Beyond Sunday
Beyond Sunday
God, Are You Listening?
In this Beyond Sunday episode, we explore what it means to trust God when He feels silent and prayers seem unanswered. Through honest reflection and the story of Habakkuk, we uncover how seasons of waiting can shape our character, deepen our faith, and remind us that God is still at work—even in the quiet.
Stay up to date by following us on your favorite social networks.
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube
Have questions or comments? Email us at contact@kingofkings.org.
Thanks for listening!
Hello and welcome to Beyond Sunday, the podcast where we dive into the message series of King of Kings Church and figure out what we're taking beyond Sunday. My name is Dena Newsom and I'm so happy to be here with you today, and I have some amazing guests once again.
Speaker 2:Go ahead guys, are the guests coming in or I'm not sure? Yeah, yeah, I'm looking around. Who are guests coming in or I'm not sure?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I'm looking around. Who are these guests?
Speaker 1:They'll be here shortly. You're just the filler.
Speaker 2:Great, there you go. I love that. Well, I'm the non-amazing Zach Zender, multi-site director here at King of Kings, happy to be here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I actually have incredible self-confidence. Peter Bay Northwest Campus Director. There you go.
Speaker 1:So thank you for being here this week. This week is National Teacher Appreciation.
Speaker 3:I don't know why I thought you were going to say Tetanus. I was like, really National Tetanus Week.
Speaker 2:Great, tell your Tetanus story.
Speaker 1:I'll have to look up when that is and I'll just have you on that week.
Speaker 3:So teacher appreciation.
Speaker 1:Teacher appreciation. So my question is what is your most memorable teacher from growing up Like? What teacher really made an impact with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, high school for me and I had her multiple years. She was my Latin teacher at Millard North and we called her Magistra, which is, I suppose, teacher in Latin, and she just was a great teacher. We had so much fun in her classes and I feel like hardly anybody like takes Latin to begin with and it was like this hidden gem that only the dozen or 15 of us got to experience, because Magistra was amazing. She always laughed and just had a great time with us and made it fun to learn. And I have found that to be true with languages, especially like theological languages as a minor in college, is your teacher, especially in languages, makes such a difference. If they're fun, if they're good, if you get a foundation from the beginning, that language is so much easier. Difference If they're fun, if they're good, if you get a foundation from the beginning, that language is so much easier, whereas if they're boring, not good, awful, it's like man, you really have to struggle with that language. So anyway, I'm giving it up for Magistra, if you're listening.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have had so many amazing teachers. I'm going to focus today on Mr Stock. Mike Stock he was one of the most stoic people of all time and so, of course, my goal was to get him to crack, and he was also our baseball coach. A couple of Mike Stock stories he was my junior high basketball coach and I wore headbands in high school and he said he's not going to disallow me to, but he said I just want you to know that headbands make you look short, slow and stupid.
Speaker 2:And so at the awards banquet, yes, wow.
Speaker 3:And so at the awards banquet I went up and put a headband on during the awards banquet and then I was injured. I had like blown out a shoulder and and he made me. He said, he said, uh, the next day in p he's like I don't care what you're wearing, you can run. So I had to run the whole next day in p and then uh, um, so another to wrap up my, my stock stories, cause I had several of those types of stories where I had antagonized him and he'd get back at me.
Speaker 3:And then one day I was going to a girls varsity basketball game and he's working behind the ticket booth and I say, geez, mr Stock, you look tired. What's going on? He said, well, there's this new dinosaur documentary on national geographic. I've been staying up late to watch it each night. And I said, really, and he goes, peter, I really like dinosaurs. And it was just the most gratifying moment of my life, wow, to hear Mr Stock, one of the most feared teachers, just open up about dinosaurs. So here's to you, mr Stock, keep it going.
Speaker 1:My favorite teacher is all the way back from elementary school. When you have this certain glow, you see all your teachers in at that point. And in first grade I had Mrs Meyer, cece Meyer and she was just the best teacher ever. We would get rewards for things in class and she would always pick me to do extra duties and I was totally a teacher's pet, you know, raised my hand for everything and then at the end of first grade, when I was getting very upset that I wasn't going to have Mrs Meyer anymore, I found out she was moving to second grade and I got to have her again two years.
