SPEAKER_04 0:01

I can say without giving much thought to it that that is the hardest moment of my life.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Even having served as a trauma counselor uh for 10, 12 years before that as well, uh, you know, I've I've certainly seen all sorts of evils and people experience and encounter all sorts of evils.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

What I want to try to like capture in this moment is everyone who's watching, if you haven't picked up on this, like please pick up on this.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

I don't understand why this is happening. You know, I I don't we don't we don't have that answer as to why this is happening to you right now. And maybe we will get that later, or maybe we we won't ever know. Yeah, but we're gonna trust that God is good, that he's faithful, and that you we want to make sure you know you don't have to walk through this alone.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Hello there, everybody. Welcome to the Crossroads Podcast. My name is Jake Christie. I'm our discipleship pastor here at Crossroads, joined by some of our other pastoral staff here today. Let's go around, just introduce ourselves really quick. Share with us what you do here at Crossroads. I'll start with you, Pastor Mike. I'm Mike Mayhek.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

I'm the care pastor here, so I care for people. You care for people.

SPEAKER_04 1:10

That's probably a great attribute to have as a care pastor.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

My name is uh Pastor Andrew Pacheco. I serve as a president of the Ministry Leadership Institute, and I too care.

SPEAKER_04 1:22

Yeah, you you I certainly hope so. Yeah. Cool. My name is Andrew Anderson. Uh I think it depends on the day what I do, and I really care.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Awesome. Well, hey, today we're we're diving into a little bit of a uh more sensitive topic, and honestly, like one of those things that people that are are exploring the faith or maybe even are just totally opposed to it, um, would uh maybe bring up as like the main problems they would have with following a God in general, let alone the um the God of Christianity that we all believe in and that we all follow here. Um that that's the problem of evil and the problem of suffering. Uh, and so kind of the idea of if a good God exists that is all powerful and that loves us, um, why would he allow suffering to happen in the world? Why would he allow for evil to exist? Why would he allow for people to be able to hurt each other or for pain to exist in the world? So it's it's again something that is a really, a really tough topic that has uh a lot of different angles that I'd love to just kind of process today and give some of the people that are watching today maybe some answers to some questions that they might have in this realm. Um, but also just kind of give people a glimpse into how to have a conversation around this as believers, because we're we're not gonna cover everything today. Um, but even just as an opportunity to encourage people that may be watching, you know, how do how do we have a conversation about this? What are some of the mindsets behind um some of the answers to some of these questions we might have? So I would love to just kind of throw it out there, give you guys uh an opportunity to answer, and whoever would want to just jump in can go ahead and jump in. Why does God allow pain? Why does he allow suffering and evil things to happen in the world?

SPEAKER_04 3:18

I think you have to establish a plumb line and develop a baseline of understanding those terms. What is good, what is evil, what is suffering, why do things happen? Why do good things happen to bad people, or why do bad things happen to good people? You have to have a plumb line so that you're working from the same standards and the same set of information. What I've found is in various circles, not just religious circles, but circles of life. One person might identify good in one categorical manner, yeah, where another would have a totally different understanding, and even morals and values and ethics. What are our standards for good and evil? That helps inform the conversation. Now, I know I've asked as a prelude a lot of questions to your question, but you really started us off by thinking through how would we best help other people identify how to have this conversation with people? And so when I get asked that question, it's typically what they want to know is from their vantage point, what they decide is good and what they decide is evil, and what they decide is suffering, or what they decide is blessing. So as you're starting this conversation, a plumb line is necessary. That's that's what I thought. What do you guys think?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

I was approaching it from uh the viewpoint of the different types of suffering that are out there. I think that that goes back to it can be differently defined based off of someone's value system. Uh, like you said, that premise, that starting point, the ideology for them of what suffering is. And you know, from the viewpoint I come with, which is the Christian worldview. Um, you know, I'm sorry from the standpoint, there's suffering that's great and good. Um, there's suffering that occurs to people because they're operating outside these boundaries that God's drawn. But there's also suffering that occurs for people that are operating within that boundary. Sure. And one pulls them in to recognize their need for a God, and the other one pulls them in because it's good for their sanctification, draws them closer to that, to God uh within there. So that's the premise I start with. Yeah. But I'm thinking about suffering. Um, with that being said, I have the greatest empathy for those who are going through suffering moments in their life right now or have been and are still processing that, trying to figure out the the why behind the what. Uh, the greatest empathy for them. I don't know if I can provide an answer, or we can provide an answer within this one-hour podcast of what we're doing, but it's certainly worth seeking and searching because it exists and people deal with it and people wrestle with it. And we see people turn from the faith because of it, uh, providing that religious attribution. Suffering must come from religion. If it comes from religion, religion's bad. That's the premise that they're starting with and working with. Um, so certainly all these conversations are incredible to have and try to define and figure out.

SPEAKER_04 6:05

I think the reason I asked that is to build a basis for conversation around this topic, which is in many cases difficult because people are often in their darkest hours. Yeah. Their greatest suffering, and then questioning the existence of moral good and moral evil. To understand that morality has to create the conversation. It comes from somewhere. Without without a creator, there's no one who is creating a standard, a moral standard for good or evil. It's just either you know, it it's it's ambiguous or irrelevant. So I think the important part that we have to understand is that morality and good and evil all originate from a creator. Yeah, God created a standard, and we see that all the way back in Genesis. Yeah. The way that God created order and the the world to operate. And there's a point in Genesis chapter six, specifically, where we are introduced to what we call the fall of man. Most people, whether they're in Christian circles or not, would recognize that there's this idea of this apple tree that Eve and Adam ate from an apple tree, and they weren't supposed to eat from this tree. We know that that's not necessarily an apple tree, but it's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that God set a standard for the way things should be done, with the exception of this one thing and the the whole downfall of mankind, or what we call the fall of humanity. That then introduced the genesis, pun intended, for labor, pain, yeah, and and toil, and all the hardships, weeds and thistles.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

Yeah, weeds and every time I garden I think of that passage, it's like, man, if we just had been smarter.

