Wrestling with God: What to do With Church Hurt, Deconstruction, and Spiritual Plateaus w/ Lina AbuJamra

When life's tremors threaten to disrupt our faith, it's the Unshakeable Moxie within us that holds fast. Embrace this steadfast spirit in our latest conversation with Lina AbuJamra, a physician, author, and beacon of hope, as she illustrates the transformative power of trials turned into triumphs. We explore the intricate landscape of spiritual resilience, discussing everything from church hurt to the very personal battle with spiritual legalism. Lina's remarkable journey brings an authentic voice to the table, sharing how our darkest nights can yield the most profound grace.

Navigating through the ruins of a once-thriving church community can lead one to question the very foundation of their faith. Yet, within this episode, we uncover how the collapse of institutional structures paves the way for a deeper, more personal reconstruction of belief. As we peek behind the curtain of church leadership and grapple with cultural shifts, this candid exploration reveals the complexities of authority, identity, and spirituality in today's world. The heartfelt dialogue invites you on a voyage through disillusionment to a place of renewal, with Lina guiding us to find solace in wrestling with God and emerging stronger.

Find encouragement, solace, and the Unshakeable Moxie that lies within as we journey together through life's storms, anchored by unwavering faith.

Lina's Favorites:
Unshakable Moxie Website
Unshakable Moxie Devotional
Lectio 365 App
Streams in the Desert Devo
Jesus Calling Devotional
Lina's Bible Reading Plan
Lina's Website: livingwithpower.org

Self Reflection Podcast

Self-Reflection Podcast is based on real emotions and feelings. If you are like me,...

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Transcript

Ellen Krause: 0:04

At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast, o ur goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living. Each week we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk. We are so glad you have joined us. Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. This is Ellen here, and today we are going to be talking about unshakable faith.

Ellen Krause: 0:37

Have you ever felt like your faith is being tested, shaken by the storms of life? Every day seems like an uphill battle that leaves us questioning our strength, resilience and faith. But what if, instead of questioning our own strength, we instead had unshakable moxie? Unshakable moxie is within people who have faced setbacks, opposition, suffering and hardship and emerge with a faith so unwavering it's nothing short of inspiring. We have the pleasure today of hosting Lina AbuJamra, who is here to delve more into the topic of Unshakeable Moxie by sharing her part in the six-episode video series of the same title Unshakable Moxie, where hosts Toni Collier and Mariah Smallbone cross the country to meet with new friends who have experienced deep hardships but have come out closer to Jesus with incredible strength and courage. Lina will share with us a valuable tool the accompanying Bible study that she authored. That can help us break free of the cycle of doubt and uncertainty and instead transform our struggles into a source of strength. Stay tuned you don't want to miss this empowering episode. Stay tuned you don't want to miss this empowering episode.

Ellen Krause: 2:05

Lina AbuJamra founded Living With Power Ministries and is a popular Bible teacher, podcaster and conference speaker. She's also the host of a radio show and the author of several books, including Fractured Faith, her Bible study Through the Desert, a study on God's faithfulness, and her latest book Don't Tell Anyone You're Reading this a Christian doctor's thoughts on sex shame and other troublesome issues. Lina is a pediatric ER doctor who now practices telemedicine and in her spare time, provides medical care and humanitarian help to Syrian refugees and others in disaster areas. Learn more about her at livingwithpowerorg. So please welcome Lina.

Lina AbuJamra: 2:57

Hi, so glad to be with you today.

Ellen Krause: 3:01

Lina, I'm so honored to have you on our podcast. I've heard you speak at several events and your passionate personality each time just drew me in. It just ignited this spark inside of me that wanted to change to know Jesus more. So I'm really just thrilled to have you here.

Lina AbuJamra: 3:36

Oh, thank you. I guess God wires us a certain way and if you follow his leading, he uses it for good. Some people say I'm too intense, but that's always my Peloton instructor. One of them always says if they call you intense, it's not a bad thing, and so it's like reversing the narrative a little bit. But yeah, no, it's all good and the Lord is good, he's faithful and he's, you know, put us for such a time as this. So I think people are now the way that our brains are wired. We're so used to intensity because life comes at us a million different directions and so, yeah, whereas people used to tell me you speak fast, now people are like, well, it's perfect for our brains, and I do think there's something to be said about God's timing and how he uses us and our gifts. So it's-.

Ellen Krause: 4:10

Yes, yes, absolutely. Well, there might be someone listening here today that just doesn't even know what unshakable moxie is. Maybe we should just start out with a little definition.

