June 21, 2025 • 47 mins
If C.S. Lewis was right, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.” But what do you do if you’ve lost your joy for life on earth? On this Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author and Bible teacher Chip Ingram will tell his story. He was in a season of negative attitudes about his circumstances. But one chapter in the New Testament started him on a new path to change his perspective. Learn how to choose joy on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman.
Featured resource: I CHOOSE JOY: CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE, CHANGE YOUR LIFE
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:00):
Circumstances plus my perspective equals my experience. I have very
little control over most of my circumstance. I have 100%
control over my perspective. You have to change your perspective
on life and by God's grace, you can do that
as you begin to follow Paul's example.
S2 (00:23):
Welcome to building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of
the New York Times best seller The Five Love Languages. Today,
teaching pastor and CEO of living on the edge, Chip
Ingram believes joy is our lifeline through life's struggles. But
for many, joy is missing. Why is that and what
can we do to recapture joy?
S3 (00:44):
Our featured resource at Building Relationships is Chip's new book,
I choose Joy. Change your perspective. Change your life. Just
go to Building Relationships. And Gary, I think there's a
good news bad news proposition for us here today. The
good news is you can have joy. The bad news
is you have to choose it. And that's sometimes hard,
(01:06):
isn't it?
S4 (01:07):
Well, you're right. And I think part of it is
that people don't know you can choose it. And that's
why I think the program today is going to be very,
very helpful. So I'm excited about this program.
S3 (01:18):
Well, let's Remeet Chip Ingram, teaching pastor and CEO of
living on the edge, pastor for more than 30 years.
He's the author of a lot of excellent books, including yes,
You Really Can Change and Holy Ambition. A featured resource
today is I choose Joy. Change Your perspective, Change Your Life.
We have a link right there at Building Relationships.
S4 (01:40):
Well, Chip, welcome back to Building Relationships.
S1 (01:43):
It is great to be with you all. Thanks so much.
S4 (01:47):
So you asked readers in your book to think of
the most joyful person they know. So let's start the
program with that question. Who's the most joyful person in
Ship Ingram's life.
S1 (02:01):
You know, when I when I think of that, a
name just pops up and it's, you know, talk about
a good news, bad news. His name is Rick Roberts.
He became one of my closest, closest friends. He had
a very unexpected heart attack about three years ago. It
was quarterback at Boise, and we could joke and laugh
and and pray one minute later. He just lit up.
(02:25):
I mean, his his smile, his countenance, ups, downs. It
just didn't matter. He was just filled with joy. Many
a time I'd get a text at 5:15 a.m. or something.
We're both kind of early risers. Hey, bro. I miss you, man.
Let's just get in the word together. I'll meet you
at Pete's. You know, and the second person is, I
have a sister who was her in her life. Really
(02:48):
was the influence that led me to be open to
later hear God's word and become a Christian. Her name
was pinky, and she is a delight to this day
and to this day. Some day, somehow, I want to
be like her, you know. I talk to her on
the phone two days ago. She lives in London, Kentucky,
and many of you know, you know, the big twister
went through there. And houses in her neighborhood are demolished.
(03:10):
And as I called her, I just called. Are you okay? Oh. Oh, yeah.
We're out cleaning up. We're just helping people and. Oh,
it's so sad. You know, they've lost their homes and
this and that. And her attitude was like, you know,
I'm sure the Lord's going to use this for for good.
And these people are hurting and we're helping them clean
up now. And anyway, those are the two people that
(03:31):
come to my mind that I don't have to be
in their presence for more than about, uh 60s. That
my countenance is raised.
S4 (03:40):
Well that's great. Now, Rick, you mentioned he had a
heart attack. Is he still with us?
S1 (03:46):
It was, uh, actually, I was speaking at the Cove.
Gary and I got a text from his wife, and
he went up to play golf. He had sleep apnea
and they're not sure. But he was up in the
Tahoe area and he went to sleep and he never
woke up. Was only 60 years old and, um, just
probably one of the heart most hard hitting losses, you know,
(04:08):
other than family. Just someone so full of life and
so unexplainable. Went to sleep and never woke up.
S4 (04:15):
And that's always hard.
S1 (04:17):
Isn't it interesting that I. I bring about such a
sad situation when we're going to talk about joy, but
it also there's something to it to think that that's
a reality. I mean, I mean Rick's in heaven and yeah,
it's it's again, it's my first moments are I cried.
I mean, I really, really cried at the loss. But
(04:39):
the perspective which we're going to talk about was he
had some big, big challenges in his life. His oldest
son had some real mental bipolar type issues, and in
a moment of weakness about three years earlier, committed suicide.
And so he was joyful, but he carried a lot
of pain. His son was a genuine believer. And he's
(04:59):
reunited and, you know, again through one lens, my sorrow,
through another lens. In God's kindness. He's reunited with his son.
So much of joy is about how you look at
life and the grace to have the perspective that doesn't
just live with the up and down of circumstance.
S4 (05:20):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the scriptures say God takes
pleasure in the death of his saints. Also says God
does not rejoice and is never happy when a sinner dies. So, well,
let's talk about joy. People often talk about happiness and
joy in the same framework. But they're quite different, aren't they?
S1 (05:41):
Yeah they are. You know, happiness comes from happenings, right?
You know, when things are happening. Good. We're we're happy.
You know, it's great. I mean, and I think, by
the way, I think it's a really wonderful thing. And
in many ways, I think the Lord rejoices when we're happy.
You know, we have a baby. We're happy if you're
an adult. I just went to a graduation of a granddaughter.
(06:02):
I was happy she graduated. I mean, uh, when good
things happen to us, we're happy. But, uh, happenings can
also be very negative. And for most people, happiness rolls
up and down. With the economy's up, the economy's down.
Health is up, health is down. Relationships are good. Relationships
are bad. So happiness sort of travels on the seas
(06:24):
of of circumstances where joy is the byproduct of a
relationship with Jesus, whereby from within there is a perspective
and an emotion and a mindset. It doesn't mean that
things are wonderful. It doesn't mean that circumstances are great.
But there is an abiding, uh, holding up of your
(06:47):
heart and your life and a connection with God that
can bring joy. It was for the joy set before him.
Jesus endured the cross. So even in the midst of
those excruciating pain, difficulty and terrible circumstance, personally, we really
can experience joy. But it's supernatural.
S4 (07:08):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, was there a specific life experience that
prompted you to begin to explore the topic of joy
and then write this book?
S1 (07:17):
There really was Gary. I, um, probably seven years ago, I, uh,
I've always been pretty athletic and working out and even even,
like 60, 61, I was playing full court basketball with
college guys. And I reached as a guy, crossed over
and I felt electrical shock go down my leg. And,
I mean, I just couldn't couldn't move. And I thought, boy,
(07:38):
I'm done. And I'd herniated a disc about ten years earlier.
But this was different. And that started a journey of
back issues that were like I'd never experienced. And I,
you know, for the next two years I would be
on ice every 20 minutes, almost 24 over seven. I
kept pastoring, and because of technology, I could do like
(08:00):
one message out of 3 or 4 and they would
film it on this huge screen. I was laying on
the on a table because I couldn't sit, because it
was painful. I couldn't stand because it was painful. Um,
it was I did whatever kind of treatment you could
possibly do, and for two years, the just the pain,
it would wear you down, wear you down. And eventually
(08:21):
I had a major surgery, and they bolted a couple
of my vertebrae together and fused them. And that brought
some relief. And then, uh, two and a half years later,
the above and below, where they bolted my back, it broke.
And I had emergency surgery and the pain, they took
me to the emergency room and must have given me
(08:41):
something really strong. It's the first time in my life, Gary,
I would say, if someone would have offered to shoot me.
I would have said, just do it. It's a level
I have never experienced and I mean insincerity. I don't
mean that much as a metaphor and nothing touched it.
I mean, they gave me 2 or 3 pain pills
and nothing touched it. And then the rehab from all
(09:01):
of that. And then after all that, you know, it's
months and months and months. And so, you know, it's
like you're into between before the first surgeries, then the
surgeries and later surgeries and then living with pain all
the time. I probably had about six years under my
belt of really, really, really hurting. And, uh, it was
(09:21):
near the end of the rehab. And, you know, I
was walking again and doing, you know, some stuff. And
I was sitting on the hearth. And my wife, she's
really very godly, uh, very sweet, but she's also very direct.
And she looked at me and, you know, I got
up and I moaned and groaned a second and she goes,
could you could you just stay there for a minute?
I said, well, sure, honey. And she looked at me
(09:43):
with those eyes like, I don't want to offend you
and you know I love you, but can I tell
you something? I said, well, sure. She looked at me
and said, do you realize how negative you've become? And
my first response was, oh no, no, no. You know, hey,
it just really hurts. And and then she said, Chip,
when you get up, you groan. Everywhere we go, people
(10:05):
ask about your back. You tell them about this, you
tell them about that. And the lens that you look at,
I mean, it's it can be sunny and all you
see is clouds. You've you have been one of the
most positive people at the time. We lived together and
been married for 40 years. It's 46 now. And she
just said, honey, I want to tell you, you you know,
(10:25):
you I think you do do well in larger public places,
but you're you're becoming a very negative person. And I boy,
I took that to heart. And as in the in
the kindness and providence of God, I was scheduled to, uh,
do one of those yearly things at the Billy Graham center,
and was praying about, you know, what? What should I
(10:47):
teach on? And, you know, I thought, you know, I'd
like to do something to build a rhythm. And I
so it was like I started studying Philippians chapter one
and I thought, forget the forget teaching anybody else, Lord,
this is for me. And I begin to study this passage.