SPEAKER_04 8:00

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that also we have to build into the conversation whether God is the uh the one who creates hardships or whether God allows hardships. Yeah. And how that informs how we see the world as well. Because I I I've I've received that question a lot in my life. Why would a good God allow bad things to happen to good people? And you can take that in any number of ways. Um, and I I'll tell you a personal antidote for me. I was a college unadult pastor in my late 20s and early 30s in Oregon. While I was there, I had a young man in my college ministry. His name is Brad. And I was really close to Brad and his sister Kristen and their family. Brad was a medical student at Oregon State University. Now I loved him anyway because I'm an Oregon Duck fan. We we want to be generous to all kinds, and so being gracious toward Brad, he was diagnosed with a uh a tumor that was really radical and aggressive at a really he was 21. They they got it all, and then it came back with a vengeance. It's it was pretty wild. I will never forget the day that Brad passed away. I was in the house with his family. There was a lot of moving parts and pieces, and throughout that moment, the way Brad lived his life and exited this side of eternity and into the next was so gracious and so uh faith-filled. But that was a question that we had to ask and answer a lot around is now why would a God, a great God, a loving, caring, kind God, allow a 21-year-old to deal with something so horrific that that took his life? And that was uh I've got I've got I've got what I believe to be both a very practical but a very biblical answer. But I'd love to hear your thoughts. How many of you have heard those kinds of questions? Like, why would a good God allow things to happen to children or or these you know catastrophes or wars or all the the hardships? Have you guys all heard that and dealt with that?

SPEAKER_03 10:16

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, whenever people are hurting, they're they're looking for answers, and uh sometimes that's not the best time to develop your theology, yeah. Um but to um you know you're looking for an emotional and and philosophical cure and answer to that. So but yeah, there's just a lot of um a lot of hurt, a lot of pain that that overwhelm us sometimes. And I think we start to question to your to the very core of that question, how could a good God allow this? And we start to question uh you know, God's character. And and so again, you have to set that baseline of this is where we start. You know, we're we're going off of the premise that God is good, that he's faithful, that he's you know, all the things that he is. Um, so then we have to filter it through that lens and and approach it from that aspect.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Yeah. I do, I I hear I hear this question a lot. Um, I've had lots of conversations around it. And uh I I from the Christian perspective, yeah, as a believer, I I I have my my answers to it. And I have the things that, you know, because I believe what I believe and because I can defend those things, I I can experience pain in my life and have the understanding that one day I'm gonna have hindsight on this pain. One day I'm gonna have hindsight looking back and have a better understanding of what God was doing in me and in my situation. Um and even if it even if there's not like a super like huge, like massive benefit or to me or whatever, you know, I can at least know that God is doing everything to restore everything back to him, you know, that he is not going to waste anything, even if whether he caused it or not, you know you you you you brought up that we need to we need to ask, we need to talk about that question. Yeah, um why there he is going to do his best, which will not fail to to make the most out of all of the situations and inevitably trying to make me more like his son, you know.

SPEAKER_04 12:31

And what you're talking about is it's it's the theological principle of causation or ramification. Yeah, we can talk about that. The one thing I want to ask, and I think we need to wrestle with individually and even collectively, is can both be equally true? Yes, can God be a just, faithful, kind, caring, good God, and circumstances be incredibly difficult and hard and seemingly unfair? Can they coexist?

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Yeah, I mean, he didn't he didn't create us to be robots, and because we have free will, we introduce chaos, you know, like it. I was watching Forrest Gump last night with my wife. There you go, but the movie starts off with the feather, you know, dancing through the air and all this stuff. And I it was so funny. We're we're sitting there watching this movie, and Forrest is standing over Jenny's grave and he's crying, and you know, he's talking about how Lieutenant Dan says that he had this destiny to to die on the battlefield, and how his mom said that you know, some people have destiny, but she thinks you just need to do the best with what you've got, you know. And I looked over at Monica and I was or it oh, he says, I think it's a little bit of both. And I was like, I 100% agree with that. Force gump, you know, having this like amazing, like philosophical moment, uh, this fictitious character, you know. But I I do think it it's it's true. I think God is in control, and I think he's all powerful, and I think he loves us, and because he loves us so much, he he desires to be in relationship with with us. And if he created us to just have to just do the right thing all the time, then that's not a relationship. That like because we have free will, because he created us to have dominion over creation with him, we are causal creatures, we cause things to happen. Yeah, um, that's part of what I think it means to be made in his image.

SPEAKER_04 14:34

So I want to I asked a question a few minutes ago with an anecdote from Brad's life. As I sat and counseled hundreds uh of individuals during the process and at the memorial service and thereafter, the reality is that you you wrestle with causation and ramification. There are instances of both in scripture, the flood being a classic example of causation, right? Sodom and Gomorrah, causation. But then there is ramification, right? And when you think about cancer as terrible of a disease as it is, it's a it's a mutated cell. Every one of our bodies has cells, and every one of our cells feeds off of nutrients, and they have a an order to them. Yeah, when they're out of order or they're feeding off of the wrong thing, or they mutate in a way that is leading to something like this. Here's a lot of times what we found is researchers, and I'm not a medical student, and I'm not a doctor, and I'm not any any in any kind of a medical field, but you do enough research and you realize that cancer as we understand it now did not exist 300 years ago, 400 years ago, 500 years ago. And what they're determining is that a lot of what we're seeing with cancers today are the ramification of toxins that we have introduced from the industrial revolution, yep, before and after everything from coal, asbestos, to even you think about the way that sugar and chemicals like aspartame and nicotine, not just nicotine as the the the addictive, but the addictive piece, but like cigarettes. I want to say that there's 400 chemicals. I read one time over 400 chemicals, including rat poison or what they use in rat poison, in one cigarette stick, right? Or or when you think about all those things, God's not causing any of us to make things with heavy plastics and heavy metals and heavy aluminums and and and which is uh obviously a metal uh and and all of the things that we're doing to consciously break down the cellular makeup of ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:58

