Latest / Beliefs, Ballots, And BullDawgs / Wednesday 5/27/26
Transcript
- Greg: Good morning everybody. It is Wednesday, May twentieth. Actually it's May twenty-seventh. I'm your host, Greg Miller. You have reached the latest episode of Beliefs, Ballots, and Bets. ⁓ excuse the struggle. I have ⁓ lost my home court advantage and I am recording from a hotel room in parts unknown. ⁓ and if I'm being honest, I haven't really gotten totally comfortable with this whole process yet and sharing these thoughts with with the whole world. ⁓ and and today I've got the lovely pleasure of recording this episode with my fourteen year old daughter in the room. So A little added pressure couldn't hurt anybody, right? Today's verse comes from ⁓ Second Corinthians chapter four verses eight through nine. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. This is ⁓ this is it's it's not a very positive verse, obviously, but it is one of the most powerful messages ⁓ from the apostle Paul in in the New Testament, just simply because it it's brutally honest about the the reality of struggle. ⁓ but it is it is a struggle without surrendering hope. That's that's what's crucial. Paul is is here writing to to new believers of Christ, and and these are believers who are facing constant pressure and and persecution and uncertainty and and physical exhaustion. and so in instead of pretending like like life is easier pretending like what they were going through is easy, hey Paul is basically saying, Hey, yeah, we're we're getting hit here, but but we're still standing. Paul says, you know, we are we are hard pressed on every side. Again, this is this is just acknowledging reality. This is this is crucial to us because it's it's reminding us, nobody's ever saying Christianity is is pretending that everything's perfect. ⁓ hard pressed means you're you're feeling pressure, you're feeling stress, adversity. Feeling essentially squeezed from every angle. You know, we we deal with this in the modern world. We yeah, you know, in some ways we are so blessed to have so much ⁓ of an easier life than the the folks that came before us. But we still have our own our own struggles. We we deal with financial pressures, we deal with relationship struggles and anxiety and and whatever various setbacks and criticism from everywhere, ⁓ and and an ultimate fear of failure and and letting people down and And the the honest truth here is Paul is not denying any of this. He's not trying to pretend like none of this is gonna happen. But although the all of this stuff does happen to us, he he reminds us, but we are not crushed. This this is the key distinction. The the pressure is real, but the destruction is is not part of it. We are not going to be crushed. We are not going to be destroyed by this. It it this is simply It's it's reminding you that that these things are gonna happen, but you can struggle, you can, you can get hit, you can even lose from time to time. And all of us will will certainly feel overwhelmed, but you will survive it. You will survive it, and this is this is due to a a resilience from faith. This is not this is not an approach of, hey, nothing bad happens. This is an approach of bad things do happen, but the bad things don't have the final word. Paul goes on to use the phrase perplexed, but not in despair. You know, perplexed is a is a state of confusion and and uncertainty. And he's saying, you know, hey, we may not fully understand what what's happening. And I think we all go through stages of life in that where things just don't make sense. Things just feel off and and you don't necessarily understand everything that's going on around you. And that's where, you know, Paul is basically saying, hey, there there may be times where and there may be moments where we don't know what God is doing in our life. But we don't lose hope because we know that whatever he's doing, it is for the greater good. This is this is huge. Faith is not having all the answers. Faith is the process of continuing even when you don't have the answer. It is it is taking that next step, even though you may not be able to see that next step. He he uses the phrase persecuted but not abandoned. Think about this. Like this this hits deep. Paul Paul is reminding people that. Yeah, just because life gets hard, it doesn't mean that God is not by your side. It doesn't mean that he's left you. You know, people often think sometimes that that when you're going through difficult times or, you know, that that going through a struggle is some sort of punishment from God, or going through some particular hardship is is a sign of his abandonment. Scripture repeatedly shows us this is not the case. You know, some of God's strongest and and most favorite of people endured some of the hardest seasons of life. He he says we are we are struck down but not destroyed. This is this is ultimately the probably the hardest hitting line of the whole thing. It you know, we get knocked down, we get wounded, we get hurt, we get beaten up by life at times. But with God in our hearts and with Jesus at the center of everything we do, we are not destroyed. It's it's it's a picture of a fighter just continuing to get off the mat and and getting back up and refusing to lose, refusing to accept that that decision. It it's it's an old saying in sports, you know, it's it's really hard to beat a person who refuses to give up and refuses to quit. It's not a i this this verse is in no way about avoiding adversity. It's about surviving it. And that's that's the biggest message of the entire passage. Paul is is teaching us here that you know circumstances, good, bad, or indifferent, circumstances do not define our identity. We we may lose, we may struggle, we may fail temporarily, but those things are not the end of the story. And the reason this verse, you know, for me especially, the reason this connects so well to to real life is because we we all deal with this. We all experience setbacks, we all experience losses, we all experience some some disappointments, and we all go through seasons where things just don't feel easy, things don't feel natural, things just don't seem to flow in a direction that makes sense. And this verse is telling us all of that is normal. Pressure is expected. Getting hit is part of life. But, and as the word tells us here, you are not finished when you get hit. Stand up and keep fighting. Terrible day yesterday. We went one and three. That's pretty gross. That does bring us to 29 and 21 overall, though. So that's that's not awful. We'll ⁓ we'll certainly take that. ⁓ we've got three more plays for today. Let me grab my notebook here. We're going with the Braves minus 120 at the Red Sox. We're going with the Tampa Bay Rays minus 110 at Baltimore. And then we're going Chicago at Pittsburgh. We're taking the Pirates at home minus the 110. As we get ready to get out of here, guys, the the the final takeaway from from this verse, it was 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 8 through 9. And and ultimately this is just it's just a verse about resilience through faith. It's not it's not fake positivity, it's not it's not pretending that things are easy. It's simply understanding that hey, adversity happens, but it's temporary, and and our identity in Christ is is way deeper than whatever the current circumstances are. And ultimately, pressure and even sometimes setbacks and losses do not have the final say. As we get ready to get out of here today and wrap up another episode, I just I want to thank anybody who's out there and and and listening to this. If you are, share, like, subscribe, engage on social media, whatever you want to do, you you are the reason I do this. It is it is greatly uncomfortable for me to to share this kind of stuff. It's personal and it's vulnerable, but the the the chance that maybe this just these words help one person out there is is the reason I do this. So Get out of here, guys. As as we do, always remember get in your Bible, say your prayers, love one another, and tell the truth. God bless.