May 22, 2025 • 30 mins
Several years ago Steve Norman of Winning at Home was told that his position had been eliminated and he was escorted out of the building. He had done nothing wrong, nothing illegal or unethical.
Another time, while serving in a pastoral role with a church, he was let go and then required to accept the news publicly with joy.
So he knows a thing or two about being blindsided and walking into the unknown.
Steve shares insights from the life of Samuel. He says trusting God requires:
- Learning to hear and speak God’s voice
- Remembering God’s faithfulness in the past
- Recognizing disappointment is a part of life
- Continuing to operate with integrity
- And knowing that God sees what we cannot.
When we can’t feel the ground underneath us we can trust God to be good, to be with us, and to lead us.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:03):
It's the Perry and Shaunna podcast on the real life
journey with you, reminding you that you are ABBA's beloved
child and that Jesus has called you into his massive
mission to heal the world.
S2 (00:18):
Trusting God in the unknown. It was last Thursday. I
went to Zeeland Hospital to get some blood work. When
I walked in there, there was this woman who was
completely losing it. Stress. Outbursts of anger. Everyone in the
lobby could hear her. Security was there. I checked in,
(00:39):
got my blood drawn, and as I walked out of
Zeeland Hospital, this woman was sitting on the bench talking
to someone on the phone. She had cooled off, but
I could tell she was still troubled. I started back
home and I was about a mile from the hospital,
and I felt prompted to go back. No, Lord, that
can't be you. I turned my Rav4 around and I
(01:04):
thought to myself, I can't believe I'm doing this. Lord,
you're going to have to show me the way, you know?
And it turned into an amazing open door to bring
light and hope into a stranger's life. Who really needed it?
You know, and it's because I've learned to hear when
God speaking to me in real time, the Holy Spirit. Just.
(01:24):
You get that feeling. But it's it's kind of a
thought in your mind. And Steve, talk about the prophet
Samuel learning to hear God's voice at a very young
age and then going on to share God's Word with others.
S3 (01:37):
Yeah, I love the story of Samuel because we we
think that he's probably elementary school age when he has
God kind of speak to him at the very first time.
And if you know the story and many of us do. Uh,
he hears a voice. He's not accustomed to hearing the
voice of God, so he automatically assumes that it's Eli
who is kind of like his his house dad, his
his ministry mentor. And so he he keeps running into
his room and saying like, well, here I am. You
(01:58):
called me and after a couple rounds of that, Eli says, no, no,
that's the Lord. And I want you to try this
next time. Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. And I
had a chance to do a spiritual formation retreat a
couple of weekends ago, and I remember asking myself and
the gathered attendees, what would our days look like if
every morning started with, speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
(02:18):
And if we did a check in throughout the day like, oh,
it's lunchtime, instead of just saying like, hey, Lord, bless
these nachos, also say speak, speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
And some psychologists tell us that all of us have
like a lull in the mid-afternoon, like that 2 to
4 window. And we're having, like our post-lunch sugar crash
and we've run out of momentum. That's another good time
to just check in and say, speak, Lord, your servant
(02:40):
is listening. Um, sometimes I've tried to pray that prayer
before I go to bed to be able to say like,
Hey God, you don't promise to speak to our dreams.
But there's a template in the scriptures of you speaking
through our dreams. If there's something that you want to
speak to me subconsciously, speak, Lord, I'm listening. But a
world that is so full of chatter. Sometimes it's hard
for us to say, like, Lord, I am actually listening
(03:01):
because there's so many other kind of data points that
are hitting us.
S4 (03:04):
Yeah, it's so good. We're talking with Steve Norman of
Winning at Home today, and just last week, I think
it was last week. Things were kind of swirling right
now in our world, but I think it was just
last week my counselor had recommended just spend five minutes.
I just want you to sit in God's presence and
just just experience him. Just be there with him. And
(03:26):
it's in that quiet place that we hear his heart
towards us. Yeah. And Saturday morning I got to the place.
I was like, okay, I'm just going to sit for
five minutes with the Lord and just be in his presence.
