Beyond Sunday
Beyond Sunday
Understanding the Purpose in Pain
In this Beyond Sunday episode, we dive into the second message of the Where’s God? series, tackling the tough question: “Where is God in my pain?” Through honest conversation and personal stories, we explore how seasons of suffering can deepen our faith, and how God remains present—even when He feels far away.
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Thanks for listening!
Welcome to Beyond Sunday, the King of Kings podcast, where we kind of dive a little bit deeper into what we're taking Beyond Sunday from our message series. My name is Dena Newsome and I have some amazing guests with me here today.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Julie Easley, Executive Director at King of Kings.
Speaker 3:Peter Bay Campus. Director for King of Kings Northwest.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys so much for being here today. It's great to be here. Yeah, so we are looking at the week two message of our Where's God series, and I was distracted in this message because one of the things Greg talked about was getting to eat his own choice of breakfast cereals. So, my question to start us out today is what's your favorite breakfast cereal? Like maybe from when you were a kid. What was your favorite? What's your favorite now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my favorite breakfast cereal has always been, and will always be, peanut butter, captain Crunch. So good, how long has that been around? I think a long time. I mean as long as I can remember. But look, my mom, didn't? She let us eat sugar cereal for a little bit and then she discovered like that's not healthy, and then we went all to healthy. So I only had a couple glorious years in the sun with sugar cereal.
Speaker 3:What did you have to eat? Was it like grape nuts? It was like Raisin Bran.
Speaker 2:And I mean and I don't even know if that's that great, honestly, now, with everything that they're saying, probably no cereal's good, but it probably was better than like Boo Berry Do you remember those?
Speaker 3:Yes, so good, the only seasonal cereal, right? Yeah, so for me we had sugary cereals, but we had off-brand.
Speaker 2:Yep, the knockoffs yeah.
Speaker 3:It would be like Coco Dots. Rainbows and stars or whatever, and I mean we liked those, I think, as a kid, though one of my favorites and this is really gross now is we would just crunch up graham crackers and add milk.
Speaker 2:Actually, that sounds pretty yummy, honestly, just get after it.
Speaker 3:You just got to get going because it gets.
Speaker 2:I would do some mush in like five seconds.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it mushifies quick. Now I would say number one, Cocoa Pebbles, Number two, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Number three, Crave I don't know, Crave yeah it's like a crunchy outside with like chocolatey inside. Oh my, it's fantastic. But there's a lot of great cereals out there. I'd love to. If anyone ever wants to talk to me about cereals, let's do this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, game on.
Speaker 3:How about you, Dina?
Speaker 1:There are always Cocoa Pebbles in my house because it's my son's favorite. He will go through a whole box, sometimes in an evening.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh, I will get groceries and I'll wake up the next day. Yeah, the joys of being what 18?
Speaker 1:I would call a popcorn bowl, you know, like just ginormous, where I serve a whole pasta salad, it's got to be like 500 grams of sugar. He's a grown boy, but my favorite always has been Life cereal which is like not fancy not fantastic what?
Speaker 3:does it look like?
Speaker 1:It's just little squares.
Speaker 3:Oh, like the Czechs ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it looks like that, but they're flatter.
Speaker 2:They are, and they're sweeter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's cinnamon life, but I don't like the cinnamon life.
Speaker 2:Just the regular Only life original.
Speaker 1:Got to be the classic that and honeycomb. I do like honeycomb.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's a blast from the past, yep.
Speaker 2:That also gets mushy real quick.
Speaker 1:Yes, it does.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's either like going to destroy your mouth or mushy real quick, right Right.
Speaker 2:Captain Crunch is a destroyer.
Speaker 1:When I was in college, I lived in a dorm room where you just had the sink. Like you know, it was communal bathrooms, and then you just had a sink in your room to wash your hands and brush your teeth with, and so I didn't never wanted to do dishes, because that was you know where we could. So cereal when I was in college, I would do frosted flakes, because that was one that both my roommate and I would like, and then we'd buy just our own individual milk cartons and then you'd take a handful of it, shove it in your mouth and take a drink of milk, so you didn't have to have a bowl. That's clever.
