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You Did Everything Right and Still Got Wrecked: What Liberty Jail Teaches About Suffering (D&C 121–123) · ToddTalks--Spirit By Design: Your Weekly Survival Guide

0:25
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Todd Talk, Spirit by Design, where I help you design your spirit life in preparation for you to be ready, prepared for the Lord's second coming.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Before I jump into today's episode, I wanted to let you in on something that I've recently done.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Just a couple days ago, I released or published, and it's available on Amazon, a fantasy novel, Good vs.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Evil.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: It's called Crossing the Horizon, Escape to Destiny.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: A little bit about the book.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Freddy, the main character, is running from a past, and he's on an airplane.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: It's a dark past.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: He's on an airplane next to Alice.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Alice happens to be an empath, and they land on a far-off island, and life gets difficult real fast.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: He struggles to overcome his grief that he's going through, and they are thrust into a battle between darkness and light, good and evil.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: As a dark figure, a dark fallen angel, attempts to overcome the light.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Shadows bloom, swords clash, and gunfire erupts in this modern fantasy where gods are playing with men as their chess pieces.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: So that is available on Amazon, Crossing the Horizon, Escape to Destiny, Destiny by Todd Andrewsen.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: Hope you like it.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: Anyways, on to today's episode.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever done everything that you believed God asked you to do?
2:06
SPEAKER_00: Only to find yourself in a place you never expected to be?
2:11
SPEAKER_00: You prayed.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: You tried to be obedient.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: You made sacrifices.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: You attempted to do the right thing, even when doing the right thing cost you something.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: And yet, somehow, you ended up in the middle of a storm.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: I would say that uh it's happened to all of us.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us go through some storm in life.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Most of us go through multiple storms.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was a financial crisis.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was a betrayal by someone you trusted, maybe it was a health challenge, family struggle, professional disappointment, or a season when the future you had planned suddenly disappeared?
2:53
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere in the middle of that experience, you found yourself asking a question, Heavenly Father, where art thou?
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Why would you allow this to happen?
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Haven't I tried to follow you?
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Haven't I tried to keep your commandments?
3:11
SPEAKER_00: Haven't I done what you asked?
3:15
SPEAKER_00: If you love me, why aren't you changing my circumstances?
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Those are not new questions.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: In the episode I the interview I did with Lila Willardson, she asked those questions.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: We all do.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Joseph was not sitting in a comfortable room reflecting on adversity as a theological concept.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: He was confined to a cramped, called dungeon-like space, while saints he loved suffered persecution and were driven from their homes in Missouri.
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SPEAKER_00: He had reason to grieve and he pleaded with God for relief.
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SPEAKER_00: He was in the abyss of hell as he describes it.
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SPEAKER_00: And in Doctrine and Covenants 121.1, Joseph cried, O God, where art thou?
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SPEAKER_00: And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?
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SPEAKER_00: Think about that question.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: This was the man called to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: This was the man who'd experienced the first vision, who saw God the Father in Jesus Christ in the flesh, in person, received revelation, and witnessed the unfolding of God's work.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And now he was in prison, wondering where God was.
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SPEAKER_00: This is what makes the account that Joseph writes so powerful.
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SPEAKER_00: God did not condemn Joseph for asking the question.
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SPEAKER_00: He answered him.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: But the answer was not an immediate explanation of every injustice.
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SPEAKER_00: It was not a promise that faithful people would never suffer.
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SPEAKER_00: It was not a guarantee that Joseph's life would unfold according to his expectations.
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SPEAKER_00: In fact, five years later, Joseph would die a martyr.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Instead, the Lord began to teach Joseph about eternal perspective, the purpose of adversity, the nature of divine power, and the suffering of Jesus Christ.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: And then he asked a question that ought to make all of us stop and think.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Today on Todd Talk, Spirit by Design, we're going to explore Liberty Jail as a refiner's fire.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: I love the topic of refiners fires.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: Because we all have to go through them.
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SPEAKER_00: We're going to examine the revelations in DNC 121 through 124 and ask ourselves a question.
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SPEAKER_00: It may change how you experience your own trials.
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SPEAKER_00: What if the most important lesson of suffering is not learning how to escape the fire, but learning who to trust while we're in it?
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SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about that.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Liberty Jail, this is part one.
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SPEAKER_00: Liberty Jail was a prison that became a classroom.
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SPEAKER_00: Today in church we talked about Liberty Jail and how it became a temple.
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SPEAKER_00: Not the typical normal temple you would expect.
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SPEAKER_00: For this temple was a prison with coarse language and rotten food and sickness and misery.
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SPEAKER_00: But a temple nonetheless.
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SPEAKER_00: Joseph Smith and other leaders were imprisoned in Liberty, Missouri in late 1838.
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SPEAKER_00: They endured months of confinement, poor food, cold conditions, uncertainty, separation from their families.
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SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, the saints suffered persecution outside the jail.
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SPEAKER_00: The sections we know today as Doctrine and Covenants 121, 122, and 123 contained portions of Joseph's letters written during that imprisonment.
