I'm Struggling But I'm Trying"

The launch of our new series, "I'm Struggling But I'm Trying," created to address the real challenges, issues, and seasons believers face. Gather around the desk as we open up about the tension between where we are and where we want to be — and the grace that meets us in the middle of the effort.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Disciples Desk. I am, of course, your host, Pastor Randy Brown, and I was kicking off our new series today on our teachings of uh being Christians. And I'm struggling, but I'm still trying. Struggling, but I'm still trying. And this inaugural episode, I want to dedicate to my brother, D'Angelo Nichols, uh, who recently lost his mom. Um this brother is very mighty, a strong man of God, but even the strongest of us get weak when we lose the first woman that we've ever loved. And so I want to dedicate this episode in the loving memory of Mother Sharon Nichols. Mother Nichols, we honor you, we honor your life, and we pray a sweet rest. God bless you. Let's get it.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Um, good evening, everybody.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Thank you for joining another episode of Disciples Desk. I am, of course, your host, Pastor Randy Brown, and I'm excited today as we kick off a new series uh called I'm Struggling, but I'm still trying. Uh, we wanted to start this series here um at the at the desk to address how we as believers uh is the road isn't always easy. Uh there's certain things that we still struggle with, um, even in our faith and as we walk with God and and in our uh belief in Christ, uh, that there are still things that we do definitely struggle with. And uh one of the ones that I wanted to hit on today is um the struggles of uh when God says no, uh having faith in grief, loss, or uh unanswered prayers. All right. One of the things that uh one of the biggest things that believers struggle with is when that no happens. I don't really truly um believe in unanswered prayer, right? We either get a yes or we get a no uh from God. Um so one way or the other, it's an answer. It may not be the answer that we want, but it is an answer. And so what happens when God says no, right? When you when you've done all that you could do, you've been you've been a faithful servant in your eyes. You you try to be at church every Sunday, you try to make sure you read your word and you're praying, uh, and and your prayers uh just aren't being answered, or it feels like it's not coming fast enough. So what do you do when you pray? You believed, and and God still didn't heal that person that you prayed for healing for, or God still didn't uh provide you with that job that you so desperately needed, and or uh God didn't um fix that marriage that you've been praying about, and um you you're heartbroken over now because it may have ended in divorce. What do you do when God says no? How do we handle it? Like what what are we supposed to do in those times where you feel like this is all I really wanted, right? This this is this is the thing that I really wanted, Lord. Why why did you not give me an answer? Or why are you silent right now? Why can't I hear you? So there's a couple of things that I just want to touch on. The first one, um, it is it's not easy for everybody to swallow, but Jesus never promised you a life without pain. He promised you peace in the middle of it. He promised you a peace that surpasses all understanding. But to get that peace that he's speaking of, there has to be a trust level, right? You have to believe that the perfect and omnipotent God has your best interests at heart. But what we really want to um, we really need the the message that we really need to start to relay, especially to new believers, those that uh that are coming into the faith, and uh they're just trying to uh understand Christ and understand this walk, and they're excited and they're happy because they've given their life over and they they're they're ready to uh uh tear down the strongholds of the sins that they've been committing and they want to um embark on this new life and this new journey as Christians and as disciples. One of the toughest things about discipleship or discipling other believers is to let letting them know that coming to Christ does not mean that the suffering will end. And it's sometimes it's hard for that for for them for people to stomach that. It's hard for them to think like, okay, well, this is supposed to be the better way, and it is, but that doesn't mean that there's no suffering that goes along with this walk and with this journey. John 16, 33, uh Jesus uh states that um I've said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. So it's saying in the world you will still continue to have troubles, you will still continue to have things that you have to deal with. But he says, to take heart, I have overcome the world. So there's nothing that this world can do to you or throw at you that I have not already overcome and have victory over. So we have to understand that we, even though suffering may come, or I'm sorry, not may, suffering will come in in some way, shape, or form. But when you're rooted in Christ, we can depend on him and have the peace that he provides that nothing else in this world can offer. And so we take that as an understanding and not so much um as a um as a feeling of rejection, right? Sometimes we will question ourselves, like maybe I didn't have enough faith, or or maybe God just doesn't hear me. Some of us may feel like maybe God isn't even real. Am I being punished for for sins that I've committed already? Like, why? Why not me? I I I've seen others be uh be blessed and progress and have successes, but why am I not reaping these benefits uh or perceived benefits of being a Christian or as being a believer? But you gotta understand that receiving a no is not limited to just a certain amount of people or just certain people that are disobedient or the the ones that are less uh uh doing less or doing more or out there more. It's not limited to that. Even Jesus himself received a no. If you remember him in in uh the Garden of Gethsemane, he asked God, he asked the Father, he it's this was the his most uh stressful moment that he was dealing with, so much, so much so that he was sweating blood, and he asked the father, please, if you can, remove this cup from me. Jesus got an answer, and it was no. Paul got a no. Paul in uh 2 Corinthians 12 and 8, he said that he played with with the Lord three different times that whatever it was that he was dealing with should leave him. But God's response was my grace is sufficient for you. As y'all know the famous scripture, for my power is made perfect in your weakness. So getting a no is not a lack or uh uh should be taken as uh uh a being uh unloved, right? Or is uh or if God is is somehow not caring about you anymore. It's uh no is a is just a different uh we have to look at it from a different way. But oftentimes what we do is we look at uh getting a no from uh from a from a a way of of uh not as not as from a from a way of um positivity or uh as from a way of purpose, uh, but we look at it from the perspective of pain, right? We don't we don't look at it at um in a different perspective, but we don't try to look at it in God's perspective, right? How can we, right? How can we possibly look at this thing from God's perspective? How can we see it, you know, from you know his eyes, the the perfect one, the one that created the heavens and the earth, the universe, everything that's there, the one that knows the beginning and the end. How can we look at it from his point of view, from the way that he sees it? So that's when we have to understand that our heart has to go beyond our knowledge. Our relationship with him, how we feel about him, how much we love him, our love has to go beyond what we what we know at times, because we can't possibly fathom what he is thinking or what he sees. Your thoughts are beyond me. So I have to be able to just release and humble myself to release and trust that God has my best interest at heart and whatever it is that I'm praying for, whether I get a yes or a no, that I should be content because I know that my father wants the best for me. And that's even in the instances where we pray for a loved one that's ill, and they lose their battle to whatever it is that that we were praying for them to be healed from. Death is a difficult thing to deal with. Right. So, and then we we begin to uh to ask ourselves, you know, why why right now? Why why did why why didn't my prayers heal heal my mother or my father or my brother, or why couldn't they cover my child?

