Episode 71: God’s Response To Suffering

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, dad, today’s topic is really appropriate.

John McLarty: How so, Kim?

Kimberly Faith: Well, you know, we have seen I don’t know. It just seems like the last two or three months or so, even the last couple of years really, we just seem to see a lot more suffering at our doorstep and in our house, in our own house, and in our own circle that is making it more and more important in my mind for us to understand God’s response to suffering.

John McLarty: And worldwide.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: Just things going on across the world and across The United States.

Kimberly Faith: Well,  I’m reminded

John McLarty: Ideas to ponder and look into the scripture about.

Kimberly Faith: Well, and if we really want, we’ve talked about God’s perspective versus, for example, the perspective of maybe somebody who doesn’t believe in God or had an atheistic perspective, for example, pain and suffering has zero purpose when yourself is your God. You know?

John McLarty: It’s just trouble.

Kimberly Faith: It’s just trouble. It’s a waste of time. And, you know, and I’m not saying that God didn’t create the world with a purpose for that we would suffer, but I think we chose sin. Humanity chose sin, which interjected suffering into the world because sin is the cause of every horrible thing.

John McLarty: Well, and people even maybe that lean towards atheistic, but when things go really terrible, they double down on blaming it on God, or if there was a God, this couldn’t be happening. So, it’s a real challenging idea. It’s very relevant to nonbelievers and believers.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right, because I think believers do it too.

John McLarty: They do.

Kimberly Faith: I think that we, we’re going to actually talk about this in another podcast, but we have talked about it in some past podcasts. But this idea that if we don’t, as born again believers, keep God on the throne of our heart, then that thing that has taken his place, when we lose it or when it is damaged in some way let’s say we have, you know, some tragic  like a loss of our health or a loss of our career. If that crushes us to the extent that we are not able to fulfill our purpose of glorifying God, then I think we need to be redirected, and that’s what we want to do in this podcast. We want to give what  does the Bible say about God’s response to suffering. And I just want to preface this podcast by saying this is not an exhaustive study.

Okay? These are some highlights that God has shown me through just a recent circumstance. You know, I have a young friend of mine who’s a pastor. Him and his wife are just the most amazing Christians. We met through a project we did together in Nicaragua back when he was full time in the construction industry. He actually built  one of my, the law office that has the Fostering by Faith Boutique.

John McLarty: Yeah. You told us about him.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.

John McLarty: And  was this the orphanage in Nicaragua?

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. For the Miskito Indian tribe. He was just struck down, I mean, and we thought he was going to die and it just came out of nowhere. And, so we’re actually walking through that journey with him and his family, and the lord is already giving him ministry opportunities through that.

But I had actually, God had been speaking to me about this subject before this, and it was so interesting because, you know, sometimes I feel like when something happens, some pain and suffering happens that’s really close to us, if we’re paying attention to God, he prepares us for it, you know? And I think about that verse in First Peter 4:12 that says, Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing has happened to you. But rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.

John McLarty: And that’s as a response that we can have toward a fiery trial.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Peter is saying, look, don’t be surprised. I mean, bad things happen every day to both believers and nonbelievers. And rather, you should be anticipating it from the standpoint not because you’re looking forward to it, but because it’s an opportunity to glorify God.

John McLarty: Well, this is interesting, and it might be chasing a little bit of a rabbit, but I think it applies. It’s a phrase that you’ve coined, and it’s, Dad, mom, life is full of trouble. And I think back in my life, and it goes to our perspective of God, but it also can go to whether we’re living kind of for God. I’m just going to give an example. At one point in my life, well, I would say at a lot of points in my life, I’ve not yielded to God. I’m just thinking of one particular incident where a missionary was coming through and talking to the churches, and the Lord kind of put it on my heart to give, I don’t know if it was $100 or $200, but then I sat there and thought about it and thought about my finances. Well, I just put $20 like in the missionary plate. And about two or three days later, my suburban broke down in the worst possible place, like in a school zone. 

Kimberly Faith: Oh, no. 

