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Equip Conference 2026 - Dr. Lynelle Buchanan · Equipped: A Podcast Platform for the Equip Ministry of Cuyahoga Valley Church

0:00
SPEAKER_00: So I'm very excited to be here today.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, I will tell you, um, I'm probably not coming from the position of strength that I would have wanted to come from.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: That's that's usually the platform we want to come from, but I've had a rough couple years.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: Anybody had a a rough time ever?
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, uh, let's see.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: 2024, the school that I plan to retire from when I'm 70, and don't let my hair fool you.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm not close to that yet.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, it lies.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: That school suddenly closed.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: And people were like, uh, how sudden was it?
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, the truth is, we'd been in financial trouble since 2008.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: However, God had always provided.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: So even though we knew we were in financial trouble, it didn't mean we expected anything to be different that year than it was every year before that.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: When God came in, sometimes at the very last minute, um, with everything that we needed.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: So I ended up a little bit, I don't know, shattered might be the word that I would throw at it, in 2024.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: And uh listen, I worked full-time there, my husband worked full-time there, my kids had their part-time jobs there.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: So even the gas that went in my daughter's car because she had her own job, um, everything was all of a sudden suspended first when we were furlought, and then we got the bad news about four weeks later.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: So crazy time of my life.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: And what it did for me is by destabilizing everything that I had so carefully organized and planned for in my life, it actually forced me to interact with some learning in some different kinds of ways.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: It forced me to interact with my God in some new and exciting kinds of ways.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: So I'm hoping that I can come to you, maybe not as a mastery model, but a coping model, um, and talk to you about how we end up promoting, living out this longevity in ministry without getting burned out, while staying centered in our walk with God, while staying, I don't know, somewhat emotionally balanced in some way, shape, or form.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: So that's where we're gonna head this morning.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna start with a passage in scripture.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: If you're following along in your notes, you want to get to this page, the one with a big blue circle.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: And I have put this passage at the top of this just so we're looking at this all from the same translation.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, this which should probably be NIV, because that's generally where I'm at.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: And if you would just read along with me, this is from Colossians chapter 1, verses 28 and 29.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: And it says this.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: Say it with me.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: To this end, I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Now I wish I had time for us to really like pick that whole thing apart, because this is a phenomenal couple verses.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: It is amazing to think about how easily it centers our mission.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: We proclaim him.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: That's our mission.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: That's a great, simple heartbeat right there.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: But then he explains how we do it, admonishing and teaching with all wisdom.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: So there's apparently some wisdom we got to bring to this party so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: My husband would describe this as an all-play.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: He got that nomenclature from all skates back in the day.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: I would try to explain it to you, young uns, but it's too hard.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, just trust us.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: It this is for everybody.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: This isn't just for the people we are ministering to.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: This is for us too, that we are going to be presented fully mature in Christ.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: That's part of the outcome that's coming out of this.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: And then, I mean, we get this laid out by Paul.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: He says, To this end I strenuously contend.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: That strenuously, boy, can I identify with that, right?
4:06
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes this is hard work.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes ministry is difficult.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it costs us.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: But then he points out that we don't do this alone because we have the energy that Christ so powerfully works in us.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: So this is great, great passage, like marinate, soak in that one for a little while.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: Because honestly, I'm gonna divert from overt exegesis of a biblical passage.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do that because we don't have enough time.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, but while I am working through or working through today, I think probably most of you, the verses will come to mind for you.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: I think you'll recognize kind of the biblical underpinnings to all of this.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: The other thing I want to um acknowledge right here now, really loudly, I understand some of you have gotten to know a little bit about Dennis Wilhite.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Dennis Wilhite was a professor at CSU for all those years.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: He was my mentor.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, honestly, it's done so much to shape the direction of my life.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful for him.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: And what we're gonna start working through here is absolutely comes from the theories of Dennis Wilhite.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And I would love to tell you where you could find those published in a book.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: But he hasn't written it.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: And I keep going, Dennis, you're getting up there.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: He's older than me.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: He I'm like, Dennis, you gotta write this stuff down.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Yeah, but then I tweak it some more, and I just not listen, this stuff is such great material that I think, man, every church needs to be able to understand this from the top down.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna try to share with this with you because this is this is something that I have thought through so many times in the last two years as God has sustained me in the most difficult window of my entire life.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're gonna work through together, and I'm excited to do this together.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: So um, we're gonna talk about a learning cycle, like something that we are all in the midst of, probably honestly in multiple layers.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
6:05
SPEAKER_00: So in that top gap there, um, I want you to write the word purpose, because all of this learning cycle is going to start with purpose.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: It starts with the fact that God has made you and he has made me with intent.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you got your biblical thinking cap on, you're probably thinking about Psalm 139, I hope you are.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: You're probably thinking about Ephesians chapter 2, I hope you are, because we know that the Almighty God of the universe has cared enough to craft each of us for the good works he's created in advance for us to do.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: But because of those particular purposes that he has for us, there's things that we need to learn and develop in.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: Like if we're gonna accomplish those purposes, the ones that God ordained for us, then there might be some skills that we need to learn, some abilities, some maturity that we need to develop.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: And so the God's got this purpose for you.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: And in order for you to accomplish that purpose, He, in His immense wisdom, He knows exactly what you need, what circumstances need to come into your life, what people need to say what into your life, what you need to interact with.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: He knows that whole trajectory that is gonna prepare you for his purposes.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: So because of those needs, so that goes in that blank right below it, right?
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Those needs are then going to determine the experiences that he brings in your life.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: So in that first block off to the right, you're gonna write experience, because the needs that he has for us means that he is going to bring into our life experiences.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Now that word experience, it's I don't know, it's somewhat value neutral, isn't it?
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Like I've had some experiences, and I've had some great experiences, I've had some super cool experiences, and then I've also had some other things that were experiences.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: But I had a different emotional response to those experiences.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: So today what we're gonna talk about is the second kind of experiences because God often grows us in difficulty.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but it turns out I do not grow the same way in ease as I do when I experience hardship.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: In ease, I get real comfortable.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: This is fun, the world is going the way I have decided the world should go.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: So all is well, right?
8:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm winning.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: I like, I like to win, folks.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: I need to win.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: And yet, it is not in the wins that I grow.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: It is not in the ease that I grow, it is in the challenge, it is in the hardship that I grow.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: So, in order to bring about this growth, God brings us experiences that produce tension.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: Now, I think there's a whole bunch of words that we could put in there, but tension sounds like one that's not as ungodly as some of the other ones.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: Right?
9:22
SPEAKER_00: So God brings along these experiences, and they're yucky, they're awful, they're painful.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: This tension comes up in us because we have we are uncomfortable.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: We have a discomfort with what is happening in our world.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: And in the middle of that discomfort, we have to like figure out how do we understand what is happening in our world.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, this I think is the hardest piece.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Because when we're in the middle of tension, we often have these questions.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Why?
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Why is this happening?
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Because maybe if we can come to some good conclusion about why, maybe we'll feel more comfortable, maybe we'll feel more in control.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: At least this was predictable.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know about you, I like predictability and I like control and I like knowing what to expect.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: And it is in the chaos of the unexpected that I'm really experiencing that tension.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: So when we face these tensions, those tensions are going to trigger for us this examination place.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be our next word: examination.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: So we experience this thing that produces this tension in us, and now we start going, huh?
10:48
SPEAKER_00: How do we understand what is happening in our world?
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Now, I told you, 2024, really tough year for me.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: How do I understand that?
11:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a lot of examination that could be had there, right?
11:03
SPEAKER_00: Why would God let Clark Summit University close?
11:06
SPEAKER_00: And I gotta tell you, um, I experienced some really angst moments.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Angst sounds less ungodly than some of the other terms I could use, but I experienced some angsty moments in the middle of that.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you one of them.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: One of them was when I went down in a like YouTube rabbit hole about an expose about a ministry that was representing the cause of Christ and actually fleecing God's people of something like$90 million.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Do you know how far$90 million could have gone at Clarkson University?
11:44
SPEAKER_00: And I promise, we were not enriching ourselves.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Like nobody who was working there was doing it for the money.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: I promise.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Like nobody's getting rich here.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: And yet, God allowed that ministry to get$90 million, and he didn't give us a fraction of that.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, that was a moment for me.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: Why would it happen this way?
