Episode 23: The Power OF A Thankful Heart In Affliction, Part 1

Jacob Paul: Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast with your hosts, Kimberly Faith and John Mac. The Truth in Love podcast seeks to present God’s timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love.

Kimberly Faith: Welcome back to the Truth in Love podcast, And, dad, I’m excited about this series.

John McLarty: It’s always exciting, Kim, to dive into these podcasts with you.

Kimberly Faith: And so today’s topic is the power of thankfulness in affliction. And, you know, dad, I don’t know about you, but it seems like everywhere I go I mean, just we obviously have our own affliction, but we deal with people that are going through stuff. And, when we talk about affliction, we’re not just talking about, like, being in prison unjustly accused. We’re talking about the argument with your best friend. We’re talking about maybe you can’t pay your taxes. We’re talking about I don’t know. What are some other examples?

John McLarty: The trouble of life. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: Paperwork.

Kimberly Faith:  Misery. 

John McLarty: Getting that form filled out.

Kimberly Faith: Getting the letter from the IRS.

John McLarty: Being put on hold for 15 minutes to get a simple task done.

Kimberly Faith: Right. So, you know, when I was, I think the Lord just kind of, one morning, arrested me and said, stop. You are not understanding a very important principle, and that is the role that thankfulness, a thankful heart plays in working through affliction. And, you know,   did that ever occur to you because it hadn’t occurred to me, really, that those were connected.

John McLarty: Well, the lack of thankfulness is kind of the the beginning of, you know, losing our perspective

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: For God. So I have considered that, but not in relation to afflictions.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Yeah. You’re referencing Romans Chapter 1 where the Bible says, although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God nor were thankful, but then became futile in their thoughts and their foolish heart was darkened, and then basically, they acted like they were wise, but they became fools. Right? That’s your reference.

John McLarty:  Right. 

Kimberly Faith: Hey, when you’re unthankful, there are a lot of bad things happening.

John McLarty: That sets us up for a lot of bad thinking

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Wrong thinking.

Kimberly Faith: Well,  I want to just, kind of dig into this series because I think living with a thankful heart, living with an attitude of thanksgiving is a discipline, and it’s a critical discipline,in heart, I guess, mindset, you know, heart attitude, whatever you want to call it, to capitalize on the opportunities that are created by affliction instead of, wasting them or simply enduring them in misery. You know, a culture that has, in my mind, a culture that has taken God out of the equation, looks at suffering as a complete waste. 

John McLarty: Yeah. That’s a good point. It seems like it’s part of the renewing of our mind. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: Because it’s a purposeful thankfulness.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. It’s a discipline. It’s a way of thinking.

John McLarty: It is.

Kimberly Faith: It’s making that thankful groove in our brain.

John McLarty: We have to find it sometimes.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And so I think, anytime the Lord is leading me to study something, he always brings me back to the savior first, you know.

John McLarty: Our great example.

Kimberly Faith: Our great example, incarnate God who, you know, lived through all the misery we live through, but yet never sinned. And, so is it interesting to you that the Jesus who created all things, right, because the bible says he did, would also give thanks?

John McLarty: It is an example. He’s thankful to his father, and it’s an example to us that even the creator is thankful. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: The creator, the son, is thankful to the father.

Kimberly Faith: Well, I think this word example that you use is important because we model things for our children in exaggerated ways that we don’t really have to do. You know? Like this morning, we were helping little Claire say words. And we’re, you know, purr poll. You know, we’re modeling that with great exaggeration so that she can learn it.

And I think Jesus, I mean, if you look at a couple of examples, I want to talk about what I think is the greatest example of his thankfulness, but let’s talk about a couple of the other examples that he gave in being thankful. Do any of them come to mind for you?

John McLarty: Well, I think of the one where he gave thanks for the bread and fish when he fed the multitudes.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And  that’s a great example. He was setting an example of having a grateful heart. You know, there was also, when he raised Lazarus from the dead.

John McLarty: Yes. That’s a good example too.

Kimberly Faith: I mean, he gave thanks to God before he even did it. And you know if you read  John 11 he says Father I thank you that you have heard me and I know you always hear me  but because of the people who are standing by I said this that they may believe you sent me Gosh, this prayer is just a reminder that we need to be thankful for the faithfulness of God.

