Living Outloud: God said no to my simple prayer

A peaceful family day at the lake flips into an ER weekend when Kelsey re-injures the same disc, and we tell the truth about how disorienting unanswered prayer can feel. We cling to 1 Corinthians 2 and choose weakness and dependence, trusting the Holy Spirit to do what our strength cannot. 

• a delayed release because we spend the day in the emergency room 
• the emotional whiplash of going from gratitude to fear in minutes 
• the myth that spiritual leaders always get answers to prayer 
• naming disappointment with God without giving up on Him 
• Paul’s example in 1 Corinthians 2 of coming in weakness 
• choosing to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit over human wisdom 
• learning to take on the mind of Christ through closeness with Jesus 
• practical surrender of talent, experience, and control in daily life 
• hope and perspective for suffering that does not make sense 

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Transcript

Living Out Loud Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:11

This is Living Out Loud, the once-a-week segment, part of the Out Loud Bible Podcast, where we talk about how do we live this out? How do we be people of the Word, right? Not just reading it, not just knowing it, not just agreeing with it, but actually doing it, actually living like it makes a difference. That's what we're here to talk about. Now,

A Calm Day At The Lake

SPEAKER_00 0:31

if you are following these episodes as they come out, you'll know that this is actually coming out a couple days later than normal. Normally they release on our Friday. Uh, and this is a couple days after that. I'm getting around to it, but I thought it was important to share the story because I think there's something valuable, something encouraging for you in the story as well. Uh, I just about we'll go back two weeks. Two weeks ago on uh 4th of July weekend, it was a beautiful day, and uh I was picking blueberries. We were at the lake and I was on the shore picking blueberries from the bushes, and I look over and and Kelsey and our daughter are splashing in the water having fun, and and it was just the perfect day, like a perfect, like calm breeze kind of going over the water, and the sun was coming through the trees and filtering through the leaves, and I just I took a deep breath for the first time in seven months. I felt like my blood pressure was lowered and my shoulders were lowering. Felt like I could breathe for the first time because uh you may remember on the podcast, uh I uh several months ago I talked about how Kelsey had uh ruptured a disc in her spine, and uh it was on her birthday in December of all days, and then began many months of uh trying to recover and not really being fully able to until the surgery. She had a surgery, and then it was another couple months of recovery after the surgery. And so it was about it was about six or seven months of that, and uh prior to Fourth of July weekend, just that previous Monday, um, she had just graduated from physical therapy, and we were excited to just go into this new season of life with that health issue and that pain behind us. And uh, I was just just picking blueberries, just thankful. I was just praying, God, thank you so much for uh just bringing us here to this place, and uh just a beautiful day. Thank you for the health that Kelsey can enjoy, being able to be in the water and and play, and and we can uh we look forward to the summer. And I just said a quick, innocent, just brief prayer. Uh

The Fall That Reopened Pain

SPEAKER_00 2:39

God, would you please uh just protect us as we as we play at the like today that we can fully enjoy this this relaxing day as a family? Yeah, that's all. Pretty, pretty simple, pretty easy, and wouldn't you know? Not ten minutes later, Kelsey was walking along the shore, uh, or walking in the water right near the shore, and there was a a rock that was kind of murky, hidden in the water. And she tripped over this rock, and as she was tripping, she was thinking, oh no, my back. She tensed up her muscles, and as she came down, she knew. She knew her back was not okay again. A couple days after that, the nerve pain that she had been dealing with for six months prior was coming back. She had gone without it for just a couple weeks, like we said, and she just graduated from physical therapy just three days ago. And now all of a sudden, it's coming back. She's like, I cannot do this again, I cannot do this again. Well, then the day or two after that, I ended up taking her to the emergency room on our anniversary weekend of all days, uh, because she was just convulsing with pain. She was in worse pain than she ever was the first time around. And so um that then was, well, in instead of recording our living out loud episode for last Friday, uh, that is where we were. Instead was in the emergency room. It was there that we got an MRI and found that she had re-ruptured the same disc in the same place, and it's even worse and bigger than before.

Wrestling With God’s No

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Uh, I tell you that for a couple reasons. Uh one, to really hopefully fight against some lies and misconceptions that the enemy can can do in your mind when you see I know I'm not a pastor, but when you see a pastor or a teacher or a preacher or or someone like that, and and you you feel like, oh, well, God probably answers their prayers. I wish he would answer mine. Or uh they always seem to know what God's doing. They always have some answer for what God's doing. I just feel lost and I feel hurt and I feel confused. Right? I look, I I have absolutely no idea why God's answer to my just innocent, brief, simple prayer of God, would you please protect my family on this nice sunny day? I don't know why his answer was a swift and dramatic no that resulted in more pain than Kelsey has ever felt in her life. Right? Just not even a week had gone by from her last physical therapy to this. She's like, back in the hospital. I I don't know. I don't know why he didn't answer that prayer this time. And I mean, and to be transparent, I'm I'm frankly worried, you know, for the that I'm not going to be able to enjoy the next sunny day once this phase is over. Kelsey, Lord willing, will recover. She'll get back to walking again, and and there will be another nice day, and the pain will be behind us. Frankly, I I just need God to heal my heart in that situation, so I'm not just waiting for the next shoe to drop and like being on guard and not being able to enjoy the good things that are ahead, which I believe there are, but you know, and that's just something that he's gonna have to work on me with. I'll trust him in timing to do that. But I I don't have any answers. I don't know why. I was uh very spiritually disappointed. I had to show up in uh in quite a bit of weakness even today as I as I'm recording