Speaker 3:Come on, that's a boy meets world feeding situation. You went up with them all the way throughout. Yeah, every on. That's a boy meets world feeding situation. You went up with them all the way throughout. Yeah, every year.
Speaker 1:No, this was just two years, but it was the best. It was absolutely the best, mrs Meyer was the greatest.
Speaker 3:I don't know what happened to her after then, cece Meyer was his name. That definitely sounds like a gospel recording artist. I grew up in Grand Island Cece Meyer.
Speaker 2:Wow, thank you to all the teachers out there. My goodness, yes, putting up with kids.
Speaker 3:Also, we're in the month of May and there's no other month.
Speaker 2:that's challenging for school workers as it is, it's got to be May, right? Yes?
Speaker 3:It is so hard so teachers keep rocking. Go get a chocolate shake and we love you.
Speaker 1:We do love you.
Speaker 2:Are you paying for their chocolate shake or are you making?
Speaker 3:Just encouragement to have chocolate shakes.
Speaker 2:Oh, there you go, great yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I will not. So if you find me, I'm still not going to yeah, it's just advice. If you find me at a place where they sell a chocolate shake maybe yeah, how about that, then we can talk.
Speaker 2:Okay. Place where they sell a chocolate shake, maybe. Yeah, how about that? That's okay. Any beyond Sunday teacher listeners, if you happen to be at a milkshake shop with Peter Bay, he will buy you a milkshake. Yep, the month of May only.
Speaker 3:I was just going to say how long is this good for Just the month of May? I mean there are. How many days are in May?
Speaker 1:31.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go to May 30th, 31.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm going to go to May 30th.
Speaker 2:Wow, standard 30-day month, that extra day yeah.
Speaker 1:There you go. Okay, Well, thank you teachers. Thank you teachers, we love you.
Speaker 2:That's a real giveaway there.
Speaker 1:Okay, so now switching gears back to our Sunday messages, and this last Sunday we were in week three of our Where's God series and this week we really kind of focused on are you listening, god? And Pastor Greg took us through some different things about how God is always listening or how we struggle when we feel like there's silence. So what are you guys taking beyond Sunday? What really spoke to you this week?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, for me it's actually a struggle that one of the last things in his message was about like living it as if it's already happened, and that's probably what's gone with me the most. He said instead of praying if, pray when, and that by far stood out to me the most out of anything in the message and I'm kind of struggling with it, to be honest. To be like Noah if I'm sick, like yes, ultimately I'm going to be healed forever in eternity, but to pray when I'm healed, and referring to here on earth, like that feels inauthentic to me. Um and so like, honestly I'm, I'm struggling with that and uh, and praying through that and like, do I need? Are my prayers faithless? And I don't think they are. But yeah, I think that was a good thing. That hit me in a way that I wasn't expecting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think for me always good to be reminded of faith growing in valleys, and that's what silence often feels like. Is a valley not the mountaintop? Mountaintops are awesome, they're amazing and praise God for when we have mountaintop experiences, but if everything's always a mountaintop, my faith is going to be probably pretty shallow, and so valleys feel like where silence is, and that's where faith grows. And that's not easy, it's not. It's very complicated, it's challenging, it's frustrating, and yet at the end of the day it will make a more mature faith in me, which ultimately will be better. But gosh, it's not fun to go through valleys.
Speaker 1:It's not fun to be on the top gosh.
Speaker 2:It's not fun to go through valleys.
Speaker 1:It's fun to be on the top and it's not easy to be in them and not know how long it's for. I think, that's the part that frustrates me. I can get through anything once I see the light at the end of the tunnel, you know, oh, we're on our way up. Okay, I'm in, I'm in.
Speaker 3:I can see it.
Speaker 1:But when you're in that period where you just don't know, that's rough yeah.
Speaker 3:But speaking about mountains, have you guys ever climbed a mountain? No, no, zach, I mean yes, yeah, you've probably climbed several mountains.
Speaker 2:right Like with Peak Challenge, we've done some 14ers in Colorado. We got one coming up. I'm doing it again in June this year, so legit.
Speaker 1:Listen to you. Knowing the lingo 14ers, I have no clue what that means.
