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Summer Series: Safe in the Father's Heart-When Father is a Painful Word · The Father's Business Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: And I am Kimberly Roddy.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: We are so glad that you've joined us.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Hi everyone, we're so grateful that you're joining us today for Episode 5 in our summer series of Safe in the Father's Heart.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: We want to give you a heads up here from the start.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: This is a heavy conversation.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: It's one of the more heavier conversations than we've had, but it's also a very sacred conversation, an important conversation.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: This episode it gently, but it also honestly explores the hard question of how do we relate to God as Father when our earthly father wasn't safe, wasn't kind or wasn't present, and that's a very hard question to ask it really is, and we understand that everyone has their own journey with their earthly fathers, some of those being much more traumatic than others, and so we want to walk tenderly into this topic that can carry some very deep stories and kind of the question of what do I do when the word father brings pain or makes me feel traumatized in any way.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: So, whether it was emotional neglect or absence or abuse or abandonment, or even disappointment with our earthly fathers, all of our earthly fathers have failed us in some way, and for some of us, because of the failures of our earthly father, of the trauma or the pain or the abuse that we have felt, it can feel nearly impossible to trust that God is different when we call him father.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And if that's your story, know that we see you, we honor your pain, him, father.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: And if that's your story, know that we see you, we honor your pain.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: And we're not here to offer simple answers, pat answers or some kind of spiritual band-aid.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: We're here to gently, truly say that God is not like your earthly father.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: He is as Psalm 34, 18 says, he is close to the brokenhearted and he saves those who are crushed in spirit.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: That is the heart of the father that we are talking about.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: For some of you, even the word father may feel triggering.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: In this episode we share a story of someone we know who used to call God daddy instead of father, because the word father was too painful.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: And that's okay.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: God meets you where you are.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: He's not put off by your honest questions or your raw grief.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Maybe you're asking a hard question like where was God when this happened to me?
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: You're not alone in that.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: It's hard to sit with that question.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: It's really hard to wonder why did God allow this to happen to me?
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Did God cause this to happen to me?
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: All these things that go through our minds?
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Job asked those questions.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Job asked those questions.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: David asked those questions.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Even Jesus on the cross cried out my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: So God can handle your questions.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: In fact, he even invites your questions.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: He's not afraid of them.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: He doesn't shy away from them.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: In Isaiah 118, the scriptures say come now, let us reason together.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: The Hebrew word there can mean argue it out.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: God welcomes your wrestling and we see that throughout scripture.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: So don't be afraid of asking the question.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Be ready to wrestle, be ready to deal with it.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Just know that God will meet you there and Kimberly.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: That's one thing I love about God so much is that he does allow me to come with whatever emotion I'm feeling and whatever questions I have, and he is loving enough and big enough to be able to handle it, and he's not intimidated in any way by us asking Him.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: The other part of that is he doesn't always give us an answer, and so we're not trying to explain away suffering, and some wounds go too deep for simple answers.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: But what we want to offer you through this particular episode is a general reminder that your father is still with you and he weeps with you and he doesn't minimize your pain and, through Jesus, he has healing to offer to you, even in the places that you feel like you can never find healing.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: There's another verse in Isaiah Isaiah 30, 26, and it says the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: That's a hard verse to think about.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: It's also deeply honest, though, because it says that God doesn't ignore the pain.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: He binds it up, he heals it.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: He's both sovereign and intimate with us in our pain.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the second half of that verse is a hard one and I think, something that we all have to wrestle with, which is he heals the wounds that he inflicted, and that goes back to that question of why did God allow all this stuff to happen to me.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: So maybe, like the story we're going to, you're going to hear in this episode the, the Olympic runner, derek Redmond.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: You need to hear this today.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: God is the kind of father who rushes down from the stands and wraps his arms around you and helps you finish the race when you don't have the strength to finish it alone.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Finish the race when you don't have the strength to finish it alone.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: He is here for you, and even if you feel like he wasn't there for you, then he is here for you now and there is a place of greater hope and freedom and healing for you.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: So, if you're limping through this life with wounds from your earthly father, or if you're walking with someone else close to you who is, we pray that today, as you listen to this episode and as it sits with you, that you will sense the presence of our Abba Father, not distant, not angry, kind, close, steady.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: As Romans 8.15 says, you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Abba, father.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: So we hope this will be a moment of healing, but not pressure, a beginning to another step in the journey towards being able to really trust that God is your Abba, but not a one, two, three quick fix of all of the things that you've experienced in your life.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: God isn't asking you to hurry through grief or to rub some dirt on it and move on or pick yourself up and you should be over this by now.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: He's just inviting you to bring it to Him.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: So let's enter into this sacred space together in episode five of Safe in the Father's Heart, when the word Father hurts.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Well, welcome everyone.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: This is part five of our series based on Safe in the Father's Heart, and this week in particular, it might be a bit of a heavy one.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about how do you process God as Father if you didn't have a good father?
