Unwasted Pain
Join us on a thought-provoking journey as we delve into the depths of human experience and explore the intricacies of unwasted pain. In our podcast, "Unwasted Pain," we tackle the universal yet often misunderstood topic of pain and provide insights, support, and guidance for those seeking to navigate the challenges it presents.
Unwasted Pain
Whispers of the Divine
We've seen firsthand how prophetic words can offer solace in times of need. Whether it's a stranger offering words of encouragement in a crisis or a faith-strengthening message in challenging seasons, these divine whispers have been a beacon of hope in our lives. Through these experiences, we've understood the importance of testing prophetic words against Scripture. Join us as we share these stories and more, offering insights into the power of prophecy and how we can use our personal experiences to help others in their journey of faith and healing.
Welcome to Unwasted Pain. I'm in studio, in office, I'm in our home. So here we are, chris and Karen Conley, and you probably know that, if you have been along for the ride of this new podcast, so grateful to have you listening or watching as we continue. We've been in the middle of a series really talking about the prophetic and, if you're like me, that was not something that I grew up understanding or knowing. It seemed a little bit out there to me to begin with and yet in our journey over the last 10 plus years, the Lord has continued to grow our understanding and really grow our relationship with him through the prophetic. So, chris, maybe just as we talk about how that has unfolded in our life, maybe just to start off with a reminder of just a definition of the prophetic, so that somebody who's completely unfamiliar and goes I mean in that just weird stuff might have an understanding of, just biblically, what the purpose is and why we are wanting them to understand about the prophetic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, when we think about the prophetic again, most people will think about maybe an Old Testament prophet and their general sense of information might be someone that is speaking, maybe warnings or predicting something, and there's validity to that and that's important and it's especially important to understand in an Old Testament context, kind of with the office of the prophet. But in the New Testament the gift of prophecy has been given to all of us and it's really about edification, exhortation and consolation. Now those three words all sound the same, but let me break them down for just a moment. Edification is just how God uses someone else to have a word. Sometimes it comes in the form of a picture that will speak to you for the purpose of building you up. All right. Exhortation is designed to call you higher or call you closer. It's going to exhort you in some way. That is you know, and sometimes when people think about exhortation that sounds a little scary and it sounds like you're going to call me out.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's not necessarily calling me out, it's calling me up, not out, it's calling me closer. And then when you prophesy, you don't really prophesy the negative. You see the gold in people. You know you work through the dirt to see the gold. But then that last one consolation means really to increase in joy. And so it's a beautiful thing, because what God does is he gives someone the ability to hear His voice, for someone else to speak a word Sometimes it's scripture, sometimes it's a picture you know and you speak into this person. And then the end result of that is that person's going to be built up, called higher, called up, called closer, increase in joy. And then often the word has an element of the future in it, and so, in that it's more about preparation than prediction.
Speaker 2:Sometimes people can make a mistake when they just focus on the prediction. And then, lastly, we see in part, we don't see in whole. So you know, some people get all afraid of, you know, a false prophet. I really think that's taken out of context a lot of times. If you understand that we see in part and we we don't see in whole. And even what we're speaking is in the context of the heart of God, consistent with the word of God, consistent with the will of God, consistent with the ways of God. You might get something inaccurate in some of the details, but you're still speaking the overall heart of God to someone.
Speaker 1:So, chris, as we were just reflecting and preparing for this particular podcast, we were we were kind of going back in time to see like how this developed and how we began to experience some of the prophetic ourselves. That was kind of a little of the taste and sea Like this is not familiar to us and I think we went back really kind of to the story when you were at a pastors conference at the church of the Highlands and I know you have told that story, I think even on this podcast, but but maybe just give us that brief summary as kind of a starting point and and how you maybe processed that particular moment and then what that did foster in you as you moved forward as a believer.
