January 15, 2025 • 12 mins
Kristin Fitch invites listeners to shift their perspective during difficult times by asking more constructive questions about their faith and circumstances. Instead of focusing solely on the struggle and questioning God's presence, she encourages asking what Jesus is doing in our lives and what He may do next. Drawing inspiration from Bob Goff's devotional, Kristin highlights the importance of recognizing God's work amidst challenges, urging us to seek support and community. She shares insights from Edith Bieber's book, emphasizing the difference between a victim mentality and a survivor mindset, ultimately prompting a reflection on what actions we can take moving forward. Through this thoughtful exploration, Kristin aims to help her audience find hope and purpose even in the midst of hardship.
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Takeaways:
- When facing difficulties, shift your focus from 'why is this happening?' to 'what is Jesus doing in this situation?'.
- Bob Goff encourages us to ask what God might be preparing us for next in our lives.
- In challenging times, remember to seek God authentically and come as you are.
- Look for the ways God is at work, even amid personal struggles and community tragedies.
- Asking different questions can transform our mindset from victimhood to empowerment and action.
- Faith can grow by noticing the holy in our daily lives, especially during hard times.
faith, Christian women, deepening faith, Bob Goff, Catching Whimsy, loss, coping with loss, finding strength in God, Jesus in our lives, perspective shift, faith and challenges, encouragement, healing, community support, resilience, questions to ask God, dealing with hardship, spiritual growth, understanding God's work, everyday faith
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Friends, and welcome back toFaithfield Woman.
This is your host, Kristin.
Today's a mini episode and Iam going to propose to you a couple
new questions you can askyourself when things just aren't
going right, when things feelhard, when we have loss, and when,
as Bob Goff says, it feelslike God has gone below the surface.
Welcome to Faith Fueled Woman,a podcast designed for Christian
(00:23):
women eager to deepen theirfaith and shine God's light in every
aspect of their lives.
Each week we'll delve intopractical strategies, inspiring stories
and biblical wisdom to equipyou with the tools you need to navigate
life's challenges and growdeeper in your faith.
From finding calm in thechaos, forming deep Christian friendships,
to everyday ways to connectwith God.
(00:43):
We'll cover it all.
Hi, I'm your host, Kristin.
I'm an encourager, a faith ledentrepreneur, a mom, and a wife.
Let's be encouraged in oureveryday lives as we let our faith
guide us, fuel us, and fill uswith God's incredible peace, wisdom
and joy in our lives.
Friends, it's still early inthe first month of this year and
(01:03):
already there's just so muchheaviness in our country and in the
world.
But in our country, we had theshooting in New Orleans on New Year's.
We have these horrific fireshappening in the Los Angeles area,
Los Angeles county, andthey're the devastation has just
been immeasurable.
And you know, of course, thisis above and beyond what each of
(01:27):
us might be walking through inour own lives or our loved ones might
be walking through hard thingsthat we often have to go through.
For some of us, it's loss orremembering loved ones that have
gone before.
It could be health issues.
It could just be we'restruggling in one of our relationships.
Maybe we have a strainedrelationship with one of our children
(01:49):
or one of our siblings or a parent.
So we all have things thatweigh on us or are tough to walk
through.
And one of the devotionalsthat I'm reading this year is, I've
mentioned it before, but it'scalled Catching Whimsy by Bob Goff.
So it's a 365 day devotional.
What I love about him, thoughis the title.
(02:10):
Obviously it's already funCatching Whimsy.
And it's about 360 days of possibility.
And why I love it is sometimeswhen we're talking about our faith
and we're talking aboutscripture and devotionals, they can
seem very serious and heavy.
And I love that he brings thatsense of playfulness that Sense of,
(02:30):
you know, we're doing the bestwe can and let's just show up for
each other and let's let Godshow up for us.
And so on January 9th of hisdevotional, which was yesterday's
reading, he.
It's just a really good one.
And he says here, he basicallysays, here's some questions to ask
instead of asking, you know,like, where is God?
(02:52):
In other words, when we'regoing through these hard things,
we might often think like, howcould God let this happen?
Or why is this happening, God?
Or how am I going to getthrough this?
And he shares John 9:1:3,which is basically the scripture,
that there's a blind man andJesus asks him, you know, what he
(03:14):
wants him to do for him.
