Contact Amy/Follow on IG, FB, X, or TikTok
Special message to WWW listeners from our guest, James Early
Are you ready for a journey into the deep waters of faith and trauma? This week, we're privileged to host James, the profound voice behind the Bible Speaks to You podcast. Together, we navigate the turbulent emotional seas portrayed in David's Psalm 22, drawing intriguing parallels between the Psalmist's journey and the experiences of trauma survivors.
Through the course of our conversation, we attempt to unpack the seismic shift from despair to trust in God as portrayed in the psalm. We grapple with deep questions about the nature of divine love and take comfort in the unwavering strength that comes from a relationship with God. We realize that, like the psalmist, trauma survivors too alternate between feelings of despair and moments of profound faith and gratitude.
As we navigate these turbulent waters, we hope to shed light on the healing power of God's love and the profound hope found in the kingdom of heaven. We want to remind all our listeners that no matter how dark your situation may seem, you are never alone. We conclude the conversation with an invitation to explore the comfort and healing found in the presence of Jesus. So join us, in this exploration of faith, hope, and love, as we remind you that you are seen, known, heard, loved, and valued.
You ARE:
SEEN KNOWN HEARD LOVED VALUED
Contact Amy/Follow on IG, FB, X, or TikTok
Special message to WWW listeners from our guest, James Early
Are you ready for a journey into the deep waters of faith and trauma? This week, we're privileged to host James, the profound voice behind the Bible Speaks to You podcast. Together, we navigate the turbulent emotional seas portrayed in David's Psalm 22, drawing intriguing parallels between the Psalmist's journey and the experiences of trauma survivors.
Through the course of our conversation, we attempt to unpack the seismic shift from despair to trust in God as portrayed in the psalm. We grapple with deep questions about the nature of divine love and take comfort in the unwavering strength that comes from a relationship with God. We realize that, like the psalmist, trauma survivors too alternate between feelings of despair and moments of profound faith and gratitude.
As we navigate these turbulent waters, we hope to shed light on the healing power of God's love and the profound hope found in the kingdom of heaven. We want to remind all our listeners that no matter how dark your situation may seem, you are never alone. We conclude the conversation with an invitation to explore the comfort and healing found in the presence of Jesus. So join us, in this exploration of faith, hope, and love, as we remind you that you are seen, known, heard, loved, and valued.
You ARE:
SEEN KNOWN HEARD LOVED VALUED
Hey everybody and welcome back to the Wednesdays with Watson podcast.
Speaker 2:We are in summer of 2023 and my guests are coming to us with their favorite song, and we are looking at these songs through the lens of our listeners, who are mostly trauma survivors or people that love them. So if you're not following the podcast, if you just stumbled on the podcast, the very first link you will see in your show notes there will be an ability for you to hit a button and follow or subscribe to the podcast so that when we drop new content, you get it on your phone. Today I am so excited to bring a fellow podcaster and friend, james, early to the Wednesdays with Watson podcast. James has his own podcast called the Bible speaks to you, which will also be linked in the show notes, and so I am very excited to bring James to the microphone today because he is coming to us as someone who studies the Bible has. I think I saw your coming up on 250 episodes, james. I might be wrong about that, but it was a lot, and so welcome to the Wednesdays with Watson podcast, james.
Speaker 3:Amy, thanks so much. It is only 200 episodes. That was my big milestone recently. It's a big deal.
Speaker 2:No, people don't realize it.
Speaker 3:When I started my podcast and I got to episode 10, I thought that was a big deal and that's like, oh, this is really an amazing thing that that we're hanging in there so long and persevering, and you know, hats off to you too, amy, because I know you're doing a great job with your podcast, helping a lot of people, and it's wonderful to be here with you.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, and I've wanted to have you on for a while, but I wanted to also make it work right and so that the other seasons that I could have brought you on to talk about forgiveness, but this one fits. So I asked you for your favorite song, and it is a long one, so we're going to just jump right in it and I'm going to talk to you. Pick your brain. These conversations have been so sweet because they primarily so far I've only interviewed my friends and people that I know, and so the conversations have become really organic because people like you, who I've known for a couple of years and we're in Christian Podcast Association you know my heart and you know my audience, and so I believe that you could speak to them today.