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a really tough chapter, and we want to recognize that many of you have trauma or abuse or, at the very least, hurt when it comes to your earthly father, and so we acknowledge that some of what we might say today could trigger you if you've had an abusive or a traumatic relationship with your father.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: That is not our intent today.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Our hope and prayer is that you will hear the words of Jesus, that the Holy Spirit will minister deeply to your spirit.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: We know that this is a tough topic, a difficult topic for many.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: For some it's not, but for many it is, and we acknowledge that.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: And if you need to pause this and not yet listen to this episode, that's okay, right, elizabeth?
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I was thinking about that as we're getting ready to record.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: You know, we're kind of marching through this book one week at a time and if you need to still be sitting in being able to forgive people and release people that have hurt you and that may take weeks, months, sometimes years, for you to process through all of that.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: So just because we're releasing a new podcast every week, we're not expecting you to to march through this book and everything to be great in the next six to seven weeks from now.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: So you just really need to listen to where God is moving your heart.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: If you haven't experienced abuse, I'm so thankful for that, but all of us know someone who has, and I mean that's my story.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: My dad was not physically abusive towards me.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I am not a survivor of sexual abuse, but I have some very dear friends who, if you heard their story, it is just horrific and I was able to watch her walk through this for years and it did take years because it was ritual abuse that went on for a very long time, but I watched her come to a place where she could trust God as father.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: She couldn't call him father because that's what she called her earthly father, but she called him daddy God, and so she developed a rich and wonderful relationship with daddy God that she had not had with her earthly father, and it really was amazing to watch God re-innocence her and heal her, and that really is the point of us.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Focusing in on this is so that we can all get to a deeper place of freedom.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: I also want listeners to know that, elizabeth, you and I are not experts.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: There are, I know of a ton of resources out there.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: There's lots of good resources.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: There's lots of good counselors that help in this space.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: If that's a space that you need to step into or are stepped into, we encourage you to keep pressing into that space.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Neither Elizabeth nor I sit in the space where we are trained when it comes to abuse and trauma.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: We do sit in the space, like Elizabeth just mentioned, where we have friends, family members, co-workers, people we've ministered to, who have been abused and in trauma.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: We just want to walk alongside you in the journey, but we are not here to offer professional help or advice.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: We want to offer what Jesus has to say and what scripture has to say about the fact that many of us didn't have a good father, and so that our hope today is that you will be able to, if you're able to, sit with this episode, that you will be encouraged and walk away with some hope for your journey, cause we do recognize that we are all on a journey towards understanding these things.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and also, if you're coming here thinking we've got the answers, I'm also going to disappoint you there, because I think we struggle as much as anyone does to ask that question of why.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, we believe God is all powerful, we believe he can do the impossible, and so why didn't he intervene?
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: And I don't have a good answer for that.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I have some scriptures that are a little hard to swallow that we're going to take a minute and look at that, talk about where God was.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: But I don't.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: I don't really have a good answer and I remember it was an abuse, but there was a very hard traumatic situation in my life and people kept asking me questions about it and I remember it was an abuse, but there was a very hard traumatic situation in my life and people kept asking me questions about it, and I remember just having to say to them you know, if you're waiting for me to say something that makes you look at me and go oh, that makes sense, we're not going to get there.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, similar to Kimberly's dad dying so young we're not going to get an answer to the why because God's ways are so much higher than ours and his mind is so much larger than what we can comprehend, and I know because scripture says ultimately all things are working together for his glory.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: But does that make sense of trauma right now?