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Why did I have to suffer this loss?

SPEAKER_03 13:48

It's a tough one to answer, but it's one that we have to deal with. And and Paul addressed it um in uh 1 Thessalonians uh 4 and 13. He states, uh, but we do not want you to be uninformed about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. We have our hope in Christ. We will grieve. All Christians have to grieve. We we're all gonna go through something, we're all gonna go through a loss, but we don't grieve without hope. We have our hope in him. We understand that that God is with us and that it's namely in death. We that's why we don't even really often refer to it as death, but as a transition from the the body to, and the spirit goes on back to being with with the Lord. It's just the body is absent now, it's in the ground, but it's in the spirit has uh has returned uh to the father to live on forevermore in peace and in rest and in paradise. So what we have to uh what we have to do and what we don't want to fall victim to as believers is that often we when in the midst of our struggle with the no, when we feel when we feel lost and we feel disappointed, some of us feel angry, pissed off, we'll turn to temporary things for for um temporary relief to help cope with the pain. And oftentimes when you turn to a temporary thing to help cope with pain, that temporary thing is typically sinful. So believers will turn to sin to cope with the pain, but the thing about it is that that that doesn't last. And it will never heal you, right? When we don't understand God's no, we often run to the world for the temporary yes. And these are the things that give us that temporary relief, but pull us further from him because we're wedged uh apart from him via the sin. It can be as simple as being distracted from your walk with Christ. We're not we're not reading the Bible as much anymore, or we're not praying as often anymore. We we stopped going to church, we stopped going to Bible study, we we stopped serving, right? That homeless person that we felt compelled to uh give a few dollars to. We in in bitterness, we we turn away from them. We don't want to give them anything now. We don't want to we don't want to share in each other's discomfort. We don't want to be there for one another, we don't want to love one another as he loved us, which is one of his commandments that he gave us before he ascended back to glory. None of the things of this world will fill that void. We'll get lost in anger, we'll get lost in isolation, and no longer want people to call us we we we just we're just bitter, or or we turn to sex. Sexual immorality is a big one. We need to feel feel that that sense of pleasure, that sense of love. We need to get a yes. We just need a yes to try to counteract God's no. And it can leave us even more broken. We run the risk of being even more broken than we were before the no.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

