Latest / The Daily Article / Stories of hope in Central Texas and the Middle East: “If your heart is broken, I assure you God is near”

Transcript

Stories of hope in Central Texas and the Middle East: “If your heart is broken, I assure you God is near” · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Greetings on this Wednesday, July the Nights, twenty twenty five.
• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Daily Article Podcast.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Chris Elkins of the Dinnison Forum, narrating today's Daily Article written by our co-founder and CEO, Dr. Jim Dinnison.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're like me, you're ready to think about some good news this morning.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: My wife and I like so many others have been living in grief since the news broke last Friday of the floods in central Texas and the devastating loss of life.
• 0:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: As of this morning, at least one hundred and eleven have died according to Governor Greg Abbott, another one hundred and sixty-one remain missing in Kirk County, including five campers and a counselor from Camp Mystic.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: But in the midst of unspeakable tragedy, stories of survival and hope are emerging as well.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: A family of thirty-three, and a woman, and her two dogs, are among the survivors of one of the deadliest flood disasters in Texas history.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Reverend Haciel Hernandez Garcia, who was in charge of receiving survivors from camp mystic at the reunification center, witness children, quote, being offloaded from the bus.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: missing shoes, having dirt all over them, being hungry, seeing their parents from a distance and their weeping out of joy."
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: In addition, many who are grieving their losses are using their platform of suffering to share their hope in Christ with the world.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tavia Hunt, wife of Kansas City Chief's CEO Clark Hunt, posted that their family lost a young cousin.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: She, nonetheless, wrote, if your heart is broken, I assure you, God is near.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: He is gentle with your wounds, and he is still worthy, even when your soul is struggling to believe it.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Trust doesn't mean you're over the pain.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It means you're handing it to the only one who can hold it with love and restore what was lost.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: for we do not grieve as those without hope."
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was my privilege to be their family's pastor for many years.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Knowing them as I do, I am not surprised that they are using this tragedy to encourage others to trust in their Lord.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, let's turn to other good news from a part of the world where it's often in short supply.
• 2:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had dinner at the White House Monday night and met again yesterday afternoon.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Netanyahu met with House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday and will meet with a bipartisan group of senators this afternoon.
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: All of this to discuss the monumental changes in the Middle East that have occurred in recent weeks.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Among them is news that a group of leading Palestinian sheaks have signed a letter pledging peace and full recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their plan is for their city of Hebrew, the West Bank's largest city located south of Jerusalem, to break out of the Palestinian Authority, the PA, establish an Emirate of its own, and join the Abraham Accords.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: The sheaks note the terrible exploitation of their people by their leaders, P.A.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: President Mamun Abbas is personally worth one hundred million dollars, and are seeking a new way forward that would guarantee the security of Israel and the Palestinians.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: This could perhaps pave the way for normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which could lead other Arab nations to join the alliance and bring peace to the region.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever comes of this possibility, it at least points to effect relevant to the tragedies of recent days.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: If Christians must account for evil, skeptics must account for good.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: When people use innocent suffering to claim that God cannot be all-knowing all-powerful and all-loving, they must then explain the altruistic sacrificial good, apart from God.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: to be found in so many places, even in the midst of suffering.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Evolutionary theories cannot account for the hundreds of volunteers who are risking so much to search for survivors and victims of the floods, or the financial and prayerful support being marshaled across the country.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: For every good in the world, we can ask why there is evil.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: For every evil in the world, we can ask why there is good.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, here's a better approach.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rather than interpreting the character of God by the circumstances of our broken world, let's interpret our circumstances through the prism of his character.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: In Habakkuk chapter one, verse thirteen, the prophet said to God,
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: You are of pure eyes then to see evil and cannot look at wrong.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why do you idly look at traders and remain silent when the wicked swallow up the man more righteous than he?
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yet, he closes his book in chapter three verses seventeen through nineteen, though the fig tree should not blossom nor fruit be on the vines.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: The produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no fruit, the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: God, the Lord is my strength.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Paul pleaded three times with the Lord in second Corinthians twelve verses seven and eight to remove his thorn in the flesh before learning in verse nine that God's power is made perfect in weakness and trusting his pain to his father's providence.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus cried from the cross in Matthew twenty seven verse forty six, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Before praying in Luke twenty three verse forty six as he died father into your hands I commit my spirit they each chose to know and to believe the love that God has for us out of first John four verse sixteen to know in the Greek means to understand intellectually to believe means to trust fully and personally
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can know that my surgeon is eminently qualified to operate on my back.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is only when I trust myself to his skill that I experience it for myself.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is why Tavia Hunt is so right in encouraging us to give our pain to the only one who can hold it with love and restore what was lost.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: who lost her parents to the Nazis and had to watch her sister starve to death in their Holocaust camp.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then the less testified, faith sees the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the impossible.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Will you take your next step into such faith today?