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: No, and so I love that God is not afraid of us to question him and he's not afraid of us coming to him with our honest opinions.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: If you look in scripture, you know Jacob wrestled all night with the angel of the Lord and Job rants at God for 13 chapters after all the stuff that he's been put through, where he loses everyone but his wife and his livestock, and like his physical health, like everything is taken from him.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: And there's 13 chapters recorded in Job of Job just yelling at God and saying what do you think you're doing?
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: A lot of the Psalms is David crying out and saying why have you forsaken me?
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: And Psalms is supposed to be that book of the Bible.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: That is how we learn how to worship, but over half of the book is laments, and I mean New Testament.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Paul had some thorn in the flesh we don't know what that is, but he begged God to take it away and God didn't.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: And so there's something about struggle and pain and trauma that God uses in each of our lives, and that's really hard to fully understand.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: If you haven't taken the time to wrestle with God through these things, we encourage you to do that, and maybe you've done it and you're in a season where you need to come back to it.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: I think there's seasons where we wrestle and then we we kind of come to a place of rest and then another season of life comes up where it's like we need to wrestle with the next layer and that's okay and so it.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Like Elizabeth said, it is okay to wrestle with God and it is okay to be angry with God.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: He, he can handle that.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: He really can, yeah, he can.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: And even in Isaiah 118, it's a familiar verse that a lot of us know that says come now, let us reason together.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: That's a very calm translation of that word, because that word reason actually means to argue, to judge, to reason or to prove.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: And I like the way the message says it, where it says come, sit down, let's argue this out.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: And so God is speaking to us.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: In that verse he's saying come to me and let us reason together.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Come, have a conversation with me.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, he knows what you're feeling.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: And if we try to just put on a facade that everything's great and God works all things together for his good and I'm fine, that's that's not being honest.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: That's putting on a facade with the people around you.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: It's also putting on a facade in front of God, because he knows our innermost feelings and our hearts, and so he is inviting you to come to him and say God, I don't like this and I don't get it and I don't understand why you did this.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: And so I do think that first step in your healing is being honest with God about God.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Here's what happened, and where were you?
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, you could have done something and you didn't, and allowing yourself to have that dialogue with him?
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he can, even if it doesn't feel like he is loving and kind.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: He is loving and kind, yeah, and he can handle our questions and our emotions.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: But, elizabeth, what happens if we don't get any answers?
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Well, welcome to my life.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Oftentimes he doesn't answer that question, why?
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, kimberly, you know that I think you spent a lot of time asking that question and you finally had to come to a point where he didn't, he wasn't going to explain himself, and part of that is, yes, he is loving and kind.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, I remember that season where I people was like you know, how are you, how's your life going?
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: And I'm like nothing in my life feels good and kind.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: But I know God is good and kind and so I know he's still here and it's just.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I had to out loud say over and over and over again this is not good and kind, but God is good and kind and he does not change.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: So, even though I can't understand it, there is goodness and kindness somewhere in all of this.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: There may never be an answer to that question.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Now, somewhere down the road, we may be able to see some of how God was using it to do something in our own hearts, or how God dispenses justice in a way that we didn't fully understand what he was up to.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Sometimes he pulls back the curtain and lets us see, but a lot of times, when Job asked him those questions for 13 chapters.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: He didn't answer any of them.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: What he came back with was just where were you when I was creating the heavens and the earth?
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Where were you when I was doing this?
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: And basically he just spoke his sovereignty and his greatness of who he is as God back to Job and never answered a single one of Job's questions.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know that Job ever knew until he's in heaven.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, by the way, job, the reason all that crap happened to you is because I said to Satan have you considered my servant?
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Job?