Speaker 2:So what I am going to do is I am we're going to break the Psalm up into some a couple different verses. This is a Psalm of David, and this would be a question for you, james, before I read the first two verses would this be a Psalm of lament? Usually it says it, but in my version that I'm sitting in front right now does not, but I'm assuming it is a Psalm of lament. Would that be correct?
Speaker 3:I think it starts out that way, but it ends up as a victory lap, it ends up as praising God and it ends up with the, the full glory of God, being acknowledged and made manifest to the whole world. So I think that's indicative, maybe, of of you know we're in a challenge or facing a situation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Life, you know whether it's a daily thing or it's a whole season in our lives. You know we may have moments of lament that happens, it happens to everyone. But when we keep the end in mind and focus on that, it gets us through a lot quicker, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would agree with you and I and I think this Psalm because, as you know, of course, this, my listeners is a. This is a very niche podcast, and so my listeners are people coming here looking for hope, and I've said a few times on the podcast that I've already posted that I'm doing my dissertation on why do, why do some people who have been through trauma keep the faith, and why do some people fall away from the faith? And when I read this song, I thought you know what this literally could be a day in the life of a trauma survivor, whether they have PTSD or not. And so I want to break it down. So, the first two verses, let's talk about that. So the Psalmist starts off with and listeners, you're going to immediately go huh, felt that way, feel that way, feeling that way. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? By the way, does that sound like familiar words? Who else said that? Jesus said that on the cross.
Speaker 3:Right, jesus quoted that on the cross. I think a lot of people interpret that as thinking he was feeling forsaken. But I think he was saying go read Psalm 22, because there are a lot of passages in this Psalm that are really prophecies of what is taking place while he's on the cross. And he's saying go read the whole Psalm and you'll see who I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so, yeah, so we're, and we're going to do that. My God, my God, why have I forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me? So far from the words of my groaning, oh God? I cry out day by day, but you do not answer by night and am not silent. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One. So these first two verses is kind of like. So when we think about my listeners and the things that they've been through, or even the things that maybe you've been through or I've been through, when we say, my God, my God, why have? When I know it, not when I say it and I have said it like, where are you? Like I call it the John the Baptist moments, right when John John the Baptist went, when the disciples went to see him, he said, hey, can you guys ask Jesus a question for me? And they're like, yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:And you ask him is he coming or am I to expect somebody else? Right, and so could you speak to my listeners about this feeling of because we're going to go through this, we're going to hit the all the verses here, but from that perspective, like I want my listeners to not feel guilt and shame, for they could have written this my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me? Why are you silent? Do you have any encouragement for people like that?
Speaker 3:I do. I want to say to your listeners you use the word perspective and I think that's sort of put a light bulb off for me right now, because I think when we're in the middle of a problem and we don't know the answer, and even though we've prayed and we don't feel like God has answered our prayers, we feel abandoned. That's our perspective, but that sounds like what's really going on. God is still there, he didn't go anywhere, he didn't change, he's still his loving self. But we are so absorbed in whatever the problem is and our focus is on that Right. And I think this Psalm, as we go through it and we'll see the more we go through this Psalm we open up our vision to we Well, it starts out, verse three he starts praising God.
Speaker 3:I think that's the answer when you feel abandoned. I like to sing hymns. I just this morning God said open your hymn book and I just started to sing. I just flipped the book open.
Speaker 2:Which song? Whatever it was, which song was it?
Speaker 3:I don't remember what they were, you know, I just did them randomly and I didn't even know all the tunes, so I just read them and it was just a wonderful reminder to praise God, and I think that's and that's hard when you're stuck in the middle of something. You feel abandoned, you feel trounced on by some life experience or a person or a situation. It seems kind of counterintuitive to where you feel emotionally to praise God. But I think that's really I want to say to your listeners. That's the best solution. Amen.
Speaker 3:Because it gets your mind off the problem Right. It shifts your focus to the solution instead of focusing on the problem Right. And we're not kind of trying to ignore the problem, but we got to shift our focus.