John McLarty: And also that strikes me that you always hear me.

Kimberly Faith: Oh, yeah.

John McLarty: So that’s an attitude toward God that we should have, that you always hear me. He’s always there for us.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And that’s going back to Romans Chapter 1. When we don’t acknowledge God for who he is and that he is faithful, that’s when our our downward spiral starts, which is what our culture, really where our,  the humanistic culture  has arrived at this, you know, there is no God, therefore, there’s no reason to thank God, and we have all these foolish, foolish decisions being made at the highest echelons of government, you know, that makes zero sense. And I don’t want to get political, but there’s just so many that makes zero sense. You know? They defy even science and biology.

John McLarty: Foolish hearts are dark.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Right. So, and the thing about affliction is, I don’t know if you’ve made this observation, but it often makes us thankless. We believe because we realize this is a tough time, we become very resentful. You know?

John McLarty: Despondent, and you hear about being mad at God 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty:  Or depressed

Kimberly Faith:  Right. 

John McLarty: Why did this happen to me?

Kimberly Faith: Yes. And I think that death, especially, tends to make us cynical and doubt God and his faithfulness.

John McLarty:  Sure. Losing a loved one.  Especially unexpectedly.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. We weren’t, because we weren’t created to experience death, really. We were originally created to experience life. Right? And so we know this is a horror.

We know this is a bad thing. And, so I want to kind of start this podcast by talking about, I think, the ultimate example of the thankfulness of Jesus, and it’s absolutely mind blowing to me because but it’s 100% on point with all these things. When we start talking about the benefits of being thankful during affliction, this is the gold standard, and that is at the last supper.

John McLarty: Oh, yes. Right.

Kimberly Faith: I mean, and, of course, we can read about this in Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, but we’re going to take the one from Luke. The gospel of Luke records Jesus, before he served the Lord’s,  he’s serving the last supper to them. And it says, then he took the cup, and he gave thanks and said, take this and divide it among yourselves, for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And then again in Luke, he says, and then he took the bread and gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them saying, this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

John McLarty: And when he thanked , he gave thanks for what he knew was about to happen to him 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: Which was a horrific episode about to happen in his life. Actually, in his death.

Kimberly Faith: It is just you know, here he is, even before his horrible torture and death. He’s giving thanks to God for the sacrifice of his own body and blood. And I think again, I’m not going to try to pretend to wrap my words around the mind of God, but this to me demonstrates a deep knowledge of the faithfulness of his father, you know, to face this unimaginable suffering. And I know I think I’m so glad,my immediate thought was, I’m so glad that God does not give me knowledge of the suffering I’m going to have to endure. I don’t think we could bear it.

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: You know?

John McLarty: And Jesus knew there would be a tremendous outcome for what he was about to go through.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. He had the advantage of being able to see in the future, but it doesn’t I think even, like, if you think about it, you know, I have a friend Melissa who I’ve had on this podcast several times. You think about that 100 mile race and mentally you prepare for as much as you can, But if you have never run that 100 mile race, it’s a much different race  than if you have prepared for it. You know, irrespective, what Jesus was, you know, whether he knew the full gamut of what was going to happen. I mean, he’s God, so he knows everything, but he was incarnate. Right? So who knows what he actually knew in his human body. 

John McLarty: And knowing that it would bring salvation doesn’t diminish the full extent of what he went through because he took upon himself the sins of the entire world.

Kimberly Faith: Right. I mean, he knew

John McLarty: To the nth degree.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. His immediate future was to be stripped of his human dignity, tortured, horribly crucified, and worst of all, separated from the presence of his father while he bore the sins of the world. That we can’t wrap our mind around that because we can’t wrap our mind around even our own sin and the mercy of God, the great mercy of God that’s from everlasting to everlasting. Right? We’re so finite. We’re so finite.

John McLarty: But you know that’s a key to helping us have thankfulness, knowing that God loves us and that all things work for good to those that love him, and that there’s going to be, that God loves us, and there’s going to be a good outcome even through afflictions and because of afflictions sometimes.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. And, you know, keep in mind, we’re throughout this, these couple of podcasts that we do on thankfulness in affliction, the power of thankfulness in affliction. We’re never saying ever that evil is good or that, you know, God created moral evil. You know, there’s natural evil, there’s moral evil, and without getting into it,  that’s a whole another discussion, obviously.

