Latest / Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers / Grace in the Dark: Dark Emotions

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Grace in the Dark: Dark Emotions · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

• 0:04
  Depression, sadness, sorrow, grief, anger,
• 0:09
  [music]
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: These are some of the emotions that we as human beings would call dark emotions.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they're the kind of emotions that we want to avoid,
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: if at all possible,
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: because we have been told again and again that they are not good for us.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And quite honestly,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: we've probably all experienced a few of them and they don't feel all
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: that good either.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: And especially when you find yourself in a spiral where, say,
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: depression or sadness or grief just takes you down and down and down until it is
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: so dark you're not sure you can ever get out again.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: So today we are on part three of a four-part series we're calling Grace in the Dark.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we are looking today at dark emotions.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the book that's kind of guiding us is one I highly recommend called Learning
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: By Barbara Brown Taylor.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: This was a book that was recommended to me by one of my therapists early on in my grief cycle.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm almost six months in now to Jan's death.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: So my grief is at a different point than it was back a few months ago.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's still there, but maybe at this point, not quite as strong.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Ask me after the podcast and it may go down again.
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  SPEAKER_01: But she talks a lot about darkness and our aversion,
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: first of all,
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  SPEAKER_01: to darkness as human beings and in Christianity,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of aversion to it because the Bible seems to talk so much about light.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the light of the world.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: A light set on a hill is what we want to be.
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  SPEAKER_01: So the Bible seems to talk a lot about light.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: But as we saw in the last two podcasts, actually the Bible talks a lot about dark as well.
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  SPEAKER_01: And even going back to creation, there was darkness before there was light.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Every day starts with night and end of day.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: And as we saw last week, there is no resurrection, there is no birth without being in the dark.
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  SPEAKER_01: Could it be that maybe God is there too?
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  SPEAKER_01: So today, John,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: we're going to look at some of those dark emotions and how grace can meet us there.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Just an update on our friend, Terry.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: I had a chance to see her.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: She's in the play Les Miserables here in Phoenix.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's an absolutely outstanding performance.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Saw her for the third time and had a chance to just talk to her for a few minutes.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: She's got one week left.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not next week,
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: but the week after,
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  SPEAKER_01: hopefully,
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: we will get Terry on with us and we will be able to talk about her experience in
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: that play and what she learned and some of the God things that happened,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: which were a lot.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, it's an outstanding play anyway.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, John,
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  SPEAKER_01: when you think about being in the dark,
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  SPEAKER_01: what is the primary emotion that comes to your mind when you hear the word darkness?
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  SPEAKER_00: Fear.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Fear.
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  SPEAKER_01: Ding, ding, ding.
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  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's the one we're all the most afraid of.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
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  SPEAKER_01: So when we fear the fear.
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  SPEAKER_01: We do.
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  SPEAKER_01: And one of the strange things about life is that we get so much fear
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  SPEAKER_01: about being afraid that it just sort of becomes its own vicious cycle.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I'm a guy who's struggled with anxiety and panic attacks a lot of my life.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the vicious cycles you get into when you have anxiety,
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  SPEAKER_01: which is a pretty dark emotion, is you start to fear the fear.
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  SPEAKER_01: You fear that feeling of being anxious.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then by fearing the fear, you become afraid.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then you fear that fear.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it just becomes this vicious cycle.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the darkness can do that for some of us.
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  SPEAKER_01: And fear is a very normal emotion.
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  SPEAKER_01: God created us to have fear.
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  SPEAKER_01: But fear was always meant to warn us and protect us.
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  SPEAKER_01: In our society today, we just become afraid of being afraid.
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  SPEAKER_01: And of course, darkness can be equated with that.
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  SPEAKER_01: Another of those deep, dark emotions, of course, is depression.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I have not had a lot of experience with long-term depression.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think almost every human being probably has some form of it from time to time,
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  SPEAKER_01: circumstantial depression.