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: You were doing a great job following me with all your heart.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: That's why your life went down the toilet.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know that Job ever got any answers while he was still alive.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Right, it's like Isaiah 45, 7.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: I form the light and create darkness.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I bring prosperity and create disaster.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: I, the Lord, do all these things.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really hard to hear.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: He creates darkness and disaster.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Here.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: He creates darkness and disaster.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: That doesn't sound like a very loving God, but somehow, in the fullness of who God is and the otherness of who God is, he doesn't just create the good parts of our lives, he's a part of all of it.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, In this chapter you reference Isaiah 30, 26 also, which is a difficult passage to wrestle with.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: It says the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember the first time I really read that and heard that.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: The wounds that God inflicted, that is really hard to grasp.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I have, up to that point, had thought of God as being the rescuer, the savior, the one who you know.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: It's.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Everything that's bad is the enemy and everything that is good is God.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: And honestly, that's giving the enemy too much power.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Do I think the enemy is about destroying God's kids?
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, I do believe in spiritual warfare and I do believe there's things we can pray against, but ultimately there is an order to both heaven and earth, and either God is supreme over all of it or he's not.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: And so, while the enemy may be used as a tool to inflict darkness, isaiah is saying it's the wounds that God inflicted.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: And there's also the thought that, while he is powerful and and holy and he does inflict wounds, according to Isaiah, his ways and his thoughts are higher than ours.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I think that's also in Isaiah.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: And even if he gave us an explanation, could we understand it.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: There's a story in this chapter about Corrie ten Boone which I think really articulates this idea pretty well.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: You may know, or you may not know, that Corrie ten Boone survived a concentration camp in World War II and she tells about traveling with her father on a train.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: As a child, she says.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: And so, seated next to my father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked Father, what is sex sin?
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: At last.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: He stood up, lifted his traveling case and set it back on the floor.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Will you carry it off, the train, corey?
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: He asked.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: I stood up and tugged at it.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: It was crammed with the watches and the spare parts he had purchased that morning.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: It's too heavy.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I said yes, he said, and it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: It's the same way, corey, with knowledge.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Some knowledge is too heavy for children.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: When you are older and stronger, you can bear it.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: For now, you must trust me to carry it for you and explain.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: This is why I allowed this trauma to happen to you.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know that our finite human minds would be able to comprehend and understand, and I don't know that his answer would even satisfy our question, but what I do know that we need in those moments is to know who he is and to allow who he is to begin the process of healing what has happened.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: So, you know, we talk a lot about sovereignty and God being in control, and I ultimately, yes, do believe God is in control of all things and all things are God filtered.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: But there's also the piece of us living in a very fallen world, and God does give us the choice.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: We have freedom to make choices, and so the sins of others also end up harming us sometimes, and so it's a very complex topic to wrap your mind around from our finite place to understand exactly whose part was what and who are we saying is to blame.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: And you know you're saying it's God, but you're saying the enemy.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: And you're saying people have a choice, and yes to all of those.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: And, like we said, we are not experts and I don't begin to understand the complexity of all of that, but I know in God's mind all of it falls together and it does make sense.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And so, rather than focusing on the why did it happen, I think we have to kind of start shifting our hearts to one God.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: This hurts and I am in pain and I have wounds and I need help and realizing the only place to find true healing from this is in the heart of God.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: How do we find healing in the heart of God?
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that is going to be individual to each person.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I've watched as God has spoken to the hearts of several different women who are dealing with the fact that they were abused in their own home, and the way he shows up for each one of them is so unique, but it starts with them being able to be honest and say God, this is what happened.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Here are my feelings towards the person who hurt me.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Here are my feelings towards you for not intervening and stopping it and then slowly allowing the person to come to a place to understand that God is loving and that Jesus understands.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Jesus knows what it's like to be falsely accused.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: He was physically and emotionally abused.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: He was rejected and abandoned for things that he didn't do All on his way to the cross so that we could be healed and most of my friends who have been through this I can't speak of my own experience, but most of my friends who have been through this, what they're most hungry for is for the shame of what happened to them to be washed and made clean.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: And so for most of them, the first thing as I've watched them prayer ministers who know what they're doing not me, again, that's completely said.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: We are.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: We are not trained in this, but I have had the honor of being present as people trained in this have been working with some of my friends, and the first thing they hear is it wasn't their fault, they didn't ask for it and it wasn't their fault Because I think, in some ways, we always think it was.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: And so Jesus, for the few cases that I've been around, always shows up first and just says to them it wasn't your fault.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: And then he speaks to them of how they can be washed and made white as snow.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: And so I think it's a process of allowing God to re-innocence you, to wash away all of the trauma and the pain, and then, over time, I've watched some of them sit in that months and years of just keep coming back to God.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Here's another memory Would you take this Would you carry that suitcase for me, would you wash me and make me whiter than snow, that suitcase for me, would you wash me and make me whiter than snow?