Speaker 2:So it means you get to an elevation of 14,000 feet or higher. I think there's 58 of them in Colorado, amazing. Yeah, so I've done three. My son Nathan's done five or six. That's impressive.
Speaker 3:I saw failed on one of them Didn't get up to the top, but go ahead when you, when you got to the top or to the goal you're trying to make, was that feeling exhilarating for you? What was it?
Speaker 2:It's fun to look out and just see the vast beautiful creation. It's cool to do that. Put my arm around my son Nathan, to take a picture with a sign of the elevation, maybe even with some others, for King of Kings. It's fun to exert physical self and to push past what you feel like you should have or could have gone and to feel accomplishment. Yeah, so that's fun for me. I'm also such a like a competitive guy that I don't want to stay on the mountain top too long Cause I want to like get back down fast, Cause I want to time myself and I got my watch going and my battery's running out and I want to get you know through the whole thing so I can record all the calories and get all the metrics and stats and all that stuff. But that's just a weird quirky thing for me.
Speaker 3:So is a calorie not burned if your watch doesn't send it.
Speaker 2:It is, but I can't show it to you. Got it, not that I would show anybody, but I might show somebody I mean, I guess, those mountaintop experiences?
Speaker 3:I hear that phrase a lot. I've only climbed one mountain it was Camelback, which is very different than a 14er. Still, it's a steep one, though, a steep one and we took the like adventure tree.
Speaker 2:I liked the hard one yeah.
Speaker 3:And I got to the top of that mountain and was just so bummed about it Like I felt no achievement whatsoever. I was like now I got to climb down. I looked, I saw golf courses in the distance and was like I'd rather be there. Yeah be there. So I yeah, I kind of I need a different phrase. Mountaintop experience wasn't good for me.
Speaker 2:That's fair, yeah, so yeah, what would that be for you? That would be for something that you feel like accomplishment and just you know, in a lot of people in these mountaintop experience they'll talk about just seeing God's beautiful, vast creation all in one kind of glimpse.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, that's funny enough. It's like I can see that at times in good community, like at church or VBS, is is one of those for me. Um, I get to work with the LCMS youth gathering and being in worship with 20,000 people is incredible. So yeah, I think those would be the equivalent for me. So yeah, so I can understand it, even though the mountaintop doesn't always hit like other people might.
Speaker 1:I'd like to say mine would be a beach experience, that's how I visualize it, because I'm not a mountain climber either, but still looking at God's beauty on the beach, but, you know, enjoying the sun. Without quite exerting as much physical energy Okay.
Speaker 1:So one of the first questions that Pastor Greg kind of asked was what do we do in the midst of silence, when we're experiencing that silence from God, where maybe we've had a prayer or we're having a struggle and we feel like he's not answering us right then, or we feel like we can't hear Him right then, or we feel like we can't hear him. What is something that you guys have experienced with that, or what do you go to, or what's what spoke to you about that question?
Speaker 3:I mean honestly, I go to anxiousness and turns out that's not helpful.
Speaker 1:Who knew?
