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The Father's Business Podcast
The Father's Business Podcast
Summer Series: Safe in the Father's Heart-When Trust Becomes Your Greatest Weapon
Trust becomes our most powerful weapon in a world constantly whispering doubts about God's goodness. Sylvia Gunter's raw testimony of caring for her absent father during his final days reveals the complicated intersection of duty, disappointment, and divine purpose.
"It doesn't feel like love, but I choose to trust." These words capture the essence of faith when circumstances feel anything but good. Since the Garden of Eden, the enemy's oldest tactic has been questioning God's trustworthiness—a lie that echoes through our pain, waiting, and suffering. But what happens when we deliberately choose trust as our response?
This episode concludes with the powerful Shield of Trust Prayer, offering declarations that build a fortress of faith when circumstances feel overwhelming. If you're navigating disappointment, betrayal, or unanswered prayers, this conversation offers both compassionate understanding and practical wisdom for choosing trust as your weapon against doubt.
The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God. I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
Speaker 2:And I am Kimberly Roddy. Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast. We are so glad that you've joined us.
Speaker 1:Hey friends, elizabeth here, kimberly and I are so excited about Rooted and Resilient coming up October 3rd and 4th in Charlotte, north Carolina. Over the course of this weekend we will dig into God's Word together to help you step out of striving and into rest, align with God's truth and live from the deep well of who he created you to be. This is for anyone who's ready to deepen their walk with God and live with a fresh sense of purpose and wholeness. And here's the best part when you bring someone with you, you both save. It's only $80 each when you register together. So go to thefathersbusinesscom to sign up today. Rooted and Resilient, october 3rd and 4th in Charlotte Come expectant for what God will do.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone, welcome back to our summer series. Thanks for being with us today. Today's episode is a vulnerable one and a foundational one from our Safe in the Father's Heart series. It's the episode called Trust is a Weapon. The enemy's oldest tactic since the Garden of Eden has been to whisper the question can you really trust God? And that same lie, that same question, echoes over and over again through our pain, our waiting, our disappointments, our suffering. In this episode, sylvia shares how choosing to trust even when it doesn't make sense, became the way that she fought back as this series continues to share some of her story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is about a hard season and, again, a time when I just watched my mom and I was like how are you able to do this? Because this is the part of her story where my grandfather, her father, her natural father, is sick and dying and there's no one to take care of him, and so my mom steps in and so you'll hear the raw emotion of disappointment and duty colliding. Where I questioned her at the time, he was never there for you. Why are you spending a lot of time? And it took a lot to take care of him towards the end and a lot of her week and weekends to be there for him, and it just took a lot of trusting that God had her back in the midst of all of that. So you're going to hear about what does it look like to trust God when his goodness doesn't feel good?
Speaker 2:And that's it. That's the part that no one likes to talk about. When his goodness doesn't feel good the gap between what we know is true and what we feel right we can say that God is good. But when life doesn't feel like God is good, that is where trust becomes a weapon Again. It's not a blind denial of the pain or anything like that. It's an intentional choice, and it's an intentional choice to say, even here, even here in this disappointment, even here in this moment where I don't feel that you're good, I will believe that you are good, I will believe that you are here with me.
Speaker 1:And that's what makes this topic so important. Trust at its core is relational. You can't have love without trust, and you certainly can't grow deeper in your walk with the Father without learning to trust Him, even in the middle of the messiness.
Speaker 2:There's a line in this episode where Sylvia says it doesn't feel like love, but I choose to trust. I think that's a powerful line and it's that kind of trust that slays the lies, the lies that say God's forgotten about you, that he's holding out on you, that you're on your own. It's trust that silences the accuser and all that he wants to deceive you with.
