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What Grief Has Taught Me About God · Rethink Revive with David Leake

• 0:00
  This is about to be a very raw episode. I'm calling it what grief has taught me about God.
• 0:05
  If you're looking for something light, this might not be your episode, but in this one, I want to talk all about the different lessons that I am learning currently as I walk through the loss of my dad, Pastor Jeff Leake. It's been a heavy season, a weird season, but there has been some really hopeful things, and some man huge blessings from the Lord that I wouldn't have been able to experience without a season like this. So, listen, if you are walking through any kind of pain or suffering or grief, then I'm walking through with you, and I'm going to talk about this, and a whole lot more. If you're interested, tune in. Hey everyone, welcome to the Rethink Revive podcast, where we take a second look at social and spiritual issues. We are officially back, and it's been a few months. The last episode I did, which is crazy to think about, was I think four days after my dad, Pastor Jeff Leake, had passed. If you are new to the show, originally from about 2019 until January of this year, I had been co-hosting with my dad, Pastor Jeff Leek, who was lead pastor of Allison Park Church, and he passed away unexpectedly of a heart attack on february 7 of this year, so you know it's, it's, it's good to be back. It's a little weird to be back, and you know, on the front end, let me just say, sorry, it's taken so long. It was my desire, our desire, as a team, you know, me and producer Matt, who's still with us, to try to get this out earlier, but logistically there were some complications. As I said before, I'm recording this in my living room in Jacksonville, Florida.
• 1:53
  I'm six and a half, whatever it is, seven months into the journey of planting a church with my family and my best friends, and so I can talk more about that later, but we are starting back up, and probably the schedule will be about one release per month over the summer and into the fall, and then we'll reevaluate. On the last episode, I talked about how we'll have other co-hosts, and that's still the plan, but for this one today, it will just be me again, and then we'll kind of revisit things and the future moving forward, so let's let's jump straight into this. This is a different format than I'm used to, and then I hope to do a different format than I would hope to do in the future, because typically the nature has been a discussion based on curiosity, where we explore a topic with me and informally my dad, but you know someone else, and we kind of dialog back and forth. Now it's me recording, giving you my thoughts, and just my thoughts, you know, and my processes and stuff. So this certainly feels different to me.
• 2:59
  I'm looking straight at the camera the whole time, which is, which is different, but you know, I want to adapt to a new normal and do it with you, and I've had so much kind feedback and support from everybody that's a part of our podcast family. Many of you are from Allison Park Church, but there are people from all over the country, really all over the world that have been a part of these conversations for a long time, and I know that they're deeply special to you, as well as they are to me. If you're new, then, hey, welcome to the whole mess that we're in. I shouldn't even say a mess, it's just life, but you know, this has been certainly a journey. If you're hoping for a fun and positive episode that's not heavy, this is probably not the episode to jump in. Just fair warning, I would maybe recommend, although I'm not sure that it's always just fun and positive, but I'd maybe recommend my friends, my best friend Jordan's podcast, Jor Talks Discipleship. If you want light and energy, or you know, I don't know, I know he did one not that long ago on the Epstein file, so super different, not, I guess that's not light either.
• 4:08
  This one, at least for today, I just want to share a moment with you, and you know, talk about about the process. So, here's my title for today. I want to talk to you about what grief has taught me about God, and I'm going to put a little tag on the end. This is round one, probably it's round one for a number of reasons, but I don't know that my thoughts today will echo my thoughts a year from now, and I think that a journey like the one that the Lord's taking me on right now, and learning to live and to do ministry, and to move forward in the absence of my dad, Pastor Jeff, who is a mentor and a coach and a pastor to me, as well as my father, it's. A different world that I'm living in, but what I'll say is, grief has taught me a few things, I'm sure it has a lot more to teach me. Maybe I should say God's taught me a few things through the process of grieving and of mourning, and yeah, so I can already feel like, man, this is this is not a light episode, but it's going to be good, I think. And so I would love to invite you to join, join me in this. I did an episode with my dad. I don't know the title, we could link it in the show notes, but it was on grief. It was a number of years ago, think I might have mentioned this last time we talked about CS Lewis, who's the author of The Chronicles of Narnia series, as well as a number of amazing books. One of them is called Mere Christianity. It's a brilliant piece written in the 40s about, you know, why we should have belief in Jesus, and it's like an apologetic defense.
