Latest / #Faith4TodayPodcast / Episode 73 of the #Faith4TodayPodcast — Renewed Resilience

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Episode 73 of the #Faith4TodayPodcast — Renewed Resilience · #Faith4TodayPodcast

• 0:00
  What do you run to when life gets overwhelming?
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  In this episode, we're going to look at David's costly sacrifice
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  in First Chronicles 21. We're going to discover that
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  resilience isn't built by escaping pain.
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  It's formed by staying rooted in God's presence all the way
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  through it. Talk about worship as
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  resistance, why Scripture renews the mind, and how God uses every
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  threshing floor. Places of crushing and
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  separation as places of encounter and transformation.
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  If you've ever been exhausted, anxious, discouraged, or
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  spiritually depleted is going to help recenter your soul in the
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  presence of God. Are you ready?
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  Let's go. Well, hello everybody.
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  Welcome to the Faith for Today podcast.
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  My name is Matthew, I'm your host, and this is episode 73.
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  We're talking about renewed resilience, how to have our
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  resilience renewed as we renew our mind.
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  As always, I'm going to recap Sunday's message.
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  I'm going to share a little bonus content and then respond
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  to questions and that that have come in now the, the goal here
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  is to help us live faithfully to the Lord.
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  And, and I, I can't think of a, a better topic than learning how
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  to build and establish resilience so that we can stay
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  steadfast in the Lord, We can stand strong in the Lord.
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  And this resilience is something that we're after.
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  And I think ultimately David shows us that it's found in
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  being in God's God's presence. So let's get into it.
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  Here's the recap in the message I kind of walked us through
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  First Chronicles 21. It's the story where David
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  refuses to offer God a sacrifice that didn't cost him something.
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  David purchased this threshing floor that would later be known
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  in Scripture as Mount Moriah, the very place tied to God's
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  future redemptive story in Christ.
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  And that sacrifice that David made was incredibly, costfully
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  the. The point was that real worship
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  always cost us something. And when life gets painful,
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  stressful, or even overwhelming, our instincts usually is to
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  escape, to numb out control outcomes or or cling tighter to
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  temporary comforts. This is what we often do, but
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  Scripture calls us to become living sacrifices as we
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  recognize God's mercy. And I connected it to the idea
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  that this this resilience that we have is is saying resilience
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  isn't just like pushing through, kind of gutting it out, but
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  rather resilience scripturally, spiritually, is staying rooted
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  in God's presence, allowing truth to to pervade our hearts
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  even through suffering, anxiety, stress, or feeling depleted in
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  life. Worry pulls our mind into fear
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  and imagined futures, while worship and meditation pull our
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  attention back towards God's reality and his goodness.
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  I also talked about in the message how resilience kind of
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  can become renewed as we wash with God's Word.
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  We wash our minds through the renewing of of our mind through
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  Scripture. The same mental energy we use to
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  spiral and worry can be retrained through meditation on
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  God's words. Through Scripture, God's Word
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  renews our identity, it restores perspective and it reconnects us
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  to His presence. That's why we slowed down in the
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  message and on our time together and Sunday and just sat and
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  meditated and thought about the Psalms.
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  Psalms 13995979899 and Psalm 30. Not just to study or gain new
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  information, but rather to encounter God and allow the
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  truth of who He is reshape our inner world.
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  See, we don't become resilient by grinding harder or numbing
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  ourselves. We become resilient by returning
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  again and again to the presence of God through the Spirit and
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  truth in a culture of exhaustion and anxiety.
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  Worship becomes resistance to that, and Scripture becomes this
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  renewal for our soul in the midst of all of it.
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  Let me share a little bit of bonus count with you today.
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  We again resilience we defined as the capacity to adapt,
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  recover and continue moving forward through stress,
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  difficulty, loss, unwelcomed or unforeseen change without losing
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  your core identity or purpose. And we talked about how that
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  resilience is costly and that resilience is really
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  counterintuitive to what we want to do when we find ourselves in
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  stress, difficulty, loss or, or challenges, right?
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  Like we typically just want to escape.
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  We want to out when trouble kind of surrounds us.
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  But when suffering or discomfort or pain or loss, when stress,
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  when that hits, we, we, we don't want to just cling to the
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  comforts of the earth like so many do.
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  Rather, in view of the mercy of God in our lives, we want to
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  offer who we are as a living sacrifice.
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  We want to live the way of Jesus even when life is squeezing us,
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  even when things get challenging, even when things
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  happen around this. I was talking to somebody after
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  church and they were saying how grateful they were for the
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  several just years being in our church.
