Trusting God Through the Pain

The other day I was listening to a song and a spot in the lyrics took me back to how I used to live my life for a long time, only up to a few years ago:

"Drinking coffee black as iron

And I couldn’t be much higher

Without falling out of my chair

Been so numb for so many years"

-"By and By," Caamp

I started smoking pot when I was in ninth grade, but it wasn't until my senior year of high school that I discovered weed seemed to work really well to mask the feelings of anxiety and depression that I was struggling with back then. When I began having trouble falling asleep at night because of all the negative thoughts running through my brain, it didn't take long for me to find that getting high before bed would help me fall asleep.

The thing I quickly realized though was that escape was only temporary. Sure, I could get high as a kite and fall asleep, but when I awoke the next morning, those same thoughts were still there. When faced again with those things I was running from, I immediately wanted to smoke myself into a stupor again so I could get that temporary relief. It didn't take long before this turned into a habit.

This pattern is what creates addiction, and although I was "wise" enough to stay away from the really dangerous drugs, I most definitely became dependent on weed and alcohol for a large part of my life because I allowed myself to become a slave to this avoidance cycle. This was not a picture of freedom. This was a picture of bondage.

I finally began to see this way of "living" was not sustainable when I went through an extremely hard season of life about seven years ago. At that time, I hit the lowest point that I had felt since my senior year of high school, and all that anxiety and depression I felt in high school came flooding back, like it never actually went away...because it hadn't.

When I hit that point, I remember realizing that I couldn't live this way anymore. I wanted to be free for once in my life. I just didn't know how to get there on my own.

As I continued to walk through that season, I repeatedly asked God to take away the pain of the past, because it just wouldn't leave me alone. I'll never forget when I was praying one day as I struggled through a panic attack, "Why do I have to go through this Lord?" I'll never forget the response I heard within my soul when I heard him say back to me, "Because you can."

I was actually upset with God for that answer to prayer. Why? Because I wanted to be airlifted out of my pain and suffering. I wanted a quick fix, and he hadn't offered that to me. I wanted immediate relief, but what the Lord wanted for me was to learn to trust him, even when life didn't make sense.

I knew that God was telling me that I was going to have to do a lot of hard work to find the freedom I desired, but I knew I could trust him. He was showing me that despite what I thought about myself back then, I actually WAS strong enough to walk through the pain, instead of running from it. That's when I told God, "I trust you Lord, and whatever you want me to do, I'll do it," and my life hasn't been the same since.

I began the hard work, not of earning freedom from God, but of fighting against myself and the years and years of avoidance tactics I had built up to that point. I had to learn how to communicate with those around me. I had to learn that it wasn't freedom to tune out the world and run away from something that was easier to avoid.

The pain is there to point us to something deeper, often false beliefs we have about ourselves and our identity. God doesn't want us to run away from those things, because he wants to use them to show us the truth about who we are to him. Often, I think we have to experience these difficult things in life because he can't heal something inside of us that we aren't aware of. Trials bring impurities to the surface. It exposes them.

When we are properly rooted in Christ, and we are anchored in the truth of his word, we can find the freedom to view our present suffering and afflictions as growth opportunities, rather than reasons to retreat from life. Paul talked about this idea in the book of Romans actually:

"We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation," -Romans 5:3-4 NLT.

The unique thing for us all is not if we will go through pain and suffering, but when. The question for us then is, how will we respond to it?

God doesn't cause evil in the world, but he allows it for now, and he walks through it with us, even when it hurts.

Jesus' life was the ultimate picture of God experiencing the pain and sorrows of our world, even death on a cross.

When we learn to trust him in the pain and walk with him anyway, that trust continues to grow, and we are made to be more like Christ. This is what sanctification looks like, and this is the walk we are called to as we follow Christ in this life. It's what it looks like to "carry our cross" (Luke 9:23) and follow Jesus. When we truly do this and stop allowing ourselves to be led by our own emotions and follow him, we experience true freedom.

'To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,"' -John 8:31-32 NIV.

The impact of our past

"When difficult emotions come up, we may find ourselves retreating from their true significance. Troubled and agitated by their intensity, we just want to make the feelings go away. It's hard to think about our pain. So we might eat, shop, exercise, seek out addictions of various kinds, and---above all---stay busy. The net result is poor self-reflection skills; we lack the ability to come up with any real sense of our feelings, let alone why we are behaving in certain ways. And, of course, this lack of awareness limits our ability to communicate in our marriage.