And I saw, here's a man living with imminent death
(11:08):
and uncertainty and in prison, and this book is filled
with joy. And what I saw was it wasn't about
trying hard to have joy. There were principles in this
first chapter that literally I had to go into training.
I literally we can talk about it as we go.
I mean, I begin to write down on some cards,
(11:28):
here's your current thinking, here's what you've learned, here's the process.
And I literally went into training and would read every morning,
every night. And then I taught that and it it
turned my life around. And it also had a huge
impact on other people. And as a result of that,
it was like, you know, people are struggling with mental
(11:49):
issues and anxiety and discouragement. Um, and so I was
asked to make it a book. And so now it's
a book. I choose joy.
S4 (11:57):
Well, well, I think any of our listeners who have
ever had back pain, leg pain and all of that,
they're identifying with what you're saying. And if there's joy
in that situation, they want it. So glad you're with
us today and glad you wrote this book. You talked
about the first chapter of Philippians and how that impacted
(12:17):
you on this, this emphasis on joy when you were
going through a lot, a lot of pain. So tell
us why that passage is crucial to the idea of
choosing joy.
S1 (12:27):
Well, as I read it, I begin to walk through it.
And for those not familiar with the passage, it opens
up where you know Paul and Timothy, a normal introduction.
He's writing in response to a gift that they give him.
When a church member named Name Epaphroditus brought a financial gift.
If you're familiar with prisons in the day, they didn't
feed you. If your friends didn't bring you food, you
(12:47):
would starve. And so they gave a financial gift, and
he's writing to thank him. And he's also aware that
there's a few external issues and some conflict and some things.
But he wants to really thank him. And so, you know,
imagine being chained to a guard new guard every six hours.
You're in a Roman prison as it opens up after
(13:08):
praying for them and saying, he goes, I thank my
God and all my remembrance of you all, always offering
prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all.
And then he goes on and prays a very specific prayer.
But that struck me. Okay, wait a second. You're chained.
You're in prison. We'll learn later in the chapter, you
may be executed and you're praying with joy. And then I,
(13:32):
then I notice the second thing is, is that his
focus first is upward, and then it's outward on other people.
And what I saw from that, Gary was, you know,
it's yes, that was what he specifically did. But but
there's a bit of a principle here. When I found
myself really discouraged and down and negative, what I, what
(13:53):
I realized was my focus was on me, my circumstances,
what I was experiencing when Paul was in terrible circumstances.
His focus was twofold. It was upward. He's praying, but
he's praying with joy, and it was outward. He was
concerned about that. Them. So he prays that God will
(14:13):
reveal his love to them. And he prays that they
would have wisdom and understanding and and that they could
approve the things that are excellent so they could live
this kind of life. And so the first chapter, the
first section is I begin to say, you know what?
I think there's a question I could start asking myself.
And the first one would be Chip, where's your focus?
The moment I start feeling down, discouraged, the moment I
(14:36):
hear negative things coming out of my mouth. Ask, where's
your focus? Is it up and out or is it
on yourself? Gary, if I can just be very candid because,
you know, uh, I had to catch myself 30, 40,
50 times a day early on. I would hear me
say something that was negative. Where's your focus? Me? Uh,
(14:57):
I my my mind. You know, I got where it
wouldn't come out of my mouth. And then I would
start looking at a situation or my mind start thinking.
And it would be like negative. Negative. Okay. Where's your focus? Me?
And so I begin to just ask that one question. Chip,
where's your focus? Is it upward and outward or is
(15:18):
it inward. And so then after I went through the
entire chapter, what I saw was from that truth, there
were like four questions that I started to ask myself
that that each changed my perspective. And the second section,
as he talked his circumstances, he says, have turned out
for the greater progress of the gospel. The question there was,
(15:39):
what's my purpose? In other words, he thought what his
purpose was to honor and serve God. And hey! The
gospel is going forward, even though my personal life is
going downward. Paul says, and this I rejoice. And what
I realized was, okay, if I look at my life
through the lens of how things only impact me, I'm
not going to have a lot of joy. But if
(16:00):
I can look at whatever's happening to my life through
the lens of is this fulfilling God's purpose? How? How
is God using this to reach people? How is God
using this to build up other believers? How is God
using this to make me more like Jesus? So I
started asking. Those were the first two questions. Where's my
focus and what's your purpose? That created a little, I guess,
(16:22):
what I would call a formula. And so I wrote
that on a, on a separate card and it was
the letter C plus the letter P equals E. Circumstances
plus my perspective equals my experience. And what I realized
was I have very little control over most of my circumstance.
I have 100% control over my p perspective. You know,
(16:45):
like everything in life, you see people who have terrible
circumstances and they have amazing attitudes and joy, and other
people have not even to bad circumstances and life stinks.
So that was the key. Realizing you have to change
your perspective on life and by God's grace, you can
do that as you begin to follow Paul's example.
S4 (17:07):
Well, that's powerful. And I'm sitting here thinking about those
who are going through particularly ongoing pain like you described
in your own life there for so long, because you're
exactly right. The tendency is we're thinking about ourselves and
focusing on ourselves and our situation. And because the circumstances
are bad, you know, we we have a down, negative
(17:28):
attitude so. Well. So so those two questions are where
is your focus? Is it on myself and my situation,
or am I? Is it on God looking up to
God and looking outward to other people? And then what's
my purpose? How can God use this in a positive way,
which he was? I mean, Paul wrote the whole letter
(17:50):
in that situation. The letter of Philippians. So yeah. Well,
you have two other questions that you discussed also. The
next one is, is where is your hope? Why is
that question important?
S1 (18:03):
Well, you know, if my hope is in only this
life or in a person or in a job, or
when I can buy a house or when I get better,
those things, I have no guarantees on them. But if
my hope is something that can never change. And so,
you know, in verses 12 through 18, Paul says, you know,
(18:24):
this has turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.
The believers are growing. And again, he goes, you know
something As much as people are using these circumstances to
undermine my ministry. Guess what? God's using it to get
the gospel out. And then he gets into his personal life,
beginning in verse 19, and he doesn't know whether he's
(18:45):
going to live or die. Gary. And he goes, well,
you know, I'm not sure I may be executed. I
may be pardoned, I don't know. And then he he
talks about this dilemma of, you know, it's more profitable
if I stay with regard to you. Right. You know,
I can keep ministering to you. It's more profitable to
me because to be absent from the body is to
(19:05):
be present with the Lord. So he looks at death
in a very different way than than most of us do,
even as Christians. That would be great. And then he
concludes that my sense, you know, we just get this
idea of the prompting of God's Spirit. My sense is,
God's going to pardon me because your faith may need
more encouragement, and I need to minister for a longer
(19:25):
period with you. But what I realized was what he
does in that what freed him from the fear of death?
What freed him from, you know, how is everything going
to turn out? And being paralyzed by anxiety? What freed
him was his hope was not in how things turned out.
His hope was in the absolute certainty that the moment
(19:48):
he would die, that he would be in the presence
of Christ. And if that was not the plan, his
hope was in the goodness, the kindness, the wisdom, and
the sovereignty of God. That a good God would only
allow good things for the long term to bring about
the highest and best results for the most people. And
(20:09):
so his hope wasn't in, uh, something that was temporal.
He had an eternal perspective that changed his whole focus.
S4 (20:17):
You know, you tell that that and reminds me of
an account from my son when he was still single.
He was working in Prague, in the Czech Republic. But
every weekend he would go out to other places, other cities,
and sometimes other countries, and take his guitar and go
to the center of town, start playing his guitar and
singing some secular songs. And then he moved to Christian songs,
(20:38):
and then he'd start talking to the young people that
showed up. And my wife said to him when he
was at home visiting one time, she said, Derek, I'm concerned, son,
you go out there, nobody knows where you are. You're
by yourself. If something happened to you, we wouldn't even
know about it. And he said, well, mom, what's the
worst thing that could happen to me? I could get
(20:59):
killed and I would go to heaven. A few years
before you do. What is so bad about that, mom? Wow.
S1 (21:07):
Wow.
S4 (21:08):
And that's when my wife released him to God. But,
you know, he had that same thing. To be absent
from the body. To be present with the Lord. What's
so bad about that?
S1 (21:18):
So part of our our lack of having that perspective is,
I think, heaven. Maybe there's not a whole lot of
teaching on it, or maybe there is some teaching, but
I think the average believer doesn't really look forward to having,
you know, you think there's a there's a reward for
those that are longing for his appearing. But but I think,
(21:38):
you know, a picture of heaven that is maybe a
bit more popular that somehow we're going to be in a,
you know, eternal worship service or there's nothing to do or,
you know, we're going to float around with angels and
sip iced tea or sort of these ethereal pictures as
opposed to a new heaven, a new earth, a culture,
a life that work perfect environment. You know, it's it's
(22:00):
Eden on steroids for good and the greatest and deepest
things that will ever experience. I think the Apostle Paul, obviously,
none of us know what his trip to the third
heaven was or what he saw, but I think it's
pretty obvious that he had such a clarity that there
is nothing better ever, and that if that was the outcome, uh,
(22:24):
a lot like your son's perspective is that frees people
from from anxiety and fear.
S4 (22:30):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so there's another question that
you asked. First of all, you ask yourself where where's
my focus on myself, my situation, my pain, my trouble?
Or is it on God and on other people? And
then the question, what's my purpose, you know, and what's
God's purpose in all of this? And then where's my hope?
(22:52):
You know, in circumstances or in God. And then the
fourth question you were asking yourself is what are your expectations?
Talk about that.
S1 (23:03):
That was I got to the end of the chapter
as I was studying. And in verse 27, you know,
he still doesn't know if he's going to live or die.