John McLarty: And people were honking, and I was having to kind of direct traffic and call in a wrecker to come haul the car off. Well, the fuel pump had gone out. And the price of that fuel pump and the repair was the exact cost that the Lord had shown me to give to the missionaries. My example being, I immediately, and I tend to even kind of overemphasize because, you know, my perspective of God was like, this was God. And it was God showing me a lesson. But then there’s times when you’re just living for the Lord and just some trouble, a breakdown, just like that could happen. And it’s really not anything. So it could be the Lord chastising you like he did me. Because I was like, okay, I immediately got it. Like the Lord said, John, you could have given the money to the missionary, or we can give it to a mechanic, your choice. But that could happen in another circumstance if I’d given it to the missionary, and maybe in two or three days that same thing happens. And I’m just going like, Well, maybe I’m supposed to have a ministry to the wrecker company, or somebody’s going to stop and help me. So I’m looking for a ministry instead of immediately feeling, oh, this is a, I knew it was a chastening of the Lord. Especially when that

Kimberly Faith: When it was exact same

John McLarty: The bill  was the exact same amount. But it’s just interesting how our perspective can change how we view trouble.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And the closer our perspective gets to God’s perspective, the more that we take trouble in stride because we know it’s not us handling it. It’s him.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: And it’s yeah. It’s so let’s you know what? The Bible is full of stories about how, you know, God took and did his greatest work in the storm. And in fact, works that would not have even happened had the trouble not come.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: And I think of Joseph. I mean, that’s one of the first people I think about.

John McLarty: Thrown into a pit by his own brothers.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.

John McLarty:  Sold into slavery.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Falsely accused by

John McLarty: Falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And imprisoned. 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: You know? And then when he was in prison, he did these good things and they the, you know, the, was it the baker? And he was supposed to tell Pharaoh about it and he

John McLarty: Betrayed him.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Yeah. Didn’t even just forgot about it.

John McLarty: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. But who would have thought? I mean, God was preparing Joseph for an amazing leadership position. But even beyond that, I mean, when Joseph was sitting there feeling like he was rotting in prison, he could not have known that thousands of years later, people like you and I would be reading his story

John McLarty: His story.

Kimberly Faith: Being inspired by it. You know? And in order to endure that kind of suffering with hope instead of feeling like it’s a waste or it’s God’s fault or God had abandoned because Joseph, you know, Joseph hadn’t really done anything that we know about, Right. That caused these things to happen. But his character reflected that because when he did get to the position of being the, you know, the second in command in Egypt, he was full of God’s wisdom. So he had clearly developed his relationship with God through all those fiery trials. And on the other side, he had an experience that was as a result of being refined by that fire. And it’s very clear that that’s what happened.

John McLarty: And just to emphasize, this trial in prison, it wasn’t like it was a week or two. I’ve forgotten how long it was, but it was a long trial of his faith.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.  I know when you were talking about your car breakdown and how that could be either way. Could be chastening or it could just be God positioning you, right? And I  had something happen recently involving my law office. I say my law office hopefully it’s God’s law office, you just kind of use a term of use, but where I had to make a choice about whether to, well, I basically have made a choice to set aside so much time a month to work on GoFaith Strong and not be in my law office. And the Lord had been putting that on my heart for quite a while, but, you know, that means loss of income, right? If I’m not in the office, I’m not making money.

And I was kind of wrestling with it, and the Lord just said, whose law practice is this? And he keeps reminding me, and this is you know, I’m so slow, I’m a slow class that he has to constantly remind me, this is his law practice. If this is what he wants me to do, it may look like a hardship, but he’s going to take care of things. And that’s just such great assurance.

John McLarty: And I think at that time, because you talked about that with your parents, and you were open to, well, maybe the Lord’s just given me a completely different direction. And I think that’s so key, to be yielded to the Lord. Like, What do you want to show me in this trial? Maybe it’s a chastening like me and the missionary. Or maybe it’s just your car broke down, It was just time for the fuel pump to go out. 