How we can blame God for those things. Now, here's the part I struggle with is the second and third and fourth generations that had nothing to do with all of the things that we've just talked about, where we've introduced that have led to ramifications. And you look at it and say, but why would God allow that? And again, I I think it goes back to your argument, Jake, about a great, huge, awesome, loving God. And we want freedom. He's a loving and a loving God who gives us free will. And we want free will and and the ability to be autonomous and make decisions. Nobody wants to be controlled or feel like there's a marionette that's controlling the strings of our lives, or or an oz behind the curtain that we have not. We want autonomy and free will until it comes to not wanting to have to address, deal with, or go through the hard things with responsibility and consequence.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Yeah. So I've always categorized it as the good. First of all, if I'm walking along someone that's suffering, I like to join them in the questioning. Oh, yeah. I don't have everything figured out myself. And then, you know, whether it's causation and ramification, let's go explore that together and let's seek God together on this. And we work off of premises that we know God is good and God is loving. Yeah. We also work on the premise that that sins impacted all components of this world. Yep. And there's gonna be hardships because of that. And I always categorize those hardships into the, you know, I guess it's not a hardship, but the good, the bad, the ugly. And the good is when we experience God's favor and grace just raining upon us. Whatever you want to attribute that to, uh, it's God's goodness and faithfulness. Um, the bad is, you know, when we clearly know that what's the the pain that's inflicted upon us is because of our sin. Yeah. And what we're doing consciously, what we're choosing, or whether it's commission or omission, what we're choosing or what we're not choosing to do, uh, regardless of what we inherited, even if it is an earth that's broken and has contaminants and all that. And the the third one, this is a hard one, is the ugly when someone else's omissions or commissions directly hurt you. And just we can have the conversations about kids that go through traumatic situations in their lives. And they never ask for that. Ever. And and and there's no conscious responsibility in that. Yeah. And how do we deal with something like that when it's the result of someone else's conscience decision? Yeah. Act of omissions or commissions that directly hurts them and they have to deal with that hurt because of it.

SPEAKER_04 19:19

One of the things you've just said that has struck a nerve, at least for me, and I would imagine for all of us, which is a big part of both our anointing and why we have stepped into the call that we stepped into, is a lot of times when people come to us with those questions, why would a good God allow bad things? They're not actually asking us for resolution or to solve anything. They want understanding and someone to walk through the hard with them. You just touched on that. And Mike, I would love to get your perspective and insights as our care pastor and somebody who this truly is what you deal with day in and day out. And you lead a team of over 30 Stephen Ministry trained leaders, and there's other assets and resources that you have here. That's really what it exists for is to walk with you, not to solve the problem, but to walk with people through the hard, knowing they got to still the great, big, huge, awesome God, and difficult is still very difficult.

SPEAKER_03 20:20

That's the very first thing we address in our training as a team is you you can't fix the fix pro fix all the problems, you can't answer all the questions. You're our our goal is to walk alongside people as they go through difficult things in life. And uh I think one of the one of the most valuable things that we've learned is when we try to answer or we try to fix, we actually hinder faith opportunities, uh allowing God to work, allowing just so um walking alongside one and someone and encouraging them through difficulty, just being there and allowing time and allowing them to ask questions and allowing them to be frustrated and to hurt uh and and to process the pain. Um I think there's there's great value in having someone to do that with. Yeah. Um and then again, I think the resolution comes through time. I think the resolution comes from staying on that foundation of God is good and faithful. And I don't understand why this is happening. You know, I I don't we don't we don't have that answer as to why this is happening to you right now. And maybe we will get that later, or maybe we we won't ever know. Yeah. But we're gonna trust that God is good, that he's faithful, and that you we want to make sure you know you don't have to walk through this alone.