Lina AbuJamra: 4:25

I didn't know what it was, so you're in good company. I mean, what's Moxie? You know you hear that word and you know people have used it here and there, but it's basically strength, grit, if I had to summarize it with one word. And I was honored to be asked to be part of this project. In fact, I have a friend who was sitting on the committee who were sort of throwing names in the hat, and I always say, like I was a sub, you know, I was the person who was initially asked. One of the six couldn't make it and so I was the next up in line, so I was really happy to be part of it.

Lina AbuJamra: 4:56

Obviously, god works everything out for good. My story is the story that I think needed to be told, because it's a very common story right now in terms of things that stand in the way of our strength as Christians. And my story we'll get into probably in a minute, but has to do with church hurt and deconstruction. But yeah, no, I think it was a fun project. Of course, many of the people who were interviewed. One is my own hero, Joni Eareckson Tada, and if you want to think of what strength looks like to me, that is the picture of strength is Joni, and Ruth Simons is a good friend of mine and she was one of the people interviewed, and so some of the other names that you may or may not be as familiar with MLK Jr's, martin Luther King Jr's daughter, Bernice, is one of the episodes, and so some really, you know, obviously great company and but we, you, we, we don't meet each other. Basically. The two hosts come to the, to the places, to the episodes, you know, and I was one of the episodes, and so I met Toni and Moriah, who are lovely and fun and and they try to basically unpack the story of strength and that's what Moxie is is how do you, what does it look like to be a specifically a woman of strength in this day and age?

Lina AbuJamra: 6:02

You know, I think our culture tells us what strength looks like, and it's a lot of pushing and loud and winning battles. But really, I think the biblical picture of strength has to be you know what is that? What does that look like? And it's not devoid of pain, it's actually often seen through pain. We just finished, we're recording this shortly after Easter and you know, christ is such a great example of that. I mean, he exudes strength, and yet he was killed at the cross and in the hours leading up to his death, didn't say a word. And so you could say, well, he did walk all over him, and yet the opposite is true. You can't read the story of the crucifixion and not be like. This is a person of immense strength and, of course, then exemplified in the resurrection, and so many of our stories in the Christian faith are stories of crucifixion and death and then birth of the resurrection power that Christ gives through our weaknesses.

Ellen Krause: 6:54

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, Lina, I listened to your interview with Toni and Moriah and I was just kind of just blown away like I had no idea that that was part of your story, and hearing it really impacted me. So why don't you just share just a little bit about your story?

Lina AbuJamra: 7:22

yeah.

Ellen Krause: 7:24

So people can kind of have a feel for your contribution to this.

Lina AbuJamra: 7:30

Yeah, yeah, I think you know, not long before we recorded the episode, I wrote a book called Fractured Faith Finding your Way Back to God in an Age of Deconstruction, and it really told the story of sort of I was going to say the near demise I wouldn't call near demise, but certainly challenge in my faith, walk with the Lord and it was rooted in a big church upheaval. I was a part of a very vibrant church community in mid 2005, 6, 7. Very much in that era of. You know now, like we're very cynical post COVID, I think there's a general cultural cynicism with the elections and sort of all. Whatever you stand, I mean both sides.

Lina AbuJamra: 8:10

I think people are sort of, you know, we've we've seen a lot in the last decade and part of that has been church stories. But back in 2005, six, seven, even 10, we were starting to hear of the. I mean, I know there's been bad stories of leaders imploding, but they always have felt away from us, like you know, the, some other denominations or people who are on TV, you know, like the Jim Bakers of it, you know. But but something shifted in the two thousands where we started to hear more mainstream evangelicals, people that we looked up to that, were imploding left and right, and I was in a church that eventually had a sad story of that. In fact, there were a couple of big stories in Chicago and I was in both churches, at one and then the next, and both ended up imploding. But I was initially at the one and it was for a while thriving immensely.

Lina AbuJamra: 8:56

And it hit that time in my own life where my own personal ministry I had felt called. I'm a physician, as you introduced me, and so I was practicing medicine but felt a bivocational calling to teach the Bible and the Lord was really opening, beginning to open doors that I had prayed for and waited for for like a decade leading up to it, and the long and short of it is that things started falling apart in the leadership structure of the church. And as all these stories unfold, they're not always very obvious and little by little, more information is gathered, gathered, and you kind of walk this path of you know questioning who's right, who's wrong and seeing things with your eyes, but but you know all of that stuff that goes on with trying to understand have I been believing people who are untrue, or are these people saying things that are untrue and all the havoc that goes along with it and and while this unfolds, of course, the leadership, which in my case did turn out to be corrupt. You know, there's the gaslighting and there's the minimizing of things and the hiding and all the stuff and the abuse of power. So that was the circumstance of my church world that led me to leave that church at the point when my books, my first books, were coming out. I'm now like 10 books into it, some trade books, some Bible studies, but back then I was just launching my first book. So really a bad time for me to be leaving a system that would have led to success. And so there was this path that God had put me on, in that vibrant church where it felt like revival every week, mega, growing. You felt like you were riding a wave of something phenomenal. You know, it was that era and all of a sudden I felt in. I mean for you two years, not all of a sudden I felt in. I mean for you two years, not all of a sudden. I felt this sense of leading, maybe for a couple of years, up to the point when I left where I saw the cracks and eventually had to things happen that forced me to feel like see that this was really a time to leave.