Kimberly Faith: And maybe time to minister the mechanic.

John McLarty: Yeah, it was time to minister. Like our refrigerator just broke down the day before a Bible study with 21 people here. But Lynn and I just felt at peace. No, we need to go on with the ministry. And here, it just happened this morning, the repair guy came and we had a ministry to him.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Yeah. Nice guy. You know, I think about not just Joseph, but also Job. I think the story of Job is probably, you know, aside from the suffering of Jesus Christ, is one of the most remarkable and tragic, what could be known as a tragic story of suffering. I don’t know anybody who has lost their entire family except for a wife. Their every bit of their possessions and their health all within the space of hours or days. And then had friends accuse him, you know, try to say, Well, God is chastening you. You must have sinned. Right? And the Bible says Job never cursed God.

John McLarty: Never cursed God.

Kimberly Faith: But this is kind of the heart of this podcast that I want to talk about. And when Job lost everything, he was allowed to see something immeasurably greater. And that is a clearer vision of God. And this was indicated in his words. Job said in Job 42:5, I have heard you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. And, of course, he’s talking about the eyes of his soul there. He wasn’t talking about, you know, God appeared in 

John McLarty: His understanding. He’s illuminated.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: God is illuminated in his soul.

Kimberly Faith: But he got there because God answered Job. And when he answered Job about all the things that had happened to him, he didn’t rehash his suffering. He didn’t explain all the reasons for his suffering.

John McLarty: He didn’t really give him a full explanation.

Kimberly Faith: He didn’t give him any explanation. But he said and I’d just like to read Job 38:2-7. You want to read that?

John McLarty:  Sure. Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? So this is God responding. Now prepare yourself like a man. I will question you. Instead of Job questioning God, I will question you and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding, when the morning stars sang together and all of the sons of God shouted for joy.

Kimberly Faith: So that’s a quote. And God spends two or three chapters, I think it’s Job 38 through 41, reminding Job, where were you when this happened? Answer me. Tell me what you know about what I’ve done. And the thing is, God wasn’t minimizing Job’s pain. He was expanding God’s vision. He was reminding him of who

John McLarty: Expanding Job’s vision.

Kimberly Faith: Oh, Job’s vision. Sorry. Yeah. God was reminding Job of who he is.

John McLarty: And that in a sense was the explanation. Like, I’m God. You’re questioning me. You have a question for me. I have a question for you.

Kimberly Faith: But he wasn’t saying, Job, your suffering doesn’t matter, but rather, I am God. You can trust me even when you don’t understand me. And that’s when Job responds in Chapter 42 and says, I know you can do everything.

John McLarty: And that’s key. That’s a great statement.

Kimberly Faith: It is so great, I know you can do everything and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. And then he goes into his confession. I’ve said what I don’t understand, things too wonderful for me, which I didn’t know. Now I’ve heard you by the hearing of the ear. He said, I had heard you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. And then he says, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. You know, God isn’t looking to grind our face into the dirt. All he’s saying is, look, you keep your eyes on me and know me for who I say I am, and you won’t have a reason to think your pain is wasted. Rather, your pain will become an opportunity.

John McLarty: And I just think of the study we did on the beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit. Job said, therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. Job just humbled himself before the Lord.

Kimberly Faith: And that also is the second beatitude where it says, blessed are they that mourn. We’re talking about mourning sin. Right? You know, Paul the apostle in Romans Chapter Seven talks about how when I would do good, evil is present with me. You know, we have the part of us that wants to doubt God, and it’s constantly just like I mean, Eve was in the perfection of the garden and Satan was able to rip her away by saying, did God really say? You know? And so we have to acknowledge we have this enemy that is prowling around seeking to keep us from knowing God for who he says he is. And when we deviate from that, from knowing God for who he says he is, and having this intimacy with him, then we can be sure that our pain, our suffering will seem wasted.

John McLarty: I think something interesting here too is Job did not, he didn’t get that explanation of, Oh, all this is going to be restored. He didn’t get some answer.