Speaker 2:Something you can take away right.
Speaker 1:Tip for you today, right here on.
Speaker 3:Beyond Sunday.
Speaker 1:That's good, that's good. So you know that suffering through dishes is not the same kind of suffering that Greg was talking about this week, but he was talking about where is God in our pain and is God working in the midst of our pain? What was you guys' biggest takeaways this week?
Speaker 2:I think for me it's just right. I think when life is painful, we have a tendency to shut God out because we don't feel like he can be trusted, or maybe that he's not listening. And Greg's just encouragement to stay faithful and to even turn to God more during those times just really was a great reminder for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that he talked about how we often think if we get to this point, it's going to be easier Once my kids are no longer toddlers, once they're in middle school, once they're in high school, once they're in college. But it never gets easier. Life, this side of heaven's always hard. And so now, what do we do about that? And that's a good reminder, cause for me, I've got an 11, nine and seven year old and days are still just so long and I'm like, how long are they going to be this difficult? But to know like the next phase will come with its own challenges. So find my reliance in God now, because it's not like everything's going to be honky dory down the road, right yeah.
Speaker 1:So Pastor Greg started talking about the 1930s dust bowl, talking about settling the dust and stuff, but this was completely new to me. I knew zippo zilch about the Dust Bowl. What did you guys know about the Dust Bowl, if anything, before this coming in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a book nerd. I actually read a whole book about the Dust Bowl and it was well. First of all, I watched a special on PBS all about the Dust Bowl. You know who's that guy who does all those amazing PBS different. What's his name?
Speaker 3:I couldn't tell you at all. Yeah, anyway, morgan Freeman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he, ken Burns. Ken Burns, yes, oh, good old Kenny B, yep, yep. Anyway, I watched a special about it and then I was like I want to learn more. So I got a book and it's called, and I'm going to highly recommend it. It was an award-winning book. It's called the Worst Hard Time and Timothy Egan, e-g-a-n, wrote it the Worst Hard Time. So if you want to find out more about the Dust Bowl, fantastic book man. What a time of suffering that was for a huge portion of the United States.
Speaker 3:It. It was stunning. Yeah yeah, I knew nothing about it. It sounds terrible. I'm like why did this happen? Timothy Egan will probably tell me.
Speaker 2:It was bad farming practices. Basically all of the land was held down by certain native plants and when they plowed that up for farmland, everything that was holding that dirt down, and then there was a drought and then the dust was. I mean, it was dust and dirt everywhere, but basically they wrecked the ecosystem of that particular place.
Speaker 3:So where did this all happen? Where was the Dust Bowl? It wasn't nationwide.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was pretty much the you know kind of the Midwest Oklahoma, nebraska, kind of that whole general area Kansas yeah.
Speaker 3:So entire states were just engulfed in dust.
Speaker 2:Maybe not entire states you know, I read this a while ago so I'm not totally sure but I mean huge portions of, yeah, kind of the Midwest-ish area.
Speaker 3:How long did this?
Speaker 2:last Years Years, I mean, people died from it and that's what led to a lot of people like the Grapes of Wrath. Have you ever you know that book where they just traveled from kind of this area where everything was so bad, out to California?
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:So it led to a lot of people just moving away because they were like I can't live here anymore, so prior to that it was.
Speaker 3:There were, there were more people, or there are bigger cities here in the Midwest, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was still mostly farming communities. I think, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:I mean, as people were starting to move across the West, they were like, oh, look at all this big empty land I can farm. Let me just plow all this stuff up. Oh, this isn't working out so great.
Speaker 3:Fascinating. Yeah, yeah, you can tell my knowledge on this.
Speaker 1:That's okay. I was in the same boat. Yeah, it sounded to me like as people were talking about it on Sunday morning around. I was like this is like one of the plagues, Like the dust plague, it totally was.