Lina AbuJamra: 10:37

I think the difficulty and so many people who tell stories of deconstruction and sort of challenges in their faith is that a lot of your decision-making process is birthed in what you think is true and spirit-led and so you anticipate that God is going to bless that. And yet it took about six years from the time I left that church community to the time when the implosion of the leadership full-blown happened and the elders eventually disqualified the pastor. The leadership full-blown happened and the elders eventually disqualified the pastor from leadership. But imagine, for six years. It's a long time. Three books came out during that time but by God's grace and things eventually happened in my ministry, but it wasn't for A for any effort of mine or B for any, you know. And I look back and I think I was really in a dark night of the soul during a lot of those years because in one fell swoop I lost, like my close network of friends and community. I had stragglers, you know, I, my ministry leadership team. We have a very small ministry team. My sister is a very strong believer and she walked this path with me, but she had left the church too, and so we're all hurting.

Lina AbuJamra: 11:41

I think so many people in the Chicago area were sort of victims of this, this debacle, and navigating that was incredibly hard and it's and of course, on the other side of it now it's such a common story of people who have gone through just horrible stories of church implosions. You know all sorts of abuse, some physical, some sexual and, of course, a lot of it just abuse of power, like I went through, and all the ramifications of that. And then, of course, now we have a whole vocabulary for it Deconstruction is a leading word. You know what does that mean? How do you do you lose your ex-evangelical I'm not ex-evangelical, but now that's birthed out of that People who no longer believe the Bible is God's word. You know so many factions of how this has played out.

Lina AbuJamra: 12:25

Now we talk about the nuns, N-O-N-E people who no longer go to church, some who consider themselves spiritual, others who just can't get stomach the idea of being under authority because there's such a distrust of authority. And so and of course you know now we've got so much of the. You know the issues with the LGBTQ and the sexual. You know conversations that happen over sexual sin and what is that, and you know all the lines that have also been sort of drawn through all of this and so very much a difficult season 10 years of fighting through fighting with God for a while of those 10 years, finding out that you don't win battles with God but God, in his grace and his mercy, can take your questions, can handle your pain, doesn't give up on you, is unconditional in his love for you, even when you don't see it. And I believe with all my heart that the outcome is so certain of victory, but for a while it's so unsure in your perspective, from his perspective, I think God is never in a frenzy over the outcome and the longer it takes, whether it's a year or five years or 10 years.

Lina AbuJamra: 13:31

For me it was a good decade of wrestling, where you're living your life externally normal, like I was, as you said. I was doing conferences speaking with God's powerful presence, often as his word is spoken, his presence is known, but wrestling internally with some of those things. And you know it's interesting because you watch some people now who have deconstructed and you know the question always is like well, what do they believe? Do they not believe? Some are some no longer. They say I no longer believe that they're apostates. You know, they would say, describe themselves. Some have described themselves publicly as apostates and you know, the story is never done with yet. Like, I think it's interesting.

Lina AbuJamra: 14:05

As humans, we want closure and I think we get closure with the Lord, but not Always in the timeline, like we're going to get closure in eternity, whether it's when we die or whether the end times. However you believe, like, eventually we're all going to die. I think that's one certainty. And what happens next, whether the Lord comes first or whether we die? But the point is, life ends as we know it on Earth after. I mean, I'm doctor enough to tell you that every human will eventually die and and so there is closure. You will look at answers, but until then, the Lord isn't as much in a hurry to answer us in the time and in the way that we want him to. And it's because I don't think God is looking at the outcomes that we're looking for His outcomes. He has outcome measures, but they are by far different than the outcome measures we have, but they are by far different than the outcome measures we have. Our outcome measures tend to focus horizontally on our vindication and while God cares about our vindication.