We can know, though, that what God does God is faithful to us, just like Jesus knew of his father’s faithfulness, not because of what we do or what happens to us, but because of who he is. His nature, his character makes him faithful. He cannot lie. He is always the same. He is righteous, just, and loving.

We can always count on that, and he’s always going to act according to his nature. And when he says he’s redeemed us, he didn’t redeem us so that our suffering would be without meaning, without purpose. Because Jesus’ suffering had a purpose. It was an eternal purpose and his glorious purpose. And so the whole idea that you know we want to kind of talk about and flesh out is what are these benefits, what are these purposes that we can have produced in our life through being thankful, having a thankful heart during affliction and you know just as an aside I don’t want to say that this is a conversation you have with somebody whose kid just died. You know this is not necessarily,  this is a discipline to learn, this is not you know there’s an appropriate time to learn some of these things and hear these things and you know if you’re listening and you’ve got a friend who just lost their their son, for example, you know, this is not a recommendation to run to them with this podcast and say, oh, you can be thankful for this. You know? Because the fact is we have to grieve.

John McLarty: I think one of the great testimonies is ourselves under affliction or trouble if we can find thankfulness and show joy.  But it’s more of an example to others instead of we’re going to preach this to others.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. And so you’ve mentioned joy, which is one of the first benefits we want to  talk about, in becoming thankful in affliction. You know, the very, inspired apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:20. He said, giving thanks always for all things under God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I never considered that all things to also include trouble. Have you?

John McLarty: No. But I think it has to include it.

Kimberly Faith: I think so too.

John McLarty: Because it says for all things.

Kimberly Faith: Right. So when I was kind of studying through this, I was thinking, okay, God. Yeah. Let’s get real here. How do I have a mindset of thankfulness when I get that nasty letter, when I am confronted with a problem that just overwhelms me, when somebody I love has betrayed me? How do I make my first reaction, my first response, giving thanks?

John McLarty: Like, by thinking about who God is and his character 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.

John McLarty:  And that he’s allowing things to happen, or in some cases, causing things to happen for our good. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: Because he loves us, and he wants to either show us something or use it to show somebody else the way of grace or the way the path of peacefulness

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Or that we can rejoice in troubles.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: So it’s kind of this default position that God’s good.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. He is. And it’s kind of, you know, if you’ve a parent or let’s say you’re an athletic trainer or let’s say you’re a drill sergeant, you know, all those roles, you’re constantly, the people that are under you, that God has put under you. That’s your goal, if your motivation is correct, to produce a child that can function on their own, produce, you know, an athlete that can win the marathon, produce a marine who can, you know, serve well under fire. And in order to serve well under fire, you have to be under some fire. You can’t just have, you know, a padded existence.

John McLarty: Yeah. So those leaders’ goal is for those people under them to have success

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Not to have defeat.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And that’s God’s goal for us, is success.

Kimberly Faith: That’s a premise. You know? Because it reminds me of the verse where Jesus said, if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more does the father,  and I can’t remember where it’s found, but I’m paraphrasing, want to give good gifts to his children? Well, one of the good gifts he gives us is the ability to grow to be strong.

Right? And in the context of joy, another thing I think about is not just the character of God, but the benefits, okay, which is what we’re going to talk about. You know? If you are looking at two paths and you see down the road on one path, there’s frustration, anger, disappointment, envy, retaliation. Right?

And you see, down the other path, there’s love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, wisdom, strength, and you have the same burden no matter which path you go down. Well, the end result is very motivating. And the fact is, if you’re giving thanks in times of trouble, then you can’t also be frustrated 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: Angry, disappointed, envious in retaliation. But you can have love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, meekness, strength, wisdom, and the direction of God.

John McLarty: That joy from thankfulness, even under affliction, is really a testimony 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: Because it’s not the expected reaction.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.

John McLarty: But God tells us to, it’s a verse most people know. Rejoice in the Lord always. And, again, I say rejoice. But then later on, it says, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. So we only do that through our relationship with God. He gives us a peace 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: That passes understanding. It’s not a human

Kimberly Faith: It’s clearly him.