Speaker 3:It does sound like one yeah.
Speaker 1:Just shredded everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, who knew? Compared to the other plagues like how bad would you make the dust bowl? The other ones lasted shorter. I was going to say the other ones lasted shorter. I was going to say none.
Speaker 2:Of them lasted for years and years.
Speaker 3:So would you say this was the worst of all the plagues compared to the others?
Speaker 2:Well, not killing your oldest child. I mean that would be probably the top topic for most people. But yeah, dust Bowl would be up there for me.
Speaker 3:All right, okay, so death of the firstborn, then Dust Bowl.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's what I'll go with the Juliees of that.
Speaker 1:You heard it here. Guys, we're just putting out these nuggets today, little nuggets of knowledge, all right. So when we talk about suffering, job is the biblical character that comes up. It's everybody's token, you know. Oh, job went through so much suffering and he did. Don't get me wrong, but Pastor Greg really referred to like in life we're going to have our Job moments and it's not all the time, but we're going to go through those times where we really are down in a valley.
Speaker 1:It may not last years, but how do you both deal with your Job? Moments in life Like what are some go-to reliefs for you? Where do you find yourself in scripture? What's your process?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think my instinct and this may surprise people because I'm a real people person but my instinct when I'm in a Job moment is to avoid people and just kind of, you know, get away from everybody and just kind of wallow in self-pity.
Speaker 3:And so I've had to learn what are the right ways in Joe moments to talk to the right people.
Speaker 3:For me, oftentimes it's a few weeks too late, but then I'll go and talk to a counselor, which almost always helps within the first or second visit, and so that's one big thing. Another big thing in my Joe moments is what out of my life has just gotten out of whack, and it because usually when I'm in a calamity of some sort, my physical activity or my what I eat or those things get out of whack as well. So it's diagnosing that and then getting back to being physically active and eating the right things and sleeping, um, taking things off my schedule so I am not so out of it. And then, finally, the most important thing for me is like who does god say I am, regardless of what I'm currently going through? So the promises of God and my identity in him. And, julie, you've talked about sonship a lot. That's really important to me that it's my. My worth is not dependent on me figuring out this project or the people around me liking me.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and kind of related to sonship.
Speaker 2:What I really try to do when I'm going through something challenging is trying to remember, like what God's posture is or his face is, as he's looking at me.
Speaker 2:So often when I'm struggling, I picture God is either he's got his back towards me or he's distracted with something else, or that he's just very neutral, like well, maybe I'll help you with this or maybe I won't, which is all such a wrong picture, but I have to remind myself of that. Like he's looking at me, like I look at my kids and there were things right when they were growing up that I had to do or choices that I had to make on their behalf for their good that they weren't pleased about. But it was never with a face of like I don't really care how it's going to work out for you. Like God's super invested in you. He's carefully. I love the message and I don't know what the verse is, but it says that God watches over you very carefully and so just that sense of, even as I'm going through this, god is watching me very carefully and not without love.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I consistently find myself in the Psalms when I'm just feeling those joke moments in life and it can be about any of them. Really there's something to find, there's joy, there's suffering in there. There's, you know, a lot of David asking why God in the Psalms. But I just always find they're short enough for me to get through in a time when I might be distracted by whatever it is. But I just find some solace there, a lot.
Speaker 3:Like in the lamenting too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Just because I think you feel less alone, I feel less alone. I feel less alone here. Even this writer of this book that I treasure and cherish and is the word of God you know what I mean Like even the human writers went through suffering. And so it's just like I don't know, I feel less isolated and less yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean if the man after God's own heart, david, is crying out and saying why have you left me when?
Speaker 2:are you?