God created us to have emotions, not get rid of them. Ignoring our feelings can literally make us sick. I have seen a number of people in my office who came to counseling for various reasons. While hearing their stories, I discovered they suffered from chronic illnesses. Many times these clients routinely ignored their feelings. As they became aware of their emotions and learned to process them, they were surprised to see their health improve. Suppressed feelings are the cause of more illness than anyone realizes. Holding emotions inside without ever releasing them is hard on the body.

Some of us, however, grew up in homes where positive thinking was the rule. There is nothing wrong with positive thinking unless it means we can't deal with our negative feelings. Perhaps you grew up with "Look on the bright side," "Ignore it and it wil go away," or even "Rejoice always." These simple answers do little to help our souls, because some feelings linger and even intensify long after the cause has passed. As you may have found, emotions won't just go away."

-How We Love, Chapter 16: Seek Awareness, Milan and Kay Yerkovich

This is a great book that has been extremely helpful in my own journey of learning how negative emotions and behavior patterns can affect communication in our relationships. While reading this section this morning, I found it extremely relatable to my own story, as it was a pattern I've played out most of my life, up until the last 6 years or so. 

I have come to believe that developing a willingness to engage with our emotions is crucial as a starting point for growing in our relationships with others, and with God. I would not stop there though, as I don't think it's enough to simply be aware of how we feel, or even to be willing to talk about it instead of running away from negative thoughts and emotions.

At the end of the day, how helpful is it to simply replay past events and acknowledge how those things made me feel if I don't go any further with it? The reality is that it's not the past event that shapes us, those things led us to believe things about ourselves that are often not true. The reason we often get stuck in these cyclical behavior patterns in our relationships is because current events that may feel similar to something that happened in our past trigger beliefs that are lying beneath the surface, and we feel it all again, whether we acknowledge it or not.

One of the things that has amazed me is how many people simply do not want to engage with their past, even if they encounter someone who has found tremendous amounts of healing from their past. Many people have built incredible defense mechanisms that they simply do not want to get rid of. This is how I lived my life for years though, but that's because I didn't know any better for the longest time. Once I learned that those emotions that I tried so hard to bury for so long are the key to unlocking the doors to the beliefs behind them, and that God wanted to show me the truth in those beliefs, I could never go back to how I used to live.

In one sense I would think that a person who has encountered the healing power of Jesus to be true in their life would be more willing to engage with difficult things in their past, I also have come to believe that Christians often find a new excuse with their new identity as a believer, to pretend like the things of the past didn't happen or didn't affect them the way they truly did. Christians may often use their new identity in Christ as a way of dismissing everything unpleasant in the past and trying to wipe the slate clean without actually dealing with the aftermath of past events. Christians especially love to quote platitudes and use scriptures out of context to justify emotional avoidance. There's probably an endless supply of believers who have misquoted Philippians 3 as a way to justify their repeated ignoring of whatever is in their past.

I have heard the saying many times that we should let sleeping dogs lie, which is just really another way of trying to avoid dealing with something in the past, "just leave it alone," they mean to say! Someone close to me recently said about this saying that it didn't work for them, because the dog was really never asleep, it was barking and growling the whole time. We can pretend that the things of the past didn't affect us. We can escape through various addictions, but all of those things are short-term Band-Aids for the pain that we feel from lies we have believed based on our past experiences.

Jesus doesn't want to simply erase our past, he wants to restore it by teaching us who we truly are in him. He wants to show us that the lies we believed about ourselves in relation to our identity, were never true in the first place, and we can find our true identity in him. My experience has shown this to be true. My life has been completely changed by engaging with the past and letting it draw me closer to my Savior Jesus. Although I believe God can simply wipe that pain away, I think it's generally more true that he wants us to walk through the pain and learn about how it has impacted our relationship with him first, before he restores it. After all, how can he heal what we don't know is there? Jesus is there wanting to show us how much he loves us and who we truly are, but we have to be willing to open the door to let him in. Sometimes, it can feel like a long painful process to even find the door to be able to open it for him, but I can personally attest that it is so worth it when we encounter him in those most painful moments and beliefs that we have been carrying for so long.

Daniel's resolve

This morning in my daily Bible reading, I am reading about the classic account of Daniel and the Lion's den (Daniel chapter 6). If you're not familiar with this story, let me give you a little background information first. 

