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Dustin Crowe: Your Wilderness Is Not A Waste · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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  Nobody escapes life without trials, pain, or disappointment.
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  We don't plan for them, we don't welcome them, they are an intrusion, and inconvenience
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  and often devastate us, yet, during our struggles and trials, the proof of who we really
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  are, what we believe, or who we trust comes to the surface.
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  Today's guest, Dustin Crowe, has a book called Your Wilderness Is Not A Waste, and we're
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  talking about that next.
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  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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  defending biblical Christianity, no topic, off limits, and now, here's your host, David
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  Fierrazo.
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  Friends, family and Christ, welcome to another episode, praise God for you, but also for
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  his guiding us and driving us on this show.
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  We hopefully were glorifying him every episode, every guest, every topic.
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  But Dustin Crowe serves as the discipleship pastor at Stones Crossing Church in Greenwood,
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  Indiana.
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  He was also at Pennington Park Church, and also planted a church, a college park church,
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  but he's got a degree in historical theology from Moody Bible Institute and a master's in
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  theological studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
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  He is books are on Amazon, he's on Instagram at Indy Crowe, and his website, Indy Crowe.com.
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  Dustin, welcome, brother, good to see you.
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  Thanks for having me on today.
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  Yeah, thanks for your time, congrats on the book.
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  It's an important topic because Christians are not immune to trials and suffering.
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  There it is, Your Wilderness Is Not A Waste.
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  Right off the top, I'm guessing you went through a wilderness or some sort of maybe many more
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  than just one experience and that brought this book about.
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  Is that right?
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  Tell us about how it came to be.
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  Yeah, I mean, a few wildernesses, one was when it was written that was during the pandemic,
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  kind of right when it had started.
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  And as a church, like most churches trying to figure out, like, what do we do?
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  What do we teach from scripture at?
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  And so, Deuteronomy is where we kind of went because Deuteronomy felt like this season of,
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  you're not yet where you want to be, and yet God is using all those lessons.
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  And so it started with this teaching out of Deuteronomy and a season of waiting.
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  But then, yeah, I walked through some of my own wilderness seasons,
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  transitioned out of the city we were living in, mentioned the book.
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  I had an instant where my son had to be lifeline, had respiratory distress.
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  And so all of those things are things that God was using to teach me what I wrote in this book,
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  but also as a pastor walking through wilderness seasons with people in our church and learning with them.
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  Wow.
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  By the way, I know you're a discipleship pastor and that is so needed in today's church and the American church.
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  But by the way, how's your son doing now?
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  It's doing better.
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  I mean, he's now five.
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  And so each year, hopefully, he gets a little bit stronger, but he still gets sick quite a bit
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  and his sickness triggers asthma attacks.
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  And so we're kind of always on the edge of the wilderness, so to speak, kind of living with a little bit of worry.
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  Well, thanks for just sharing that.
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  What's his name?
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  Wyatt.
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  Wyatt?
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  Yep.
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  Okay, so friends, you can pray for Dustin's son Wyatt for healing, for God's protection,
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  and for blessing and their provision for their family.
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  We have a great audience that loves to pray.
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  I get encouragement all the time from the body of Christ.
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  So I just wanted to mention that.
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  So you said there were several wilderness lessons that you learned personally from.
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  When you wrote the book or read around that time, your son was one, the pandemic, oh my goodness.
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  You know what, why don't you speak to this for a moment?
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  You're a pastor.
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  I think if I were to look back at how generally the church in America handled that wilderness,
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  I think we failed that test, but give me your insight as a pastor.
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  Maybe your church handled it better or differently than a lot of others.
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  Go ahead Dustin.
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  Yeah, I mean, I think every church was just trying to figure out what to do.
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  And yeah, I think part of what was discouraging maybe as a pastor or looking back,
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  whatever a church decided to do or people's different opinions, it felt like our gut response
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  wasn't, how do we do this together?
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  How do we make decisions together?
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  How do we trust one another?
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  But it quickly became what do I want?
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  What do I think we should do and a lack of trust among churches and in church members?
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  I think that was pretty consistent across the board.
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  So the need to trust one another, the need to be understanding.
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  If we don't have to necessarily agree on what should happen,
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  but we want to be humble and loving, hopefully there's some learning that comes out of that.