Speaker 1:I so relate to this episode because it does feel like there's just always an assault on the heart of my heart and the heart of other believers, because, I mean, one of the names of the enemy is the accuser, and the Bible says that he is the accuser of the brethren. I think he is also the accuser of God wanting to whisper into our ear he's not there for you, he's not going to be there for you, you can't trust Him. And so we'll also hear in this episode about waiting. I don't like the topic of waiting, and yet it's in the waiting when our trust in the goodness of God is really tested.
Speaker 1:We make several jokes with my mom about patience, because she doesn't have any. She says we have said that she has the patients of a mayfly because they only live 24 hours. I have recently told her that the P in her name stands for patients and she's like there's no P there and I'm like you're right, because you're not patient. She loves to quote a famous football coach who says I don't have a problem with patience because I don't have any, and she wears that as a badge of honor. So we will talk with someone who really does not like to wait on anything about. What is it like for God to show up in the waiting? How do you keep clinging to truth even when answers are slow?
Speaker 2:And we close this episode today with a very powerful prayer. It's called the Shield of Trust Prayer and again it's read by our friend Richard that we mentioned last week, who you heard. It's full of scripture and full of deep, deep truth. If you're weary, unsure or in a battle, let those words wash over you. This is a moment to take a pause, a breath, to recenter yourself in the truth that God is trustworthy, that he's here, even in the now. So wherever this finds you walking through grief, betrayal or just the quiet ache of unanswered prayers, listen in today and receive what God has for you. Well, welcome everybody to this week's podcast.
Speaker 1:We are focusing in on chapter 11 in Safe in the Father's Heart. That is called Trust is a Weapon, and I had some time this week to be able to get together with my mom and just have a bit of a conversation with her. We talked a little bit about some follow-up questions I had from the story that she shared over the last couple of podcasts and also just kind of get her perspective on the idea of trust and why it's so important. And so let's listen in on my conversation with her, all right.
Speaker 3:Here we are. Yes, here I am. Here you are.
Speaker 1:Here I am, here you are. So over the last couple of weeks, mom, you have read portions from the book that are the continuation of your story. Yes, and so I just wanted to ask a few follow-up questions about all that. I mean, I was there. I remember, when we called him, grandpa Tom showed up for the first time, and I mentioned this on the podcast.
Speaker 1:I didn't really have a whole lot of skin in the game, because your mom had married a wonderful man who had always been my granddad. Yeah, and he was in my life before I was even born. Yes, he was. So I didn't really have this aching need for another grandfather. I already had two, right? Yes, so, but just, I just don't remember a lot. But I remember vague memories of him coming to our house and trying to be a part of our family and then hearing that things didn't go as well as you hoped, that there was still some dishonesty there. Oh, absolutely yes, so then he kind of drifted back out of the picture, but at the end of his life, you're the one who took care of him. Yes, I was, and I always have wondered why.
Speaker 3:Well, I am firstborn and I am programmed to do what I'm supposed to do, what I need to do as I see it. So here is the thing Many of you will recognize this phrase and identify with it. If I didn't do it, who would?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but how many different times through your life growing up did you need your dad there and he wasn't?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, that's exactly what my brother said, I know.
Speaker 1:I remember. I remember him saying he wasn't there for me, so I'm not going to be there for him.
Speaker 3:Yes, he totally opted out of the whole thing at the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and some would say that's a normal response.
Speaker 3:Oh, I believe so, yes, I agree, yes so what in your heart made you respond differently? I wanted some assurance that he had made a commitment to Jesus as his Savior. Okay, and at the end he said he had, but there really wasn't much evidence in his life.
Speaker 1:Do you agree? I honestly never got to know him, because he came into our life as a stranger and then pretty quickly showed his true colors and was no longer around.
Speaker 1:That's exactly what happened, I don't remember. I mean, he was extremely tall that's where our family gets our height from but beyond that I don't really remember that much about him. But okay, I understand that Playing devil's advocate with you for a minute. So, yes, you want to make sure of his salvation, but that's just a visit or two to a nursing home. You, like fully took on the care of your dad. Yes, I did.
