From Longing to Confidence: Recognizing Jesus' Nearness in Our Lives w/ Cody Andras

Have you ever felt a deep-seated yearning for divine companionship, a sense that something greater is perpetually by your side? This episode, graced by the insightful Cody Andras, author of "Jesus by Her Side," invites you into a heartfelt exploration of this spiritual hunger, as we traverse the remarkable encounters of women with Jesus in the Gospels. Through my own journey of vocational twists and faith-stirred decisions, I uncover the beauty of God's personalized touch in our lives, mirroring the individual moments of faith portrayed in Scripture. Cody's transition from business to bibliology exemplifies the profound importance of laying all our paths before God, affirming His care for each unique stride we take.

Tuning in, you'll witness the poignant narrative of Mary Magdalene and her transformative encounter with the resurrected Christ—a story that encourages us to advance in faith, leaving behind the comfort of past spiritual peaks. We discuss the empowering story of Mary and Elizabeth, whose bond exemplifies the support we can find within our own communities amid life's singular trials. These stories serve as an anchor, reaffirming the unwavering truth of God's constancy, even when His presence feels distant or intangible.

Embarking on the final moments of our discussion, I invite you to explore the myriad of avenues through which we can connect with Jesus—be it through the whispers of nature, the harmony of music, or the sacred texts that chronicle humanity's intersection with God. We look at the earnestness of biblical women, like the bleeding woman's raw pursuit of healing and Mary and Martha's lessons of service and devotion, imploring you to bring the same sincerity to your own spiritual quest. Whether through Scripture reflection or prayerful solitude, Cody and I share our most cherished practices and resources, ultimately guiding you to a more profound closeness with Jesus that reaches beyond the pages of the Bible.

Book: Jesus By Her Side
Website: codyandras.com
Bible: She Reads Truth (CSB)
Blue Letter Bible

Transcript

Cody Andras: 0:00

We can ask for that, we can long for that and we can also trust. I remember one season where I felt particularly. It felt very hard for me to know his presence in a more experiential way and I would almost every time I got in my car just be like, well, I know you're still here, but I am not feeling it. And it was a place where I could say it out loud and declare the truth that I knew and desire the experience that I had known before.

Ellen Krause: 0:35

Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. For those that may be listening for the first time, our podcast is an offshoot from our main platform, youtube. Our channel is called Coffee and Bible Time, where our goal is to help people delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living. We also have a website and storefront with Bible studies, prayer journals, courses and more. Hey everyone, it's Ellen here with Coffee and Bible Time, and today we are going to be talking about our longing for the presence of God and how to confidently know Jesus is near us and for us. We often crave the presence of God, but it's a longing that sometimes eludes definition and even if we believe in its possibility, envisioning what it looks like in our daily lives can be challenging. Well, despite the assurance that the Lord is near, the circumstances of life sometimes make it difficult to perceive His presence. Well, our guest today, cody Andress, is here to discuss this topic more in depth.

Ellen Krause: 1:49

Cody's recent book Jesus by Her Side sprouted from the seeds of exploring encounters between women and Jesus in the Gospels. It unveils the idea that the living God envelopes Himself in our fragile hearts, always near and never forsaking us. If we neglect pursuing God's presence, we may experience a spiritual emptiness and lack of connection in our lives, and Cody is here to offer hope that God is always close, faithful and worth the pursuit. Cody Andress has always been a writer. From very early on in her life, she was filling journals and notebooks with stories and observations. Born in Houston, texas, cody grew up in church and attended Young Life where she for the first time began to understand the story of Jesus. After graduating with a business degree from Elon University, she attended Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and earned an MA in biblical studies. After college, she gained valuable experience in women's ministry and created her own curriculum for Bible study workbooks and teaching videos for small groups and for individual use. Please welcome Cody. Cody.

Ellen Krause: 3:18

Hi, I'm glad to be here, Cody. It's such a delight to have you on our podcast. You know, this is a topic, I think, that so many people can relate to in one way or another, and I think I was thinking about this because, as I was kind of looking at your book, one of the things that you had talked about was you wish that you could hug Jesus, or just like he was there with you, right next to you, and I think about my love language being physical touch and not having him there to give me a hug or to give him a hug, and it's this presence of God. Why do you think people crave the presence of God but feel it's elusive to find it?