Speaker 2:I'll definitely do that. What comes to my mind when you say that is I even push rewind a little bit further back and think about some of the moments that actually led up to that moment and created that moment. God was introducing people who were spirit led to me throughout my life in just kind of these small little doses along the way. And I think about the first time that we were serving at a church in Ohio. There was a woman named Ruth George and she used to prayer walk the property and she would and I would, I would get at church at like 6am and she's already there and she is just walking around that building and she was just praying and I was so impressed with her and at that time I was, you know, like 28, 29 years of age and I said to her one day I said, ruth, I said I just want to learn more about your prayer life. You know, would it be possible for you to come to the office one day and just tell me about your prayer life?
Speaker 1:And she was which, by the way, is a great question to ask somebody like wherever you are right now, who are the people around you, that you see, something about their walk that you admire, like that is like to be a learner and to be curious and to be sensitive to those moments, as you were just saying that, I was just thinking why don't we all do that? Why don't we all, just when we find somebody that obviously has a deep love for the Lord, to go like, tell me more.
Speaker 2:Right. And what comes to my mind when you say that is, the disciples ask Jesus, teach us to pray. They saw him praying in such a way and they saw this connection with God and they saw the power that came from that connection, that they were like teach us to pray. And I saw that in Ruth, and, and, and she came to my office and she was as sweet and polite and encouraging as she could possibly be, and, and I kept sensing, though there was something that she was kind of withholding from me and I said, you know, like I mean, tell me the whole story. I feel like there's there's something more you want to tell me, but you're not telling me and you know, you called her out right there.
Speaker 2:I have a way of doing that. I think.
Speaker 2:And and the church we were in had previously been a Baptist church and it was becoming more of a non-denom church. And she said well, actually, you're right. She said God did work in my life many years ago through the Holy Spirit and he gave me a prayer language. And it's not something that I go around telling people, you know, it's something that's very personal, it's something that's private. She's like, honestly, it's just even very private, Like I don't even pray in a prayer language with my husband. That's not something that he's experienced type thing, but it's something that is just very edifying. It just it builds me up, it creates a certain boldness in my life, and so a lot of times when I am prayer walking around the church, I'm going back and forth between praying in English and praying in a prayer language. And she said, just, I think one of the things that really has enhanced my prayer life through the years is just what the Holy Spirit's done in my life. Well, that just created a taste and seed kind of desire in my life.
Speaker 2:But my seminary background taught me, you know, regarding the Holy Spirit, that were open, this much open, but were really really cautious. And so I was. It was just ingrained in me to kind of be really fearful of the Holy Spirit. But yet I would see people who there was nothing to fear. These people looked like Jesus and there was fruit in their life and so when I saw people like that, I was just really drawn to them and that began me kind of on my journey of God just giving me these encounters with people. And then I remember one time I was teaching kind of a revival and spiritual awakening at this crisis pregnancy center and this was in Dayton Ohio, and this was even, you know, before cell phones, believe it or not, and we're old, Right, and we were trying to find the place and I think my car was in the shop or something and you were driving. And that night God had woken me up two, three o'clock in the morning and I woke up with this phrase upon my mind that Caleb followed the Lord fully. And I just knew it was from the Lord and I really hadn't had stuff like that happen to me before. And so I got up and I searched in the Bible of where does it say Caleb followed the Lord fully? And then, like I wrote a message about Caleb following the Lord fully, Well, as we're driving to the Crisis Pregnancy Center.
Speaker 2:We're running late and I arrive and there's six or seven women there that kind of huddled in prayer and then there's a gentleman there that was the president of Crisis Pregnancy Centers around the nation and he introduces himself to me and says hey, listen, you got to be on stage and you know three minutes, five minutes, whatever it was, and let's just join hands together and let's pray. And so we joined hands together and I've never had someone prayed like this before and he just said God, you just gave me a picture of Chris. You're about to do a new work in his life, you're about to move him to a new city and there's going to be buses and buses and buses of Caleb's who follow the Lord fully, Amen. I was like what in the world just happened here? And so like, literally, like he kind of guides me out on stage and then he comes and sits in the front row and I say, well, turn to Deuteronomy, chapter one. We're going to talk about Caleb following the Lord fully. And he looks at me and he miles, he goes. I had no idea and I was just like what in the world? Well, later you and I are on vacation somewhere I just randomly pick up this book.