And he basically takes, hetakes the mud and he makes the blind
man see.
Well, actually John 9:1:3 isactually the disciples asking, what
is it the blind man's fault orthe parents fault?
So sorry, that's actually whatthat scripture says.
But it's about the blind manthat Jesus takes mud and spits on
(03:35):
and then wipes it on his eyesand he's able to see.
Okay, so that's what it's inreference to.
But God's saying is, I'msorry, Bob says, so many people say,
I mean, in that, in thatstatement, they said, what caused
this man to be blind who sinned?
And Bob says, I think thequestion would be, why did you just
talk some spit and rub mud inthe poor guy's eyes?
(03:58):
But he said, what if we changethe questions we asked?
And the two questions thatreally stood out for me that he is
posing, that we should askourselves is, what is Jesus doing
in our lives?
What is he doing in thiscircumstance, right?
In this thing we're walking through?
And then also ask, what is hegoing to do next?
(04:20):
And the thing is, is if wehave our sights set on where is Jesus
in this, we'd stop focusing ononly the struggle.
And we look to him.
We look to him one, for strength.
But two, we look to him forwhere is he at play?
Because we already know God isalready at work, right?
Which is what his devotionalis about this particular day.
(04:42):
And he ends with saying this,you know, he, he shares Luke, let
me see here.
In the Book of Acts, Luke issharing with a friend that we should
look for many convincingproofs that Jesus is still alive.
And so Bob goes on to explainwhat, what if instead of wondering
why things are happening, yougave the question a twist and said,
(05:04):
maybe these things are happening.
So the works of God could beput on display in my life.
What might he be doing now andwhat might he be doing next?
How good is that?
And he also shares in thisdevotion, this particular day's devotional.
He's looking for God, lookingfor us to come to him in our truest,
(05:25):
most authentic selves.
In other words, he's notlooking for us to pretend or to play
a part which most of us mayfeel like happens in our lives.
Not because we're trying to,but because we are human and because
we're trying to fit in andwe're trying to appease people, possibly,
or whatever the reasons might be.
(05:46):
But we tend to, you know, say,like, for instance, if somebody says
to you, like, oh, how you doing?
Well, a lot of times we'relike, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm fine.
Which we may or may not becompletely, completely fine.
But it's just small talk talk.
We're not getting deep into itwith, you know, just anyone.
But he reminds us that God issaying, come to me as you are.
(06:07):
Come to me with what you'redealing with.
Come to me what's heavy onyour heart.
And we have to remember that,you know, God isn't just asking us
to come to him when things are hard.
Often many of us seek him outwhen things are hardest and when
things are going well, some ofus don't seek him out as much.
He wants us to have arelationship with him and seek him
(06:29):
out always.
But especially when we'regoing through hard things.
We want to go to God, but wealso want to look for where he is
working in these circumstances.
It may be because we're goingto take that pain and in the future
have a different perspective.
It could be that we're goingto help other people that are walking
later on, walking through whatwe just walked through.
(06:51):
It could be that there's somany helpers and people that are
around us to support us andlove us in ways we didn't even imagine
could happen.
The next thing I want to sharewith you is when we start asking
different questions, we don'tjust shift our mindset.
We start shifting ourperspective and we shift our heart
a bit.
(07:12):
In the.
In one of the books that EdithBieber wrote called the Gift.
And I believe she's a psychologist.
She also is someone that, as achild or a young teen, was in concentration
camps, and most of her familydied there.
But she's lived in the UnitedStates for many, many decades.
And so in her book, she says this.
(07:34):
In my experience, Victims ask,why me?
Survivors ask, what now?
So once again, it's a shift in questions.
Instead of asking, why am Igoing through this?
Why am I, why did this happen?
And I should caveat that withsaying, I'm not saying, you can't.
We shouldn't ask questions.
What I'm saying is then weneed to move beyond only those questions
(07:55):
and add additional questions.
So start asking, what's next?
What now?
So not only what is God orwhat is Jesus doing next?
What are we to do now?
And then what are we do to do next?
And she also says thisvictimhood is rigor mortis of the
mind.
It's stuck in the past, stuckin the pain and stuck in the.
(08:18):
On the losses and deficits,what I can't do and what I don't
have.
And that's why she's saying,as we do the work to heal, as we
do the work to feel our lossor our pain.
Because of course, we're notsaying we should not experience that.
