Episode 24: The Power Of A Thankful Heart In Affliction, Part 2

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: Well, welcome back to the Truth in Love podcast. I’m here with dad.

John McLarty: It’s great to be here again, Kim.

Kimberly Faith: We’re talking about this very critical series of the power of thankfulness and affliction.  What we hope is probably just going to be a 2 part series, but nonetheless, very powerful. Least it’s been very powerful in my life. And just to kind of remind everyone what we’re talking about, it’s the idea that to make sense of affliction in our life, trouble, any kind of trouble, whatever that is, big, small, everything in between.  The Bible tells us and God reinforces us in his word, all throughout his word, that having a thankful mind, a thankful attitude empowers us to have all kinds of benefits from affliction as opposed to it being just a wasted experience. Is that kind of a good summary?

John McLarty: Yes.  That and I’ve been reading through Proverbs lately and just the importance of wisdom and having understanding and discretion. And part of this is being able to translate affliction into thankfulness. And looking for opportunities, either opportunities for service or, Lord, what are you trying to show me?

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: That’s a game changer. That’s an attitude adjustment.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. And it’s huge because affliction comes to us I mean, sometimes it’s because we’re just sinning. Okay? And, you know, people say, well, I didn’t know it was a sin. I got it. Sometimes we don’t know. But, man, we know what mud looks like, and we step in it. We fully expect our feet to be covered in mud. And when we figure that out, we should expect the consequences. Because if God loves us, which the Bible says he does, and if you believe that God loves you, then you should expect him to correct that behavior and get you cleaned up. You know?

John McLarty: And so he can bless us.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: That’s his heart. 

Kimberly Faith: Exactly. 

John McLarty: It’s not like he wants evil for us. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: He wants us on a better path so we can have the more abundant life.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Just like our children.  We want our children to have the best. And so, of course, we’re going to correct them. Of course, we’re going to clean them up. We’re not going to, you know, take them to a nice dinner covered in mud. Right? They get to come to a nice dinner if they look presentable. And the Lord wants that for us. He wants so much good for us. Then there’s the other kind of affliction that is the affliction that is not caused by our own sin. It’s caused by the sin of others or by natural evil.

I mean, we’ve got a tornado. I was in a tornado last year, you know, terrifying. And, but you know what? The Lord said, yeah, I’m going to show you just how powerful I am. And this tornado, you’re going to see it with your eyes, and then it’s going to turn the other way. It’s going to cause some damage. It’s going to do some things to you, but it’s not without merit. It’s not without merit. And sure enough, the Lord used that

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: As a testimony. And so what we’ve been talking about is in the first podcast, the benefits first of all, the great example of Jesus, how Jesus was, it’s just mind blowing. Again, it just blows my mind to think that Jesus was giving thanks for the affliction he was about to endure.

John McLarty: He gave thanks for the cross he was about to endure.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And the fact you know, the even greater thought on that is that he sat down before the foundation of the world and knew this was going to happen and planned this for himself.  I mean, we as humans, we can’t even grasp that. But, you know and I don’t want to  again,  I have it in my heart that eventually I want to have this discussion about the reason for evil, you know, which is a very deep discussion, lots of,  I’m not sure there’s one answer to it, but that’s just hard for us to wrap our mind around, but  we’re kind of narrowing this discussion to what are the benefits of becoming, having a mindset of thankfulness during  and before the affliction even arises. Right? And last time we talked about joy

John McLarty: Yes

Kimberly Faith: And victory and having, you know, the last thing we talked about was having this growth. Right? Obviously, it causes us to have growth. And so now we’re going to kind of shift gears a little bit. We’ve kind of hinted at this, but affliction really does develop an attitude of dependence.

Now, a lot of people don’t think of dependence as being a benefit. Right? We have our declaration of independence. Right? And there’s a lot of pride in our independence from Britain.

There’s a lot of pride from,  we are a nation of people who don’t depend on anybody. Right? What is it that you think is good about dependence?