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  SPEAKER_01: If you're an Arizona Cardinals fan,
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  SPEAKER_01: for example,
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  SPEAKER_01: or a Minnesota Vikings fan,
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just seasonal depression disorder caused by football.
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  SPEAKER_01: But there are times when we feel something, we go through something, and it's pretty dark.
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  SPEAKER_01: But there are people, many of our listeners, who have had long-term depression.
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  SPEAKER_01: And my wife, Jan,
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: struggled with depression for many,
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  SPEAKER_01: many years in her life and would often describe it as something
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  SPEAKER_01: that makes your world colorless.
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  SPEAKER_01: And thankfully,
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  SPEAKER_01: she saw a therapist and eventually got on herself a medication that she took for
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: the rest of her life, and it was a lifesaver for her.
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  SPEAKER_01: But it could get really dark for her if she wasn't careful.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
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  SPEAKER_01: How about you?
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  SPEAKER_01: Any dark emotions you've had in your life that come to mind?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I certainly had bouts with anxiety and depression and still do.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I really resonate with your thought on you can get anxious about being anxious.
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  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't seem fair.
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  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't seem fair.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think everybody I mean,
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  SPEAKER_00: certainly there's those of us who,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: it hits a little bit harder and a little bit more often,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I think everybody goes through those times and the pain that's involved
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  SPEAKER_00: in those times is just more than uncomfortable.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so I think we spend a lot of our time trying to evade and escape The pain
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  SPEAKER_00: that is involved in that kind of suffering.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if you're those kind of folks, I mean, I know exactly how you feel.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: Things are changing, thankfully, as we become more aware of how the mind and the body work.
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  SPEAKER_01: And maybe this is one of the positives of more availability
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  SPEAKER_01: of information via social media and so on.
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  SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of this stuff we've known for a long time.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: But we are, for example, going through grief, going through the loss of a spouse.
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  SPEAKER_01: It used to be that if you weren't quite over the loss of your spouse after
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: about five,
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  SPEAKER_01: six months,
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  SPEAKER_01: then people would start diagnosing you as depressed
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  SPEAKER_01: and you need to get help.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, now we're learning that grief is a long, long process.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's highly individual.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, at, say,
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  SPEAKER_01: almost six months,
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of at a point where the waves don't hit me like they used to.
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  SPEAKER_01: They still come once in a while.
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  SPEAKER_01: But I'm more okay than I'm not okay six months in.
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  SPEAKER_01: For some people, that can happen at three months.
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  SPEAKER_01: For some people, it doesn't happen for two years, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: We're all different.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure I'm going to have some more valleys as time goes on.
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  SPEAKER_01: I haven't been through the first full year of life.
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  SPEAKER_01: Without Jan around and my friends tell me the second year is worse.
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  SPEAKER_01: But we're learning that these emotions and experiences can stick with us far longer.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we're also learning that these are not emotions
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  SPEAKER_01: that we should avoid like we used to or try to ignore.
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  SPEAKER_01: For one thing, you can't You can't ignore depression.
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  SPEAKER_01: If depression is caused by a chemical imbalance or,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: postpartum after having a birth,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know, depression isn't something you just ignore.
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  SPEAKER_01: It is something you want to deal with,
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  SPEAKER_01: but there are healthy ways to deal with it rather than avoiding it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: Same with anxiety, right, Tim?
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  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_01: Anxiety, sadness.
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  SPEAKER_01: Part of what's happened in our culture is we know more about our emotions.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we know that there are healthy ways now to deal even with dark emotions,
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  SPEAKER_01: that dark emotions play a role in our life.
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  SPEAKER_01: Dark emotions tell us something is wrong, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: So my anxiety,
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  SPEAKER_01: even though I had no idea why I was anxious when I had my first panic attack
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  SPEAKER_01: and still don't always understand why I'm anxious,
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  SPEAKER_01: my anxiety was telling me something about me.