Or when we got the no. I'm gonna share a story with you. This is a personal story.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

Um it's a it's a hard story, but it's a real story. Because I don't want you to feel like this is just something that I'm teaching. It's this is really something that I've lived. A few years ago, um I want to say, so it was right before the COVID year. So it was 2019. Um, my wife and I have been trying since about 2016 to have a baby, to have a child. We wanted to start a family together. Um and we we we we tried everything. We tried everything within our power. Um, and finally, after praying and fasting and uh just believing and trusting, we finally, finally got the positive pregnancy that stayed beyond the the six to two months or the three months. We finally got that that yes that we've been we've been praying for for so long. And we were so excited. We were so excited. We was telling everybody, we couldn't wait for that three-month gold date. We called everybody we knew. And I remember I was out in Baltimore uh with my with my cousin, Sean. He had uh he had gotten us tickets to uh the Ravens and Browns game and uh for my birthday. Um and so we were uh we met up to uh go and uh my wife called me. She called me and uh she told me one that uh you know, hey, we're having a girl. I wasn't surprised with my girl dad. Uh we had I have two, I had two uh girls uh prior. He said, yeah, we're we're having a girl, and we picked the name Eliana. And I told my my cousin the name, and he was so excited for me. That's the kid's godfather. And he was so excited for me, man. He was just, he was excited, I was excited. We were just, it was just a wonderful thing. And then we got back and we were just getting things prepared. We were, you know, uh all the appointments, seeing the sonogram and baby bouncing around, and already, you know, my wife was cracking jokes like, oh, she got your head, you know, everything. I was just in love.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

And then a week 22. My wife was saying that she was having some pains.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

And I said, well, you know, it's maybe it's just the baby just moving a little too much. No. Didn't want to think the worst, didn't want to worry her. Didn't want to worry myself. Didn't want doubt to creep in my in my mind at all. And so we tried to just wait it out, and she said, uh, she said, babe, they're they're getting worse. It's getting more intense. We probably should just go just to make sure everything's okay. So we went to the hospital.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

And uh we got the news that um she was in full out labor.

SPEAKER_03 21:55

Baby was coming too early to to make it. It was gonna send us home and just have her to have the baby at the house and just let that uh pass for we, you know, she uh this is her first child, she didn't wanna she didn't want to do this at home, so we stayed at the hospital and Eliana was born.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

She took she took a breath or two and transitioned back to the Lord.

SPEAKER_03 22:36

I can't tell you, I can't describe to you the pain that I felt in that moment when I had to, they wrapped her up and I I held my lifeless child in my arms looking at her her premature body.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

She's so tiny, but so beautiful to me.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

And so we had to we had to leave, you know, uh they kept they kept my wife for like another day, maybe maybe two. And so we had to leave the day we had to leave. And you know, when uh we're in the the maternity ward, and so we're walking through the hallways, and they play this every time a baby is born, they play this lullaby over the loudspeaker to let everybody know that a new baby uh a new life is coming to the world. And so we I had to look in my wife's face as we're leaving this hospital, listening to these lullabies come one after the other, and we're leaving empty-handed with nothing but a keepsake box of her footprints as a as a husband, as a father.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

You're you're the protector, you're the comforter.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

And I could do nothing, I was helpless. What could I say to my wife? And she just lost her child, her first child, the first child she held of hers was lifeless after we thought we got our yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

After that, I had a I had a very uncomfortable conversation with God in my brokenness and in my hurt and in my pain, praying out to him. I had to ask him the the honest question: how can I ever trust you again?

