Welcome back again to another podcast of Struggling Well, Suzi. Good to have you back.
Good to be back. And as we continue on in our journey, we've we lots of things that strike us as we go through the journey we call life that fit under the category of struggling. And we wonder sometimes how long God is going to allow things, why God allows things.
And certainly right now when you hear this podcast, the LA fires will be a little bit in the past, not much we hope. and there have been a lot of other things through throughout the world and certainly in our country places where if ever struggle has being has been highlighted it's been in the air the things that are going on in our world.
Yeah. And so in the Psalms in the 13th Psalm a Psalm of David he asked the question that I think is a fair question and we all tend to ask it at one time or another. He says, "Oh Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? How long must I struggle with my anguish in my soul, a sorrow in my heart every day. How long? And that and that's that sense of God, where are you in the middle of these things that are going on a big level like the LA fires?
Yeah.
like we experienced here in North Carolina with Hurricane Helen that you know, I'm sure those people in western North Carolina are asking how long and so that's David's cry as he opens up that 13th Psalm.
Spurgeon says this, about Psalm 13. He said the question is one that goes on and it shows a very intense desire for deliverance and great anguish of the heart. But I love when he says this and what if there is some impatience mingled with David saying how long and when we say to God how long?
Is it impatience because we want God to act on a certain time frame? I certainly do. Some of you know some of you don't know that I wrestle with an autoimmune disease. It's been about five years now. Is that right? About five years, six.
And I've seen lots of doctors taken lots of medicine and feel free to contact me with any help out outside of snakes and burning incense. I will do pretty much anything. But I have asked that of the Lord and so has Jimmy. How long, Lord? what's the purpose here? Mostly is what happens. Why are you doing this or allowing it?
Allowing it. Yeah. And it's a confusing thing. I think it's a legitimate question that we can raise because there appears at times to be that we're in this on our own.
Yeah.
And we're not that God's nowhere to be found. And that certainly feels like that's the cry of David's heart. but it changes when he gets to verse five.
But before he gets to verse 5 when he's asking how long there isn't it also implied there or is it something that maybe is implied in my own life? life is I'm asking God, have you forgotten? Have you forgotten that I've prayed over this and prayed over this and I got my, you know, my prayer warriors and we did an all night prayer, 24-hour prayer chain and contacted, you know, every network, Christian network to pray. Have you forgotten? And that's a lot of what I'm asking. And again referring to Spurgeon, he says, "How can the omnisient God forget?"
Right?
And it doesn't mean I'm not supposed to persevere in prayer, but I think that a lot of times we come to God in our how long, God, how long because we're saying basically God, you've forgotten us and you're nowhere to be found.
Yeah. No, that's very true. And our timetable and that's where I think we get mixed up or messed up is that we think everything should be on our timetable,
right?
And yet if I go over to Isaiah 55, God says in Isaiah 5 My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Yeah.
And it's a reminder to me that we're not God. He is.
I want to bring a personality into this or a person that I wish that I had known in a deep way when he was alive. he came to our church. He and his wife Ken and Kim came to our church and I did not know him in the sense that I would sit down and have conversations with either of them at great length. But I observed a couple of things. One, whenever I saw them both and Ken in particular, he always had a ready smile and a warm greeting. Always a warm greeting. Same with Ken. What some people might not know, but those that know Ken, and I'll give you his name, Ken Schultz, what they know about him is that he struggled for many, many years with cancers plural.
Yeah.
His wife Kim, from what I have heard, I didn't know this firsthand, but from what reliable people said, she took incredible care of him. Incredible care. Reliable people also have told me that Ken's walk through his cancer was not a picnic. He did not act like, "Oh, great. This is great." But he was steady fast in his trust of God. And one of the things that he did, and I didn't realize this, well, let me give you a little more background information. He worked with young people. I don't know, was that Young Life he worked with? He
worked with Young Life for a while. He worked with
he pastored a church.
He pastored a church for a while. He his latter part of his life when he started coming to church at Charlotte, he was at with Search Ministries.