John McLarty: Well, I think dependence makes us humble.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. For sure.

John McLarty: And God gives grace to the humble, and he resists the proud. So if affliction makes us dependent, keeps us dependent, or reminds us we’re dependent. That keeps us humble, which puts us in a place where God can bless our lives

Kimberly faith:  Right.

John McLarty:  And doesn’t have to strike down our proudness.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I think we talked about this in the very first beatitude about being poor in spirit.

John McLarty: Yes

Kimberly Faith: Right. And, you know, think about the great gift of salvation. You know, we cannot have eternal life unless we first become dependent upon God for salvation.

John McLarty: Yeah. Just thinking about  and remembering that the Old Testament is revealing the mind of Satan. And he’s like, I will ascend above the most high.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. When Lucifer,  the beautiful angel, the star of the morning. Right?

John McLarty: So dependence is a great quality.

Kimberly Faith:  Yeah. 

John McLarty: And if affliction brings that and enhances that, it’s good. 

Kimberly Faith: It’s good. Yeah.

John McLarty:  Again, that is that mindset. It’s an attitude adjustment.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. And we’re you know, the fact is that in our life, we are surrounded by enemies. The Bible says that Satan, he prowls. He seeks to devour us. He’s around every corner, and I’m not trying to be, you know, weird about this. But unless we understand that our enemy is

John McLarty: There is an enemy. The fiery darts of the wicked.

Kimberly Faith: Right. I remember, my kids and I went to Breckenridge a couple weeks ago. And I don’t know. I woke up in the middle of the night, and I had this sense that the enemy was pressing in. And it sounds kind of weird maybe, but when I get that sense that there is evil lurking outside the door, man, I just started praying. I was like, Lord, you know. You know what’s going on. I don’t know. But I know this sense  is not me thinking there’s a voodoo outside the door, but the fact that there is evil outside the door.

John McLarty: There’s a spiritual warfare.

Kimberly Faith: There’s a spiritual warfare. 

John McLarty: That’s true. 

Kimberly Faith: And in our concept study, we talk about spiritual warfare. If you haven’t heard that, you should definitely listen to it. We need to be aware of the battle because if we are not aware of the battle, then our affliction is going to be a lot worse than it has to be. You know?

John McLarty: And picture a soldier out in warfare, and he becomes a rogue operator like I’m Rambo.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And I don’t need communications and the satellites

 Kimberly Faith: Supplies

John McLarty:  Bad outcomes.

Kimberly Faith: Bad outcomes. So this, one of these benefits of affliction is to make us more dependent upon God. And the thing is, you know, dependence kind of gets a bad rap today because we have these, you know, what is there’s a, I guess, a dependency, what’s it called when you’re dependent upon someone

John McLarty:  Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: And it’s unhealthy. 

John McLarty: Overly.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: Codependent

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Codependency. And that’s not what we’re talking about.

John McLarty:  No.

Kimberly Faith: We’re talking about a dependence upon God that makes us strong. You know, when Paul said that he was given a thorn in the flesh, we read this in the last podcast, it’s because then when I am weak, then I’m strong.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: You know? And so this was I mean, think about the apostle Paul. He was a highly gifted man. He was a man that had a lot of intellect. He had a lot of influence, but he also struggled with his temptation to depend upon himself.

And, you know,  I really think that it’s, you know, Paul’s words, his revelation from God that for him to be afflicted and for him to be weak made weak in his flesh, his own power, so he could depend more upon God. That opened a door for him of greater works than he could have ever accomplished on his own. And that’s the way we need to look at this.

John McLarty: And that’s really interesting because he was really plagued by afflictions, and you’d think the man that was going to write a lot of the New Testament

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: God would have rolled out

Kimberly faith:  The red carpet. 

John McLarty: The red carpet for him and given him an easy path. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty:  It was the opposite of that.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. When he talks about the thorn in the flesh, I did some study about that. It literally means not like a thorn on a rose bush, but it’s a stake. Like, a stake was you know, he was impaled upon a stake.