SPEAKER_03 25:29

Like I believed, I believed in you with everything I had. What did I do wrong? What I was just going, I was going over every sin. I was calculating every maybe, maybe it was when I got road rage, and maybe when I don't know, I went to bed angry at my wife, or maybe when I I I don't know. I missed, maybe I I had an attitude or something. So what did I do? Did I think the wrong thing? Did I look at the look at a woman the wrong way? I don't know. What did I do? What did I do to make you angry? So angry that you would do this to me, that you would do this to my wife.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

I believed in you. I believed in your word. I've always believed. I may not have been perfect, but I've seen people far less perfect than me.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

Have their babies and I've witnessed people that we feel they should have never been parents. They abuse their kids, they mistreat them.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

They God, what I can't make sense of it. I put my Bible down. I was still going to church.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

I was I was a minister. I I had to show up at church. I was well, I didn't have to, but I felt like I did, and I I just kept going. I kept going, but I was I wasn't there. I was there physically, not even spiritually or emotionally. I I just couldn't. I was so angry.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Oh my god, I was so angry.

SPEAKER_03 27:37

And mind you, I've I've experienced loss before. I lost my father when I was 11. I lost my mother uh prior to this, and I I've lost friends that I grew up with.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

I I've experienced death multiple times over, but this right here was the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. And I took it very hard.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

But the craziest thing, I never denied Christ. I never said I wasn't a Christian anymore. I never said I wasn't a child of God.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

I never, I never denounced my faith. I didn't leave him and he didn't leave me.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

Looking back at it and um understanding, you know, we we quote Proverbs three and five, you know, trust in, trust in the Lord with all your heart.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Don't lean on your own understanding. That's one of the easiest verses to quote until your understanding is completely shattered. I have no answers. I still don't. I still think about that day. The ultimate no that I received.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

The one that crushed me so badly that I I didn't even really truly wanna wanted to talk to God. I didn't even want to hear his voice. I'm like, what can you possibly say to me to help me, to make me understand why you would do this to me. But like I said, uh I didn't know how to not hope. I didn't know how to not believe. I just through everything that I've done, through all my disobedience and being younger, being a knucklehead and wanting to try out the world and everything else, I I knew that that God is just the only way. So I was reading, uh I was reading the word and I was reminded of uh the psalm where you know it said that the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and He saves those that are crushed in their spirit, and that that described me perfectly. I was broken. I was broken, I was so brokenhearted and crushed that I just I was an empty shell of a person. I was just trying to find something to just latch on to. And the craziest thing about it was that I think the reason why this hit me so hard was it wasn't so much that of the death, because I understand death. And even though that broke my heart, I was more brokenhearted by God in that moment, and that's what really got me. I just could not fathom him telling me no, to give me a yes to just take it away.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

It just felt so cruel, and then I started feeling guilty. I started feeling bad because I had trust issues now with our creator, and I didn't know how to talk to him anymore. I didn't know what to say. And so that that psalm, that song helped me because it says that he he's near.

SPEAKER_03 32:21

It's not that he's just sitting high and just watching you, the Lord is right there with you. And so I continue to read in Psalms and you know, um, David, if you ever want to uh find pretty much any any and every emotion that you could possibly go through, just read through the book of Psalm. The psalmist in in uh in in the in those books and though in those songs, they are they they touch on every emotion and and um to to see or to read even David asked similar questions like um Psalms 13 and 1. How long, O Lord? How long, how long will you forget me forever?

SPEAKER_02 33:21

How long will you hide your face from me?