• 6:00
  It's amazing, short book, really, really good, but he wrote two books on grief, and one we talked about was called The Problem of Pain. It was written from a philosophical perspective of how can pain exist or evil exist if God truly is all powerful and all good, and it's a really good read, but he actually wrote a second one.
• 6:17
  CS Lewis's wife passed away, and he went through a serious process of grieving and mourning, and he had another book on the same-ish topic called A Grief Observed, and it was much more raw and back and forth, and you know, in the book, C. S. Lewis questions God and questions his assumptions, and ultimately lands in a place of peace and trust, but you know, for me, as I'm thinking about this, like this is the grief observed era for me, you know, I think in the last episode on grief that we did, not the last one I just did, I mean, the last one I did as well was probably the same era, right after losing my dad, but that other one we were certainly in grief, but this is just a little different, and so you know there are lessons that I think I'm learning that probably haven't landed at a verbal level, so this is this is round one, so I want to invite you on, you know, the journey with me. Here's the other thing, too. The feedback that I got from many of you after the last time we did this was that it was a way for you to process and heal. Some of you have losses that are, you know, deeply wounding and grieving and painful, but also I realized the majority of you probably knew my dad, or he was a mentor or pastor voice in your life, or maybe you didn't know him well, but you listened to this show and he made a big difference in your life, and so I realized that many of you are grieving and morning over the same same event, the same process that I'm in. So, so let's let's just journey together down this, this, this path, and talk about at least from my perspective what grief actually has taught me so far. Let me start with this. I want to talk more about what I've learned about God, but probably it's helpful to talk about where I am in the journey.
• 8:24
  Maybe this will be relatable to you, maybe it isn't. I don't know, but let's just start here, because not even really sure where else to start. In reflection, I think one of the things is that I have realized is I wasn't at all prepared for this, which obviously, like, nobody was. I guess I mean it was a totally unexpected death, you know? Like, he was 61 he was in good health, he had lost, I think, 40 pounds or something like that over the year previous to his to my dad's death. So I don't really know what I was expecting from a kind of lost or grief like this, but I think that this has been different than how I anticipated it feeling, and one of the things that I'm learning right now in this process is that in grief the only way to move forward is to root yourself in the here and now, you know. Obviously, there's a piece of the grief process of mourning a loss that requires us to look back, and then there's the period of adjustment of learning a new normal and moving forward, but I've noticed that there's been times where I just have a very overly negative view of how things are right now, or the future, and I, you know, I've realized I think that's just grief, it's the feeling of pain and of loss, and the fact that normal is different now, and so rather than focusing too much on what's ahead, I think the health. Thing to do in a period of grief is to learn how to root yourself in the now, and to realize that God is here in the present, walking through pain, and whatever kind of pain you're walking through, you know, rooting yourself in the present with the presence of God is an important thing to do, so that's that's part of what I'm doing right now, and I think, for me, what I've realized is the best thing that I can do is acknowledge that I'm really not thinking clearly and be comfortable with how uncomfortable it is to just be present in the moment. Does that make sense? Like, it's uncomfortable to just live in the here and now. I wish there was a way to feel like you're healing and moving forward and checking some boxes, but that's just not really how grief works, and that's not meant to be how it works, and I think you know there's - it's appropriate that a life that meant as much as Pastor Jeff's did, as my dad's did to me and to many others, that it might take a while, and that's okay. So, again, that's a whole lot about me, not not a lot about God yet, but I know many of us are walking through the same process, and we need to frame where we are before we talk about what what we've learned. So, where does this leave us? I think, first and foremost, this leaves us with a God who exists beyond the grave and who's conquered death itself. Ecclesiastes seven two through four says this: it's better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone. The living should take this to heart, as it goes on to say, frustration is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.