Speaker 3:Why? I can't tell you why I did it. He needed it. He was an old man who needed it.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:So did it. He needed it.
Speaker 1:He was an old man who needed it, okay, so um, and that's not like me to be merciful, as you know, no, but you are very duty bound.
Speaker 3:Duty bound is right, you've been duty bound since you were born.
Speaker 1:Yes, and honestly, I think some of that is because your parents were already contemplating divorce while you were still in the womb. Yes, that's right. So I think from the womb, the message was I have to be responsible for myself and everyone else around me. Oh, that's right. So, yeah, yeah, so no, that part, I understand. What did you I mean? What did you do with your emotions? Because this man hasn't been there for you and even when he shows back up in your life, he's still not really there for you.
Speaker 1:You didn't get the storybook ending you wanted. And now you're having to care for him, and I do remember he was in a nursing home down towards the coast and there's a few times he had to be evacuated because a hurricane was coming. That's exactly right. And so he came to your house and you were his full-time caregiver. Yes, which we know real well how exhausting emotionally, physically, spiritually that is. Yes, what did you do with your emotions and those abandonment issues in the middle of all that?
Speaker 3:Well, I did what you always do I stuffed them. They just didn't exist.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you stuffed them, but, like we've talked before, the imagery of you try to hold a beach ball under the water yes, because you just don't want to deal with it, but it's going to pop up somewhere, it sure is. So when and where and how did all of that ever come to the surface?
Speaker 3:When he died, I was relieved that it was all over and I just gave it to God and said I just don't want to, I can't deal with this any longer. So I allowed my Papa God to come and heal.
Speaker 1:And he is true, and he will never mistreat me, but there's been some times in the last few years of this journey you've wondered if Papa God, was mistreating you. Oh, yes, if we're honest, what has been your question over the last several years of struggling through dad's health and Alzheimer's?
Speaker 3:That was hard. That was hard. That was hard. I have said, god, it does not feel like you're being good or kind. Honestly, I said, if this is your goodness, I don't want any of it. So it was hard, but in the end God has the final say and I have to believe him. Trust him that I'm going to give you the Romans 828 answer. That Romans 828 is still in the Bible and it's overused and misquoted, but it's still true. All things happen for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
Speaker 1:So I think sometimes our definition of good and God's are a little different.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that's where the rub comes in?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I think we have a definition of what a good day, a good life? Oh, certainly we do. What's your definition of a good life? Oh, certainly we do. What's your?
Speaker 3:definition of a good day, when everything goes right and the sun's shining and people around me are happy and everyone does what you want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, yes. That's my definition of a good day I get what I want when I want it, how I want it, yes, at the speed that I want it. You know, there's the important one. Yes, yeah, so we're talking this week on our podcast. You titled this chapter Trust is a Weapon, which is an interesting title, so talk to me about why is trust. Thinking through your own life story with your dad and then how you were able to understand God as father in a totally different way, why is trust so important and foundational?
Speaker 3:Well, it started in the garden and God made Adam and Eve for relationship with himself and with each other. Trust is important, because you can't really have relationship without trust. If God forced us to love him, we would be robots.
Speaker 1:Actually, if we were robots, we wouldn't have the capacity to love right, but you're saying we, in order for there to be love and trust, there has to be free will and a choice.
Speaker 3:Yes, free will and a choice, yeah, and looking back in the garden, of all the things that the enemy could have come to adam and eve, with basically eve first, but adam was there. To Adam and Eve, with basically Eve first, but Adam was there, is that you can't trust.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that somehow God's holding out on them. Yes, somehow God's holding out on them. And you know, yes, he says don't eat this tree. But you know that nothing's really going to happen to you if you do.
Speaker 3:And not only that you'll be as wise as he is.
Speaker 1:And he's just trying to hold out on you, and so he can't be trusted.