12:12
SPEAKER_00: How do how am I going to put this into a place where my brain can make sense of this?
12:18
SPEAKER_00: This is our examination moment.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Now, as we go through this examination moment, we're gonna have to come to some conclusions.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: There's probably some challenges because often when we start asking those kinds of hard questions, we only have a fraction of the information that God has, right?
12:36
SPEAKER_00: We have little bits and pieces that we're trying to assemble to make some picture out of this puzzle.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: So the conclusions that we are going to draw are dealing with two capacity problems.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Like the first is that we just don't know what God knows, right?
12:55
SPEAKER_00: If you are have your biblical thinking cap on right now, there's probably some verses coming to your mind too.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they are things like, our ways are not God's ways, neither are our thoughts God's thoughts, because his thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's what you're thinking about right now.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: We do not have the same mental capacity or awareness of what is happening.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: So that's a pretty big issue with the conclusions that we're gonna come to.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: But on top of that, we have another problem, and that problem is sin.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: We are contending with a tendency, a pull towards sin that is gonna cause us to interpret the experiences of our life in selfishness, in pride, because I think those are the two roots of that all the rest of the sin grows out of.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: And when we start examining, you know, the tensions of our life and coming to conclusions in selfishness and pride, this is not going to be a positive learning cycle.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna learn something, we're not gonna learn the right thing.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: So this process of coming to these conclusions isn't gonna be critical because then whatever conclusions we come to about those difficult kinds of questions is going to lead us to a place of application.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay, how does that change what comes next in my life?
14:22
SPEAKER_00: Because clearly it's going to change things.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to tell you, if right now you are starting to think about this in light of the young person that you know who has been deconstructing their faith, I'm going to tell you that there are a lot of young people who have walked away from what they were taught about the Lord because their examinations and conclusions about the tensions that they have faced weren't good ones.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: But they definitely got applied in their life, even though they weren't good ones.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: So this application takes us to a place of integration.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Now we are changed as people because of all that we have learned within this process.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: So what happens next then is that we have a new set of needs, right?
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Now our needs have been adjusted.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we already learned what God wanted us to learn in this last cycle.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: And so now He can move us on to the next lesson.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we didn't learn the right lessons.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: And I do want to warn you, God does seem to give makeup quizzes.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if, I don't know if you're aware.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: If you don't learn it the first time, it's okay.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: There are more cycles to come.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Now, if I were to ask you to like sit here, and I'm going to do that in a few minutes in the discussion portion, and identify some of the learning cycles that you are in, you might go, I don't know if I can list just one.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Because many of us are experiencing many learning cycles at the same time.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Like it'd be nice if God was just like, okay, here's the one thing, so here's the only tension I'm going to bring you, so that you, nope, that's not the way it's worked for me.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: Often we are at different stages of layers of learning cycles all at the same time.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: And yet most of us have never thought about it like this.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: So the value, when I was introduced to this by Dennis Wilhite, of thinking about it like this is maybe we can be smarter about the way we go through it.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we'll be more intentional, maybe we'll be wiser.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk then.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: You can go to your next note page.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, you can go to your next note page, and I want to talk about the fact that we will either respond in our flesh and spirit, and I want to drill down a little bit to what flesh does versus what spirit does, right?
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Um and I think it's important to acknowledge that none of us, like at the beginning of a learning cycle, goes, okay, this one I'm gonna do all the right way, and and not struggle at all.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: This one's gonna be so great.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not the way it works because honestly, it's not even day by day that we have to continue to choose flesh or spirit, flesh or spirit.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: It's sometimes minute by minute, or is or is that just me?
17:18
SPEAKER_00: Like sometimes we were doing really good this morning, and then this afternoon came.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Or for me, it's the morning that's the problem.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: I am not a morning person.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm really, I'm really not.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: And this is why I think that God made me not a morning person.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: I think it was his gift to the rest of the world.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: I think he created me and went.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: That's a lot.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: So I will put her in low power mode until like 10 o'clock.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: But then y'all gotta gird your loins because she's gonna wake up.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: I think that's I I could be right.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes we have moments that we're shining and we're like, yes, I've got my eyes on the Lord and I'm responding right.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: And then we have other moments that are not like that.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: Just me?
18:08
SPEAKER_00: Is it just me?
18:09
SPEAKER_00: It might just be me.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: So if we're gonna think about how we respond in the flesh or in the spirit, just thinking about these needs, okay, the the spirit says this is gonna be an opportunity for growth.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: Like it's a good thing that God wants to change me.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: It's a good thing that He sees different needs in me.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: So, yay for growth, right?
18:34
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Spirit would say.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what the flesh says.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: The flesh says, excuse me, I had a plan.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, I would like to determine what my needs are.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, your list is different than mine.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: And I liked mine, I made mine intentionally.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, mine protected all of my vulnerable spots, you know?
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't, I, that's not a closet I would like to dig through because that seems like an awful lot of work.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Right?
19:05
SPEAKER_00: So the spirit says, okay, Lord, I am so focused on your purposes and what you want to accomplish in me, that I will let you define the needs.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: I will let you push me towards growth.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: I I will embrace that.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: The the flesh says, I don't think no, I don't think I want to do that.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: So then if we look at experience, if we're gonna look at this from a spirit-ordained place, then we're gonna see that as opportunity.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's something new and it's something different.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: But I'll go along for the ride.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: Now, I grew up in Michigan, and as a Michigan girl, um, we were close enough to Cedar Point that I developed an appreciation for something in Ohio.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm a U of M fan, so that's a very limited amount of things that I appreciate about Ohio.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: By the way, there was a couple walking out of our hotel this morning, and they are decked out in U of M.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking, bold move.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's you do know where you are.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay, fine.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: So I got to go to Cedar Point.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Anybody ever get to go to Cedar Point?
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that was the best thing growing up.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Like, I loved the roller coaster rides at Cedar Point.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: Now it's been so many years now.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: They're probably all the ones I went on, I'm sure, are gone, and they're all been replaced with new ones.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: But I loved roller coasters.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: So I went on roller coasters at Cedar Point.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: I have gone on roller coasters at places like SeaWorld has a great one called the Kraken.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: It's got loop-de-loops, very fun.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, I've gone on roller coasters at um Disney World, even apparently racist ones that I went on at Disney World.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: I I have gone on roller coasters.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: I like them.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Except that I have a rule.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: I do not go on these type of rides at local fairs or mall parking lots.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: I've seen way too many of them propped up on two by fours.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: And I have real questions about who did quality control and safety for those and how much they'd been drinking when they were doing it, right?
21:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, are you understand my like concern about those kinds of things?
21:25
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing: when I go to Cedar Point or I go to Disney or SeaWorld World, they have a lot invested in keeping me alive, right?
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Like their whole reputation depends on it.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Like bazillions of dollars depend on them keeping us all safe, right?
21:40
SPEAKER_00: So I go, listen, I wouldn't trust this ride in the mall parking lot, but I'll trust this ride at Cedar Point.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: See, that is probably a good analogy of how we should look at experiences.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't trust this ride.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: In the hands of just any life planner.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: But we're talking about a loving, wise, faithful, powerful God.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: And when we get our theology in the right place, then those experiences that otherwise would be absolutely terrifying, we ought to be ready to embrace.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Lord, you're gonna send me there.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay, can't wait to see what this is gonna bring.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: But that's not how our flesh responds in those moments.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Because our flesh our flesh responds in a way that says, I don't want you messing with my plants.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't want this disrupting the smoothness.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to face maybe where God is sending us has a fear of failure.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: But if I stay where I'm safe, then why would I want to go to scary places?
22:57
SPEAKER_00: And I think there are probably lots of illustrations in your own mind, not you of course, but somebody you know, that that saw this experience as a disruption, one to be feared, one to be resisted.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: But remember, if you miss out on the experience that this gracious God is bringing into your life, you're also going to miss on all the learning that's attached to that.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: So you don't want to miss out on that.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: And it means from the beginning, just from the beginning, when God says, Here, here's my next internship for you, we have to go, oh, yep, that might look scary.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: And I wouldn't be okay if anybody else was in charge.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: But I'll keep my eyes on you.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: I'll keep my eyes on who you are.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, I will embrace opportunity.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm gonna suggest that it's possible in the summer of 2024 that I might have theoretically wanted to have that approach as my life blew up.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Lord, can't wait to see what's happening.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to tell you that that is not where my heart lived most of the time.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: I had a couple shining minutes.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, I was wrestling with overwhelming emotion.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Like, have you ever been that shattered?