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SPEAKER_00: Section 124 came later after they had settled in Illinois.
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SPEAKER_00: Joseph's situation presented an enormous challenge.
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SPEAKER_00: He had preached about the power of God.
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SPEAKER_00: He had taught that the heavens were open.
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SPEAKER_00: He had testified that the Lord was gathering his people.
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SPEAKER_00: But the Lord's people were being driven from the state.
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SPEAKER_00: They were being driven from their homes.
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SPEAKER_00: The prophet himself was behind bars in a pit.
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SPEAKER_00: From a human perspective, it could have looked as though the work of God was failing.
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SPEAKER_00: Have you ever experienced something similar?
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SPEAKER_00: You believe you received direction, and the outcome seems to contradict it.
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SPEAKER_00: You believe you made the right decision, but the consequences are painful.
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SPEAKER_00: You believe God has a purpose for your life, but you can't see how far how your present circumstances fit into it.
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SPEAKER_00: You're there.
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SPEAKER_00: Me too.
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SPEAKER_00: Many, many times.
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SPEAKER_00: One of the great dangers in those moments is that we begin to judge God's faithfulness to us based solely on our immediate circumstances.
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SPEAKER_00: We think that in this moment it will never end.
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SPEAKER_00: It'll never end.
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SPEAKER_00: And yet, it's such a minute amount of time.
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SPEAKER_00: We think that if God is pleased with us, our path should be easier.
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SPEAKER_00: If we're doing what is right, things should work out.
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SPEAKER_00: If we have faith, perhaps the storm should pass.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Go back and listen to my episode on Job.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: He followed God.
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SPEAKER_00: He lost everything.
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SPEAKER_00: Eventually, everything was restored to him more than he had had before.
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SPEAKER_00: Joseph of Egypt was given dreams, and he was blessed.
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SPEAKER_00: And he ended up in jail, betrayed, sold by his own family.
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SPEAKER_00: Ended up in Egypt, where through God's purpose and God's path, he ended up saving that same family and all of Israel that had betrayed him.
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SPEAKER_00: Consider the Apostle Paul, who experienced persecution while carrying out his ministry.
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SPEAKER_00: And consider Jesus Christ, who was perfectly obedient.
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SPEAKER_00: He was the only perfect person to ever live on this earth.
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SPEAKER_00: And he suffered beyond anything any of us can comprehend.
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SPEAKER_00: Faithfulness does not exempt us from every trial.
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SPEAKER_00: Sometimes faithfulness determines how we respond to a trial we did not choose.
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SPEAKER_00: So a trial is not necessarily evidence that you have lost God's favor.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: A difficult season is not necessarily evidence that you have misunderstood his direction.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: This is where we have to be careful because not every painful circumstance is a divinely designed test.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Humans, you, me, everyone, have free agency, free will.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: In the book I just wrote and published, it's one of the primary themes of the story.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: It's a fantasy, but I incorporate some of God's word into it.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Free will, it's one of the reasons we came to this earth, to have the ability to choose.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: And when other people make choices, those choices have consequences, and sometimes they affect other people.
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SPEAKER_00: Lots of other people.
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SPEAKER_00: Human choices, injustice, mortality, and the consequences of living in a fallen world are real.
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SPEAKER_00: But the gospel teaches that God can work with us in our suffering.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: He can bring about growth, compassion, wisdom, and spiritual strength, even when the suffering itself is neither deserved nor good.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: In the Book of Mormon, there's the story of those followers of Alma the Younger, Alma, not Alma the Younger, but Alma, when he fled from the armies of the king after having their massive baptism in the waters of Mormon, and they were living as a free people in the wilderness.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: And the priests of Noah with the Lamanites found them and put them into bondage, slavery.
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SPEAKER_00: They were abused, and yet, and yet, their faith was eventually rewarded because the Lord made the burdens light on their shoulders, made them strong, able to face it.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: And then he prepared a way for them to walk out in the middle of the night to freedom.
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SPEAKER_00: So Liberty Jail became a place of revelation.
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SPEAKER_00: It became a place where the situation appeared to offer very little hope.
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SPEAKER_00: Joseph went looking for deliverance.
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SPEAKER_00: In the process, the Lord gave him truths that has strengthened generations of disciples ever after.
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SPEAKER_00: That prison became a classroom, it became a temple.
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SPEAKER_00: And that leads us to the first lesson.
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SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we enter a difficult season asking God to change our circumstances, while he also offers us revelation that can change the way we understand those circumstances.
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SPEAKER_00: The circumstances matter, the injustice matters, the suffering matters.
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SPEAKER_00: It's all important.
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SPEAKER_00: It's all part of your life.
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SPEAKER_00: But so does what we learn about God and what we learn about ourselves while we are going through it.
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SPEAKER_00: DNC 121, Joseph's opening words are remarkably honest.
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SPEAKER_00: He pleads for God to intervene.
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SPEAKER_00: He says, Oh God, where art thou?
