Welcome back again to another podcast of Struggling Well. We're glad that you've joined us again this week, and we trust that we do each time we do these that God will either use it to bring encouragement, to challenge you, or to cause you to ask questions. That's all we try to do with these 10 or so minutes that we are with you is to raise enough that causes something to linger in your life and causes you to think about your walk with Christ or if you don't have a walk with Christ, what's it look like? And why we think that's the most important question you can ever answer in your life.
You know, it means a lot to us that you listen because as Pastors often say this from their pulpit. There are a lot of churches in the area and you choose to come to the one you're at that Sunday. There are a bazillion gazillion and I'm probably not exaggerating podcasts from every angle every which way you want. And so if you're listening to this one right now, we just want to thank you. you chose to spend 10 minutes listening, waiting for God. and it means a lot to us. It really does mean a lot to us. So thank you. But this morning We're going to talk about something that just came up for me a couple of weeks ago in the Bible study that I'm doing with girls on Wednesday.
Okay.
The question we're studying the Holy Spirit and
so we're going to answer every question about the Holy Spirit in the next 10 minutes.
Well, I can do it in five. Okay.
I can name that tune in five. All right.
It is it has been such a challenging study. I know I shared with you months ago when our study was doing Jonah and how life changing that was. And it's silly to use the same phrase, but I believe that when you're in the word of God, it changes your life. And so, we are looking, we're taking a broadstroke look at the Holy Spirit to understand the importance, the power, the presence, the person, everything of the Holy Spirit. And so, we will do it probably when we're all said and done in about 12 weeks. But one of the questions that we talked about this, a few weeks ago was I asked them the question, Do you trust in the Lord with all your heart? And I just laid it out there and then I said trust, this is Miriam Webster's de definition is placing complete confidence or reliance upon a person or an object. So we kind of sat with it for a little bit and then we went around the room and each of the women said the place where they don't trust God or they believe but it frightens them and I would say out of the I don't know how many girls were there when we had that question, but I believe that half of them more than half of them said their children. They have a hard time trusting God with their children. And it was fascinating because as a mom, as a dad, as a parent, you've been entrusted with these kids. And so the responsibility of that is enormous. Along with it though, we get this false sense of that we are the total responsibility. We're in total responsibility for these children. Everything they do, say become, you name it, we feel total respons responsibility. And baby, you used to say we take
we take way too much credit when things go well. We take way too much blame when things go poorly. And here's the other thing I would add into that is that as much as we as human parents love our kids, As deep as that love is, God loves our kids more.
It's hard to fathom that because I'm right here in the flesh. I'm the one who is cooking their dinner, making their lunch, doing their laundry, driving them to whatever needs to be to happen. And for us to think in terms of God, who we can't touch, caring enough about that, that's really, really hard. A couple of the girls mentioned that she struggled with health issues because she's had some traumatic health issues. Another girl mentioned that she doesn't trust God about where she should be. That was so fascinating to me, like how do I know where I'm supposed to be and am I doing the right thing? So, in my mind, a lot of a lot of things came up and the Lord brought my mind to the familiar verse that we know inside and out. We say it, we'd probably have it printed somewhere. We've sent it as an encouragement. Maybe you have it in crossstitch on your kitchen wall. I don't know.
Does anybody still do cross stitch?
Hey, there's a lot of cross stitchers out there, baby.
Okay. All right.
I just offended a quarter of the women of the world.
I just asked the question, "If anybody still does crossstitch, if you do crossstitch, you go, girl." I think that's exciting. I used to do a lot of crossstitching. I remember you used to say to me, "I make more converts to crossstitch than I did to Christ." Hurt my feelings deeply. I'm trying to get over it. Anyway, Proverbs 35 and 6, well-known verses. I'm reading it from the NLT. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. And a heart is your emotions, your ever everything, your mind, your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do and he will show you which path to take. The hard part there and this is where the where all of us in this study and all of us probably that are listening that tension between I want to trust the Lord with my whole heart, but I struggle with what my responsibilities are and how do I mesh the two of them? What do you think, babe?