Speaker 2:It shifts and focus him and a lot of my listeners are out there saying, yeah, but James, you don't know what I've been through. But let's, let's continue to read. So this Psalmist, David, we believe, wrote this is in despair. In the first two verses and then in verse three. It is as if he decides you know what, let me, let me shift my focus, Let me. One of my favorite things to do every morning when I wake up is quote Romans 12, one and two.
Speaker 2:I beseech you, therefore, brother and by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. But then that second verse but be transformed by the renewing of your minds that you may prove that which is good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And so let's trauma survivors. Think about waking up and going. Okay, I've asked why God is silent. I don't understand why he's silent. But let me tell you, let me say out loud, like you did with that hymn book this morning, what I do know about God. And so the same the same psalmist, david, says you're silent. And then in verse three, he says yet you are enthroned as the Holy One, you are the praise of Israel and you. All of our fathers put their trust. They trusted you and you delivered them. They cried and were saved. And you, they trusted and were not disappointed. Okay, so again, I want the listeners to see how this could be a day in the life, right? So now we're good, right, we've shifted our focus, as you said.
Speaker 3:And I think this is yeah. These, these next few verses you just read, are important because you're remembering how God has helped you or someone else in the past. That's really gratitude, and I think gratitude is one of the most powerful prayers I know. I know some of your listeners may be thinking, yeah, but I don't have anything to be grateful for. You can find something, you'll be. At least you can say I'm grateful to be alive, right, hopefully you feel that way, right, but even maybe it's just the way the sun is hitting the the side of the tree in the late afternoon, there is find some little, one tiny little thing you can be grateful for and start there.
Speaker 3:And I have probably not had some of the experiences your listeners have. I have had my share of, you know, really challenging situations where I didn't know which way I was going. You know I would just in a complete mental haze, but I kept turning to God and you know it. You may have to do it more than once. It just it's a process and but the gratitude and the acknowledgement of how maybe you don't feel like God has done anything in your life, think of, think of what you've seen them, god do in Amy's life, you say well, god, thank you for helping Amy to start somewhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's so important because we have an enemy that doesn't want us to stay in the, in the place where I just read but you, oh Lord, you did this like he's. Like he's, the psalmist is throwing things, but then he comes right back at it, and this is how easily this could happen, not just for trauma survivors, but for all of us, because you hit the nail on the head, james. I think gratitude is the thing that heals wounds. It leads us to the cross, because when we think of things to be grateful for, some of my, some of my listeners are not going to say I'm grateful, I woke up this morning, because they don't want to be awake, but they would be able to say I am grateful for something. And then, in doing that, I think that we just build these little ships up to God. But we're human beings and even though God has done so much in my life, I found myself where we read the so.
Speaker 2:So the psalmist first says woe is me, you don't listen to me. And then he goes. But you're great, look at all the things you've done. But then he goes. That here's, and this is a. This is very true about my audience, but I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people, all the people that see me. They mock me, they hurl insults, they're shaking their heads. He trust in the Lord. Let the Lord rescue him, let him deliver him, since he delights in him.
Speaker 2:So we have this little moment, this little shift where where the psalmist forgets the things that he just said, that all the things that the Lord has done. And again, this, literally, is a day in the life of any human being, right. And so, james, how do you think when we get into that, oh, I'm just a worm, I'm just a zero, with the room rubbed out, I'm not worth anybody doing anything. For what? And I think gratitude, again, might be the answer to that. But when people get in that despair, like your faithfulness was for them, lord, not for me.
Speaker 3:Right. It always seems harder when you're working the situation, working through something you know. I think this shows you. Talk about this shift back and forth between, oh my gosh, things are terrible. Okay, but God, I know you're there to help me. Oh, but things are terrible. We were like a little flip flop toy sometimes and I think at any point we could stop and just give up.
