Latest / Intentional Guy / Beat Up By God, Not Abandoned By Him
Transcript
- Matthew Jenkins: I felt like God had taken away the life that I thought that I was supposed to have. over the years I've dealt with chronic health issues, repeated job losses, and and chronic pain after a major car accident. That all wore me down physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Then my marriage began falling myself falling apart, and I found myself separated from my wife for the second time in less than a year and facing a future that I didn't want. In March of 2025, I reached that lowest point of my reached a point where I did not want to keep going. I put a gun to my head. Obviously I didn't pull the trigger. mom pulled it in the driveway at just the right time. And I believe God used it to interrupt that moment. That led to hospitalization, medication changes, counseling, and eventually a much deeper walk with God. I don't want it to sound like everything got instantly became easy because it didn't. Life was still messy. There's still grief, shame, fear, confusion. But God began rebuilding me in the middle of it. Michael Chestnut: Welcome to the Intentional Guy Podcast. I'm Michael Chestnut, and fair warning before we get into this one. Today's conversation goes to some dark places. And if you've been to some of those places yourself, this one might hit close. I know it most certainly will for me. If you need a second before you press play, take it. My guest is Matthew Jenkins, author of Beat Up by God. Matthew, welcome to our show today. Matthew Jenkins: Thank you for having me, Michael. Michael Chestnut: Matthew, I'm I'm excited about this because this is close to home for me. As as I was looking at some of your story, And I want to first say thank you for coming on here because I know when something like this happens to a man, the first thought of masculinity or being strong is you can't. Tell anyone. You've got to hide it, And the truth is that's just a lie. And the thing is, there's actual healing powers and sharing your story, but also it helps other men. God can take your story and use it to help other men who are battling where you are at or have been at. And I love the fact you've got a book out. I haven't got to read it yet, but I I saw that your book, you wrote your book while in the midst of your recovery, in the midst of all this, which I love because I just had a guest on that said, God doesn't have to w wait until we're all refined before he uses us. He said that some of these guys that are still in the middle of their stuff need to hear from other men who are in the middle and see God working. And You are just proof of that today. So Matthew, again, thank you for being on here. And if you don't mind, I'm gonna hand this over to you and take my audience through your story. Matthew Jenkins: Yeah, sure. you know, I I I dealt with the the crying and sharing the story a lot in the book. but it's something that men need to get better at in general. y we're we're taught not necessarily consciously, but at the very least subconsciously that men don't cry. and you know, that's something I really wrestled with. And I I during my journey, I I really actually learned to cry. During it. And so, you know, the the title of my book is raw and honestly came from a raw place. It came from what was the lowest moment in my life when I told my mom that I was tired of being beat up by God. I don't think that I I don't believe that God is cruel or abusive. but it described how I felt in that moment. I believed that God was sovereign, but I couldn't understand why he was allowing so much pain in my life. Moments before I said that those words. I held a gun to my head and I would have pulled the trigger if my mom hadn't shown up Michael Chestnut: Mm. Matthew Jenkins: when she did. I had the the gun to my head when I heard the car door shut in my driveway, and that's what what stopped me from doing it. But my story really started more than 20 years ago. when I was 20, I was diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma. at that point in my life I thought I had my future planned out. I was in Army RTC. I had a four year scholarship to the University of Delaware. And I thought I was gonna serve in the army probably as a translator and build my career there. September 11th happened during my sophomore year, and my undergrad was in foreign languages, and I I was expecting to go to language school and learn a dialect of Arabic and be a translator, but then the cancer changed everything. it didn't affect just my body, it affected my identity, my future, and my view of God. I still believed in him. But I carried anger and disappointment towards him for years that I and I didn't realize it until about the last year. I could say the right Christian things. I could say that God has a plan. You know, one day I'll understand. but deep down I was wounded. I felt like God had taken away the life that I thought that I was supposed to have. over the years I've dealt with chronic health issues, repeated job losses, and and chronic pain after a major car accident. That all wore me down physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Then my marriage began falling myself falling apart, and I found myself separated from my wife for the second time in less than a year and facing a future that I didn't want. In March of 2025, I reached that lowest point of my life. I was unemployed again. I was separated from my wife. I was in chronic pain. I felt like an absolute failure as a man and a husband and a father. And I r reached a point where I did not want to keep going. I put a gun to my head. Obviously I didn't pull the trigger. Like I said earlier, my mom pulled it in the driveway at just the right time. And I believe God used it to interrupt that moment. That led to hospitalization, medication changes, counseling, and eventually a much deeper walk with God. I don't want it to sound like everything got instantly became easy because it didn't. Life was still messy. There's still grief, shame, fear, confusion. But God began rebuilding me in the middle of it. one of the biggest things that God showed me has been that I've really been functioning without for years without really healing. I'd gone to church, I knew scripture, I believed the right things, but I hadn't let God into the deepest wounds. And counseling really had helped me get get named those things, particularly the anger. The the anger at God was really led to the downfall of my marriage. obviously we both had our parts, but I was angry at God and that that led to a low level of frustration. since the the lowest point in my life that my relationship with God has changed more than it has in the pr had in pre the previous 40 plus years. I started spending time with him daily through scripture, prayer, worship. Not because I was super spiritual all of a sudden, but because I realized that I desperately needed him. And during the hospital stay in the medical or the psychiatric hospital, I wasn't even allowed to have a Bible. And I realized just how lacking I was in in worship songs and Bible verses that I I just didn't know them by heart. I needed more than church attendance. I needed daily communion with the Lord. And that's where the book came from. I wrote Beat Up by God for the person who still believes in God but feels abandoned by him. Michael Chestnut: Yeah. Matthew Jenkins: What I've learned though is that feeling abandoned by God is not the same as being abandoned by God. God can feel silent and still be present. I also learned that men didn't need to stop hiding. We're often taught to be strong and push through, keep quiet and handle it. but isolation is dangerous and and even though I had friends, I I got became isolated. You know, I once felt beaten up by God, but now I believe he was breaking me into in breaking things in me so that he could rebuild me. Michael Chestnut: I think what I like with this is the the honesty, that the f feelings are feelings, They can lie to us, they can be whatever, but we have to acknowledge them or or they start planting root, And so Matthew Jenkins: Mm-hmm. Michael Chestnut: to me, I I'd rather a man be honest with me and tell me what they're thinking, because then you can deal with it, You can do the hard work that it needs. And I think that's probably was part of your your transformation was being able to be honest about how you felt. Matthew Jenkins: Yeah, it it was. not just with I was able to be honest with myself more than I than I've really ever been in. and that that's what really got me in through through the darkest time was realizing just how much I needed God and and being able to say, Matthew, you can't do this on your own. You need God to to really get you through it. Michael Chestnut: Yeah. And I think one of the things that you said, that I liked that kind of stuck with me, is that the hardest part wasn't like the cancer itself. It was grieving the future you never got to see that never happened, Can you explain that a little bit? 'Cause Matthew Jenkins: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Michael Chestnut: I think some of us can resonate with that. Matthew Jenkins: Yeah, so like I said, I had a four year full ride scholarship to the University of Delaware, was studying foreign languages and expected to be a translator and I loved the idea and I planned on the idea of doing my twenty years in the army, and and then retiring and doing something else. I owed the the government four or eight years. I can never remember at this point. It's been so long, but I owed them a certain amount of time for the scholarship. I like the idea of of having that that career and When I was diagnosed with the cancer, the scholarship evaporated, the career path evaporated. To this day, I haven't used my foreign languages as professionally. so I ended up spending years paying off student loans for a degree that I wasn't using. Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. Matthew Jenkins: you know, it it wasn't like some of the degrees that that people will joke about these days with that are you know, should should be useless or should be known to be useless. my mine actually I had a a very intentional purpose with it and it just I I still haven't figured out how to use it professionally. And it it it really took twenty years and lots of counseling to get to the point where I I became okay with that fact and okay with the fact that I never served in the army. I'm I grew up in a very patriotic house and I loved the idea of also serving my country in the the army. It was a lot to deal with at twenty years old. So Michael Chestnut: Well, I imagine. That'd be that's hard to deal with at any age, let alone twenty years of age, So let me ask you this, how far I know you wrote the book in the midst of this, so are you still in the middle of this or are you how long has this been going transpired? Matthew Jenkins: Yeah. so this is the cancer was in two thousand three. it's been twenty three years since I I dealt with that. The anger was ongoing. The marital marital stuff is still ongoing. The divorce unfortunately finalized last year. which I I never wanted wanted a divorce to happen, but you know, God can use even that. But that the divorce is finalized, but in Delaware, the financial settlement takes place after the finance finalization of the divorce. So still dealing with with that. still dealing with custody issues that came out of that. one of the things that's not in my book that I'm I'm open about that when I was suicidal, my now ex-wife filed a restraining order against me saying that I was homicidal. And because of that, I lost access to my kids. I had supervised visitation with them for an hour, a week, for a year. and I'm just now getting to the point where I have overnights with them. unfortunately it is a it's a high conflict divorce and co-parenting situation. that At this point I I'm just trusting God. So I'm I'm still definitely in the middle of parts of it and over parts of it. But a a lot of the the stuff that I talk about in the book, I'm in the middle of. Michael Chestnut: Mm. Well, and divorce man, divorce is so hard as it is. And then when you throw children in it, and then you throw your faith in it, and then it just it it's just tough, one of the things you you said in your book was the church wants to tell us to trust God. Just trust God. Like that's that heals everything. But that's a journey. That's just not a sw Matthew Jenkins: There it is. Michael Chestnut: switch on and off. So how did you reconcile that? Matthew Jenkins: You know, in a lot of ways it's something I'm so reconciling. it's it would be nice if it were a switch, definitely. but one of the ways that I was able to get to the part where I was I I'm able to trust him as much as I am. And I s and I don't say that I'm I'm perfect in any means. I'm got a long way to go, but really spending the the daily quiet times with him, I used to struggle to have even five minutes of daily quiet time. And you know, I would look at people and go, How do you do it? And That was about as far as that inner dialogue went. I never really I knew it was something I knew I should be doing, but I never I hadn't wrestled with with the why of of why I should be doing it. So it was not something that I I ever prioritized in my life. And Since May of twenty-five, I have I'm almost completely through the Bible, reading it chapter by chapter each day. and then I use an app that I that do has a commentary for each chapter. And it's really drawn me closer to him. I'm able to see the bigger picture of the Bible and see how in the past he's worked, and I know that the God of today is the God of yesterday and is the God of tomorrow. And so by being able to see the way he's taken care of his people, both on the individual and the group levels, throughout the Bible, and then just the the commentary brings it also to the modern day. it's reinforced that I can trust him. going back to your your the the comment about your your pastor I actually wrestle with church heart in the in the book. I have a whole chapter on it. 'cause I have a a friend who told me that her pastor challenged her as a believer for taking government benefits as a single mom of two. And, you know, kind one of those things that what was the pastor thinking? and Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. Matthew Jenkins: I went through some church on a lesser basis when I was going through chemo that I I talk about in the book, but Nothing major, suicidal incident never came from you know church hurt or something like that. It was just it was more the isolation and a a Confluence of a bunch of different things that that happened all at once. Michael Chestnut: Hmm. Well, and just the phrase beat up by God, that that says a whole lot. And I I sometimes I think, can the beat up by God feel like the beat up by Christians more the more so than God? But I also look at your life and I mean you have had a lot thrown your way. You've just you've had your share of it over the couple of years. how's your future feel for you right now? Matthew Jenkins: Yeah, I'm optimistic about it. a lot of that again goes back and it it's something that I have to almost not harp on and and talk extensively about because the quiet time has has changed my perspective. And I c I can't talk about it enough. Because it it it completely changes your perspective on life and about