Daniel was a Jewish exile currently residing in Babylon. He was among several Jewish men who were drafted into the king's service in Babylon. One of the first things we read about Daniel that reveals his character, is that even though as a King's servant he was going to be subject to eating and drinking certain foods from the royal kitchen, the Bible says:

"But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way," -Daniel 1:8 NIV.

This may seem odd to us how someone could be defiled by what they eat or drink, but the Jewish people had very specific dietary laws and what they ate and drink mattered greatly to them. We are getting a very clear picture here of Daniel's integrity and character. When up against a situation where he could have been killed for refusing to comply with the rules and guidelines of the royal service, the Bible says that Daniel resolved to not defile himself this way. That word resolve means, "to make a firm decision about." Daniel knew that even though it could cost him his life, he was going to stand on his principles and beliefs and not be shaken by what was in front of him, no matter what. This is one of the things that made Daniel such a great man of God. 

As the book of Daniel continues, we see him be used by God in multiple ways that are very consequential. He interprets dreams for the king, again at the potential risk of his own life because of what the interpretations meant, but he stands his ground anyways. Daniel knew that although his occupation was in service of a regional king, that his true king was God himself. Daniel knew that no matter what happened or what was going on around him, God was in control, and he had nothing to fear ultimately.

With all of this in mind, I am not at all surprised when I read chapter 6 in the book of Daniel, which is where we find the account of the Lion's den. In this account, we find Daniel in service to a new king, but his integrity and character remain unchanged and solid in his devotion to God. When the chapter starts out, we see Daniel being set apart for a position of high leadership in the kingdom because of how he has conducted himself with integrity:

"Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom," -Daniel 6:3 NIV.

Because of this, a group of other government administrators are extremely jealous of him and are plotting to find a way to take him down. The problem is though, Daniel is just too good of a person and too devoted to God: 

"Finally these men said, “We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God," Daniel 6:5 NIV.

These corrupt officials go on to trick the king into enacting a new law that would essentially force the death penalty on anyone who prays to a god or person other than the king in the next 30 days. Obviously, they craft this law specifically with Daniel in mind because of his devotion to God, they are absolutely confident that he will continue in prayer anyways, and they were absolutely right:

"Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before," -Daniel 6:10 NIV.

Isn't it remarkable, that even in the face of what seemed like certain death, Daniel does not waver one bit in his faith in God. I wonder how often we have the sort of faith and resolve that Daniel has in this situation? I wonder how often, we have the sort of thinking that expects out of our service to God that things should just go a certain way in our life. We may not say it like that, but I think if I'm being honest about myself here, sometimes we definitely think that way. When the chips are down, we often express our frustration with God because things aren't going the way we think they should. 

In Daniel's case though, he knew that God was real, and no matter what was going on in front of him he was going to live his life in full submission to whatever God was asking him to do, even if it cost him everything. As the rest of this story plays out, we see that the king actually really loves Daniel and is extremely disturbed when he realizes he was duped by the other officials into signing this law, and he tries everything to save Daniel, but ultimately has to honor the fact that he signed this law into existence and Daniel is thrown into the lion's den. God sends an angel and closes the mouths of the lions overnight, and when King Darius runs to the Lion's den the next morning he finds Daniel alive and well testifying to God's goodness, which flows into King Darius and he writes a proclamation for all the people of the land to worship Daniel's God. How remarkable! 

One thing I think we have to be careful of is taking the ending of this account as a prescription for how God should manage our lives. The reality is that not every account ends with a happy ending. When Daniel made decisions to stand firm in his faith and service to God he knew that it was at the potential cost of his life, and he stood firm in his decision to serve God and God alone anyhow. We have to always remember that God is the one who sees everything and who is ultimately in control. When we know who God is we can take comfort and knowing that even if we give our lives for his sake, we don't have to worry because we can trust him and we know that death is not the end on this earth. We can be confident in who God is by spending time with him by reading his word and in communicating with him through prayer, and also by being in community with other believers with the same values as us. 

Living in a world that is broken and tainted by sin can be very difficult at times. The challenge for us as believers in Jesus Christ is not to trust in our own strength and circumstances, but to place our full trust in the one who created everything. No matter how the storms may be raging around us, we can know that he loves us, and he has our best interests in mind in all circumstances, and that he is in control of everything in this world. When our faith is grounded in such wonderful knowledge, we can be confident that even if it costs us everything, a life lived in service to God is the one worth living.