Speaker 3:So I'll go to hours of laying in my bed and trying to figure it out on my own and, yeah, that rarely gets me anywhere and, honestly, if anything, when I finally fall asleep and wake up in the morning, I feel just so much better about the situation. Normally, just because I'm really anxious about something, uh it, it takes me a while until I go and talk to a professional or get you know. Maybe it's in a Sunday message or or a podcast or something that points me to something much more important than like. It's usually God's word that invades my life, and then and then I come out of it a little bit because I'm reminded by God's faithfulness rather than focusing on whatever my anxiousness is. So I'm not sure that I handle silence terribly well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean your question is like how do you, what do you do? Like I mean, there's a good and a bad side to that. I think, if I'm honest, the and sometimes I don't know which is which like my, my natural response, whether it's a flesh or a spiritual, is to work hard, and so there are times when that is inappropriate, in times where that's very appropriate but that's my natural inclination is, when God is silent, I will work harder, I will do more, and and there's times where that's healthy and there's times where that's not, and I don't always know when it is it's really challenging, like, especially for me, my inner dialogue can go gosh. I feel like I'm doing a lot of things right and yet the results, or the place I'm at, or the thing that I'm waiting like it just hasn't materialized, and and that can actually be unhealthy. That actually mostly leads to an unhealthy place of God. Where are you, god? You've abandoned me, god, I'm doing all these things, quote for you and so show up like where the heck are you? And that's really challenging when you've there's times when you hit valleys because you've done a dumb thing and you should be in a valley. There's times when you're in a valley and someone else has done a dumb thing and that really stinks, that you're in the valley because of them. And then there's times you're in a valley not because you've done anything wrong, but just because you're in a valley wrong, but just because you're in a valley. And that's the one I struggle with I think, the most, because if I know I screwed up or this person screwed up so I'm down here, I get that. I still have to wrestle with that. But if I feel like again my inner dialogue, saying I'm doing so many things right and I'm still in a valley, then I get frustrated and angry with God of what's going on here and I get impatient and I work, work hard, try to work out, work my way out of it myself. So again, most of our answers are not good things.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's days when there's there's good times, obviously in there as well, of if I'm in a valley and God, I feel like God is silent. Well, I know God speaks to me through his word, the Bible, and so I can actually listen to him at any time. So God's actually never, really always, silent. He's always speaking. It's just am I ready to listen? And so good times I will go into the word. I love to listen to worship. It gets my mind, my creativity, my vision, my focus. So I mean those are some of the better pieces. If I'm in a valley, that I'll do, but it's yeah, it's a challenge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really like what you said about those valleys where it's not something you did and not something someone else did, it's just a result of our broken human world and you feel very stuck there sometimes.
Speaker 2:Well, and sometimes not even a result of our broken human world. Sometimes it's God's plan.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And sometimes you're doing all the things right and you're still there Like that's the. Greg didn't mention this, but that's the part about the Joseph story that I find fascinating in the Old Testament Is if you read through Genesis like, just do it and most people do in their Bible in a year plan, like Genesis is the most read book of the Bible, I bet. But if you really look at it like, this is going to take it a whole different direction. But there is so many bad decisions in Genesis, so many bad sexual decisions in Genesis. The one guy that makes the right sexual decision Joseph, abstaining from Potiphar's wife gets him thrown into prison and I'm like that's not fair.
Speaker 2:That's the one guy that 50 chapters of horrible sexual decisions. The one guy that made a good one is in prison and so like he didn't do anything wrong, he's doing everything right and he's still like stuck in a place where he doesn't deserve to be. Now we know the end story and where that worked out in a beautiful way and I think that will work out for all of us that are in valleys in a beautiful way. But it's like gosh, why am I? Sometimes we're there because it's God's plan and that's really hard to wrestle with.
Speaker 1:So I feel like that really ties into the story that Greg was talking about with the parent who had a kid who was just killing it at everything and he felt like he was trying to change his prayer to pray for almost some setbacks so that his child would learn growth and learn how to turn to God. That was something that I, like you, said you're kind of chewing on the don't pray if pray, when I'm really chewing on that, Like you don't want to pray. Bad things, quote unquote bad things for your child, but how do you pray for those growth opportunities? What resonated with you guys about that? You're both parents.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, there's a really popular book. My favorite book of 2024 was Anxious Generation, jonathan Haidt, h-a-i-d-t, and he talks about the difference between defend mode and discover mode. Defend mode is like you take care of your kids' problems. When they struggle, you help them finish their work, you defend and maybe even bulldoze with their teachers or whatever you need to do. If a coach sits them out and you don't think it's fair, you may even go talk to that coach. That's defend mode.
Speaker 3:And what that produces are kids that always feel like an adult needs to take care of their challenges, even as they're in college and older, and then, as older, the government or my job or my employer or whatever needs to take care of my challenges, whereas discover mode is no. Let your kid fail and set them up for opportunities where they can succeed or fail on their own. Uh, it looks like. Let them cook their own meal every once in a while, allow them to experience pain. Um, love them, but don't jump in and save the day type thing. Jump in and save the day type thing. And that was really. That was really good for me to learn about. And discovery mode, inevitably, is going to lead to humans who are more resilient and who say it's okay, like I've failed a bunch of times and I'm still okay. And so I get that prayer of like I want my kid to experience failure.