But he says, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of
the gospel of Christ. So whether I come and see
you or remain absent, I may hear of you, that
you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind,
striving together for the faith of the gospel. In no
(23:23):
way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of
destruction for them, but of salvation for you. And that too,
is from God. And then you get these last two verses,
and probably for years I might have skipped over these
a little too quickly. He says, for to you it
has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe
in him, but also to suffer for his sake, experiencing
(23:45):
the same conflict which you saw in me and now
hear to be in me. And as I studied this, Gary,
when he gets this line, he says, for you it
has been granted. That word granted is the root word.
It's for grace. And it's literally to you, Philippian church.
God gave a grace gift and the grace gift. This
(24:06):
is a privilege. This is this is something that's good.
It's been granted to you not only to believe, but
also to suffer for his sake. And I don't know
that I meet a lot of Christians and I don't
know that personally. You meet even a theology of people
who are saying, how could suffering ever be great? And
(24:30):
yet Paul in chapter three is going to pray. He says,
I want to know him, and I want to know
the intimacy and the fellowship of his suffering. And I
think we do almost anything possible to avoid suffering. And
don't get me wrong, there's some perverted theology of, you know,
you know, walking on hands and knees over a glass
(24:50):
to suffer for Jesus. And we we've seen, you know,
bizarre things. But the fact of the matter is, is
I think we live in a culture that we try
to avoid suffering of any kind at all cost.
S2 (25:06):
Thanks for joining us for the Building Relationships with Doctor
Gary Chapman podcast. He's the author of the New York
Times best seller The Five Love Languages. Our guest today
is author and speaker Chip Ingram. You hear him on
the program living on the edge, and we're talking about
his book, I choose Joy. Change your perspective. Change your life.
Find out more at Five Love languages.com. Again, go to
(25:30):
five Love languages.com.
S3 (25:34):
In our last segment, Chip and Gary were talking about
how we try in this culture to avoid suffering at
all costs. And let's pick up right there.
S1 (25:43):
Any pain, any difficulty, any struggle, whether it's physical, material, psychological,
there's a pill. There's a quick solution for it. And
I think that has seeped so into not just the
culture but into the Christian community, where when there's a challenge, well, God,
where are you? Or what's wrong? Or did I do
(26:05):
something wrong as opposed to part of life in a
fallen world? As we live in this flesh, God has
granted us, we will believe, but also we will suffer.
And so. But if our expectations are, we should never suffer.
Or I must have done something terrible if I suffered,
(26:25):
or God is not good if I've suffered. That perspective
will cause people to do a nosedive emotionally and mentally,
and sometimes well beyond. As opposed to oh, I joke,
if you forgive me, I'm a I'm a sports guy.
And so I've got a good buddy who, um, who's
a tight end played pro football. And he was there's
(26:48):
a number of years ago and he since has really
made a lot of progress. But he was really struggling
in his marriage and he said, hey, can we talk?
You know, let's go. Let's go play nine holes of golf.
And I want to talk. And so we get first
3 or 4 holes, and I listen to all the
struggles and this and that and this and that and
this and that. And we get to about hole number four.
And finally he just looks at me and hands on
his hips and he goes, you know, just no matter
(27:10):
how hard I work there's something else to work on,
something else to work on, something else to work on.
He goes, Chip, I don't know. Is it worth it?
This marriage is way too hard. Is it always going
to be this hard? It doesn't seem fair. And in
a moment of maybe love or a little sadistic humor,
I said, now, can I ask you a question? He said, well, sure.
(27:30):
I said, now, you played high school football, right? And
it was in a state place where it was really hot.
I said, do you remember those two a day practices? Oh, man,
those were murder. And then you play college football, right? Oh, man.
Do you remember those two a day practices? Yeah. Remember
lifting weights? Yeah. Oh, excruciating. And then you played football, right? Yeah, right.
He goes. Now you're a tight end. Correct. Okay, so
you you do an end route and you come across
(27:51):
the middle and you catch the ball. And a linebacker,
I mean, puts his helmet right in your chest. Do
you get up and put your hands on your hip
and go, that hurts. That's not fair, boy. That's not nice.
And he kind of smiled. So I said, so you're
telling me that you were willing to batter your body,
work like crazy, endure incredible pain, Sweat beyond belief. Lift weights.
(28:18):
Almost 24 over seven so that you could catch a
football and have your career go forward. But you're telling
me when it gets really hard to learn how to
love your wife and be other centered, that it's too hard?
And he looked at me and kind of shook his head.
And what I said is, here's the key. What are
your expectations? You expected two days to be hard. You
(28:42):
expected when you caught the ball, you were going to
get hit and really hard. And so your mental outlook
and you prepared yourself. You want to have a great marriage.
You want to be a great father. You want to
be a great Christian. Guess what? What you can expect
is there's spiritual opposition you can expect. It's going to
be challenging. You can expect that just like you don't
(29:04):
respond right all the time. Your mate's not going to.
No matter how much you love your kids, they're going
to make some choices. It'll break your heart. What do
you expect when you shift it from everything ought to
be right, because I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.
And if God loves me, my life should turn out
semi painless. That perspective will cause you to experience no
(29:26):
joy in your life because it's a false expectation.
S4 (29:30):
Yeah. Wow. Oh, I'm sure our listeners are sitting there
like I'm sitting there and thinking, yes, I see it,
I see it, I see it. But by nature we
tend to do exactly the opposite, right? Yeah.
S1 (29:47):
Well, you know, my wife, when she said that, you know,
I wasn't saying it out loud, but, you know, I'm thinking, hey, Lord, I,
you know, at the time, I've been a pastor 35 years.
I mean, I've tried to be faithful, Lord, I'm, you know,
I'm I was, you know, giving him my little resume.
And there's this unconscious thing that seeps in that if
(30:07):
we're obedient and we do X, Y, and Z, somehow
God is obligated to provide, you know, x, Y, and z.
Good wonderful life. And and, you know, think about it, Gary.
You and I and many people in ministry, we've studied
the scriptures for how many years? And yet you suddenly
(30:27):
fall into that. And and you think of how the apostles,
they love Jesus, they followed him. They they did exactly
what he called them to do. And and all but one,
I think, were martyred. So were they out of God's will?
The Apostle Paul's perspective, you know, a parallel passage that
in Romans five he tells us that, you know, we
(30:49):
have peace with God, and we've been justified by faith
and have peace with God. And we exalt and rejoice
in the glory and this, this new life. And then
in verse two he says, we also exult in our
tribulation or our problems, our struggles, because tribulation brings about endurance,
suffering through endurance and endurance, going through hard, difficult, painful times.
(31:14):
We're never more dependent. And in that dependency, what happens
is we change proven character. And as we change that
proven character and seeing God work in our lives, hope
is born in our heart. That hope that God is faithful,
that hope of the future, that hope of heaven. And
he goes and hope never disappoints because it's there's this
(31:34):
process of difficulty and pain and struggle. And where he
says then that the the love of God is poured
out in our heart by the Holy Spirit. I think
both of us would say, if you ask us to
describe the people that know and love and emanate the
presence of Jesus and are loving and kind and like
(31:54):
someday I want to be, most all of them have
been through levels of pain or difficulty or struggle or betrayal,
and it's been in the midst of that, that they
drew near to Jesus and experienced his love and his
power that, um, that has made them because they've responded
(32:15):
in faith and dependency. The kind of people that they are. And, um,
it's part of God's I mean, part of the game
plan of transformation is, yes, it's being in God's Word. Yes.
It's praying. Yes. You have to be an authentic community.
And yes, suffering is a part of the journey that
you can expect. But the promise is not that it
(32:39):
will be easy. The promise is I'll never leave you.
I'll never forsake you, and that he'll be with us.
And as he is with us, he not only can
change externally the things out there, but he often does
a whole lot more work in changing us.
S4 (32:56):
Yeah, absolutely. Chip, I'm thinking that there are people who
be listening to us today and they've just lost their job,
you know, and it's their livelihood. Or maybe someone who's
just gone through a divorce, not a divorce they wanted,
but one that was kind of forced on them. And
they're sitting there. Yeah, but am I supposed to have
(33:17):
joy in the midst of this? Now, we're not saying
they should be happy, but we are saying they should
have joy. Or they can have joy, right?
S1 (33:28):
Yes. You know, on the back of the book, I
put a quote because I think it's a profound one
by C.S. Lewis, and it says, Joy is the serious
business of heaven. I think some writer of Christian history
made an interesting remark. He said, love may have been,
you know, the the commodity of the early church, but
(33:48):
joy was their calling card. There was something about their
joy in the midst of their suffering that was the
greatest apologetic. And that's been true ever since. And so
what I'd say to this person who's going through that
and pastoring, as you and I have. There's still a
lot of those people in my life right now that
(34:09):
I'm going through some of those things with. It doesn't
mean there isn't sadness and disappointment and temptations toward great
anger and a process and grief. So this is not
about denying your emotions or acting as though you know
you put on a smiley face. But this is saying,
in the midst of this hurt and this pain, you stop,
(34:30):
where's my focus? And then it's upward. God praise you
that I don't understand it. I don't like it. It hurts,
but I, I love you. You are a good and
sovereign God. And so I'm going to pray for those
people that hurt me. I'm going to to pray for
some other people that have challenges and. Okay. God, this
this is so unfair. What's your purpose in it? God what?
(34:53):
As my fellow workers, see what I do as I
respond to being abandoned by this person who left with
another woman, or left with another man, or a business
partner who opted out and took all the money and
no one knows where he's at. How I respond, Lord,
what's your purpose in this? Yes. I'm hurt. Yes I'm mad.