• 11:50
  The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure. That's a heavy verse, you when I read this, it's like, you know, especially now in mourning, it's certainly not better from a quality of life perspective to live in the house of mourning. I mean, it's not fun if you're in pain or loss or season of grieving, you know, this, like it's almost weird to hear this, where he says better to go into house of mourning than a house of feasting. Man, I would way rather feasting right now than mourning, but it's good to ask, why does he say that?
• 12:30
  Why does, why does the writer of Ecclesiastes talk about the reality that it's better for us to be in a house of mourning.
• 12:42
  What I'm going to say, I think, is not going to be super fun to hear. So, if you got into this episode again, I, you know, expecting something light, which I don't think you probably did, because you saw the title. But just fair warning, this is not fun to hear. If you want to pause, come back, that's totally fine, but I want to encourage you to let this sit with you and to finish the episode and process, because while it's painful, it's good for us to hear. So, why is it better to be in a house of mourning? Here's my first observation of what grief has taught me about God, and this isn't just all about the nature of character of God, but it's about who He is, and it's about walking in this journey. So, my first idea is it's better to be in a house of mourning than in a house of feasting, because mourning grounds us in a reality that often is fleeting or is often hard to accept. Here's the reality. This is the not fun part. Someday all of us are gonna die. Feels weird saying this. Someday all of us are gonna die, you know. And that's that's something that I think we want to avoid thinking about. I want to avoid thinking about it.
• 13:53
  I mentioned, you know, my best friend Jordan, Jordan Caleric, he's the director of and pioneer of Chi Alpha Pittsburgh, which is exploding. It's an amazing ministry to college students. He was cracking up and telling me that sometimes when he thinks about death too much, he like spirals, and he was talking about how when he goes to sleep at night, sometimes it's hard to go to sleep because he imagines this is what it's going to be like to die, you know, and it's like I'm going to close my eyes, never wake up. It's not fun to think about death. It's not for anybody, but someday all of us are going to die, right? And beyond that, someday we'll all stand before God, the day and age that we live in, and even just the country we live in, living in the West, you know, we're sort of blinded to eternity. I think even as Christians, maybe this isn't how it is for you, but this has been my experience. Many of us, as Christians, we sort of feel like eternity is more of a technicality. It like, yeah, it exists. Heaven and hell exist.
• 15:01
  Someday we'll have to face that reality, but really, right now, I just want to squeeze all the juice, you know, all the juice out of life that I can right now, and, and someday, you know, assuming all this is real and I haven't missed it massively, someday I'll be in heaven and we'll get to all that, and I'll figure it out, but like, I just want to make sure I get whatever I can out of life now. I mean, and if life is good for you, it's like I want to, I want to enjoy this. I want to enjoy my high school, I want to enjoy college, I want to enjoy my career, I want to enjoy vacation, or or working hard, I want to enjoy family and birthday parties and kids, or whatever it might be, and there's different markers in every phase of life of things that we can enjoy, and you know the reality is that God did make joy, and God made pleasure, and God made feasting. In fact, it was a requirement of Israel to feast to celebrate God, and even communion. I mean, communion was a part of a feasting process of celebrating, commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus, so it's, it's not like pleasure is a bad thing, or feasting is a bad thing, but the house of mourning does something for us, it grounds us in this reality that all of us someday are going to die and stand before a holy God, and that what we do in life matters, you know. Our time is limited. What you're doing now is writing a very, very temporary story. This is what I'm thinking of. I realize I'm talking about this like I'm preaching to you. I'm not even trying to do it from that standpoint, but this is how I'm thinking right now, as I'm processing for myself. Someday soon I'm going to stand before a living God and have to give an account of my life, and that's a scary thought, that's a sobering thought, but it's important because life does matter. It's not just about, you know, as Paul says, eat and drink, drink and be merry. No, the life that we live matters, and we only have a limited time. We don't know how long it's going to be, and it could be when you're 61 that you won't expect to pass away, but for some of us, it'll be, it'll be before that. I hope I have a long life, and I hope I can, you know, accomplish all that God wants for me to accomplish, and enjoy what God wants for me to enjoy, but we don't know how long we have.