Speaker 3:Lord, years ago we did a Lenten series on lament called the. What was it? The something note, the blue note or I don't know. But we had a pastor at the time. We talked about like when you're three-year-old's really upset and they're banging on your chest and you can take it because they're a three-year-old, like that's how it is with God, like we can bang on his chest and say why he can take it. Yeah, and that was a good reminder speaks to what you're talking about. But Julie, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you, that idea that like he's watching over you, he sees you and he cares as a parent does.
Speaker 2:I actually think the message version is of that verse. I'm almost positive if you'll double check, I don't. I'm yeah, but just thinking about like just bringing your honest questions and unhappiness to God. Like I was listening to a podcast once where they said just invite Jesus into the painful, like verbally. Jesus, I invite you into my big disappointment about this. I'm inviting you into my frustration around this. I don't feel like you're listening to me right now, jesus. I'm inviting you into even my lack of trust right now. Please meet me here.
Speaker 1:I said this last week when Kate and I were talking about the first message in the series, talking about suffering, and I feel like our God is a sit-in-the-mud God.
Speaker 1:And so he's not always going to rescue us, because His timing is not our timing and he has a bigger picture of whatever the suffering or the pain that we're going through is, but he's going to be right there with us while we're sitting in the mud and that, to me, is a strong image that I use when I feel like I'm stuck in the muck. He's with me, yeah, yeah, and that's okay, it's good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's also a humbling image because, like when you think of an animal stuck in the mud, what do you think of? Like a donkey or a donkey, and like neither of those are very glorious animals. And there we are and God is like yeah, but I'm still with you. And like when we talk about God, like Jesus was there for the tax collectors and the sinners and we should care for them too. It's like no.
Speaker 2:You are that person. I am that person.
Speaker 3:I'm the tax collector, I'm the sinner, I'm the pig, I'm the donkey, and yet Jesus, the healer of the whole world, sits with me and like that's a very beautiful picture, love it.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I really turn to in my job moments is really trying to check my heart, where my heart is, how I'm reflecting to other people. You talk about, peter, how maybe you pull away, you know, avoid people. I think there's a tendency. There's the phrase hurt people, hurt people. When I'm hurting, I tend to maybe have a shorter temper or shorter patience, or I'm quicker with my words of anger and stuff, and so that for me is a point where, okay, when I feel like maybe I can't do anything about whatever my pain is, I can do something about how I'm interacting with those around me, and so that's a focus point for me. I'm like, okay, what kind of thing am I going to do for somebody else?
Speaker 3:today.
Speaker 1:And it makes me feel better. It doesn't fix things, but it does make me feel better and it makes me feel closer to God, because I know that that person is a child of God too. I don't know what suffering they're going through that they're not talking about, but hey, we're in this together and I'm going to do something nice for you today.
Speaker 2:I love that. It's good.
Speaker 1:Okay, the mind-blowing fact that I found from Greg'son was dinner time in 1923. So long Was 90 minutes. Now I will say, growing up, our dinner was probably our family dinners were maybe 45. We would sit at the table and everybody talk about their day. 2023, 12 minutes what? Do you guys? Is that true for your own families? Well, I mean, I've been emptying nests right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we were pretty. I would say that we probably were sitting down for maybe a half an hour or so, because it was just, you know, obviously not. Obviously we would open with prayer and then serve the food and talk, and then afterwards we would usually have a devotional time together. So that did stretch it out a little bit more. But man, when you've got hungry kids at the table, they can wolf that food down real fast. I was amazed, like I would spend an hour making something on a special night and it would be gone and like right, it's how Thanksgiving is too. It's like what did I do all this for? But yeah, so I would say probably half hour. It's different now, shorter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it all depends. It all depends on the moods and whatever, but I do think in general we have a tendency to overschedule our time more now than we ever had in my lifetime. I see it with my family, I see it with the families around me. There's dance lessons and gymnastics and basketball and everything going on that you have to run and get your kids to. There's a great study in the book called Collapse of Parenting where it shows that for every day of the week that you're able to sit down, regardless of if it's 20 minutes or 40 minutes, 90 seems crazy.