24:31
SPEAKER_00: Like, it is it is a thing that sometimes it takes time for our emotions to submit to our theology.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: What we have to make sure is that we have our theology super well grounded so that when that time comes, our emotions will be able to find our theology.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: Our emotions will be able to settle into it.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: So I am certainly not suggesting that you, as you know, ministers to people who are hurting, go, well, how come you're seeing this death as a disruption?
25:04
SPEAKER_00: It's an opportunity, you know, like this is not how we use this.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: We recognize that this is a process for us that takes time.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: But the more we can pull to the spiritual side and pull away from our flesh, the more successful we're gonna be.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: And the easier it will be for us to move on to the next portion of what God is trying to teach us within that.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: So when we get past the opportunity versus disruption, then in the middle of these tensions in the spirit, that tension should bring us a thirst.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not just like, I just want to know God better, but a thirst to understand what he is doing, a thirst to step into whatever he's dragging us.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say inviting, but really dragging us into.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: That's what we should have.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: But often in this moment, what we're experiencing is anxiety.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, that's become the lifeblood of our culture.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: We have more and more rising levels of anxiety, and it's starting in our littlest ones, and then it's it's just increasing in our adult populations, too.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to tell you that it is in part because of a disconnect from a trust in God.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: It is an it is a belief that we have to create our own safety.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: And we know we're not good at that.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: So now we're stressed out.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Because somehow we have to find a way to protect ourselves.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: If we pull to that, we have to protect ourselves.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: What it does is it lessens our capacity to learn from those tensions.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: It lessens our capacity to grow out of those tensions and it starts locking us up in that place.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Self-protection curls us in and it pulls us away from the very resources that God wants us to have to work through these tensions.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: Because He has prepared support systems for us, but the anxiety pulls us away from those.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: I was talking to somebody recently who said they had struggled so much with depression and anxiety that they couldn't go to church.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that's heartbreaking.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: Because do you know what is an antidote for me to depression and anxiety?
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Church.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: Worship the Lord, connect with his people, encourage others.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's that's a big part of it for me.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: But but for her, like people, she had to see as the enemy to protect herself.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that is not gonna give you the access to the resources that God wants you to have.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: So instead, we've got to be so more interested in what He wants to accomplish than what we may want to accomplish.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: And and honestly, the way we want to accomplish.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, Fred seemed to allude to the fact that I'm opinionated.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: I know by now we know each other well enough that you know that Fred is just crazy.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why anybody would think I'm opinionated.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I have a plan.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: I have an idea.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: In fact, my husband would sometimes say that I could talk to anybody and tell them what God's will for their life was.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: And it may have looked suspiciously like my will for their life.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: There may have been just, I don't know why.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: I understand the scared, the fear, the stress that comes when God pulls us into these tension places.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: And I lived in a really powerful tension.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: I want to know God more.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: I want his way more than I want my comfort.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're wrestling with in the middle of that devastation.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: What do you want more?
29:11
SPEAKER_00: To be comfortable, to have it your way, or to know him better, experiencing him more fully, follow him more closely.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're wrestling with.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: So then when we get to the examination period, this is what happens.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: The spiritual side of us should make us wonder all right, what is God doing?
29:36
SPEAKER_00: Because if I can figure that out, I can cooperate with that.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: That's that's what I want to know.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: God, what is your bigger per purpose?
29:44
SPEAKER_00: And I have to say, um, I I'm I'm with it on this one.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a part of me that wants to respond in a spiritual way all the time to this because I'm like, Lord, just show me the map.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: I want, but I want the like, show me your path with a search light that goes out three miles.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, I want, I want the big picture map.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: And instead, he seems to give me the foot lamp.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, the foot lamp was actually a little lamp they tied to their sandals, and it was just enough to keep them from stepping on the snakes or the scorpions.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's how much light it cast.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't tell them anything about what was three feet away.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting here going, Lord, I'm in as long as you tell me what the plan is way ahead of time, with all of the details.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord instead, often in these moments, is giving us the footlamp.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, This is what you need to know right now.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: But my flesh in that moment is like, excuse me, this is this tension is wrong.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: So now, why is this wrong?
30:54
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't settle us into peace and trust, it settles us back into that.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: I have decided that this tension is wrong because it doesn't match what I want.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: And now I just have to figure out what went wrong.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: Now, I I what I've watched people go through difficult situations, and they can get stuck in the autopsy of that difficult situation.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: And that definitely happened when CSU closed.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: There were people who were like, let's figure out what particular person, decision, whatever caused this.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: Who can we blame?
31:32
SPEAKER_00: Now, I think that's a very natural response.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: That's the problem, it's a natural response.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: It's not the supernatural response.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: The natural response is, what's the problem?
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Who can I blame?
31:43
SPEAKER_00: How do we make it stop?
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Right?
31:47
SPEAKER_00: The spiritual examination is looking to see what is it that God might be accomplishing in this, expecting that it's coming from a good and wise and faithful God.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's expecting.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: So then when we get to this conclusion section, if we are functioning in the spirit, we are trying to make sure that we are focused on the voice of God.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: These are the conclusions I want to make sure my conclusions match God's conclusions, right?
32:18
SPEAKER_00: I want them to be, I want them to be grounded in the word or wise counsel from godly people.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: That's that's I want to make sure that my conclusions match the voice of God.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: But in our flesh, man, we are often trying to find our own understanding.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: We want it to make sense to us.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna tell you, there are some things that I do not expect to ever make sense on this plane.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine how they could.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Because from my human perspective, what I'm looking at just seems so messed up.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: And I have questions, and someday I'm gonna arrive in heaven.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: When I arrive in heaven, I don't know what God's plan is for that particular moment.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know if he's gonna say, um, Peter, he's give busy giving tours, apparently.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, John, John, can you go like clear up her question?
33:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's gonna happen.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I'm gonna cross the threshold into glory and all of a sudden not care.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: Like be way too busy praising God, um, that all those questions just like dissipate.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's gonna happen.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: But I do not expect that some of the things that have happened on this plane will ever make sense to me from a human perspective.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Now, some things made a lot more sense to me a little bit down the road.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: Like I remember I'm old enough, old enough that I have some hindsight.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might have more hindsight than others.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are gonna get hindsight.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, aging sucks.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: So, but at least it comes with hindsight.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Hindsight can be beautiful.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: I will tell you one of my favorite pieces of hindsight.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: I have a vivid memory of little Lynelle in sixth grade.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: She had a magazine route.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: We actually used to deliver magazines like they delivered newspapers.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: You young people, they actually used to deliver newspapers.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: And it was very similar to the way we delivered magazines.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: So mom had these slings that she made for us, and we would pop all of the popular mechanics and stuff into it, and apparently some magazines that mom had to put papers over before she gave them to us to deliver.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we had to take them to the right addresses.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: And I vividly, vividly remember walking down the road, delivering magazines, going, just begging God.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: At least I knew where to take my requests.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Everything else was stupid, but begging God, dear God, please make Joe like me.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: Please, please make Joe like me.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: God, please make Joe like me.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: And then I realized that it might not be God's will, but then I wanted a consolation prize.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: So it was like, if you won't make Joe like me, can I at least have a new bike?
35:14
SPEAKER_00: There, there's little Linnell as a sixth grader in a nutshell.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: I so, so, so desperately wanted Joe to like me because that would be perfect.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: That would be like the absolute, clearly best outcome, the right thing.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Now, not you, of course, but somebody you know also had a middle school crush that in hindsight may look a little bit different than how it looked in the moments.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: Because let me tell you, I so desperately wanted Joe to like me back then.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: I am very, very glad that Joe didn't like me ever.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: Because I discovered that maybe I didn't like him either.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: But it took me a little time, right?