Kimberly Faith: That’s a good point.

John McLarty: This was right in the middle of his suffering.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, that’s a good point.

John McLarty: And he didn’t know everything would be restored. He didn’t know that his words would be written in a book, that here we are thousands of years later studying Job. He’s just like, Lord, it’s okay. You’re God.

Kimberly Faith: You’re God. Yeah. I hadn’t thought about that, dad. That’s a really good point because if we can come to a place in our life in the midst of our pain where the only promise that matters to us is that I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you. I am your all in all. I am all you need. And understand that promise from God to us is all we need, then God can take that and who knows what he’ll do with it. In Job’s case, he was restored to even more than he had before the great trial. And it just really goes back to we need to learn to know God for who he says he is, not who we make him.

John McLarty: Understanding, yeah, that he’s the God of the universe. He is all powerful, but he is loving. He’s righteous and he’s just. It goes back to that nature of God. And I think in my early Christian life, I think I almost had more of a fearful, not fear and trembling, but just, you know, God’s kind of I’ll say this, I’ve grown in my understanding of God and his love and kindness rather than, Oh, I better walk kind of the straight and narrow, not to keep our salvation, you know, so bad things don’t happen to me.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Yes. 

John McLarty: Almost superstitious. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: But really

Kimberly Faith: It is. It really is because we think of life in terms of karma. 

John McLarty: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: You know? 

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: Instead of no. Our circumstances don’t define our reality. 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: God does.

John McLarty: But God’s a loving father, and he does chasten you know, at times, but overall he is a God of love and kindness.

Kimberly Faith: He is. And the Bible says that his loving kindness is from generation to generation, from everlasting to everlasting. And it’s kind of like when the more we know him for who he says he is, the less we’re controlled by our circumstances, including pain. And, you know, I’ve actually been putting this to the test of my own life, and it’s kind of a silly little thing probably for some people to think about, but when I have a circumstance that arises where I feel myself losing my peace, right?

It can be something as small as maybe somebody giving their two week notice, or maybe I don’t know how to handle a case, right? And those are small things in the big picture. And I feel myself losing my peace. I just remind myself I have some self-talk here and kind of in the form of prayer, like, Lord, remind me of who you are.  And remind me of your perspective so that I can put this in your perspective and give it to you and not take it back. Give it to God, don’t take it back, right? And it’s so crazy, but as soon as I do that, I’m free. And then I can act and I can walk in faith and not by sight. That supernatural gift of faith that God gives us, when we exercise that over and over and over again, then we kind of go from what you were talking about, a more superstitious walk with Christ and a more trusting free walk with Christ.

John McLarty: I’m just thinking I’ll just paraphrase. When Paul said that I might, in the midst of his suffering, Paul had a lot of trials.

Kimberly Faith: Yes, he did.

John McLarty: The Apostle Paul.  He said that I might know him and the power of his resurrection.

Kimberly Faith: Oh, yeah. That’s a good verse.

John McLarty: So, through these trials, we can know God better. That’s perfect. That’s what happened to Job.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: Through his trial, it was revealed to him a clearer picture of who God is.

Kimberly Faith:  And it’s funny because the Book of Job starts with this court scene in heaven, you know, where Satan is challenging God. Well, of course, Job serves you because you give him everything he needs, everything he wants, more than he needs because he’s a good man, right? But make his life miserable and he will curse you.

And you think about Job still, like all of us, I mean, we still have our flesh. Job still had his areas, his pockets where he had that needed to be refined. And he could not have done that without this trial. I mean, I presume that. You know? I know that’s true in my own life. I can’t speak for Job, but I can tell you that some of the biggest trials in my life have been the most pivotal places where I have changed radically in some area of my life towards the Lord and away from my old way of thinking. It’s kind of like we talk about being transformed by the renewing of your mind. You know? But you brought up what Paul said, which ties into what Jesus did.

John McLarty: It does.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because Christ was our greatest example.