And I laid down on the carpet and by the
end of the first minute, I was crying just to
(03:47):
be in the presence of God and to let his
love wash over me and to I mean, I think
it's in that quiet place that we learn to discern
his voice in God's Word. For sure, for sure, for sure,
for sure. We learn his his tone, his character, his
the kinds of things he says. But it's in that
quiet space that we learn to hear him so that
(04:07):
in the midst of life and the hustle and the
bustle and the crazy, in the middle of a conversation,
you can hear God speak to you in that moment
and give you clarity 100%.
S3 (04:16):
And I, I have also heard that it's not just
enough to hear it. Sometimes God wants to speak to us,
but many times God wants to speak through us to
another person like you just referenced Perry. And sometimes there's
a lot of terror in being able to say, like,
I don't know where this person is in their spiritual journey.
If I offer to pray for them, or if I
offer to give them a word of encouragement, what happens
if they shut me down? And that happened to Samuel.
(04:37):
Like a lot of times I read the story and
I like stop where he finally realizes it's the Lord,
but then the Lord's like, Hey Samuel, I've been trying
to speak to Eli and his family. They're not listening.
So I'm going to speak again to them through you.
This is going to be a hard word. This is
going to be something that Eli is not going to
want to hear. And we see that in the text.
(04:58):
Like the next morning when Eli walks into the room.
He's like, so what'd you hear? You can almost sense that.
Samuel flinches because he's like, I don't want to give
you bad news. And I'm not saying that every single
time the Lord gives us for me, more often than not,
it's a word of encouragement rather than a word of rebuke.
But even if it is a word of rebuke that
can that has to be framed in gentleness to be
able to say, God wants more for you than what
(05:20):
you're settling for. How can I help you take a
step forward?
S4 (05:24):
And it's God. It's God who loves you saying this.
And so don't you. Wouldn't you want to know?
S3 (05:29):
Right? Penn and Teller are not people of faith. They
are like atheist magicians. But I remember one of them saying,
I think it was Penn who once said, like, I
don't believe in God. He's like, but if you do
believe in God and you believe that God has given
you a word to help me or even to save
me spiritually, he's like, you have a moral and ethical
obligation to tell me the truth. And I thought it
was fascinating for somebody who doesn't even believe to be
(05:51):
able to say, if you believe, you have to speak
on God's behalf.
S2 (05:56):
Yeah. And it takes it takes courage. It takes a risk.
And learning to hear from God is a art.
S3 (06:03):
Yes.
S2 (06:04):
It's not a science. Right. And we got to be
willing to take the risk.
S4 (06:08):
I also think telling other people what you heard from
God takes some learning into as well. You know what
I mean? You don't want to step in with. Thus
saith the Lord. You know and tell people, this is
what God told me. So. Yeah, I've heard this one before.
God told me, I'm going to marry you. It's like, well,
that's terrifying.
S2 (06:26):
I didn't say that to this lady at Zeeland Hospital.
I said, I said, I can see that you're troubled. Yeah.
Can I help you in some way?
S3 (06:35):
Yeah, yeah. And how did she respond?
S2 (06:38):
She just started telling me her story. And then I
just said, can I pray for you? And I was
ready to jump into prayer. She was open, but she said, here,
let me check something on my phone. She got done
on the phone and I got done praying and she said,
are you busy? So I ended up giving her a
ride to the dentist and.
S3 (06:56):
Oh my.
S2 (06:57):
Goodness, being able to speak into her life. And so yeah.
S3 (07:00):
So you were the hands and the feet and the
wheels of Jesus.
S5 (07:03):
At that moment.
S2 (07:05):
I love that. I love being the wheels of Jesus.
They're really cool wheels.
S4 (07:14):
We are going through a big change. You may have heard,
maybe haven't heard. Big change here at Moody Radio. Moody
radio is restructuring and so moving to all national programs.
So moments like these I think sometimes can make us
ask the question like, how is God going to respond
to this news? As if he doesn't know, as if
he doesn't have a plan, right? Bit of a silly question,
(07:37):
but we can rest in knowing that God has a
plan and God is working out his plan. And some
of the help in that comes from looking back.
S3 (07:46):
Yeah, and one of the passages that I love is
in First Samuel chapter seven. He's older in this part
of the story where the Israelites are struggling with the
kind of like ongoing combat with their nemeses, their neighbors,
the Philistines, and they get some progress in that particular battle.