36:04
SPEAKER_00: In that moment, it seemed like such a good thing, but in hindsight, I went, yeah, maybe not so much, right?
36:11
SPEAKER_00: So some of the things that we have experienced, we look back in hindsight and we go, oh yeah, God's way was better.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: But guys, I still got some questions.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: And if what I'm looking for is my own understanding, because that's our, that's our, Alex, that's our next slide there, is it the voice of God or is it my own understanding?
36:31
SPEAKER_00: Which conclusions do I want to draw to?
36:33
SPEAKER_00: If it's my own understanding, there's stuff that's not going to make sense.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: Not to us, but to the God who has seen so much more than we have, to the God who understands all the variables that we don't understand.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: Him, he has things to say about it.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: He has things to teach us.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: And if you've got your biblical thinking cap on, there could be hundreds of verses that pop into your head right now.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: And maybe there are things like, you know, consider it all joy when you face trials of many time kinds, because the testing of your faith produces patience.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: Maybe if we hear his thoughts on the subject, it we're gonna come to better conclusions than our own understanding ever, ever would.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: So then in this next phase, we get to the application place.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: And if we're gonna function in the spirit, then the conclusions of the voice of God should bring us some peace.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: It should bring us a place to say, I might not like any of this.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: This might be super uncomfortable, this might be very, very difficult, but I still know the God who's in control of all of this.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: I still have Him to carry me through all of this.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: And that can bring us to a place that I don't necessarily think is one of always immediate joy and celebration and happiness.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: I think we're often still struggling with the pain of the moment.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: But it can make us say, okay, it's gonna be okay.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be okay because he's still on the throne.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: And as long as he is on the throne, it's gonna be okay.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: But that's that's ideally where we should end up, but our flesh instead, our flesh wants so bad for us to get back to what we think is the good thing.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: It wants our maybe ourselves back on the throne.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: It wants us to be able to dictate what comes next.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: And that fleshly response in this application is gonna take us farther away from what God wants us to learn in the midst of it.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: Because in the middle of our control, there might be, it might be more comfortable for us, but it doesn't bring us closer to the Almighty Plan of God.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's the problem.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: And then when it comes to integration, what's happening here is that if we do it in the spirits, then it is opening up our world, it's opening up our perspective, it's uniting us more with the principles of God, with his ways, with his world, with trust in him.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's doing.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: But if we respond in our flesh, we start building a wall.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: We start pulling everything in a little bit closer where we can control it a little bit better.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: We start taking fewer risks.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: Because risks are the enemy, because pain is the enemy.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about how these two ways of responding, either in the flesh or the spirit, can take us to a place of more health or more constraints, limited, less than.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you had your biblical thinking cap on right now, you might be thinking about a verse where Christ said, I have come that they might have life.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: And life, not less, life more abundant.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: He's come to give us more than we would have without him.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: The more we take control, the farther we get away from life more abundant, the more we respond in rest and peace, the more we see his plan, the more we relax into what he is teaching us, the more we find, I'm gonna tell you, exciting detours.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you my favorite detour is the fact that as a young married woman, um, I had some medical issues that led us down the path of infertility.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: By the way, it's stupid.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: It's hard, it's devastating.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: It was a really, really tough four years.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: And it was shattering in part to me because I had a life plan.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: And my life plan is that I was going to be a pastor's wife.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: I was okay with pastor's wife or missionary's wife, but it was gonna be full-time ministry.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: I had already told God what it was gonna be.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: Um I I was gonna be that, and I was gonna be a really good pastor's wife and support him in ministry and raise our babies.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: That's a great plan, isn't that a great plan?
41:42
SPEAKER_00: I had a great plan.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, infertility is not part of that plan.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Like, how can I be a really great pastor's wife and support his ministry and raise our babies if there's no babies?
41:54
SPEAKER_00: That's a problem.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: And I wrestled with God over those years.
41:59
SPEAKER_00: I cried out to him and said, I know from Scripture that you are the God that opens and closes wombs.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's really clear in scripture.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: So, why?
42:10
SPEAKER_00: And I wrestled with this.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't make sense to me.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: This isn't fair.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: I got really ticked off when in my counseling internship, my first client that they gave me was um a 15-year-old girl who had an infant because she got pregnant in a two-night stand when she was 14.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: And I went, let me get this right.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: Fourteen-year-old doing stuff she shouldn't have been doing, she gets a baby.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: My husband's in seminary, I'm getting a master's degree because we're serving the Lord.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: No baby for you.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: How does that work?
42:48
SPEAKER_00: See, in our own understanding, if we're working through this cycle from the flesh, how can I trust God again?
42:55
SPEAKER_00: Like it would pull in.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: Now I have to protect myself.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: When they told us there was really nothing left for us to do, God sent us back to CSU.
43:04
SPEAKER_00: I became an RD in a girl's dorm, and all those girls became my babies, like those barn dollar girls.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: They were, they were like my kids.
43:11
SPEAKER_00: I enjoyed that like so thoroughly.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: And my husband said to me that fall, he said, if God's not going to give you babies, what are you going to do?
43:21
SPEAKER_00: Fair question, because Linnell idol, very dangerous.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: Very dangerous, not good.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I don't know.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: There's like this teaching position open at CSU.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: I think I'd really enjoy that.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna hire me because I'm like 26 and I'm a female, and the ink is hardly drawing my diploma, so they're not gonna hire me.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, you should apply.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: And then those idiots, after seven interviews, hired me.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, no babies, but I get all these students.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: They'll be my babies.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, I get to do this.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: And my contract.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Started June 1st.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: And I found out I was pregnant June 2nd.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: Why?
44:09
SPEAKER_00: Because my idea for my life was constrained.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: It was less than.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: And and I had the order all planned out.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: But it didn't match God's order.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: God said, if I give her the babies first, she won't know about this whole thing that I have for her.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: So I need her on that path first.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: And when I get her to that path, then you just wait.
44:36
SPEAKER_00: Then I'm going to rain down.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: Blessings from heaven.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: And that's what happened.
44:40
SPEAKER_00: I got life more abundant, life way beyond what I could plan, but only because I was on his roller coaster ride.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what I was signing up for.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: And if I did, what I would have signed up for would have been decidedly less than.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: So this is why, if we will embrace his path, we might end up with so much more.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to stop for a second.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: We're going to take a break.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: We're going to have a little bit of discussion.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: I've given you some discussion questions.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: That's at the beginning.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: Now, because I love you people, before we even met, I loved you.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: Um you will note on discussion part one, I have safe questions and I have intermediate level questions, and then I have the advanced topics, and you can decide how much you trust the people at your table.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: You can decide how deep you want this mining expedition to go.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to start thinking about your life from this perspective.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: How, how, if we were to understand our world this way and think about how God is working in us to accomplish his purpose and needs, how would it change the way we understand the experiences of this moment?
45:59
SPEAKER_00: So that's what I want you to do.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: But first I'm going to pray over you, and then you're going to get 13 minutes.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for this consideration and thank you that we are not alone and that we don't always get what we ask for.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful for that.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that as we process through this, that you would build unity among us, that we would encourage each other, build each other on to loving to deeds.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that in Jesus' name.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: 13 minutes.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: Go.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: Alright, are you ready?
46:30
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna build one more layer on this.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: But to start with, I want to, I just want to give you a little bit of a picture.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: And now I love like green is my favorite color.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think green is my favorite color because I love to see all the greens in nature.
46:49
SPEAKER_00: Like one of the happiest places on the entire campus of Clark Summit University was down by the pond.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, and the pond was um had all sorts of different, we had bullfrogs and we had muskrats and we had um koi fish.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: We had all my daughter and I had all the koi fish named.
47:06
SPEAKER_00: That was really fun.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, in the summer, the pond would grow a lovely shade of green on the top of it until it looked more like a tennis court than a pond.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: In fact, one day I really did see a dog step on, he thought he was stepping onto something solid and step into the pond.
47:24
SPEAKER_00: It was absolutely hysterical.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: But um, I love the greens.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: I I love the trees, I love the leaves on the trees.
47:31
SPEAKER_00: I think about how beautiful they are as they as they shelter us.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: I love sitting under a tree in a breeze.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what a beautiful thing, right?