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  SPEAKER_01: Something's out of control or something in my past is bothering me.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the anxiety becomes a way to get my attention, my body's way of getting my attention.
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  SPEAKER_01: Depression can be the body's way of getting my depression,
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  SPEAKER_01: either that there's something really wrong in my life or I've got
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  SPEAKER_01: a chemical imbalance.
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  SPEAKER_01: Sadness and grief tell me I've lost somebody important to me.
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  SPEAKER_01: Anger can tell me that there's something in my life that's making me uncomfortable
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  SPEAKER_01: or there's an injustice I see.
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  SPEAKER_01: All of these emotions we call dark emotions can actually be helpful for us
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  SPEAKER_01: if we're willing to sit with them for a little bit,
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  SPEAKER_01: oftentimes with a therapist or a friend and say, okay, what is my body telling me?
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  SPEAKER_01: What is this emotion telling me?
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  SPEAKER_01: And what is it I need to pay attention to?
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  SPEAKER_01: What often happens is I feel these emotions and I've got to turn the light on, so to speak.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I turn the light on by drinking or I turn the light on by getting busy,
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  SPEAKER_01: distracting myself,
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  SPEAKER_01: watching pornography or getting involved in social media or taking drugs
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  SPEAKER_01: or whatever it might be.
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  SPEAKER_01: We need to turn a light on and we do that to dispel the darkness.
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  SPEAKER_01: But instead,
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  SPEAKER_01: we oftentimes go deeper into the darkness if we ignore these emotions
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  SPEAKER_01: and call them dark.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that happens, you know, unfortunately for a lot of people.
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  SPEAKER_01: The Bible is no stranger to dark emotions.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we talked a bit last week about Jesus on
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: the cross experiencing God forsakenness,
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  SPEAKER_01: which is probably one of the deepest dark,
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  SPEAKER_01: for lack of better word,
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  SPEAKER_01: emotions we can go through where we're just absolutely lost in our own.
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  SPEAKER_01: And when Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
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  SPEAKER_01: He's actually quoting a Psalm from the Old Testament.
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  SPEAKER_01: I've asked John to read some verses from that just to get a sense.
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this guy's writing some pretty raw stuff here.
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  SPEAKER_01: Psalm 22.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to have John read the tough stuff first,
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  SPEAKER_01: and then we'll go back and read some of the hope later.
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  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just the first two verses, Tim?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Read that Psalm 22, read verses 1 and 2, 6 and 7 and 14 through 18.
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  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you got it.
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  SPEAKER_00: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
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  SPEAKER_00: Why are you so far from helping me from the words of my groaning?
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  SPEAKER_00: But I am a worm and not human, scorned by others and despised by people.
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  SPEAKER_00: All who see me mock me.
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  SPEAKER_00: They sneer at me.
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  SPEAKER_00: They shake their heads.
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  SPEAKER_00: I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint.
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  SPEAKER_00: My heart is like wax.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is melted within my breast.
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  SPEAKER_00: My mouth is dried up like potsherd and my tongue sticks to my jaws.
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  SPEAKER_00: You lay me in the dust of death.
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  SPEAKER_00: For dogs are all around me.
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  SPEAKER_00: A company of evildoers encircles me.
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  SPEAKER_00: They bound my hands and feet.
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  SPEAKER_00: I can count all my bones.
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  SPEAKER_00: They stare and gloat over me.
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  SPEAKER_00: They divide my clothes among themselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: And for my clothing, they cast lots.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's a guy who's going through it.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
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  SPEAKER_01: He's in such despair.
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  SPEAKER_01: That mean his whole body is physically reacting to what he's going through.
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  SPEAKER_01: And by the way,
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: this is one of the things that I,
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why it's taken me so long to learn this because I've been working
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: on my anxiety for so many years, but the mind body connection.
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  SPEAKER_01: And when I'm going through some of my therapy,
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: my therapist will Because I'm a real analytical guy.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I say, well, here's what I think is happening.