But then we need to shift towhat now?
(08:40):
And I just thought, that's so good.
And it really ties in withwhat Bob's saying about looking to
see what is Jesus doing?
What is he doing now, even inmy circumstances or in my pain, and
what is he doing next?
What is he up to?
And where can we see himworking in our life, even through
(09:00):
the hard days?
And then I want to share thisquote with you.
Its faith can begin as simplyas that.
If we are wondering where Godis in our daily lives, perhaps we
can start by noticing the holyall around us every day.
That's by Kathy Izzard fromTrust the Whisper.
But friends, even in hardthings, for instance, everyone in
(09:21):
the LA area that isexperiencing fear, they're experiencing
loss, right?
So many of them have lost their.
Their livelihood, their homes,their buildings, their whole communities.
They've been uprooted and hadto quickly flee to find somewhere
to stay.
So this is a very hard thing.
And it's a lot of people thatare being impacted.
(09:42):
It's not going.
In other words, they're stillgoing to have to walk through that
difficulty, that loss of somany things, of somehow figuring
out how to put their livesback together, to getting the support
they need, to coming togetheras communities to fix things once
the fires are contained andthey can actually see all the devastation
(10:04):
in front of them.
I know some of them havealready gone back to their areas
and seen just total streetsburned down.
But in the midst of all that,the question is, where is Jesus?
Or where is God at work in allof this.
Meaning I've seen peoplealready coming together, you know,
people, you know, alreadydonating money, and it doesn't make
(10:28):
their pain any less.
It doesn't make what they'regoing to have to go through any easier.
But it starts showing us thatwe come together, that we can love
each other, we can supporteach other.
Good does come from even the ashes.
It doesn't mean that anyonewould ever wish that.
So as we wrap up today, I justwant to remind you, let's look for
(10:51):
what is God doing even in hard circumstances?
What is he up to now and whatis he up to next?
But we also need to askourselves similar questions, which
is, what now for ourselves?
What am I supposed to do inthis moment, in this time?
Then also what am I supposedto do now?
In other words, what am Isetting my sights on and moving towards?
(11:14):
And so I hope this, thesesimple shifting questions help you
see that we can have adifferent perspective and we can
show up a little differentlyin the world when we focus less on
our circumstances and more onwho and what is around us.
How can we be the helper?
And how can we notice thepeople helping and loving us as well?
And obviously God is weavingit all together through it all.
(11:38):
Until next time, I hope youhave a great thanks again for listening
to the show and and if youenjoyed today's episode, we would
love it if you could take aminute to leave a rating and review
on Apple Podcast because ithelps our show get discovered by
more people.
And if you'd like to beencouraged in your faith and in your
Life, go onto KristenFitch.comand sign up to get my newsletter.
(12:00):
I have lots of freebies andlots of inspiration encouragement
that'll be coming your way andI would love it if you joined part
of our community.
Friends, and welcome back toFaithfield Woman.
This is your host, Kristin.
Today's a mini episode and Iam going to propose to you a couple
new questions you can askyourself when things just aren't
going right, when things feelhard, when we have loss, and when,
as Bob Goff says, it feelslike God has gone below the surface.
Welcome to Faith Fueled Woman,a podcast designed for Christian
(00:23):
women eager to deepen theirfaith and shine God's light in every
aspect of their lives.
Each week we'll delve intopractical strategies, inspiring stories
and biblical wisdom to equipyou with the tools you need to navigate
life's challenges and growdeeper in your faith.
From finding calm in thechaos, forming deep Christian friendships,
to everyday ways to connectwith God.
(00:43):
We'll cover it all.
Hi, I'm your host, Kristin.
I'm an encourager, a faith ledentrepreneur, a mom, and a wife.
Let's be encouraged in oureveryday lives as we let our faith
guide us, fuel us, and fill uswith God's incredible peace, wisdom
and joy in our lives.
Friends, it's still early inthe first month of this year and
(01:03):
already there's just so muchheaviness in our country and in the
world.
But in our country, we had theshooting in New Orleans on New Year's.
We have these horrific fireshappening in the Los Angeles area,
Los Angeles county, andthey're the devastation has just
been immeasurable.
And you know, of course, thisis above and beyond what each of
(01:27):
us might be walking through inour own lives or our loved ones might
be walking through hard thingsthat we often have to go through.