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  We're just being built up, being strengthened in the word,
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  growing in maturity, being challenged to to step out of
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  their comfort zone. How it's kind of built a
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  foundation for this season of life that they're in where
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  they're facing some real kind of challenges all around in a, in a
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  professional way. And they're able to take those
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  head on with a lot of courage, a lot of hope, a lot of
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  resilience, and really with having a mindset that is full of
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  hope and who God is, simply because they've established some
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  pre resilience, some strength of having their mind renewed in
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  God's word and, and being anchored into the presence of
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  God. And so living this, this way of
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  Jesus is counterintuitive to the way of the world.
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  And, and it goes against kind of our natural instincts.
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  I, I mean, when I'm feeling stressed and worried and
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  frustrated, man, it's easy to go just eat a bunch of stuff.
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  It's easy to to just veg out, numb out, and it's not.
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  I'm not saying it's wrong to watch a movie or to eat
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  something when you're kind of getting a little hangry.
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  Sometimes you need to eat something to get your blood
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  sugar back in in right in order. I'm just simply saying that so
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  many of us go to comforts and become creatures of comfort and
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  we cling to it with, with everything that we have rather
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  than men recognizing, wait a second, I, I don't have to just
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  endure this, but I can grow strong through this or I, I can
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  really thrive and flourish even in a challenging situation.
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  And that resilience shows up when we are in God's presence,
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  when we get with him. This, this idea of communing
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  with God, abiding with God. That's really what develops this
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  resilience inside of us. And Jesus said it this way that
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  those who worship him worship in spirit and in truth.
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  And and that means is that we worship because the the Spirit
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  draws us and is made, made us new.
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  We've been born of the Spirit and in truth, right?
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  The reality of who God is in truth about who we are, not
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  lying or being hypocritical, but coming with honesty and
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  brokenness and sincerity. Both of those things are true.
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  But one of the things that is also a reality of that is that
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  the word of God is spirit and truth in, in other words, the
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  word of God reveals truth of God and truth in general to us.
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  And it's written and authored by the Holy Spirit.
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  Paul says that it was inspired by God.
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  It's, it's almost like the, the, the breath of God is airlocked
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  in these pages. And so as we're reading the word
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  of God, it's, it's like a breeze coming into our hearts and soul
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  that it's like a awakening of, of a fresh, crisp breath of, of
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  air in the morning, right? It is this breeze that comes
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  through. It is the, the wind of God, the
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  ruach. It's the Hebrew word for spirit
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  that comes and invades us as we read this truth.
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  And so as we were reading God's Word and on Sunday, as we were
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  meditating on the Scriptures and just slowly reading and thinking
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  and considering and imagining the text, what was happening?
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  We were, we were, I'm experiencing truth and the
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  Spirit of God. And we come to God in spirit and
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  in and in truth. It's part of that's where his
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  presence comes. It's in the place of spirit and,
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  and in truth. And God's word is the source for
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  our identity and our purpose. And so if we're going to be
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  resilient, coming to God's word renews our identity and it
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  renews our purpose, the God-given purpose, the
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  redemptive purpose. I, I believe every person has,
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  has a redemptive potential in Jesus Christ that, that Christ
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  redeems us and there is purpose and potential within each of us
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  to be about the Father's business and to, to engage in
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  the Kingdom of God in healthy, helpful, holy ways.
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  And so we discover those in the scriptures.
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  And, and so God's word is the source of our identity and our
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  purpose, which means that if we want to renew our resilience, if
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  we want to keep moving forward and not lose our identity, not
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  lose our purpose, well then we need to renew our minds in the
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  scriptures. And so this is so much of, of
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  what I was trying to communicate to us on on Sunday in the in the
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  message and renewing your mind is, is meditating on God's word
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  is how we renew our minds. Meditation is a word that that
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  means to mutter to oneself. In other words, you say it again
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  and again and again, allowing your imagination in your mind to
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  be bathed and inundated with with the truth of Scripture.
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  And so we say it slowly. We say it again and again, We
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  begin to memorize it, even internalize it and that begins
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  to reorient our thinking to the truth of God, a higher reality
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  than what we were walking in. And we talked about at first
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  Chronicles this this point where David was buying this land, but
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  he was buying this land to try to end the plague, this plague
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  that had happened because David was had kind of taken a census
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  and he had done it incorrectly. And the Bible doesn't really
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  tell us why God was upset with David about taking the census.
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  It's it's it's could be a few different ways.