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  SPEAKER_01: He says, I don't know what you want.
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  SPEAKER_01: I don't care what you think.
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  SPEAKER_01: Tell me what your body is feeling right now.
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  SPEAKER_01: And where are you feeling it?
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  SPEAKER_01: So for me, I tend to feel anxiety kind of in my upper stomach and it goes up into my chest.
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  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I feel myself just sort of turning red from my arms and my head.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he says, what's your body feeling?
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  SPEAKER_01: What's going on in your body?
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  SPEAKER_01: What is the emotion?
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  SPEAKER_01: And then if we want to figure out why it is, okay,
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: but one of the ways that we sort of
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: turn the light on with our emotions
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  SPEAKER_01: before we should is we try to analyze them rather than just feeling them for a while
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  SPEAKER_01: and letting it sit there.
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  SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes,
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: like with anxiety,
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  SPEAKER_01: for example, you can let it sit there and breathe through it and it will go away.
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  SPEAKER_01: Because it's a body sensation.
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  SPEAKER_01: It may have a thought attached to it, it may not.
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  SPEAKER_01: And for those of you who've ever had anxiety before,
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: anxiety is the exact same feeling you have when you go on a roller coaster.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Anxiety and excitement feel exactly the same.
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  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it has to do with how we interpret it.
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  SPEAKER_01: Am I anxious to go on this roller coaster or am I excited to go on this roller coaster?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: It just hits you sometimes when there's no roller coaster anywhere around.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it interesting that our spouses and certainly my wife can come to me and say,
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: oh, you're feeling X and Y.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe there's some anxiousness going on and realize it before I do,
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  SPEAKER_00: because the knee jerk reaction is I just want to do whatever I need to do
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: to make this go away because I'd rather not have Uncle Anxiety hanging out
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: in my life today.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_01: And one of the,
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: if there is a good side to having anxiety,
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: it's that you can,
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: through relaxation,
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  SPEAKER_01: breathing, there are ways that you can sort of get yourself out of it.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's different than depression.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know,
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  SPEAKER_01: depression is really hard to get yourself out of because it can be
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  SPEAKER_01: so all encompassing.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that's why,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: we always recommend Um,
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: if you're depressed that you get some help,
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  SPEAKER_01: it's a dark emotion, but it doesn't mean it's a bad emotion.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's a woman by the name of, um, Miriam Greenspan.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and she wrote a book that,
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: uh, Barbara Brown Taylor references, um, called healing through the dark emotions.
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  SPEAKER_01: And she had, um, uh, her first child died.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so she kind of writes out of that experience.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: He was just a couple months old.
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  SPEAKER_01: But basically,
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  SPEAKER_01: she says this,
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: there are no dark emotions,
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Greenspan says, just unskillful ways of coping with emotions we cannot bear.
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  SPEAKER_01: The emotions themselves are conduits of pure energy that want something from us
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: to wake us up,
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: to tell us something we need to know,
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: to break the ice around our hearts, to move us to act.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as with anything, that's mostly true.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's mostly true.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: If I applied that definition to grief, losing Jan and her death, it doesn't quite work.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a very real loss.
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  SPEAKER_01: If you want to say, what's it telling me?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's telling me that I loved deeply.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that person I loved is gone and there's great loss.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, duh.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need my emotions to tell me that.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: But those emotions are a part of love, right?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: They're a part of love.
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  SPEAKER_01: I understand that.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time,
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: part of what Barbara Brown Taylor is trying to say to us is because we have such
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  SPEAKER_01: a propensity to get out of the dark as fast as possible.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: We have these dark, quote unquote, dark emotions, and we just want to get out of them.