John McLarty: Yeah. That I might know him and the power of his resurrection.

Kimberly Faith: Because Jesus’ story of suffering is the pinnacle, really. You know, we know he didn’t deserve to suffer because he was the righteous son of God. He was righteousness. And yet he chose it, which is his love, to reconcile us, us, all of humanity, to him because we chose sin, because we chose not to love him.

John McLarty: And there was a great obvious purpose in his suffering. It’s like he paid the sins of mankind. But here, you’ve got this man you talked about that’s been struck with this disease.

Kimberly Faith: A good person.

John McLarty: A good person. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John Mclarty: But the perspective is maybe there’s a doctor, maybe there’s a nurse, maybe there’s a family member that needs to get closer to God or hear about God.

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. Interestingly enough, I heard that one of his doctors is actually a born again believer. So they’re establishing a relationship that would have never been established.

John McLarty: Interesting.

Kimberly Faith: They’ve exchanged phone numbers and, you know, it’s so interesting that the Lord  has, there’s already these paths that he and his wife can see that God is opening up as a result of this serious illness. And it’s, you know, I think it’s kind of like with Jesus. The resurrection glory only came after the darkest storm imaginable, you know? But Jesus, you know, he said, Take up your cross and follow me. I mean that  being born again isn’t a promise that there’s not going to be any problem. It’s like, no, but I’m going to walk through the suffering with you if you let me.

John McLarty: That’s so important for us as Christians to understand that these storms of life don’t need to blow us over. They can actually be opportunities.

Kimberly Faith: Right. That’s a good phrase. Every storm is an opportunity. I like that. And it positions us. And what’s interesting is that storms kind of have a twofold, I think, and probably more than twofold, but I think of two things that storms do for us. They give us positions to help people that we would never otherwise have been in, you know. Like when you’re in a waiting room in the hospital or you are the person in the hospital or you’re in a courtroom, you have a position, you’re put in a position, whether you’re the person suffering or you’re the person there, that you would not have been in to minister to certain people that you would not have been in a position to minister to but for the suffering. And I mean, just like you use a simple example of the refrigerator going out. Well, you don’t know what kind of seeds were planted today in the mind of the man that came.

You know, I mean, he may be we don’t know anything about him, but if he’s a born again believer, he may have been encouraged. If he’s not born again, he may hear the gospel for the first time. But you just did what God told you to do, but you are in that position. But kind of the second thing that it does for us too is, like we just talked about, it can draw us closer to God because we begin to see God for who he truly is.

John McLarty: And I’ll give you an example of that. Close to our life, our cousin George has had extreme back pain for decades.

Kimberly Faith:  Right. 

John McLarty: And George, there are multi faceted ministries George has, but one of them is just coming to church in such pain. And so many members look at George and go like, Wow, there’s George coming to church and just hugging everybody. And here, I didn’t go to church last Sunday because 

Kimberly Faith: I stubbed my toe.

John McLarty: I stubbed my toe. Yeah. Or a football game was on or just some, you know, and here’s George in pain. And George is a testimony to others 

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. 

John McLarty: And his faithfulness in the midst of suffering.

Kimberly Faith: And the funny thing about I mean, well, it’s not funny, but it’s the crazy thing really about our reaction, even as born again believers, to pain is that it tends to pull us away from God when what we need the most is God’s presence to get through it. Because we have this attitude based on the wrong image of God that we’re not supposed to suffer, that somehow we’re the exception of the rule. When Jesus said, no, I’m not even the exception to the rule. I’ve got to suffer so you can be reconciled. And that’s so counterintuitive because it should be pulling us closer to God. And so the real battlefield isn’t the suffering or the circumstance itself, but it’s how close we are to God, you know? And, you know, God didn’t promise us we would avoid the fire, but he said, you won’t face it alone. I think about Isaiah 43:2, it says, When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned. Wow.

John McLarty: Yeah. That’s a great verse.

Kimberly Faith: And of course, you know that

John McLarty: So he’s not it’s I’ll be with you. I think that’s the key to that phrase, to that passage, I will be with you when you pass through the waters.