Cody Andras: 4:11

I think we crave the presence of God because we were created by him and for him, and so we just long to be near this one who loves us perfectly, who meets our needs in a way that no one else can. But because he's invisible and because he's intangible, in the sense that we can't reach out and grab him or look around and see him in the flesh the way that we can other people, it's just so so much harder to understand. Well, what does it mean that he's near? What does it mean that he's always present, when that presence, while it may be discernible, is not the same physical presence that another human being in the room offers?

Ellen Krause: 4:55

And what made you interested in kind of really pursuing this so much that you ended up writing this book? Jesus by her side.

Cody Andras: 5:07

Yeah, well, I sort of. I wrote it slowly. I wrote it over the period of about 10 years because I started out. This was just the way that the Lord, I think, in that longing to know what his nearness was and to know what his heart for me was and to see how he was acting or how he was moving in my life. The way he answered that prayer was by showing me in the Gospels the way that he was meeting the women, those ancient women, and so I would open up and see the way he ministered to the bleeding woman. Or there's a story about the bent over woman and he just started showing me how. That's a picture of his heart for me. And so he tells us in Colossians that he's the image of the invisible God, and so the fact that we can't look and see him in the flesh, but we can look and see him in these stories in the scriptures, and see the way he reached for people and the way he took time with people, and then from that we can start to understand oh, this, or what he did for me was he just started showing me that. That's a picture of the way that he reaches for me. That's a picture of the way that he has time for me, and so I started first journaling it and then I started blogging about it, and every time I would I was sort of blogging this is 10 years ago, I was sort of late to the blogging craze and then I would put things out sporadically.

Cody Andras: 6:27

I never quite got on the, I never blogged correctly like the way you were supposed to, but I would put these out there and they always were the posts that resonated the most with people, and so I would, you know, put another one out a few weeks or months later and then ended up just sort of revising it into a Bible study that we, a group of us, went through at one point.

Cody Andras: 6:48

And then I reposted them during COVID, because that was another time where I think people were really desperately looking for where is Jesus in my life. And so, finally, I just thought, let me take all these snippets and pieces of stories that I've collected and take the time to put them into a book, because they had meant so much to me and they had come to mean, you know, even kind of tell, as a writer, when something that you're writing is regularly seeming relevant to a large part of the audience. So that's kind of how I got to putting it all into a book, was just seeing his heart for me and wanting to share that with others, and then realizing that he was meeting other women in the same way, showing them who he was to them.

Ellen Krause: 7:38

That's so neat how that worked. So were you like reading through the Bible like a book at a time, or just quiet time, devotionals, or how did you come to put all that together? That's interesting. It was 10 years ago.

Cody Andras: 7:57

I can't remember exactly how it happened. The first time I think I was probably reading a gospel. I wasn't reading through the whole Bible at the time, but I probably was like in Luke has a lot of the stories about women in the Gospels, and so I think I might have been reading in Luke or Luke After the first few, I know. Then I would sort of start looking for them, like okay, where's another encounter with where the Lord encounters a woman in the Gospels? And so it became sort of an intentional search for those encounters. Oh cool.

Ellen Krause: 8:29

You talked throughout the book about finding God to be faithful, even though he is not always what we expect. So what do you mean by that?

Cody Andras: 8:42

Well, I think we have this idea that God is going to, or I guess we measure God's faithfulness or we're tempted to measure God's faithfulness based on the circumstances in our lives. We say, oh, I'm single and I'm well into my 30s, so I'm single much longer than I anticipated being. And one thing that people say to me a lot is oh, god is going to be so faithful to you, or God will be faithful to you, and what they mean is God's going to provide a husband for me. That's how they're basing, that's what they're basing his faithfulness on, and that's what I've been tempted to base his faithfulness on In my life. That would be one of the specific circumstances I would look to and say this is a circumstance that has not gone the way I wanted to. Does that mean God isn't faithful or that he's more faithful to the married woman than he is to me?