And this messenger of Satan to buffet me I mean, I don’t even know what that looks like. I mean, he’s describing something that I’m not even sure I can wrap my mind around, and he begged god to take it away. But God said, no. My grace is what you need. It’s sufficient because in my strength, your weakness makes you perfect. Your weakness puts you in that position of complete dependence. And God is not being barbaric. God’s not being cruel. And unless you don’t know God, you might think that. Right?

That might be a fair accusation if you don’t really know who God is, but Paul knew God because then he says, I will glory in my infirmities. This is Second Corinthians chapter 12, which we read last time, because he knew God and Paul knew himself. He knew his pride was sneaky. I mean, I heard somebody say the other day, oh, I finally become humble and I had to shut my mouth. I had to put my hand over my mouth because I know that if you ever say those words, you’re not.

John McLarty: I’ve defeated my pride. It’s gone. Right?

Kimberly Faith: Our greatest strength becomes our greatest weakness unless it’s under the control of God. And so, you know, let’s just have everybody think about this. What do you consider one of your greatest strengths? What do you consider your greatest strengths, dad?

John McLarty: My relationship with God.

Kimberly Faith: Well, that’s a great answer. And, you know, I think that when I was studying this, I had to kind of think, okay, God, where have I rested my trust in the past? Where has my greatest trust been reposed? Right? And I think about, well, my intellect.  I went to law school. Must have some half a brain. Right? Maybe. Passed a couple bar exams.

So, you know, my intellect has been a source of independence, money. I made a lot of money, spent a lot of money, not necessarily all on good things. That’s been a source of my independence from God. My personality kind of relied on this gregarious, you know, personality. Power, you know, maybe your looks, your health, whatever.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: And the thing is, if you’re thinking that these things are your greatest strengths and the proof is, what makes you anxious. Is it losing your money? Is it losing your power? Is it losing your health? Is it losing your job? Is it losing your house? If those things drive you to anxiety, those are where you’re depending.

John McLarty: Right.  There’s a verse where your heart is.

Kimberly faith: Where yeah. What you love is what you serve. 

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: Right? And, you know, it’s like the rich man, parable of the rich man that you’re talking about, but Jesus talking about, you know, but if our anxiety is caused by the loss of these things or the diminishing of these things, that shows that where we’re lacking in our dependence upon God. 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: But sometimes for our own good, just like I told in the last podcast how during the pandemic, you know, if I’d obeyed God a couple years earlier in doing what he wanted me to do, I would have been more prepared for the pandemic. But God finally is just like,  enough is enough. You need to get this because you have work to do for me. You have this podcast to start. And, you know, God had been burdening my heart for a while to do that, but I hadn’t had the time because I was too busy practicing domestic law, making money. Right?

So sometimes God just rips the rug out from under you, and that’s a good thing because when we experience life completely dependent upon God because of affliction, man, we don’t even want to go back.

John McLarty: We had a discussion right before this podcast of, that feeling of when we’ve grieved the spirit of God. And then to me, that’s so horrible. I don’t want that to happen.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: I think you call it the path of peace. 

Kimberly faith: Right. 

John McLarty: Getting off of it. And that’s that dependence on God, that being right with God or, like, we’re on good terms.

Kimberly Faith: And that’s what was lost in the garden.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: Right? I mean, didn’t Satan

John McLarty: That dependence on him and thankfulness for him.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Satan promised Eve, you know, you can be like God, so you won’t need him anymore. Just eat the fruit. It wasn’t eating fruit that caused her to become aware. It was becoming independent from God by eating the fruit because she was disobedient. Right? She violated God’s love. And at least I think that’s right. The fruit didn’t have some magical powers.