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  In fact, the way Chronicles listed out, it kind of lends you
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  to understand that perhaps taking a census just of the the
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  fighting men or the fighting men, the army, which is all he
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  was taking a census of to see how big his army was, was really
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  about him resting on his victory and seeing how successful he was
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  as opposed to continuing to trust in the Lord.
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  That's possible why the Lord had a problem with it, but the Bible
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  doesn't explicitly tell us why God was upset that David took
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  the census. It's possible that they didn't
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  gather the people and allow them to pay kind of a the price they
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  didn't pay in the census price, what's known as a ransom price,
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  because in Exodus chapter 30, verse 11 through 16, it kind of
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  gives instructions on gathering all of the people and allow them
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  to come and pay this price, this ransom price as you take census
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  of all of the people. And so that's possible.
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  Again, it's possible that they they counted just for trust in
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  army size, not trust in God. That's possible.
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  It it's also possible that David did it of his own volition and
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  didn't ask God and and God was like, I am not in on this.
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  You did this on your own. And so now you're, you're,
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  you're there. And it's kind of interesting.
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  God gave David the choice as to the consequence that he would
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  face, right? He died by the sword, by plague.
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  There's some options that David had.
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  And David chose something that was like a three day plague,
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  like it's going to get in and over and be done with.
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  And it's kind of this choice. But one of the things that we do
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  know is that this plague took place and this plague was
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  spreading all over and thousands were dying.
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  And David pleaded with the Lord to stop it.
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  David. David pleaded with God to stop
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  the plague from spreading. And it's interesting that the
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  plague stopped right where the threshing floor was, right where
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  the temple would eventually be built.
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  Like the place that was protected.
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  There was an Angel of God, the scripture says in in First
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  Chronicles 21. Really fascinating.
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  An Angel standing there with a sword drawn, not letting
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  anything pass him. So in other words, the plague
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  couldn't go past the Angel. David kind of stopped at that
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  place saying, oh, that's where the Angel of the Lord is.
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  We can't go any further. And they recognized that because
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  the Angel was there and guarding this, this space, this land,
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  that nothing was getting beyond it, that something holy was on
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  the other side of that. It's this Angel stopped the the
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  spread. It's it kind of reminds you
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  because this is the place, right, David?
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  It stopped right at the threshing floor, right atop this
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  mountain. And that's what David, the Lord
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  kind of instructed David, this is the spot you, you to buy this
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  offer sacrifice. I'm going to come down.
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  I'm going to show my faithfulness.
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  I'm going to consume the altar and the fire and your sacrifice.
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  And I'm going to be pleased in it.
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  And this will be the spot where you can build the temple in the
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  future, right? Like this is what God was doing.
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  And I find it interesting that it was the Angel that protected
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  this space to keep people from getting there, to keep evil from
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  getting in there, kind of like the Angel who was sword drawn in
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  Genesis to protect Adam and Eve from going back into the garden.
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  So this this garden place where God's presence was now that Adam
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  and Eve had kind of rebelled and sinned and a plague of, of sin
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  and death was a part of their life.
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  They couldn't get back into the presence.
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  There was an Angel keeping them from that, from that place.
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  We know the Bible talks about these guardian cherubim angels
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  that guard the entrance to the throne room of heaven, right?
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  Like they, there are cherubim that that fly around and
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  encircle and in that guard the very presence of the Lord, like
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  you can't get in, you can't get past these guards, these Angel
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  guards into God's presence without coming in in the proper
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  way. And and then the Psalms tell us
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  that the proper way to get into God's presence is with
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  Thanksgiving and praise. Enter his gates with
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  Thanksgiving, his courts with praise.
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  The Scripture says Psalm 95 two we we read in on Sunday and it
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  says it says this, it says, let's enter his presence with
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  Thanksgiving. Let's shout triumphantly to him
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  in song. In other words, the the way you
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  come into the presence of the Lord, the way you get access to
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  be in God's presence is Thanksgiving from your lips,
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  your words expressed in gratitude and thanks to God.
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  That's what gets you into the presence of God.
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  This Angel was stopping, not allowing David through.
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  And then David repented, bought the land, made the sacrifice.
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  The Angel put a sheath away of sword back in the sheath and
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  went on and, and, and moved, moved on.
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  This was the scene and David offered the sacrifice and there
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  was a consuming fire that came down and the altar was was
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  there. And I wonder if if that scene
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  that that moment was in David's mind when he wrote in Psalm 99.
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  We read this in one of the services, Psalm 99, verse 6.