Speaker 3:When I was a teacher, I used to always tell the kids they'd be like why do we have to? I taught music and religion, so my classes were mostly loved because they're easy, easy grades. And they'd be like but we don't like science and math. Like we don't, we're never going to use this and I'm like some of that. You won't. But the purpose of school is you're learning how to learn. You're learning how to have an obstacle and fail or succeed and realize I didn't die. So the next one I face I can try again, and that's really a big goal for me.
Speaker 3:Another great book by a child psychologist right in our midst, dr Tim Riley, is First the Broccoli, then the Ice Cream, and he talks about that providing a safe haven for your kids while also them allowing them opportunities to fail, so that they can grow up knowing that, like, regardless of my success or not, my identity is not in that. And as a christian, my identity is I'm a child of the most high king and I've got eternity waiting for me through jesus christ, regardless of what I experience here. So yeah, I. That resonated a lot with me as a parent of an 11, nine and seven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's been a sermon or a series that I've wanted to do for a while that, speaking to this case of this son of his, that's just success after success after success. I think we speak a lot about how character is formed in adversity, adverse situations, but I think the flip side of that is also true, that true character comes out in success, and there's tons of biblical stories of guys that succeeded and fell, and so I think that's what probably that dad is feeling is that success is showing his son's character and he's seeing that it's not all it's cracked up to be, and so he's praying prayers. I don't know that I would pray the same type of prayers in that respect. But one thing that stuck with me on I had a talk to the Harvard neurologist, super smart, who's also a discipleship expert, and she said that for us to continue to function, not just in our learning years, but as individuals, as humans, our brains, that we ought to be failing about 15% of the time if we're forming ourselves in the right direction, forming ourselves in the right direction, and I believe that we are trying to set up worlds, especially for our kids saying this, we, collectively there may be individuals that don't do this, but collectively we're trying to set up a world where our kids and no one fails, and that's actually not healthy.
Speaker 2:And so the sentiment and heart behind I think what that guy's praying is really good. But there's a deeper issue that we're trying to like not any sort of failure or failure, any sort of suffering or any sort of silence we might perceive from God. We're starting to lose our minds in these situations because we're not training ourselves that this is actually can be formative in a good way and that it actually can be helpful. And when we only avoid all these things, it's leading to some difficult things. So you said 15% failure.
Speaker 2:Which is kind of cool. If you think about like even the Sabbath, that's 15% of the week. I find a correlation there of like one-se our days is like it's not a day to produce and to do well, it's just a day to rest and a day to, whereas I think our brains and our minds are just so productive and always like, but like no, let's 15% of the time. Let's let's be challenged in our life and let's do things that that we're not always going to succeed and we'll put us us on the brink of we may not actually do this or not, and that's okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so what if my percent is a lot higher? Is that then I'm like really being great?
Speaker 2:Maybe, I don't know, all right, yeah, I think, if you're always going for super hard things, yeah, oh okay. If it's like I'm failing because I'm never studying for the test or, you know, because I didn't put the work in, then maybe not so and then I like that.
Speaker 3:Uh, I mentioned a couple of books.
Speaker 2:Yeah You're, you're just throwing out books. I felt really good about that For a guy that loves to read.
Speaker 3:And then you had to humble brag, even better than me, and mention a Harvard. What?
Speaker 2:A neurologist a brain, brain scientist oh, I always have to outdo me, jesse Cruikshank. She wrote Ordinary. Discipleship if you're just looking to buy a whole bunch of books. No, I don't purchase books.
Speaker 1:I listen Well there you go, you listen to books.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's tough for me to see all those because the words just never stop. You like turn the next page, more words. They just never stop. What if you?
Speaker 2:read six out of seven pages and you fail hey well, I'm going to give you a plug, peter.
Speaker 1:So for people who like to listen, you did a whole podcast series on, first, the broccoli right.
Speaker 3:Right, yes.
Speaker 1:And that is something that our listeners can go back and find on the, on the, where, where this podcast is listed, wherever you're finding it on the app, on the website, whatever you can go back and find it, it's a great series. It's a really great series.