Speaker 2:I think it was called Jesus the Pastor and it was written by the guy that was the president of the Crisis Pregnancy Center and, if my memory is correct, he was originally a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary but he left there because he had become spirit led.
Speaker 2:He had written this book. And here's this encounter I have with this guy and it's all making my wheels turn of like wait a second, here are these respectable, credible, you know people doing great things and they have some connection to the Holy Spirit, more than I have, and I was just hungry for more. And so that brings us to like we went on a sabbatical I think this was 2010 and I tend to be a pretty compulsive person. I act like I'm not or try not, but I guess, apparently, when I tell stories like this, I realize how much I am that it was a two month sabbatical and I read over 20 books in the Holy Spirit in those two months and it was crazy, but like I read from all different perspectives, all different backgrounds, but what it did is, it finally gave me confidence that I know what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit in the manifestations of the Spirit instead of what just the denomination says.
Speaker 1:You know, chris, and I know the story that you're getting ready to tell and I want you to tell that story, but I think, just as Nuggets along the way of on this journey, everybody's on a journey and I think one of the mistakes that we make and this is in many things in life, but especially when it comes to our relationship with the Lord is what is unfamiliar we shut down. And I mean I see that in every area of life that people they stick with what they know and what's safe and what's comfortable. And there's wisdom and there's so much wisdom in scripture to test things and to hold it up against the word of God, and so you never. There are false teachers and there are things that you should be cautious of and there are people who manipulate. But I think, as believers, the encouragement that I would have to somebody who's listening this is it should drive us to be able to go to the word, because you don't want to miss out on what God has and so.
Speaker 1:But if you don't know the word and you're just living from a place of fear, you can shut down many ways that the Lord is trying to express his love to you and he may feel so far away, but if you will allow yourself to say, okay, I want to know you not. Maybe sometimes people are taught he's mean and angry and he's just the know-in-the-sky kind of thing. But I think, just as I sit here and think about our journey, one of the things that you afforded us as a family was that you did your due diligence. You weren't going to just listen to anybody and anything, but instead of just ignoring something, you were willing to say okay, let's hold this up to the word of God, let me. Let me dig in and really see, not take somebody else's opinion, but also be open to what the Lord wants to do.
Speaker 2:And I think it's such a valid point when you said, you know, sometimes just because something's unfamiliar, we perceive it as dangerous. And one of the principles I've taught in life is, at times we've got to be careful that people just think different is dangerous, different is not necessarily dangerous. The men and women that I encountered along the journey gave such credibility to what it meant to be led by the spirit, to be filled by the spirit, to walk by the spirit, to not only bear the fruits of the spirit but also do the works of the spirit, and so I would really give such honor and respect to those people who their lives were so attractive that it lended itself to credibility. And then you know in that if those people had been you know, I don't know reckless reckless is a good term irresponsible, then maybe I wouldn't have been as diligent to go study the Word of God and now to try to compare what I see in this person's life with the Word of God and make sure those match up. I might have just been turned off, you know, and so like, after reading those 20 books, then I came back and I put together a class on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. And when I look back on that class and taught that class, I believe it was doctrinally accurate. But so much of what I was teaching I had not yet experienced. But what God was doing is just for me, because of my background and because of kind of the seminary training I had and things like that, I had to come to grips with what the Scripture said about the Holy Spirit and come to peace with that and have confidence with that before my heart would open up and allow me to receive more of what the spirit wanted to do. And so you know, it was 2010 that I read the books. 2011,. 2012 that I'm teaching the class 2013.