• 17:25
  We're not promised tomorrow, so not fun, but what grief teaches us is that life is temporary, and that life counts, and it matters, and it grounds us in reality, because often we're blinded to eternity, but it's coming for all of us, you know, and so the house of mourning brings us back to truth, and that's that's good, it's just it's weird to talk about this when you're actually living in grief and mourning, it's like easier to say that on a side where you're not currently processing grief, like, yeah, like mourning is good for us, but then feeling the pain of it, it's like, ish, you know, but, but living through it now, I can say I am thankful for that, that it does bring me back to reality. I think the second thing that grief teaches us about God is that eternity is worth living for, not just that we are going to face eternity someday, and someday soon, but that eternity is worth living for. You know, my dad is in heaven right now, I'm confident of that, and he's enjoying the very best that heaven has to offer. He's, he's with Jesus, and he's in a, he's not just in a theoretical better place, he's in the ultimate place. I was writing down my thoughts about this today, you know. He made it, he crossed the finish line, and he reached the destination.
• 18:51
  And you know, we talk, there's this cliche, we talk about life is about the journey, not the destination, you know, and that's true, because on this side of eternity we actually never really reach a final destination, we just keep on moving, but there is a destination that we do reach on the other side of eternity, and if you are in right standing with God, if you are washed by the blood of Jesus and your sins have been forgiven, and you're living for the Lord. Then you can stand confident that someday there is a destination that is worth living for. You know, someday I'm going to join my dad and my grandparents and many other loved ones and the heroes of the faith, and I'm going to live in eternity with Jesus, and this is weird to say, because you know, obviously I'm not excited to die, but in this grieving mourning process, I can say I am looking forward to being in heaven someday. You know, I mean, there are seasons that are just painful, and this is one of them for me right now.
• 19:58
  Maybe it's relatable to you. And some of you I know have compounded pain, it's not just one loss, but I was reading somebody's social media post that they've lost four very close loved ones over a period of like two or three years, life is temporary, but eternity is worth living for, and I think that if we can come to grips with that, that there is a destination that we are journeying towards that's worth being in. There's a comfort in that, you know. There's a comfort in the fact that in heaven there's no more pressure, you know. A lot of us have so much stress right now. I'm here with my family in the greater Jacksonville area, or just south of Jacksonville, Florida, and if you're familiar with northeast Florida, it's, it's below Jacksonville, but north of St.
• 20:49
  Augustine. We're planting Salt Church on September 20, 2020-six It's extremely exciting, but it's a lot of pressure to launch something that doesn't exist yet, it's, it's a lot of work, you know. And today I'm looking forward to tonight, because as of the day of recording, we're gonna have our first ever event where we're inviting people to officially join the team. We've had a couple of community events where we're meeting people and and beginning relationships, but today is a big day for us. It's exciting. There's a lot of pressure that comes with it. I know many of us have high-stress jobs, or you're in a family where your kids are young and there's stress that comes with that, or you're taking care of your parents, and and there's pressure there, or you know, there's sickness or financial hardship, or whatever it is.
• 21:37
  Listen, in eternity, in heaven, there is no more pressure, doesn't that sound great?
• 21:43
  Because the work is done and the war is over, and we can stand with Jesus, and we just get to live in permanent happiness, because there is an eternity that we can actually have final rest in. Doesn't that sound wonderful? I'm looking forward to that. There's no more risk, you know. There's no more pressure, because in heaven there's no more risk. It's just done, and the work we've done on earth is done. It's just we get to live in heaven and in perfection. There's no more pain in heaven, you know. We're living in this eternity where everything is restored and everything is made right and everything is just and good and new and holy, and we can be in union with God and others. I mean, it's going to be amazing.
• 22:28
  Revelation talks all about this.
• 22:28
  Here's what Revelation 21 says.
• 22:33
  It says this is verses three through five. Look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
• 22:46
  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new, man. Man, that's a beautiful reality, isn't it.