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  SPEAKER_01: We want to cover them up rather than taking some time with them to say,
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: what can this emotion teach me?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Or God, what might this emotion,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: what might my body that you created be saying to me right now through this emotion?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it may be saying, it may not be saying a lot at all.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: It may just be saying, well, you're anxious.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because you got a test coming up tomorrow.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's normal.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or it may be saying, yeah,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: there's something deeper in your life that's starting to come to the surface
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: and I'd like you to bring it that I want you to bring into the light so
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: that we can look at it and we can heal it.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or I want you to live with it in the dark and we'll look at it through the moonlight, whatever.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, those emotions Not always,
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: but oftentimes can be a doorway into what's happening in our minds and our hearts
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: before our minds and our hearts know it.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, right.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Tim, I keep thinking of,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was told this by an African pastor in Africa at one point,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: and I think you even said something like this before too,
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: but it was the thought that in the West,
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: We oftentimes pray for God to take away the pain.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And outside the West,
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: the prayer is often for God to reassure me and walk with me through the pain.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if that doesn't have a little bit of a parallel to what we're talking about here.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's really well said.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Was that one of our Rwanda friends?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was one of the Rwanda friends,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: but I don't know if that was the first time I heard that,
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: but it's certainly been rattling around in my head for a few years as I try
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: to figure that out myself.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think because we have,
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: especially in the West,
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: this aversion to anything dark, man, let's just get through it as fast as possible.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get the night light going.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes our African friends,
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: their cultural understanding of the Bible can be a little bit closer to sort of
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: the way of Jesus, which was, you know, darkness isn't fun, necessarily.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Although, let's face it, there are people who have some fun in the dark, right?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: How many babies are created in the dark?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's an adult podcast.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Just went to PG-13.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so darkness isn't always bad.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus, as we saw last week, went through that darkness.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: And in order to get to the resurrection, had to go through the darkness.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now, it is interesting, isn't it, that Jesus did say in Gethsemane,
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm paraphrasing.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Dad, I'd really rather not go through this.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: So
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: could you take this away?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's very human.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't think we should feel bad about ourselves for being human like Jesus.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time,
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus understood the necessity of going through the dark to get to the resurrection.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then went through that and uses the Psalm 22 as a basis
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: for helping us understand that he was going through all
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: the quote unquote dark emotions that we go through.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And he gets it.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: He gets it.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: It is interesting in, I'm going to have you pull up Matthew 5.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: The Beatitudes.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And some of the
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: People that Jesus blesses.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: So let's start with,
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: let's just read through,
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: why don't you read Matthew 5, 1 through, let's go 1 through 9.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: 1 through 9, happy to.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus saw the crowds,
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: he went up to the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he began to speak and taught them saying,
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the pure in heart.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting that the second one there is blessed are those who mourn.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: And some people have interpreted that word blessed to be happy or fortunate.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: So think about that.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you're mourning, wow, how fortunate you are.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that sounds sort of callous.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know,
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: someone comes up to me and say,
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, good on you, Tim, for losing your wife and going through such grief.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: I can't think of a better place to be right now in your life.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm happy for you.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think my grief would probably take and smack the person.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I think Jesus is saying something much deeper here, of course.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think what Jesus is saying,
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: in part, and of course, this is much deeper than our conversation for today.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: But in part,
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: what I think Jesus is saying is
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: that These quote-unquote dark emotions are not dark emotions in God's eyes.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: They're not deeper than God's grace.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that even when we feel abandoned,
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: as Jesus did on the cross,
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: or as the psalmist did in Psalm 22,
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: when we're mourning,
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: when we're hurting, when we're anxious, when we're depressed, God has us.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: God is there in the darkness.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we are not alone in the midst of it.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really crucial to understanding how scripture works.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: We saw in the first couple of episodes that there are a lot
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: of really significant things that took place in the dark.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Abraham's call to be the father of a great nation happened in the dark.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Jacob's call to be the people, the father of Israel happened in the dark.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: You sent me one.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: What was it that happened in the dark?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember what that one was?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: We know Nicodemus came to Jesus in the dark and had a life-changing experience