47:40
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever wonder what it was like when the first adult experienced the first fall?
47:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, where they went out one day and went, oh, the the leaves on this tree, they're looking a little, I don't know, the little off, maybe a little discolored.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I should water it some more.
48:01
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they watered it some more.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: And yet those leaves didn't start looking more green.
48:07
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think they started looking more yellow and maybe even some orange and some red, and they didn't look very healthy at all.
48:13
SPEAKER_00: And maybe they got out some miracle grow.
48:16
SPEAKER_00: Because you gotta protect the life of that.
48:19
SPEAKER_00: Those trees are so valuable, and we love those trees so much.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: And the the leaves, they keep then they start falling.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: Like fall the leaves are falling off of the tree.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, they're they're curling up and turning brown.
48:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, this tree, it's died, and it doesn't have leaves anymore.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: Think about like how traumatic that might have been.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: Until one day, out of nowhere, what is that little bit of green on all the tips of the branches?
48:56
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden there's like new life.
49:00
SPEAKER_00: There's oh, it's it's life restored.
49:05
SPEAKER_00: And those leaves that got beat up a little bit last summer, they've now been replaced with new growth.
49:11
SPEAKER_00: I I have to tell you, I think it would have been really traumatic if I was the person who experienced that the first time, not knowing what was coming.
49:19
SPEAKER_00: But I think so often in our lives we experience that because we see what is dying or what God is pulling away from us.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: We we see what we're losing and we don't know what new life is coming.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: So, because of that, because that's very much our human experience, what I want to talk about in this last section is how both we need to be nurtured by others in the middle of these cycles, but also how we can be nurturers of others as they're going through cycles of their own.
49:52
SPEAKER_00: So, in this first section here, we're gonna call this the engaging life together.
49:58
SPEAKER_00: This, like, this is personal ministry that we need from others when we're in these phases, we need to offer to others when they're in these phases.
50:08
SPEAKER_00: So the first one, sorry, I just like clicked the wrong thing.
50:12
SPEAKER_00: The first one is for us to be able to get the ministry that we need in the midst of those experiences, the first thing we need is contact.
50:21
SPEAKER_00: So there's not a gap for you.
50:23
SPEAKER_00: You just have to draw in with the arrows.
50:25
SPEAKER_00: It'll make sense like that.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: I know some of you who are very, very organized kind of people were very stressed out.
50:32
SPEAKER_00: I can't find the next gap.
50:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: You you gotta add, you gotta add to our drawing here.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: You got this.
50:37
SPEAKER_00: I know you can do this.
50:39
SPEAKER_00: So for others to be able to be a blessing to us and help us respond in the godly ways and not the ungodly ways, right?
50:46
SPEAKER_00: In the middle of our experiences, I don't know, they need to know what's going on.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: And here we run into our first obstacle, right?
50:54
SPEAKER_00: Our first obstacle is that a lot of times our lives have become very disconnected with others in the body of Christ.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you think about it, where in biblical times they lived in the tent next door without walls.
51:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm, by the way, I'm very grateful for walls.
51:11
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go back to that.
51:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, there's some healthy differentiation that comes with walls.
51:16
SPEAKER_00: They were all up in each other's business, right?
51:21
SPEAKER_00: We have people in our churches who live an hour and a half apart from each other.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: We have people in our churches who after they, you know, clear the auditorium, I don't know how long your pastor speaks, but after they clear the auditorium a little afternoon on Sunday, they're not going to see another believer until, I didn't know, a little before 11, the next Sunday, right?
51:45
SPEAKER_00: We are often very disconnected, and you say, oh, good thing we have Facebook, because that lets us really know what's going on in each other's lives.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: For sh for sure, right?
51:57
SPEAKER_00: No.
51:58
SPEAKER_00: We get very edited versions of what's going on in each other's lives, in unless it's one of those experiences that just can't be hidden, and those happen, and we don't like those because everybody knows.
52:11
SPEAKER_00: This requires a little bit of transparency in our lifestyle so that when those experiences come, there are people who love us, who see what's happening, and then can minister true to us.
52:25
SPEAKER_00: Like we're we're gonna need the things that they're gonna need to say by the time we get around this.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: But the first thing that we need is, I don't know, relationship.
52:33
SPEAKER_00: The first thing that we need is contact.
52:37
SPEAKER_00: And I think I think there are some believers who really think that Christianity can be like that song, Great Theological Treatise, I'm a Rock, I'm an Islands, I don't need anyone.
52:49
SPEAKER_00: No, that's not the way this works.
52:52
SPEAKER_00: We desperately need each other.
52:55
SPEAKER_00: And that means the best thing that we can do to prepare to work in a godly way through a thing like this is build relationships.
53:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, I gotta tell you, I'm I'm really concerned.
53:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to people who are saying things like this.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've heard things like this.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: They're saying, I am I'm like good with God, I just can't deal with the church.
53:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we've got a problem.
53:17
SPEAKER_00: I I have a problem with that because do you know who designed the church?
53:23
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what God calls the church?
53:26
SPEAKER_00: Do you know the jobs God gave the church?
53:29
SPEAKER_00: Like we have to like show up for work.
53:31
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we have to be reminded that in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, it says, neither can we fire people from the jobs God has given them in the body of Christ, nor can we resign from ours.
53:43
SPEAKER_00: It's it's in there.
53:44
SPEAKER_00: That's just the Linnell translation.
53:46
SPEAKER_00: You you can't do either of those things.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: So the first the first thing we've got to do in personal ministry is be there, show up, be present, have contact with others.
53:58
SPEAKER_00: We need that for us.
54:00
SPEAKER_00: And and this is so hard sometimes because people in ministry have sometimes been taught an authoritative distance that I think actually less than godliness breed.
54:12
SPEAKER_00: So when my dad went to seminary, oh I, daughter of a Baptist pastor, wait, granddaughter of a Baptist pastor, daughter of a Baptist pastor, wife of a mostly Baptist pastor, um, mother, that's my favorite one, of a Baptist pastor, um, also cousins, you know, brother-in-laws, it's all in the family.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: So here's the bad thing that I have seen happen with people in ministry.
54:34
SPEAKER_00: They're taught things like, well, don't let anybody else know because it'll ruin your ministry.
54:40
SPEAKER_00: Right?
54:41
SPEAKER_00: You can't let anybody else know you're struggling because it'll ruin your ministry.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: You can't let your children actually be children because it'll ruin your ministry.
54:48
SPEAKER_00: And your wife certainly isn't allowed to have friends in the church because it'll ruin your ministry.
54:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that is such and not just unbiblical, but it is really unbiblical.
54:57
SPEAKER_00: It's a toxic thought process that when I'm experiencing things, I need to do it with everybody else at a distance.
55:07
SPEAKER_00: This sets us up for failure because we're gonna need people in the next section, in every next section.
55:18
SPEAKER_00: So, not only do we need people who are in contact with us so they know our experiences, but we need people who can comfort us in the middle of the tensions.
55:27
SPEAKER_00: And you might have been like, okay, Lynnelle, I know that you and Dennis, you just wanted there to be all C's.
55:34
SPEAKER_00: No, false.
55:35
SPEAKER_00: We did not in we did not think, oh, we you need people to preach.
55:39
SPEAKER_00: And we just couldn't find a C for that.
55:41
SPEAKER_00: So we said comfort.
55:42
SPEAKER_00: No, we said comfort on purpose.
55:45
SPEAKER_00: Because in the middle of overwhelming emotional hurt, when you need time for your theology to catch up with your emotions, you need people who will be there with you in the emotions, not just going, take two verses and call me in the morning.
56:01
SPEAKER_00: Like this personal ministry means I see you, I see your pain, and I get it.
56:11
SPEAKER_00: I understand it.
56:12
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm here for you, and I'll listen to your hurts.
56:17
SPEAKER_00: So when the school closed, um I I used to have a classroom all the time, and all of a sudden they took away my classroom, and that was you know actually really difficult for me because I was used to um having an outlet for all of the things.
56:33
SPEAKER_00: I had all sorts of places for all the words, and I have lots of words.
56:38
SPEAKER_00: My mom thought my life first should be where words are money, sin is not absent.