But as we lean in and then we can say, God,
(35:16):
my hope is in you. And sometimes we have to
say that some of the deepest hurts reveal some idols
in our life, some struggles in our life that God
God wants to, for our good, purify and get our
hope where it needs to be. And I think asking
those questions, where's my hope? What did I really expect?
(35:37):
And leaning in and just saying, Jesus, I don't like this.
And I feel hurt and sad and mad and and
I don't understand. And I feel confused. But I'm coming
to you. Be with me. Encourage me. I have I
have learned more and more to live in the Psalms. Gary,
(35:57):
in the midst of the hardest and most difficult times.
And what you realize is you're not alone, that some
of the people who know God the best, it's in
the midst of those that he really will meet us.
And it's in that overflow. He buoys us up. That's
I don't know how else to say it. And and
(36:18):
it doesn't mean that everything's wonderful or your emotions are
up all the time, but there's a sustaining joy that
we can have. And it's here's the thing. It gives
you strength. And that's what I want people to remember.
This isn't like, well, this would be better for me,
and I'll be more fulfilled and I'll choose to do
these things. And I guess I should write these on
these cards or get this book or whatever. No, no, no,
(36:40):
this is this is about the joy of the Lord
is our strength. Joy is I'm not a victim. Joy is.
I will make it through this. I can do all
things through Christ who gives me strength. Joy is he
is with me always. And there's a testimony coming out
of this. I will be a trophy of God's grace.
(37:02):
And there's a setting your face like a flint, like
Jesus did toward the cross. And there's a joy that
boils up inside of you. That takes away that victim mentality.
And when you tackle that, your whole perspective and your life,
it becomes not only a great testimony, but you experience
(37:22):
God in ways that many of us never have.
S4 (37:25):
So I hear you saying, among other things, it's running
to God rather than running away from God or saying,
why did you let this happen to me? Or it's
recognizing that our hope is in him, and we want
to put our faith in him every day and talk
to him every day and be honest to him about
our feelings.
S1 (37:43):
Yes. And I think I've done that. And I think
what helped me from this book and why it's been
so helpful is just I keep going back to as
different circumstances come in my life. It's like I have
this mental filter C plus P equals E, That's the circumstance.
That little one or big one, a medium sized one
(38:03):
that's negative or hard or difficult. And then I ask
those questions. What for? To get that perspective. And and
and what I would say to Gary is that it
doesn't come naturally. You have to go into you have
to retrain your brain and your mind and your expectations
around what's true. People would laugh, but I mean, where's
(38:25):
your focus, chip? What's your purpose? Chip. Where's your hope? Chip.
What did you expect? And then and then underneath of
it I rejoice in the Lord always. And again I
say rejoice. And then I put a little smiley face
on that card. I it says smile and it says,
you know, lighten up, be positive, don't complain, don't seek sympathy.
All of that is on one card. And to this day,
(38:47):
it's it's on my desk right in front. So every
day I stare at that to go into training to
realize I can't control what happens to me. I have 100% control.
By the grace of God and the power of the
Holy Spirit and the strength of His Word to determine
how I respond, what will be my perspective? And as
(39:09):
my perspective goes, so goes my life. That's my hope
for those people going through that hard time right now.
It doesn't minimize the pain, the loss, the hurt, the
sin of other people at all. That's not the message.
This is not self-help. Talk yourself into, you know, a
better attitude. This is seeking God's perspective in the midst
(39:34):
of a fallen world that allows you to experience the
intimacy of Jesus, that produces a supernatural joy in the
midst of circumstances that appear to others as completely unbearable.
And God sustains you.
S4 (39:48):
Yeah. Powerful. Powerful message. Well, Chip, I know that many,
many Christians struggle in this area. In fact, maybe all
of us struggle in this area. And, you know, I
hear this often in my office, you know, if God
is sovereign and God is all powerful, why does he
allow this hard stuff? And why did he allow Paul's imprisonment?
(40:10):
And shouldn't he make life easier for us if he
really loves us? Speak. Speak to that thought. Uh, those
thoughts that people have.
S1 (40:20):
You know, I think it touches on maybe the greatest
need that we as Christians have and will ever have,
maybe always have, is getting an accurate picture of God.
And God is in control. But he's also not only sovereign,
he's all wise and he's all knowing. And so he
knows the beginning from the end. And the wisdom of
God says he brings about the best possible ends, by
(40:42):
the best possible means for the most possible people, for
the longest possible time. And so when he wanted the
gospel to go into all the world, and when he
wanted Paul to fulfill his purposes, The kindest, most gentle
and best way was for him to be in prison,
chained to guards who would have exponential impact because of
(41:05):
their status, the Praetorian Guards. And he would be in
the center of the world's power, and people from strategic
places all around the world would hear about Paul and
his testimony. And so, to fulfill God's purpose, because he's
not only sovereign, he's also loving and all powerful and kind.
(41:27):
And I think that's that's where we can go. When
I had an experience that was I would just call
it the, uh, the worst betrayal of my life, most
painful thing I could I had ever experienced at the time. Uh,
I've struggled and, I mean, I was really angry. And
I went through all of, all measure of emotions. And
(41:48):
I asked God, if you're really in control, how could
you let this happen? And I went back to if
there was a kinder or gentler or better way for
me to become more like Jesus, and for Jesus to
fulfill what he wants to do in me and through me.
I would be experiencing that now. You know, I had
to check, you know, have I sinned? And that that
assumption is, as far as I know, I'm walking with
(42:11):
the Lord. And I when I look back a many, many, many,
many years now, that actual negative, terrible, painful event opened
the door to steps that I would have never taken
in directions I would have never considered. That probably has
shaped everything that God's ever done in my life since.
(42:31):
And we don't see the big picture. Kierkegaard said that
you you can only understand life looking backwards, but you
have to live it forwards. It's in this moment of
when it doesn't make sense forwards that you can look back.
I often will get groups together and say, I want
you to really think hard and I want you to
(42:52):
share with me the most painful, difficult, ugly, whatever situation
that maybe it happened five, ten, 20 years ago. That
now when you look back, you see how it was
used for good. And remembering those kind of things in
the past often can help us endure so, so much.
I think what we want progress, and that's good. But
(43:13):
sometimes the greatest progress is you endure. I mean, I
don't like today, but I'm going to make it just
for today. And then you get up and you just
make it. You know, I can't do this tomorrow, but
there's no grace until tomorrow comes. And that's a, you know,
you counsel so many people. Gary, what do you say
to them when really the goal, God's will, is endure
right now and choose to rejoice even though you don't
(43:35):
feel like it?
S4 (43:36):
Yeah. Well, I think that that is the key because
it's all a matter of perspective. And by nature I'm
empathetic with them. I can see how you would feel,
what you feel, how you could think, what you think.
But let's look at the bigger picture, you know, and
try to share the kind of things you've shared on
this program today. I do want to ask you another
personal question, Chip. At the beginning of our program, you
(43:59):
shared that journey with all the back pain and all
that you had for their years. I want to know,
how's your back situation today?
S1 (44:08):
Well, you know, I worked out this morning, so I
didn't use to be able to do that. I got
on one of those stair climber things and I can
do an exercise bike. I have I have a little
struggle standing still for very long. And I have a
struggle walking, you know, more than 100 yards or so.
I kind of need to sit down. I've had three
epidural injections so far this year, and one was somewhat
(44:30):
helpful and the other two weren't. So I have to
take like pain pills all the time. I have a
high pain tolerance, which probably is is good. It's probably
developed and I can honestly say, uh, you know, I'm
still saying, you know what, Lord, I, I have seen
you supernaturally heal people if you want to snap your
(44:51):
fingers or you wouldn't even take that, I could be
whole one second from now. I don't know how much
pain I need to be as dependent as I need
to be to do all that you want me to do.
All I know is that this season of my life,
I'm seeing God work in me and through me in
ways that I never dreamed. And I don't want to
just get it out for some relief if, um, because
(45:16):
of my hard headedness. And I really can be that way,
if I need some level of pain, that allows me
to be very, very dependent because it has and I'm
at the core of me, you know, maybe everybody else
does too, but I, I can be very self dependent
and very proud and very arrogant. And when I'm in pain, uh,
(45:37):
I'm not very tempted to be any of those things.
S4 (45:41):
Well, I ask you that question because I want our
listeners to hear and know that you are still going
through pain, just as Paul was when he wrote his book.
You're not in jail, I understand that, but a lot
of pain. When you wrote this book, and I really
believe that this, this particular book is going to be
(46:01):
used of God to help a lot of people. I
cannot imagine that people will just listen to what we're
saying today and not want to go get this book,
because I think God can use the things we've been
talking about here to help them have a totally different perspective.
So I just want to thank you for being with
us today. I want to thank you for writing this
book and and for continuing to do you know, what
(46:23):
God has placed in your hands to do in the
midst of your present situation, which is what I hope
all of us can learn how to do.
S1 (46:31):
Well, thanks so much, Gary, for having me. And thanks
for those kind words, because one of my love languages
is words of affirmation. And I've used those five love
languages a zillion times in my personal life and marriage.
So God bless you, my friend, and keep pressing ahead.
S4 (46:47):
Thank you. God bless you.
S3 (46:49):
What an encouraging conversation today with Chip Ingram. And if
you want to choose joy in whatever circumstance you're in today,
go to building relationships. You'll see the book titled I
choose Joy. Change your perspective, Change Your life. Again, go
to Building Relationships.
S4 (47:07):
And next week we're going to take you back for
a historic broadcast from 17 years ago.