John McLarty: It’s clearly him. It’s not a human reaction.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Which goes back to, you know, our standard SOP as Christians is to glorify God.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: Right? I mean, that’s our goal. That’s our mission. Right? And everything else falls in with that.

I think about, you know, an unthankful heart. I mean, it is a hotbed for the seeds of sin to grow and to produce perpetual dissatisfaction, which joy, and just by way, you know, the way I understand joy in the bible, it’s not giddy, happy, silliness. It’s satisfaction.

John McLarty: So think about this. Think about the testimony of a life that’s, picture someone that’s a trust fund baby, and they just jet-set all around the world. You know, they’re on Facebook, and, you know, they’re like, here I am on the beach in Hawaii.

Kimberly Faith:  Right. 

John McLarty: Here I am in Spain. Here I am in the Eiffel Tower, and my life’s just great. I’m full of joy. Well, that’s not impressive. 

Kimberly faith: Right. 

John McLarty: It’s like, well, so

Kimberly Faith: It’s not even motivating, right?

John McLarty: Right. But here’s Paul and Silas in prison praising the Lord with joy, and that gets our attention. So, like, how can that be?

Kimberly Faith: Well and just look at Hollywood, okay, the movie industry, nobody creates a great blockbuster of somebody just jet setting around the world with no problems.

John McLarty: No problems. Right. Exactly.

Kimberly Faith: The greatest movies are overcoming adversity.

John McLarty: Overcoming adversity.

Kimberly Faith: And the greatest satisfaction we find, even in just watching a movie, is, man, I want to be like that person. The problem is that our secular culture creates that as the ultimate goal, just overcoming adversity. And God gives us the gift of being able to give him the credit and the glory, when we overcome adversity because we know based on study, especially the beatitudes study, you know, that being poor in spirit means we ain’t got nothing without God. You know? 

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: It’s like me taking credit for a Monet when I didn’t paint it. You know, we don’t know what we don’t know. This is not my life. This is God’s life. Right? And the great thing about that is that when we can give God the glory  in the triumphs we can also give him the responsibility of the problems

John McLarty: Right

Kimberly Faith: Because we trust this character

John McLarty: We trust this character

Kimberly Faith: So it’s impossible to lose your joy in affliction when you have a thankful heart. That’s pretty profound.

John McLarty: It is. It all comes back to trusting in him. 

Kimberly faith: Right.

John McLarty:  Resting on him.

Kimberly Faith: I think one of the things that the Lord kind of opened my eyes to with this study in affliction is that, you know, no one’s going to avoid this. We’ve all got to climb the mountain of affliction many, many, many times in our life, sometimes daily. And affliction is kind of a, I wanted to use a term that was as descriptive as possible. Some of the afflictions are light, some of them are heavy. Obviously, I used the example of the death of a child. That’s obviously something that is probably one of the worst things to go through. And then you have daily afflictions. Right?

John McLarty: Yeah. I think that’s a good point to make to everybody. We don’t want to diminish those horrific afflictions, someone being tortured.

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: It’s obviously different than someone that just got a disturbing, alarming letter from the IRS. 

Kimberly faith:  Right.

John McLarty:  But life is full of trouble. Life is full, even though we’re not in prison being tortured. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: We could still, I mean, Satan’s the great enemy. Satan’s the discourager. He wants to get us off our game.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: So even here in the USA, where we have a pretty good life, we let things afflict us

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: Just to get us

Kimberly Faith: 1st world problems.

John McLarty: Yes. 1st world problems. And they can knock us off, take the joy away from us

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: And ruin our testimony.

Kimberly Faith: And it’s what you’re you know, everybody’s affliction I think the size of your mountain is measured by the size of your God. And when God,  we have a mindset, like the mind of Christ, which is so good. That’s what’s so good about this beatitude study is that the problem is put in perspective by the size of who God is in our mind. And suddenly, gosh,you know, I get  a letter like we’ll use the IRS thing. You get a letter from the IRS.