Kimberly Faith: And that’s what Jesus said in Matthew. He said, Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age, when he was leaving to go to, you know? I really love Moses. I love reading about Moses and and something that he said just in the context of us being into the you know, entering into and maintaining a close relationship, intimate relationship with God staying in his presence, feeling his presence, which is, like I said, the challenge it’s a challenge for me, is when Moses I don’t know if you remember, but in Exodus when, you know, the Israelites were given were told, hey. You know what? You guys are stiff necked. You worshiped this cow, the calf, you know, you can go on into the promised land. And God said, but I’m not going with you. Well, Moses and even the children of Israel were like, wait a minute. We don’t really want the promised land without God. And that was the moment of repentance for them because he said if, Moses said, if your presence does not go with us, do not do not take us there. And it was so interesting because just a side note, something I just recently studied, and this is a little bit of a rabbit, but it’s so worth saying. As humans, we often look to the great physical miracles to bring us close to God.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: But did you know that the time period from the 10 plagues that fell on Egypt, the liberation of the children of Israel, the crossing of the Red Sea, the manna in the wilderness, to the time when Moses went up to the mount to get the 10 commandments and the, and he was gone too long to suit the Israelites. And they asked Aaron to build them a god. Do you know how much time had elapsed between those two? 

John McLarty: No. 

Kimberly Faith: All those miracles, it was, based on what I can tell, it was probably less than three months. 

John McLarty: Interesting.

Kimberly Faith: Isn’t that interesting? Think about that. He parted the Red Sea, the 10 plagues, the deliverance from pharaoh’s army, the manna in the wilderness. I did some study on this. I think I’m right about this. Now if you’re listening to this and you have some other information, I would love to hear from you because I’d like to be corrected. But can you imagine witnessing all those miracles? And then even worse, Aaron, who was probably afraid and built the golden

John McLarty: The golden calf. I was just thinking, after all that, so in rapid succession

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: Then they built the golden calf.

Kimberly Faith: And Aaron said to the Israelites, Worship this calf that delivered you from the Egyptians. Yeah.

John McLarty: We’re so prone to go back to worshiping the world and false gods.

Kimberly Faith: Well, think about, like our money.

John McLarty: Yeah. Our money.

Kimberly Faith: Our job. Yeah. And that’s when, so right after that, they’re having this God is just like, I’m going to destroy them. I’m going to forget this. You know? And Moses is like

John McLarty: Moses like is intervening.

Kimberly Faith: Moses is like, wait, God. Wait. Yeah. I’m mad too. He broke the tablets. You know? He’s like and so they set up these tents outside the camp as places of repentance, you know, recognizing that they had strayed so far from God’s presence and they needed God’s presence. And, you know, I just thought that was really powerful because that is the battlefield.

John McLarty: I love that phrase, if your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah.

John Mclarty:  So, yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: You know, I mean, look, we can criticize the Israelites and all their unbelief, but we’re just like them.

John McLarty: We’re just yeah. They’re a picture of us 

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: We’re like them.

Kimberly Faith:  Right.

John McLarty: Yeah. The human condition.

Kimberly Faith: We dethrone God so quickly in our life, and especially when trouble comes. I mean, they’ve been given manna, then they complained they didn’t have water and got water out of the rock, right?

John McLarty: And I think that’s one of the challenges here, to flip the script. When trouble comes, see it as an opportunity.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And that’s, I mean, to say, hard to do.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. Especially when it’s something as horrible and as life altering as, Am I about to lose my life? 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: And I think that that is where our relationship with God is revealed and the distance we are from God is revealed by how much we lose it when trouble comes. And I think you know what I think about? I think about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace.

John McLarty: In the fiery furnace under King Nebuchadnezzar.

Kimberly Faith: And Nebuchadnezzar looked at

John McLarty: I just read that. I read Nehemiah just maybe a week ago.

Kimberly Faith: Oh, well

John McLarty: Great stories.