John McLarty: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: I think it was the fact that she took her life into her own hands, which is what we do. And affliction

John McLarty: Satan told her, ye shall be as gods.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Affliction is such a great tool to put us back there. 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: You know, I can tell you, I always use this example and I don’t remember if I’ve done this on this podcast or not, but, you know, a year ago, just over a year ago now, when, I had a radical upheaval in my law practice, every one of my employees, you know, left and it was within the span of 30 days and I was on my knees and my first prayer was, God, are you telling me I don’t need to practice law anymore? Are you saying no more law practice?

If that’s it,  man that’s a big step, that’s what I’ve done for a couple decades now. Okay not sure what this looks like, not sure how to pay the bills, not sure how to support the ministry, you know,  and all the things that go to your mind and the Lord said, no. We’re going to  rebuild. We’re pruning the vine all the way down to the nub, and we’re going to rebuild with a crew you’ve never seen before,  with a crew that you don’t expect, totally different people than you expect. And so I don’t know,  if you can imagine this, but can you imagine going to a doctor’s office with the doctors answering the phone, paying the bills, triaging the patients, running the front desk, trying to practice medicine?

That was my office. You know? The people I hired had never worked in a law office, but they’re the ones God sent. The people I hired didn’t have a clue how to even answer the front door, you know, when a person walks in with a traffic ticket. They didn’t know what to say. I had to help train, I mean, everybody in every area, and it was painful. I had to figure out my passwords. I had to figure out how to write checks. I mean, all of it. How to reprogram the phone. I mean, it was just to teach them how to put an appointment in the calendar. I had to learn how to do an invoice. It’s been a year that I never want to do again.

John McLarty: But God put a great team together.

Kimberly Faith: Oh my goodness.

John McLarty: He did it.

Kimberly Faith: He did it. And I was on my knees every day. Lord, just show me what to do next. It’s just too much. It’s exactly where I needed to be and my life has not been the same since. I don’t ever want to go through that again and you know, you mentioned this earlier that when you get to a point where God’s presence is so good in your life and so strong, man, you can tell right away, I’m off. I’m off. Something’s not right here. I’d much rather be there than having an occasional path of peace. 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: You know?

John McLarty: Well, you know, humans, one of the great sins of, you must say, humankind, mankind, is that we don’t need God anymore. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.

John McLarty: We don’t want to obey God. We don’t need God. We’re going to do this ourselves.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty:  Now just think of, you know, think of the tower of Babel. We don’t need God’s blessings.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: We’re going to  build the tower of Babel. So if the flood happens again, we are going to solve this problem. 

Kimberly Faith: Exactly.

John McLarty:  And we just repeat that over and over collectively and individually.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And, you know, something that God’s changed with my law practice is every day I tell the Lord this practice is not mine. It’s yours. That’s a big change. I am 100% yours. And you know what the other relief is? You know what, Lord? This is your law practice. So with this problem that’s coming up, that’s yours too. So you solve it because it’s your practice. And I call him out. And I don’t mean that disrespectfully, but I think it’s my right to do that because I’m his child. I’m doing his mission.

John McLarty: Well, that’s great because our first tendency when we have a problem is how am I going to fix this?

Kimberly Faith: Exactly. And God used this very traumatic experience in my life to just incubate a great dependence upon him. And you know what? God’s better at practicing law than I am. Great revelation for me, you know, we just think we know everything and especially if we’re already a strong personality, you know, we walk with the confidence of a 100 people until the rug’s ripped out from us and we realize how vulnerable we really are. And every one of us is vulnerable.

John McLarty: Knowing  that dependence on God and being humble and giving him the credit, that’s a great testimony.

Kimberly Faith: It is.

John McLarty: That gets people’s attention.

Kimberly Faith: It is. Which is another benefit. Right?

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: This is, we’re talking about the way that a thankful heart in affliction benefits us. And you bring up our next section, which is the great testimonies. It’s great. It’s a great story. Right? This story of the revamping of my law practice , it is a phenomena really you know because what that’s done is 

John McLarty: Something God did

Kimberly Faith: It’s something God did, it’s clearly not me. And what that’s done is,  it’s made me step back and say, okay, God, if you’re better at law practice, gosh, you’re probably better at writing devotionals. You’re probably better at praying. He’s teaching me how to pray. Oh, gosh. You’re better at managing my bank account.