And it’s like, you know, God, this is yeah. This is a problem. But my law practice belongs to you, so you’ll solve it. And let me pray now for the people, all the children in the world who are being trafficked. Because they have real problems, you know we don’t lose that joy and satisfaction and we’re enabled then to do greater things like intervene for people who have even bigger problems

John McLarty: Yeah. That’s a discipline. I use that if I have something  happen that I call trouble.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Then I think about, well, there are  Christians in North Korean prison camps.  And what am I doing worrying about, you know, a problem with the engine in my car

Kimberly faith:  Right. 

John McLarty: Or something that might cost, you know, but to us it’s trouble.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Well, this mindset of thankfulness gives us God’s perspective. And when we have God’s perspective, he you know, we think then we can it’s like we have a true scale to measure things by. You know? Because he is, he’s the light.

And he shines the light into us  and we realize that if our first world problems are, you know, easily besetting us and robbing us of our joy, then we’re having Kim’s perspective. We’re having the perspective of our world culture. You know, I wrote a devotional earlier I don’t know. I think it was in January about, you know, there was an article about how buying sheets online was derailing my life. You know, I’m thinking, are we really here?

Is this really who we are? But the fact is we all are. We all get derailed by somebody cutting us off in traffic. You know? And if we have the mind of Christ and I don’t want to you know, again, I’m not trying to trivialize this, but then it changes everything so much because we have a heart of gratitude. So the horror of sin is put in perspective, and we’re not so self focused. We’re focused on, wow. I’m just so grateful  he didn’t hit me. You know? And, Lord, help that person.

If they’re in a hurry because they’re on the way to the ER, help them get there safely. You don’t know what’s going on with that person who cut you off in traffic. But if you get yourself out of the equation because you have not lost your joy, it’s a perspective changer.

John McLarty: Or if trouble happens, if you think, well, where’s the ministry in this?

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.

John McLarty: So your car broke down someplace. Your, you know, your battery didn’t start, and then you think, well, this is either trouble, or who am I going to be able to minister to?

Kimberly Faith: Exactly.

John McLarty:  You know, getting help for this delay or whatever.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Which leads to this other benefit, which is victory.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: Right? It’s like we’ve talked about, okay, one of the great, great benefits, in being thankful during affliction is joy. Another great benefit is victory. We experience victory everywhere we go because we have an enemy that’s already defeated. And we have the Lord Jesus Christ who conquered our worst enemy, which is death, eternal death. Right? And so how would you tie in victory with having a thankful heart in affliction?

John McLarty: Well, I think of Paul, he had a lot of trouble in his life. And, I mean, real afflictions. I mean, being shipwrecked and stoned and tossed out for dead. 

Kimberly faith: Right. 

John McLarty: And, I just thought of a verse in Philippians. He was telling the, he was in house imprisonment at the time in Rome, and he was telling the Philippians, I want you to understand, brethren, that the things that have happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel. So he was telling them, I’m okay, and all these things that you’ve heard about me and the afflictions I’m going through, they’ve been for the furtherance of the gospel. 

Kimberly faith: That’s powerful. 

John McLarty: So because that goal is the mission we have in life.

Kimberly Faith: Right. It’s kind of and this

John McLarty:  Puts things in perspective.

Kimberly Faith: A ridiculous example. But let’s say you’re a unit that’s out, you know, trying to root out a cell of the Taliban. Right? And, you know, your shoelace is untied or something so trivial like that or your stomach’s rumbling and because you haven’t had, you know, enough to eat.  And you somehow throw a fit in the middle of the mission because of some first world problem. Right? And the whole mission is derailed or diverted or, you know, hurt because you’re in the middle of a fit. Right? Because you’re not thankful that you get to be part of something bigger than yourself, really.

John McLarty: That’s a good example of the problems, you might say, we have in the USA.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty:  You know, we’re not being hauled off into prison camps and tortured for Christ.

Kimberly Faith: Such an opportunity. I also think about the apostle Paul, just you know, that man, he suffered so many things and we don’t even really know all the things, we just know the things that are recorded in scripture. I imagine him choosing Jesus, in opposition to the Jewish culture and the Jewish religion probably isolated him from his family. I heard a, messianic Jewish preacher, Lon Solomon, say one time he believes that the apostle Paul was actually married, because of the way that their culture was, you couldn’t attain the position that Paul  had, unless you were married. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I just thought, you know, you don’t even hear about his wife.