Speaker 3:But this psalm shows that, even through those natural going back and forth of you know, turning to God, and then we get back, absorbed in the problem. We think, well is me, and then we come back to God, and that's exactly what happens next, because then he goes back. Do you have that in front of you? Yeah, it says. Verse nine says yet you brought me out of the womb, you made me trust in you, even at my mother's breast. From birth I was cast on you from my mother's womb, you have been my God. So he's coming back to God as his, really his. His origin story that's his true origin story is that God has been with him since it was in his mother's womb, since before birth.
Speaker 2:James, when I read that part though I'm sorry I didn't interrupt you, but I want to make sure I make this point when I read that part, you know as a survivor of trauma and as somebody that worries about basic safety and fearful that I'm going to live in my car and all of the things when I read that, it was like from birth you taught me to trust you because I knew that my mom was my substance. I mean like it was like mind blowing to me, like from that very moment you provided Jehovah Jireh, my need. From the beginning you taught me to trust you. And then life undoes that and redos, as we see in the song.
Speaker 3:And I love the wording there. We think we have to do it all, we have to have a stronger faith, and that's true to some degree. But God is teaching us to trust him. God is giving us the strength and the ability. He created us with the ability to trust him, but he's the one that's empowering that. It's not us, through our human will or our determination or rolling up our sleeves. We can only do it with God's help.
Speaker 2:That's right, which is a great segue into verse 11, where the Psalmist now just strips down it all right. He says do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. And then, and so he begins to talk about the things that are coming. Many bulls surround me, roaring lions tearing their prey. This is one of my favorite verses in the entire Bible, verse 14. I am poured out like water and all my bones are ill a joint, my heart is turned to wax, my strength is dried up like a postured and my tongue sticks to the root of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me, a band so he's telling God all the things I can count, all my bones, which much the meant that he was not eating.
Speaker 2:People stare and glowed over me. But in verse 19, verse 19, james. But you, oh Lord, be not far off. Oh, my strength, come quickly to help me. Deliver my life from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the lions. I will declare your name to my brothers. So, james, what I love about you and your podcast is it's incredibly organic and you are very encouraging for listeners to be real with God. What David just did there was like just in case you're all knowing God, who taught me to trust you from birth, just in case you don't know what's going on, all this stuff's going on. Can you help? What do you think, james? And you don't know this, obviously, but what does the heart of God look like when we say help?
Speaker 3:I think, just from my perspective, that's a really good question. I think we should ask that question more often. What does the heart of God feel? What do the eyes of God see? How does the love of God take in all this stuff? And I think it's very different from our perspective.
Speaker 3:I think when we turn to God, I've had so many times in my life where I've tried or I've tried to get others to help solve the problem and I finally get to the point where I say, okay, god, I can't figure this out, I can't do this. Nothing has worked. All these things I've tried don't work. I need help. You're the only one that can help me, you're the only one that can give me the answer. And it's at that moment of humility where I think God bursts into song. The Bible says God sings over us with joy, joy, and that's hard sometimes too. I remember the first time I thought about that. I said why would he sing over joy about me? I'm just a little old, me, I'm nobody important. But to God he doesn't see all these challenges you've had, all the trauma you've experienced. He doesn't define you that way.
Speaker 3:He doesn't see that as part of who you are. It may have happened to you, you may have gone through it, but it's like a kid playing in the mud or being thrown in the mud or mud thrown at him. The mud never is part of the kid.
Speaker 2:You bring a man.
Speaker 3:You hose him down, then you bring him in, give him a bath and the mud cleans off and I think it's through God's love that all this trauma stuff, it can be washed away. It may take a little scrubbing to get it all out from under the fingernails, but it's not part of you, it's not part of the way God originally created you in his image and likeness and I think I just think that's an important part there. When we start to get a glimpse of that, I think it brings great joy to God's heart when we realize he's the only solution and he's the only and we have to go with how he sees us instead of how the world has treated us.