Speaker 3:That's what the whole issue in the garden was that God can't be trusted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's easy for us to sit back and go well, silly Adam and Eve, they had everything else in the garden. I mean, I can't even begin to fathom, truly, what did paradise feel like? Sound like, I mean, look like, I mean all the senses. And you know, I'm sure there's that part of each of us that thinks, well, I wouldn't have done it, right, right, serpent comes up to me, me, but each of us in our own lives, like you just said, you couldn't handle it, so you just shoved it off the side. Or or we run to things. Yeah, our broken cistern. Yes, yeah, we broke run to our broken cistern. So, each in our own way, almost on a daily basis, the enemy's like god can't really be trusted. Yeah, he can't really help you with this wounded place, he can't meet this need. So let's go over here and meet it yourself.
Speaker 3:Even now I think I'm just not going to think about that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is another way, which is another broken system that is another broken system. Yeah, that is Because, instead of bringing the hurt to God, allowing his living water to come and fill you and restore you, you're choosing. I'm going to handle it by just pushing it off to the side.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's exactly what I did.
Speaker 1:It's not exactly denial, because I know it's there, I'm just not going to think about it or I'm going to say it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:It never works out that way, though, does it? No? It doesn't. No. If only it were that easy. Yeah, because it comes out somewhere else, switching lines a little bit. When you were reading your story, there was something that really made me mad. I mean, I knew it, but as I listened to you read your story, I got mad all over again, and I mentioned it on the podcast because I was like, as the daughter I'm allowed to give commentary, but when your uncle called you and said I found your father. Here's his phone number, he's expecting a call from you. I thought that was really uncool of him.
Speaker 3:That was controlling, manipulative. It was dirty pool. Everybody needs the freedom to approach forgiving and relationship at their own pace, and he forced me to do something I was not ready to do. I lay on the floor in my bedroom crying, quoting scripture to myself, scripture to myself. I'm just trying to convince myself that I had what it took within me to make that phone call, and it was the most awkward phone call of my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean again, we'll go back to Romans 8, 28,. God works all things together for the good, but it just makes me wonder was that God's timing?
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm sure it wasn't. I'm convinced that it was not.
Speaker 1:Was that really God's? I mean, this is where you get into this tricky thing of God is sovereign, but we as humans have choices and make decisions, and so he's in all of it. I mean, he met you in that place, but it's just like was it God's plan for you ever to see your father again? I don't know, I don't know either, but I kind of land on if God really wanted you to talk to your father, he could make that happen. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Your uncle didn't need to get involved and force the issue. He was a man with problems and he was very controlling. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, wow, we just have a great family lineage going on here, mom, thanks. Appreciate that Great heritage, even in that, when you were forced into doing things you didn't want to do and then he showed up and it wasn't the way you thought it was, and then in the end, you have to take care of a man who was in no way there for you, god was in all of that, yes. So looking back now and you're 82 years of 82 years, I own it, she owns it 82 years of wisdom. From the perspective looking back over your entire life, what is your perspective now on your dad and on who God is in the midst of that?
Speaker 3:I had to find out that God was loving and was there for me in spite of that. So he was not a positive influence in my opinion, but a negative one, and I found God to be faithful and good and there, in spite of him, I'm not alone in that. There are plenty of people who've had a similar relationship with their father.
Speaker 1:And we've talked before on the podcast. In those moments you're going to go one of two ways. Either it's going to push you into the arms of God more and you're going to appreciate God as Father on a deeper level, because you didn't have that from your early father, or you're going to run the other way yes, and I think you see that to some degree between you and your brother.
Speaker 3:Yes, oh, he was not going to have anything to do with that. He was bitter. He definitely ran the other way, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean the great news is later in his story. He does come to a saving faith of Jesus and life changed for him. But I remember growing up watching him run after anything other than God, because he was, and it wasn't just anger, there was a hurt there, there was a very deep hurt there that you also had, but yours pushed you into the arms of God and his, for a season, pushed him away.