SPEAKER_04 21:50

I think one of the things too is you can't really know the fullness of good unless you've experienced the opposite. Yeah. I'm not saying that God causes hardships so that we can have a greater appreciation for blessings and and goods, but he doesn't waste it. Jesus declared that in this world you're gonna have all sorts of problems and difficulties and hardships and pain. I mean, even at the end of his Sermon on the Mount or at the end of his Beatitudes, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, but the end of what he's saying is, hey, here's a counter way of thinking about life. He said, Blessed are you when you are persecuted and reviled. And when people say all kinds of crazy things against you, this world's gonna hate you. But remember, it hated me. And he says, In this world, you'll have all sorts of and here's the thing that we get to do as followers of Jesus is point people to the but God moments. Yeah. But take heart. I have overcome the world. And I think for us as followers of Jesus, I can acknowledge hard is hard. I can be sad, I can be disappointed, I can be all the things. Look at the Psalms. I don't statistically know, but I want to believe that it's about a third of all the psalms written are psalms of lament from tragedy. Yeah. Psalm 51 is the one that stands out to me the most after 2 Samuel, where David has sent his best men to the front lines to battle. He sees a woman that's not his wife, bathing in Bathsheba. That leads to uh lust. Lust leads to, you know, this this idea of of infidelity, which leads to all sorts, I mean, ends in murder and ultimately the the miscarriage of a child, or eight days after the child was was born, the child dies. And Psalm 51 is capturing all of those. Yeah, all of those moments. The one thing that that David never does is blame God for all the evil. He cries out to God in the midst of it. And and and learns to rely on God. So I I I listen, I I don't wish evil or hard or bad on anyone, but I also don't. All right. I'll I'll I'll just share this with you. Uh this is all unscripted, right? You you did normally he sends us questions in advance. We think about this. And today he's like, hey you guys, we're just gonna shoot from the hip, like shoot him or Gabby, and that's gonna be great. We're gonna have a gun. So far, we've got a Happy Gilmore clip from me. We've got a Forrest Gump from him. You two are up next. I was talking to my son, Caden, he's 22, and he has his daughter, Tegan. She's five months old. And I don't know why this last week he brought it up out of nowhere. We were talking about kids, and actually, I do remember he was talking about he and Riley, his wife, they're talking about whether they want to have another child right away or wait and have some time. He was asking me, Hey, look, all of our kids were born in 2003, 6, 9, 12, 15, and the space in between was about three years, and he asked if it was by design, and the answer is no. Um, I have a son, Tristan, who would be about 19 years old this year, this December, who passed away. Uh, he was still born. I can say without giving much thought to it, that that is the hardest moment of my life. And as I was talking to Caden, it wasn't just hard for me as a dad. I've never seen my wife go through anything like that. The pain of giving birth to a child. And when your child is born without a heartbeat, not only is it a loss of life, but all of your hopes, your dreams, your desires, your prayers, your passions, all of the things that you had bundled up in that life die with that child. I don't think God caused that. I I don't know the answer. The doctors had a uh hypothesis, but we weren't interested in a in an autopsy. We we believe the Bible says to be absent from the body, to be present with the Lord. And in that moment, though, as I've questions so often, here's what I'll tell you the good in this the Bible means it says what Satan means for death and destruction, God Jesus for our good and his glory. I've learned to appreciate life very differently than I I would have ever appreciated before that moment. I've learned to value my children differently than I would have any other moment. And the third thing I'll tell you is I think about Jesus, excuse me, as he comes to Peter on the heels of a difficult moment and he says, Simon, look, Satan wishes to sift you like wheat. But I've prayed for you, Simon, that you'll have strength and courage, and that as you go through what you're about to go through, that you'll be able to turn back and strengthen others. The good in the evil, the evil or the hard or the difficult is my son Tristan passed away. The good in that is the Lord has used that to allow me to sympathize with others in a way that I never would have been able to before and help share our hope, which is Christ and Christ crucified with others. That's so this is that's why you said this is such a loaded topic. Yeah. Because here's here here's the tension I'm wrestling with. I can sit here and there's a big part of me that wants to go doctrinal and theological. I want, I wanna, I want to pull out all the verses that I know and use all my apologetics training. Apologetics, knowing what you believe, why you believe what you believe, and being able to articulate that. But if I'm being honest, when you invited us into this conversation, I made a conscious decision to say, no, we're just gonna have a conversation. Yeah. Because it doesn't matter how trained we are or the trained answers that we give, it doesn't minimize the hurt and pain. Right. But what's important to know is that God doesn't waste that hurt and pain, whether it's causation or it's ramification, all those things. I don't know what what that sounds like to you guys.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Yeah, absolutely. And even you as you brought that up, and as uh Pastor Mike was talking, you know, kind of have those do's and don'ts of how to walk alongside someone. And certainly throwing theology at them in those critical moments, because you brought up the premise of why do bad things happen to good people. The premise being no one's good. Who is righteous? No one, not not one. Uh so the question is, you know, why are good things even happen to bad people other than that being God's grace? Because we're all deserving of death. I've never seen that help someone in the moment. Start right off of that premise. Right. So you're saying I'm evil. This is happening because I'm evil. Yeah. That becomes the attribution.

SPEAKER_04 28:50

Yeah, yeah. Stop. Start that conversation with, yeah, in addition to what you just said, the the second part of that is hey, uh, your best is like filthy rags to God's.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

So it's all on you, buddy. Yeah, exactly. This is all on you. Oh, I didn't ask for the sinful nature to begin with. Right. Right. You know, it leads down a you know, horrible, you know, that that's I've never seen that as being any sort of productive. That's the don't of walking alongside building with this. I I think it's it's like you said, have having that curiosity. Um, I'm just I think starting with the compassion. That's why God's given us the gift of compassion. Yeah. There's a reason why the church should be flooded with compassion because there is hurt in this world and people need that compassion to combat the conflict that they're dealing with in life. Yeah. So it's absolutely needed. Yeah. Uh, and then and then as you brought up before, just learning how to walk alongside them through that pain uh to figure out and explore, you know, what what's what's God doing here? Like, what is he doing here? That's a process. Yeah. You know, that's a process that for some can take days, for some can take months, for some can take years. That's a process that I find waxing and wanes in people's life. They process it one way this season of their life, and there's seasons where they understand they get to a next season, they're re-exploring it again and they have to revisit it. Um, but that's just an invitation to just continue to grow deeper into Christ and a full knowledge and awareness of who he is and what that moment looks like of how God's going to reclaim it and redeem it and turn it into something good in their life. Uh, so it's so truly a journey. Um, but I think that gift of compassion uh is strongly needed. I think that gift of compassion goes much further than the gift of intellectualization in our moment.

SPEAKER_03 30:24

Yeah. I want to I want to share a story as well. Um, his his wife was dealing with some pretty rough uh physical symptoms, just lots of fatigue and and just he he used the words, this has robbed her of her joy. And we we won we prayed and we prayed oh uh over that situation. And uh about three days after we prayed, she passed away. Um there was a it was a heart issue that they hadn't diagnosed, and she and she passed. And you know, I was wrecked for him. Um young wife. Um and I remember going to the calling hours and walking up to to greet him, and he looks at me with tears in his eyes and said, God answered our prayer, you know, that her joy has been restored. And that perspective uh just just blew me away because I wasn't there. I mean that wasn't uh it was his wife, um, but but I was feeling uh distraught for him, and he had the the the sense to see the goodness of God even in that worst moment. And it it it really affected the way that that I think of tragedy.