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  So the subtitle of your book, I always like to read that.
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  God's purpose in suffering and struggle.
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  God does have a purpose for believers.
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  I think sometimes it really, God uses trials and those experiences to draw us to Him.
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  But I think, tell me what you experienced.
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  Because I think when we're in that or right when we're about to,
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  you know, we're going to a hard time, I think He gives us an opportunity to press into Him
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  or to get angry at Him.
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  And that's a very honest emotion as a Christian.
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  During having trials, we're not immune.
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  Could you speak to that for a moment?
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  Yeah, and that's part of the desire.
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  I think all of us, I know for me, when things get hard,
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  when we're going through trial, my first gut response is often like,
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  I don't like this.
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  I don't want this.
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  And we can even, like I said, we believe like maybe God has failed us or why isn't God
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  doing something.
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  And so you can choose in that moment to respond either with anger or just this can't be good.
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  And so I'm just going to put my head down and try to get through this season.
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  So that's one way to respond.
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  I think Israel, we think about Israel and the wilderness generation.
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  They tended to do that.
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  There was groaning complaining.
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  Let's go back to Egypt.
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  But a lot of people in Scripture, their response is, okay, this is hard.
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  I don't like this.
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  But I'm going to trust the Lord.
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  I'm going to pray to the Lord.
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  I'm going to lean into Him.
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  And so they use the wilderness, these trials to draw near to Him.
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  And I think we have to choose.
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  And how we choose will make a huge difference on how we grow through it.
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  So most of us understand Moses and years in the wilderness and his trial.
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  And Joseph from the pit to the prison, to the palace, long years of wilderness.
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  But your first chapter, Dustin, is number one, a faith formed and a friend found.
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  And you talk about Hegar, very interesting to start off the book with that.
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  Go ahead and ensure why you chose Hegar and that from Scripture to start off the chapters.
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  Yeah, I do like her story because it is a lesser known story.
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  We do know more about Moses and David and certainly Jesus.
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  So I like the, oh, this is a character.
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  Maybe we can learn more about because we don't know the story.
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  But I also think it just sets a tone.
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  It's one of the first wilderness stories in the Bible.
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  And so here's a woman who's overlooked, neglected, wrongly used, full of pain.
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  And so she runs into the wilderness.
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  And there she actually discovers who God is.
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  And she is the first person in Scripture to actually name God.
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  She learns that God does see me and God hears me.
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  So when she's crying out in pain, the Lord hears her cry.
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  So it's just such an intimate story about God's nearness to her in the wilderness.
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  And I think that's really the tone we need as we think about our trials.
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  And so often I think we think, well, God must be mad at me.
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  That's why I'm here.
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  God is against me or he wants to teach me a lesson.
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  And yet what you see is God's gentleness and grace.
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  And so she discovers more about who He is.
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  So you can say anything except for profanity on this podcast.
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  Because people need the truth today, the straight truth.
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  I want to ask you and you can get into doctrine.
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  I know how I feel about what some churches are teaching and preaching.
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  But where do some people get the idea that life is supposed to be trouble-free and problem-free?
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  And God just wants to bless us if we only just visualize.
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  And he wants to give us the desires of our heart.
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  So everything's good, right?
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  Everything's comfortable.
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  Comfortable Christianity to give me the book chapter and verse on that.
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  Where's that found in Scripture?
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  Go ahead and share.
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  Yeah, I think like I said, there is like a doctrinal component.
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  I think a lot of churches do accept this kind of teaching that,
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  you know, if you follow Jesus, your life will be better.
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  Which for them means easier, successful, victorious.
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  And so there can this be this belief in teaching in the church
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  that to follow Jesus means your best life will be a healthy, wealthy, prosperous life.
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  So there are churches that believe that.
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  But I think even for some of us, if we'd say like, I know that's not true.
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  I know the Bible says that you should expect troubles in this broken world.
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  That kind of belief still sinks into us.
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  Because we think, again, in trials, right away, I think, okay, something's wrong.
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  Like why is God allowing this?
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  He must not be doing what I think he should be doing.
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  Or he's not doing something right.
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  So I think there can be false doctrine, false teaching about what it means for God to bless us.