And the thing that anybody who knew him would say is anytime would say, "Tell me about Ken.", they would always just get this smile, this wisful smile like, "This is a guy you wish you had known." And I wish that I wish I had known Ken and Ken more deeply. but one of the things he did throughout his life for a long time was he would read all the way through a passage in scripture and then he would write a devotional about the verses as God spoke to him. And since you all know I love the Psalms, apparently Ken also loved the Psalms and he wrote a devotional called Sitting in the Psalms. I think you can get it at his website. I can give you that in a little bit. But I just picked it up. I mean, I just picked it up because I'm rereading the Psalms. It'll take me another two years, but I'm rereading them. And he makes some comment on Psalm 13, which we were just talking about. And I think Jimmy, you were getting ready to talk about the end of that Psalm, what happened there.
But you are No,
Go ahead.
Okay. Well, after David asked
Wait, time out. Have you seen Have Can you sense the new leaf that I've turned over that I'm being very submissive to Jimmy and I'm not interrupting.
You just interrupted me.
But it was in the most beautiful sort of a way.
It really was.
Babe, please.
Okay. It's 2025 new year. after David four times asks how long, how long, how long, how long? And he and he's anxious for God to answer him. In verse five of this psalm, he says, "But I trust in your un failing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. I will sing to the Lord because he is good to me.
So in the midst of it all, while he's wondering and struggling, he is going to trust because of the character of God, his unfailing love and the fact that he's rescued him.
And yet in the beginning verses, not and yet, but also the beginning verses, his feelings are like he's feeling all the feelings.
And Ken says in his devotional, for the date of January 27th. Obviously, we're not there yet. We're not, are we? Did I just miss a whole week or two? Could be. But he says that feelings are a poor foundation for faith because feelings rise and fall like the waves on the sea. And you can't control them or command them. And what he urges us in his devotional and is also true from Spurgeon and lots of other excellent people and mostly in the word of God is you can't rely on your feelings cuz they change. Right.
I mean, I can be feeling really on top of the world and I can get a phone call that can change the rest of my day in two seconds.
Yeah. And so, it's it is it's not that we don't feel because we do. Obviously, David felt that God had forgotten him. And he cries out to the Lord and says, "Turn and answer me. Restore." I love this. This is in the NLT. Restore the sparkle
of my eyes or I will die.
And it's this sense of it's it feels precarious to David. and sometimes when we look at our circumstances and the things that we feel it does feel precarious.
Yeah.
But then he comes back to what is the bedrock. I'll trust in your unfailing love, God's character.
And I'll rejoice because you have rescued me. Maybe pointing to past times where he's seen it. And then he says, I'll sing to the Lord.
Those three things. I'm going to trust. I'm going to rejoice. And I'm going to sing.
Yeah. I mean, how do we all do on one of those things, let alone three of them?
But again, it's where do I plant the stake of my heart?
Not a stake in my heart, but the when I where's the bedrock that I want to find?
Yeah.
Because my feelings do change and my feelings eb and flow.
Yeah.
and yet I think when I listen to the words that Ken Schultz wrote, knowing his life and knowing what he went through and knowing how he handled and addressed it honestly and yet at the same time keeps coming back to the same thing that David keeps coming back to in the Psalms and the other psalmists do. They lament. They wonder. They question. They don't understand. And yet, even when circumstances don't support it, they will trust in God's unfailing love.
We hope that you have been encouraged by this, not by what we have said or even what Ken said, and Ken was a man worth listening to, but from the word of God. And I love that. In the inspired word of God, he placed these Psalms, the Psalm 13 that takes us from the emotional to the true, from feelings to fact. I love that. So
So,
we got to say a couple of shout outs.
We'll say one.
Okay, you go first.
No, you Oh, babe. But I'm trying to be submissive here. Okay, I'll go first. I don't know if she actually listens, but I met a young woman at my orthopedic doctor's office. She and I kind of connected right away and she said that I needed to do a podcast of about mothering which I'm like nah I've flunked at that one but her name is Christina and Christina I don't know if you're listening but she remembered that our podcast was called struggling wealth so she might listen and I just wanted to tell her thank you
and to the rest of you who listen we thank you as well and I hope you have a great week.
Thanks for joining us to learn more about the Struggling Well podcast Visit tandemspirituality. com.