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  It says Mosin and Aaron were among his priests.
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  Samuel also was among those who called on his name.
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  They called to the Lord and he answered them.
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  He spoke to them in a pillar of cloud.
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  They kept his decrees in the statutes he gave them.
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  Lord our God, you answered them. You are forgiving God to them,
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  but an avenger of their sinful actions.
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  Exalt the Lord our God. Bow and worship on his holy
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  mountain, for the Lord our God is holy.
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  I just wonder if if David had that in mind when you pen these
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  words. This to the song that king is
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  holy. I wonder if he was thinking
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  about that event in on the mountain.
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  I wonder if that had happened. I wonder if he was sitting there
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  in his mind in in his mind, he knew offering these sacrifices
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  to God out of Thanksgiving on this high mountain where the
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  temple would eventually be. But these high places now
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  throughout Scripture mountains and high places.
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  These these were places of encounter with with with with
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  deities think this is the place where you would go to encounter
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  God up a mountain. You would go up to worship the
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  Lord, you would, you would rise up and, and there would be this
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  overlap. It's the spot where it was set.
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  Heaven and earth would overlap, where where heaven touches
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  earth. It's this idea of this.
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  And I wonder if David had this in mind, this, this sacrifice
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  being consumed where God answered in a pillar of fire,
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  the smoke that consumed the altar and, and it was indicative
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  of God's cleansing and God's forgiveness.
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  Why? Because David's repentance and
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  bringing the sacrifice, bringing this offering and the Lord
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  consumed it, saw it as pleasing to him, acceptable to him.
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  And David was able to enter in and go, go into that place.
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  And this land became useful for the Lord, and the Lord used it
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  to build a temple. And the people of God were able
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  to come and encounter God and worship the Lord and gather in
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  song and praise. And it became this epicenter of
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  their, their life and their, their, their, their, their,
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  their livelihood, even this, this and this temple worship
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  that they got to be a part of. And I just wonder if that was in
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  David's mind when he was writing some of Psalm, Psalm 99.
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  Now, I mentioned that threshing floors have have kind of a
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  significant role. There's just kind of a practical
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  role of threshing floor had, but there's also a metaphorical
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  prophetic element. And when the Bible talks about
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  kind of threshing floors, in fact, just by way of
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  information, a threshing floor was level.
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  It was a circular area, typically 25 to 40 feet in
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  diameter. It was usually constructed in or
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  near grain fields on elevated when exposed locations.
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  The surface was prepared by removing loose stones, wetting
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  and tamping the ground, and sweeping it clean.
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  These floors were usually positioned at village edges,
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  often on natural rock outcroppings, though when
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  unavailable, the ground could be leveled and pounded to create a
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  hard surface. Now the threshing floor served
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  as a as a critical hub for agricultural work and community
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  life. Grain sheaves were either beaten
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  with flails or threshed by oxen dragging heavy objects over
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  them. Threshing floors were frequently
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  clustered together in village areas with good wind access,
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  allowing families to socialize and assist one another during
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  the labor intensive threshing process.
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  Because fertile land was scarce, these spaces served dual
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  purposes. After harvesting crops, a
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  cultivated plot would be converted into a threshing
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  floor, then returned to a cultivation to cultivating space
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  afterwards that. The threshing floor held
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  significant economic and cultural importance.
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  Alongside with the wine press, it was central to harvest
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  celebrations and represented substantial family wealth.
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  A threshing floor was of of of a livelihood, which means that
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  even for for born on to to offer it to David man, what an act of
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  generosity. It was a a family wealth thing
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  like here, here you, you can have all the wealth that we have
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  David. It's yours if you want it
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  because you're going to use it for God honoring purposes and
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  you're the king. What an act of submission and
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  surrender our heart rendered unto the king.
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  I I think that there's something beautiful about that.
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  The threshing floor was, was, was, was really, really
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  important. Now that was practically what it
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  was. Spiritually, theologically, even
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  prophetically. The Bible uses a threshing floor
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  as as a backdrop and a vivid illustration of something,
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  something important. The threshing floor kind of
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  carries profound theological weight throughout the
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  Scriptures. The sacrality of threshing
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  floors appears across 500 years of biblical literature,
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  historical narratives, legends, prophetic oracles, and legal
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  text with narrative context portraying them as locations for
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  divine appearances, while prophetic oracles describe them
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  metaphorically under Yahweh stick control, demonstrating a
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  connection between Yahweh and threshing floors that permeates
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  many biblical references. Think about this.