• 23:07
  And I think one of the benefits of grief is that it grounds us in the reality of eternity, and it gives us something to look forward to. Usually, I don't look forward, and I'm not looking forward to death, but I'm looking forward to heaven, you know, I'm looking forward to being with loved ones, and with Jesus, and with my dad, and it's, I mean, it's, it's weird to think about, but it's like grief pulls back the curtain a little bit, it breaks the fourth wall. It takes you out of the story that you feel like you're living in, and it shows you there's something bigger beyond just where you are now. And I think that's healthy, and so I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to standing before God one day. I'm looking forward to not again not dying, but to hearing, well done, good and faithful servant, to have having lived a life and written a story that I'm proud of, that brings glory to God, that honors Him, and I have a legacy of grandparents and a dad who have done that well and finished their race, and that's healthy, man. Not fun. This episode is like heavy as I'm talking about it. I'm even getting a little choked up, and this is hard to listen to. I apologize, but sometimes the unfun realities are exactly what God's trying to teach us, and it's worth slowing down and settling into those, because the house of mourning is better for us, better for our spirits, than just staying in a house of feasting, because it grounds us back in the reality of who God is and what eternity looks like, and the fact that it's coming. I'll say the third thought that. Been just kind of ringing with me, is so.. again, this isn't going to sound weird, maybe, but God has already been through all this before, you know, God's lived through this, He was there before all of creation, He was there before the world began, but He's also been through loss, He's been through grief. This is certainly not the first time that a man of God or a woman of God has died and left others behind, and it's not the first time that God has mourned with those who mourn.
• 25:35
  The Bible says that directly, that God mourns with those who mourn. In fact, if we look at the life of Jesus, there was a close friend he had named Lazarus. You know the story, and he knows that Lazarus gets sick, and instead of going there right away, he waits, and then he goes, and Lazarus, Lazarus already died, and you know Mary and Martha, Lazarus' sisters are there grieving, and it says that Jesus wept. I mean, think about this: he's about to raise Lazarus from the dead, and you know, Jesus obviously knows that someday, as, uh, as his sisters say, someday Lazarus will rise again another time, and he's gonna have a permanent, eternal body, and be with God in heaven, and they say, you know, we understand that reality, but he's about to say, Lazarus, come out and command the power of death to let loose its grip on Lazarus and his body, and Lazarus walks out of the tomb, but before that miracle happens, Jesus weeps, I mean, he has not just compassion on Mary and Martha, but his heart's broken.
• 26:50
  I think one thing that grief teaches us about God is that God mourns with us, that when we're in pain, that He's not absent, that he's not callous, that it doesn't, you know, it's not like it doesn't faze him. He's like,'Listen, you don't get it, it's not sad. He's with me here. No, you know, death and grief are real, and you know on this side when we talk about life, death is a part of life, and so is grief, and so is morning, and this isn't the first time that God's walked through this. He's walked through this countless times, and I believe God knows what it's like to grieve. Jesus grieved, Jesus was a perfect representation of who God is, because he was fully man but fully God, and so he gets us, he gets me, and that doesn't necessarily make the grieving process easy at all, but it's good to reckon with the reality that the Lord mourns with those who mourn, that He weeps with those who weep, God gets grief, and He has patience for me, even when I'm upset or angry or hurt, or when I'm weak or struggling.
• 28:09
  And I just want to offer this as a comfort for you. Maybe right now you are grieving, you know, maybe you're getting choked up, and it's hard to talk about, you know, whatever you're feeling loss of, and you know, for me, I feel it not right now, but it's like my throat tightens up, and it feels like the wind gets knocked out of me, and I get a headache. Fact, I'm like, there's just a very real possibility that after this episode, after our record today, that's going to be the state of my day, like, ah, you know, where you just feel like your energy is gone, you're tired, and it's hard, and feels hopeless and frustrating, but you know, in the middle of a day like today, if you're in the middle of grief, God grieves with you, and there's something to that, that I think is beautiful, not the loss, not a tragedy, it's beautiful, but that the God of the universe, who is beyond space and time, who created it all, who's seen it all, is not callous to grieve for mourning, but that He's tender enough and close enough to us that he grieves with those who grieves, that he weeps with those who weeps, weep, and so for you, you know, I'm not sure who exactly I'm talking to here, but I want to offer you that that God is with you and that he grieves and that it matters to him that you're hurt, and that your heart is hurt, and at least for me that matters. What does grief teach us about God? Well, that He grieves with us, and that He's lived through all this before, but He's still sensitive to loss, that. Matters to me, and I hope it matters to you.