Speaker 1:Yes, it did. When you look, when you think about your dad now, what is your perspective on him? When you think about your dad now, what is your perspective?
Speaker 3:on him. Now, when I think about my father I don't call him, dad Did you hear that, oh yeah, no, no, no, he wasn't a dad.
Speaker 1:I call him your birth father. I mean honestly.
Speaker 3:Let's be honest.
Speaker 1:Let's be honest, he's your DNA and that was about it. So, yeah, so I use the word dad just because that's what I always called my dad. But your father, your earthly father, what is your perspective now on your earthly father?
Speaker 3:I realize now he was a very wounded man himself but that did not give him permission to wound others. But you know it's axiomatic that wounded people wound others and it's very sad that he never got the healing that he needed. He was a louse to the end. From my sweet grandmother, who had very little, he stole $3,000, which in those days was a lot of money, and it hurt her deeply. But that's just who he was.
Speaker 1:And I also want to point out I do love you know you talk about when we have done rocks in the past that in everybody's family line you've got the sin and the wickedness that comes down, but you also have a generational blessings that flow down from generations, and I was an adult before I fully understood and realized just how much his parents, your grandparents, stepped in and loved you and loved your mom, even after he was gone. They were amazingly loving and caring and even your Pawpaw Dame was a lot of that father figure that you didn't have. And it's like you know he's gone. These people no longer have an obligation to you because their son has left, and yet they stayed to you. Because their son has left, and yet they stayed and they loved you and they cared for you and so that's. I see that as part of the generational blessings that's flowing down from your family line that wouldn't have been there if he hadn't been your father, I think of that sometimes and I make the same concessions that you do.
Speaker 3:It wasn't good, but it turned out good.
Speaker 1:It did turn out good and you dearly loved your grandparents and they invested a lot in you spiritually, emotionally, physically. I mean, they were there for you, they were there for me.
Speaker 3:I thought that was very, as we would say now, big of them.
Speaker 1:It was very a lot, showed a lot of character. It sure did, I mean, because, if nothing else, you kind of fade into the background because you're embarrassed that your son acted the way he did. You know, and there's, I mean, y'all lived in a small town, yes, and so I'm sure there was talk about him leaving and and so they, they carried a lot and and, in some ways, I think, showed you the father heart of God, even if your natural father did not.
Speaker 3:Yes, I have extremely fond memories of my grandparents. I don't know where you went wrong.
Speaker 1:Well, ok, let's hit on that issue as well, because we we have this conversation a lot with people with adult children. It wasn't your grandparents fault, no, it wasn't. And so, in very much the same way, anyone else listening to this who has a wayward child yes, you do what you can to instill the values because you know the kind of home he grew up in, because you saw the, the spiritual life and the character of your grandparents. But, um, let yourself off the hook. People out there who have wayward children. We all have choices. Yes, we're all presented things, we all have wounds and we all make choices with those wounds and sometimes that makes us run to the Father and sometimes not.
Speaker 3:We looking back on it, have no way to appreciate what was going on. It was during World War II. Yeah, what was going on in the world at that time was a lot of fear, anxiety, fear is anxiety, but uncertainty and really a feeling of unsafety. So it was hard time to live.
Speaker 1:yeah, so, okay, getting back to you, focusing on you. So you are born into that fear. Oh, I was. You were born into it. And then you've got all the family stuff going on and other situations have happened over your life, and yet you trust God as a loving father.
Speaker 3:That's a choice and I have to choose it and choose it and choose it. Even when my husband, your dad, had Alzheimer's, I had to choose it because it didn't feel like love, it didn't feel like God. God, if this is your goodness, I could have said I don't want any of it. Yeah, but remember Job. He had lost everything. He'd lost all his possessions, everything.
Speaker 1:Except for his wife, which that's always interesting to me. The enemy took everything from him but left the nagging wife, so just see a lot of that for a minute. So but yes, he's lost his, he's lost his family, he's lost his friends, his fortune, he's got sores all over his body that he has to use a broken clay pot to scrape the score, the sores on his body. I don't think we can fully appreciate the level of misery he was in.
Speaker 3:And he said though he slay me yet, I will trust him. You know, I hate to be a little bit irreverent with this, but slaying would be easier yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just kill me. Yeah, and even his friends told him just curse God and die, it would be simpler. Yeah, yeah, just kill me. Yeah, and even his friends told him just curse God and die, it would be simpler. And he chose not to because of trust. Yes, so we've kind of talked about the enemy coming at Adam and Eve in the garden. We've talked about the need for trust, so why do you say trust is a weapon?
Speaker 3:It absolutely slays the enemy. It takes from him one of his most potent weapons, which is his ability to accuse God and in any circumstance, if we hang on to that core belief, I mean that foundational belief that God is there for me, it absolutely takes the bite out of fear and shame. It allows us to trust that God is good, he knows what he's doing. I have had times when that was hard to believe, especially when my husband, your daddy, had Alzheimer's and it was like going to the funeral home and never getting to come home. It was on and on, and on and on of a diagnosis that wasn't going to get any better. It was horrible, just to be honest. It was just really tough. I think there's always at least I think there's frequently a battle going on between our emotions and trust and that's a very hard, very hard concession to make when that's raging.
Speaker 1:So when you find yourself in a situation where you are feeling abandoned, that God is not there for you, or you're not feeling the goodness of God and you're in that funk, practically, what do you do?
Speaker 3:Well, I just honestly talk to God I mean, he knows what I'm thinking anyway and I will say, god, you said you're good, but this doesn't feel good. Or you say you're there for me and with my head I can believe it, but but I don't feel like it. There's the rub I don't feel like it. So there's a conflict. I think everybody has a conflict like that. So then what do you do? Well, I think the first thing I go to is singing some of the old hymns, because they really you go back and listen to them. They really have a lot of theology, good theology, in them. And then there's just every day I read some verses from the Bible and I'll just look up verses that I need in that moment, but my quiet time every day is based on Bible verses. So you have to keep reminding yourself of God's truth, even when it doesn't feel like it.
Speaker 1:And I think that's why you see it all over the Old Testament. Even up to Jesus, when he is sharing the Last Supper with his disciples, the word that keeps getting used is remember the word that keeps getting used is remember.
Speaker 3:In the Old Testament they would have built an altar, stones, and they called them stones of remembrance, and Jesus' last meal was at Passover, where they remembered how God passed over them when they killed the firstborn during the plagues. That was the last plague that the enemy inflicted was killing the firstborn.
Speaker 1:So why do you think God has to tell us to remember so much?
Speaker 3:My husband told me we don't stay told, we have a very short memory and we have an enemy, as in the garden, who constantly comes to us and said did he really say that he's not trustworthy? So it's an active battle really.
Speaker 1:Which is why you called this chapter Trust is the Weapon. And in the back of the book starting on page 119, you have five pages of verses from the Bible about trust.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I just open the book I read till one hits. I told one really says this is for you, this is what you need to live today.
Speaker 1:I was thinking of something as I was coming over here to spend time with you today that I'm sure you did it for David and Charlie, but I don't remember theirs. But I know for me. You asked God for a verse once you found out you were pregnant with me. Do you remember what that verse is?
Speaker 3:2 Timothy 1, 12, which says 12, which says I know whom, I have believed and am persuaded I love the word persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him.
Speaker 1:So yeah, but I was thinking about that on the way over here. I like you, when there have been abandonment wounds in any type of relationship I've been in, it's always pushed me towards God as father, not away, but I have chalked that up to well. I watched you model to me and I think that is part of it all my life, that you trusted God as father. I mean it was just a part of who you were. But at the same time I thought this morning I was like you've been instilling trust in God in me since the womb Because you started praying that verse, which is a trust verse, over me when I was in the womb, that's true, I started praying that verse.