Speaker 2:So long in the world I don't even want to do that with other adults yeah, I, I think that needs to get fact checked. Yeah, that's ridiculous everybody who's doing that is dead now, so right when was when was this?
Speaker 3:was this before there was like natural light, 1923.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, nobody can verify this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for real, got you, Greg. But yeah, I think With the overscheduling of ourselves, it's tough. What I was saying about collapse of parenting is, for every day of the week that a family eats together, it's actually correlational with that kid, with how often they get in trouble with, like, the future of healthy eating for them, and so, like, with every meal it goes up by a certain percentile, wow. And so that time together with the family equates. It's not just like, yeah, you get to be around the family more. No, it's also you get to see mealtime as something that builds community. You see your parents who care for you. You see that when you're with people who love you eating together, it's worth it and you desire to have community, and so it's bigger than I think. The amount of time is interesting, right, but the value of still doing that is really high.
Speaker 3:I was just out of work or working out of state last week preparing for the youth gathering in New Orleans, and on the way back I just happened to be in a layover with the two of my team members and we went to a Mexican restaurant in Charlotte Airport and just hung out for like two hours. That's so fun. Yeah, it was crazy. I was like after like 40 minutes I was like feeling so antsy oh cause I'm like I don't normally get to do that but then as we sat in it, it was like we could have been there forever. Yes, so it was really wonderful and I guess that would have brought the average up.
Speaker 2:Yes, there you go. You're making it up for all of us here.
Speaker 3:There you go, so in the 1920s, there were some people who just did it a long time. That's probably what it was. They never got up from the table like 12 hours a day that's insane.
Speaker 1:They were tired and worn out Pre-dust bowl they were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were.
Speaker 1:Yep. So one of the things that I wrote down that Greg said that spoke to me was that pain wasn't the end of the story. Purpose begins to rise out of it. Do you have any thoughts on that? Pain wasn't the end of the story.
Speaker 3:Purpose begins to rise out of it. Well, you think about any time that you are experiencing pain or failure, loss, and oftentimes out of that can come some of your most purposeful ambitions. I met a young gal this last week who had a miscarriage and is with her first child, and it was unbelievably painful. But out of that she's began something where she I forget what it was, but she creates these pieces and then gives them away to women who have gone through this and has made countless connections with women in their pain. And so in that tremendous pain and loss was born passion and an opportunity to help those around her. And I see that in myself as well, although in the moment I don't see it, but afterwards it's not that God's causing that moment, but he doesn't leave us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think about like just what my ultimate purpose is, and my ultimate purpose is to live in relationship with my father as his daughter. And sometimes the pain of life drives me back to that original purpose, back to my relationship with God and just saying, lord, these plans of mine or the ways that I thought things were going to work out aren't who am I to you. And whenever I come to Him with that question, I can see it in His Word and I also, just because I know His heart. His answer is you're a beloved child of mine, aside from anything that you do or how things worked out for you, and so it's just coming home to that true purpose that I have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. So, as the series Where's God, we're're asking where is God in all of this? One of the things that Pastor Greg referenced was asking where's God isn't a lack of faith, it's the beginning of deeper faith. Does that strike you, make you think of anything?
Speaker 2:How does that resonate with?
Speaker 1:you. I just that was a catch for me, like because I think as I have become a more mature Christian, I do realize where God is all the time with me, you know, and how I can turn to him, access him, how he helps me through everything. But it is a question when I start doubting, like my initial instinct is that does show a lack of faith, you know. But like Greg said, it's the beginning of a deeper faith. Is that just a questioning?
Speaker 2:yeah, those things so we have like a bunch of trees that we plant in our backyard and, um, if those trees were always in a greenhouse with perfect conditions and just the right amount of sun and no wind blowing on them whatsoever, they may be okay, but they aren't going to be strong trees. If I look out now at those baby trees out there that are getting buffeted by the wind, actually their root system is developing more and more. I mean, the trees have been outside for a long time, are pretty strong, and I think about. You know, god is trying to develop me into a person of stronger faith, someone who knows him more, someone who can endure through tough times and still have faith. And so I just think, yeah, I mean this is a deepening process for all of us.