• 30:04
  And then the last thing I'll sort of point out here that I want to process with you today is that, you know, I think going through awful seasons strengthens relationships, or at least it has the ability to.
• 30:16
  There's a feeling that I've had as I've processed through grief and as I process through it with the Lord that I almost don't even want to share because it's really vulnerable and I think it almost even sounds bad. I hope you can give me grace for this.
• 30:36
  They're getting choked up now, as I'm thinking about it. I hope you can give me grace for this, because this is just the raw reality of what I'm walking through as a grieving man who's walking through processing the loss of my dad, but I think it's valuable to talk about, and a tone that I think is one that I want to set in ministry and in the Rethink Revive podcast, is I think vulnerability is a very useful tool, whenever it's, it's used for God's glory. If that makes sense, I'm not sure if I'm saying that right, but yeah, I want to share my heart, not just as a pastor, but as a son. So, here's, here's what I want to say. I feel like I'm walking through a season right now where I'm having to relearn to trust God, you know, I had mentioned this earlier, but getting choked up here. You might have some, some pauses where I have to slow down. My dad, my dad's death was just so unexpected for me that I just was left in the wake of it with a bunch of questions, just to name a few. You know, my dad had received all these prophetic words that still haven't been fulfilled. You know, what about the words that I feel like were from God that that never came to pass yet, or at least not in the way that I was anticipating, or that we understood them, you know. They're sure, like, there have been beautiful things that have come to pass after my dad passed away. People have come back to Jesus, come back to church, and there have been many that have risen to honor the legacy of of my dad and many of us that have decided that we are going to try to honor that legacy by taking our stand and our own generations and to fill that gap that God's asking us to fill, and man, I'm thankful for those things, but you know, God's all powerful, He's sovereign. A question that I've had is, couldn't God have accomplished the same things without taking my dad so suddenly? You know, feels vulnerable to say this. And again, this is part of why I'm calling this round one, because I'm not sure this is where I'm gonna land, but you're watching a grief observed the phase for me. It almost feels like, in some ways, my trust felt broken.
• 33:30
  God is within his rights to do what he did, and he never promised me that my dad wouldn't. I've obviously never promised my dad would be with me forever, and he never promised me that my dad would wouldn't die early, but you have expectations, right? I mean, I thought that my dad would would live to be at least 81 He was praying for 87 so I thought that my dad would be around for, you know, for James's high school graduation, or at least for the birth of my daughter, Baby Junia, who's coming any day now.
• 34:03
  In fact, Junia might be born before this episode even gets released. She's due, like, literally any day. That'll be hard for me, you know? Like, it's gonna be so wonderful to hold a little girl in my arms for the first time, but it's tough not having my dad be there for those moments, and so, yeah, I'm having to relearn my relationship with God. I made this list a while ago, it was like in that same week that my dad had passed, I made this list of all these different unique things that God had done that helped prepare the church and my family and all of us for the loss of my dad, and I mean there are so many different ways that God made it easier on us for the transit. My dad had done a lot of strategic planning that helped, but also God just prepared us. I mean, for example, I moved in October of last year to plant this church, which, you know, I'm thankful.
• 35:15
  Like, my dad had flown down in last April, April of 25 with me and my wife. We drove around the city. We feel like we, we really heard God tell us to plant this church. And we sold our house last summer. We moved in October. My dad passed in February. I am now more convinced than ever that we are definitely supposed to be here planting salt church. I feel totally convinced, and if my dad had passed before we had left.
• 35:43
  I'm not sure we ever would have left, you know. So, like, that's a unique thing that God did. I'm thankful for that, but there's this weird other side to it.
• 35:51
  It's like, yeah, so my, like, obviously God's sovereign. God knew my dad was going to pass.