Speaker 3:And Dr Tim Reilly. He did finish his revision of First the Broccoli, then the Ice Cream, so you can find that book and get it for yourself. Great parenting advice, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Just this week, on social media I follow author John Acuff I don't know if you're familiar with him and he was having a conversation with his neighbor that he posted about, where his neighbor was telling him something like our kids his neighbor is mid-50s maybe and so they have grown children that are buying a house and he's like, oh, the economy is so bad they can't even afford a house in our neighborhood. In our neighborhood. Well, of course, they can't, at 25 or 30, afford a house. That you're 55 age, because that's the way it's supposed to be. You're supposed to get a starter house and work your way up. You're supposed to go through those challenges and learn to deal with less at those points. And just what you were speaking about made me think of that that we that's the way that lives are set up for achievements and growth.
Speaker 1:You know, and how we play into that.
Speaker 3:I like that John Acuff has has been able to grow himself into being called an author. Yeah, cause for years he was just a comedian. Yeah, he was a funny dude. Oh, and he's so funny and I say just just, which is my favorite type of people are comedians. But now he's like academic, he's an author. Yeah, well done, dude, and he's written a number of great books and he's a great author too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's a great speaker still though.
Speaker 3:Oh fabulous, which is really impressive because I find a lot of the funniest people they used to be, and someone said this. So over the last year I lost some weight. And there's this one guy at church who whenever he sees me, he's like he always says you're still funny, Because he was like I'm nervous for you, man, You're losing weight. Skinnier people get less funny.
Speaker 2:So he's always like you're still funny.
Speaker 3:A couple stereotypes and John Acuff is very funny. He's very skinny. Yeah, he's pretty skinny, so I don't think that's a real thing.
Speaker 2:It's possible to be skinny and funny.
Speaker 3:Apparently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you may have to limit the chocolate milkshakes, but yeah, no One until May 30th.
Speaker 3:We're at the same location that sells chocolate milkshakes, just one.
Speaker 1:The first person gets it and that's it.
Speaker 3:I'm not buying a whole family of them. Now you're changing it. If I see one person on the 22nd and another person on the 28th there's a good chance you might get one. I'm not buying your whole family milkshakes though. Okay, One per family. So go to the milkshake shop alone.
Speaker 1:Yes, till May 30th 2025. Okay, so several of the Bible references that Pastor Greg gave in this are from the book of Habakkuk. This is the one Bible book name that I am always scared to say out loud because, I'm like.
Speaker 2:Habakkuk, habakkuk. I always have to stop and think am I saying it? Just say it with confidence.
Speaker 1:No, matter what. That's what I do with biblical names when I'm reading out loud. I just go for it. But this is not a book I spend much time in. It's not a long book. To start with, what do you guys know? What's your experience with what speaks to you from the book of Habakkuk?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wouldn't call myself an expert in Habakkuk, but it's, yeah, obviously minor prophet back part of the Old Testament, and I think what's unique about Habakkuk he is a prophet, and prophets, of course, are intermediaries between God and the people, and a lot of times what you see in scripture from the prophets is a prophet speaks to the people, kind of from God, whereas Habakkuk's a little like mostly opposite of that, where he's actually speaking on behalf of the people to God and he's telling God, we, the people, we're having a really hard time down here and how much longer do we have to wait?
Speaker 2:And where are you and will you just tell me anything Like he's a prophet that, honestly, is having a hard time hearing from God.
Speaker 2:Think about, if that's your job, like you know, you're supposed to hear from God and tell the people and he's like only got half the line, if you will, where he's caring for the people and giving it to God. And and it's just a challenging book too, because what God tells Habakkuk is essentially you know, I'm going to use your enemy, the Babylonians, against you because you've lost your way and at the end of the day, the people that are your enemies are going to overtake you, and so it's a super hard message that he finally does here when he does, and so super challenging. And of course there's hope in the book. There's prophecy, foretelling of good times to come, but it's generations. And so a really challenging book, but one that speaks to and gives words for the people that they can approach God when they're feeling like they're silent. They can cry out to God and say God, where are you? And he does speak, he does listen, he does hear.
Speaker 3:So what would you say to the people who would point to Habakkuk and say that, like, this is what's happening to our nation, we're in a back-up situation and our ungodliness will cause China to take our information or whatever it is? Because I do hear some of that type of conversation and like does that sound right? Is that accurate?