Kimberly Faith: Well, let’s read that passage out of Daniel Three where Nebuchadnezzar looks into the fire.

John McLarty: Yeah, so three had been cast into the fire. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: Because they wouldn’t

Kimberly Faith: Bow down to that.

John McLarty: Bow down to, was it the image he had made? Yeah, the big image.

Kimberly Faith:  Probably a statue himself. 

John McLarty: A big statue of himself.

Kimberly Faith: Which is what we do too, right?

John McLarty: So yeah, Daniel 3:24 and 25, Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished. He looked into the fiery furnace, and did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? Look, he answered, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt, And the former the fourth is like the son of God.

Kimberly Faith:  Wow. So here they are.

John McLarty: They had gone in that fiery furnace, basically. They didn’t know they would be delivered. 

Kimberly Faith: No. 

John McLarty: But they said God can deliver us.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: But throw us in. We’re not going to bow to the statue.

Kimberly Faith: They knew God. Their relationship with God was so strong and so close and so intimate. They said, God can choose to do what he wants. He can deliver us or not deliver us. Throw us in. We’re not bowing down. And, you know, I think about when we see that fourth man in the fire with us, so to speak, then fear loses its grip on us. But that fourth man is Jesus Christ. It’s our intimacy with him. And, again, God, if we allow him, our suffering will not be wasted. He doesn’t casually allow these things to happen. He and believe me, I don’t even pretend to understand why God allows such horrible suffering sometimes and not other times. And I know that he prevents a lot of suffering and holds back a lot of suffering. We know that because of the presence of the church and what’s going to happen in the great tribulation.

John McLarty: Yeah, Satan’s the great destroyer, the murderer. I mean, if Satan was truly constrained, not constrained, there would just be

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. We know that’s going to happen in the tribulation. The Bible talks about that. I don’t have that quote here the scripture, but we’ve read that and certainly can look that up. But it’s so interesting that when we know God for who he says he is, he’s righteous, just, and loving, and that his love covered his, first of all, satisfied his justice, but also makes us righteous, then we can trust him in the suffering to do his deepest work in us, and we can know that this thing that says, I know I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me

John McLarty:  Right.

Kimberly Faith: Is a real promise. And I can walk through this suffering because where my strength ends and my dependence begins is where he takes over. And really, our strength needs to end in our mind at even our existence, that we are even breathing right now, that our heart is beating because that is all dependent upon God. We live like we think we’re self sufficient and we’re just not.

John McLarty: And it’s really a challenge. I just want to emphasize, this is all easy to say. You’re sitting in a comfortable house. But when the trials come and major trials, I mean, you think of Job or you think of just persecution. But, you know, we pray that we would rise to the occasion and seek God’s peace and comfort and look for opportunities to minister 

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely.

John McLarty: In times of trouble.

Kimberly Faith: And you know, the thing that anchors us, the last couple podcasts were about our eternal security in Christ and the reasons we can know that our salvation is secure is that we can find our identity more and more in who God is as opposed to our performance

John McLarty: Or our circumstances.

Kimberly Faith: Or our circumstances. That’s right. And then we can know that Romans 8:28 is true, that all things work together for good to those who love God and who are called according to his purpose. Loving God is living according to his will because you love him, not because you are afraid of him.

John McLarty: In one of these closing verses, Isaiah 6:13, and this is going back to understanding the heart of God. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.

Kimberly Faith: That’s beautiful.

John McLarty: So, when you hear even Fox’s Book of Martyrs, people being martyred, but comfort comes upon them. It has to be in a supernatural way.

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. Absolutely.

John McLarty: So, that’s one of the things for us to just rest in, is God will help us through trials. And here in our lives, our trials might be the refrigerator goes out the day of a fellowship. But God’s a great God.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And , you know, just along with what you’re saying, we don’t have this mindset naturally. We have to do certain things, discipline ourselves to do certain things to maintain our closeness to God because we have the enemy that’s within, talked about Romans Chapter Seven, right? We have the enemy that’s without, and they’re pounding on us day and night to keep us, to rip us away from this close relationship with God. And the only way we maintain that is by reading God’s word, hiding his word in our heart, praying. Because hiding God’s word in our heart gives us a response to the enemy, you know?