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: And as they feel cleansed and whole from all that, then it's a process of rebuilding trust with people, because trust has been broken.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: All of that takes time.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: And time is going to look different for each person.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's okay.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: God is outside of time, and so it will be a journey.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: It will take time.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: In the book you have the quote by Oswald Chambers there are times when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but you should trust him.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: At times God will appear like an unkind friend, but he is not.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: He will appear like an unnatural father, but he is not.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: He will appear like an unjust judge, but he is not.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Keep the thought that the mind of God is behind all things, strong and growing.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Not even the smallest detail of life happens unless God's will is behind it.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Therefore, you can rest in perfect confidence in him.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: And I think in all these things, elizabeth, we feel that tension.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Like it's just.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: There's just tension, yeah, and knowing that our heavenly father is there for us and yet he has allowed things.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not just allowed them.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: But sometimes.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you go back to Isaiah Inflected them.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, kimberly, I feel the tension too, and it's just like I am so aware people listening to this have been through awful, horrific, traumatic things that I would never wish on anybody.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: And yet the Bible is telling me that God is loving and kind and compassionate on all that he has made, and it is a tough place to live in, and I guess I guess the only hook I can hold onto in all of this is he allowed his own son to go through horrible trauma, so it's not like you know his, his family got a pass and he is inflicting this stuff on others.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: He and and he loves us.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: He created us, he knit us together in our mother's womb.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: He's been intimately acquainted with all of our ways.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: We can't comprehend, as humans, the amount of love God has for us, and so I just as much as our question is well, why didn't you do anything about it?
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I also just have this sense of God was just weeping, knowing that you had to go through what you had to go through, and weeping that you're still living in the pain of that, and so it is a hard transition to make and it's a hard shift in your heart to do, but, as much as we can, we have to use the truth of who God is and the truth of his word to be able to transition our heart that God is not defined by our circumstances.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: God is defined by who he says he is, says he is, and so it's so easy for us to look at, use our circumstances as the lens through which we look through and define.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Well, that is who God is, because this is what's happened to me versus using God as the lens that we look through to look at our circumstances.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Don't allow your circumstances to define who God is.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Allow who God is to define your circumstances and allow him to explain your circumstances, versus our minds that are always trying to find a reason behind everything, coming up with our own conclusions about what has happened to us.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Elizabeth, I think another way to get at what you're saying is CS Lewis said I don't want my image of God, I want God.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: So a few weeks ago, we talked about these images that we have of who God is, because we shape them and we frame them through our lens, like you were saying, of our life, little life on this earth.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: And so we, you know, we talked about God's the cop around the corner waiting to bust us.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: He's the all American buffet where we choose to pick and choose what we want.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: So, rather than saying this is who God is, based on our perspective, that that's an image of God that we are creating, and we need to be careful about that and recognize that and instead look to who is God, who is God himself.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Is that kind of get at what you're saying too?