The Prodigal Son: God's Love for His Children

Can God really love us as much as the Bible says he does? I wonder how many of us believe the words of scripture when we read something like John 3:16:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life," John 3:16 ESV.

If you don't have much biblical knowledge, maybe you still cling to the idea of God being all loving, but deep down you wonder, could God really love me like that? I wonder how many of us have been so damaged by our life experiences, that we simply find it inconceivable that God could overlook our brokenness. Or maybe it's the hurtful things that we've willingly done to others out of our own defensiveness and reactiveness. Sure, maybe God loves some people like that, but in our hearts, do we really think that includes us? Or maybe your life circumstances were not ones of your own choices, but you feel that you've been swept away in your situation, and left all alone and forgotten. Today I want to show you that God loves you so much, that he can't wait for you to come home to him. I'm going to share the proof of this with you from one of Jesus' well known parables in the Bible generally referred to as, "The Prodigal Son." In my opinion, it is one of the most powerful stories that Jesus shared to teach of God's incredible love for us, no matter what we've done. If you've never read this story before, or if you've read it a hundred times, let's take a look at it together, because if you just read through it without really looking at the details, I think you can easily miss the most important things.

In this story, we meet a man with two sons, and it starts out with the younger one demanding his inheritance from the father. This is an easy detail to gloss over, but think about what an inheritance is, it is something that is received when the person holding the assets dies, and those assets are then transferred to the beneficiaries. Something we can easily miss in this story is that by demanding his inheritance early from his father, the younger son is effectively telling his father to drop dead. It is an ultimate display of selfishness and greed, as the son proves by his behavior that in that moment, he truly wants nothing to do with his father, but only wants what he can get from him. It's hard to imagine how I would feel as a father if one of my children treated me that way, so I find the father's response quite shocking, because instead of disowning his son, the father actually complies with the request and gives the son what he asked for.

The younger son proceeds to take his newly acquired wealth and move out of the father's house, heading to a distant country where he "squandered his wealth in wild living," (Luke 15:13). Although the story doesn't tell us how long the son was living "the good life," we quickly see it's of little importance because the very next sentence shows us that he eventually spends all he had and finds himself in need, as the country he now resides in experiences a famine. In an ironic twist, the son who was just living such a carefree life, with no regard for the future, suddenly finds himself unable to feed himself and resorts to hiring himself out as a servant, quickly reduced to a farmhand feeding pigs. He is in such a state of poverty at that point, that Luke tells us, "He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything," (Luke 15:16).

We aren't told how long the son lived in this state, but eventually we read that he "came to his senses." It is at this point he came up with a plan to return to his father and beg for forgiveness so that he would be hired on as a servant, where he knew he would be provided food and shelter at the very least. The son decides to move forward with this plan, and we read that at the moment he decided to return home, "he got up and went to his father," (Luke 15:20). Before I go any further, let's re-cap real quick, because you need to feel the weight of the son's offense so you don't miss the significance of the next verse. So far in this story we've seen the father who has two sons, and the youngest told his dad to drop dead and give him the money he owes him, and immediately leaves home and pursues a life of luxury and pleasure. We can assume that it didn't take too long before the bubble burst and the son found himself with nothing left, and he couldn't even afford to feed himself. Motivated by starvation, the son decides to humble himself and return home, expecting not to be forgiven, but hoping for enough compassion to be hired on a servant.

The father would have every right to be hurt and angry with his son, but look at how he responds when he sees his son returning to him: "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him," (Luke 15:20). Did you see that? It says the father ran to his son "while he was still a long way off." Are you kidding me? I have to wonder, how many of us fathers would be able to have that response after receiving such a fatal wound from one of our own children. And yet, that is God's heart for us, as this story from Jesus shows us. The son didn't walk up to the house and ring the doorbell and wait for his dad to answer the door. The fact that he ran to him when his son was a long way off means the father was watching for him, and that he couldn't wait to see him again. As if that wasn't enough, he dresses him up like royalty and immediately starts preparing to throw a celebratory party in response. This story has an eternal truth that applies to every one of us, it doesn't matter what we do or have done, if we turn from our selfish ways of rejecting God and come to im, he is there waiting to run and meet us on the way, and there is literally nothing we have done that the blood of Jesus won't cover. We are never too far gone to be welcomed into our heavenly father's arms.