S2 (47:14):
Don't miss our very first Dear Gary broadcast before we
called it Dear Gary. That's coming up in one week.
A big thank you to our production team, Steve Wick
and Janice backing. Building relationships with Gary Chapman is a
production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a
ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.
Circumstances plus my perspective equals my experience. I have very
little control over most of my circumstance. I have 100%
control over my perspective. You have to change your perspective
on life and by God's grace, you can do that
as you begin to follow Paul's example.
S2 (00:23):
Welcome to building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of
the New York Times best seller The Five Love Languages. Today,
teaching pastor and CEO of living on the edge, Chip
Ingram believes joy is our lifeline through life's struggles. But
for many, joy is missing. Why is that and what
can we do to recapture joy?
S3 (00:44):
Our featured resource at Building Relationships is Chip's new book,
I choose Joy. Change your perspective. Change your life. Just
go to Building Relationships. And Gary, I think there's a
good news bad news proposition for us here today. The
good news is you can have joy. The bad news
is you have to choose it. And that's sometimes hard,
(01:06):
isn't it?
S4 (01:07):
Well, you're right. And I think part of it is
that people don't know you can choose it. And that's
why I think the program today is going to be very,
very helpful. So I'm excited about this program.
S3 (01:18):
Well, let's Remeet Chip Ingram, teaching pastor and CEO of
living on the edge, pastor for more than 30 years.
He's the author of a lot of excellent books, including yes,
You Really Can Change and Holy Ambition. A featured resource
today is I choose Joy. Change Your perspective, Change Your Life.
We have a link right there at Building Relationships.
S4 (01:40):
Well, Chip, welcome back to Building Relationships.
S1 (01:43):
It is great to be with you all. Thanks so much.
S4 (01:47):
So you asked readers in your book to think of
the most joyful person they know. So let's start the
program with that question. Who's the most joyful person in
Ship Ingram's life.
S1 (02:01):
You know, when I when I think of that, a
name just pops up and it's, you know, talk about
a good news, bad news. His name is Rick Roberts.
He became one of my closest, closest friends. He had
a very unexpected heart attack about three years ago. It
was quarterback at Boise, and we could joke and laugh
and and pray one minute later. He just lit up.
(02:25):
I mean, his his smile, his countenance, ups, downs. It
just didn't matter. He was just filled with joy. Many
a time I'd get a text at 5:15 a.m. or something.
We're both kind of early risers. Hey, bro. I miss you, man.
Let's just get in the word together. I'll meet you
at Pete's. You know, and the second person is, I
have a sister who was her in her life. Really
(02:48):
was the influence that led me to be open to
later hear God's word and become a Christian. Her name
was pinky, and she is a delight to this day
and to this day. Some day, somehow, I want to
be like her, you know. I talk to her on
the phone two days ago. She lives in London, Kentucky,
and many of you know, you know, the big twister
went through there. And houses in her neighborhood are demolished.
(03:10):
And as I called her, I just called. Are you okay? Oh. Oh, yeah.
We're out cleaning up. We're just helping people and. Oh,
it's so sad. You know, they've lost their homes and
this and that. And her attitude was like, you know,
I'm sure the Lord's going to use this for for good.
And these people are hurting and we're helping them clean
up now. And anyway, those are the two people that
(03:31):
come to my mind that I don't have to be
in their presence for more than about, uh 60s. That
my countenance is raised.
S4 (03:40):
Well that's great. Now, Rick, you mentioned he had a
heart attack. Is he still with us?
S1 (03:46):
It was, uh, actually, I was speaking at the Cove.
Gary and I got a text from his wife, and
he went up to play golf. He had sleep apnea
and they're not sure. But he was up in the
Tahoe area and he went to sleep and he never
woke up. Was only 60 years old and, um, just
probably one of the heart most hard hitting losses, you know,
(04:08):
other than family. Just someone so full of life and
so unexplainable. Went to sleep and never woke up.
S4 (04:15):
And that's always hard.
S1 (04:17):
Isn't it interesting that I. I bring about such a
sad situation when we're going to talk about joy, but
it also there's something to it to think that that's
a reality. I mean, I mean Rick's in heaven and yeah,
it's it's again, it's my first moments are I cried.
I mean, I really, really cried at the loss. But
(04:39):
the perspective which we're going to talk about was he
had some big, big challenges in his life. His oldest
son had some real mental bipolar type issues, and in
a moment of weakness about three years earlier, committed suicide.
And so he was joyful, but he carried a lot
of pain. His son was a genuine believer. And he's
(04:59):
reunited and, you know, again through one lens, my sorrow,
through another lens. In God's kindness. He's reunited with his son.
So much of joy is about how you look at
life and the grace to have the perspective that doesn't
just live with the up and down of circumstance.
S4 (05:20):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the scriptures say God takes
pleasure in the death of his saints. Also says God
does not rejoice and is never happy when a sinner dies. So, well,
let's talk about joy. People often talk about happiness and
joy in the same framework. But they're quite different, aren't they?
S1 (05:41):
Yeah they are. You know, happiness comes from happenings, right?
You know, when things are happening. Good. We're we're happy.
You know, it's great. I mean, and I think, by
the way, I think it's a really wonderful thing. And
in many ways, I think the Lord rejoices when we're happy.
You know, we have a baby. We're happy if you're
an adult. I just went to a graduation of a granddaughter.
(06:02):
I was happy she graduated. I mean, uh, when good
things happen to us, we're happy. But, uh, happenings can
also be very negative. And for most people, happiness rolls
up and down. With the economy's up, the economy's down.
Health is up, health is down. Relationships are good. Relationships
are bad. So happiness sort of travels on the seas
(06:24):
of of circumstances where joy is the byproduct of a
relationship with Jesus, whereby from within there is a perspective
and an emotion and a mindset. It doesn't mean that
things are wonderful. It doesn't mean that circumstances are great.
But there is an abiding, uh, holding up of your
(06:47):
heart and your life and a connection with God that
can bring joy. It was for the joy set before him.
Jesus endured the cross. So even in the midst of
those excruciating pain, difficulty and terrible circumstance, personally, we really
can experience joy. But it's supernatural.
S4 (07:08):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, was there a specific life experience that
prompted you to begin to explore the topic of joy
and then write this book?
S1 (07:17):
There really was Gary. I, um, probably seven years ago, I, uh,
I've always been pretty athletic and working out and even even,
like 60, 61, I was playing full court basketball with
college guys. And I reached as a guy, crossed over
and I felt electrical shock go down my leg. And,
I mean, I just couldn't couldn't move. And I thought, boy,
(07:38):
I'm done. And I'd herniated a disc about ten years earlier.
But this was different. And that started a journey of
back issues that were like I'd never experienced. And I,
you know, for the next two years I would be
on ice every 20 minutes, almost 24 over seven. I
kept pastoring, and because of technology, I could do like
(08:00):
one message out of 3 or 4 and they would
film it on this huge screen. I was laying on
the on a table because I couldn't sit, because it
was painful. I couldn't stand because it was painful. Um,
it was I did whatever kind of treatment you could
possibly do, and for two years, the just the pain,
it would wear you down, wear you down. And eventually
(08:21):
I had a major surgery, and they bolted a couple
of my vertebrae together and fused them. And that brought
some relief. And then, uh, two and a half years later,
the above and below, where they bolted my back, it broke.
And I had emergency surgery and the pain, they took
me to the emergency room and must have given me
(08:41):
something really strong. It's the first time in my life, Gary,
I would say, if someone would have offered to shoot me.
I would have said, just do it. It's a level
I have never experienced and I mean insincerity. I don't
mean that much as a metaphor and nothing touched it.
I mean, they gave me 2 or 3 pain pills
and nothing touched it. And then the rehab from all
(09:01):
of that. And then after all that, you know, it's
months and months and months. And so, you know, it's
like you're into between before the first surgeries, then the
surgeries and later surgeries and then living with pain all
the time. I probably had about six years under my
belt of really, really, really hurting. And, uh, it was
(09:21):
near the end of the rehab. And, you know, I
was walking again and doing, you know, some stuff. And
I was sitting on the hearth. And my wife, she's
really very godly, uh, very sweet, but she's also very direct.
And she looked at me and, you know, I got
up and I moaned and groaned a second and she goes,
could you could you just stay there for a minute?
I said, well, sure, honey. And she looked at me
(09:43):
with those eyes like, I don't want to offend you
and you know I love you, but can I tell
you something? I said, well, sure. She looked at me
and said, do you realize how negative you've become? And
my first response was, oh no, no, no. You know, hey,
it just really hurts. And and then she said, Chip,
when you get up, you groan. Everywhere we go, people
(10:05):
ask about your back. You tell them about this, you
tell them about that. And the lens that you look at,
I mean, it's it can be sunny and all you
see is clouds. You've you have been one of the
most positive people at the time. We lived together and
been married for 40 years. It's 46 now. And she
just said, honey, I want to tell you, you you know,
(10:25):
you I think you do do well in larger public places,
but you're you're becoming a very negative person. And I boy,
I took that to heart. And as in the in
the kindness and providence of God, I was scheduled to, uh,
do one of those yearly things at the Billy Graham center,
and was praying about, you know, what? What should I
(10:47):
teach on? And, you know, I thought, you know, I'd
like to do something to build a rhythm. And I
so it was like I started studying Philippians chapter one
and I thought, forget the forget teaching anybody else, Lord,
this is for me. And I begin to study this passage.
And I saw, here's a man living with imminent death
(11:08):
and uncertainty and in prison, and this book is filled
with joy. And what I saw was it wasn't about
trying hard to have joy. There were principles in this
first chapter that literally I had to go into training.