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  The threshing process itself became a powerful metaphor for
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  divine judgment. Israel was quote, UN quote
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  crushed on the threshing floor, Scripture says, having
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  experienced God's judgment while the nations would be unwittingly
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  gathered to the threshing floor of divine judgment.
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  John the Baptist employed threshing floor imagery to
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  describe the coming Messiah who would separate true believers
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  from false believers, with true followers gathered into God's
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  Kingdom like grain into barns, while those rejecting Christ
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  would be burned like worthless chaff.
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  The separation of valuable grain from useless chaff became
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  Christianity central image for distinguishing the righteous
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  from the condemned. And I I thought it's interesting
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  that that's kind of the biblical picture of what a threshing
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  floor is. And yet here in the story of
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  David, we see that as well. Not only does the fire consume
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  on the altar atop what was once a threshing floor, but the
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  threshing floor was the demarcation of what was
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  condemned and what was righteous.
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  Like it was a demarcation. Why?
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  Because the plague couldn't crossover where the Lord had
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  said this is the space. And again, going back to John
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  the Baptist imagery talking about Jesus, that Jesus has a
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  winnowing fork that's a a threshing floor kind of fork to,
• 22:25
  to, to, to shake the wheat and the chaff would blow and the
• 22:29
  wheat would fall to the ground and be harvested.
• 22:31
  This is what God wants to do it. This is the judgment of God.
• 22:36
  This is the judgment of Christ. Even that comes that, that there
• 22:39
  is divine judgment that Christ will bring.
• 22:43
  I don't think we can get away from the reality that Scripture
• 22:47
  is clear that God is a just and righteous judge.
• 22:52
  Judgment is coming and that's a part of this text, a part of the
• 22:57
  sometimes the hard things to wrestle with some of the text
• 23:01
  that kind of kind of doesn't sit well with our our niceties.
• 23:05
  But the reality is there is judgment and anything we can
• 23:09
  allow whenever we can allow God to come and burn away the chaff
• 23:13
  in our hearts and souls in our sinfulness.
• 23:15
  Now man doesn't get consumed later.
• 23:19
  We can be purified by fire or we can be consumed in judgement by
• 23:23
  fire. And then I want to be somebody
• 23:25
  who allows God to purify my heart, purify my motives and
• 23:30
  allow that to occur. And I think that some of the
• 23:32
  backdrop of understanding of David's life that there was a
• 23:35
  purification that was coming so that ultimate judgement didn't
• 23:39
  fall on all of the land. And so this, this idea of, of a
• 23:44
  threshing floor and what it did and how it played out, I I think
• 23:47
  is a really powerful imagery and a really powerful metaphor.
• 23:51
  It kind of alerts us to something.
• 23:53
  That's kind of what I was trying to do with the, the, the Sprite
• 23:57
  commercial imagery. Talking about the right like
• 24:01
  that, that sound to, to be honest, man, here's my hope is
• 24:06
  that every time you open the Scripture to meditate on God's
• 24:09
  word and you read it aloud, I pray that it is that refreshing
• 24:14
  in your heart and soul every time you read the Scriptures,
• 24:17
  that when you get to the Scriptures, you can just find
• 24:19
  yourself sitting with the Lord. And it's just this a refreshing
• 24:24
  time with the Lord that when you come into the Lord's presence,
• 24:28
  you can put away all of your impressiveness.
• 24:31
  You can put away all your pretension, you can put away all
• 24:35
  of your failures. You just set all of it to the
• 24:37
  side and come humbly as you are into the presence of God,
• 24:42
  offering him your life as a sacrifice.
• 24:45
  And God my, my life is yours. I surrender to you and you could
• 24:50
  have a moment with the Lord that is refreshing and renewing.
• 24:54
  And you begin to read the truth of God's Word, letting it
• 24:56
  reaffirm your identity and and supercharge your purpose as as a
• 25:01
  son and daughter of God. And, and when you read this text
• 25:04
  and you meditate on it and you think on it and you imagine it,
• 25:09
  that the word of God would bring refreshment to your soul.
• 25:13
  It would wash you, it would renew you, It would it would be
• 25:17
  refreshing to who you are because there is life in the
• 25:22
  Word of God and His Word will bring life to you and to me.
• 25:28
  That's why the scriptures tells us to meditate day and night in
• 25:32
  the scripture. And if we do, we become like a
• 25:34
  tree planted by a river of living water, someone says, and
• 25:40
  that that river becomes a refreshing for who we are and
• 25:43
  what we are. And that refreshment restores
• 25:46
  and renews all of who we are. Let me respond to just a few
• 25:50
  questions today. Here's the first question.