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: Fellowship with the believers, membership in a church, you know, discipling other people, because what that does is it forces you to know what you’re saying. It forces you to know what you believe. 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: Answering the question of the person in your office who says, well, I don’t understand, you know, why I don’t have to work for my salvation. You need to know how to give an answer, but you don’t get there by sleeping with your head on your Bible. Or leaving it on the mantle. We have got to be diligent and determined, more diligent, more determined, more dedicated to pursuing God than we are about pursuing anything else in our life.

John McLarty: And something you just said reminded me of this. I just read the Book of Daniel. It’s kind of the part of renewing our perspective or keeping the right perspective, is to be associated with the fellowship of believers. I mean, we need to be in the word and in prayer and study. But I thought of Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, when Daniel was challenged to interpret the dream, that the king didn’t even tell him what the dream was. He said, You need to tell me the dream and the meaning, or we’re going to kill all the wise men in the area, including you and your three friends. Daniel went to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Kimberly Faith:  Interesting.

John McLarty: And he said, pray. Pray for this situation. And he didn’t have the answer at that time. But he went to his little band of believers

Kimberly Faith: His inner ring.

John McLarty:  And he said, We need to pray and petition God. And then God revealed to Daniel the dream. So, just tying that all in. Those that are listening to the podcast, we strengthen each other. And we’re just looking at the Bible and sharing experiences.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Because God does have a response to pain and suffering. He does. And his first response was to come and die and give his life to reconcile us to him. He is life. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but by me. Is that what he said?  Yeah. I got that right. Right?

John McLarty: You did.

Kimberly Faith: And so his first response to our decision to cause pain to ourselves and to this cancer of sin, right, that’s destroying the world and destroying humanity is I’m going to die for you, and I’m going to pay the price so that you can be reconciled. You have a way back. And then his continued response to our pain and suffering is, I’ll comfort you. I’ll give you wisdom like you just shared about Shadrach, Meshach, Abednigo and  Daniel, right? 

I will give you strength. I will empower you to overcome this for my glory, which is what you were created for. And so to look at our pain as from God’s perspective is to say, God, I know this is an opportunity, but I can’t handle it. I need you to handle it. I need you to show me. You know, Daniel couldn’t handle the answer to Nebuchadnezzar’s question. He went right to God. Prayer needs to be our first response, not our last resort.

John McLarty: And then it is interesting that those very three were the ones thrown into the fiery furnace, and they were rewarded with God’s presence in the fiery furnace.

Kimberly Faith: I didn’t think about that. That is really incredible. And again, they didn’t know when they were making that decision not to bow down under that idol that thousands of years later, their lives would go down in history as being recorded as faithful. What an amazing story.

John McLarty: Refusing to bow down.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. So, like you were saying, dad, if you’re listening to this podcast and you’ve got suffering, which I’m sure most people who are listening do, the answer isn’t why, the answer is who, meaning God. Draw close to him. He will draw close to you.

John McLarty: He will draw close.

Kimberly Faith: And you’ll

John McLarty: You will draw nigh unto you. This is he.

Kimberly Faith: And I can’t remember that verse, but it says that it talks about the relationship with God. You’ll hear a voice behind you say, Go this way, go that way.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith:  And that is such a gift. The creator of the universe saying, I have a plan. Just listen.

John McLarty: He wants to comfort us even through small trials and huge trials.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. God’s response to our pain isn’t he doesn’t run away from us. He says, no. I’m your refuge in the storm. Draw near to me.

John McLarty: Yeah. A lot of Psalms talk about he’s our refuge in a time of storm.

Kimberly Faith: Amen.

John McLarty:  Very true.

Kimberly Faith:  Amen, dad.

Jacob Paul: You’ve been listening to the truth and 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.