John McLarty: You didn’t bring in all these resumes from all over the nation and bring in the, you know, cherry picked.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: You just let God bring your new staff to you.

Kimberly Faith: And he definitely brought the new staff. 

John McLarty:  And we would call them an eclectic group.

Kimberly Faith: They are eclectic. And if they’re listening to this podcast right now, they know that I love them very much, and hopefully, they trust

John McLarty: They’re all different personalities. They’re just

Kimberly Faith: It’s great.

John McLarty: So wonderful.

Kimberly Faith: Right, even right down to the person who cleans the office. You know what I’m saying? We have  different people. And, I mean, it’s just amazing. It’s so perfect. It’s God perfect.

John McLarty: And Lynn and I loved meeting them all.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. It’s crazy. But the dependence, I think I mean, I’m not trying to categorize these benefits. Joy is obviously great and, you know, all the growth. But dependence, you know, this is the first beatitude. Obviously, we also talk about the attitudes of Christ, but it is such a freedom to become dependent through a dependence upon God through affliction. You know, if your trouble, your heartache, your tears, your difficulty, your pain, and your anguish or your anguish causes you to depend more on God, this is a great reason to develop a thankful heart because we all have those things. Those are common human experiences.

John McLarty: He gives us freedom from just being stressed out all the time and full of  anxiety.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: That doesn’t mean that the solution to a problem is immediately revealed to us.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: But knowing that God’s got us.

Kimberly Faith: And, dude, sometimes the solution walks through the door and you go, that can’t be it. And God says, yeah. Yeah. That’s actually part of your,    I remember, when I interviewed one of the ladies that I ended up hiring, she had never, I mean, just zero of the qualifications I would have looked at.

But the Lord was saying, I almost didn’t hire her. And then a godly brother of mine said, you really need to hire her. And I trust his relationship with God. And I was like, you know, God, if this is your will, then you are just going to give me peace. And he did.

And she’s ended up being one of the best employees I’ve ever had. And she knew nothing, you know, and she is so full of confidence today. It’s actually been an equally beneficial thing. And my prayer is it’s better for her even than it is for me because that’s why God changes our heart. Right?

John McLarty: That’s a blessing.

Kimberly Faith: It’s such a blessing. So you mentioned that one of the other benefits besides dependence upon God is a great testimony. And I just told a great story about, you know, how God has used affliction. What are your thoughts about that  and we have touched on this, about, you know, how is being thankful, does it make you think of any experiences of your own about how being thankful in affliction has given you an even greater story than you would have had?

John McLarty: I think  the testimony, it is just seeing the opposite reaction of what the world would expect to see for  trouble.

Kimberly Faith: Oh, that’s such a good observation. Yeah. And that’s all through the Bible. Think about Gideon. Right? He’s going to go fight, and the Lord keeps whittling down the army.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: Right? It’s like, you know, God, you just want me to take this little paltry group of guys to fight, you know? And the  Lord says, yeah, I want you to see my power. I want you to give me glory. David and Goliath. Right?

John McLarty: I remember a time, just  as you said, a real life example. We’re having kind of a family crisis, and then we’re at another family member’s  baby shower. And Lynn’s,  it was hot summer, and the air conditioner went out in Lynn’s car. And turns out it wasn’t just a minor thing. The whole thing blew up.

Kimberly Faith: Oh, no. 

John McLarty:  It was like a multi thousand dollar repair job. And we just had to give glory to God because he provided this great testimony down at the repair shop 

Kimberly Faith: Oh. 

John McLarty: To this individual that was helping Lynn, you know, through the logistics and the repair and not needing  a friend to bring the car, and he was just so sweet. And, so God takes you know?

Kimberly Faith: And the money’s not a big deal for him.

