Welcome back again to another podcast of Struggling Well. We're glad you've joined us and along with what we've tried to share and encourage you in the different places in scripture and the things that God has been speaking to us about. here's a little insight that you probably didn't know and Suzi has recently started putting a journal by the side of the bed so that when God
speaks to her in the night which happens she can write it down because by time the morning hits we forgot.
I mean by the time I lay my head on the pillow it's gone. So shortm memory.
This is I This was really good. I really you when you shared it with me, I thought this is good. This is podcast worthy.
Oh my gosh. Thank you, babe. That's really exciting.
I'll turn it over to you now.
Well, you know, oftenimes I think if see people could see inside my head, the way my brain works, it would be astounding. It'd be like kind of like a pinball machine. Just, you know, you pull that lever back, the old time ones, not the ones that are on your phone, but the real life pinball, which by the way are so fun. And if you can find one, put your money in. It's worth it. But the way that ball goes and flies up that little alley and then starts hitting all these different things for you to get points and it dings and then you use these little paddles. That's the inside of my brain most of the time. I know that what a description it is.
but my thoughts have been all over the place. And,
so I've been thinking a lot about as I always am pondering some aspect of struggle and how it looks and as I watch friends struggle and certainly as we've gone through things ourselves. I've seen that when we're in the middle of hard times that it's really easy to lose sight of God. it's really easy to put other things in his place because either the pain is so severe and you want relief from it or you just lose sight of the fact that He is aware of you. You lose sight of that. We need to be aware of him and his presence. So, I'm going to I hope I'm not disjointed. We'll see. Ping pongs. The pinballs are going off again. But I'm looking at the book of Deuteronomy. And Deuteronomy is an amazing book. And Moses is speaking to the people of Israel. And he's not going to be able to go into the promised land because he let his temper fly a couple of times. And God just said, "You're not going to go into the promised land." So Moses is speaking to the people and he's giving them some words before they enter the promised land. And he says to them this in Deuteronomy 4. But you who held fast to the Lord your God are all alive today. And those are people that have made it through. See, I have taught you statutes and rules as the Lord my God commanded me that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. All that wilderness time God was preparing the people of Israel to then take over the promised land. But Moses says, "Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who when they hear all the statutes will say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call on him? Only take care and keep your soul diligent lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Moses in effect is saying you have learned so much about God is don't forget
and then later on in the chapter he says but from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul when you are in tribulation and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them. So, there are going to be tough things that are going to come ahead for Israel. There going to be wars and there's going to be internal wars, external wars. There's going to be a lot of things. And Moses is saying, "Don't forget who you know and what you've learned." So, in the last weeks as I have been walking through the life. Oh, that was so New Jersey walking. I meant to say walking y'all, but as I've been walking through life, I hit a spot where, and I wrote about this in my nighttime journal, that my emotions completely overwhelmed me and I felt like I was at the end of hope and I was drowning in despair. And I'm not being dramatic. That's what I felt like. And over the course of the days preceding it and during it, God whispered to me despite what seemed to be a deafening silence from him. Now, how can that be that he whispered to me when it felt like he wasn't saying anything? He used powerfully spoken words of truth that people shared with me that didn't know where my heart was, didn't know what my struggle was, but they would just somebody would write me a text or somebody would call me and share a verse with me or I'd see something on a news feed or even in Instagram, I'd see a verse that would touch my heart. He also spoke to me out of we had days and days of beautiful blue sky and sunlight. Now, that's not the norm. Our lives are not sunny days with blue skies all the time. But he spoke to me of himself out of that. And then I listened to some music because I love music. And I heard this achingly beautiful music that reminded me that God is the author of all of it. And it brought me back to if you search for God with your whole heart and your whole soul, you will find him. My circumstances did not change at all. But my eyes were lifted from looking down into the despair that I felt at that. It wasn't just a moment of despair. It was many days of despair and hopelessness. you know, A little aside, Jimmy and I are not trying to throw a bunch of garbage at you that we haven't experienced. we're not trying to pontificate about what it means to struggle. Well, for whatever reason, we have been in the last few years in an a season, a decade, an era of suffering. I don't know what to call it. And struggling and try to trying to maintain our faithfulness to him. And in the midst of it, his love has been steadfast and unending. But you've got to look for it. You've got to look for him because he's not going to jump in front of you and go, "Boo, here I am." But he is evident in so many things, in so many ways if you're leaning towards him and want to hear from him. And so that night that Jimmy spoke of that I wrote this down, it had been a rough day, a culmination of a rough week. And I just thought, Lord, where did I see you today? And then He spoke powerfully to my heart. Well, you saw me today when you got several notes from people encouraging you to keep on. You saw me today when you looked at my creation. The sky was beautiful, majestic blue. You saw me today when you heard strains of music that were incredibly orchestrated. That was me. That was me speaking to you. And so I have I want to encourage you to search for him because he says if you do, you'll find him. And remember what you know.
Yeah. And as you were saying that, babe, I think those are powerful things. it's so often you we use this phrase a lot, but it's where we choose to lift our eyes, where we choose to put our eyes. And as you were talking, I was thinking of the 121st Psalm when the psalmist says, "I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth." And then he says later, "The Lord is your a keeper. He will keep. He will keep. He will keep you. He will keep you. He will keep you. And that's the beauty of who God is if we will look to him.
And you're right. Nothing's changed in life in terms of the circumstances of our life right now. We're still in the throws of what has been a really hard, difficult season. but we can look to him.
Yeah.
And we can find our hope in him.
If we're looking anywhere else, you're going to either be distracted to think that something else is going to take away the struggle, make sense of it. and you know, this is probably way out of left field, so just bear with me. When Moses went up to the mountain and God gave him the Ten Commandments and the Israelites were below and they got a little panicky and remember we've talked about this, they took all their gold and made that golden calf. It's like Oh my gosh. They were panicky. They were struggling. Where's my leader? Where's our leader? What are we going to do? And they put together something that cannot do anything. I don't care how big that golden calf was. It could do nothing. But we have a God who has given us a way to live. But he is near. He is right here with us.
Yeah. And so we hope this week that's something that you'll focus your eyes on. Put fix your eyes on that truth and that reality and allow God to be the one who gives you hope this week. Have a great week. Thanks for joining us. To learn more about the Struggling Well podcast, visit tandemspirituality. com.