I literally we can talk about it as we go.
I mean, I begin to write down on some cards,
(11:28):
here's your current thinking, here's what you've learned, here's the process.
And I literally went into training and would read every morning,
every night. And then I taught that and it it
turned my life around. And it also had a huge
impact on other people. And as a result of that,
it was like, you know, people are struggling with mental
(11:49):
issues and anxiety and discouragement. Um, and so I was
asked to make it a book. And so now it's
a book. I choose joy.
S4 (11:57):
Well, well, I think any of our listeners who have
ever had back pain, leg pain and all of that,
they're identifying with what you're saying. And if there's joy
in that situation, they want it. So glad you're with
us today and glad you wrote this book. You talked
about the first chapter of Philippians and how that impacted
(12:17):
you on this, this emphasis on joy when you were
going through a lot, a lot of pain. So tell
us why that passage is crucial to the idea of
choosing joy.
S1 (12:27):
Well, as I read it, I begin to walk through it.
And for those not familiar with the passage, it opens
up where you know Paul and Timothy, a normal introduction.
He's writing in response to a gift that they give him.
When a church member named Name Epaphroditus brought a financial gift.
If you're familiar with prisons in the day, they didn't
feed you. If your friends didn't bring you food, you
(12:47):
would starve. And so they gave a financial gift, and
he's writing to thank him. And he's also aware that
there's a few external issues and some conflict and some things.
But he wants to really thank him. And so, you know,
imagine being chained to a guard new guard every six hours.
You're in a Roman prison as it opens up after
(13:08):
praying for them and saying, he goes, I thank my
God and all my remembrance of you all, always offering
prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all.
And then he goes on and prays a very specific prayer.
But that struck me. Okay, wait a second. You're chained.
You're in prison. We'll learn later in the chapter, you
may be executed and you're praying with joy. And then I,
(13:32):
then I notice the second thing is, is that his
focus first is upward, and then it's outward on other people.
And what I saw from that, Gary was, you know,
it's yes, that was what he specifically did. But but
there's a bit of a principle here. When I found
myself really discouraged and down and negative, what I, what
(13:53):
I realized was my focus was on me, my circumstances,
what I was experiencing when Paul was in terrible circumstances.
His focus was twofold. It was upward. He's praying, but
he's praying with joy, and it was outward. He was
concerned about that. Them. So he prays that God will
(14:13):
reveal his love to them. And he prays that they
would have wisdom and understanding and and that they could
approve the things that are excellent so they could live
this kind of life. And so the first chapter, the
first section is I begin to say, you know what?
I think there's a question I could start asking myself.
And the first one would be Chip, where's your focus?
The moment I start feeling down, discouraged, the moment I
(14:36):
hear negative things coming out of my mouth. Ask, where's
your focus? Is it up and out or is it
on yourself? Gary, if I can just be very candid because,
you know, uh, I had to catch myself 30, 40,
50 times a day early on. I would hear me
say something that was negative. Where's your focus? Me? Uh,
(14:57):
I my my mind. You know, I got where it
wouldn't come out of my mouth. And then I would
start looking at a situation or my mind start thinking.
And it would be like negative. Negative. Okay. Where's your focus? Me?
And so I begin to just ask that one question. Chip,
where's your focus? Is it upward and outward or is
(15:18):
it inward. And so then after I went through the
entire chapter, what I saw was from that truth, there
were like four questions that I started to ask myself
that that each changed my perspective. And the second section,
as he talked his circumstances, he says, have turned out
for the greater progress of the gospel. The question there was,
(15:39):
what's my purpose? In other words, he thought what his
purpose was to honor and serve God. And hey! The
gospel is going forward, even though my personal life is
going downward. Paul says, and this I rejoice. And what
I realized was, okay, if I look at my life
through the lens of how things only impact me, I'm
not going to have a lot of joy. But if
(16:00):
I can look at whatever's happening to my life through
the lens of is this fulfilling God's purpose? How? How
is God using this to reach people? How is God
using this to build up other believers? How is God
using this to make me more like Jesus? So I
started asking. Those were the first two questions. Where's my
focus and what's your purpose? That created a little, I guess,
(16:22):
what I would call a formula. And so I wrote
that on a, on a separate card and it was
the letter C plus the letter P equals E. Circumstances
plus my perspective equals my experience. And what I realized
was I have very little control over most of my circumstance.
I have 100% control over my p perspective. You know,
(16:45):
like everything in life, you see people who have terrible
circumstances and they have amazing attitudes and joy, and other
people have not even to bad circumstances and life stinks.
So that was the key. Realizing you have to change
your perspective on life and by God's grace, you can
do that as you begin to follow Paul's example.
S4 (17:07):
Well, that's powerful. And I'm sitting here thinking about those
who are going through particularly ongoing pain like you described
in your own life there for so long, because you're
exactly right. The tendency is we're thinking about ourselves and
focusing on ourselves and our situation. And because the circumstances
are bad, you know, we we have a down, negative
(17:28):
attitude so. Well. So so those two questions are where
is your focus? Is it on myself and my situation,
or am I? Is it on God looking up to
God and looking outward to other people? And then what's
my purpose? How can God use this in a positive way,
which he was? I mean, Paul wrote the whole letter
(17:50):
in that situation. The letter of Philippians. So yeah. Well,
you have two other questions that you discussed also. The
next one is, is where is your hope? Why is
that question important?
S1 (18:03):
Well, you know, if my hope is in only this
life or in a person or in a job, or
when I can buy a house or when I get better,
those things, I have no guarantees on them. But if
my hope is something that can never change. And so,
you know, in verses 12 through 18, Paul says, you know,
(18:24):
this has turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.
The believers are growing. And again, he goes, you know
something As much as people are using these circumstances to
undermine my ministry. Guess what? God's using it to get
the gospel out. And then he gets into his personal life,
beginning in verse 19, and he doesn't know whether he's
(18:45):
going to live or die. Gary. And he goes, well,
you know, I'm not sure I may be executed. I
may be pardoned, I don't know. And then he he
talks about this dilemma of, you know, it's more profitable
if I stay with regard to you. Right. You know,
I can keep ministering to you. It's more profitable to
me because to be absent from the body is to
(19:05):
be present with the Lord. So he looks at death
in a very different way than than most of us do,
even as Christians. That would be great. And then he
concludes that my sense, you know, we just get this
idea of the prompting of God's Spirit. My sense is,
God's going to pardon me because your faith may need
more encouragement, and I need to minister for a longer
(19:25):
period with you. But what I realized was what he
does in that what freed him from the fear of death?
What freed him from, you know, how is everything going
to turn out? And being paralyzed by anxiety? What freed
him was his hope was not in how things turned out.
His hope was in the absolute certainty that the moment
(19:48):
he would die, that he would be in the presence
of Christ. And if that was not the plan, his
hope was in the goodness, the kindness, the wisdom, and
the sovereignty of God. That a good God would only
allow good things for the long term to bring about
the highest and best results for the most people. And
(20:09):
so his hope wasn't in, uh, something that was temporal.
He had an eternal perspective that changed his whole focus.
S4 (20:17):
You know, you tell that that and reminds me of
an account from my son when he was still single.
He was working in Prague, in the Czech Republic. But
every weekend he would go out to other places, other cities,
and sometimes other countries, and take his guitar and go
to the center of town, start playing his guitar and
singing some secular songs. And then he moved to Christian songs,
(20:38):
and then he'd start talking to the young people that
showed up. And my wife said to him when he
was at home visiting one time, she said, Derek, I'm concerned, son,
you go out there, nobody knows where you are. You're
by yourself. If something happened to you, we wouldn't even
know about it. And he said, well, mom, what's the
worst thing that could happen to me? I could get
(20:59):
killed and I would go to heaven. A few years
before you do. What is so bad about that, mom? Wow.
S1 (21:07):
Wow.
S4 (21:08):
And that's when my wife released him to God. But,
you know, he had that same thing. To be absent
from the body. To be present with the Lord. What's
so bad about that?
S1 (21:18):
So part of our our lack of having that perspective is,
I think, heaven. Maybe there's not a whole lot of
teaching on it, or maybe there is some teaching, but
I think the average believer doesn't really look forward to having,
you know, you think there's a there's a reward for
those that are longing for his appearing. But but I think,
(21:38):
you know, a picture of heaven that is maybe a
bit more popular that somehow we're going to be in a,
you know, eternal worship service or there's nothing to do or,
you know, we're going to float around with angels and
sip iced tea or sort of these ethereal pictures as
opposed to a new heaven, a new earth, a culture,
a life that work perfect environment. You know, it's it's
(22:00):
Eden on steroids for good and the greatest and deepest
things that will ever experience. I think the Apostle Paul, obviously,
none of us know what his trip to the third
heaven was or what he saw, but I think it's
pretty obvious that he had such a clarity that there
is nothing better ever, and that if that was the outcome, uh,
(22:24):
a lot like your son's perspective is that frees people
from from anxiety and fear.
S4 (22:30):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so there's another question that
you asked. First of all, you ask yourself where where's
my focus on myself, my situation, my pain, my trouble?
Or is it on God and on other people? And
then the question, what's my purpose, you know, and what's
God's purpose in all of this? And then where's my hope?
(22:52):
You know, in circumstances or in God. And then the
fourth question you were asking yourself is what are your expectations?
Talk about that.
S1 (23:03):
That was I got to the end of the chapter
as I was studying. And in verse 27, you know,
he still doesn't know if he's going to live or die.