Lina AbuJamra: 15:05

I think strength comes from not ensuring that I vindicate myself, but in letting go. The vindication to God at his time and this is part of what it means to be a woman of moxie I believe is coming to the place where you truly are able to relinquish this need and desire for vindication, which is often truth. It's not wrong for someone who goes through. Let's take an example of a woman who's been abused by her spouse. I mean there's a rightful. If I look at Syrian refugees that's the context of what I've spent the last decade working with. I mean there's a desire for vindication and injustice in the world, but true strength coming from the person who says I believe that God's got this. It's what Jesus did in 1 Peter. We see the writing of Peter about how, when he reviled, he didn't revile in return, but he submitted. He surrendered his right for vindication to his father, who judges justly, and I think there's an immense amount of strength that's born out of that.

Lina AbuJamra: 16:01

So we look at short-term outcomes, like seeing punishment on the person who's wronged us, like being vindicated so others would know I didn't do anything wrong, like for the years that I left the church. I think there was always this question that was Lena the bad apple. It's us versus them? That sort of tension that no one quite knows, but you feel, and I think strength comes from letting go of what people think.

Lina AbuJamra: 16:21

I think what God sees as a good outcome is that we no longer are threatened by what people say about us. We see that, as Isaiah says, in their breath, in their nostril, is but breath, and I think we say these words, but there's strength that comes from experiencing them and living them and coming on the other side of them, like Jacob, who wrestled with God and comes out of it with a limp, but his testimony he has a new name coming out of his wrestling match with God in Genesis 32, for those who are listening to know the story. So I think that's really the heart of what has happened to me in the last decade is really a reassessment of what is godly strong, rooted outcomes that are true grit, as opposed to the human strategy of oh yeah, she's a winner because she's selling books or growing platforms or everybody knows that she's. You know, this is what happened behind the scenes. Nobody needs to know about God, and the more you trust him with the outcome, the stronger you feel.

Ellen Krause: 17:18

Yes, no doubt, absolutely. You know, Lina, I think about you and if you had to look at yourself and your life and if you, you know you hadn't experienced what you did over the last 10 years like and then think about, how has God used that in my life? Can you really see yeah, see and imagine, like if you hadn't gone through it, where you would be versus where you are now and how you can help people differently.

Lina AbuJamra: 18:44

I think, life before you know.

Lina AbuJamra: 18:46

A lot of people have described the spiritual life cycle in this circular pattern that I became familiar with and as I've kind of been wrestling with a lot of what happened, you know, God, where were you in this season of pain? Like you know again, it's easy to sit and talk in 30 minutes over what one learns in 10 years. But there is a cycle where you know, I think there's a freshness to the faith when you get saved and you are told you know you need to read your Bible, you go to church, you know the things that we're told will help in growing in your godliness and it's all good things. But I think there's a point in your Christian life where that can become very formulaic and actually there's a danger where that can become legalistic. So you start to approach life with I do my part, God will surely do his and I think truly our life in Christ. A lot of it is God dismantling that legalism. So while we are saved by grace, many of us live by works and when we know like we don't need any you know religious language to understand that like think about it. Like when you know when, when you're good, you think, oh, you're not as afraid to pray because you think, oh, god's going to answer that prayer. I remember in college thinking you know, if I read my Bible, then I'm going to do well on the test. If I skip my quiet time or don't go to church on Sunday, then you know. So we have these ways of thinking about our relationship with God that are just not right, not biblical, not true, and they put us in captivity, they take away our freedom.

Lina AbuJamra: 20:01

And I think there's a point in your Christian walk. So had I not gone through this? So there's a point in that cycle where you hit a wall. Something causes you to hit a wall. I think some disillusionment I would say a dark night of the soul, is how people have described it. But when you hit that wall, you have a choice, like I think you either leave the faith or you choose to. Just you can't go through the wall, you just rely on a lifetime of going through the motions and I honestly, I think this is why there's such lack of joy in christians.

Lina AbuJamra: 20:27

I think there's a, there's a shying away from that wall and and, and I think a quick, you know kind of like the easy voice, you know the kind of the easy way out would be to say, well, let me just read my bible more, and so we go back to more works of serving more, reading more, memorizing more, but empty a shell on the inside and deeper disappointment because now we're doing more for God, we're exhausted and we're not seeing the results of it, and the opposite is what God wants. And so, going through that dark night, going through that cycle, so what has changed is that for a while you feel like everything is crumbling and falling apart, and for a while you almost there's a fear like what if you lose it all? But you can't, because the Christ says it's when you lose it all that you find life and somehow God's grasp on you is through it. And I think the big thing for me is that is the difference between wrestling with God or wrestling without God. And where I've seen people deconstruct and leave the faith is they wrestle, but without God. And so I think that people always ask me like how'd you get on the other side of it without losing your faith? And I think because, honestly, what saved me often were the disciplines of the Christian life, but the willingness to wrestle in them.