Speaker 3:In the Bible there's a verse that says he longs over you, and that word longs has the most deepest feelings associated with it. So God feels deeply for us.
Speaker 1:He longs over us Along the same lines, but a little bit different question I want to ask you. This week our devotional was on how to wait when God seems slow, because we live in a time and a culture where everything is instant. If I text you, you better be texting me back. If I email me, you better respond. Yes, email me, you better respond. So there's rarely a time that you or I have prayed for something and the answer is spontaneous oh, never that I can remember. So as we sent out that devotional, a few different people emailed me back with legitimate questions, but this is the basic theme of everyone's response to it was I've been praying for something for years. I haven't seen God move. I've even had people tell me that God said this is the year that something's going to happen for you, and yet I'm not seeing the answer come. Am I doing something wrong?
Speaker 3:The answer is probably not, because there's a lot of people in the Bible who did not get the answer they wanted immediately. There's David, who's running for his life. There's Job, of course, who was suffering. There is, oh, hannah, who wanted a son. Oh, she longed for a son and God didn't answer her immediately. And Paul think of Paul. He said in 1 Corinthians 11 that he was shipwrecked and feared for his life, and all kinds of things.
Speaker 1:So what's the purpose of waiting and how does it intersect with trust, Waiting?
Speaker 3:even praying is not to get things from God. Prayer is a relationship and sometimes God is just growing us in our level to rely on him, commit ourselves to him as a good and loving father.
Speaker 1:So what do we do?
Speaker 3:in the waiting, oh, that's hard. It is so hard to wait and wait and wait for something that is not showing up. But we do know this God is good. He has to be good because he is God. So in the waiting, we trust in what we know about him, because there's a whole lot more about him that we don't know. We're finite, he's infinite. But it doesn't make waiting any more fun, does it? Oh no, not in the least. It's not your favorite word. Yep, that's widely known in my family.
Speaker 1:We say you have the patience of a mayfly right, you used to say a gnat, but they live for two weeks. They live for two weeks. And so we looked it up Mayflies live for 24 hours, and that's yes you have the patience of a mayfly? Yes, I do. You can't even make it to gnat level. I own it. Yes, because you want it how you want it, when you want it, and that is now Right.
Speaker 3:Coach Saban once said he doesn't have a problem with patience. He doesn't have any.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's you. You will never get a tattoo, but if you got one, I think that's what it would be. Yes, maybe we can cross-stitch it on a pillow for you, so yeah, so waiting is hard, especially for those with the patience of a mayfly. But what is happening in the waiting.
Speaker 3:God is developing my character because one of his attributes is he's a patient God.
Speaker 1:Yes, he is. Look at us, he is very patient. Yes, children of Israel, very patient with them.
Speaker 3:So yeah, but in the waiting we learn to come and keep on coming. That's the tense of that verse. Not just come once for all, but progressively come and keep on coming. And that's what we learn in the waiting. It's about abiding.
Speaker 1:So, if you have to boil down trust, what does it look like to trust? What would your answer to that be?
Speaker 3:I would say it is centered in the belovedness of God and His feeling for us as His beloved. If it doesn't feel like good to us, we can know that we are His beloved and what he's doing we don't know, because we're not God.
Speaker 1:So, kimberly, there is a lot to unpack there from all the different types of things that we kind of bounced around and talked about in our conversation. But I think kind of at the core of it is this idea that trust is so critical, because we are in a battle. There's a battle for our hearts and minds, and there's a reason why the enemy is called the accuser, and the accuser of the brethren because that is basically his language is that of accusation and blame and shame. And so it is tough to really rest in trust and knowing that God is there for you when you don't fully understand everything that God's up to, because God is God and we are not, and you have an enemy that's coming after you.