Speaker 2:Wow, okay, we have Mike Draught moments on this podcast and that's one of them, right, and so the Wednesdays with Watson podcast exists to help people understand how God sees you, instead of what you've been through. You know, I love that verse. I know it's in Matthew and it may be in the other gospels, but Jesus is telling a parable and his question to the disciples is what good father, whose son asked him for a fish, gives him a serpent, or a sword, or something I can't remember the second thing he asked for, or a scorpion. I remember the bad things. That is who God is and I realize that a good majority of my listeners are going. But what kind of good God would let me go through all of this stuff and we don't have time to dive deep into that. But we see, in Psalm 22, like I said, david did that right and he's back and forth, back and forth, saying Lord, please be with me. You're the one that taught me from birth. So he continues to tell about the plight of man. As you read through that, and then he talks about in verse 25, from you comes the theme of my praise. So if you're thinking, how can I be thankful? How can I be grateful you can ask, like David did. From you comes the theme of my praise, the great assembly, and so ask him help. And I just think of the heart of God in that verse. Like what good father, if a child asked for a fish, would give him a serpent. And so if our listeners, like David did, went back and forth, like in that verse 22, he said I will declare your name to my brothers. That is what you and I are doing right now, because we have some lived experiences and we've been through some things. We are declaring God to our brothers. But so I just want to continue to read. So then he says I'm going to declare you to your brothers.
Speaker 2:And then now, now David has turned into a preacher, right so. So he's gone from oh, my word, life stinks to. Oh, this is who God is. And then all my life, oh my word, here's my plight again, and really calls out God and says you're the one that created me, you're the one that taught me to trust from for my substance, really from my mothers. I'm your job, okay. And then he says I'm going to tell everybody that I know about this. And then we pick up in verse 23, you who fear the Lord. Now he's a preacher. Okay, you who fear the Lord, praise him. All you descendants of Jacob, honor him, revere him all you descendants of Israel, for he is not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one. He has not hidden his face from him, but he has listened to his cry for help.
Speaker 3:That really kind of contradicts the first two verses, doesn't?
Speaker 2:it yes.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't say contradict, but it means it's a different perspective. Like I said, we think we've been abandoned, we think God's not listening, but now he's realizing. David is saying oh well, I know you always. It's kind of like Jesus said in front of Lazarus's tomb I know you always hear my prayer, and that's. That's a hard place to get sometimes, but it's a model to strive for anyway.
Speaker 2:Psalm 22 is definitely. I could not agree. I just want to read that verse again, for he is not despised or disdain the suffering of the afflicted one. He has not hidden his face from him, but his listened to his cry for help. And guys, the other thing I want you to remember is the Bible says that suffering produces in you a peculiar sense of glory. And in Romans I believe it's chapter eight, verse 58, the Bible says for I reckon that the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us. And so, james, you're right. In verse two he's like you don't? You don't listen to me. And now he's saying he is not despised, he is not disdained the suffering or the afflicted one.
Speaker 3:And I think that that has helped me and I hope your listeners will take this to heart that you know you don't need to blame yourself, you don't need to feel guilty or shame when you're going through some kind of a challenge, even if you've been part of the problem right. Sometimes we make some mistakes and mess our life up even worse than the other situations do, but even even in those cases as well, he's not turning his face away from you. He is there with you to each step of the way, and I think I think that's what David is feeling here when he says that of course, god has not abandoned us. We may not understand it, we may not see it from his perspective yet, but he's there with us and we just need to kind of curl up under his wing.
Speaker 3:That mother bird image that Isaiah talks about in chapter 66 of Isaiah is we need to curl up under God's wing sometime, and we don't have to figure it all out. We just need to let and accept. Let him love us, accept his love, because you are worthy of God's love. You don't have to earn it. You, you and and what some people say you don't deserve God's love. I think we do deserve God's love. Like you were saying, jesus said a father wouldn't give a son a serpent. Of course you deserve God's love and it's free flowing all the time. We don't always accept it, but it's always there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's so huge and and and everybody not just trauma survivors who are listening, but but that love that is free flowing and that healing power of the fact that it's a, it's a. It's a contradiction in some way, and the minds of some people and I and I'm actually doing my dissertation on this this very topic is how people use religious coping, both positive and negative, to deal with complex trauma. But I want to dive in a little bit deeper and find out why some people keep the faith Like I've had. I had a dark night of my soul but I had to go back in journals and stuff and and kind of figure out well, why am I different from people who are unable to accept this verse and songs where he is not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one? You know Romans 12, 12 tells us to be patient and and affliction, and so when I look back at some of those journals it James, it was really just that perspective shift every morning when I woke up even though it was a painful awakening, like I woke up in the in the emotional pain and and the physical symptoms that come with trauma.