Speaker 2:I go to a pastors conference down in Birmingham at the Church of the Highlands and we're going to take communion together as a group of pastors, because normally we're just facilitating, but it was time just for us to receive. And right before we are called forward to go take communion, I feel like the spirit of God just stopped me in my tracks and he said tell the little boy to sit down. And I mean I can remember this. I mean like it's, you know, a video player playing in my mind and tell the man to stand up. And the Spirit of God was speaking to my father wound. And if you don't know that story and if you want to watch a documentary about that story, there's literally a documentary called Love Works and it really tells the story of the father wound. But yet then, how God did a tremendous work in my life, in my father's life, in my family's life, through healing of that father wound. But he said tell the little boy to sit down, tell the man to stand up. And so I remember sitting down and when I sat down I had this literally vision like almost like a 3D vision of me as a little boy, and me as a little boy looked at me and said it's okay to stand up. And I remember I stood up and when I stood up, it was like a certain type of authoritative healing took place in my heart and I stood up as a healed man instead of a wounded little boy. And I stood up with a new type of authority and I remember there was like literally a strength, a courage, a boldness, almost like standing on a foundation, and I really had a sense that for the first time in my life, I was a healed man instead of a wounded little boy. Now real quick.
Speaker 2:The next thing that happened that just was not expecting and kind of weirded me out a little bit is then, in that moment, god gave me a prayer language and so I just start praying in a prayer language and that's not like this static utterance that overtakes you.
Speaker 2:I mean, you are in control of what you're saying, even though you don't fully understand what you're saying. But I just knew like something kind of welled up inside of me and I began to pray and as I began to pray it came out in this prayer language and then, even though I wasn't fully understanding, then it would go back and forth into English, but then back and forth into a prayer language. And I was there and I don't know how many minutes went by, but it was a significant amount of time before I went down to take communion, because I was just overwhelmed by what was taking place. And then I remember I went down and took communion and when I came back to my seat I just kind of sat down for a moment and was like whatever that just was, that was real. That was a defining moment. I'm different and I'm going to go home and I'm going to go forward as a healed man, not a wounded boy.
Speaker 1:I don't think I've ever thought about this until now, which kind of feels like duh I should have. But as you retell that story, I think maybe one of the biggest things about the prophetic is so often it is speaking to identity, so many like that edification, that drawing you closer. I think so many times when we talk about unwaisted pain, a lot of times when we go through something that is painful, it's shaking us at the core of who we are or it's making us second guess who we are, or we are struggling to walk through something difficult because we've never really had our identity grafted in and we've tried all these other places to find our identity through a job or through our spouse, or through being a parent, or through trying to look a certain way or live a certain lifestyle. But as you speak to that, I think obviously, yes, in that moment God was speaking to your identity as His child and that you were healed.
Speaker 1:But I think, as I kind of was sitting here listening to you, I thought you know there's a theme that, as we went through our journey and kind of where we're turning this podcast to, is how the prophetic impacted us as we're going through this wilderness and then, as we turn through the wilderness to see, you know, one foot in front of the other, during the really painful times when we didn't quite have the you know, we couldn't see what was in front of us. But it was those times that, in that kind of dark season, that someone would keep speaking things that really validated I am His son, I am His daughter. He does, god does see me. I do have value. I don't know the next step, but I'm okay because I'm His.
Speaker 2:And before that moment, though, there would be things that would trigger me into the wound of, you know, this father wound, where it was just the opposite. I felt not good enough. I felt always trying to be better, but never being as good as I needed to be. And then, what was fascinating? Then I would love your perspective on this. So that happened in 2013, and my father passed away in 2014. And I've heard you say before that you had a certain fear associated with what would happen when my father passed away. But once that healing took place, why don't you share your perspective of what happened shortly thereafter, how you saw that identity shift, that healing make a difference? You know, when my father passed away, you know, honestly, I do.
Speaker 1:I mean I've said this multiple times If you had asked me. I mean, you and I met when I was 17 and you were 19 and this is you're in your 40s when this happens. When your dad passed. You know, from 17 to you know, 35, you know, probably 20 plus years, that I had watched your relationship with your family and, knowing some of the painful parts of that, I would have told you that his passing would have really been a very traumatic and painful thing for you because of just the regret, the wishes that you'd had for that relationship and how that relationship had never really been what you had wanted it to be and what any young boy would want for a father-son relationship.