Speaker 2:Paul tells us in 1 Peter 5, 8, to be vigilant and cautious at all times for the enemy of yours, the devil. He roams around like a lion, roaring, seeking someone to seize upon and devour. That's the amplified version and it really shows us that the enemy is seeking to devour us. So it is a battle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kimberly, it's like we've talked about on a previous podcast. If we were living in Ukraine, we wouldn't have to be woken up in the morning and be reminded that we're in a war. You know so much of my life. I expect my day to go well, and by well I mean the way I want it to go and so I don't wake up going. I'm in a battle and I have an enemy that wants to assassinate me and take my heart out and destroy my trust in God as a good father. That's not the mentality I wake up with, but I think if we could peel back the layers and see what's happening in the spirit realm, that's exactly what's going on.
Speaker 2:To fight against that, we have to trust. We have to trust in his character, we have to trust in who he is, and that trust in who God is is what fights against this right. That's why this chapter is called Trust is a Weapon.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly. Yeah, a lot of people think spiritual warfare is about rebuking and calling out and those types of things and there's a place for that. But I think so much of spiritual warfare boils down to trusting in who God is, trusting his character, knowing who he is, so that when the enemy comes against you with something else, you're like that's not true, that's not God, that's counterfeit, that's not what I need to cling to, that's not what I need to believe. And so trust is so important. I like the way that mom talked about it in our conversation is you know, we're called to pray, to worship, to serve. There's many things that we're called to do, but she kind of highlighted that trust is the one that hits so deep because it's completely relational. You can't have a relationship without trust, and so this is the relational heart of God wanting us to live in Him as our beloved, and trust, regardless of what we see or hear, that he is good and he is for us. That's hard, it is hard.
Speaker 2:It's really hard. It's really hard. We have a prayer that Richard is going to pray for us as we close out. That directly addresses when I don't know what to pray, I'm going to trust you here, and so, as Richard prays this shield of trust prayer, I pray that we will just let the words wash over us and agree with them and speak them where we can, and that we will trust that the moon is round.
Speaker 4:Shield of trust. Prayer, father, when things are shaky or dark and I don't understand, I redirect my focus to your great heart of love for me and your power and presence. When I don't know what to pray, I trust your goodness. I trust that you are sovereign. You have all authority and all power. I trust that nothing takes you by surprise. I trust that nothing takes you by surprise. You know the end from the beginning. I trust that your word is forever settled in heaven. All things serve you. I trust that there is no circumstance, person, place or time that the blood of Jesus does not cover. I trust that you, who spared not your own son, will freely give me your best. I trust that you are for me and nothing can separate me from your love that was settled on the cross of Jesus. I trust that your loving kindness never ceases. Your compassions never fail. They are new every morning. I trust your great faithfulness. I trust that you know and care about me.
Speaker 4:The very hairs of my head are numbered. I trust that you supply all my needs through your riches in Christ Jesus. I trust that you supply your abundant grace to me in this situation so that in all things, at all times, I have all your sufficient grace I need. I trust you to show your perfect power in my weakness. I trust that you are my shield, my strong tower, my refuge, my hope, my joy, my peace, my everything, my all. I trust that you renew my strength as I wait on you. I trust that you renew my strength as I wait on you. I trust that you never leave me or forsake me. You are with me, a very present help. You never go back on a promise.
Speaker 4:I trust that you guard what I have entrusted to you. I trust that you are God of all comfort, father of mercies. I trust that you have a heart that tears can touch. You invite me to climb up in your lap and cry. I trust that you give gladness instead of mourning, and praise instead of fainting. Weeping may endure for a night, but you give joy in the morning. I trust that you do all things for my good and your glory to make me like Jesus. You are enthroned on the praises of your children. When I lift you up in a sacrifice of praise, I glorify you in this situation, in the here and now. Father, glorify yourself this hour In Jesus' name amen.
Speaker 3:I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast.