But he says, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of
the gospel of Christ. So whether I come and see
you or remain absent, I may hear of you, that
you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind,
striving together for the faith of the gospel. In no
(23:23):
way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of
destruction for them, but of salvation for you. And that too,
is from God. And then you get these last two verses,
and probably for years I might have skipped over these
a little too quickly. He says, for to you it
has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe
in him, but also to suffer for his sake, experiencing
(23:45):
the same conflict which you saw in me and now
hear to be in me. And as I studied this, Gary,
when he gets this line, he says, for you it
has been granted. That word granted is the root word.
It's for grace. And it's literally to you, Philippian church.
God gave a grace gift and the grace gift. This
(24:06):
is a privilege. This is this is something that's good.
It's been granted to you not only to believe, but
also to suffer for his sake. And I don't know
that I meet a lot of Christians and I don't
know that personally. You meet even a theology of people
who are saying, how could suffering ever be great? And
(24:30):
yet Paul in chapter three is going to pray. He says,
I want to know him, and I want to know
the intimacy and the fellowship of his suffering. And I
think we do almost anything possible to avoid suffering. And
don't get me wrong, there's some perverted theology of, you know,
you know, walking on hands and knees over a glass
(24:50):
to suffer for Jesus. And we we've seen, you know,
bizarre things. But the fact of the matter is, is
I think we live in a culture that we try
to avoid suffering of any kind at all cost.
S2 (25:06):
Thanks for joining us for the Building Relationships with Doctor
Gary Chapman podcast. He's the author of the New York
Times best seller The Five Love Languages. Our guest today
is author and speaker Chip Ingram. You hear him on
the program living on the edge, and we're talking about
his book, I choose Joy. Change your perspective. Change your life.
Find out more at Five Love languages.com. Again, go to
(25:30):
five Love languages.com.
S3 (25:34):
In our last segment, Chip and Gary were talking about
how we try in this culture to avoid suffering at
all costs. And let's pick up right there.
S1 (25:43):
Any pain, any difficulty, any struggle, whether it's physical, material, psychological,
there's a pill. There's a quick solution for it. And
I think that has seeped so into not just the
culture but into the Christian community, where when there's a challenge, well, God,
where are you? Or what's wrong? Or did I do
(26:05):
something wrong as opposed to part of life in a
fallen world? As we live in this flesh, God has
granted us, we will believe, but also we will suffer.
And so. But if our expectations are, we should never suffer.
Or I must have done something terrible if I suffered,
(26:25):
or God is not good if I've suffered. That perspective
will cause people to do a nosedive emotionally and mentally,
and sometimes well beyond. As opposed to oh, I joke,
if you forgive me, I'm a I'm a sports guy.
And so I've got a good buddy who, um, who's
a tight end played pro football. And he was there's
(26:48):
a number of years ago and he since has really
made a lot of progress. But he was really struggling
in his marriage and he said, hey, can we talk?
You know, let's go. Let's go play nine holes of golf.
And I want to talk. And so we get first
3 or 4 holes, and I listen to all the
struggles and this and that and this and that and
this and that. And we get to about hole number four.
And finally he just looks at me and hands on
his hips and he goes, you know, just no matter
(27:10):
how hard I work there's something else to work on,
something else to work on, something else to work on.
He goes, Chip, I don't know. Is it worth it?
This marriage is way too hard. Is it always going
to be this hard? It doesn't seem fair. And in
a moment of maybe love or a little sadistic humor,
I said, now, can I ask you a question? He said, well, sure.
(27:30):
I said, now, you played high school football, right? And
it was in a state place where it was really hot.
I said, do you remember those two a day practices? Oh, man,
those were murder. And then you play college football, right? Oh, man.
Do you remember those two a day practices? Yeah. Remember
lifting weights? Yeah. Oh, excruciating. And then you played football, right? Yeah, right.
He goes. Now you're a tight end. Correct. Okay, so
you you do an end route and you come across
(27:51):
the middle and you catch the ball. And a linebacker,
I mean, puts his helmet right in your chest. Do
you get up and put your hands on your hip
and go, that hurts. That's not fair, boy. That's not nice.
And he kind of smiled. So I said, so you're
telling me that you were willing to batter your body,
work like crazy, endure incredible pain, Sweat beyond belief. Lift weights.
(28:18):
Almost 24 over seven so that you could catch a
football and have your career go forward. But you're telling
me when it gets really hard to learn how to
love your wife and be other centered, that it's too hard?
And he looked at me and kind of shook his head.
And what I said is, here's the key. What are
your expectations? You expected two days to be hard. You
(28:42):
expected when you caught the ball, you were going to
get hit and really hard. And so your mental outlook
and you prepared yourself. You want to have a great marriage.
You want to be a great father. You want to
be a great Christian. Guess what? What you can expect
is there's spiritual opposition you can expect. It's going to
be challenging. You can expect that just like you don't
(29:04):
respond right all the time. Your mate's not going to.
No matter how much you love your kids, they're going
to make some choices. It'll break your heart. What do
you expect when you shift it from everything ought to
be right, because I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.
And if God loves me, my life should turn out
semi painless. That perspective will cause you to experience no
(29:26):
joy in your life because it's a false expectation.
S4 (29:30):
Yeah. Wow. Oh, I'm sure our listeners are sitting there
like I'm sitting there and thinking, yes, I see it,
I see it, I see it. But by nature we
tend to do exactly the opposite, right? Yeah.
S1 (29:47):
Well, you know, my wife, when she said that, you know,
I wasn't saying it out loud, but, you know, I'm thinking, hey, Lord, I,
you know, at the time, I've been a pastor 35 years.
I mean, I've tried to be faithful, Lord, I'm, you know,
I'm I was, you know, giving him my little resume.
And there's this unconscious thing that seeps in that if
(30:07):
we're obedient and we do X, Y, and Z, somehow
God is obligated to provide, you know, x, Y, and z.
Good wonderful life. And and, you know, think about it, Gary.
You and I and many people in ministry, we've studied
the scriptures for how many years? And yet you suddenly
(30:27):
fall into that. And and you think of how the apostles,
they love Jesus, they followed him. They they did exactly
what he called them to do. And and all but one,
I think, were martyred. So were they out of God's will?
The Apostle Paul's perspective, you know, a parallel passage that
in Romans five he tells us that, you know, we
(30:49):
have peace with God, and we've been justified by faith
and have peace with God. And we exalt and rejoice
in the glory and this, this new life. And then
in verse two he says, we also exult in our
tribulation or our problems, our struggles, because tribulation brings about endurance,
suffering through endurance and endurance, going through hard, difficult, painful times.
(31:14):
We're never more dependent. And in that dependency, what happens
is we change proven character. And as we change that
proven character and seeing God work in our lives, hope
is born in our heart. That hope that God is faithful,
that hope of the future, that hope of heaven. And
he goes and hope never disappoints because it's there's this
(31:34):
process of difficulty and pain and struggle. And where he
says then that the the love of God is poured
out in our heart by the Holy Spirit. I think
both of us would say, if you ask us to
describe the people that know and love and emanate the
presence of Jesus and are loving and kind and like
(31:54):
someday I want to be, most all of them have
been through levels of pain or difficulty or struggle or betrayal,
and it's been in the midst of that, that they
drew near to Jesus and experienced his love and his
power that, um, that has made them because they've responded
(32:15):
in faith and dependency. The kind of people that they are. And, um,
it's part of God's I mean, part of the game
plan of transformation is, yes, it's being in God's Word. Yes.
It's praying. Yes. You have to be an authentic community.
And yes, suffering is a part of the journey that
you can expect. But the promise is not that it
(32:39):
will be easy. The promise is I'll never leave you.
I'll never forsake you, and that he'll be with us.
And as he is with us, he not only can
change externally the things out there, but he often does
a whole lot more work in changing us.
S4 (32:56):
Yeah, absolutely. Chip, I'm thinking that there are people who
be listening to us today and they've just lost their job,
you know, and it's their livelihood. Or maybe someone who's
just gone through a divorce, not a divorce they wanted,
but one that was kind of forced on them. And
they're sitting there. Yeah, but am I supposed to have
(33:17):
joy in the midst of this? Now, we're not saying
they should be happy, but we are saying they should
have joy. Or they can have joy, right?
S1 (33:28):
Yes. You know, on the back of the book, I
put a quote because I think it's a profound one
by C.S. Lewis, and it says, Joy is the serious
business of heaven. I think some writer of Christian history
made an interesting remark. He said, love may have been,
you know, the the commodity of the early church, but
(33:48):
joy was their calling card. There was something about their
joy in the midst of their suffering that was the
greatest apologetic. And that's been true ever since. And so
what I'd say to this person who's going through that
and pastoring, as you and I have. There's still a
lot of those people in my life right now that
(34:09):
I'm going through some of those things with. It doesn't
mean there isn't sadness and disappointment and temptations toward great
anger and a process and grief. So this is not
about denying your emotions or acting as though you know
you put on a smiley face. But this is saying,
in the midst of this hurt and this pain, you stop,
(34:30):
where's my focus? And then it's upward. God praise you
that I don't understand it. I don't like it. It hurts,
but I, I love you. You are a good and
sovereign God. And so I'm going to pray for those
people that hurt me. I'm going to to pray for
some other people that have challenges and. Okay. God, this
this is so unfair. What's your purpose in it? God what?
(34:53):
As my fellow workers, see what I do as I
respond to being abandoned by this person who left with
another woman, or left with another man, or a business
partner who opted out and took all the money and
no one knows where he's at. How I respond, Lord,
what's your purpose in this? Yes. I'm hurt. Yes I'm mad.
But as we lean in and then we can say, God,
(35:16):
my hope is in you. And sometimes we have to
say that some of the deepest hurts reveal some idols
in our life, some struggles in our life that God
God wants to, for our good, purify and get our
hope where it needs to be. And I think asking
those questions, where's my hope? What did I really expect?