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  And so that's where I think the more you read scripture, the more you see, often God's blessing,
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  it's certainly not comfort and ease.
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  It's his presence with his people in the midst of pain.
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  It's his good purposes that he works through all these things.
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  So the Bible kind of redefines what blessing is for us.
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  So yes, there is a blessed life with God.
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  But it's not the kind of blessing we probably think about.
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  It's the blessings of actually seeing and knowing and having this deep faith with the Lord,
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  which unfortunately or fortunately, that usually happens through trials.
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  Yeah, I wasn't going to ask you this, but it's just kind of like a natural
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  follow-up in this conversation.
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  Sometimes we maybe put, we Americanize the idea of being blessed by God.
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  Right?
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  I think we put our culture and what we expect as the abundant life.
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  What was the abundant life when Jesus said that?
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  I have come to bring them life and life more abundantly.
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  Was he talking about cars and houses and maybe a pool and a vacation to Florida or wherever?
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  No, he wasn't talking about any of that.
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  But in our mind, the abundance means prosperity and today's like modern day riches.
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  Isn't that where some people get a little confused about words that were used in scripture,
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  blessing, prosper, success, and today and how we see it?
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  Yeah, and I think some of that it is natural.
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  And even it can be confusing because we do believe when a person trusts in Jesus.
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  You know, there is victory.
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  There is blessing.
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  There is peace.
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  But how we experience that can be different.
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  So some of that victory is not yet in this life.
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  A lot of the ultimate blessing, ultimate peace, victory, joy, those are coming down the road.
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  But again, a lot of that we experience now.
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  There's victory, but it's over our sin.
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  It's not over every challenge you have in life.
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  There's blessing.
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  And God might bless us in particular ways.
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  He might bless us with health or wealth.
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  But that's certainly not promised.
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  And often that's not a source of blessing.
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  It's a source of temptation.
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  The blessing is the promises of God.
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  Again, to be with us, to accomplish His purposes.
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  All the gifts we have in Christ.
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  But again, I think sometimes when we when we evangelize, we sell the wrong things.
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  We sell them.
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  Well, Jesus will make your life better and He'll fix everything.
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  But what is that better?
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  It's not that He's going to keep you from getting headaches.
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  But He's going to have good plans and purposes for your life because He's with you
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  and He's leading you.
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  And even when He leads you through the value of deep darkness,
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  it's because He has a purpose for you.
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  Amen, brother.
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  And that brings me to my next question.
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  In the book, you say that brokenness precedes usefulness.
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  I love that.
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  But what do you mean by explain?
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  Yeah.
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  So I'm using Moses' story in that example.
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  So when we think about Moses, we usually think about that last third of his life,
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  kind of all the big things telling Pharaoh, let my people go, walking through the water,
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  all of those things.
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  But Moses had this 40-year period in the middle, in the wilderness,
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  where he really felt a little bit like his life was at least.
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  He was unsuccessful.
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  He didn't even have his own sheep.
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  He was taking care of his father and all sheep.
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  He was in the middle of nowhere.
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  And so it feels like a story where God kind of had to break Moses down, humble him,
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  teach Moses to fully trust in God.
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  And so even when Moses says, like, I can't speak, I can't do these things.
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  You've called me to do.
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  God has teaching Moses.
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  Yeah, you can't, but He says, I am with you.
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  And so again, I know for me, I know part of life is often when we are trusting in ourselves,
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  we really can't be used by God in a lot of ways.
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  But when we walk through hard things, even when we fail and we learn not to trust ourselves,
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  or we experience God's presence in a trial, those seasons, which are some of the hardest
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  seasons, the season where we feel broken and weak, those are the very things God uses then
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  to minister through us to other people.
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  So I see on your website.
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  And by the way, friends, again, it's Indie, I-N-D-Y as in Indianapolis or Indiana.
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  Indie, Crow, C-R-O-W-E.com.
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  You've got 40 days in the desert Bible reading plan.
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  Well, that's in your book.
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  At the end of the book, after the conclusion, you've got a little on page 185, 40 days in the desert
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  Bible reading plan.
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  Before we take a brief pause, tell us about that, Dustin.
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  Yeah, so it's 40 days.
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  Each story is rooted in part of the wilderness and scripture.