There is more to the story though, another lesson we can learn as we read on and finally learn about the older son, as we see that he chose to live a totally different life than his younger brother did. He chose to stay on the family farm and work for all those years while the younger son was away. We get a sense that he is a man of duty, as we see him caught up doing chores when he notices a party going on in the house and goes to see what's rocking. If you're like me, you're probably a little caught off guard by his response to his father, as he doesn't show any joy in his brother's homecoming, but rather he goes off on his father in an angry response, possibly fueled by jealousy. I think that we get a feeling for the sort of relationship the older son has with his father, not one characterized by love, but one that is transactional and legalistic. He reveals his truest feelings when he tells his father that he's been "slaving many years" (Luke 15:29) in faithful service to him, and is angry that his hedonistic brother is getting a better reward for betraying him. To the older brother, this is an unforgiveable injustice that cannot go unaddressed.

The interesting thing about this parable is that in it, neither one of the sons truly wants to simply be with the father and to be loved by him. Jesus is showing us that our heavenly father has unlimited amounts of love and grace for us, and that what he desires from us more than anything is not mere acts of legalistic rule following, but our presence with him. It doesn't matter if you've walked away from God, if your wounds have caused you to blame him and run farther away from him in your attempts to numb and mask the pain. It doesn't matter if you've forgotten the heart of our heavenly father for you as you became obsessed with the missional work of the church, becoming so busy that you lost sight of the good news that Jesus shared with the world. God loves you, and more than anything, he wants to be with you forever. Our sin is what keeps us from him, but the good news is that Jesus paid the price for our rebellion and made the way for us to come home to our heavenly father. If your experiences in this world have made it hard to believe that a father could love like this, I encourage you to reach out to him in prayer and tell him that. Often, our experiences in this world make it hard for us to believe that God could actually love us like this, but you need to realize that God is the one who created love. It's who he is. Jesus is showing us that no matter what this world has made us believe about God and how he might view us in light of what we've done, he is there waiting for us to come back to him. And when we do? Well, I'll leave you with the last verse of this story, which says it all as the father explains to the older son why he had to throw a party when his youngest returned home:

“ ‘Son,’ he said to him, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found,’ ” -Luke 15:31-32 CSB.

Reflections on the allegations of abuse and fraud in Bethel Church

Recently, I took the time to listen to one of Mike Winger's latest podcasts that exposes some pretty dark and awful truths about Bethel Church out of Redding, CA. The episode's primary focus looks at false "prophet" Shawn Bolz and how Bethel helped him rise to fame inside the church, and continued to support him and promote him all while allegations of fraud, deception, and sexual deviance and harassment continued to come in against him. Really though, this is part of a larger picture of what's been going on inside many churches in the NAR movement, involving many other "leaders" like Bob Jones, Paul Cain, Benny Hinn, Mike Bickle, Bob Hartley, and now adding Bill Johnson, Kris Vallotton, and Che Ahn for starters. I have a feeling that as this momentum for reform within the church builds, we will find that this list is much larger and disturbing than we even now think it is.

Now, let me just say first that I have always been a person who is usually reluctant to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I think one of the greatest tragedies for the church is that you have people like those currently being exposed who are willing to give into their temptations for power and greed, and allow that to infiltrate the church and mislead and promote false teachings that lead people further and further away from Jesus. One of the most dangerous things about movements like this is that they are based on a lot of truth, with lies mixed in. I know full well that there are many Christians in this movement who love the Lord with all their heart, and have had good experiences themselves, and I am thankful for that. You can take the good but you need to see the bad for what it is, and you need to respond accordingly, not tolerating an environment that allows sin to be present for the sake of preserving a culture that is built on a bad foundation.

Nonetheless, the recent exposure of Bethel leadership is extremely disturbing when you see how far back the awareness of fraud goes and their willingness to allow it anyhow. It is disturbing when you see the depth of cover-up culture inside of Bethel and the greater NAR movement, going back many years, at the expense of people who were being victimized by those the church chose to prop up and promote. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I have been aware of the dangerous nature of these types of churches for quite a while and have seen the effects that it has on believers who pursue it. These types of churches place an enormous weight on "signs and wonders" and the experience of emotional encounters as the sign of authentic faith, typically at the cost of biblical teaching and what I would consider a "balanced faith." Those who stay in this sort of environment often learn to suppress their own discernment because if you question anything leadership or false "prophets" are teaching, you are seen as "putting God in a box" and it means you are a doubter. It's a dangerous path to follow, so although my heart is broken for those who have been victimized by these churches, I'm so glad it's finally getting more exposure and I'm hoping for true change in the church.