(35:37):
And leaning in and just saying, Jesus, I don't like this.
And I feel hurt and sad and mad and and
I don't understand. And I feel confused. But I'm coming
to you. Be with me. Encourage me. I have I
have learned more and more to live in the Psalms. Gary,
(35:57):
in the midst of the hardest and most difficult times.
And what you realize is you're not alone, that some
of the people who know God the best, it's in
the midst of those that he really will meet us.
And it's in that overflow. He buoys us up. That's
I don't know how else to say it. And and
(36:18):
it doesn't mean that everything's wonderful or your emotions are
up all the time, but there's a sustaining joy that
we can have. And it's here's the thing. It gives
you strength. And that's what I want people to remember.
This isn't like, well, this would be better for me,
and I'll be more fulfilled and I'll choose to do
these things. And I guess I should write these on
these cards or get this book or whatever. No, no, no,
(36:40):
this is this is about the joy of the Lord
is our strength. Joy is I'm not a victim. Joy is.
I will make it through this. I can do all
things through Christ who gives me strength. Joy is he
is with me always. And there's a testimony coming out
of this. I will be a trophy of God's grace.
(37:02):
And there's a setting your face like a flint, like
Jesus did toward the cross. And there's a joy that
boils up inside of you. That takes away that victim mentality.
And when you tackle that, your whole perspective and your life,
it becomes not only a great testimony, but you experience
(37:22):
God in ways that many of us never have.
S4 (37:25):
So I hear you saying, among other things, it's running
to God rather than running away from God or saying,
why did you let this happen to me? Or it's
recognizing that our hope is in him, and we want
to put our faith in him every day and talk
to him every day and be honest to him about
our feelings.
S1 (37:43):
Yes. And I think I've done that. And I think
what helped me from this book and why it's been
so helpful is just I keep going back to as
different circumstances come in my life. It's like I have
this mental filter C plus P equals E, That's the circumstance.
That little one or big one, a medium sized one
(38:03):
that's negative or hard or difficult. And then I ask
those questions. What for? To get that perspective. And and
and what I would say to Gary is that it
doesn't come naturally. You have to go into you have
to retrain your brain and your mind and your expectations
around what's true. People would laugh, but I mean, where's
(38:25):
your focus, chip? What's your purpose? Chip. Where's your hope? Chip.
What did you expect? And then and then underneath of
it I rejoice in the Lord always. And again I
say rejoice. And then I put a little smiley face
on that card. I it says smile and it says,
you know, lighten up, be positive, don't complain, don't seek sympathy.
All of that is on one card. And to this day,
(38:47):
it's it's on my desk right in front. So every
day I stare at that to go into training to
realize I can't control what happens to me. I have 100% control.
By the grace of God and the power of the
Holy Spirit and the strength of His Word to determine
how I respond, what will be my perspective? And as
(39:09):
my perspective goes, so goes my life. That's my hope
for those people going through that hard time right now.
It doesn't minimize the pain, the loss, the hurt, the
sin of other people at all. That's not the message.
This is not self-help. Talk yourself into, you know, a
better attitude. This is seeking God's perspective in the midst
(39:34):
of a fallen world that allows you to experience the
intimacy of Jesus, that produces a supernatural joy in the
midst of circumstances that appear to others as completely unbearable.
And God sustains you.
S4 (39:48):
Yeah. Powerful. Powerful message. Well, Chip, I know that many,
many Christians struggle in this area. In fact, maybe all
of us struggle in this area. And, you know, I
hear this often in my office, you know, if God
is sovereign and God is all powerful, why does he
allow this hard stuff? And why did he allow Paul's imprisonment?
(40:10):
And shouldn't he make life easier for us if he
really loves us? Speak. Speak to that thought. Uh, those
thoughts that people have.
S1 (40:20):
You know, I think it touches on maybe the greatest
need that we as Christians have and will ever have,
maybe always have, is getting an accurate picture of God.
And God is in control. But he's also not only sovereign,
he's all wise and he's all knowing. And so he
knows the beginning from the end. And the wisdom of
God says he brings about the best possible ends, by
(40:42):
the best possible means for the most possible people, for
the longest possible time. And so when he wanted the
gospel to go into all the world, and when he
wanted Paul to fulfill his purposes, The kindest, most gentle
and best way was for him to be in prison,
chained to guards who would have exponential impact because of
(41:05):
their status, the Praetorian Guards. And he would be in
the center of the world's power, and people from strategic
places all around the world would hear about Paul and
his testimony. And so, to fulfill God's purpose, because he's
not only sovereign, he's also loving and all powerful and kind.
(41:27):
And I think that's that's where we can go. When
I had an experience that was I would just call
it the, uh, the worst betrayal of my life, most
painful thing I could I had ever experienced at the time. Uh,
I've struggled and, I mean, I was really angry. And
I went through all of, all measure of emotions. And
(41:48):
I asked God, if you're really in control, how could
you let this happen? And I went back to if
there was a kinder or gentler or better way for
me to become more like Jesus, and for Jesus to
fulfill what he wants to do in me and through me.
I would be experiencing that now. You know, I had
to check, you know, have I sinned? And that that
assumption is, as far as I know, I'm walking with
(42:11):
the Lord. And I when I look back a many, many, many,
many years now, that actual negative, terrible, painful event opened
the door to steps that I would have never taken
in directions I would have never considered. That probably has
shaped everything that God's ever done in my life since.
(42:31):
And we don't see the big picture. Kierkegaard said that
you you can only understand life looking backwards, but you
have to live it forwards. It's in this moment of
when it doesn't make sense forwards that you can look back.
I often will get groups together and say, I want
you to really think hard and I want you to
(42:52):
share with me the most painful, difficult, ugly, whatever situation
that maybe it happened five, ten, 20 years ago. That
now when you look back, you see how it was
used for good. And remembering those kind of things in
the past often can help us endure so, so much.
I think what we want progress, and that's good. But
(43:13):
sometimes the greatest progress is you endure. I mean, I
don't like today, but I'm going to make it just
for today. And then you get up and you just
make it. You know, I can't do this tomorrow, but
there's no grace until tomorrow comes. And that's a, you know,
you counsel so many people. Gary, what do you say
to them when really the goal, God's will, is endure
right now and choose to rejoice even though you don't
(43:35):
feel like it?
S4 (43:36):
Yeah. Well, I think that that is the key because
it's all a matter of perspective. And by nature I'm
empathetic with them. I can see how you would feel,
what you feel, how you could think, what you think.
But let's look at the bigger picture, you know, and
try to share the kind of things you've shared on
this program today. I do want to ask you another
personal question, Chip. At the beginning of our program, you
(43:59):
shared that journey with all the back pain and all
that you had for their years. I want to know,
how's your back situation today?
S1 (44:08):
Well, you know, I worked out this morning, so I
didn't use to be able to do that. I got
on one of those stair climber things and I can
do an exercise bike. I have I have a little
struggle standing still for very long. And I have a
struggle walking, you know, more than 100 yards or so.
I kind of need to sit down. I've had three
epidural injections so far this year, and one was somewhat
(44:30):
helpful and the other two weren't. So I have to
take like pain pills all the time. I have a
high pain tolerance, which probably is is good. It's probably
developed and I can honestly say, uh, you know, I'm
still saying, you know what, Lord, I, I have seen
you supernaturally heal people if you want to snap your
(44:51):
fingers or you wouldn't even take that, I could be
whole one second from now. I don't know how much
pain I need to be as dependent as I need
to be to do all that you want me to do.
All I know is that this season of my life,
I'm seeing God work in me and through me in
ways that I never dreamed. And I don't want to
just get it out for some relief if, um, because
(45:16):
of my hard headedness. And I really can be that way,
if I need some level of pain, that allows me
to be very, very dependent because it has and I'm
at the core of me, you know, maybe everybody else
does too, but I, I can be very self dependent
and very proud and very arrogant. And when I'm in pain, uh,
(45:37):
I'm not very tempted to be any of those things.
S4 (45:41):
Well, I ask you that question because I want our
listeners to hear and know that you are still going
through pain, just as Paul was when he wrote his book.
You're not in jail, I understand that, but a lot
of pain. When you wrote this book, and I really
believe that this, this particular book is going to be
(46:01):
used of God to help a lot of people. I
cannot imagine that people will just listen to what we're
saying today and not want to go get this book,
because I think God can use the things we've been
talking about here to help them have a totally different perspective.
So I just want to thank you for being with
us today. I want to thank you for writing this
book and and for continuing to do you know, what
(46:23):
God has placed in your hands to do in the
midst of your present situation, which is what I hope
all of us can learn how to do.
S1 (46:31):
Well, thanks so much, Gary, for having me. And thanks
for those kind words, because one of my love languages
is words of affirmation. And I've used those five love
languages a zillion times in my personal life and marriage.
So God bless you, my friend, and keep pressing ahead.
S4 (46:47):
Thank you. God bless you.
S3 (46:49):
What an encouraging conversation today with Chip Ingram. And if
you want to choose joy in whatever circumstance you're in today,
go to building relationships. You'll see the book titled I
choose Joy. Change your perspective, Change Your life. Again, go
to Building Relationships.
S4 (47:07):
And next week we're going to take you back for
a historic broadcast from 17 years ago.
S2 (47:14):
Don't miss our very first Dear Gary broadcast before we
called it Dear Gary. That's coming up in one week.
A big thank you to our production team, Steve Wick
and Janice backing. Building relationships with Gary Chapman is a
production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a
ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.
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