Speaker 2:During those times. I remember one time standing near a closet, closet. I was getting something out of my closet and the grief had. So this was very early. When I left my domestic violence marriage the grief had so overtaken me that I just grabbed the wall because I was going, I was going down and I just said to the Lord then listen, either you were God or you are not.
Speaker 2:And I didn't like my life Without God. I did not like there's. I can't wrap my head around dealing with life in general, much less trauma Without God. Do I? Could I have write some songs myself, like David did? Absolutely we all could. But I hope that Psalm 22 Shows people like, first of all, there's no shame and being in the depths of despair. There's not even any sin and being in depths in despair, but the power of your choice, which is what I believe got me to where I am the power of the choice to keep going the church, to keep opening my Bible, even if I threw it across the room the day before, keep listening, and that's that's a true, that's actually an actually a true story and you know what, and that's okay, we're be you.
Speaker 3:Be honest with yourself where you are. Don't don't put on a show of pretending you know. Be honest with how you feel and the situation, but Be like David and I would. I would encourage anyone to Come back and and if you, you know, try the gratitude, try the praising God, try the acknowledging and remembering the thing. Just, you know. It's like you know, if you, if you put a cup under the faucet and you turn the water on, it fills up, if you Do some of these that's not the best example, but if you do some of these practices. Yeah, my wife and I have a gratitude practice.
Speaker 3:Every night before we go to bed, we each think of three things we're grateful for love that usually it's more than three, but something that happened during the day can be bigger, small and just keeps us thanking God for right, the little things of life. Right, because here's the thing that's an important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's very. Gratitude is so important to healing Emotional wounds and trauma. It just is because if we posture ourselves as and I'm gonna use this word and I'm gonna, I'm gonna use it very carefully but if we posture ourselves as a victim, then that's what we're going to be. But if we, if we do like David did, instead I don't are like I did that day when I threw my Bible across the room like I Don't understand you, and then a few few hours later, I came back and picked the Bible off the floor and I said but I'm going to try, because there is no other, there is no better option for me, right?
Speaker 2:The other options include substance abuse, includes Loneliness, includes isolating myself from friends, includes not being in church community. The other options of not trusting in God, as as as he says in this Psalm, I taught you from the literal day you were born to to depend on me First for your substance, and so think about that. Let's talk about the fact that from the get-go, he equipped us to trust him, and Then life happens.
Speaker 3:I would have said I want to just come Think about the image of a little baby that's a week old and God is teaching him something you know from. As a parent of a a week old baby, I wouldn't think that I could teach my baby a whole lot. But God is teaching now with words and and books or manuscripts and all that stuff. It's a spiritual process and I think that spirit God is still In our hearts, teaching us, guiding us, and we can respond to that. I mean, when the Sun comes up in the morning, you can either stay in the dark or you can open your shade and let the sunshine in. Hmm, you don't have to get mad. Well, there's no sunlight in the room. Well, open the shade and the shade, yeah, and that's a great.
Speaker 2:That's a great point and and it's something that I'm going to you know, just say again on this podcast is there is help out there, period. And, to use your analogy, if you're in the depths of despair and you can't get out of the first two verses of Psalm 22, where, where, where, david says my god, my god, why have you forsaken me? Why don't you listen to me? You don't answer your silent, if you don't choose to try to move out of that perspective, then your life is going to continue to feel very dark and very sad and very isolated. And I'm not here to tell you that this is an easy process. I'm also not here to tell you that I understand God. I don't understand many things, that he's doing this on this very day or that he's done in my life, but I do know that we all, all of us have a choice. We can decide that God is sovereign and that we don't understand him sometimes. One day, in glory, we will.
Speaker 2:I love this new concept that I just heard called already, but not yet. Like we already have all things new, but not yet. We already have the kingdom of God, but not yet. But these things belong to us. We are joint heirs with Jesus. Such power, amen. Such power you know.