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: We limit God if we try to define him based on our experience here on this earth, versus focusing on the greatness of who God is, all of the aspects of who God is, and then allow that to inform our circumstances.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: And then I think we have these stories where we see fathers show up for their earthly children, like we do have stories of that, right, yeah, we do.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: And there's the story in chapter six of the book Safe in the Father's Heart where we read about derrick redmond.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: He was a british 400 meter record holder in the 1992 olympics in barcelona.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: He had had to pull out four years earlier because of an injury that happened just 90 seconds before his race began.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: So in barcelona he had won the first two rounds without breaking a sweat.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: He posted the fastest time in the first round heats.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: It was his time to shine.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: He was there, everything felt good.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: And when they took off he heard a popping sound.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: He grabbed his leg, he dropped on the track.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: His hamstring was injured Again.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Imagine these guys.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: These are fast races, right, and they have trained for years for this millisecond kind of thing.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: And he must be laying there with a thousand thoughts in his head.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: But he got up after, after a moment or two of this intense pain and he hobbled about 50 meters and he was at the 200 meter mark.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: That's when he realized it was over.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Everyone else had crossed the finish line, but he didn't want to give up.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: He wanted to finish the race.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: So as all that's happening, his father, jim Redman, was in the stadium.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: He was running down the stands trying to get to his son as fast as he could.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: He passed all the security guards to get to his son as fast as he could.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: He passed all the security guards, got onto the track and, with a hundred meters to go, jim said to his son Derek, it's me, you don't have to do this.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: And Derek replied Dad, I want to finish.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: And his dad said okay, we started this thing together and now we'll finish it together.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: So he managed to get Derek to stop trying to run and just walk.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: And he kept repeating you're a champion.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: You've got nothing to prove You're a champion.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: You've got nothing to prove You're a champion, you've got nothing to prove.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: The way Derek remembers it, he says we hobbled across the finish line with our arms around each other, just me and my dad, the man I'm really close to, who has supported my athletics career since I was seven years old.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: I've since been told there was a standing ovation by the crowd of 65,000, but nothing registered at the time.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: He wasn't doing it for the crowd, he just wanted to finish and his dad was there in his darkest hour to help him and we have pictures of that.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: As much as we talk about how we don't have pictures of that, we do have pictures of that.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: We have pictures of earthly dads showing up and representing the Father, heart of God, because our Heavenly Father is always there for us.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: He's our Abba right, we talked about that.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: He's our Papa God, our Daddy God, like you said a few minutes ago, and he is there for us.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and even when we feel like we're alone on the track of life and we can't do anymore, god is there and he's ready to come alongside of us and say you're a champion, you've got nothing to prove, let's do this together.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: So I'd like for us just to close our time today, allowing our friend Richard, who is a wonderful father and grandfather and a part of our ministry and on our board, to end by giving all of us a blessing from his father heart as a representation of God's heavenly father's heart towards us.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Blessing of your heavenly father.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: God has been present with you from the womb Before your mother or father knew they were expecting you.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Your father knew you were there.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: He rejoiced as your Abba.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: You are his child.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: On the authority of his word, he ordained you and brought you forth.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: Hear God's word for you in Psalm 22, 9.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: The psalmist said you brought me out of the womb.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: You'd made me trust in you, even at my mother's breast, and in Psalm 71, 6.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: From birth I have relied on you.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: I will ever praise you.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: Receive God's work as he cleanses deep wounds that you received from words and actions in your family of origin.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: Receive the ministry of Jehovah Rapha, the healing covenant, name of eternal God, as he works in the core of your being.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: Receive his healing, blessing and deep release.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: The Spirit of your Father lives in you to heal and make you whole.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: The Spirit of truth and the God of all mercy is ready to do a thorough work to bring new life.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Receive his cleansing from all hurtful memories, feelings and emotions.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: Jesus died to set you free.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: Release all pain to him.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: God promised in his word that he would wash you and make you whiter than snow.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: Be blessed as God fills up the hole in your heart, those empty spaces, that bottomless pit that craves nearness, affirmation, connection and significance and yet fears it is unable to receive it and runs away from it.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: Be at peace and receive healing from wounds caused by lack of bonding.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: Receive cleansing from attachment wounds, as Father God binds you to himself with cords that cannot be broken.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: God fed his Son with his words of approval that nourished him emotionally, and a voice came from heaven you are my Son, whom I love.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: With you I am well pleased.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: These words strengthened Jesus in his inner being.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: If the Son of God needed these words of affirmation from his Father, how much more do you?
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: You long to hear words like that from your earthly father?
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: Receive your heavenly father's words.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: I love you, I am pleased with you.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: Let your heavenly father, father you, be blessed to rest secure and safe in his love.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast.