You Need Both

Season One • Episode 13: You Need Both

We spend so much of life chasing the positive and trying to avoid the negative. But what if the very things you’ve been praying away are part of what gives your life its strength?

Using something as simple as a car battery, this episode explores an unexpected truth: without both the positive and the negative, there’s no power.

Join Pastor Charles Howse for a conversation about pain, purpose, resilience, and how God can use every season of life—even the difficult ones—to produce something powerful.

Sometimes the negative isn’t the end of your story…

It may be what completes the circuit.

Share this episode with someone who needs a reminder that their difficult season is not without purpose.

#TheTensionWhereTruthLives #Podcast #PositiveAndNegative #PurposeInPain #Resilience #Faith #PersonalGrowth #Hope #PastorCharlesHowse #Buzzsprout

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to The Tension Where Truth Lives. I'm Charles Howes, and I'm really glad you're here. This is season one, episode 13, and today we're talking about something that might change the way you see your hard seasons. It's called You Need Both. So pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee if you got one. Let's slow down and talk about it for a few minutes. I've been thinking about something. The other day I was just looking at a car battery. Nothing special about it, you know? Just two terminals, one positive, one negative. Then it hit me. You can have all the positive in the world, but without the negative, the car still won't start. Think about that for a second. The battery doesn't produce power by eliminating one side. It produces power because both are connected. That made me wonder how much of life have we spent trying to eliminate every negative experience when some of those very experiences have been producing the power we've needed all along. None of us likes the negative. We don't ask for disappointment, we don't pray for loss, we don't hope for rejection, we certainly don't celebrate pain, but what if some of the very things we've been trying to avoid have been completing the circuit? I've noticed something. The people with the deepest compassion usually have the deepest scars. The people who encourage others the best usually know what discouragement feels like. The people who speak the most about hope usually have a story about almost giving up. Maybe that's not an accident. Maybe that's how the power is made. I'm not saying the negative is good. I'm saying God has a way of connecting the positive and the negative until something powerful begins to happen. Joseph had a dream, but he also had a pit. What I thought was friction was actually formation. God was using both, the positive and the negative, to produce something in me that couldn't have been produced any other way. Don't you have a story like that? Someone you thought was hard on you, but later you realized they were helping you? That takes me back to junior high. I had a football coach, Coach Woodall. Man, Coach Widall would tell us, you're gonna run till I get tired. Now, Coach Woodall was an old guy with a big belly who never ran a day in his life. All he did was sit under the shade tree, sipping on Gatorade while we ran till we wanted to throw up. I was so mad at him back then, I thought he was punishing us. But then I got in the game. Fourth quarter, everybody else is tired, gasping. And I'm still running, I'm still standing, and I realized what I thought was punishment was really preparation. What I thought was mean was actually making me ready for the game I said I wanted to play. You ever had a coach Woodall, a season, a boss, a pastor, a person who made you run till you thought you were going to die, but later you realized they were conditioning you for what you were called to carry? That's the circuit. The negative terminal isn't the enemy of the positive, it's the partner. Without it, there's no current, no flow, no power, just potential sitting there doing nothing. A lot of us have potential but no power because we've been trying to disconnect from every hard thing that was actually meant to develop the current in our lives. What if the disappointment was developing discernment? What if the rejection was developing direction? What if the loss was developing a deeper dependence on God that success never could? I'm not saying thank God for pain. I'm saying don't waste your pain. God is not intimidated by your negative season. He is not confused by it. He knows how to produce power from a place you thought only produced problems. Look at Joseph, you can't tell his story without both. The dream and the pit, the palace and the prison. If you remove the negative, you lose the testimony. Same with David. God anointed him in private, but he developed him in a wilderness where nobody was clapping. That wilderness was the circuit. And you know what I've learned? God doesn't always explain the circuit while you're in it. You usually understand it after. In the moment it just feels negative. It feels like it's not working. But years later you look back and say, Oh, that's when God was building something in me that I couldn't have gotten any other way. So can I encourage you today? Don't curse your negative season so fast. Don't be so quick to disconnect from the very thing God might be using to power your future. Maybe the people you thought were hard on you were actually helping you. Maybe the coach who made you run was actually preparing you. Maybe the season that felt like abandonment was actually development. You're not being punished, you're being prepared, you're not losing power. God is producing power right there in the tension. Because you need both. You need the joy and the sorrow, the victory and the struggle, the mountaintop and the valley. That's where truth lives, in the tension between the two. So here's what I want you to do. Stop asking only, God, take this away and start asking, God, what are you producing in me through this? That one question changes everything. Because when you understand that, you stop resenting your story, you stop being embarrassed by your scars, you realize my pit had a purpose, my wilderness had a purpose, my thorn had a purpose, my coach Woodall had a purpose, and you start to see the same God who allowed the negative is the same God who is using it to produce a power in you that positivity alone could never produce. That disappointment didn't disqualify you, it deepened you. That rejection didn't ruin you, it refined you. That hard season didn't break the circuit, it completed it. So don't disconnect, stay connected, stay in his hands, because one day somebody is going to need the power that your pain produced. Somebody is going to need the wisdom that your wilderness taught you. Somebody is going to need to know that you had both the positive and the negative, and God still started something powerful. And when that day comes, you'll be glad you didn't quit in the tension. You'll be glad you let God use both. That's our time for today. Thank you for sitting with me in this tension. I know this one was personal. It was for me too. If this episode helped you, would you do me a favor? Share it with one person, just one, someone who might need permission to see their hard season differently. And if you haven't already, follow the podcast wherever you listen so you don't miss what's coming next in season one. I want you to hear this before you go. You need both, and God knows how to use both. I'm Charles House. Charles, this is the tension where truth lives, and I'll see you next time. Let's continue the conversation.