Speaker 1:And instead, when God was able to give you peace about who you were in him, you were able to then be whole and instead of looking to your father to meet a need that you know honestly, most parents would, in a healthy relationship would be able to meet and would be able to reassure you and would be able to help you know that you were valuable and you were good enough. Because you now were receiving that from your Heavenly Father, you didn't have to look to him to meet that need. And I think so many times we make the mistake that we look to the people around us and we want them to give us the validation that we're enough, when truly, yes, a parent is the closest thing to that. But the only one who truly can fill that need and really validate you is the Lord.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, when I think about everything that you just said, a very clear picture of that was at my dad's funeral. I was officiating the funeral and I, you know, obviously had a suit on, but I brought my dad's golf clubs up on the stage and I brought my dad's hat on the stage and I told our church.
Speaker 2:I said, yes, I'm the pastor of this church and for many of you I'm your pastor, but today I'm not only your pastor, but I'm my father my dad's son and I put his hat on and I remember very vividly being the healed man that put the hat on, and I remember being able to tell stories from a place of healing, not from a place of hurt and able to understand the pain of his past, but not focus on the pain, and then celebrate the good parts of who he was, and then celebrate that God did a saving work in his life at 71 years of age. And so just to even think back of how God spoke that in 2013 to prepare me for his passing in 2014. So, you know, we weren't necessarily planning on going to that place in this podcast today, but I think it's just. It is remarkable to see how God is always preparing us for what's ahead of us. And so, from that place, in 2014, I remember I went and started meeting with other pastors that I knew that were more, you know, kind of in tune with you know, the ways of the spirit and asking for them to guide me and to coach me. And I remember I, you know, was leading our church at the time, but also decided to lead the college and, you know, young adults, so that I would honestly just kind of have an environment where I could experiment with you know the ways of the spirit and you know, started hosting a worship night every six weeks so that I could just be more in the flow of understanding the ways of the spirit. And God was doing extraordinary things. And I remember I began to every guest teacher that we had. I was trying to bring in people that were more known from that you know theological perspective and you know from that place of experience and having them stay over and teach me and stay over and teach the staff. It was just trying to guide our church little by little by little to be able to make that shift and make that transition.
Speaker 2:But when the crisis came in the life of our church and we were, and we've told a little bit of this story before, but we were at that place of needing to hear from God that's when I asked a friend of mine like can you recommend somebody that's not just giving me wise counsel? I respect, I appreciate, I value wise counsel, but someone that understands the prophetic, someone that has that level of discernment and could speak directly into this. And that's when he sent me to Bethel and to Bill Johnson's credit, to his son's credit, eric Johnson, to, you know so many other leaders there to Dave Harvey that's really taken us under his wing to Steve Backland. These amazing people, they really ran toward us and one of the things they taught us was that when someone gives a prophetic word to voice, memo that word, it's hard to capture everything in the moment.
Speaker 2:And then I would go back and I would transcribe these words and I remember I would come home from these trips and literally I would type out on the airplane ride home, you know, got my headphones in typing these things out and I would come home and just from that one trip I'd have 20, 30 pages worth of prophetic words that there was no explanation, because these people did not know my story, they didn't know the crisis I was walking through, but yet they were speaking directly into the crisis.
Speaker 2:But they were speaking into it from a place of divine insight, even divine wisdom. And then these words that had elements of the future and I just remember all throughout the process. They would just speak life and they would give us hope in the midst of a situation that was fearful and they would give us faith in the midst of a situation that was extremely fearful. And I'll turn and flip this back to you, like, okay, I was experiencing, I was at that trip by myself, I was experiencing this firsthand when I came home and I would begin to share these things with you. And again, most of this was new to us. We were kind of in the shallow end of the swimming pool. What was your perspective of receiving those words through me and trying to discern and see these things that you really can't explain the accuracy of these words, apart from God giving someone that insight?