• 36:00
  He demonstrated his foresight, but that makes it harder in some ways, you know, like, like you knew you could have prevented this god, you could have done it a different way, like why did this happen this way, what did I miss? And I think moving forward, the question that I'm wrestling with is, how do I know what to believe about God's future now. Just being totally raw, these aren't even my stances, these are just my feelings, my thoughts. So I hope that's not weird. I'm not sure if I'm communicating this clearly, but as I'm learning to trust God, as I'm, as I'm walking through this, as I said before, I think one thing that grief has taught me is that going through awful seasons has the potential to strengthen relationships, and while I have these questions, here's what I'm convinced of. I do trust the Lord, you know, I do. I trust that he is good. I'm more convinced than ever that God is good, and that he's walking through this with me, and I'm in the process of hurting and grieving, and I don't understand God's reasons now. And there's a good chance, honestly, that I won't ever understand why this happened on this side of eternity, and that's okay. It's not my right to understand those things, and I might not fully understand the lessons for discerning, you know, what God is saying right now, or about the future. I mean, I'm not saying that I'm walking through fog, God has been good, He's been the lamp to my feet, the light to my path, but there's there's periods where it's like, man, how do I know what to trust? Am I hearing God well or not? Listen, what I'm convinced of is that God is good, that God loves me, that He's walking through this with me, and as I'm in the process of learning a new normal, even with God, I believe my relationship with the Lord is coming out stronger and more mature, and I feel like the faith that I have in God, even despite the questions, is growing stronger. And you know, grief has this ability. I think it can break relationships if we let it, but I believe grief has the ability to deepen intimacy, and I'm not thankful, I guess, for my dad's death. I hope that's not wrong to say. I mean, I miss him, and it's, it's hard, but I do feel like there's a side of my relationship with God that is strengthening and blossoming in a way that I would not have had a chance to without walking through an awful season side by side, hand in hand with the Lord, and so sometimes intimacy is formed in pain in a different way that is formed in seasons of victory, and I'm thankful that grief has the ability to strengthen my bond and my closeness and my intimacy with God, even in, you know, the dark night of the soul, as people say. Wow, so this has been heavy, but in closing, I just want to, I want to, you know, say to the Lord, here before you, everybody who's listening, Lord, I submit to you, man. Getting choked up, I made through this whole episode, and at the end, is getting me, but I just want to say to God, you know, I choose to trust you, and I choose a life of faithfulness, man. Hard to say this, I. I'm choosing a life of faithfulness in my own generation, just as my dad chose before me. Wow, it's like a grief session with you right now. So, I pray that God would bring you peace and comfort as well, whoever you are, wherever you're listening. I pray that God would bring you peace and comfort as well as you walk through your season of life, you know, I pray that, that as you listen to this, whether you're currently in the house of mourning or you're just walking with me and getting a little glimpse into the end of the viewport of what it looks like to see somebody else walk through grief, I pray that God would ground you in the reality of eternity, in the truth that there is something worth living for, a destination called heaven, that we should be anticipating and eager and excited for. I pray that God would remind you that He has walked through pain and that He's still sensitive to your pain, and that if we let Him, that awful seasons have the ability to develop our intimacy and trust and bond with God in a way that seasons of feasting and joy and victory don't have the ability to do so. Thank you for joining me, and thanks for processing with me. I'll be back again next month. We'll have some more guests on in the future, and you know, heading towards the fall, we'll probably get back into a more regular rhythm and have less heavy episodes. I'm looking forward to the day when things are a little less heavy, but there is an appropriateness to heavy topics, especially in a season like this, so I pray that God blesses you, and that you find peace and comfort and joy in whatever you're walking through. Next time, if we have time for this, I will give some shout outs to those of you that leave five star reviews. I didn't say that at the beginning, but you know, if you want to help us out, you can always leave a five star review on Apple Podcast, and I'll see your name, and I'll give you a shout out. Also, many of you have asked about how things are going here in the greater Jacksonville area. My email is David at Salt church.us If you want to get subscribed to my email updates, I send these out, you know, once or twice a month about how things are going for Salt Church. Feel free to email, email me, I'll put you on the list. Love to stay in contact. I would love it if you pray for me and my family and our team here at Salt Church, and also Allison Park Church. We could all use your prayers and support, so.. and I'm thankful that you're supporting me and us by joining us in this episode, so hey, just want to say I know it's been a while. Thank you for your patience, and thanks again for joining us in this episode of Free Think Group Revive. I'll see you guys, guys again. Well, I'll try that again. I'll see you guys again.