If you aren't aware of any of this and follow Bethel teachings or anything of the like, I would encourage you to look into it. It's gotten tons of press in the last couple weeks, and Bethel themselves did address this in the last few weeks. Is their repentance true? Only time will tell, and I pray that it is. I can tell you though that it feels a little too late to be genuine. It feels to me like when Samuel called out Saul in 1 Samuel 15 when the Lord commanded him to completely destroy the Amalekites and Saul chose to spare King Agag and the best of what they had. When Samuel confronts Saul, he responds by insisting that he did obey the Lord! It was only when Saul saw the consequences were real, that he finally admitted he was wrong, which is not true repentance. This situation with Bethel and the NAR movement feels a lot like that to me. In my personal opinion, what Bethel leadership chose to do is in direct conflict with very clear Biblical teaching, and they should consider themselves completely disqualified from being in ministry and step down immediately. If this doesn't happen, I fully believe once the spotlight is off of them they will resume the same old stuff. I hope I'm wrong though.

In conclusion, I just want to say that if you are someone who has been hurt by the church, or by fellow Christians, I just want to encourage you to keep looking at Jesus. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to associate the church or another believer with Christ himself. Now, it is true that as Christians we should be representing Christ in truth and without error and be practicing all that the Bible teaches. The reality is though, that we are all broken humans, and not all who say they follow Jesus are truly even following Him:

"Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’" -Matthew 7:21-23 NIV.

Just because someone calls themselves a Christian, or is leading a church or a movement of the church, doesn't mean they are Biblically grounded. If Christianity is true (it is!), then we should also expect that there is a real enemy who hates God and wants to pull as many away from Him as possible, so we should be well aware of the infiltration of false teaching into the church. This is why it is so important as believers to be well grounded in scripture OURSELVES, so that we can test what is taught to ensure we are following what is true. Paul offered a good balanced view for us in 1 Thessalonians:

"Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. Do not scoff at prophecies, but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. Stay away from every kind of evil," -1 Thessalonians 5:19-22 NLT.

If you have been burned by the church, realize that church will never be perfect, because it has people in it. All you have to do is read the New Testament epistles and you will see that the church had problems from it's very beginning, but that doesn't mean that God isn't real and at work in spite of it. Allow these situations to bring us to a place of greater faith in Jesus himself, even as we sometimes find depravity in those we hoped we could trust within the church. Never place your pastor or teacher above the Lord himself. Keep following Jesus with all of your heart, you may be disappointed in the church at times, but you will never be disappointed in Him. He is the good shepherd, and your faith is well placed in Him:

"I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep," -John 10:14-15 NLT.

Conversations about God

 

The other day I was watching an episode of After Life and was intrigued by some dialogue between two characters on the subject of God. If you haven't watched this show yet, although it's got some pretty explicit language and subject matter, it's actually pretty good if you can get past that. The show is created by Ricky Gervais, and much like himself in real life, his character Tony is a fairly strong atheist. In this scene I referenced, Tony is talking with his co-worker Kath and they end up on the subject of God, with Kath vocalizing her belief that God created everything and Tony challenging her in the end by asking her where God came from. Kath responds by saying that, "He's always been around," to which Tony dismisses her by saying, "There you go, easy isn't it?"

I found this interaction interesting for a few different reasons. I felt like this scene unfortunately exposed an uncomfortable truth about a lot of modern Christians, and that is that often we are unprepared for the questions of skeptics and tragically fail to engage with them in a way that lovingly challenges them in return. A possible reason for this could be because as believers, we haven't often engaged with our own intellect or analyzed the reasons for why we believe what we believe. I think that generally speaking many modern churches have done a poor job of teaching apologetics to believers, or how to defend their faith, which can result in faith without much substance. If we aren't willing to engage with people when they ask honest questions about why we believe what we believe, it can be an opportunity lost to lovingly show them who Jesus is. If we are unable to do that, we may experience shame at being to defend our faith, and it has the potential to undermine our own faith in Christ if we aren't sure why we believe.