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  So I always think it's nice to read a book on the theme of wilderness, but I really want to see
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  it in scripture.
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  And I think when you read that for 40 days, and a lot of those are showing God's good purposes
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  and hard situations, again, it's just reframing your mind to think about trials and suffering
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  and sorrow differently.
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  And some people do kind of leading up to Easter a lit Bible reading plan.
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  So that's a great time to be thinking about the wilderness.
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  Okay, so friends, when we come back, just more questions about people in the Bible,
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  like human beings, like you and me that went through wildernesses.
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  I want to ask Dustin Crow about Elijah.
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  That's a neat story, and we can learn from it.
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  So we'll be right back on World View Matters.
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  Register now for the World View Matters Conference May 1 and 2 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
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  worldviewmattersconference.com that's worldviewmattersconference.com.
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  So Dustin, before we get into Elijah's story, one of the chapters in your book,
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  I wanted to ask you this as a continuation of what we were just talking about before the break.
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  You say with God, and I believe absolutely, otherwise I wouldn't share this quote,
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  with God, nothing is wasted.
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  No part of our past is pointless. God uses all of it.
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  Stop right there, and some people I know are thinking,
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  yeah, but what about that part of my life, or what about this bad thing?
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  God can work all things together for good, can't he?
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  Yeah, he certainly can. I mean, I,
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  example, he comes to mind, I talk about David in the book, but I love the character in the
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  story of David. I think David Sins would be an example. Like David Sins against Bashiba and
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  Eureia, a very low point in biblical history and in his life. And yet God uses that not only to
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  approve his mercy and grace to his people, to prove that God can forgive anything, but it does humble
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  David in a way that he needs. And we have Psalms of confession now because of David Sins. So
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  even in David's life, we see how God uses those hard, painful, even his failures for good in his
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  life. So even when we walk through trials, it doesn't mean we're going to like everything,
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  or that it's going to be easy. And yet we can trust that God is taking us through that for a
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  reason. And he's not going to waste that he's going to do something in us or through us through it
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  all. So we are going to get to Elijah. I promise you friends and Dustin, I tease that because I want
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  to ask you about it. But there's another one, another quote from the book that I love this because a
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  lot of people tend to maybe think they need to go through things alone or handle it on their own.
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  And this quote is great. And I'd love for you to expound on it. Don't wither in the wilderness
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  by withdrawing from people. Let others in navigate the deserts of discouragement together.
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  Please share more about that. That's important. Yeah. And I think that is again, I write in terms
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  of myself, I know my natural tendency in pain is either to self isolate. And some of that can be,
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  I don't want to bother people. I don't want to feel like I'm a burden. I don't know how to talk
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  about things that are hard. So I think when I was writing that book, we had had Wyatt. So we had also
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  as a family walk through some postpartum depression. And so part of that was we didn't always know how
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  to invite people in. And then people often didn't take an active step. They kind of waited on us.
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  So I think one of the things I learned in trials is you can't really wait for people who are struggling
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  to come to you. So if you notice friends, family, church members, and it seems like maybe they're
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  struggling or I'm not seeing them, I shouldn't wait for them to reach out to me because people in pain
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  naturally withdraw or they don't want to bother people. And so you have to be active. You have to go
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  seeking those people out and say, Hey, how can I pray for you? How can I bless you? Because that is
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  our normal tendency. I don't want to bother people. I don't even know how to talk about what I'm going
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  through. So I'm just going to go be by myself. So important friends. I mean, what's that verse?
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  Bear one another's burdens and fulfill the law of Christ. I think I paraphrase that. It's very
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  close to that. But we are to bear one another's burdens. And when we're going through hard times,
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  and I know I'm preaching to the choir, Dustin, if we don't give people an opportunity to bless us
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  or help bear our burdens, then we're kind of robbing them of an opportunity to minister to a brother
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  or sister in Christ. So let's jump to chapter seven. And I want to talk to you about Elijah.