But if that’s true, I imagine everybody he grew up around, all his people, all his tribe, he had to leave them all behind. And we don’t hear about that. We hear about the stonings, which are horrible, obviously, the beatings, you know, the shipwreck, like you said. But then he writes in Second Corinthians 12, he says, lest I should be exalted above measure, though, through the abundance of revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. And for this thing, I besought the Lord three times.

And when it says besought, I think he begged the Lord to make it depart. And then Jesus said to him, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. And then Paul responds, most gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, of persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Wow. You talk about victory. No one gives the victory like God. Right?

John McLarty: That’s really the perfect passage for what we’re talking about. Paul saying, I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. And then combine that with all these things have befallen me for the furtherance of the gospel.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: So he takes pleasure in his infirmities and persecutions.

Kimberly Faith: Well, it takes us back to the first attitude that Christ taught us, being poor in spirit.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: Because Paul was saying, look, it’s obvious I need to depend upon God for everything. You know, he had received whatever the great revelation was. I’m sure part of it was what we read in the New Testament. But, you know, he had such great privilege with God to carry out his work. But the reason he had that is because he was completely dependent upon God. It was all God. It was not Paul.

John McLarty: And that can be such a game changer for, even with our small infirmities here in the USA. 

Kimberly faith: Right.

John McLarty: But, you know, we are in a great country, and typically, our problems are small, but we have tragedies.

Kimberly Faith: The plane crash.

John McLarty: The plane crash. I mean, that’s horrific. Beyond horrific. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Two plane crashes in the same, like, day back to back.

John McLarty: So there are great struggles.

Kimberly Faith: Well, I think, I don’t know. I look at the opportunities that are created through affliction if we again, the only way we’re going to become thankful for affliction is if we have the mindset of being poor in spirit, which is what Jesus taught us, which is dependent upon God 100%. The problem is with our own strength, in our own strength, when we think we are strong, suddenly, we’re operating on our own. We’re like the lone soldier who’s gone off the path of the mission operating by ourselves instead of with the power of the unit under the command. Right?

When we’re under the command of Christ and we allow ourselves to be in Him, the affliction suddenly is, we’re,  we have all the firepower of the Holy Spirit behind us. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power that’s in us, and we’re operating in sync with that power.

John McLarty: Well, I think  this goes back to where we started, that it’s a discipline. A discipline of thankfulness that can give us this correct attitude.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Because when you hear about something that has no answer, like the plane crash Right. And the loss and the funerals, and we’ve had that, you know, close church members that die suddenly. And one of their perspectives is maybe somebody can be saved. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Maybe a family member is going to come hear the message of Christ. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.

John McLarty:  And this tragedy, this loss, something good can come from it.

Kimberly Faith: I like that you bring up that point because I had a close friend who lost her son, a man in his forties who had 3 young boys last year. And, you know, she said this to me. She said, you know, at the funeral, his wife actually gave the message and gave the gospel. And she said it would be the only time that many of the lost family would have ever heard the gospel, in, you know, that she’s known about. And think about what she kept saying, if my son’s life, which was short on this earth anyway, you know, even if he’d lived at 80 or 90 or 100, That’s a short blip on the radar screen when compared to the eternity that someone else may have gained with Jesus.

You know, in eternity, we can’t put our mind around it because we think in terms of decades, right, or maybe even a century if we’re lucky. But just to me this attitude that Paul had is something that,  like you said, we have to discipline ourselves. We have to thank God as soon as we wake up. Thank God before our feet hit the ground. We thank God at the beginning of each prayer. We thank God. We thank him when we drive to work.

We thank him throughout the day. We thank him as we lay our head down at night. We are thankful for all the things that are going on, our health, a job, heat in the winter, salvation, even our breath. And as obstacles arise, we have to discipline ourselves to say thank you, Lord. I know that you’re going to give me an opportunity for victory because of who you are.