Lina AbuJamra: 21:32

And so, like Jacob. Again you pick on him. He wrestled with God in the night. But he was wrestling with God. He could have been, you know, surrounded himself with his wife and the kids and the bodyguards and gone to fight against his brother Esau. And he's going back, you know, to the family and facing up the big enemy, the big, you know, the fear of his life was, facing up his brother, but instead he takes it out with God and I think so many of us are afraid to fight that fight with God. And I think there is a way to fight that you know humbly, which is this awareness in it that there is this God who is in control of our life. And so, so how my life would have been different.

Lina AbuJamra: 22:04

Honestly, knowing myself, I think I would have been deeper in a cycle of spiritual works and exhaustive effort to try to perform my way into God's favor, which is the essence of legalism and the freedom that has happened in my life and where, I believe, is the source of strength. I mean, you look at again someone like Joni Eareckson Tada, who you know, where is her strength? She's a woman in a wheelchair. She can't move, she doesn't have physical strength, she can't even argue strong enough when you think about it. She has a soft voice and she's the opposite of what we think of as strength, but her strength comes in the fact that she's died to everything.

Lina AbuJamra: 22:39

And so, going through this for me and sort of getting to a place where I realized like there's nothing, and the Lord has taught the lessons weren't just vis-a-vis the church, but also the losses in my life, so many losses that I thought, you know, I never married, I remained single. The things that I thought I would excel in the ministry I know I've had a vibrant ministry, I'm very grateful to the ministry that God has given me, but I thought my books would sell more, I'd be asked to speak at more stages, you know, all the platforms would grow more, All the things that we think are, you know, flourishing and successful, and the Lord's unwillingness to give me the easy road have caused me to stay in a place of, of letting go, of understanding that it is his love that sustains. And, and there's a point where you cross over that dark tunnel of the night of the soul, whatever, and you when you have nothing. There was a point in my life where I felt like everything is sort of like humanly feels gone Like granted I had a job. I'm not. You know, lord, again it's merciful, like it's not, like I lost my. I mean people lose literally everything and I think some of it is how you respond to those losses and I think I've leaned into the losses and desired God in my life and so if you're listening and you're wrestling like you know, be careful. Ultimately he is God, we're not. So you know, I never lost the fear of God in my life, even though I did spend some inordinate amount of time questioning him.

Lina AbuJamra: 24:00

But the upshot of it is that I feel so much again kinship with Jacob. I feel like in many ways I do walk with a limp. Now I'm very aware of my weaknesses. In fact, the last book you mentioned Don't Tell Anyone You're Reading this I actually talk about some of the ways that I've coped with my stuff and you could say are you ashamed of it? Of course, who isn't ashamed of those things? But they've also been things that ultimately had to be crucified. The things that we lean on to get us through difficult seasons. They've had to be crucified and so the result of it, honestly, I feel like in this last year, the Lord has brought me in a season of relearning, there's newer joy. I long and yearn for God's presence, his word, in a way that, honestly, for a while had faded, and I feel a spiritual vigor and zeal and excitement and I dare say the word joy.

Lina AbuJamra: 24:52

I'm a cynic. I am an ER doctor. I don't I celebrate, you know, I'm much more. Yesterday there was a smoke alarm in the building that I'm in Florida for a week and I that we couldn't come back from the pool. I was with my 10 year old nephew and we went into the building and they go, you can't go up to the condo because there's a smoke alarm. And while we were walking to the building everyone was like hey, don't go in, there's a disaster there. And I looked at my nephew and said I live for the disasters, like me, that's where I want to go, like I'm attracted to that. I'm sort of a cup half empty. You know I'm going to fix a problem if it's there.

Lina AbuJamra: 25:25

And the Lord has really landed me in a space where I'm learning joy in a way in my life, and joy in him, in the things that he finds are rich. Sometimes I walk by the beach seeing a red cardinal. You know just things that I would look at from the other, I'd be like that's so silly. You know what you need to do is you know, win more souls for the Lord. You know all the stuff you know. Win more souls for the Lord. All the stuff miracles, big breakthroughs and yet I'm so aware of the little gifts that God gives us that are very personal and very knowing. God knows us so well. He just writes a story for each one of us that is so uniquely specific. So the things that move me are different than things that might move you, and yet his care of us is so tender.

Lina AbuJamra: 26:11

And unless we take the time to see that and to work through those things that stand in the way of us truly trusting God, and they're not things that you can easily write in your journal, okay, get over my fear of man. Okay, get over my desire for perfectionism. Okay, you have to live them, and I think that's the difficulty. And so I think my life has been. If I had to sum up, I'd say I have a freedom in my life that was not there before. I thought I was free, but I don't think I really had freedom. I was in bondage to what I thought the shoulds, the shoulds of my life, and many who have walked this path honestly have written about this and talked about this and have been instrumental in my life. Some of the people who write about this stuff, about this, and have been as instrumental in my life, some of the people who write about this stuff or I have, you know this is these are not new ideas, but to live them is a gift, and so I'm always encouraged when people wrestle with their faith.