Speaker 2:In hey Bacock, you're talking about that book yeah, habakkuk.
Speaker 2:I don't think it correlates. Exactly the same, I think there's principles we can take. I like what Matt Chandler said about revelation that I think is true of a lot of these books that it cannot mean for us what it did not mean for them, and so it is a contextual thing that he's speaking to the Israelites and the Babylonians. He's not speaking to Americans and Chinese. So that would be my first answer, is it cannot mean to them what it didn't. It cannot mean for us what it did not mean to them, and but I do think the principles there of like, god will get his glory, and he'll do it through his son, his son, and there are times, yes, that when we, his children, have gone astray. God is big enough, sovereign enough and control enough that he can use the things of this world that don't even beat for him to bring us back to where we need to be.
Speaker 3:So you're saying, like the winner of the Kentucky Derby, we need to trust in God's sovereignty.
Speaker 2:Yes, the name yeah, how are you going to? It's a great name for a horse.
Speaker 3:Sovereignty, yes, could trust in God's sovereignty and right, yeah, and that's why I love about Habakkuk is it's like, oh, so hard and God sees everything, and and and God's like, yeah, I'll take care of it by sending the Babylonians to take over. It's going to be terrible and like what a oh my goodness. But God's people have to trust regardless, and I think that in the silence can we trust regardless?
Speaker 1:Which was a great connection for this message. Okay, so, as we wrap up today, what are your final thoughts on this message? Where's God Are?
Speaker 3:you listening? Yeah, I guess I would say that I've not really had a lot of seasons of that doubt of is God listening, but I remember talking to a friend who's it was, um, the spring of 2013. And, uh, one of my greatest mentors in Green Bay, wisconsin, peter Falk Dr Peter Falk, not the actor doctor Um, he had six kids and my best friend married one of his daughters and, uh, but then he had one of their daughters was Carrie, and Carrie was fabulous, super smart. Um, we all had crushes on Carrie Falk and and um, I remember finding out that she was in medical school and she took a scan of her of herself to teach the younger medical students and found out in that that she was riddled with cancer, stage four. Nothing was going to work. Three months later she passed and, uh, unbelievably rough, um, and the Falks are one of the most faithful families I've ever been around incredible family.
Speaker 3:And I remember talking to Matt, who was a younger sibling that I spent a lot of time with months afterwards and just saying how are you doing? And he said I haven't opened my Bible in months and so, even though I haven't experienced it, to walk by people who are and to be able to be with them and sit with them in that silence and pray for them, and not be you rah-rah. But God is faithful, he is there, it's okay and he can take this, even in your pain. So, yeah, for us to know that, even if you're not experiencing it, people around you are, and how can you love them during those times?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think for me final takeaways or thoughts would be like I personally need to get better at this and and stop saying God is silent when his word is right there, speaking, and probably take more ownership in, in listening to God through my spiritual disciplines. Uh, would be kind of a learning point for me and also just to trust, like I mean, if, if I look back in history and even in my own life, god shows up, not when I want him to, but he shows up every time and his will will be done and it's he's got good. He's got good things for me, good things planned, good good. He can work it all out, and I just need to remind myself of that as much as possible, and so do the people that are going through hard times right now. So the opportunity silence is an opportunity, I think, to either abandon or to press in, and if you have the courage and a little bit ounce of strength left to press in, do that.
Speaker 1:That trust is really my takeaway that I refocused on. So Pastor Greg referenced Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, trust in the Lord with all your heart and he will make your path straight. And it's trust in the Lord with all, not part, not now and then. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. And my patience is much longer now, at the age I'm at, than it was when I was younger. So when I'm in those valleys or those times of silence, I feel like I am more willing to wait, but it's still continuing to trust him in those, and that was really what spoke to me about this week trusting him in those silent times. Well, thank you guys, so much for being here today, and until next week.
Speaker 3:Yeah, do you have a sign off for these?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do. Do you want to do it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's try to do it at the same time. I'll just watch your lips.
Speaker 1:I don't Okay.
Speaker 3:Okay, thank you for being here today, and until next week, let's keep.