John McLarty:  Right.

Kimberly Faith:  You know? 

John McLarty:  Right. But it was just you need to meet this person, have a testimony with this person.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. It’s funny you say that because I feel like there’s yeah. I need to write down some of these testimonies. I mentioned in the last podcast that my kids and I were in Breckenridge, back in January, and we’d had some problems with the room. And, I was down talking to this young kid, you know, about it., and you know, just trying to figure out that they were charging us the wrong price or something. Big, long discussion because the manager wasn’t there.

And so after we were done, I said, hey, you know, I appreciate you just being so kind and so patient with us. And we’re sorry that we’re so much trouble, but, you know, just trying to make sure we got the same deal we signed up for. And I want to give you my story, my testimony tract, you know. And, he just lit up. He’s like, wow.

I said, oh, yeah. My parents were OG hippies. And we grew up, and this is my story about how I came from that lifestyle to knowing Jesus , and it completely transformed my life. And so he was just super thankful and everything and the next morning I was down there for something else and my kids were down there and he says, oh, he said, I read your story. I loved it.

John McLarty: That is great.

Kimberly Faith: He said, thank you so much for giving me, you know,  for telling your story. And so, you know, because we have this problem Right. We had an opportunity. And we could have been cranky and mean and just ugly and, like, you’re trying to charge too much money and blah blah blah. But as the Lord is teaching me through, you know, our first world afflictions, you know, that every time is an opportunity to have a testimony to not just one person but there are my grown children standing there listening to this guy having an experience as a result of witnessing to him. You know? So that’s a multifaceted

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: Example. Right?

John McLarty: And giving that one tract out was more important than trying to get the bill corrected.

Kimberly Faith: Get the best deal. Yeah. kind of like you’re talking about your air conditioner blowing up. It’s you know, the furnace went out, you know, this last summer when the tornado hit my house and it knocked out both of my geothermal furnaces, and it was $70,000. You know.

My first thought is, Wow, I hope my insurance covers this. Which is a natural thought, right? The second thought was, I wonder what opportunity God’s going to bring along for me to have a testimony, you know? And when we think that way, we’re looking for the opportunity.

John McLarty:  Yeah. That’s the game changer.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And, you know, Paul the apostle, what’s amazing to me is that when we have that mindset that we expect a testimony, we expect joy, we expect to develop more dependence upon God, we expect growth. Then we have this attitude that Paul,  who experienced a lot of sorrow, said blessed be God, even the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. I just think, you know, it’s our experience of thankfulness in affliction that gives us the ability to have all these great results, and one of them is our testimony of comfort. That God comforted us so we can comfort others.

John McLarty: Yeah. I love that, that he, that we may be able to comfort those who are in trouble because he experienced the comfort of God.

Kimberly Faith:  Right. 

John McLarty: He could share that with others. 

Kimberly Faith:  Yeah. If you never had tribulation, could you  have comfort?

John McLarty: You  can’t even relate to people, and they can’t relate to you.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. I mean, if you’ve never been hungry, how could you comfort someone who’s hungry? If you’ve never been poor, how could you comfort someone who is poor? And I’m grateful for the way that we grew up, in the tipi and all that. We didn’t have any money. You know? I remember being hungry sometimes, although we, you know, we ate. You guys did a good job. There were times when we didn’t have the best clothes. I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for kind of the, you know, the way that we grew up with not a lot because that places us. We can remember what that’s like.

John McLarty: You know, there’s a generation that went through the depression and the dust bowl, and they I mean, that’s sometimes called the greatest generation.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. 

John McLarty: Because they  went right on into World War 2 and just, you know, won World War 2. They were forged out of tough times.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah.

John McLarty: Forged out of hard times.

Kimberly Faith: You know, I think when I talk about powerful testimonies, I think about Job and, you know, everybody knows I mean, people who are not saved say, oh, Job, you know? 

John McLarty: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: They know who Job is and, you know, Job’s life, he was very blessed. But, man, talk about ripping the rug out.