John McLarty: An attitude of thankfulness.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And I think that if we, you know, we can learn to view things the way we’re supposed to view things, but we have to  have that discipline.  I kind of like this idea the Holy Spirit gave me of having,you have two paths, you know, the same burden and at the end of each path, you can see the result of either, the, you know, the benefits of the fruit of the spirit walking through this affliction and maybe the opportunity to to have some of these things like joy and victory or you can see the drudgery, the  envy, the resignation, the whatever, the negative parts of bearing affliction without a great purpose. And it’s a choice.

John McLarty: Thinking of a couple places in the Bible. Well, I think one is Romans, but Paul is talking about putting on the new man or putting on the old. It’s a decision.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: In this situation, I’m going to put on the new man. I’m going to change my perspective. I’m going to align myself with God and the biblical perspective. And, you know, it’s not,  I think it’s, was it the life of Joseph where he says what was meant for evil, God turned toward good. Being, you know, thrown into the pit by his brothers, but he ends up being  favored by a pharaoh and

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And, you know, saving his whole family, actually. But so it’s not to say that these things aren’t, a plane crash or a terrorist attack. That they are not evil. It is evil.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. It is evil.

John McLarty: But God can take evil.

Kimberly Faith: And work it against

John McLarty: He didn’t cause it, but he can take evil and use it for good.

Kimberly Faith: And work it against itself.

John McLarty: That perspective.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I mean, and you know before we finish up this podcast I do want to cover one other aspect of the benefits of having a thankful heart in affliction and that is growth. You know I think that if we don’t use affliction as an opportunity to grow in the fruit of the spirit, to grow in, the way we depend upon God, the the attitudes of Christ, You know? You know, when we again, I like to use the example of the gym. It’s putting your body under distress.

You’re doing that. You’re voluntarily doing that so that you can gain a higher level of physical fitness. Well, if, you know, the Bible talks about, you know, the Lord whoever the  Lord loves, he chastens and scourges, which is kind of, you know, no one wants to think about chastening and scourging. Those are old, you know, kind of old testament, new testament terms for we’re going to  discipline our kids if we love them. Well, even if we love ourselves, we’re going to discipline ourselves to do certain things. And I think it’s a great tragedy to view the discipline of God from self destructive habits as that God is bad.

John McLarty: That’s a total perspective changer of afflictions because it’s such a great example. Muscles are,  human fleshly muscles will not grow

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Will not strengthen unless they’re put under stress.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: They will just atrophy. They will become flabby.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: So that stress is essential. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: For growth, and growth is good.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And you look at yourself in the mirror after 6 months of stressing out your muscles, you go, you know what? I like that.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: But we get stuck in our physical, and we can’t. It’s like Satan tricks us and the world culture deceives us into thinking that we shouldn’t think the exact same way about our spiritual growth. So we used to get stuck on our physical and that’s one of the reasons that we failed to be really thankful during afflictions because we’re so stuck on, oh my gosh, the IRS sent me a letter. I’m going to not have enough money to pay my taxes.

John McLarty: So in other words, trials can be good. Instead of taking us off of our game, we can be thankful for them because they’re part of our growth.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: That’s just a game changer.

Kimberly Faith: That’s a huge game. Matter of fact, it was such a game changer for me and it still is in my prayer, in my prayer list, which this year I asked the Lord to develop my prayer list for me. I have a whole section of things I’m thankful for. And one of the things I thank the Lord for is the trouble he sent me because and I’m thanking him ahead of time for the trouble he’s going to allow in my life because I know it’s going to give me a different opportunity to glorify him.

John McLarty: And that would just shock most people. 

Kimberly faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: If you express that, like, thank you for this trial, Lord. 

Kimberly faith: Right. 

John McLarty: Thank you for this financial setback or disaster.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. And the person who’s pursuing the attitudes of Christ, knows the difference between a chastening that is just punishment by some kind of cruel person and a chastening because of love. Because you know the character of God.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly faith: You know that God I mean I can’t even imagine one of my kids thinking, mom, you spanked me, you know, when they were younger because for no good reason, and because you hate me, you know? Well, no. You were playing in the street, and I’d already told you not to play in the street, and, you know, you didn’t seem to get it. So, yeah, I warmed up your hiney because you need to know that there’s going to be, you know, this is a preview of the tragedy that could happen if you don’t learn this lesson. And I think a person who is pursuing the very critical attitudes of Christ knows that if, I mean, look, our own stupidity causes most of our affliction. You know, I didn’t gain weight because I was doing healthy things. Right? Or I didn’t, you know, I didn’t, if I had a problem, I keep bringing up the IRS. I don’t know why. I just paid my taxes. Maybe that’s why.