Cody Andras: 9:38

And what I have found is that when I start to understand that God is faithful not by looking at my own circumstances, but by looking at the promises that he makes throughout scripture and the way that he is keeping those and the way that he has done everything he promised he would do in my life and on a very large global scale. And so, while I may not understand this one and I'm using this circumstance but I think we all probably have circumstances in our lives that we don't understand, in terms of if God is good and God is faithful, why didn't he answer that prayer the way I anticipated he would? I don't understand why he wouldn't, but when I reframe it and go okay, lord, you are faithful, you are good, so show me your faithfulness and your goodness in this circumstance that I didn't anticipate or that I can't understand, and that's when he starts to meet us with the things he has promised, like his peace and his joy and his rest, that we don't have, when we're constantly just striving to understand, understand, understand what he's doing.

Ellen Krause: 10:47

Right, right, and we have kind of this more microscopic vision of what's going on in my life today versus God seeing the bigger picture of how he is, you know, molding and shaping us and guiding and directing our path. And I was kind of curious, cody, about your path, because I noticed you have your, you got a business degree and then you switched and you were going to Moody Bible Institute for your master's. So can you just give us a little glimpse into your own personal story how God navigated that?

Cody Andras: 11:26

Yeah, so I went to college to be actually I was first an education major for two years and then I switched to a business degree and didn't really know what I wanted to do with it. It just seemed like, you know, I was 20 and I needed to make a decision and I needed to get a degree I could graduate on time with and I could switch to business and get it. So I got a business degree, I moved back to Houston. I was very much like I had an active relationship with the Lord throughout all those years, but I wasn't ever quite sure where he was leading or where he was kind of directing me toward it never felt, but I also never felt directionless.

Cody Andras: 12:07

It was just kind of a series of decisions and so I moved back to Houston after I graduated and was going to go to law school. I was enrolled at law school and because through anyway that was through another series of somebody said I was a really good test taker. So somebody was basically like you would be a great lawyer. I and I guess I'm a little argumentative, maybe- I don't know what.

Cody Andras: 12:33

So I anyway came back, was enrolled at law school and got an email in the summer that they were looking for a youth program coordinator at the church I'd grown up in and so I switched paths again and my mom said something really helpful to me in those times. She said you know, you don't always know what decision you're going to make, but once you know the decision you've made like I guess what she was saying was, I process a lot very quietly and internally and with the Lord, and even when I'm not intentionally doing it with the Lord, that's just my natural go-to is to kind of work through things quietly and alone, and so it looks to the outside world like I'm just jumping sometimes, but it's actually been, you know, like there was sort of this discontent always inside of me that was like I'm not sure about the law school thing, but it makes worldly sense and I don't see another path right now. And but once that path appeared, once that then it would became clearer like, oh, I think this is the way that the Lord is leading me. And I remember feeling at the time like the Lord kind of gave me some freedom in that decision and just led me to it and said you know, pick, you get to pick. I can use you in the legal field and I can use you in ministry, vocationally. And so you get to pick.

Cody Andras: 13:56

And I picked to go into youth ministry. And I was not created for youth ministry. And so it was again this 12 month I worked in youth ministry and then the woman who was teaching a Bible study at that church approached me and asked if I would help her write some studies going forward. She knew I could write, I loved writing but, again, had never seen what to do with it, and so started writing with her. And that's when I ended up going back and getting a master's degree in biblical studies, really just to help me know how to do the research and how to do the work that was required to the research that was required to do the writing that we were doing. And I don't think that's a prerequisite for writing, but it had certainly helped me and I, like I said, I'm a book nerd, so going back to school was a natural. I loved it, but so that's kind of how I got into writing curriculum.

Ellen Krause: 14:56

That's so amazing just to see how God has kind of guided you in that process. But, as you say, you had the freedom to make these various decisions and look how the fruit of that now with just with your book and your insights that you're giving to other women. How did you look at the eyes of the women in the Gospels? How did that encourage you in your own walk with the Lord, after you had taken all that time to kind of look at all their different situations?