Speaker 2:As you go through life, I mean, you see somebody who's still got faith when they're 80. They're a remarkably different person than they were at 20. Because God has shaped them and formed them, through that pressing and those challenges, got faith when they're 80, they're a remarkably different person than they were at 20. Because God has shaped them and formed them through that pressing and those challenges and they're a more beautiful person they are. So that's just God's way with us and we have a choice. Are we either going to say, yeah, I want to go through that with you and become changed, or am I going to say no, I don't want to do it, and we'll be the worst for it if we say no.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think about Paul pre-conversion.
Speaker 2:Paul is like the man at his job.
Speaker 3:He's on fast track to be high priest like the main dude and just crushing it. Like everywhere Paul goes, people is like they're like that's the guy he's so good at his job and uh, and Paul's just like bulldozing through everybody and murdering Christians and believing he's doing the right thing. And then God's like knock it off Paul and his life has changed. And then when he's writing, he says like he has this huge realization of the struggle that he's in because prior to his conversion, he's like I'm good, I know what I'm doing, I'm on the straight and narrow. And then, after he realizes, oh, the law that I thought I was committing nearly perfectly is actually condemning me entirely and the things I want to do I don't do, and the things I don't want to do I keep on doing.
Speaker 3:And the struggle like understanding that we actually have a struggle is huge. Like stop living in denial that everything is good to go. I mean, there's some, there's some value to that. Thessalonians like simple life for sure, but not at the denial of I've got nothing wrong with me or everything's good to go. You know, acknowledging the struggle of our own walk and sinful nature is exactly what we need so that we can realize, the only thing that can save us is to be dead and, and ultimately, I hope that death for each person around me happens in the Galatians way of I've been crucified with Christ and therefore I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. Before the temporal. The death here on earth, yeah, that's good. That's good. I really like the tree image. Death here on earth, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's good. That's good. I really like the tree image. That's really good. Dropping some truth bombs here, guys. Any final takeaways as we wrap up today, week two of Where's God.
Speaker 2:I think I just want to share a verse from Romans 8.32. It says he who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will he not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things I mean? God showed His commitment to us through Jesus Christ, who went all the way to the cross for us. So God is not going to abandon you in your lowest, darkest moments. He proved his commitment to you through the sacrifice of his own precious son, and so he's not about to relinquish his project with you. He's going to stick with you all the way to the end. He's shown that that's what his nature is faithful and true all the way through. And so you can trust him in these difficult parts of your life, knowing that that's the advocate and that's the friend and that's the father that you have looking at you in every moment of your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'd say, knowing exactly what Julie just emphasized there, that God isn't playing you like a pawn on a chessboard, saying time for this guy to have trouble, time for this gal to go through peril, time for this kid to have a death in his family or his parents get divorced.
Speaker 3:Those things don't happen because God is playing with us like puppets. Those things happen because we're part of a fallen world. But God says I am faithful, I'm there with you, I've never left you, I've never forsaken you, and I do think that gets confused at times where people misquote scripture. They say God will never give you more than you can handle. So God gave you this so that you can rise above it. No Death gave us this.
Speaker 3:Sin gave us this what God desires for us is perfect. We destroyed it, and ultimately, that's what he desires for us again is a perfect eternity, won by victory through his son, not so that he could toy with us here, and so I think that's important for us to know what God wants for us is good. What we experience here is bad, but he never leaves us, so fix our eyes on him the author and perfecter of our faith.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when we do get more than we can handle my book I read a long time ago and I wish I knew which one it was now but it talks about that's what drives us to our knees and turns us back to Him because it's never more than he can handle. Yeah, thank you guys so much for being here today, and next week we will tackle our week three of Where's God, where we're seeing if God is listening. So, until then, let's keep living our lives, living our faith beyond Sunday.