56:42
SPEAKER_00: I chose a different one, but she really thought that should be it.
56:46
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden I didn't have an outlet for all of those words.
56:49
SPEAKER_00: So a few days after the closure, I sat down and thought, what's the healthiest place for me to process all of this angst?
56:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Facebook.
56:57
SPEAKER_00: So I went to Facebook and I wrote a post.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: It was called Lessons Learned in the Dark, and I already knew, so I put part one.
57:06
SPEAKER_00: Because I already knew.
57:09
SPEAKER_00: And I like it poured out the screaming pain of that moment into words that let me both acknowledge the pain of this moment and also find a path towards seeing it through the eyes of God.
57:31
SPEAKER_00: I trust me, I wasn't there yet.
57:33
SPEAKER_00: But I could see the path towards it.
57:35
SPEAKER_00: And so I I put words to things, and there was a part two, and there was a part three, and I think there's actually part 29.
57:44
SPEAKER_00: But I found in in that time, um, I accidentally started a ministry.
57:51
SPEAKER_00: I actually don't started a ministry because there were a whole bunch of people experiencing that same screaming pain.
57:58
SPEAKER_00: They were other staff and faculty and alumni and the students that had been there when the school closed, and everybody was in this ah moment, and we all knew what the tension was.
58:11
SPEAKER_00: And being in that place alone is terrible.
58:15
SPEAKER_00: And what God calls us to do in all of those one-anothers is to show up and care and carry each other's burdens.
58:25
SPEAKER_00: Like that's what he invites us to to mourn with each other.
58:31
SPEAKER_00: And so, this part of personal ministry, if you're disconnected and there's nobody to mourn with you and you're doing it on your own, the likelihood is you're gonna have more chance to pull to the ungodly than the godly in the middle of this.
58:43
SPEAKER_00: If you have people who care about you and can sit with you in that moment and still they know that God is doing something and it's gonna be good, then that you might be able to borrow your thirst for what God is doing from them.
59:01
SPEAKER_00: When yours is depleted, overwhelmed, just overwhelmed by the awfulness.
59:07
SPEAKER_00: But this personal ministry of contact and comfort, these are so critical because they become the platform for then how we can help people in those next ones.
59:19
SPEAKER_00: And the next ones are where our ministry turns from the personal to a little bit more of the truth, the biblical, the teaching kinds of ministry.
59:32
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna call this pursuing truth together.
59:36
SPEAKER_00: This is the pointed ministry when we're saying to people, I don't have answers, but I know who does.
59:42
SPEAKER_00: And I can point you to the one who does.
59:46
SPEAKER_00: I can point you to the word of God that gives us some platform for us to understand this.
59:52
SPEAKER_00: I can point you to a theology that will help you in the middle of the unthinkable, the unimaginable.
59:59
SPEAKER_00: I can help you in this examination.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_00: Now, in this examination, this is where we might get to that confronting of an individual who's asking the wrong questions, who's looking in the wrong direction in regards to the answers they're gonna find.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_00: This is when we say, but this is what we know to be true about God.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_00: And because we know this to be true about God, then that has to be true about this situation, because God has not failed in the middle of this.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_00: This is an opportunity for us to take all that God has taught us and point others.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna tell you, after being in teaching ministries where I was teaching the Word of God hours and hours every week, having personal ministries and shepherding others as they walked through difficulty.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_00: When I hit 2024, I needed people to confront me.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_00: I needed people to point to when I was in the wrong place in my examination, when my questions were the wrong questions.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_00: I needed people to speak sometimes hard truths to me in the middle of it, not weaponized, not Bible darts.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_00: I needed them to be so convinced of the truth of God and to remind me of what I knew better.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_00: Because I knew lots of better things, and it didn't mean that my heart didn't pull to the wrong place.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_00: Because it did.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_00: So this part of ministry, no matter what how long that you have served the Lord, no matter how well you know his word, you need people in your life who in this moment will go after you if you need them to.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_00: You need that.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_00: And everybody around you needs that too.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_00: I have a little bit of it.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, I have lots of soapbox issues.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_00: Not a little bit.
1:01:52
SPEAKER_00: I have lots of soapbox issues.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are small soapbox issues, some of them are big soapbox issues.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_00: I have a pretty significantly sized soapbox issue about how the modern evangelical church has failed its pastors.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: And what I really mean by failing its pastors, especially, especially the big ones.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: Because every time one war like scandal erupts, I go, how did that happen?
1:02:20
SPEAKER_00: And who was not around that pastor saying, wait, that's a terrible idea?
1:02:26
SPEAKER_00: Like, who wasn't there in those moments?
1:02:28
SPEAKER_00: And that one of the ones that grieves me so much I can't, I don't know if I'll ever get over it, is Robbie Zacharias.
1:02:33
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I'll ever get over it because I loved listening to Robbie Zacharias.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_00: It was like, man, he started teaching, and my heart was like, I am with you.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's exactly what I needed to hear.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_00: Where's my notepad to write that down?
1:02:47
SPEAKER_00: Loved listening to Robbie Zacharias.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_00: Somebody should have been around to give some truth to Robbie Zacharias when he was doing poor examination, right?
1:03:01
SPEAKER_00: We have had scandal after scandal, the fall of pastor after pastor that apparently nobody thought need that.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, he doesn't need it.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, he doesn't need it.
1:03:11
SPEAKER_00: He needs it.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_00: He needs it.
1:03:15
SPEAKER_00: Every ministry leader needs this, and also God signs us up for this job too.
1:03:23
SPEAKER_00: The people we serve will need this.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_00: This just needs to be part.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, guys, we all know how countercultural this is, right?
1:03:31
SPEAKER_00: Because in our culture, if you really love someone, you'll say exactly what they want to hear all the time.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_00: Now, I I do counseling.
1:03:43
SPEAKER_00: And those people, if they come to me expecting that kind of therapy, they're going to be wildly disappointed.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_00: They're not going to get that.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_00: They're going to get truth whether you like it or not.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_00: Because right now, what you might want to do is be focused on what is wrong in the world, and you might miss out on the fact that God is doing something good.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_00: And I want to point you to that.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure your eyes are in the right place.
1:04:09
SPEAKER_00: So this is both what I need for my heart and what I need to give to the hearts of others.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_00: Then the people around us, when it comes to our conclusions, can help us choose between this.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_00: Am I listening to the voice of God or am I coming to my own conclusions?
1:04:25
SPEAKER_00: They can help us by serving as a compass.
1:04:30
SPEAKER_00: They can help point us in the direction of true north.
1:04:35
SPEAKER_00: So now you're asking the right questions.
1:04:37
SPEAKER_00: Now, okay, are you looking in the right place for the answers?
1:04:44
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm gonna tell you the navel gazing, the introspection thing, we can do that for years and not come to good conclusions.
1:04:53
SPEAKER_00: We need to get our eyes in a better place.
1:04:56
SPEAKER_00: And this is why this is that pointed ministry that points us to truth.
1:05:00
SPEAKER_00: This is what this is what teaching ministries ought to be in our church.
1:05:03
SPEAKER_00: They ought to be doing this to us all the time.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_00: This is what this is what our relationships ought to be doing with others in the body of Christ.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_00: They ought to be doing this all the time.
1:05:10
SPEAKER_00: This is what we ought to be doing for each other.
1:05:15
SPEAKER_00: Being a compass, pointing people in the right direction so they don't get stuck.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_00: Because our understanding is so dangerous and toxic.
1:05:25
SPEAKER_00: And what makes sense to us is often so far away from the path that God wants us to be on.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_00: So when the world says, what you really need to do is just tell people what they want to hear.
1:05:39
SPEAKER_00: Guys, that's not good for anybody.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_00: Like this whole affirmational model of therapy is terrible.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_00: And if you can't look at our current world and realize that therapy has failed, like I've been teaching counseling for decades, and therapy's failed.
1:05:58
SPEAKER_00: And it's failed because therapists think.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: That their job is to tell people what they want to hear.
1:06:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I just want to affirm how you're feeling in this moment.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_00: How did that help?
1:06:10
SPEAKER_00: Like, yes, we can be with people in their pain without saying, oh, oh, you're so right in the way you view all of this.