Cody Andras: 15:36

One of the things that it reassures me of is they had so many different backgrounds, so many different circumstances and Jesus was always exactly himself, jesus always.

Cody Andras: 15:51

He approached them uniquely because he recognized them as unique individuals, but he had time for every one of them. He had a willingness to interact with every one of them, to meet them in the middle of whatever their specific need was, and it reassures me in terms of when I look around and go well, maybe that person's problem is more important, or maybe I should just encourage this person instead of going to the Lord with my own concerns because their problem is bigger. I think as women, we sort of rank things and we tend to go, but the Lord doesn't do that. The Lord has time for each one of us in each circumstance that we face, and I think that's probably been one of the bigger encouragements to me is just the personal nature of him and the reality that we get to come to him with things that we think are worthy of his time and things that we wonder why they would be worthy of his time. But he finds us worthy of his time and so he meets us right there?

Ellen Krause: 16:54

Yes, he sure does. Was there one woman in particular that you resonated with more closely?

Cody Andras: 17:06

That's a funny question to me because I each time I would get to the story of that woman, that encounter, that was the one that was resonating with me the most. But I think, looking back and in my life right now, one of the ones that stands out to me and that I think about a lot is Mary Magdalene at the tomb, when she goes to find the body of Jesus and instead she finds the risen Lord and she recognizes him as he speaks her name, in just this tender moment between the two of them. But one thing that he says to her, she is obviously clinging on to him in some way and he says don't cling to me. And that when I first read it it was kind of arresting because you think, well, that's what I mean. There's like actually worship songs about clinging to Jesus. You know like I thought this is the goal that we cling on to him, and but what he was telling her was don't cling on to me in the way that you've always known me, because he needed to ascend to the Father, he needed to pour out the Holy Spirit he had. He was walking forward in the plans of God and in his own plans and he needed her to walk forward with him.

Cody Andras: 18:24

And so, as he says, don't cling to me. He's not telling her forsake me or walk away from me, but he's saying, I think don't cling on to me in this one way that you've known me, because we're going forward, and it's a reassurance to me whenever things get a little bit. I just got a new job and so things are different and there's a part of me that wants to go back and have a relationship with the Lord the way it looked a year ago. But I just remember that, like, don't cling on to that, don't cling on to the way I've known him at the expense of knowing him right here, at the expense of walking forward with him and allowing circumstances to change and my relationship with him to look different, because he is not different and so we walk forward with Jesus and it's just really reassuring to me, anytime there's transition or change, to think, okay, we're going forward together and I have to let go of some of the things of the previous season in order to embrace him in the one we're walking into.

Ellen Krause: 19:26

That's such a valid point that we do go through different seasons in life and God is with us in every one of those, but they don't always look the same, and that's a great point. Similarly, I think, to what you were saying there about Mary Magdalene not clinging. It also reminds me of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and I just was reading in John this morning about sort of this separation that had to occur between Jesus, mary being his mother in the sense of motherhood, versus letting go of that so that he could move on to do God's calling. Tell us a little bit about what you learned about Mary the mother of Jesus as one of the women that you studied.

Cody Andras: 20:35

Yeah, she features prominently in the book because he has a lot of encounters with her. But one of the ones that I am thinking of is, even when God sends Gabriel to tell Mary that she's going to bear the Messiah, that she's gonna have his son, he, at the end of the encounter, as right as the angel Gabriel is about to leave, he says and also, your cousin, elizabeth, is about to have a baby in her old age. So Elizabeth was in the midst of this miraculous pregnancy as well, and God took the time to make sure Mary knew about it. To me that's just a picture of his kindness and the reality that he created us for community. He created us to know each other and while he is the ultimate meter of our needs, he also meets our needs and meets our need for community through other people. And so he.

Cody Andras: 21:35

I just find it like you said. She was the mother of Jesus, but she was also the daughter of God and as the daughter of God, he cared for her as a father and didn't want her to feel or to be completely alone in this circumstance that was so unfamiliar, and just sending her to her cousin and letting her have those moments with Elizabeth as they were pregnant in these miraculous ways that the world would likely have not understood. They had each other to look at and to encourage in the faith as they walked forward.