John McLarty: It was rough.

Kimberly Faith: I mean, losing all your kids in one day and everything you own. And, you know, Satan was after him. He’s saying, you know, when he was talking to God and saying, does Job love you for nothing? You’ve made a hedge around him. You blessed him, but if you take out everything he has, he’ll curse you to his face. But God knew something about Job. He knew that Job loved God, not for what he gave him, but for who he is.

John McLarty: Loved him in a genuine way.

Kimberly Faith: Well, and Job loved God for who he is. That didn’t change. His circumstances changed

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: But he knew God did not change.

John McLarty: And that’s the test. That’s the testimony.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. But if you never know God at all, if you don’t know who God is, then adversity has no purpose. If you don’t know God, he doesn’t have a purpose.

John McLarty: Just sends you into anxiety, depression.

Kimberly Faith: Right. That’s why our testimony of salvation is so powerful because when we become part of God’s family, we gain the benefit of going through the same affliction we would go through without him, but going through it with him and watching him do all the things that we’ve just talked about. Giving us comfort, giving us peace, giving us joy, giving us all these benefits of something that we would go through without him and not have any of these benefits.

John McLarty: You know, and Job had a greater sense when it was all over how great God is. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: Going through trials and troubles and then with his help overcoming them, we get a greater sense of who he is and what he can do.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I mean 

John McLarty: The God  of all comfort.

Kimberly Faith: I don’t know in all of history if we have a greater record of one man suffering as much. I mean, Jesus obviously suffered tremendously. We don’t even, I’m not including Jesus in that, but just  not just a man suffering that much. And wow, what a great testimony. And so I think the last and let’s in order to wrap up, let’s just talk about how we measure up.

How do we measure up in our level of thankfulness? And, you know, going back to Ephesians 5:20, we’re commanded to always give thanks for all things. Right? The Bible doesn’t say give thanks always for some things, which would be much easier. It says to give thanks for all things.

And this is a difficult attitude to inculcate in our lives. Right? So there’s this kind of let’s step on the scale. There’s 4 questions. And, looking in the mirror of God’s word and measuring our own thankfulness is a good thing. Right? If you want to lose weight, you must step on the scale. Right? 

So number 1, are you a person, and this would be you need to ask these questions for someone else to answer these questions about you. And this is what I did. Okay? Number 1, are you constantly grumbling and complaining? Is that what people would say about you? Or number 2, are you the person who doesn’t grumble, but you rarely give thanks to God or others? Number 3, do you give thanks to God, but only for the obvious blessings of life, like prosperity, food, health, family, good times, victories, strong spiritual life, an  inner circle, a good church, the things that God has given you that are good? Or number 4, do you give thanks to God for all things no matter what at all times?

John McLarty: Those are good measures.

Kimberly Faith: I think those are pretty, I mean and obviously,  I kind of admit, I kind of yo-yo between the 2nd and 3rd category and rarely camp out on number 4, you know? But I want to  be there. I do.

John McLarty: Yeah. The constant grumbling and complaining, I’m not that person, but also not the person to  give thanks no matter what at all times. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: But, the Lord’s really been working on me on joy, on maintaining joy, not letting circumstances steal my joy, and that comes from him. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.

John McLarty: And then that gives glory to him. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: But, yeah, I’m a work in progress.

Kimberly Faith: Well and we’ve talked about this, but I want to make sure that it’s very clear to our listeners that we’re not giving thanks for all things because all things are good. All things are not good and to pretend they are is a mockery of God. Murder is not good. Rape is not good. Sickness is not good. Heartbreak is not good. Divorce is not good. Child abuse is not good. And so to thank God for things like that,  that  first requires that we acknowledge that these things are not good, but we can’t forget  that God is good.

John McLarty: Yes, God is good.