Lina AbuJamra: 26:59

When people tell me they're struggling, they don't know if they believe God, they're asking questions. I don't think that's a bad place to be. I think it's a lot worse to be little robots. God didn't invite us to be robots. He's given us a choice, and there's such strength from worshiping God by will and by heart and by mind and all you know. That's how he wants us to love him, and you can't do that if you don't wrestle through the questions. So take heart. If that's you and you're wrestling, you know you are in a good place to come out of it, just stronger and full of moxie.

Ellen Krause: 27:34

Absolutely. It sounds like you've been through this refining fire and this very difficult time, but the beauty that has come out of it as a result and, like you said, the joy is inexplicably a gift from God. For sure, but it came with so many challenges. If there's someone listening today, lena, that perhaps has gone through, or maybe is in the depths of this struggle right now, where they are really questioning their faith, and maybe they are wrestling without God instead of with God. What encouragement would you have for them?

Lina AbuJamra: 28:24

You know, we are formed by the voices that we allow to enter into our lives, and I think one of the unfortunate problems when you're wrestling with the church, let's say which is a fact a lot of people who are wrestling with their faith end up associating God with church and faith, and so, and honestly, a lot of wrestling can be, because you've watched examples of people who have done a horrible job of leading, and I think this is a fact. Like we can't I'm not trying, maybe this is a reality because there's always someone who says but my church is great, yeah, fine, but I'm talking to the people who are like me and it's hard to go to church because you have now a boundary and a barrier and a wall that, like you can't hear that clearly. But be careful, because who you listen to forms you, and so I think this is so you might not be able to go to church and listen anymore, but there are plenty of godly, you know, honoring truth Well, even I would say, remove if the word godly even triggers people. Truthful, because ultimately, that's what we're looking for. Truth, right? I mean, we're not trying to shove God down people's throat. It's what is truth and if there's truth. That's what we want. So I think it's the dangers when you fill your formation, your mind formation, your thought formation, with people who may or may not be speaking the truth.

Lina AbuJamra: 29:35

So the problem with social media, as I see it in this era, is that it's forming us, and so I would urge the person who's wrestling while you might not be comfortable listening to a pastor who has hurt you before or a church system that has crushed you in the past, listen to stories of men and women like me. I mean this is why I wrote my book. It's you know a lot of the stuff I write. People always say why do you write about difficult things? So, because this is the stuff that people deal with, they might be uncomfortable to read, whether it's my you know the fractured faith book or the don't tell anyone you're reading book.

Lina AbuJamra: 30:10

But at the end, in the Christian world, it's a lot easier to just show up in your church clothes and be like everything is fine. But but for those who like, are like me and struggled, we're turned off by that. I don't want them to tell me everything's fine because everything's not fine. What I want to know is how do you make your way through not fine. And so let's read the stories of. But mine I mean you happen to be watching. Maybe this is the point. Get the book, watch the Moxie episode. I mean I do not cry a lot and I cry like a baby in that. Don't ask. I know that you didn't bring that up, ellen, it was like like it was like awkward crying, but it's very touching because you are such a strong person and you could see the depth.

Lina AbuJamra: 30:49

Well hurt.

Lina AbuJamra: 30:50

Yeah, I know it wasn wasn't. I can tell you this, it wasn't planned. If anything in my head I was like you're not gonna get emotional, you're just gonna tell the story and, and I think the team was praying for the truth to come out. And and the truth does come out and and this is imagine after years of therapy, of this couple years of therapy, and I still felt so much reliving the story was so painful and painful and I think you know. So I would encourage people watch it, listen to the video, watch the book.

Lina AbuJamra: 31:16

You know there's no, I don't thump Bible verses and we're not like, though I believe God's word is true, I mean it's. I think God's word becomes part of our story in a sense. I mean, obviously the Bible is inspired words. I'm not saying they're the same thing, but there is something powerful about telling our stories. Just, I think the heart, the heart behind this, this project, I mean I was 10 when I saw Joni's movie.

Lina AbuJamra: 31:35

It shaped my life. Honestly. It shaped what I saw as calling, even as I didn't have words for those things, I just knew something happened in my life when I watched the Joni Eareckson movie, when she dove and became paralyzed, and it set a new understanding of what I wanted, what surrender is what I wanted in my life. There was a burning passion that flew out of that movie. I was in Lebanon and I watched it as a kid and I remember just feeling like I want that and I think there is. I mean, think about that. It was before I was reading my Bible, before I just saw something in her that was so utterly different.