Ellen Krause: 22:09

Yes, that is a beautiful sort of rendition, how you just described it, of that relationship and doing life together, and certainly both of their circumstances were very unique for sure. Well, I wanna talk a little bit just about this idea of God's presence, like if you were, let's say, mentoring someone who is more new in their faith, what would you tell them, like about what they could expect and how they would go about recognizing the presence of God?

Cody Andras: 23:51

I think the first thing I would say is I don't know anyone who, every time they sit down to be still and quiet before the Lord, experiences this amazing confidence that God is present with them, or that God is near them. While we might know it in our heads, and why we might trust that it's not always that we experience it in some book worthy for lack of a better word way, that it's not a constant. It's not a constant experience on one level, but then it's also a constant truth, and so we have to walk this line between yes, the Lord is always present, the Lord is always near, and there are definitely times when he, it feels like, opens heaven and lets us know that that presence is, that his presence is near us. He reassures us that he is near to us in some way that we recognize, and so we have to hold those two things in tension that we can ask for, that we can long for that and we can also trust.

Cody Andras: 25:04

I remember one season where I felt particularly.

Cody Andras: 25:07

It felt very hard for me to know his presence in a more experiential way, and I would almost every time I got in my car, just be like well, I know you're still here, but I am not feeling it, and it was a place where I could say it out loud and declare the truth that I knew and desire the experience that I had known before, and so that would be one encouragement. And then my other encouragement would be to take the time to really sit in quiet, and I know in different seasons and in different circumstances it's harder to find that time. But I and we don't earn anything from the Lord by doing that, by taking the time to sit before Him. It's not like we do that because he has required it and if we miss a day he's gonna punish us and we got a way to extra day like that's not none of that is true, but we were created to know the presence of God and to dwell in the presence of God, and so when we are disciplined to take the time and to make the time wherever it is, then, however, we have to carve it out.

Cody Andras: 26:17

I think we position ourselves to recognize him more readily and to recognize him more quickly, whether that means we're reading the Bible, which I think is a great way to see who God is, to see his heart and to see his presence, or sometimes there have been seasons where I just sit and drink a cup of coffee and don't open anything and just tell the Lord what my week has been like and ask the Lord if he wants me to know anything about that day and just something about the practice of acting out the. I know you're here and I'm going to take time in your presence, shift something in my own heart to recognize his presence more in my life and in the day that I then go through.

Ellen Krause: 27:07

Definitely, I know for me, in addition to that quiet time experience, just being in nature and whether it's just in your neighborhood looking at the trees or wildlife or anything, just seeing that God has created so many incredible beautiful things in nature and to me that's how I really tend to experience God but also even through music, worship, music. There are an abundance of ways that we can experience the presence of God. For sure, cody, tell our listeners just maybe you can just give them just a little sneak peek into who are some of the other women that you talk about in your book that they can expect to get a glimpse of their relationship with the Lord and how it can help them.

Cody Andras: 28:22

Another one that I go back to all the time and this has actually become a regular practice, as I do enjoy the presence of God or sit in the presence of God is the bleeding woman. So she had been bleeding for 12 years. She'd been ill. No one could help her. Because of that, she was isolated from her community and she goes to Jesus for physical healing. She reaches out for the hymn of his robe and she's like desperate for it. And she receives the healing.

Cody Andras: 28:53

And but the part that sticks with me is that after she's healed, jesus turns around and wants to know who has touched him and takes the time and it says that she fell before him and told him the whole truth.

Cody Andras: 29:06

And that idea of telling him the whole truth has become a practice of mine and just remembering that Jesus has time to hear the whole truth.

Cody Andras: 29:16

Of course, he already knows it, he knows everything, but he also knows us well enough to know that there is something about telling it to him and unloading it to him that allows us to receive from him differently.