Kimberly Faith: And the Bible says in James 1:17, every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above from the father of light.  God is not the author of moral evil, he is holy. And 1st John 1:5 said that God is light and in him is no darkness at all, and and Psalms 5:4 says you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness nor shall evil dwell within you and so when we’re measuring ourselves we’re stepping on the scale and  we need to keep in mind who God is and the only way we can know God for who he is is, number 1, to study, right? Study who he is according to his word, not according to the neighbor who, you know, had a bad experience in church or whatever. That we need to study him for who he says he is and develop the attitudes of Christ. Of course, we first need to be born again. Right? We need to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. But then God will transform our mind, and he will renew a right spirit within us.

John McLarty: Yeah. And I just think about Jesus when I hear people talk about, oh, I don’t want to be a Christian because Christians are hypocrites. I always go back to, well, read the New Testament and consider the life of Jesus. Do that  and consider the life of Jesus.

Kimberly Faith: That’s so powerful.  That’s so powerful.

John McLarty: Yeah. God is good.

Kimberly Faith:  He is. 

John McLarty: Jesus is our example, his life and then his salvation that he provided.

Kimberly Faith: He you know, and he was so humble. He, you know, he had lived out this life, and we started off the first podcast with the life and example of Jesus. Right? He thanked God even though he was God to set an example. That’s complete humility, a demonstration that he didn’t have to thank anybody. He was already God. But he said here children, here’s how it’s done. Let me get down on my knees

John McLarty: He’s our example

Kimberly Faith: Let me get down and color with you with big fat crayons and you know when Jesus taught us the attitudes in the beatitudes, he gave us a way to transform our mind and give us his perspective on who we are, how much we need him, what evil is, how much we should mourn it, he gives us his perspective on how to give mercy, how to understand the mercy we’ve been given. How to reconcile ourselves, not just for salvation, but for life, which gives us the right perspective for affliction. It’s so beautiful.

John McLarty: Well, we’re here to see souls saved, and by love, they shall know you’re my disciples. And if we let circumstances rob our joy and our thankfulness, people are not going to  be attracted to what we have to offer.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: So this understanding of thankfulness and adversity is so key.

Kimberly Faith: It’s huge. You know, giving thanks for trouble is not giving thanks for evil. It’s giving thanks for the opportunity God gives us to use evil against itself to glorify him. Amen. To show the whole world the power of God,  to show the whole world the power of love because God is love and when people look at us and they see Jesus, a huge victory,  we can walk around with the victory,  right?  And not in defeat. Like you said, when evil robs us of our joy, it’s man, we need to take a step back.

John McLarty: Right. It doesn’t reflect the light of Jesus 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: Which is a challenge, but it’s what we’re called to attempt to do. None of us are perfect, but that’s our heart.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. But we have a choice. When we are born again, we have a choice. When we have received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we have a choice. If you have not received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you really are without that inner power that allows you to live through affliction in a way that makes affliction mean something.  It’s not wasted. No, not one minute of your life has to be wasted in purposeless existence. You have a purpose that transcends time, a purpose that lasts through eternity because you can take every circumstance and you can make it into something glorious. Isn’t that amazing?

John McLarty: Who’d have thought that we can rejoice in affliction and be thankful for it? But here it is thoroughly in the Bible 

Kimberly faith: Absolutely.

John McLarty:  Clearly.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.

John McLarty: And the many benefits.

Kimberly Faith: Many benefits. And I just want to live in all the joyous victory that comes through living in the faithfulness of God. Don’t you?

John McLarty: Amen.

Kimberly Faith: Well, thanks, dad. This has been a great time.

John McLarty: It’s always good having these podcasts, Kim.

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. 

John McLarty: We always learn from the word even as we’re exploring it.

Kimberly Faith: Well, the Holy Spirit’s good to be present and be instructive. And so I pray that you all have a wonderful rest of your week and, join us, in the 1st podcast in March. And I have no idea what we’re going to be talking about, but I’m sure God will be faithful to show us . 

John McLarty: It will be from his word.

John McLarty: Absolutely.

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.