SPEAKER_04 31:55

Yeah, what you're talking about, Mike, is the difference between outlook and outcome. We have very little in moments like that where we can affect the outcome. There are things we can do to the best of our abilities, but regardless of the outcome, God is a God of sustaining us who can direct our our outlook. I'm thinking about a song that came out in the early 90s. My my story, I was adopted later in life, 1993, and Christian music was a novelty to me. I I believe the guy's name is Daryl Evans, and he pulls from two different passages of scripture specifically. But the the the verb the verses and the chorus, I'm trading my sorrows, I'm trading my pain, I'm laying them down for the joy of the Lord. And then the the the the the chorus or the Lord we say yes Lord, yes, Lord, yes, yes, Lord. And then it returns to I'm laying it down for the joy of the Lord. And that's one thing that I would say your friend's story embodies is though he had little effect on the outcome, God gave him all that he needed for his outlook.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

Yeah, yeah. I I think the we have to we have to place our hope in Christ and our hope in eternity with him. And that it's just making me all of this conversation is just making me think like uh our outlook has to be hope. Like that it has to be having placing our hope in God that He's gonna redeem all of these situations, uh placing our hope in God, knowing that inevitably one day we will be without this pain, we will be without this suffering, we'll be without the without these issues and the hope that the joy will be restored, you know. Um but also like the the outlook that you're talking about is is James when you consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds, because it's gonna give your faith more perseverance, you know. It's gonna whenever those things rear the ugly head again, whenever the next thing comes, or whenever the next thing comes for someone else in your life, you're you're able to pass that hope on to somebody else because you've been through it too. Yeah, you know, that was Jesus' ministry model from the start is that he came into the world, he became flesh to sympathize with our weakness, to understand what pain is, to be able to be able to say, Hey, I've been through this too, and I know that it hurts. And I I came and I did it because I love you, because I'm with you, because I want you to understand like the the suffering that comes as a result from sin, I'm going to go through it with you. You know, you don't have to go through this alone. My desire is to be with you in every circumstance. And so I'm going to become flesh to be with you, to suffer with you. Right. And so that man, that gives me so much hope. Even outside of the inevitability of one day being in under with him in eternity in heaven, where where he's going to wipe away every tear, where there's going to be no more pain. There's going to be there's going to be no more disease or hunger. Man, like I'm just grateful that he that he became flesh to endure this life just like I just like I have to, you know? And that's something he did not have to do.

SPEAKER_04 35:34

In the carnality, I think all the way back to the Garden of Gethsemane. Father, I wish that you would take this cup from me. Yeah, now my will yours be done. God, in human form, through the person of his son, took on suffering and sorrow, brokenness and shame and bearing the sins of the world. When you think about the Savior that we serve, who can identify with us, even the shortest verse in the Bible, John 13, 35, with the death of Jesus' close friend and companion Lazarus, it says Jesus wept. Those are two examples. I can give you multiple more. You quoted from James. I can give you Romans 5. Paul's saying, not only so we also rejoice in our sufferings, because meaning Paul, this is Paul who said I've prayed three times that the Lord would take this ailment from me, yet he hasn't, so I consider it a thorn in my flesh. He could stop there. That I consider this the thorn of my flesh. But the part that I really hold on to is Paul said, which keeps me ever dependent on Christ. And so I I again ethereally, theologically, doctrinally, we could get into the weeds. Yeah. We could talk about all the biblical camps from the Reformed tradition to the Armenian holiness tradition to free will versus predestination to lordship, salvation, and sovereignty and all the things. But the reality is that comes right back down to our desperate need for and dependence upon Jesus. And when you understand that it's not just desperate need for and utter dependence upon Jesus, but that he think about here I go back again. I didn't grow up in the church, but I think about some of the moments that I treasure from my childhood. We grew up in a a Baptist church post-adoption that's still sang hymns periodically. And one of them is, I don't remember the name of it, but the the the words are, and he walks with me and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own. I'm thinking about a per that's that's the that's the the significance of that right relationship and that personal relationship with Jesus. And I don't know about you guys, but there's a relationship hits different when you're talking with somebody who understands you at an intrinsic level that gets what you've gone through. Right. Um just out of the four of us here, uh, three of us are college athletes. We played in in college at some level. You you didn't, uh but you played baseball, you played football, and I wrestled. And we understand going all the way back to I played Halo. It counts. The second you got arthritis in your thumbs. Oh, yeah, dude. Oh yeah. Uh at least you tape it up before he played. My my my point in that was certainly wasn't the minus you. You're an athlete. I've seen you play basketball, you're an athlete. Uh I I bet you're a really good NBA jam, too. But as I think back to my my point in bringing that up is you get into a room with with uh individuals, and it doesn't matter what the arena is, it could be academics, it could be music, fine arts, creation, uh, all the things, right? STEM or sports. When you talk to somebody who has a shared experience, even if you yourself didn't share it with them, but you know that they've shared that experience, you connect at a different level. Yeah, I bring that up only to celebrate the fact that we can appreciate that we can celebrate that Jesus gets us at an intrinsic level, even in the difficult, even in the hard. Jesus had his best friends walk away from him. Jesus was beaten. I'm talking to the point where they didn't physically recognize him. Jesus was wrongly accused and put on trial, not once, not twice, but three times. Yeah. Jesus was abandoned by his his own family. Jesus was, I mean, you you think about all that Jesus, the relational hardships he went through, the physical hardships he went through, the mental anguish, all the things. When I think about that, the God of the universe conquered death and all that comes with it, so that we can have life. When I think about Jesus, that he the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us, I go back to the idea of I won't I I I may not be able to affect my outcomes. Yeah. But we definitely have the ability to choose our outlooks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Yeah. I think I think that kind of that kind of bridges over to the symptom that suffering is the symptom of evil. Yeah. That and that that kind of brings like to the to me to the other side of the the what the one this conversation to be about. We've talked a lot about suffering. And what I what I want to try to like capture in this moment is everyone who's watching, if you haven't picked up on this, like please pick up on this. You're not going to be able to answer the question philosophically, and it's going to mean a whole lot to somebody. But what we've all talked about in these moments is pastoring people through their pain and showing them the hope in Jesus Christ and helping them understand that they're loved and that there is hope on the other side of the pain. There's even hope in the midst of the pain. So if you want to win this argument, if it is, if it is an argument for you with someone in your life that maybe you're sharing Jesus with them, and this is the reason why they they won't place their faith in Jesus, is because of suffering. The reality is they're probably really hurting. And the best way you're going to minister to them is to just be a friend. Yeah. It's just to be compassionate and to help them understand that God sees them and that he loves them and to not philosophically try to break down their walls. Yeah. It's it's to love them through it. Now, there might be some people that that's not the that's not the case for. Um, and it is important, I think, to be able to do a lot of what we've been trying to maybe avoid in this conversation of of list all of the verses and all the philosophical arguments and you know all that stuff. I think that's all that might be another podcast to have at some point. Um, but all of all of this suffering is a side effect or it is it is the outcome of evil. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a whole other paradigm for this conversation of why does God allow suffering, but why does he allow evil? Yeah. Why does that why does he allow that stuff to happen?