Speaker 1:You know, I think it's interesting that you asked that question because what I just kind of went backwards in my mind to when you were in seminary and you were being discipled by Clyde and you would come home and you were having all this firsthand experience and I'm, you know, I'm juggling children and we're planning a church and we're not quite yet. At that point we're busy, I don't know what we're doing. Actually, we were in the process almost, but and a feeling like you know, I can't keep up with you, like you're having all these God encounters and I'm not and I need to dig in and I need to do these things, and then yet you just lived it out. And you living it out gave such a hunger to me that I saw the fruit of what you were doing and I think, fast forward that was, you know, in our early or mid 20s, fast forward. And here we were in our mid 40s and it was somewhat similar. And I would just encourage you that, like a lot of times, you and your spouse aren't in the same place all the time, having the same experiences, but to not allow that to build pride or walls or defensiveness, but to just know that you're a team together and that, whatever God's doing in your spouse, you're one. And so, to just be curious and and in that way I think, very similar, you, you weren't trying to force it on me, but you were just sharing.
Speaker 1:And out of that I think it really challenged me and I think I would just say to anybody that is maybe on the you know, a few steps behind me and on my journey, I think what I had to wrestle with is do, do I really think that God is real and that he cares deeply for me? I've said that all along, but all of these words were to build us up. They were words that made you feel like, wow, he sees me, he knows me, he's with us and I'm like well, that like, if I interpret scripture, you go. Is that in the character of God? Is that consistent with his word? Is that well, the same is true with the prophetic Like well, is that something that a perfect father would say? Is that an alignment with this word?
Speaker 1:And it just it really began to take me from like hmm to like wow, I want that and I don't understand it all, but I do believe that I serve a Heavenly Father. That's bigger than my understanding and God help me if I serve a God, that I understand all of him, because that means he's not God. And so I think that really began to just give me an openness. And then, you know, as we kind of went through our journey, there was a place at which it was the manna for us, and I think we've already kind of outlined some of that in previous podcasts. I think it just was something that began to shift to say, okay, he's not forgotten us and he is leading us and he is encouraging us along the way and I can trust him. And not only that, it's going to build my faith that this season is going to be unwaisted pain. I don't think we had that name for it at the time, but it did begin to build faith that there was a bigger purpose than what we could see.
Speaker 2:Well, and one of the things I would like to say there is we've always had the foundation of the Word of God, seeking for a word from the Word, and we've taught in this podcast about the Henry Blackamy principle of, you know, looking for a word from the Word, from wise counsel, from circumstances and from prayer. We continue to do that. God continued to speak from the Word, but in this particular season, because of, just honestly, how deep the valley really was because of some of the things that we lost, and the valley was so deep it was like this hole that we couldn't dig ourselves out of that I really feel like we needed something in addition to just the ways that he would speak through the Word, and that's not minimizing anything about the Word, but it just increased my faith to know that Ali Arab, who lives in France I don't even begin to understand how many time zones away he was would call me at just the right time with just the right word in the right season, and it'd be like how in the world did that just happen, you know? And then, yes, we received so many profound and powerful prophetic words from people out in Redding, california, at Bethel, but then we would travel across the country in different locations and, just honestly, this stuff did not happen to us before A random person would walk up and say, hey, I just really feel like God gave me a word for you. And so, all throughout the process it was almost like when the gas tank was getting near E and the fuel light began to come on that, hey, you need some gas, you need some gas, you need some gas, you're going to run out of gas that God would place someone in our life to speak a word, that it was undenobled, that that had to come from God, that God had to orchestrate it.
Speaker 2:And then it took us from a place of losing hope to gaining hope. It took us from a place of allowing fear to kind of settle in to replacing that fear with faith. And then it was just that place of you know what God really does have us, he's not giving up on us. And then he keeps speaking into the future. And so that's where we had these words from Zachariah about double restoration.