Speaker 3:I think I just want to Touch on what you just said. When Jesus started his ministry he's, he said, as we all know, believe the gospel, repent and believe the gospel. What was the gospel? His good news was that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Right, that was really his overarching message. When he sent his disciples out, the 12 and the 70, he said go tell everybody about the kingdom. He didn't say, oh, tell them. They're miserable sinners and all this stuff. He was saying tell them about the glory of my father and his kingdom, where God's completely in control, all these things. You can imagine what heaven is. And that was the original good news.
Speaker 3:And I think Jesus saw so clearly that that kingdom is at hand. It's here right now. We just can't see it with the material Eyes are touching it. You know, the five material senses just can't take it in. Paul says that in verse Corinthians 2, 9 and 10. But it's here and I think the more we can bear witness to or just say, okay, I I accept that I don't see it yet, I don't understand it yet, but I know it has to be true, because Jesus said so. I'm gonna trust that Because we walk by faith and not by sight. You know, the more I have gotten a glimpse at, this, kingdom is at hand. God is in control right this moment, even though it doesn't seem like it. That's when some of the mud starts to wash off from my the mess I've made of my life or that you know other situations.
Speaker 2:I love that analogy about the mud, like so for trauma survivors. There are things that leave marks for some of us. They leave literal marks on our brains and our physical bodies. But the way to get that out is, in fact, to go to the mat with God. Who can handle it? You think of Jacob and his wrestle with the angel. He's like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not letting go until you bless me. And that was the experience I had when I threw my Bible across the room and then the next day, when I literally had to hold myself up on the the wall, I Almost said those words I will not let go until you bless me, and what I meant by that is I will not let go until I Fill your presence. But do you know what happens when we draw near to God? Hebrews tells us he draws near to us, and so, guys, if you're out there and you're like Amy James, y'all don't know you're right, we don't.
Speaker 2:We do not know your sufferings, but we know that we have a God who is interested in your sufferings. We have a God who is not ringing his hands up in heaven about your sufferings and we have a God who will walk you through your sufferings. And I am so grateful to also proclaim that we have a God who will allow you to use your sufferings, like Paul says in my life verse in Philippians 1 12, I want you to know the things that have happened have really happened, to further the gospel, and you can get there with your pain and with your trauma doesn't mean life is perfect. There are days I can write the first few verses of this out and to God myself, but Then I have to speak truth about who he is, like David did here. And Then I have to admit I know you provided me, you've always provided for me. Here we are again when I'm in the depths and despair and feel like you don't listen. This is the drawing there to God and I am here to tell you. When people ask me all the time, how, how are you okay? If you know the totality of my story, how are you okay?
Speaker 2:First I would say let's define okay. But secondly, I would say two things. One is I have a community of people who will not let me Stay in the depths of despair. I'm grateful for them, and my listeners may have a single human being who will not let them stay in the depths of despair. Be grateful for them, start there. So my church community for sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:And secondly, I Decided God is God and I am not. Do not understand him. I Do not understand him. I Would not and I continue to say this on this podcast I would not choose what I've been through, but I would not change it, because I have the kind of opportunity that David did in this song to go deep and To and to and to trust in a God so much that you can say you are not talking to me and then, five minutes later, oh, but you do talk to me, you, you do sustain me, you have not forgotten us. But that if you feel poured out like water that's one of my favorite verses of this song you feel and that's Verse 14, I think I am poured out like water. All my bones are all adjoint, my heart has turned to wax. So for the listener that feels like that today, just one shift in your perspective. What's one thing you can be grateful for? What's one attribute of God? The mic is yours for the remainder of the podcast, james.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, I just want to say, especially some of those verses that really Paint the picture of what Jesus was going through on the cross. You know, nobody there except Jesus knew what was gonna happen in three days. They thought think of this if you'd been one of the twelve disciples, or some of his followers, mary Magdalene or his mother at the foot of the cross. And they're thinking, oh my gosh, how could God allow this to happen? You know, we're looking at things from our limited perspective and, literally, when it says my bones are all out of joint, that's what happens when you're when a body is crucified. He was all dried up. You know he was thirsty. He said I thirst. That was part of this whole thing going on, you know. But we know what happened now that it wasn't the end of the story and I find that Incredibly encouraging. Well, if Jesus could endure all that, I can get through. God can get me through whatever Little problem comparative to the crucifixion. I mean, the thing about the crucifixion was it wasn't just Jesus Going through this personally, he took on the whole sense of the world. He took on the whole sense of the whole world forever. I mean it was more than just a personal trauma or, you know, pain that he was going through. It was much bigger than that. So, whatever you're going through, whatever Amy or I have been through, this, it's small in comparison, and so that's helped me realize okay, god got Jesus through that whole situation. He can get me through my, my situation, he can get you through your situation, and I think it's okay.