SPEAKER_04 42:20

Yeah, we uh if you guys want to jump into Louise on that, we can. I mean, the the most obvious is Romans 3.23, Romans 6.23, John 3.16, uh, first John 3.16. There are a whole lot of passages that that that tie all of these things together. The reality is that we're born inherently simple, and sin leads to death. When we think about death, we think about no longer having blood pulsing through our veins or oxygen in our lungs and therefore being rendered lifeless. But the truth is that death is not just a physical act, it is a it is a death to uh healthy relationships, it's a death to finances, it's a death to uh uh all every arena of your life because of sin and the introduction of sin and born inherently sinful, that sin leads to death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. And so then you look at the John 3.16 for God loved the world so much that he gives one only son, that whoever believes in him will not have perish, because that's the byproduct or consequence of that death, or that sin is that perishing, but have everlasting life. Again, outcome, outlook. And then if you go to 1 John 3.16, and even if you go to Revelation 3.16, Revelation 3.15 and 16 it is very clear about the this this brokenness. Uh it talks about man on a yeah, on a hot day, I want a cold beverage. On a cold day, I want a hot beverage, and you know, um you get anything lukewarm and your body can't sustain this, I throw you out of my mouth. But yeah, the idea that God wants us and desires us, and and I I think that there's so much that we could, to your point, unpack about sin and evil. uh and and death but but i do want to acknowledge before we get into leads on that that most of the time people don't necessarily they're not looking the answer isn't gonna solve the problem the problem is uh a a God-sized hole in a human heart that needs to be filled by the the work of the Lord through the person of the Holy Spirit and the best way we can intercede or intervene is to walk alongside them and share the love and the hope and the joy and encourage the outlook rather than justify the outcome. You know Andrew you you're probably the most unique of all of us in this panel for a lot of different reasons and I mean that in the best way possible but one of the things I admire most about you is for people who don't know you uh you are a chaplain in the United States Army and you have had two tours of duty right one one tour of duty and you just you just got back about a two and a half years ago okay yeah yeah I'd love for you to talk about maybe not getting to the weeds on on things that you shouldn't but talk about what you've what you've done to share hope through the hurt and explain the introduction of evil in the middle of these queries that are coming up.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Yeah that that and even having served as a trauma counselor uh for 10 12 years before that as well uh you know I've I've certainly seen all sorts of evils and people experience and encounter all sorts of evils. In fact there's a few times where I myself kind of burnt out within the field just from what we call vicarious traumatization. Yeah. Being exposed to so many evils but that I was experiencing hearing the stories over and over and over again that it started feeling real for me and impacting my person, my inner world uh significantly intruding into my sleeves and my thought patterns and you know it's evil's heavy. There's two thoughts that I've I've been wrestling with on my end before I get there, if that's fine. One was you know the fact that one of the titles for Jesus is the suffering servants. And that's not causation. Jesus isn't the suffering servant because of sins he committed or omitted um it's ramification because of the sins of the world. So he took it on took on the suffering because of the sins of others. Yeah. I mean how how does that relate to someone who's experienced evil in this world it directly relates to that to know that Jesus is the suffering servant and the suffering servant sees you and he can relate to you and he's been there. He's checked that box he's whatever you want to call it he understands what that's like um yeah I've been wrestling with that for um for a while uh the other thing that wrestled me kind of eluded me uh it'll come back at some point uh I'm sure um but you know helping someone to understand the evils of this world uh it is challenging because many of them do not operate off of the same worldview that I operate off of and they have a different worldview. One common ground we can all agree upon is that it hurts. Yeah. Yeah and that it feels miserable um and that we don't like it. Yeah. And that we want to do something about it. Absolutely whether that's processing the other whether that's literally doing something to protect and defend evils from spreading. Yeah. That's one common ground we all stand upon there. And I just think there's something innately built into people to know evil for what it is. You start to start talking about the ideology and and um the the um moral basis for wrong the other the more ethics you know just general principles we all agree this is just wrong. Right. Like we don't have to search through the Bible we don't have to search through this source of truth or that we just all agree this is doing. And I think that's just naturally innately built into us because we have a God. Absolutely a righteous God. That's right uh that just evil cannot mix with that. And we're made in his image so we understand that we just made in his image and so naturalists get a rub the human beings the wrong way because that image you feel the mar and you feel the scratching and you feel the pool and you feel the tension you feel the hurt and everything associated with it as well. So I mean I can't get dig into the weeds too much of what that counseling looks like just for the sake of protecting those confidential conversations. Yeah. But it is a challenge to take people through that journey of processing the evils they've witnessed and they encountered not just from a religious and theological stance, but also the way that evil impacts biology and impacts psychological functioning and impacts relational dynamics. And this is the way how it seems to just permeate in front of everyone. That's what I was going to say evil has such a strong impact on people that it directly impacts what they say yes to and what they say no to. Sure. And I I think it's such a stronghold that the enemy has on people is that they fear suffering so much that they will avoid incredibly fruitful opportunities that God calls them to with the fear that there's potential suffering. Yeah. Yeah yet the mission that the suffering servant went on he knew exactly what he was going to be up against. And yet he still was willing to take that on knowing that God was bigger and stronger more powerful than the circumstance he was going to encounter and what that joy would look like in the morning when the suffering was gone and done. That's the hard part you know how do you help someone see beyond the suffering because it just has a way of creating tunnel vision and it has a way of just people focusing on what's happening right now that you lose that broader perspective. Yeah. And so when you walk alongside people I get to be that broader perspective. Yeah. I get to be the person that looks at something beyond this immediate circumstance that has someone trapped in it because just that evil just puts that gloss over their eyes and then allow them to see the bigger picture of what's going on.