1 Peter 3:15-16 (NIV) tells the Christ-follower to "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander." This is how we share Jesus with people, by telling them what he has done in our lives, and what we have learned about God's role in creation, and his purpose for it. I think that often believers try to do this, but are unprepared to deal with the follow-up questions, and are left looking like a deer in headlights. One problem people face is that they incorrectly think that if they don't have a well articulated answer on the spot, that they have failed in that moment and lose courage and give up. This just simply isn't true at all. Every Christ-follower is fully qualified to share their own story, so don't be afraid to do that. If you get a question you don't know the answer to yet, be honest about what you know, and never be afraid to say something to the effect of, "I don't know the answer to that question right now, but I am going to do some research and get back to you." I have used this response many times, and I can then use it as an opportunity to do research which will benefit and strengthen my own faith, and which will lead to more follow-up conversations with that person. Don't walk away from an opportunity to engage with people about Jesus, because you never know where the conversation might lead.

I think most often all that is required from us in those conversations is honesty, and a willingness to listen and to stay engaged. Let's go back to the example from the show After Life, what if Kath had engaged with Tony instead of just shrugging her shoulders and letting the conversation die there? What if she asked him questions in return, like, "What do you mean by easy? If you mean, can I can accept God's existence and have it satisfy every question my brain could ever think of about him and the universe, well no. The Bible doesn't even say that's how it should be. In fact, the Bible teaches the opposite. We read in Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV that "...He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end," and there are so many other examples in the Bible of people who are in awe and wonder at what he has done, as they survey the world and all that it contains. So, no Tony, believing in God doesn't make for an "easy" view of the world, but it does provide answers, and I see more evidence that it is true than I see of it not being true, and that is why I have faith in what the Bible teaches, not because it is "easy." Tell me Tony, do you find it "easy" to reject God and to believe that life just randomly happened, against the absolutely impossible odds? Is it "easy" to accept result of that belief, that if the world exists by chance, then it is completely devoid of any meaning? There you go, easy isn't it?"

The reality of this scene though, and I think that is true for many who find themselves questioning God's existence like this, is that Tony was fighting grief and depression after losing his wife to cancer. Pain and suffering are a force to be reckoned with, whether you believe in God or not. Often, when someone who is walking through pain like this questions God's existence, the question they ask isn't the real question they are asking. With some digging and willingness to engage with emotions and where they lead, we may find that the real question is probably closer to one that questions God's integrity or character, wondering how if he is supposedly loving and good, how could he allow evil, pain, and suffering in the world. That question is hard for anyone, and people have lost their faith over it, but people have also come to faith because of it. The Bible does provide answers and a framework through which we can address these incredibly hard questions, but often our heart is unwilling to believe the truth because we believe lies about our identity that are in conflict with what the Bible teaches. In order to demonstrate what this could look like, allow me to build a hypothetical scenario for Tony's character. Maybe Tony had things happen in his childhood that caused him to internalize a belief that he is all alone or not loved, because he had people abandon him early in life. Maybe then when he married his wife, he felt like he finally found the one person in this world that loved him, and now she's gone. If there was any shred of belief or knowledge of God before that, then it's probably in complete contradiction with what he was feeling in that season of grief and sorrow. I think that we often let these core lies decide what we believe about God, rather basing belief on actual evidence or intellectual exercises we have worked through. Emotion creates bias, and bias shapes the way we view the world. If we can expose the emotions, we can follow those back to the core beliefs and lies that we have. If we can do that, we can get to a place where we face a choice to either let our defense mechanisms continue to decide what we believe and embrace the lies, or we can ask God to show us his truth and let him direct us. The choice is always up to us though as to how we handle our emotions and beliefs once we have exposed them.

In summary, my encouragement would be that if you find yourself in a conversation like this one between Kath and Tony, where you feel that you don't have the "right answers" to the question, just keep going and do your best to take the conversation as far as you can. Pray that God would help you find a way to honor him with your words, and to provide the responses needed in that moment. Instead of trying to think of a proper theological response to a "challenge to God's existence," ask questions instead to try and find the underlying motives for why they believe what they believe. Atheism and disbelief in God is almost always (in my opinion) rooted in a moral resistance or an emotionally based desire to reject him, rather than well developed intellectual arguments. I would be more interested in trying to identify the reasons for their disbelief, rather than focusing on trying to "prove" to them that God exists. Lastly, and most importantly, share your own story. One of the most powerful things we can share is what God has done in our own lives, because it's actual evidence that God is real. People can argue against the Bible all day long if they don't see it as authoritative or know why it's credible, but they can't deny what has been true in your life. If you hit a dead-end in the conversation because you don't have the right information, tell them that you'll do some research to clarify your thoughts and will get back to them. Then, most importantly, follow up with them and keep the conversation going. You will be blessed in the process, as it will build up your own faith as well as you go back and remember what the Lord has done in your life.