• 25:53
  How can believers better understand how important it is
• 25:56
  to have a reverential fear of God?
• 25:59
  We admit He's holy, majestic, all knowing, ever present, and
• 26:01
  worthy of our sacrifice and praise.
• 26:03
  But how can we develop a reverential fear of God?
• 26:07
  Is it an automatic result of reading His Word?
• 26:11
  It's not an automatic result of reading His Word, but it
• 26:14
  certainly does help because God's Word gives us a proper
• 26:17
  picture about God. I I think humility is right
• 26:21
  sizing ourselves at which also means that we can right size God
• 26:26
  like we can. We can we, we can better
• 26:31
  understand who God is. We can rightly Orient who he is.
• 26:34
  And when we magnify the Lord in our worship and our and our
• 26:37
  meditation of who he is according to the Scriptures, it,
• 26:40
  it enlarges God in our in our view.
• 26:44
  I think that the fear of the Lord, Scripture says, is the
• 26:47
  beginning of wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge that you
• 26:52
  apply. Which means I think the fear of
• 26:56
  the Lord is best seen in our level of obedience to what we
• 27:01
  know. Again, the fear of the Lord is
• 27:05
  the beginning of wisdom. Scripture says wisdom is
• 27:08
  applying or living out knowledge that we know.
• 27:12
  So you might know a lot about God, but if you obey very little
• 27:18
  according to what you know, your fear of God is not very great,
• 27:23
  you're not very wise. Living in the fear of the Lord
• 27:27
  means living in the direction of the Lord.
• 27:31
  Living in the fear of the Lord means that you desire God more
• 27:36
  in your life and you fear life without God.
• 27:41
  So I don't think it's an automatic because we read
• 27:44
  Scripture, but it certainly helps.
• 27:47
  And so understanding who God is, please hear me, will make you
• 27:53
  want to be devoted to God, like you will desire to be obedient,
• 27:58
  you will long to be with him, you will want to grow in him.
• 28:02
  So the more you know God, the more you will fear God because
• 28:07
  you don't want to live life without God.
• 28:11
  That's that's the deal. Like the longer I've been
• 28:13
  married to my wife, the least the, the, the the more I never
• 28:18
  want her to leave. Does that make sense?
• 28:21
  Like, like I desire, I'm devoted to her.
• 28:23
  I love her. She she's just a wonderful human
• 28:27
  being. Like I, I don't want to live
• 28:29
  life without my wife. I fear lose.
• 28:33
  I wouldn't want to lose her. Like I wouldn't want life.
• 28:35
  I don't even want to imagine what life would be like without
• 28:38
  her. I'm the same way with God.
• 28:40
  I can't imagine life without God.
• 28:42
  I don't even want to imagine where I would be without God.
• 28:45
  I don't even want to imagine what life would be like without
• 28:48
  His grace in my life. Right.
• 28:50
  That's the fear of the Lord. So the fear of the Lord.
• 28:52
  It is honor when you, when you are truthful and you repent a
• 28:56
  lot, when you confess your sin a lot, that shows the fear of the
• 29:00
  Lord. Like I don't want anything in
• 29:02
  me. God, search me, know me.
• 29:05
  If there's anything in me that isn't of you, God, would you
• 29:07
  expose that? Would you cut it out?
• 29:09
  Would you burn it out? Would you, would you help me to
• 29:11
  live differently? I think that's the fear of the
• 29:14
  Lord. And so the fear of the Lord is
• 29:16
  the beginning of wisdom. And so to know God, it means
• 29:20
  that we accurately understand him.
• 29:21
  But, but I think there ought to be a reverence to it.
• 29:24
  It doesn't mean that there has to be, that God isn't
• 29:27
  approachable, that God doesn't care, that God doesn't want us,
• 29:29
  that we have to like, pretend. No, no, in fact, that's the
• 29:32
  opposite. When we are pretending that that
• 29:34
  helps us know that we don't really know God.
• 29:36
  I think that we, when we come into God's presence, we need to
• 29:39
  be less concerned with our insecurities, our own things,
• 29:42
  and more concerned with him. I said in one of the services,
• 29:45
  like like when you come into worship, if, if you are coming
• 29:49
  in feeling more insecure about whether or not you're lifting
• 29:52
  your hands, clapping, people can hear you singing, you're
• 29:55
  thinking about you. You're not thinking about the
• 29:57
  king that's in the room. And so worship and he coming
• 30:00
  into the presence Lord is about what?