John McLarty: IRS is on our minds. 

Kimberly faith: Yeah. If I didn’t pay my taxes, it should be no shock to me the IRS wants to audit me. You know? So we, you know, this chastening of God, it’s not like it’s some big thing. It should not be some big surprise if it’s because we did something stupid or we sinned. But the beatitudes of Christ, you know, they teach us to mourn sin, to realize that sin is the cause of everything horrible that happens in everybody’s life. So we’re going to mourn it like we mourn the death of a child and we’re going to stay away from it, which brings us closer to God and then places us in this mindset of, okay, whatever happens to me. God’s going to  take care of it because I’m already trusting him, because of developing these attitudes of Christ. Does that make sense?

John McLarty: So that’s an affliction like King David talked about in Psalms.

Kimberly Faith:  Right.

John McLarty:  Because before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: So some afflictions just come upon us because trouble’s in the world.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: It’s just we need this perspective of thankfulness. But some afflictions may be to correct our behavior.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes. And I tell you, I can give an example that, several years ago, the Holy Spirit was drawing me away from practicing domestic relations law. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that area of law.  It was just a soul sucker, honestly. I just got to help a lot of people. I got to help a lot of children. I got to do a lot of things, but God just had a different plan for my life, and I resisted. And the reason I resisted again, this is a first world problem.

I was like, well you know this is 75% of my income God how am I going to  pay the bills, right? That’s a legitimate concern so what I did was I kind of tried to find my own way around it you know I thought, well I’m going to hire somebody else to take care of this area of law. Well like we took on, like, 50 contested cases, and then she quit. So here I am. She gave me 2 weeks’ notice. I have 50 contested cases that I had to get rid of. Well, you know, it took me about 2 years of kind of, this chastening  from God for me to figure out I needed to come into line and, then the pandemic hit in 2020 and so I mean I’m going to tell you two years of hand to mouth in my office I finally said, you know what?

I’m going to do this, God. I’m going to follow what you’re telling me. Now If I had quit two years earlier, I would have had two years to prepare for the pandemic that, you know, everybody’s businesses suffered in the pandemic. And then I would have had time to prepare for that but I didn’t listen and so, but you know  today I’m super grateful that God actually chastened me and forced me out of  that domestic relations practice because if I hadn’t done that then there’s no way that gofaithstrong would be operating at the level it is today and we wouldn’t be doing this podcast because I wouldn’t have time because I’d be working all the time.  And so God has, you know,  I look back and say thank you Lord for that. That was hard but thank you for that because now I’m where I am today being so free to do his work.  So that’s just one example of how God has given this growth in my life

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: And even the joy and the victory. You know?

John McLarty: And that’s a key part of growth, so I think of the verse where it says, my sheep know my voice. It is to understand when an affliction is just because there’s sin in the world, there’s trouble in the world

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: A hurricane comes through, tornado, or,  God specifically is wanting to correct us.

Kimberly Faith: Right. The difference in moral evil and natural evil. Right?  Yeah. Yeah.

John McLarty:  One is to correct us, and one is just to give us an attitude of gratitude

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.

John McLarty: Even when just a bad thing happens.

Kimberly Faith: And an opportunity.

John McLarty: Just a, there’s just bad things floating around in the world.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: You know, germs that get into our body and make us sick.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Yeah. One gives us an opportunity for growth because we’re chasing an  element of that, but the other one gives us an opportunity for a great story.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: And so we’re going to wrap this podcast up. And, in the next podcast, we’re going to go ahead and finish out the different benefits of having a thankful heart or being thankful in affliction. So thank you for joining us. We hope you have a great week. We hope you join us next week for the next part of this series and the power of thankfulness in affliction.

John McLarty: Great.

Jacob Paul: You’ve been listening to the Truth in Love podcast with your hosts, Kimberly Faith and John Mac. To discover more answers to the big questions in life, visit us at gofaithstrong.com.