1:06:19
SPEAKER_00: And everything that you tell me about your mother, I'm absolutely going to believe that it's absolutely true.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_00: Yes, she she definitely never loved you because that's how you lived.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, I used to tell girls in the dorm, if you come to me and you complain to me about your parents, you just need to know that I have a default.
1:06:36
SPEAKER_00: And my default setting is that your parents actually love you.
1:06:40
SPEAKER_00: My reason for that is you're still breathing.
1:06:45
SPEAKER_00: And you gave your parents ample both opportunity and motivation to kill you.
1:06:54
SPEAKER_00: Some of those children had been trying to commit suicide by parent for a really, really long time.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_00: And then they would come to college and they would try to commit suicide by Linnelle.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_00: I thought about it a few times.
1:07:07
SPEAKER_00: Listen, sometimes we get narratives that are stuck in our heads because it makes sense to us.
1:07:14
SPEAKER_00: And also we saw TikTok.
1:07:16
SPEAKER_00: And those narratives might be terrible narratives.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_00: They're based on our understanding, and we are missing pieces.
1:07:23
SPEAKER_00: We are missing a greater context.
1:07:25
SPEAKER_00: Somebody better say something.
1:07:29
SPEAKER_00: Because this is like the pit of despair.
1:07:32
SPEAKER_00: You start crawling into, oh, the way I understand this must be the right way.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_00: And this is only going to end in devastation.
1:07:41
SPEAKER_00: You get so sure that you're right about the way you view this, you're wrong.
1:07:47
SPEAKER_00: We've become more and more and more subjective.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay, subjective says I can only say things my way.
1:07:54
SPEAKER_00: And I can't see any other excuse, any other way to understand the situation.
1:08:00
SPEAKER_00: And this growing subjectivity, by the way, there's actual evidence, I can point you to all sorts of research that says generationally we are getting more subjective by the generation.
1:08:13
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's not gonna help us with conflict, right?
1:08:16
SPEAKER_00: Because if I can't ever see your side of things, we're never gonna come to a place where we can work effectively together, right?
1:08:24
SPEAKER_00: This subjectivity is the enemy of fruitful relationships, so it is the enemy of what God is trying to do.
1:08:30
SPEAKER_00: And yet we are all being pulled toward it.
1:08:33
SPEAKER_00: Our entire culture is trying to shape us towards subjectivity.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't believe me, all you have to do is open TikTok.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_00: Because there's all of these people explaining how unfair, ridiculous, outrageous something was that just happened.
1:08:48
SPEAKER_00: And I have to say, I go, I can think of six reasons why the other person might have done that and not been trying to hurt you.
1:08:56
SPEAKER_00: Like six.
1:08:57
SPEAKER_00: You can't think of any of them.
1:08:59
SPEAKER_00: All you can think of is it hurt me, so they're the they're the devil incarnate.
1:09:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, like that's what we're gonna have to fight against.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna need other people to serve as our compass in those moments, and then we can serve as a compass to other people to make sure that they have that same potential to understand and not get trapped in their own views, their own uh dangerous views, their own flawed views.
1:09:22
SPEAKER_00: And then when we get to the application part, what we have is others who can help us serve as a counselor.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_00: Ah, I like that word.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_00: A true counselor is going to help people respond, then with seeing the theology of God, seeing who He is, and building that trust in that moment instead of trying to regain control.
1:09:48
SPEAKER_00: That's that's what wise counsel is gonna give you.
1:09:51
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna it's gonna say, here is how you live in light of who God is.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, on a semi-regular basis in counseling classes, I mean like almost all the time, I would say that this.
1:10:06
SPEAKER_00: That sounds like a theological problem.
1:10:10
SPEAKER_00: Because you know what counseling often is?
1:10:13
SPEAKER_00: A theological problem.
1:10:15
SPEAKER_00: Because the very issues that I struggle with are theological problems.
1:10:20
SPEAKER_00: I just don't recognize that was a theological problem.
1:10:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I don't have the right framework in mind.
1:10:26
SPEAKER_00: So years ago, I got to listen to uh a man named John Barnett, really appreciate his ministry.
1:10:32
SPEAKER_00: He's got a bunch of things called word-filled um uh books.
1:10:37
SPEAKER_00: They're so good.
1:10:37
SPEAKER_00: Word-filled topic, word filled family, word field anyway, so good.
1:10:41
SPEAKER_00: I was listening to him speak, and he started talking about our theology and the way it becomes protective walls for us.
1:10:49
SPEAKER_00: And I got thinking about that.
1:10:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm really good at stealing people's material, just in case you wonder.
1:10:53
SPEAKER_00: Just I I will take it, I will make it my own.
1:10:57
SPEAKER_00: If anybody likes what I said today, it's probably from Will Heidt.
1:11:00
SPEAKER_00: If you don't like it, it's probably from me.
1:11:02
SPEAKER_00: It just gets really messy.
1:11:03
SPEAKER_00: But I started thinking about what he said about our theology being our the walls that protect us, and I got thinking about it, and I created a box visualization, and I call it the theological box that contains my chaos.
1:11:17
SPEAKER_00: And each side is a character trait of God.
1:11:20
SPEAKER_00: And if that is true, then all of the chaos of my moments can be contained in my knowledge of God.
1:11:30
SPEAKER_00: And when that chaos starts leaking out, I'm gonna tell you it's done locked, it's a leaking in the last couple years.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_00: When it starts leaking out, it becomes a barometer for me to say which one of the truths of who God is have I forgotten about?
1:11:45
SPEAKER_00: Which ones am I like, hmm, questioning?
1:11:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, not overtly, because that sounds bad, but not living like I believe it, right?
1:11:54
SPEAKER_00: And those walls are like, first of all, the infinite, immense nature of God.
1:11:59
SPEAKER_00: That's the bottom of my box.
1:12:01
SPEAKER_00: And it's his wisdom, which is smarter than mine.
1:12:04
SPEAKER_00: I gotta remember that one because I've got some natural hubris about how smart I am and my ideas.
1:12:10
SPEAKER_00: It's his, it's the fact that he is purposeful and involved.
1:12:14
SPEAKER_00: It's the fact that he is good and loving, it's the fact that he is powerful in the lid of my boxes, the fact that he is faithful.
1:12:20
SPEAKER_00: And if those things are in place, then when I go to say what do I do next, I'm gonna make the right decisions.
1:12:31
SPEAKER_00: If I let that theology be undermined, then my application is gonna be thrown off.
1:12:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna come to the wrong decisions about what needs to come next.
1:12:42
SPEAKER_00: That's our distinction here.
1:12:44
SPEAKER_00: So we need we need sometimes need counselors who go, let me let me point out where your conclusions are bad.
1:12:51
SPEAKER_00: Now let me help you apply that to your specific situation today in this specific moment.
1:13:00
SPEAKER_00: And just because there are enough C's.
1:13:05
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to integration and whether or not we shrink our world and build up walls and become very self-protective so we don't get hurt anymore, or we open up to what God could invite us into, we need a coach.
1:13:19
SPEAKER_00: We need a coach who can say, All right, I'm gonna put you in.
1:13:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you an opportunity, I'm gonna point you that direction.
1:13:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you some homework, go do that.
1:13:36
SPEAKER_00: We need somebody who they themselves have their eyes on the vision of God's purposes in us and those needs that He's trying to develop, and they can help us as we grow and learn and apply, and they can say, okay, now here's what's next.
1:13:55
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
1:13:56
SPEAKER_00: God has grown you so much.
1:13:58
SPEAKER_00: I could see you in this position.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_00: I could see you doing this.
1:14:01
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever thought about?
1:14:03
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that have you ever thought about is just have you ever thought about telling your story?
1:14:09
SPEAKER_00: Because I think one of the things that we've kind of lost a little bit in the modern church is the story of what God has been doing.
1:14:18
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you in this room are as mature or more, no, mature is not a good word because I'm not always mature, as elderly or more than I am.
1:14:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm 52.
1:14:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna tell you there's just something that comes with those life experiences when we look at the things that God has brought us through and what he has taught us, the way he has sustained us, the way he has held us in those tensions, the way he has redeemed them, what happens in the spring when the buds break break free after a winter of what looks like death.