• 30:02
  Honoring the king that's in the room, not thinking about you in
• 30:05
  the room. And so we want to get our eyes
• 30:08
  off ourselves and get them fixed on God.
• 30:11
  And and so these are the things that help us understand
• 30:14
  understanding God. So, so getting in scripture,
• 30:16
  obeying what you know, repenting and confessing your sin and
• 30:21
  coming to a place where your eyes aren't on yourself, but
• 30:23
  your eyes are on him. And those are the things that
• 30:26
  help you live with the reverential fear of of God.
• 30:29
  That the other thing that I think helps us live with the
• 30:32
  fear of God, and that's simply this is, is not reducing God to
• 30:37
  a comfort zone in our lives, Right?
• 30:39
  Well, thinking of it like this, like, well, I don't really think
• 30:42
  God's going to judge the world. So I'd like to prefer to believe
• 30:45
  that there is no hell and there is no punishment.
• 30:48
  You're reducing God. You don't get to reduce God.
• 30:51
  We fear God, we live with reverence before God.
• 30:54
  We don't, we don't try to reduce God down to something that we
• 30:57
  can manage, we can understand, or that fits with our feelings
• 31:02
  of how things should go. He's God, we are not.
• 31:06
  And it is certainly cultivated by an understanding of
• 31:09
  scripture, but it isn't automatic in that in that way.
• 31:15
  Next question, what does it practically look like to
• 31:17
  meditate on Scripture instead of just read it quickly?
• 31:21
  Well, I think kind of in the the, the question is the answer
• 31:25
  to meditate on scripture is to read it slowly out loud again
• 31:31
  and again and again. One of the things that that I
• 31:34
  did tried to model is just reading the Psalms and I would
• 31:38
  read it and then I would pause and kind of expound as my
• 31:42
  thoughts expounded as I read something.
• 31:44
  It was kind of had different thoughts coming to mind.
• 31:46
  I just shared what it was that I was thinking about.
• 31:49
  A lot of times that's what meditation on God's word is.
• 31:52
  It's you're reading it slowly. You're reading it out loud so
• 31:55
  that you can hear it as you say it to yourself.
• 31:58
  That's what meditation means, to mutter aloud to oneself.
• 32:01
  That's meditation. And so you're reading God's
• 32:04
  scripture slowly. You're reading his words slowly
• 32:07
  and out loud. There'll be phrases that you
• 32:09
  might repeat. Let them praise your great and
• 32:13
  awe inspiring name. He is holy, He is holy, He is
• 32:20
  holy, right? You just say it again and again.
• 32:22
  So I think meditating on Scripture really does look like
• 32:26
  reading it out loud, reading it slowly and reading it
• 32:31
  repeatedly. That's what I would say
• 32:33
  meditating on Scripture looks like.
• 32:38
  And it's keeping your imagination on like thinking
• 32:42
  about it while you say it, think about it could consider it.
• 32:45
  I think that's part of the meditation of Scripture.
• 32:48
  Here's the next question. How can I tell the difference
• 32:50
  between healthy resilience and simply suppressing my emotions?
• 32:57
  That's a really great question. I healthy resilience and simply
• 33:04
  suppressing my emotions. I, I, I think healthy resilience
• 33:08
  is moving forward without ignoring the challenges, right?
• 33:14
  I think any time that we ignore challenges or try to ignore our
• 33:18
  emotions because we're trying, even in our suppressing of our
• 33:22
  emotions, most of the time we're either distracting ourselves
• 33:25
  from our emotions or we are numbing.
• 33:30
  So we don't feel the emotions. We're kind of acting with some
• 33:34
  sort of habit to try to get over them quickly.
• 33:38
  I don't think that that's that's, I think pretty clear to
• 33:41
  us. But healthy resilience is moving
• 33:43
  forward with our hope fixed on God, keeping our identity and
• 33:48
  purpose intact. When my identity feels shaken,
• 33:51
  when my purpose feels lost, I'm just moving through the motions,
• 33:55
  just trying to, to live, not really in God's direction.
• 33:58
  I'm just trying to make it through the day.
• 34:01
  I think that's really what, what that some of the differences.
• 34:04
  And so we don't want to suppress our, our emotions, our
• 34:07
  experience, our human experience.
• 34:09
  We want to be honest about it. We want to bring it to the Lord
• 34:11
  and we want to live with healthy resilience.