Yeah. So, my thought went to the passage in Mark and the story that Jesus is involved with when they have a boy who's possessed by an evil spirit and when the evil spirit sees Jesus it threw the child into this violent convulsion and I love the way Jesus approaches it. He the first thing he does the kids according to the scripture on the ground convulsing and Jesus asked this question how long has this been happening? He asks that to the boy's father. And the boy's father says, "Since he was a little boy, the spirit often throws him onto the fire, into water, trying to kill him." And then the father says this to Jesus, "Have mercy on us and help us if you can."
And Jesus, his response is, "What do you mean if I can?" Anything is possible if a person believes. And the father instantly cries out this, "I do believe. yet help me overcome my unbelief.
And I think of how many times as you posed that question to the ladies in your Bible study, how many times would I say the same thing? I do believe.
Yeah.
But help me in my unbelief.
Absolutely. One of the gals who has had some traumatic health issues, she's I mean she's made it here and she's healthy and doing well, but when she thinks back to that trauma,
the trauma overwhelms in her mind and it frightens her to the place where she thinks I can never do that again. I can't go through that again. And that's oftenimes where we get hung up. I mean, there are things that I know that I've said in my heart of hearts, I never want to do that again, experience that again. But the problem is then what we do is we try to navigate a world where that doesn't happen. And so I think maybe I mentioned last week that we'll get back to the parenting thing, but just for a minute So when we do that with our kids, we try to make the way as smooth for them as possible. We don't want them to hurt in any way. We don't want them to come back when they're older and say, "That part of my life was horrible." Because we take the responsibility for all of it.
Another verse in Proverbs says, I love this. Don't be impressed with your own wisdom.
And isn't that what happens? We depend on our own understanding because we are arrogantly impressed with our own wisdom.
Yeah. And know either he is a sovereign good God or he's not
right
and if he is then ultimately what I need to be willing to do is to put my trust to put my faith put my belief in him for who he is not in him for how life works the way I want it to work
but I think it's real and I think when we start talking about the Christian life and you've heard me say this Suzi we so much of life we live linearly we look at life that way yesterday today tomorrow. That's a linear progression. It's the same every day. you know, today becomes yesterday, tomorrow. And yet the Christian life is not a linear thing.
No,
it's an organic relationship with the living God of the universe who's the creator, sustainer, savior, and I've got to grow in that relationship. And in that growth, it is more secular than it is linear in my as I understand scripture.
And so I think it's a strictly legitimate thing when that father said to Jesus, "I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief."
Yeah.
And he was not able to see the bigger story that was going on. And that's another problem we have is the story that we're living out right now is more important than what God is trying to do ahead.
Yeah. And so to see my life and we all have a certain sense in which we are egotistical that we think our life is all that really matters. but to see my life in the fabric of the story he's telling and to see where I fit in that and how my life fits in that story. And I may never fully know how it fit in.
And the crazy thing is, and again, while you're talking, I'm just getting this picture in my mind of that is the safest place to be. You know, I'm sure we've talked about this before, when Moses was getting ready to take the Israelites and said, It was Moses, wasn't it? Yeah. In Exodus, duh.
And he says to God, unless you go with us, we're not going. And then God says to him, I've engraved your name on the palm of my hand.
That's the safest place to be. And yet we wrestle with that and think, -, it CS Lewis in one of the books, Chronicles, when the little girl Lucy says to the Beaver, Mr. Beaver, is God
is Alen.
Alen is Alen. Yeah, but she's talking to Beaver,
right? She says,
you know the quote better than me.
Is Alen safe? And he says, "No, but he's good.
He's good."
Woo.
Yeah.
Yeah. I want a safe god.
Yeah. But no, I'd rather have a good God, I think.
Me, too. Me, too.
So, as you think about that this week, as you wrestle with those things, as you find yourself at times going, "Yes, Lord, I do believe. Help me in my unbelief." Know that both things do exist, but keep pointing yourself to Christ, who is the answer, who is the hope in all things. Have a great week.