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  Chapters called God's goodness in drought and despair. And so we often think it seems like
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  Elijah was ready to give up in the wilderness. So what are a few things that he teaches us about
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  enduring seasons of drought and despair? What is the word teach us? Yeah, it's like I said,
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  very interesting story. He goes through a couple of different wilderness times. I think one is
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  you see God's provision. So when God tells Elijah, I think about like how crazy this would have
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  sounded. He tells him like, go hide by this river. If there's a drought, we know the river is going to
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  drive, drive up. And then I'm going to send birds to feed you. But Elijah does it. He obeys God's
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  word. And then God provides for him. It's not at all at once. But every single day God gives Elijah
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  what he needs, which is a common thing you see in the wilderness. God doesn't give you all the
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  things you need at once. But it's kind of this daily mana, daily bread, daily provision by the
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  birds and the rivers. So it's trust God's provision. He'll give you what you need. Again,
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  whether that's financial, he'll provide, but also like he'll sustain you. He'll give you strength.
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  He'll give you encouragement, whatever it is that you need. But then later on, Elijah, you know,
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  he does get to this place. I really have complete despair. He lies under a tree and says like, I'm done.
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  I don't want to be a prophet anymore. This is just too hard. And he gives up. But again,
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  we see the grace of God. God is kind to him. He's not angry. He feeds him. He gives him an app.
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  He gives him instructions. And then he sends them up to the mountain where we have that kind of
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  famous story about God's still small voice. And God is string him. God is giving him perspective.
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  You can't yet see what I'm doing. So you're kind of blinded by the pain and the disappointment.
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  You can't see what I'm doing because I work in subtle ways. And so he's trying to change
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  his perspective. And I think so often that's just what we need. The patience to
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  wait on God and to see things his way. And we often can't see
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  beyond our struggle or wilderness or trial, whatever we happen to be going through. When we're
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  in it, it's hard to look too far ahead, isn't it? So you do talk in the book about waiting
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  and how you can worship. I think one of the chapters you talked about, David,
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  worship, worshiping while he was waiting. I think we can really take that as an example for us,
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  too, because waiting is, I mean, it's a part of life, let alone the Christian life. Can you
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  talk to a little, talk to us a little bit about that? Yeah, I think almost every story that's
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  one of those common things is waiting. And waiting is always hard. Waiting means you change your
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  situation. We like waiting so much that if you go to a theme park, you can pay to get a past
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  not. There's no past past of trials in life. We have to wait. So again, but part of what you see
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  in scripture and again, David Psalms, especially, we're not just waiting. We're waiting on God. And so
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  David, whenever he's waiting, I'm teaching on Psalm three on Sunday. So I've been reading that
• 21:50
  today. When he's waiting on God, that forces him to pray to God to cast his cares on God.
• 21:56
  He starts chewing on all the truths about this is who I know God is. He's my shield. He's the one
• 22:01
  who protects me. He's my refuge. So in the waiting, we don't just wait for things to change,
• 22:06
  but we wait on God by meditating on scripture, meditating on his attributes, praying to him.
• 22:11
  And that's where the relationship deepens, because we have to actually trust him in the waiting.
• 22:17
  So we often want God to answer our prayers now, you know, instant answer. But that's just not how
• 22:25
  God works. And that wouldn't be good for us. You know, we can be so demanding, can't we?
• 22:30
  But I wanted to ask you this. This was a question. Why doesn't God lead us according to what makes
• 22:38
  the most sense to us? I know part of the answer is we then we wouldn't really learn from it in that
• 22:45
  trial or well, we're waiting. Go ahead. Well, even the way you ask that, why doesn't he do it
• 22:51
  according to us? Well, think about how often we're wrong. So if he did what we wanted,
• 22:55
  we're making a lot of mistakes. What we think is right changes from week to week month to month.
• 23:01
  So yeah, I think that's part of what's hard about the waiting. We feel like I know what's good,
• 23:06
  or I know what I want God to do. And he's not doing it yet. And so that's where the tension of faith
• 23:11
  is. Will I trust him? Will I trust his character? Will I trust that he has my good in mind?
• 23:16
  Will I start to believe the worst about him? And so yeah, in all these wilderness stories,
• 23:21
  God is working and God is leading and God is active, but it's often not in the way they expect,
• 23:27
  but it is what they need. And so he gives them very specific trials because he knows what specific
• 23:33
  people need to prepare them for what's ahead. So part of why Israel and the wilderness, they're
• 23:38
  going places like here to there is they're not yet ready for the promised land. And so he takes
• 23:43
  them on a longer way to train them who God is. How do you trust him? And then how do you reflect
• 23:49
  him? So God knows what we need. He knows what we'll mature us. And usually quick answers and
• 23:54
  easy fixes that doesn't help us. All right, Dustin Crowe. I want to close with a quote from your book.