For some of us, it's loss orremembering loved ones that have
gone before.
It could be health issues.
It could just be we'restruggling in one of our relationships.
Maybe we have a strainedrelationship with one of our children
(01:49):
or one of our siblings or a parent.
So we all have things thatweigh on us or are tough to walk
through.
And one of the devotionalsthat I'm reading this year is, I've
mentioned it before, but it'scalled Catching Whimsy by Bob Goff.
So it's a 365 day devotional.
What I love about him, thoughis the title.
(02:10):
Obviously it's already funCatching Whimsy.
And it's about 360 days of possibility.
And why I love it is sometimeswhen we're talking about our faith
and we're talking aboutscripture and devotionals, they can
seem very serious and heavy.
And I love that he brings thatsense of playfulness that Sense of,
(02:30):
you know, we're doing the bestwe can and let's just show up for
each other and let's let Godshow up for us.
And so on January 9th of hisdevotional, which was yesterday's
reading, he.
It's just a really good one.
And he says here, he basicallysays, here's some questions to ask
instead of asking, you know,like, where is God?
(02:52):
In other words, when we'regoing through these hard things,
we might often think like, howcould God let this happen?
Or why is this happening, God?
Or how am I going to getthrough this?
And he shares John 9:1:3,which is basically the scripture,
that there's a blind man andJesus asks him, you know, what he
(03:14):
wants him to do for him.
And he basically takes, hetakes the mud and he makes the blind
man see.
Well, actually John 9:1:3 isactually the disciples asking, what
is it the blind man's fault orthe parents fault?
So sorry, that's actually whatthat scripture says.
But it's about the blind manthat Jesus takes mud and spits on
(03:35):
and then wipes it on his eyesand he's able to see.
Okay, so that's what it's inreference to.
But God's saying is, I'msorry, Bob says, so many people say,
I mean, in that, in thatstatement, they said, what caused
this man to be blind who sinned?
And Bob says, I think thequestion would be, why did you just
talk some spit and rub mud inthe poor guy's eyes?
(03:58):
But he said, what if we changethe questions we asked?
And the two questions thatreally stood out for me that he is
posing, that we should askourselves is, what is Jesus doing
in our lives?
What is he doing in thiscircumstance, right?
In this thing we're walking through?
And then also ask, what is hegoing to do next?
(04:20):
And the thing is, is if wehave our sights set on where is Jesus
in this, we'd stop focusing ononly the struggle.
And we look to him.
We look to him one, for strength.
But two, we look to him forwhere is he at play?
Because we already know God isalready at work, right?
Which is what his devotionalis about this particular day.
(04:42):
And he ends with saying this,you know, he, he shares Luke, let
me see here.
In the Book of Acts, Luke issharing with a friend that we should
look for many convincingproofs that Jesus is still alive.
And so Bob goes on to explainwhat, what if instead of wondering
why things are happening, yougave the question a twist and said,
(05:04):
maybe these things are happening.
So the works of God could beput on display in my life.
What might he be doing now andwhat might he be doing next?
How good is that?
And he also shares in thisdevotion, this particular day's devotional.
He's looking for God, lookingfor us to come to him in our truest,
(05:25):
most authentic selves.
In other words, he's notlooking for us to pretend or to play
a part which most of us mayfeel like happens in our lives.
Not because we're trying to,but because we are human and because
we're trying to fit in andwe're trying to appease people, possibly,
or whatever the reasons might be.
(05:46):
But we tend to, you know, say,like, for instance, if somebody says
to you, like, oh, how you doing?
Well, a lot of times we'relike, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm fine.
Which we may or may not becompletely, completely fine.
But it's just small talk talk.
We're not getting deep into itwith, you know, just anyone.
But he reminds us that God issaying, come to me as you are.
(06:07):
Come to me with what you'redealing with.
Come to me what's heavy onyour heart.
And we have to remember that,you know, God isn't just asking us
to come to him when things are hard.
Often many of us seek him outwhen things are hardest and when
things are going well, some ofus don't seek him out as much.
He wants us to have arelationship with him and seek him
(06:29):
out always.
But especially when we'regoing through hard things.
We want to go to God, but wealso want to look for where he is
working in these circumstances.
It may be because we're goingto take that pain and in the future
have a different perspective.