Paul’s Weakness In 1 Corinthians 2

SPEAKER_00 6:28

this Sunday. I I had the privilege of speaking at my home church and uh felt very much like Paul. We read on this podcast, we started the book of 1 Corinthians. I felt very much like him as he was talking to them in chapter two, saying, Hey, when I came to you, I didn't use lofty words, I didn't use impressive wisdom to tell you God's secret plan. I decided that while I was with you, I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified. I came to you in weakness. Uh very much, very much how I felt today. And and so having just read about Paul's admission of, hey, you know what, it it's not about my clever words, it's not about my uh clever way of saying things. It's just, hey, if I just know Jesus and I I preach the fact that he is crucified for you, then uh if I'm weak, then great. You know, then you'll know that the that the power of the Holy Spirit is at work, like he says, rather than using the clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. It's a good reminder for us that uh God does not need us at our best in order for him to do his best. Thankfully, right? Gee, because uh even our best is like in the grand scheme of what he is able, able and willing to do. We would do well to follow Paul's example here, as he talks about in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, to rely only on the power of the Holy Spirit. When was the last time you really surrendered your faculties, your capabilities, even your talents and your experience and your understanding? Not that those are bad things, not that God didn't give you those things to use and be stewards of, but isn't it easy to rely on our own just selves? All the tools that we've accumulated in our tool belts, so that we can get the work done, even good kingdom work. We're like, oh, you know, I God is God has equipped me to do his work, and that's great, and he has. But when is the last time you set aside those things willingly and just like, you know what? If I look like a fool, I look like a fool. Look, if I am if I feel weak, then great, then then he can just get all the credit for any good thing that happens here. In a conversation with someone at work, serving at church, whatever the situation is, when when was the last time that you just relied, like Paul says in chapter two, verse four, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. And he did this as an example, he says in verse 5, I did it so that you wouldn't trust in human wisdom, but in the power of God. He was doing this for as an example for the Corinthians to not trust in human wisdom. Because there's a lot of other people coming to try to teach them things in their wisdom, but Paul's like, no, I just want you to trust in the power of God. I think we could do that for ourselves, our own sake, if not other people's examples, or an example for them, at least for us. It's like, I we we should be able to say, I did this so that I wouldn't trust in human wisdom, but in the power of God. As we do this, we we just see this mystery of God unfold. Just the mystery of his willingness to look foolish in the eyes of the world, but really demonstrating his wisdom. Verse 9, even that's what he says. This is what the scriptures mean when they say, No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. No eye, no ear, no mind. That's your eye and your ear, and your mind, by the way, that has not imagined, seen, heard what God has prepared for for you. But God wants you to know what he's up to. Verse 10, it was us that God revealed these things by his spirit, for his spirit searches out everything and shows us God's deep secrets. And when we share his spirit, then we can we can just get an insight. God, God isn't obliged to tell you anything really, but if you lean in, if you trust him, if you follow him, then you start to kind of recognize God's work in your life, and that is what helps you kind of track what he's up to. Now, of course, it's his prerogative and he's sovereign to do what and and not meet your expectations at all. And if he doesn't meet our expectations, that's not his fault. That's our fault for having some wrong expectation or clinging too tightly to what we think. But yet he is very willing to lead us and kind of show what he's up to.

Learning To Think Like Jesus

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Verse 16, like who can know the Lord's thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him, obviously, you know, that he he's gonna think and do and and whatever he he thinks that he and he does. But we understand these things, Paul says, for we have the mind of Christ. I hope that's an encouragement today. That if you are in Christ, you're in his word, you can have the mind of Christ. Isn't that wild? The way Jesus thinks, you can think. The way Jesus sees the world, you can see the world. The way Jesus understands things, you can understand things, the closer you are to him. The more of his heart you you receive, the more of his mind you take on. Some helpful perspective from Paul here at the beginning of 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Uh

Prayer Request And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 11:55

well, that's all today. I just wanted to share a little bit of an update. I do ask that you continue to pray for Kelsey. We are uh encouraged by the fact that uh because you know we've kind of been through this before, we we went and and sought some uh pain management care a lot sooner than we did last time. And so uh we were able to to get an MRI and even a steroid injection for her, which puts us two months, literally two months ahead of where we were last time before those things came into the picture. So still a long road ahead. And uh and yeah, if you're able to to pray for Kelsey and and pray for expedited healing here, and uh, it's it's discouraging to definitely be back on the couch. She can't even be vertical uh without pain. So she's at on the couch staring at the ceiling again and just thinking, ah God, why are we here again? And so it can it can be discouraging, but uh she's uh she's taking that opportunity to pray for others, encourage others in her position. So thankful for that. And and uh, you know what? I'll I'll give updates as we go along. Hopefully this isn't doesn't drag out too long, but um thankful for for you, for your prayers, thankful for uh your continued walking with me through this journey through the Bible here on the Out Loud Bible Podcast. We're gonna keep going in this upcoming week with more of 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, and more of the letters from Paul as we go through the New Testament in this way. Thanks for being here, and I appreciate you uh joining me here in this conversation. We'll see you next time on the Outloud Bible Podcast.