SPEAKER_03 49:56

I think that's one of the beauties of Stephen Ministry is that it's there's no time frame. It's not like hey we're gonna meet with you for six weeks and then you're on your own. It's as long as it takes and we're gonna walk alongside you as you go through that process. See there's not a there's not a set and finish date we're we're here to walk with you through that. The other thing I that came to my mind you talked a lot about hope came up in in almost every conversation um someone mentioned it and it's the idea of the difference between biblical hope and the world's definition of hope. It's it's not a wish but it's a confidence. It's yeah it's an assurance. That's a great definition conviction of of what we don't see. It's a belief it's fate so um making sure that it's not just well we kind of kind of cast it out there and hope that happens and that's not that's not that's not what this means it's a it's an assurance of the belief.

SPEAKER_04 50:59

One that you're touching on now is Hebrews 11 yeah but in every instance of individuals that are mentioned by faith Abraham by faith Rahab by faith Moses you know by faith each one of these individuals that are mentioned by faith. The reality is that it was difficult in every instance and they are mentioned in part because again I don't want to be the dead horse but I I can't ignore the fact that when people come and ask questions about good and evil and uh and allowing God you know God allowing causation verse verse ramification the reality is a lot of times they're questioning outcomes but the reality is they want to understand outlook. Yeah and when you think about Hebrews 11 imagine Abram leave leave leave everything you've ever known and take on a responsibility greater than you could ever imagine follow me each day and it's gonna be incredibly difficult. Moses who was living out in the wilderness as a murderer yeah you're gonna go back to your people where you're a convicted felon and you're gonna lead the people in fact you're gonna go to your brother Pharaoh and you're gonna say let my people go and you're gonna lead a million captives into freedom oh by the way they're gonna complain for 40 years. They're gonna go back to slavery. They'd rather why did you bring us out here it would have been better if we just served Pharaoh in misery than to be out here and die.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:38

And and moment after moment after moment everybody is so focused I go back to the idea that we've we filter Andrew you touched on this this is where this came from you touched on the world lens and how our traumas our sufferings our pains influence how we see the world and you appropriately identified that there are moments that you can't share because of confidentiality and and the nature of what you did. But the truth of what you said was that point of outlook and that's that's where we can't always even explain and that's the other thing too let's just be honest I can't explain all the outcomes yeah no and if I'm being really honest I don't agree with all the outcomes right yeah looking at the three of you all all three of you are dads I'm I'm I'm 20 years removed 19 years removed from my son dying I still don't agree with it yeah right but I can choose my outlook butt God buttons and so I I I hope that in a moment like this where you ask us to evaluate these questions and you ask people to consider the observations from what we are sharing that the thing that people will take the most isn't that we're giving them some brilliant doctrinal theological or even philosophical or uh psychological tools but these really hard things point all the more to our need for Jesus the desperation we have for King Jesus that suffering servant who another characteristic is that he is a coming king. He's coming back to redeem all things and I I know that that in our carnality in humanity we want all things to make sense but can it just be okay that it doesn't make sense or that it doesn't always go the way we want but God is still that's why I asked you at the very beginning is it possible that both things yeah can coincide or co exist legally that God is good and his promises endure forever and that this is hard and difficult and we don't like it.

SPEAKER_01 54:58

I want to touch on that because there is a suffering that leads to righteousness. Yes uh there there really is you know when you love you serve. That's the model Christ that when you serve you sacrifice it's the model Christ that Christ that when you sacrifice you suffer. There's pain in the offering scripture is clear on that but there's also that offering can lead to righteousness whether it's righteousness in your life or the testimony that leads to righteousness in someone else's the fruit of suffering can be absolutely incredible and produce new life in someone's life or refresh life in someone else. I we had this conversation offline earlier and sometimes I think even our perception of suffering to me, you know, seeing a Christian go through a hard season of life that ultimately results in them being transformed more into Christ likeness or God using and reclaiming that story to help someone else in their walk or lead them to Christ uh that is that is a beautiful suffering. Yeah. Sometimes I think the person who's lost but yet is enjoying the hedonistic lifestyle that may not be labeled as suffering. That is suffering. Yeah. Yeah. And they don't even know their suffering uh even though it may seem temporarily happy in that moment. They don't know the spiritual decay that's going on. They don't know how lost they are completely blind to it. Absolutely yeah and I want to label that as that is suffering.