Lina AbuJamra: 32:08

And I think you know, hopefully, when people watch Demoxy Stories, maybe my story you'll connect with that. Maybe read the book. It's short, it's easy to read and it's not, like you know, a big philosophical book. It's a story of how I wrestled with God through these issues and so that would be my invitation to someone. Give them, you know, yeah, of course you're turned off by Christian voices, but give a chance for people who have walked a similar path to you in pain. It might not be the same story, but you can tell by the show, if you watch that 20-minute show, that there was pain there.

Lina AbuJamra: 33:18

I think pain connects us in a way that I really think that joy connects us, but not to the way that pain does. There is a kinship that happens when people have suffered the same suffering as we have, and I think that's intentional. I think the Lord a lot uses. That's how God uses pain for good. Satan wants to hurt us, to bring us into sin is why there's sickness and pain in this world, and I think Satan takes great joy in just like fracturing our lives through painful things. But God uses it how he. I mean when I meet someone who's gone through the same experience as me in pain it brings us together, awakens us to an intimacy.

Ellen Krause: 34:08

I think that is. That is. That is I was an adult because in the church that I grew up with, testimonies were not a thing and I found it so impactful just hearing the personal story of how someone has been affected by God and, you know, being able to separate the human component, this fallen nature, the sinful parts of humans, and being able to separate that from the God, of the belief in what the Bible does say about God and how much bigger God is and what he can do than what we give him credit for.

Lina AbuJamra: 35:07

Yeah, I mean. The last thing I like about this project, too, is that the videos are free, and I think that's really cool. Our Daily Bread has offered them free, and I think it's cool that you can just click a button, listen to someone's story. You can do it while you're on the treadmill. You can do it while you're. You know people listen to all sorts of things now and they're short, so very well done. Did you think I thought they did such a phenomenal job with the actual making of them? I know you always think that Christian stuff is going to be cheesy.

Ellen Krause: 35:41

They're not cheesy. I mean, the cheesiest part is how.

Lina AbuJamra: 35:42

I cry but honestly, they did such a good job. I was really proud to be part of it. Honestly, Julie Richardson, the woman who the brain behind it, you know the passion behind it she's a woman who is so kind and such a fighter for truth and I just appreciated being part of this so.

Ellen Krause: 36:00

Yeah, absolutely, you know. I would just want to encourage our listeners out there that this docu-series is that kind of what you guys are referring to. It called Unshakable Moxie. It feels like you're just hanging out with some friends and laughing and crying and experiencing God through that in a very beautiful and unique way. Beautiful and unique way. So, lena, how can people find out more information about the docuseries and also your incredible Bible study that you have that goes along with it?

Lina AbuJamra: 36:40

Well, the Bible study is on Amazon and all the books. You know the booksellers, whatever you call them, the Moxie. I want to say it's on YouTube. If you go in and put in, oh, it's Unshakeable Moxie. If you put in Unshakeable, I was looking it up. I'm like I don't know, but I believe it's under. I just Googled right now as I'm speaking to you Unshakeable Moxie, our daily bread and it'll pop up and then you'll have like an entire page. You can see all of them here and so it's quite easy. You know there's a whole page for it and it leads you to the book, but you can just go to Amazon for the Bible study.

Lina AbuJamra: 37:16

I did write the Bible study for it too, you're right, and that is a easy guide. It's actually not a, it's more of a discussion guide, I would call it probably, but it does have sections of scripture in it and it's meant to sort of deepen the experience from just a story of a person to sort of making some parallels with what God's word says, and so there's an episode and a chapter that goes so you can actually do it with a small group if you want, so that you can break down the conversations. But yeah, you can get that book. The book is for sale on Amazon, whereas the videos are all free, so you can just watch the video. If you don't want to do the book or if you're looking for a deeper experience, get the book, and I think it's meant to be easy to do but also help deepen the conversation in your life. So, yeah, both are. It's called Unshakeable Moxie.

Ellen Krause: 37:57

M-O-X-I-E. It'd be phenomenal to do as a small group Agreed. All right, Lina, before I let you go, I just want to ask you some of our favorite Bible study tool questions that we always ask our guests what Bible is your?

Lina AbuJamra: 38:15

go-to Bible and what translation is it? Oh, I use an ESV for 95%. Once in a while I'll read the NLT, or once in a blue moon a message, just for sort of another way of saying things. But really the ESV is probably what's always what I teach from and what I read from. Yeah, otherwise, I love the Psalms and I love Isaiah 43. On such a healing section of scripture, isaiah 43 to about 65 is just a great section of scripture. But yeah, the ESV is my go-to.