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: with Jesus in the dark.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: The two chronicles, the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: In the night, right, in the dark.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that's the,
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: when it's nighttime,
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: think about this, when it's nighttime, There aren't as many distractions, right?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's just the dark.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's just you alone in the dark,
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: which can be both frightening and liberating because God's got your full attention
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: when you're in the dark.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of pleading happens in the dark.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: with the distractions of the day away,
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: it's just you and maybe a small nightlight and just the nighttime to plead
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: and wonder and seek.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it is a time when we tend to be vulnerable,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: where we,
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: when you're nervous about what's coming up in the next day or two,
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: it's in the nighttime.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: When your life slows down,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: your body slows down,
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: that your mind starts to heat up a little bit because you don't have
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: the distractions of the phone or the TV or someone to talk to.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so it seems like that's always a great time when God sort of moves in and says,
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: all right, it's just me and you right now.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: we don't need to be afraid of the dark because God can meet us in the dark.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Barbara Brown Taylor says this,
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: I hope I will be given the wisdom to continue to trust God in the absence
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: of any sense of God.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: I hope I will be given the wisdom to continue to trust God in the absence of any sense of God.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: And part of what happens with dark emotion, go ahead.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Tim, that darkness that she just describes takes place at all times of the day.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, not all throughout the day.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: In the light, you experience that kind of darkness.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And part of what she's saying here is that no matter what the dark emotion is,
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: and those dark emotions can happen anytime during the day, right?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: You can experience the darkness of depression at 10 o'clock in the morning.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can experience a panic attack at five o'clock in the afternoon.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: But in the darkness, Jesus finds us and will not let us go.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because blessed are those who mourn,
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: blessed are those who are sad, blessed are those who are broken and hurting.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because God's grace always meets us wherever we are and God's grace does meet us in
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: the darkness.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's the great creation story where light and darkness meets.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's the great story of the cross where light and darkness meets.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: So darkness was created by God, light was created by God, and we need the rhythm of both.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: To be fully human.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Talk for a minute, John, because she had a great quote.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: I want to try to find it.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think that A good reminder for all those listening,
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Tim and I have been touching on a lot on depression and anxiety.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to remind people that if that's something that you are challenged with,
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: that God has created these incredible therapists that are just waiting to help you.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it does take a little bit of courage, especially that first time you go get some help.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I just want to really encourage people that God meets you there.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there's sort of better things ahead.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's some more light or even more light in the darkness as you find someone
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: to help you through that, for sure.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And again, that is so important.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: So important.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Here's just a couple things.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: I referenced these before.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, here's the quote I was looking for.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: To be human.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is to live by sunlight and moonlight with anxiety and delight,
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: admitting limits and transcending them, falling down and rising up.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: To want a life with only half of these things in it is to want half a life,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: shutting the other half away where it will not interfere with one's bright fantasies
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: of the way things ought to be.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think I read this last time.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the light is coming and sometimes it is going.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the moon is full.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it is nowhere to be found.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: There is nothing capricious about this variety since it happens on a regular basis.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: Is it dark out tonight?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Fear not.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: It will not be dark forever.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Is it bright out tonight?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy it.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: It will not be bright forever.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Darkness comes.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: We have no choice.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Darkness comes.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus meets us in the midst of that darkness.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to kind of follow up on this next week.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: One more week, we'll stay in the dark.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've got some friends who are using this book as their men's Bible study.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the guys said, what are we going to get out of the dark?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: You're missing the point.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: We want to learn to live in the dark.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: And in the light.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: So next week we're going to talk about living in the dark,
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: just kind of how do we navigate each and every day through the darkness.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then in a couple of weeks, hopefully our friend Terry Summers will be back.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds great.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's the Deep Grace Diving Podcast back again.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Are you not hearing me?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Tell your friends about it.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, subscribe.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll see you next week.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, everybody.