SPEAKER_03 33:31

It's those moments uh where you just you're just like God whatever it is that I did can how can I make it up to you, right? What what what is it? And I know that there's somebody that's gonna hear this and that's that can relate to that type of pain, that type of hurt, that type of disappointment. Maybe on different, maybe not on the same level, but different levels, it doesn't matter. Getting getting a no, getting that no is rough. Asking how me asking God how how can I trust you again? It wasn't a it wasn't from a rebellious state, it was just it was sincere, honest, deep grief.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

But eventually, uh I began to talk to him again.

SPEAKER_03 34:49

I began to pray more, I began to serve more, I beg began to kind of get back to myself.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

And still I got to the point where I could still give him glory through my pain and through my hurt. It didn't um it didn't happen instantly.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

You know, it didn't I didn't just wake up and read a verse or hear a word or felt the thing and it was just like, okay, God, we good. I got you. Yeah, we we good. My bad. I was slipping, I was tripping. Uh no, it didn't happen like that. It happened slow, sometimes painfully slow at times. But it was just one step at a time, one one one prayer, one moment, one worship song, one church service, one Bible study, one answered prayer at a time.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

And uh it just built me, it built our relationship back up. It built my my uh my my yearning and my heart for my purpose back up.

SPEAKER_03 36:24

I didn't understand why at the moment, but I I do I I chose not to walk away from him. I I I didn't understand it then, and honestly, I don't have an answer for you now. I still don't. But I stayed with him and he stayed with me. And I I thank I thank him for that. I thank that I thank him that he never moved his hand off of me, and even when I didn't realize it, he still comforted me.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

He still helped me. He still helped me. He still held me and covered me until I could get it back together. So we um we all will get we all will get a know some point in our lives.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

But we have to uh we have to be able to rightly divide between God's divine will, right, versus our our our human expectations. And like I said before, sometimes our expectations are just shaped by pain and not perspective. It's shaped by what we've seen, what we've experienced, what we what we feel, that we all we know. And at that time and at that moment, I I knew God to be a fair and just God, but I felt like He was not being fair to me and my wife. But um day by day, you know, and and moment by moment it got better. We re I got reconnected, I got realigned, and um, you know, we're still fighting a good fight. So if you're struggling, if you're struggling because God didn't answer the way you had hoped, or you know, it didn't turn out the way that you expected it to, or the answer that you got didn't look like what you desired for it to look like, or what you expected for it to look like. You're not alone, you're not by yourself. You have other believers that are right there with you that understand that even the strongest in the faith have stood where you're standing. They can speak from experience on how, yeah, we know it's tough. We know it's tough, but we can do all things, right? Through Christ. So we understand in these times and these trials, we understand that in this journey that we're gonna have to experience some hard times, some grief, some pain. We're gonna have to get a no every now and again from the Lord. The thing about faith and believing is faith isn't proven when God says yes, right? Faith is faith is truly proven and shown when you stay, even after he says no. When you say, I believe and I'm going to trust you, God, even though this prayer that I've asked for, this thing that I wanted so bad, even though you told me no, I still I will still trust you, I will still believe in you.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

That's faith. But also that's the struggle. I'm struggling, but I'm still trying. If you're struggling, praise him anyhow.

SPEAKER_03 40:47

Praise him through the struggle and for the struggle, because we know that in that struggle is making you stronger. In that struggle, because he's so perfect and he's so divine, that is for your good. Romans 8.28 says, All things work together for the good for those that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. He didn't say all things are going to be good, but he said, even with those bad things, that there's some good that's gonna happen from it.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Believe in that, meditate on that, trust in that, understand with your heart and not just your mind. Your knowledge cannot possibly fathom what God is doing at all times and in all things. So you gotta trust him with your heart and believe and be reminded that he has an impeccable resume that we can refer to. Matthew 28, 19.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

Jesus gave the great commission. He said, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Discipleship is not easy, family. That's why we are called to walk this road together. So let's talk while we travel. Until the next time we gather around the desk. May God bless you.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

We're here to talk about the wild.