Speaker 2:You know, we had these words about a double portion. We had these words that we believed that what man intended for evil, god will use for good. And then he took those things. And then he spoke in such a way that, though I believe God has gifted me to be a visionary, there are moments where you just kind of feel beat up, and when you feel beat up it's hard to generate vision. And God just kept supplying vision, and then he kept supplying inspiration, and it would give us the strength and courage to keep persevering and pressing on to where we believed that God was not done with us yet, because God kept communicating in a variety of ways, but in this unique season, strategically through the prophetic.
Speaker 1:So in maybe, as we kind of come to a close on this section of talking about the prophetic that we have for the last couple of podcasts, you know, yes it, we noticed God's activity in that unique way, as we've kind of gone back from 2010 all the way up to present. But it's something that I think it's like when you become aware of something new. All of a sudden you start realizing oh wait, maybe I've missed a lot of this in the past, because now I see it more frequently. What would you say to just that person that maybe, whether they're in a valley and there or not, that maybe they're not quite sure does God really work that way? And maybe for you and maybe for me, but maybe not for them, what would you say would be God's perspective on where they're at and what should they do with if they're just kind of like I don't know. I don't know if that's real and I don't know if he would speak to me that personally.
Speaker 2:I always try to take something like that question back to a parent-child relationship and I think about you, and I have taught this principle throughout the years that only God knows what's best, only God wants what's best, only God gives what's best. But the closest thing to that on earth is a parent's desire for his or her child. And so in that way and I know sometimes people will have a difficult time looking at God through the Father lens because maybe of a father wound in their own life or a mother wound but God absolutely adores you, regardless of how you've been living okay he is more committed to you than you can possibly comprehend and he will do whatever is necessary to generate a mustard seed of faith in your life. And that there are times that we don't deserve it. It's never been about us deserving something. The love's always been unconditional, that he's always pursuing us, he's always orchestrating events to give us the ability to see him in and through another person, to see him in and through a circumstance, to hear his voice through another person, and even in dreams.
Speaker 2:And so I would just say that suspend your doubt. Your doubt's not doing you any good. Woohoo, you're a skeptic. I'm proud of you. Hey, what's that good that they're gonna do? So suspend that. I just I can't see how that helps anybody. It's the whole thing. Are you gonna run to God or run from God? And so I'd run to him, and then what I would do in that moment is I'd place myself kind of in the river, so to speak, of his activity. I'd place myself around Godly people. I'd listen to Godly people, I'd watch people who are teaching about things that give you the chance to be built up, and so in all of that, we didn't have the dollars to be traveling in the season, but we would spend good money to travel across the country to place ourselves in proximity of people that we believed they walked with God. We believed that God worked through them, we believed that God could speak through them, and then we became available and positioned ourselves to receive from God.
Speaker 1:Well, and I just may be enclosing with say the thing is, is that God is so good that if you will give him the opportunity and just ask, he's not gonna let you down. He wants you to draw near and he wants to be nearer to you, and so even if you can just suspend it for a little bit, it's enough. He will take that and show himself. It's true.
Speaker 2:And real quick.
Speaker 2:I think this is so important because what you just said, it got my attention.
Speaker 2:A large part of, also, how we responded in this was because we really perceived that our response would greatly influence our children's faith and that if we became better, it was much more likely for them to become better. If we became unforgiving, it was much more likely for them to become unforgiving. If we lost our faith, it was much more likely for them to lose their faith. And so I would say, even if you're unwilling to do it for yourself, would you be willing to do it so that you pass on faithfulness and you pass on the opportunity to be healed? Because, see, we've all heard the statement hurting people hurt people, accidentally, unintentionally Healed people help people. And so, even if you have your own doubts, your own skepticism, your own struggle, I would say, if you really love your children or you love your circle of influence, you love your siblings, your parents, your friends, whatever, do it so that they might see God in a new and fresh way and allow yourself to be a conduit for what God wants to do in their life.
Speaker 1:And that's how you make sure your pain is unwaisted so well. I hope this has been helpful and thank you guys so much for taking the time to listen, and we look forward to seeing you next time.