesus, but I also don't know how that's going to work out. And also, I don't think that God is quite that linear.
Sometimes we think I have this one circumstance and I'm going to see this one thing happen because of this one circumstance. When, really, like I said before, I think we are a part. Of this beautiful mosaic that God is sort of putting together, his artistry is putting something together from generation to generation. Very possible that that one thing we want redeemed, we will not see redeemed in our lifetime. My family and I got a chance to travel to Europe over Christmas, and we were standing in this train station in Portugal.
And the entire train station tells the story of the whole country. And these little mosaics, they are little tiles, and different artists draw this one tile before they're put together, telling an incredible history of a whole country. And we're like one little stroke on one little tile in the story of God's redemptive plan. Just because I don't know how my one piece is going to fit into the great piece doesn't mean it's not fitting. I hope we're going to have this like amazing IMAX theater in heaven where God's going to be like, let me show you the generations before you and the generations after.
I'm like, let's put all these pieces together. We're just going to have our minds blown by. Just the power and the dignity and the life that he's given each one of us. But I would be silly to think I'm going to be able to figure all that out here on earth. I just don't believe that.
I have a mentor that used the style of art called pointilism, where there's like all these dots or just such small detail. And when you look at it up close, it seems, you know, kind of jagged or just rough. But when you back away and see that whole picture, it's so crazy. I feel like that's kind of what you're expressing. Perfect word picture.
And that doesn't mean we can't ask for it or we can't ask God to make a way and to show us. Because I do think He, I like to think of it as, you know, if you were in a darkened theater and the curtain opens for a glimpse, just like a flash, and you just see a flash of a scene, but you don't really see the whole scene or the whole plot, whatever. But it's just enough to give you this sense of wonder and this sense of being part of something bigger. I do think that God does that, gives us that little breadcrumb of like, this is all going to mean something. This is all going to work out.
But we've got to have the faith to stay in it without demanding an answer the way that we desire an answer, because that is not humility. That's us saying, I demand the right to write this story the way I want to write it. And that's where we've now left kind of the kingdom and we've gone into the kingdom of ourself. Um One more question for you. It's just a phrase that.
A lot of people should hear more. Hmm The first one is I love you. You know, God loves us. He's. Pining for us to just reach out to him, to just be in fellowship with him, to be in relationship with him.
I think the hardest thing I ever had to hear my own parents say, my parents who loved the Lord, who still love the Lord, no question, is, I forgive you. And receiving that. Than acting on it. I got a clean slate now. Right, God forgive me.
Give me a start, a fresh wind, whatever it is. How do you feel about that? Those words are strong. I forgive you. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean, I think the reason they need to be received and are hard to receive is because that means that you have to acknowledge that you're a sinner in need of grace, that you can't save yourself. And once we acknowledge that, I do think it's easier to think of Jesus saying, like, my sheep listen to my voice, they hear my voice, they know me. I think it becomes easier to follow. And once we follow, once we're following, then we're going to be less aggressively trying to write our own story and more interested in participating in what God's doing. That alone can help us be okay with all the unresolved matters in life, which by the way, I have a lot of them, and you probably do too.
So I always say that with my friends who are like, we're all in the Christian biz. I'm like, let's just all say it out loud. Like, hey, I got unresolved things. I have unredeemed things. I have hard things.
But I'm a little less interested in writing my own story than I used to be. And I'm a little more interested in participating in what God's doing than I used to be. And that is very freeing. And if I can just move inch by inch toward that, You know, some stops and starts, then, if we could all move inch by inch toward that, I think we're moving toward the kingdom of God. Hmm.
There's a song in there somewhere. The rest is still unwritten. I'm in my mind. I'm trying to. I mean, God's got a story for us.
God's got incredible plans for us. more than we could ever ask or imagine. Mm-hmm. or dream I love that.
Well, Nicole, it's an incredible privilege to be with you again, week five. We've still got another week with you. And I cannot encourage our listeners enough to stay on board. Hold on for the next episode. You won't be disappointed.
Nicole, would you mind praying for us again? Sure, I'd love to. Lord, would you help us to see how you're inviting us into your story? Knowing, Lord, that you will care deeply for our story too, and that you care deeply about all of the what-ifs and all the unresolved and all of the pain. Lord, you know that.
You see it. You love us. You forgive us. Let us today be a day where we say, I'm just going to keep in step with you, Jesus. Lead me on, and I will follow.
In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. The Salvation Army's mission, doing the most good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit SalvationArmyUSA.org to offer your support.
You can subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit SalvationArmysoundcast.org. Join us next time for the Salvation Army's Words of Life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words alone. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. Thanks so much for listening to Words of Life.
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This This is my skyship Rima. My cargo? stories. and our destination. Dreams.
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