Ellen Krause: 38:41

Excellent, okay, do you have any favorite journaling supplies or anything that you like to use to enhance your Bible study time?

Lina AbuJamra: 38:49

Yeah, I use a lot of things, different things over time. There's a great app I like right now. It's the Lectio 365 app that I'll read through. I love Streams in the Desert, which is a daily devotional that I've read for several years. I make my way through that Journaling. I keep a journal myself, like I like to just jot down things that God has. I don't know that I use as many you know pre-made journals, but I just like to record as I read God's word.

Lina AbuJamra: 39:17

We, my ministry, has an amazing, I think, bible reading plan that we put out this year. That's still. It's available. If you go to our Instagram you'll see it under our profile link. It's called our daily our reading plan, our Bible reading plan, but I love it because it's very focused. A lot of the Bible reading plans in 2024 are hard to follow because there's multiple books of the Bible and it just can be hard for our brains. So we created one that takes you through one book of the Bible and you can read through the Bible the whole year, and it takes you through one book of the Bible and you can read through the Bible the whole year. And actually I do a daily, like in the story on my Instagram. I'll sum up the reading with a sentence for that day. So it's three chapters a day and basically I'll sum it up with a sentence. I'll come on and I'll speak it. Sometimes, sometimes I'll tell a little bit about what's happening, but it's kind of been a fun project. This is our first year doing it. I'm actually writing a devotional for it this year that will be ready for next year too. So there's a ton of resources.

Lina AbuJamra: 40:12

I think the key is consistency, because I think a lot of people quit when we you know, like you'll go through a time where it gets busier or hectic and you go. Well, I've already missed two, three, four, five days. What's the point of continuing? But it's a relationship with the Lord, like I think we always miss that. And so being in the word, I mean it's just touching points. It's like you know, I'm not married to God, Like I understand that, but like it's like a married couple.

Lina AbuJamra: 40:29

If they never talk to each other, like they wake up one day and go I don't love them anymore, I don't know them anymore. Well, of course you don't talk. And so a lot of Bible reading, a lot of time with God. It's not like you know, just do it, whether you journal, whether you do a Bible study like Moxie. That's why we create resources for people. We have a free daily devotional that we give people when they subscribe to our ministry. The idea is just to keep things simple, touch points of saying, oh yeah, god did say this. Oh yeah, god is with me, I'm not in this alone. Oh yeah, this guy's a jerk, but they're getting their due because God's on my side. You know, like whatever, like you need to tell yourself in your life to to remember that the Lord is for you.

Ellen Krause: 41:09

So yeah, yeah, absolutely Okay. Last question, and I know you hit on one already, but what's your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?

Lina AbuJamra: 41:22

Ours, right, the Living with Power one. We have amazing resources actually, but no, I mean I do, I am again. I am reading our Bible reading plan and I and we, we have so many resources to help support that again through Instagram. But yes, the Lectio, the 365, I love, I have a lot of. I mean, again, I confess I am a I like having things on my phone.

Lina AbuJamra: 41:40

So while I read my Bible physically, you know, in the morning that is like I cannot get the same experience out of an app for reading the Bible. That's just me. I know it's the same for some people, but for me I need to handle the word of God in my hands. See the layout. I like to, because I'm teaching the Bible regularly. I like to see. Sometimes I'm a visual learner too, not audio, I'm a visual, so I have to see where it is on the page. I know, you know, I just I know like it just makes an experience with more alive for me. But I have a lot. I have Jesus Calling, I have the daily streams. You know the streams in the desert my utmost for his highest.

Lina AbuJamra: 42:14

I sometimes listen to Pray as you Go, but really the Lectio 365 is probably my most consistent this in the last year. I'd say it's my Peter Greek who does a lot of really good contemplative, biblically based work. He's in charge of that with the prayer 24 seven movement. So I do like that. They have a morning and an evening. I love the evening. One is shorter and it's introspective. How did your day go? What are you grateful for? You know sort of the examine, which is really really a settling down kind of app, and yeah, so that's awesome.

Ellen Krause: 42:42

Okay, we will put all of those links in our show notes. Love giving good ideas and tips for listeners. Lina, thank you so much for joining us today, for being authentic and introducing us to this concept of Unshakeable Moxie. We appreciate you so much and thank you for being here. Thanks for having me on, ellen. It's been fun, good conversation, absolutely, and for our listeners. I encourage you to watch the docu-series Unshakeable Moxie. Go deeper by participating in the Bible study created by Lena. Again, links in the show notes. So until next time, we love you all and appreciate you listening. Have a blessed day.