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SPEAKER_00: He asks how long the Lord will allow the saints to be persecuted and suffer and whether he will remain silent.
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SPEAKER_00: God has not asked us to pretend that pain does not hurt.
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SPEAKER_00: He hasn't asked us to deny the confusion that comes when life seems unfair.
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SPEAKER_00: And life will seem unfair.
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SPEAKER_00: It will appear unfair.
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SPEAKER_00: It will be unfair.
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SPEAKER_00: In the words of Kurt Cobain, you'll never get out of life alive.
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SPEAKER_00: He has not required us to manufacture an appearance of perfect composure while our hearts are breaking.
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SPEAKER_00: Joseph's prayer teaches us that we can bring our anguish to God.
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SPEAKER_00: As Lila Willardson said, sometimes we need to rage and rant to God, not at God, but to God when we need his help.
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SPEAKER_00: We can even ask, how long, O Lord, must I suffer?
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SPEAKER_00: Question isn't whether we will ever experience moments of uncertainty.
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SPEAKER_00: The question is whether we'll continue turning toward God in those moments.
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SPEAKER_00: So many people turn away from God and rage at God instead of to God.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a big difference there.
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SPEAKER_00: But then the Lord says in 121 7.8, My son, peace be unto thy soul.
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SPEAKER_00: Thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment.
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SPEAKER_00: And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high, thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: The Lord begins not with a detailed explanation, but with comfort.
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SPEAKER_00: He sends the comforter.
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SPEAKER_00: Peace be unto thy soul.
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SPEAKER_00: Before Joseph receives a broader understanding of his circumstances, he receives an invitation to find peace in the Lord, with the Lord.
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SPEAKER_00: That's significant because sometimes we want information when what we need is a foundation, someplace to strengthen our faith.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: We want God to explain why the door closed, why the relationship ended, why the opportunity disappeared, why the husband or father or wife is going senile, why the answer to our prayer has not come.
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SPEAKER_00: But God may not immediately explain everything.
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SPEAKER_00: He can, however, remind us of who He is.
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SPEAKER_00: He can remind us that our present circumstances are not the entirety of our story.
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SPEAKER_00: We have an eternal story.
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SPEAKER_00: This life is but a small portion of that.
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SPEAKER_00: He can remind us that the Savior understands suffering from having borne it.
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SPEAKER_00: He can offer peace that does not depend on having every question answered.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: The phrase a small moment does not mean suffering feels small while we are enduring it.
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SPEAKER_00: The four months in Liberty Jail were not insignificant to Joseph, nor are any four months of grief, illness, or uncertainty, financial pressure insignificant to any one of us.
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SPEAKER_00: The Lord was teaching Joseph to see his suffering against an eternal horizon.
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SPEAKER_00: What feels overwhelming when viewed only through the present lens of your life can be understood differently when viewed in the context of God's eternal purpose.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: It's not to dismiss anyone's suffering.
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SPEAKER_00: It's an invitation to refuse to let suffering become the only thing that we can see.
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SPEAKER_00: And then comes the phrase, endure it well.
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SPEAKER_00: God doesn't say, wait until the pain's over.
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SPEAKER_00: He asks us to endure it.
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SPEAKER_00: He asks Joseph if he's going to continue in the faith.
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SPEAKER_00: Will Joseph surrender his faith?
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Will you surrender your faith?
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SPEAKER_00: Will you allow bitterness to overcome you and consume you?
18:53
SPEAKER_00: Will you become cruel because you've been treated cruelly?
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SPEAKER_00: Or will you continue to seek God, exercise faith and become humble?
19:07
SPEAKER_00: I can tell you honestly that in my last seven years, where five and a half of it was constant pain, I can tell you truthfully that I was humbled.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: That's one reason I'm here doing this with you, is because I've humbled myself before the Lord.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: That's not a brag.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: Five and a half years of pain, and seven years of occasional pain.
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SPEAKER_00: If you've lived it, you understand.
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SPEAKER_00: It can either drop you to your knees, or it can cause you to turn away.
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SPEAKER_00: See, that question is the one that belongs to all of us.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: When you're going through it, will you drop to your knees or will you turn away?
20:12
SPEAKER_00: Enduring well does not mean pretending everything is fine.
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SPEAKER_00: It means refusing to let the pain have the final word about who we become.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: That is the refiner's fire.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: That refiner's fire is what we're going to talk about in Friday's episode.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: Because this is going to be a two-parter.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Up to this point, the important thing I want you to get is that we don't choose every trial that enters our lives.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: But we have meaningful choices about how we respond.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: And enduring well means refusing to let the pain have the final word about who we become.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: Today that is Todd Talks.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: That's the lesson I want you to take out of this.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: Friday's episode, we will talk about the refiner's fire and why God allows the heat.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: This is Todd Talks, Spirit by Design.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Order my book.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: I think it'd be fun.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: It's good for, you know, adults, young adults, mostly adults.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, there's some gory battle scenes in there, so take that for what it's worth.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: You can find it on Amazon.
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SPEAKER_00: And have a blessed day.