Cody Andras: 29:30

I think for me it's this picture of if I don't tell him the whole truth of what's going on and how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking it's really hard for me to hear from him about a circumstance or to recognize the way that he's moving in that circumstance. But once I've told him, once I've sort of opened up my heart to him, it's a lot easier for me to hear from him and to hear like he says to her your faith has healed you. And he doesn't always say that same thing to me. But just to hear from him in that quiet place of oh, I guess I did see that. You know, sometimes we just need the acknowledgement that he saw it. Or sometimes, after I've told him all my ideas, then I'm open to hearing his a little more clearly and so that her story is one that's especially encouraging to me. I'm trying to think and there.

Ellen Krause: 30:22

Well, you have multiple, multiple examples in there that.

Cody Andras: 30:28

Mary, Mary and Martha. I sort of take up for Martha, because I think Martha did want to know the Lord. She's the one who invited them into her home. We know we're like Mary was sitting at his feet but Martha's the reason he was there. We forget that and so just that. No, we don't want to get too busy serving, that we can't take the time in the presence of God, but even in recognizing in our own hearts that in that service the longing and the desire is to be near him and so taking that, letting that remind us to take that time and to sit still before him is, is an encouragement also.

Ellen Krause: 31:06

Yes, Cody, how can people find out more information about you and this book?

Cody Andras: 31:15

The book is available on Amazon or there's a link through my website to get there. My website is CodyAndriscom. It's C O D Y A N D R A Scom and the book is there and there's also a few other Bible studies I've written. I'm fairly active on Instagram. I am the irregular blogging past is sort of carrying over into the social media present, but I am most active on Instagram, if that's a way that they like to follow. So yeah the book is on the website.

Ellen Krause: 31:53

We will make sure we put all of those links in our show notes. Before we go, though, I want to ask you some of our favorite Bible study tool questions. What Bible is your go to Bible and which translation is it?

Cody Andras: 32:10

So the Bible I'm using right now is the she Reads Truths Bible and it's Christian Standard translation. When I'm writing or teaching, I start with the New American Standard, just because that's how I learned to to write and teach, and so I always go there first, but then I teach out of the CSB.

Ellen Krause: 32:30

Excellent.

Cody Andras: 32:31

And it's the one I use when I sit down to spend time with the Lord.

Ellen Krause: 32:35

Yeah, yeah, I know several guests that I've had on have mentioned the she Reads Truth Bible.

Cody Andras: 32:44

It's nice. It has big margins.

Ellen Krause: 32:46

Oh, lots of room for taking good notes. Okay, yeah, do you have any favorite journaling supplies or anything that you use to enhance your Bible study experience?

Cody Andras: 32:58

My favorite is a pencil. Somebody told me nobody uses pencils anymore, but I always. I like to write in my Bible and pencil, because then you can erase it. And I also really like Sharpie pins the like the actual pin, because it doesn't bleed through the pages as badly. But I'm pretty excellent, simple when it comes to it. The pencil is usually my go to.

Ellen Krause: 33:20

Okay, that's quite all right, you do your best with your style. Lastly, what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?

Cody Andras: 33:33

I love the Blue Letter Bible Okay, online and that's on. You can get it on your phone, but it has a lot of. To me, it's very intuitive. You can get to the different. You can click and see all different translations of that verse. You can get to the original languages pretty easily. Yes, so for for looking up the verses, that's my, my, favorite starting point. Yeah, it is, it's a great website.

Ellen Krause: 33:58

Well, Cody, thank you so much for being here and encouraging others today to immerse themselves into God's Word and the Gospels and to really engage with what you can learn about Jesus and the women in the Bible.

Cody Andras: 34:18

Thank you for having me. I've enjoyed being with you.

Ellen Krause: 34:20

Excellent Thank you and for our listeners, be sure to get a copy of Cody's book Jesus by her side and consider incorporating a simple, specific prayer practice into your daily routine to actively seek the Lord in your circumstances. By taking today's conversation and applying it to our lives, we open ourselves to experiencing the nearness of Jesus every day. Well, we love you all. We appreciate you listening. We would be so grateful if you would leave a review on our podcast. Have a blessed day.