• 34:14
  And, and for me, that really does come down to not just
• 34:17
  moving forward, but moving forward maintaining my hope in
• 34:23
  God. And so I know I'm having my hope
• 34:27
  in God when my mind is, is not worrisome, but rather
• 34:33
  Worshipful. I know that I'm moving forward
• 34:36
  and I'm being resilient in a healthy way when I'm coming to
• 34:40
  God's presence and sitting with the scriptures, not just trying
• 34:44
  to rush through it, not just trying to find something to make
• 34:47
  me feel better. It's really about me coming to
• 34:49
  the Lord and just being honest with Him.
• 34:52
  One of the things that will help you is is coming into God's
• 34:56
  presence is a verse in James that says draw near to God and
• 35:00
  He will draw near to you. I think one of the ways I draw
• 35:04
  near to God is by coming and casting my cares on Him because
• 35:10
  He cares for me. So I can draw near to Him and
• 35:13
  give Him my worries and my concerns rather than ignore
• 35:17
  them, avoid them, and pretend like they're not there.
• 35:20
  That that's not living truthfully, that's not living
• 35:23
  with humility, That's arrogant, and that's not healthy or
• 35:27
  helpful. So I can come to God and be
• 35:29
  honest about what I'm experiencing, what I'm worried
• 35:31
  about, and then allow Him to be present with me as I imagine
• 35:37
  what that future might look like.
• 35:41
  I was, I think it was last week. I was just doing my morning time
• 35:45
  and finishing up reading the the Bible recap and commenting with
• 35:49
  my group. And I took some time to just to
• 35:52
  pray, just quick prayer is typically what I'll do in the
• 35:55
  morning. And I was just coming to a
• 35:57
  scripture giving some things to the Lord and, and, and kind of
• 36:00
  the prompt for my prayer time was what is it that you're,
• 36:03
  you're holding on to that you want to tell God about the hope
• 36:07
  that you have for it? And so I just kind of like,
• 36:09
  Lord, here's my hope for what's coming up in Guatemala.
• 36:13
  Here's my hope for some things with our staff.
• 36:16
  Here's, here's what's in my heart.
• 36:18
  Here's the picture. I'm holding on to the hope that
• 36:21
  I have and I just begin to tell God about the hope that I had.
• 36:25
  I just begin to articulate what that was.
• 36:27
  There's something really freeing and refreshing for me.
• 36:31
  And what I realized was I was beginning to live with some
• 36:34
  resilience in that moment. Rather than being overwhelmed by
• 36:37
  the situations that I was praying to God and talking to
• 36:40
  the Lord about. I was actually just coming to to
• 36:43
  God and saying, Lord, here's my hope.
• 36:45
  Here's the picture of the future that I believe that you're,
• 36:48
  you're creating now. Hope is the picture we have in
• 36:51
  our heart about the future that God is moving us into.
• 36:54
  Life with God in the future looks like blank in this
• 36:58
  scenario. Life with God looks like this.
• 37:00
  When it comes to my parenting right now, life with God, that
• 37:04
  the picture I have of that when it comes to finances in my life
• 37:07
  right now, it looks like this. And I just painted the picture.
• 37:10
  I described the picture. I, I, I, I articulated that to
• 37:14
  the Lord and it was very, very freeing, very strengthening and
• 37:17
  very life giving it. What was it?
• 37:19
  It was about? I was establishing healthy
• 37:22
  resilience even in the face of some of the challenges and
• 37:25
  situations that I was praying about.
• 37:28
  That's what it, that's what it was.
• 37:29
  That's what it looked like. And, and I think you can do that
• 37:32
  too. You just talk to the Lord about
• 37:34
  what it is that you're concerned with that you're carrying and
• 37:38
  what is the hope that you have for that thing.
• 37:42
  That's what helps build resilience and hope and hope
• 37:45
  towards God is trusting in Him in all of those things.
• 37:48
  So we want to have healthy resilience.
• 37:50
  We don't want to just suppress our emotions, distract ourselves
• 37:54
  or numb ourselves or or medicate in some unhealthy way.
• 37:58
  We want to move forward with healthy resilience.
• 38:02
  And when we meditate and read God's word, we are renewing our
• 38:06
  minds and that renews our hope so that we can have resilience
• 38:12
  in every situation. All right, that's it for this
• 38:15
  episode of the Faith for Today podcast.
• 38:16
  Thanks for listening. Thanks for liking, subscribing,
• 38:19
  sharing, and I hope today's episode has helped you.
• 38:23
  Have faith for Today. Be refreshed my friends, I love
• 38:26
  you.