1:14:59
SPEAKER_00: We know those things, right?
1:15:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I usually say not you, of course, but somebody you know, but I'm gonna tell you you know because you've experienced that winter and it's so powerful to us.
1:15:14
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
1:15:15
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole bunch of young uns the babies, they haven't seen the stories of God's faithfulness yet.
1:15:23
SPEAKER_00: They don't know what comes out, they might not know about spring, and all they're experiencing in this moment is pain and death and loss, and they need to borrow your stories.
1:15:39
SPEAKER_00: God knew this when we he told the people in the Old Testament, he said things like, remember and do not forget.
1:15:45
SPEAKER_00: He said, make sure to tell your kids.
1:15:47
SPEAKER_00: I like Psalm 78.
1:15:49
SPEAKER_00: We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord and the wonders that he has done, and then they will not be like their forefathers, a stubborn and stiff next generation, but they will put their faith in God.
1:16:00
SPEAKER_00: Like we have to tell the stories, we have to take the goodness of God in our previous cycles of learning, even the ones that we didn't pursue in the godly way.
1:16:15
SPEAKER_00: And we need to share those.
1:16:17
SPEAKER_00: We need to share those because it encourages others who are walking similar kinds of paths.
1:16:22
SPEAKER_00: It is a shared grief, it is a halved grief.
1:16:26
SPEAKER_00: That's the phrase that you'll find online.
1:16:30
SPEAKER_00: They we need to share those burdens in that way, but we need to tell others because if you have forgotten that God is faithful, I got some stories for you.
1:16:40
SPEAKER_00: We need to tell each other because I don't, I have to confess, I don't get this deconstruction thing.
1:16:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't get this, I get the fact that all of us at some point, as we were growing up in our faith, especially if we've been around for a little while, we encountered some things that were institutionalized in churches that were probably more about tradition than Christ-likeness.
1:17:05
SPEAKER_00: And all of us were touched by some of the.
1:17:06
SPEAKER_00: I was touched by some of them, I had to wear skirts and kulottes.
1:17:10
SPEAKER_00: And for you young ones, culottes were like, how unattractive can we make females?
1:17:17
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
1:17:17
SPEAKER_00: That's what kulaks were.
1:17:20
SPEAKER_00: Like, there was a lot of that stuff.
1:17:24
SPEAKER_00: And so I get why people are like, I don't know, I'm a little suspicious about the organized rule.
1:17:29
SPEAKER_00: I get that part, okay?
1:17:30
SPEAKER_00: I understand why they're wrestling a little bit with it.
1:17:32
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing as much as let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
1:17:38
SPEAKER_00: I cannot even imagine ever coming to a place where I do not submit to the Lord because I've seen too much.
1:17:47
SPEAKER_00: Guys, I've seen too much.
1:17:50
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I have seen?
1:17:53
SPEAKER_00: I've seen Jesus.
1:17:55
SPEAKER_00: I've seen a God who has walked into the craziest, hardest moments with exactly what I needed in that moment.
1:18:04
SPEAKER_00: There's I you want to debate the existence of God?
1:18:08
SPEAKER_00: I've seen the evidence.
1:18:11
SPEAKER_00: I've seen the evidence that came so close to my life and my heart that I didn't need to see him out there.
1:18:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad the heavens scream the glory of God.
1:18:21
SPEAKER_00: Folks, my life screams the glory of God.
1:18:26
SPEAKER_00: And if he is gonna do this work in us, your job is to now sign up, to be that for other people, to take what he's taught you and say, I will share this with others, even the unflattering parts, even the parts where he was faithful when I was faithless, even the parts where it just shows my ungodliness in the moment where my selfishness and pride ruled, where my hopelessness took root, even those parts, because they point to a God that was still faithful in in spite of that.
1:19:07
SPEAKER_00: That's the message that we are taking.
1:19:09
SPEAKER_00: We are proclaiming him.
1:19:12
SPEAKER_00: It is about his goodness in our life.
1:19:15
SPEAKER_00: And reminding ourselves of that, of what he has done in the past is so important because it is what will carry you through the next one.
1:19:25
SPEAKER_00: And you don't know what the next one is.
1:19:28
SPEAKER_00: In human ways, I would love to like pray over people with ease.
1:19:34
SPEAKER_00: We do that all the time, right?
1:19:36
SPEAKER_00: We pray over expectant moms that everything will go well with the delivery and the baby and the mom will both be healthy.
1:19:43
SPEAKER_00: That's what we pray over them, right?
1:19:47
SPEAKER_00: We pray for people to be healed physically, right?
1:19:53
SPEAKER_00: We pray for good things to happen.
1:19:56
SPEAKER_00: That's our definition of good things.
1:19:59
SPEAKER_00: And I think we should pray for those good things, and then we should say, and Lord, if your idea is better than mine, let's go with your plan.
1:20:11
SPEAKER_00: Because his plan might not be the easy, his plan might not be the safe, his plan might be really brutal.
1:20:24
SPEAKER_00: But you wouldn't want to miss what comes at the end of that path.
1:20:30
SPEAKER_00: It's a hard path.
1:20:32
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to see people go through hard.
1:20:34
SPEAKER_00: I have the the biggest problem with this with my kids.
1:20:37
SPEAKER_00: I have young adults.
1:20:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, Beth is 19, Matt's 23, Chris is in the middle at 21.
1:20:44
SPEAKER_00: Matt's about to get married.
1:20:47
SPEAKER_00: I, by the way, I like her.
1:20:48
SPEAKER_00: By the way, there's nothing happier when you like the one your child is going to marry.
1:20:55
SPEAKER_00: That is a very wonderful, wonderful place to be.
1:20:58
SPEAKER_00: I've been praying for them.
1:21:01
SPEAKER_00: My natural bent is to pray for the ease.
1:21:05
SPEAKER_00: I hope God does something amazing, even if it takes the hard to get there.
1:21:10
SPEAKER_00: And I I don't like seeing my kids go through the hard.
1:21:16
SPEAKER_00: But I've got to trust the designer of this particular roller coaster, that what feels unsafe is gonna have a beautiful ending to it.
1:21:27
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna accomplish his beautiful purposes in it.
1:21:32
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're pushing towards.
1:21:34
SPEAKER_00: This opportunity for us to get shepherded by others in the midst of our struggles, and also the opportunity for us to shepherd, to take God's graciousness in our lives today, God's goodness, and point others.
1:21:51
SPEAKER_00: Let them know him better, let them see what he's done.
1:21:54
SPEAKER_00: That's where we're moving.
1:21:55
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna give you a little bit of extra time for question sheet number two.
1:22:03
SPEAKER_00: Because I love you.
1:22:06
SPEAKER_00: Question sheet two comes with three levels, too.
1:22:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you on the first sheet, you were cowards, and you chose safe.
1:22:19
SPEAKER_00: I still have safe on this sheet too, but maybe you're not allowed to take safe twice.
1:22:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
1:22:29
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think through how God has worked in you and allowed you to be a blessing to others.
1:22:37
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about how others have been that to you and what was God teaching you in the middle of that about how he might invite you to be used in the greater narrative that he is working.
1:22:51
SPEAKER_00: So if you, by the way, and if you by this point have a better question than I did, I'll allow you to substitute that.
1:22:59
SPEAKER_00: There's my get out of awkward free card.
1:23:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, take this, talk amongst yourself.
1:23:06
SPEAKER_00: And remember, the whole point to this is go back to Colossians chapter one.
1:23:11
SPEAKER_00: We proclaim him, is what it's about.
1:23:15
SPEAKER_00: The glory of God in those difficult situations.
1:23:19
SPEAKER_00: That's the heartbeat.
1:23:20
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray and then I'll send you to this discussion.
1:23:22
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for who you are.
1:23:24
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the goodness that we have seen.
1:23:26
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your faithfulness.
1:23:28
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you show yourself to be real and true in some of our hardest moments.
1:23:33
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for teaching us even when we were so stubborn and didn't want to be taught.
1:23:37
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that what you would do is solidify in us a heart that aches for what you will do, embracing the path you will choose to do it, and glorifying you in every moment that comes next.
1:23:50
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
1:23:51
SPEAKER_00: Amen.