everything. Now I also believe in science and I believe that the medication changes have helped with my depression and anxiety that that I have. but so those two things combined have really given me a much more positive outlook. Even when things have have gone downhill, I haven't gotten to that low point or anywhere even close to it. you know, one of the things that I talk about in the book is the the verse from Paul that says to live is Christ and die is gain. And I I had I lost track of the living part, and it was just I I knew where I was going when Whenever the Lord calls me home. And I didn't have enough focus on on God's purpose in the kingdom here. And when I started refocusing on how he could use me and use my story, that gave me the ability to realize that God's in control and that I I I don't need to take my life into my own hands in that way. and that when God's done with me, he will call me home and I don't need to go home s sooner. Michael Chestnut: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and depression and anxiety is is real. where a lot of churches get it wrong too. I I have come back from preachers who preached on my medication as witch a form of witchcraft and things like that, but I take antidepressants and I probably will the rest of my life. That's not me and a lack of trust in God at all. In fact, if anything, it's probably helped me with my my trust and faith in God because it it's there's a tool that God was able to give me, to help. And what I'm able to do now because of that is amazing. so there's Matthew Jenkins: Mm-hmm. Michael Chestnut: there's all these different things and I think as Christians too, we've got to look at depression and anxiety as a lack of faith and trust in God that that has nothing to do with it. Life is tough. Life is tough. And there is also science behind it about the chemical imbalances that depression and anxiety causes and dopamine and and all sorts of other things involved in there that can be regulated through this medicine to help us overcome some of that anxiety. So what would you say to those people on that situation battling the the anxiety depression part of it? Matthew Jenkins: Yeah. well as far as the it being not being enough faith and if you have enough faith you'll get over it. That's something I wrestled with with my mom for a while. she was in the camp of if if your faith is strong enough, then you won't be depressed. and I don't know completely what what changed her mind, but she's she's finally at the point where she recognizes that no, it's not just a lack of faith. we have a very close relationship. my dad passed away s eight years ago, my sister passed away two years ago. and so it's just the two of us left, especially now that I'm I'm divorced. and so we actually just got back from a trip to Spain to see the eclipse. But you know, I think part of her change was actually seeing me realizing how strong my faith was and realizing that I still wrestled with the depression. what I would say to anyone that's wrestling with it though is first and foremost, if it's gotten to the point of of suicidal thoughts, make sure you you contact someone, a pr a professional the nine eight eight Suicide Crisis High hotline, or a pastor or someone else. You know, I I would be remiss not to say that that in this answer, but don't be ashamed of taking medicine that can help you. Recognize also that it can take a lot of different medicines and combinations to get it right. I was on antidepressants when I had my suicidal thoughts. thankfully the the medication changes that I had when I was in the hospital have gotten I haven't had any since March of twenty twenty five. and that's not because life's been easy and it's been all hunky dory. it's been plenty difficult. but and find a group a a group of guys or gals that you can really sit down and be honest with, get counseling. you know, one of the things that when I was researching for part of my book, but it's ridiculously low of the number of men that go to counseling. less than women who are in counseling. And now part of that has to do with with the le the lack of male counselors and and men generally feel feeling, you know preferring a male counselor to talk to, but there's nothing that is shameful about ha being counseling or taking antidepressants. it it really can be helpful and and more people need it. I I would say probably the vast majority of the population needs counseling. in at least at some point in their life, if not continuously, it should be extremely difficult get to get an appointment with a counselor. but Yeah. I I I run into the issue of of not necessarily knowing who's safe and who's not, because I'm I'm so open at times. And so it's it's been something that I've really had a had trained myself because I I am just open in in general about my life. Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. Matthew Jenkins: but The you know, the the interesting thing about the medication change that I went through was it actually solved the chronic pain that I was going through from the car accident that I mentioned earlier. Michael Chestnut: Mm. Matthew Jenkins: when I was talking to the psychologist in the the mental hospital, you know, I was talking about having the the nerve pain and and whatnot. And and at this point it'd been three or four years and I had surgery, and I was still in in chronic pain. I have a spinal cord stimulator implanted that uses medica or electrical pulses to interrupt pain signals. Well, it died while I was in the hospital because I didn't have my charger. Because Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. Matthew Jenkins: it it's a it's got a three foot long cord. Well, you can't have those in the mental hospital because that's a you know, you could choke yourself with it. And so it died while I was in the hospital, but he changed my meds to one an antidepressant that helps with nerve pain. And I haven't had any back pain since. And you know, I I heard in in church about the miracles of healing. And so I'm envisioning God having me walk up to the altar one day at the end of church service and someone praying over me, and all of a sudden the pain is gone. And instead he used this really difficult time in my life to get me out of pain. It's a miracle nonetheless. But It was not the way that I expected the the miracle to happen or Michael Chestnut: Yeah. Matthew Jenkins: was looking for. So that's the other thing that I would say to the listeners are is keep an open mind because God doesn't work how we think he's going to necessarily. you know, every healing that Christ did in the Bible was was different because there's not a formula formula. and You know, one time he made mud and put it in the guy's eyes, the other time he spoke it your miracle will will happen. It may be in heaven, it may be this this side of heaven, but it may not look the way you expect. Michael Chestnut: Hmm. That's that's for sh well, honestly, I don't think any of our lives have turned out the way that we we had mapped out or thought it would go right. that's part of life. God's God's ways are not our ways. And we don't know why he does what he does. and sometimes we, sometimes we know later on down the road, like right now, down the road, I know this, God has taken the worst moments of my life. To help me help other men who are walking through it. And so I'm at least grateful that God is using what happened to me to create his own story of who I am and allowing that to be my identity rather than the worst moments in my life to to be my identity, which I think is really crucial. A lot of us we focus on the failures versus what God's doing and can do. But Matthew, before we go though, I do want to ask you, tell me, what what would you leave the man listening today that's in the middle of it to encourage him? Matthew Jenkins: I would say, brother, that and I'll speak to the person who feels like he's just barely holding on, especially right now. You know, maybe it's addiction, maybe it's divorce, maybe it's anger, it's depression, maybe it's something you never said out loud because you're afraid of what people would think if they really knew. I want to hear this, I want you to hear this clearly. You're not beyond redemption. I know what it feels like to be at the end of yourself, I know what it feels like to. believe in God and still feel abandoned by him. I know what it feels like to carry shame, anger, and disappointment for years and not know what to do with it. But I also know this shame wants you alone. The enemy wants you isolated. Healing begins when you bring the truth into the light and you tell God the truth. Tell a safe brother the truth. Keep showing up. Keep going to the meeting. Make the call. Pray the messy prayer. Open the Bible even when you don't feel like it. You don't have to fix your whole life today. Just take that next faithful step. A man's not weak because he needs help. He is wise when he finally asks for it. God can handle your brokenness. He can handle your questions. he can handle your anger and he can rebuild more than you think. Keep walking. Even if you limp, you're still moving forward and you're not walking alone. Or at the very least, you don't have to walk alone. Michael Chestnut: Yeah. Well, Matthew, thank you so much for that. Thank you for being on the show. Before we go though, can you tell me tell us where can we get your book at? Matthew Jenkins: It's available on Amazon, but e the easiest way to find it is on my website, which is beatupby God dot com. Michael Chestnut: Okay. Matthew Jenkins: And there's a link directly to the Amazon listing there. So Michael Chestnut: Okay. I'll make sure we put that all in our description for today. And listen, if you're going through some of this, like Matthew said, you have the suicidal hotline, make sure you you can reach out to that nine eight eight, On that, or reach out to a brother, reach out to a pastor, reach out to someone. You don't have to walk this alone. In fact, God has not designed us to have to walk through this alone. the enemy will speak a lot of lies over us. So I just want to encourage you today to to break away from the darkness, break away from the lies, and seek some light in your life. And to my listeners, till next time, just keep being intentional.