It could be that we're goingto help other people that are walking
later on, walking through whatwe just walked through.
(06:51):
It could be that there's somany helpers and people that are
around us to support us andlove us in ways we didn't even imagine
could happen.
The next thing I want to sharewith you is when we start asking
different questions, we don'tjust shift our mindset.
We start shifting ourperspective and we shift our heart
a bit.
(07:12):
In the.
In one of the books that EdithBieber wrote called the Gift.
And I believe she's a psychologist.
She also is someone that, as achild or a young teen, was in concentration
camps, and most of her familydied there.
But she's lived in the UnitedStates for many, many decades.
And so in her book, she says this.
(07:34):
In my experience, Victims ask,why me?
Survivors ask, what now?
So once again, it's a shift in questions.
Instead of asking, why am Igoing through this?
Why am I, why did this happen?
And I should caveat that withsaying, I'm not saying, you can't.
We shouldn't ask questions.
What I'm saying is then weneed to move beyond only those questions
(07:55):
and add additional questions.
So start asking, what's next?
What now?
So not only what is God orwhat is Jesus doing next?
What are we to do now?
And then what are we do to do next?
And she also says thisvictimhood is rigor mortis of the
mind.
It's stuck in the past, stuckin the pain and stuck in the.
(08:18):
On the losses and deficits,what I can't do and what I don't
have.
And that's why she's saying,as we do the work to heal, as we
do the work to feel our lossor our pain.
Because of course, we're notsaying we should not experience that.
But then we need to shift towhat now?
(08:40):
And I just thought, that's so good.
And it really ties in withwhat Bob's saying about looking to
see what is Jesus doing?
What is he doing now, even inmy circumstances or in my pain, and
what is he doing next?
What is he up to?
And where can we see himworking in our life, even through
(09:00):
the hard days?
And then I want to share thisquote with you.
Its faith can begin as simplyas that.
If we are wondering where Godis in our daily lives, perhaps we
can start by noticing the holyall around us every day.
That's by Kathy Izzard fromTrust the Whisper.
But friends, even in hardthings, for instance, everyone in
(09:21):
the LA area that isexperiencing fear, they're experiencing
loss, right?
So many of them have lost their.
Their livelihood, their homes,their buildings, their whole communities.
They've been uprooted and hadto quickly flee to find somewhere
to stay.
So this is a very hard thing.
And it's a lot of people thatare being impacted.
(09:42):
It's not going.
In other words, they're stillgoing to have to walk through that
difficulty, that loss of somany things, of somehow figuring
out how to put their livesback together, to getting the support
they need, to coming togetheras communities to fix things once
the fires are contained andthey can actually see all the devastation
(10:04):
in front of them.
I know some of them havealready gone back to their areas
and seen just total streetsburned down.
But in the midst of all that,the question is, where is Jesus?
Or where is God at work in allof this.
Meaning I've seen peoplealready coming together, you know,
people, you know, alreadydonating money, and it doesn't make
(10:28):
their pain any less.
It doesn't make what they'regoing to have to go through any easier.
But it starts showing us thatwe come together, that we can love
each other, we can supporteach other.
Good does come from even the ashes.
It doesn't mean that anyonewould ever wish that.
So as we wrap up today, I justwant to remind you, let's look for
(10:51):
what is God doing even in hard circumstances?
What is he up to now and whatis he up to next?
But we also need to askourselves similar questions, which
is, what now for ourselves?
What am I supposed to do inthis moment, in this time?
Then also what am I supposedto do now?
In other words, what am Isetting my sights on and moving towards?
(11:14):
And so I hope this, thesesimple shifting questions help you
see that we can have adifferent perspective and we can
show up a little differentlyin the world when we focus less on
our circumstances and more onwho and what is around us.
How can we be the helper?
And how can we notice thepeople helping and loving us as well?
And obviously God is weavingit all together through it all.
(11:38):
Until next time, I hope youhave a great thanks again for listening
to the show and and if youenjoyed today's episode, we would
love it if you could take aminute to leave a rating and review
on Apple Podcast because ithelps our show get discovered by
more people.
And if you'd like to beencouraged in your faith and in your
Life, go onto KristenFitch.comand sign up to get my newsletter.
(12:00):
I have lots of freebies andlots of inspiration encouragement
that'll be coming your way andI would love it if you joined part
of our community.
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