Speaker 3:We have a hymn in our hymn book says that one line is during the battle, the victory claim. Even in the midst of battle with All the evils of the world or the challenges are facing, I think we can say I'm gonna claim this victory in the name of God. Right now, I know that God is victorious always. And and it may seem like hollow Words, yeah, try it anyway. Right, try it anyway. You know. It may seem, it may seem like you're a hypocrite, but that's Actually the devil trying to make you think you're a hypocrite. All right, he doesn't want you to claim the victory during the battle, right, but. But we can do that, and I think this song gives us that. And because we know what happened, david Did emerge victorious. Jesus, who fulfilled the prophecies in the song and made it emerge victorious. And so why can't this be a prophecy for you?
Speaker 2:and me your listeners, anyone.
Speaker 3:It's a prophecy for our victory too, and part of the end of this song is that we're sharing our victory with others. We're telling others about God's glory and you know, you may not feel like you can do that yet, but at some point you will and you'll share your victory and that will help them, and then they'll Find their victory and they'll help someone else. It's like this has been going on for thousands of years. Right, is we're pat or paying it forward, so?
Speaker 2:to speak. Amen, yeah, it's. And and the rest of that song that just talks about from you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly, because those who fear you, I will fulfill my vows. Talks about the poor will eat and be satisfied. They, those that seek the Lord, will praise him the end of the earth. We will remember to turn to the Lord. All families and nations will bow down before him. The Dominion belongs to the Lord. He rules over the nations. All the rich and the earth will feast and worship and all those that Go down to the dust will kneel before him. Those who not cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve them. Future generations will be told about the Lord and the last verse. They will proclaim his righteousness. Today to a people yet and this speaks to just what you just said this speaks to a nation that is yet unborn, and I love the NIV's last, the last words, for he has done it, yeah yeah, let that sink in Right, for he has done it.
Speaker 2:He has done it in spite of our misunderstandings of him as a punitive God, despite all the things he has done it. And so, guys, as we, as as Phil Baker's song plays us out of the podcast song called Mark by you, may you be marked by him I do want to extend an invitation to you. If you don't know Jesus or you want to know more about Jesus, both mine and James's contact information will be in the show notes. Click right there. Either one of us would be happy to introduce to who we call on this podcast the star of the story, because he redeems it all. He will make it all new and we are living in a already but not yet promised co-heirs, joiners with Jesus. Let's live like it.
Speaker 2:I understand, as a trauma survivor, that you can't just paint over it, but you can go to that with God, because you are going to be reminded of his goodness, like we see in this song. And so, until two weeks when we come back with another one of my friends and fellow podcasters, we want you to remember what I always say when I leave and, james, I proclaim this over you and I proclaim it over my listeners you are seen, you are known, you are heard, you are loved and you are so, so valued. Thank you, james, for being here today.
Speaker 3:Hey, thanks Amy so much and thank you for everybody who's listening. God bless you.
Speaker 2:All right, guys. We'll see you guys in two weeks. Remember James podcast. The bible speaks to you will be in the show notes life I will remember how you you never fail me.
Speaker 1:You have pulled me out from the depths. You have saved me from certain death. You have shown yourself faithful to me over and over Jesus. So let my life glorify you and teach me to walk beside you. I want to be more like you, so let my life be more marked by you, marked by you, marked by you.