Thanksgiving Reflections 2025

Happy thanksgiving everyone. I am so thankful for my family and friends, of which I get to spend this day with. While I am thankful for those in my life, I am mindful of the fact that today is another day that can remind us of painful memories, or of painful loss that we have endured, which can feel like a reminder of better times gone by. I am mindful of loved ones who are going through extremely challenging life circumstances, and it is taking all that they have just to get through, and they do that day after day. I am aware of the division that exists in our world, and the loneliness that can result when we allow things like beliefs and life choices to keep us isolated from those we should be in community with. There is so much we can choose to be grateful for, but when we are feeling the weight of heavy emotions like sadness and grief, it can seem an impossible task to view life through that lens.

I recently had someone at church confide in me that they felt like "we never really get to live the life we want to live." As I pondered the sadness behind that statement, I also realized that this person is quite right, in the sense that we often view our lives. The reality is that since the beginning of creation when Adam and Eve walked on Earth and chose to rebel against God's plan for their lives to pursue their own selfish desires, no one has ever really been able to live the life they wanted to. The world we live in now, is not the world as God intended it to be. We live in a world that has been broken and corrupted by the effects of sin that we have all chosen to bring into it. The Bible says that, "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way..," (Isaiah 53:6 NIV) which is what has brought sin into the world, by our rejection of God.

On this Thanksgiving, if you are feeling the weight of addiction, the sting of grief, or the loneliness of being separated from you loved ones, or anything else, then I have good news for you. Despite the fact that humanity brought evil into the world, which has caused all of this pain and suffering, God in his infinite love for us, initiated a rescue plan to save us from the punishment due for the consequences of our rebellion. For although the Bible says in the book of Romans 6:23 NIV that "...the wages of sin is death," the incredible news is that the rest of that same verse declares "...the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

God has never promised that we get to live the life that we want to live in this world, that ship sailed long ago with the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden. And yet, in a world where Jesus Christ himself told us that, "In this world you will have trouble," he also said to "take heart, because I have overcome the world," (John 16:33 NLT). In a world where instability often seems to reign, our confidence is assured to be well placed in our God, because "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever," (Hebrews 13:8 ESV).

Today, I am thinking and praying for the many that I know are going through hard times. My prayer is that despite the disappointment you may feel over how your life has turned out, or the pain you are feeling from the hand you have been dealt in this life, that you would allow Jesus Christ into your heart, as he is not just a God who is so remote from our Earthy experience that he doesn't know what we are dealing with. No, my friends, he is fully God in who he is, yet he fully entered into the humanity of our world and experienced pain and suffering on a scale we cannot fully comprehend with our limited understanding. We have a savior who knows what it is like to be rejected, and to carry the burden of sickness and pain. The prophet Isaiah painted the picture of Christ as our savior so beautifully here, several hundred years before he was born of the Virgin Mary:

"He grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from; he was despised, and we didn’t value him. Yet he himself bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains; but we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds," (Isaiah 53:2-5 CSB).

Today, I am thankful for all of those in my life that I get to share it with. Although I am also grateful for the physical things I have been entrusted with, my hope is not in them, or in money, or in my job, or my health, or my family or friends. Those things are temporal, and there is no guarantee that they will be here tomorrow. My hope is in Jesus Christ alone. For he "is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety," (Psalms 18:2 NLT). We may not get to live the life we want to in this world, but we are guaranteed that when we place our hope in Jesus Christ, he walks through it with us, and "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus," (Philippians 4:7 ESV). In this world, we may not be guaranteed all of the physical things that we desire, but in spite of that, we are promised God's love and forgiveness, and eternal life with Him when we place our hope in Jesus Christ alone. I pray that you will experience God's hope and comfort on this Thanksgiving day, no matter what your life circumstances are. May you know that you are loved by the creator of everything, so much so that "He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life," (John 3:16 NLT) and that is something we can be eternally thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.