SPEAKER_02 56:19

Yeah yeah I'm I'm I'm in first samuel right now in my personal uh devotion time and I just got through chapter eight where Israel is like begging Samuel like we want a king like just like everyone else has you know and Samuel's going to God like what like they have you you know and and then he gives them all these warnings you know like we follow God you you you do realize that if you want just kind of speaking to the hedonistic thing of it like if you want what the world has instead of having God be your everything being your your your definer of what good is your lawgiver your leader the thing you've placed all of your hope in instead of a person instead of a man or again what the rest of the world has you're gonna end up being enslaved there's gonna be war there's gonna be disease there's gonna be families ripped apart there's gonna be um there's gonna be poverty there's gonna be all these things that are that that are the fruits of being led by what the world has to offer and rather than what God has to lead you in.

SPEAKER_04 57:29

And how many times do we allow other people's circumstances to influence how we see something yeah you're talking about a dynastic monarchy yeah where the nation of Israel moves away from God's authority and leading through his word and through judges and they're looking at all the other kingdoms and saying look how great they have it we want what they have but they've never walked even a step let alone a mile in the shoes of the people who are serving under the authority of a king in a dynastic monarchy as established by at that point it would be Saul. Yeah and and then how often after that did they say what were we thinking yeah so so I think even even as we look at other people's circumstances we look at how good somebody else has it you said something Andrew that really struck a nerve you said even people who this side of eternity they appear to be successful and they are they're living it up and they don't even know the depth of their depravity I hate to say it in a callous manner but if they don't know Jesus they had better live it up yeah like they had better have all the fun they can have and make the most of every moment they have because when that funnel when that final breath is is drawn that's a wrap yep and that's where for us real life begins. Well for us it's at the point of regeneration but where we experience no more sorrow no more suffering no more weeping no more gnashing of teeth none of that where we are complete and whole and restored our new bodies and and and yes victory I just I man I can't help but think of we've got to be really careful to assign value to good and evil based on someone else's circumstances. For us to look at somebody that is maybe a celebrity an athlete a you know a famous musician or an actor or a business you know somebody who's a mogul that has done and and assigned by you say well look at how easy they have it.

SPEAKER_02 59:30

If I just had their situation or their we have no idea we don't know the suffering that they that they go through or the the what it what it took to get there and what about Jim Carrey that said that I wish everyone could become rich and famous for a month they can see it solves none of your problems.

SPEAKER_04 59:46

It was well just so you know you and I have now we have been driving the the the social cues as far as like movie references.

SPEAKER_03 59:54

Yeah you two pop culture we all we're pop culturally literate say we only we only scriptural references I just piety at entity prime that's all right I'm afraid to quote the movies already then you touched on this you both just touched on this though is the the outlook of an eternal outlook as opposed to a temporary yeah you know what does this look like 500 years from now you know the the pain will be gone all of that will be gone. So as we're going through it it it hurts yeah but that hope is for something that's that's everlasting.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:36

The spiritual gain I say I want to pick up my cross and follow Christ and the splinters I get on my back are well worth the spiritual gain that I get and the eternal reward I get absolutely yeah Mike I know that we're we're wrapping up our time here.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:49

Jay Jay kind of gave us a a a bit of a clue that is coming to a a conclusion but I would love for you to give us an opportunity to understand how someone who might be in the middle of suffering, hardships, pain, brokenness in any arena could benefit from a Stephen minister and how they can how they can find out more about this.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:16

So anyone who's who's going through suffering that's a that's an ongoing thing um you know it's it if meeting one time is going to solve the problem that's not what Stephen ministry is but it's it's people who have uh are processing ongoing pain. Uh we we have people who are trained to meet uh and listen and and encourage and pray they're not professional counselors um they're not um they're not gonna fix everything but they are going to care well for you they're gonna walk alongside you they're gonna help you process what's going on in your life that's that's what we do.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:01

From a biblical worldview and it's anybody from a broken relationship to financial stress and strain to the loss of a job to the loss of a loved one to any kind of emotional or psychological heart hardship hurt pain that I mean I'm asking you it qualifies for yes the there's not a yeah it's not like well you don't your situation doesn't qualify.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:23

It's not like that it's it's a fit for anyone who is is going through a painful situation. Yeah and and what it looks like is someone would uh someone would meet with you once a week for an hour um just to just to let you talk just to listen just to again not gonna offer advice and and solutions but to to process with you and to to care for you and walk alongside you and and ask some questions ask clarifying questions to help you think but not to say hey you know what you should do this that's not what it is but it's a hey I'm gonna I'm gonna be praying for you as you do this uh you know and and how are you doing and just to to have someone uh consistently caring for you yeah uh through the whole through the whole process so all all you need to do that to to um to draw on a Stephen minister uh is to submit a a name and number uh to the church and say uh this is something we're interested in and we'll have someone meet and explain and talk through and make sure it's a good fit and then partner you with someone to to walk alongside and care.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:36

Great Mike thanks.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:37

Such a cool ministry um really grateful that you guys dreamed that up and you know we'd be able to make that happen here. And um yeah thank you guys for this for this time today uh be to be able to talk through this. And again there's probably lots of questions and rabbit trails we could take off of these topics that um it would just be impossible to cover uh in in an hour. Um but I appreciate you guys bringing your perspectives and um bringing uh the hope of Jesus inevitably into this conversation because really that that is the only cure that is the only answer that that the all four of us here would want to bring to this question of like God loves you Jesus loves you so much and he is going to redeem all things and wants to redeem you as well. So guys thank you so much for watching today um make sure to come back next time whenever we have our next episodes and uh if you are going through a difficult time in your life right now if you would love someone to come alongside you and share the hope of Jesus uh in your situation and just just love you uh through your pain. Uh you can always reach out to crossroads um we we have our Stevens ministry that we would love our ministers that would love to connect with you and all of us here would love to be able just to sit down with you uh and share the hope of Jesus with you. Thank you so much for watching today. We'll see you next time