• 24:00
  And then you have you just share whatever you'd like to encourage. If every one of our viewers and
• 24:07
  listeners has not gone through a trial in life they're about to or they will. So you say even now,
• 24:14
  we wait with hope in the wilderness because the wilderness has an expiration date. Our trials and
• 24:21
  troubles are temporary, but our joy and rest will be eternal. Don't waste your wilderness by
• 24:28
  losing sight of the victory in it and the victory over it that Christ won for us. Share a little
• 24:35
  bit more in the last couple of minutes. Yeah, I believe that. You know, one of the trials in the
• 24:40
  last four years I lost my dad to cancer and then a few months ago I lost my mom to cancer. And so
• 24:46
  part of what I believe and part of what they believed is like we've talked about there is an
• 24:51
  ultimate victory. And it's not in this life. So this life we will have blessings. We will have
• 24:57
  reasons to rejoice. But there is a lot of sorrow. The wilderness is always part of this world.
• 25:02
  But there is the hope that one day Jesus will make all things wrong right and Jesus will restore us.
• 25:08
  And so again, you don't put your hope that this is our best life now. Our hope is that one day Jesus
• 25:14
  will give us that best life, that perfect life. Thankfully, he gives us lots of good things now,
• 25:19
  lots of blessings every single day. But ultimately, even if we get cancer, even if we die, we have hope
• 25:25
  that there's an end of the wilderness coming. And you can follow Dustin, by the way, it looks like
• 25:31
  the bottom of your website, you're on X and Instagram, Facebook. Also, do you want to send people
• 25:39
  directly to Amazon.com for the book or is there a link on your website as well?
• 25:45
  Amazon's great. Moody, publish your sales it. So wherever you normally buy books, it's available.
• 25:49
  Moody. Great. Love Moody. So your wilderness is not a waste. Such an important. I mean, it's simple
• 25:58
  for us to say after we've gone through trials and then we can say that. But like I said earlier,
• 26:03
  and what you were talking about waiting when you're in that trial, it's really hard to see.
• 26:07
  But I love that you emphasize the point that God doesn't waste anything. He uses every part of
• 26:13
  our life. We can learn from it. We can grow. It strengthens our faith. It allows other people to
• 26:18
  bless us. So again, friends, the website indicrow.com indicrow.com. So it looks like you're married
• 26:26
  with two children. Any other plans? We've got a minute, Dustin. Well, do you have another book?
• 26:31
  What else you're working on? Any other plans in the near future that you can tell us about?
• 26:36
  Yeah, I just finished a book on David. So as I've taught about David, we won't come out
• 26:41
  until next year, next February. But I've learned so much about David. Part of that was writing
• 26:45
  the wilderness and saw all these other lessons in his life. So it spawned a book on David that'll
• 26:50
  be coming out. Praise God, congrats. I know I'm writing is hard. It can be and the publishing process.
• 26:58
  But let us know. We'd love to have you back on when the book's ready to come out or when it comes out,
• 27:03
  okay? Yeah, be happy to enjoy it. All right. Thanks, Dustin. God bless you and your family and
• 27:08
  I'm sorry to hear about your parents. I, you know, continue to heal and you'll praise God.
• 27:14
  We have heaven to look forward to in a great reunion, right? Yeah, we do. I appreciate that. Thank you.
• 27:20
  Thank you very much. Appreciate you being on the podcast. Well, friends, again, indicrow.com. We
• 27:25
  appreciate you. I want to send you one other link, by the way. We always talk about Harbinger's
• 27:29
  Daily because they're one of the sponsors of World View Matters. Harbingers.tv. I rarely give
• 27:35
  out that address. That's more video centered, but harbingers.tv is another one. Looks like they
• 27:41
  got our interview with Brianna Klassen, the editor in chief there at Harbingers Daily. That's up
• 27:47
  there and many, many more great pastors and speakers and men and women of God. So thanks, friends.
• 27:52
  God bless you and as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.
• 28:05
  You