And then when it's done, it says this in first
Samuel 712, Then Samuel took a stone and he set
(08:06):
it up between Mizpah and Shen. And he named it Ebenezer, saying,
thus far the Lord has helped us. And then the
very next verse says, so the Philistines were subdued and
they stopped invading Israel's territory. Which is funny, because I
think I would have waited for the Philistines to stop
invading my territory before I set up a stone. But
maybe he set up a stone. While things still weren't
great to be able to say, I don't know how
(08:28):
the next chapter is going to go, but this chapter
has been resolved by God. And so I'm going to
put a semicolon here and be able to say like,
this isn't the end of the whole story, but at
this point in the story, we can say with great
confidence like that, the Lord has been our help.
S2 (08:44):
You know, and it's going through this change with Perry
and Shawna? Uh, it's good for me to look back,
because in 2010, we left Phoenix, Arizona, and we decided
to move back to West Michigan. We decided to move
back to Michigan, and we lost everything in a fire.
And so we came back with nothing. And I was
(09:07):
doing the work that I still do with frontiers, and
I needed a studio to be able to record a
little podcast radio feature that I do. And Jack Haberman
knew the guy that was promoting my feature. Jack was
our former manager and Jack said, yeah, Perry can come
in and record a spot here. So I came in here.
And then that led to Jack and I sitting down
(09:29):
in his office one day and and oh, there goes
the lawnmower.
S4 (09:33):
That's something, isn't it?
S2 (09:36):
All right, bring that. Bring that thing right in here.
I don't know if you can hear that, but at
any rate, Jack said. hey, you want to do the
morning show? And so not only did I have a
place to record my radio feature, but I was given
a morning show. And God just provided out of nothing.
(09:59):
So here I am. I'm moving on from Moody now,
and I realize God's got something good for me because
I can look back and see what he did in
the past.
S3 (10:08):
Yeah, one of my favorite authors, Perry, says people don't
fear change. They fear loss. So if I were to
tell you, hey, Perry, you're going to get $5 million
and never have to work another day in your life.
And I told you that today that would be a change.
But you might feel optimistic about that because it doesn't
it doesn't involve like, a setback. And so I think
when we say every change, um, has gifts and every
(10:31):
change has some losses, and I think that I love
the posture that you and Shawn are taking in all
of this to be able to say, like, it's okay
to grieve. It's right to grieve. It's important to grieve.
It would be dishonest not to grieve. And we can
hold two things in our hands at the same time.
One is morning and then the other one is hopeful anticipation.
And that's going to be my prayer for the both
(10:51):
of you as you go forward.
S2 (10:53):
Yeah, we're so grateful for that. And and I know
that you've gone through some losses in your life, and
you can look back in hindsight and see how God
has provided for you.
S3 (11:03):
100%. And there have been some choices that I never
would have chosen for myself, but in hindsight, I could
see why God had to choose them for me. Because
they've been good for my soul. They've been good for
my marriage. They've been good for my family, even though
they've been really hard.
S2 (11:18):
So if you're struggling with the fact that Perry and
Shawna are moving on, or maybe there's just something way,
way bigger that you're struggling with, remember what God has
done in the past because that God is the same
faithful God that has a hope and a future for you.
(11:38):
If we're going to trust God in the unknown, We're
gonna have to make peace with disappointment. Yep. Steve, I
know you've faced disappointment. God led you to leave a
thriving ministry at Central Wesleyan, Holland and move into the
world of business. This was an awesome place for you.
An awesome opportunity for you to be light in the marketplace.
(12:03):
I know at one point it was going swimmingly and
then you were blindsided. So tell us that story of
disappointment and how you made peace with that.
S3 (12:13):
Yeah, I Perry, I had taken a pivoted to the marketplace,
and Kelly and I, my wife Kelly and I had
said like, this won't be a forever thing, but it'll
be probably 2 or 3 years. And we got seven
months into it. And my boss, I was in the
HR department said, hey, I need to have a conversation
with you. And I was like, can you tell me
what it's regarding? He's like, just meet me in the
conference room. And he's like, your position is being eliminated,
(12:34):
effective immediately. We'll have somebody walk you out. And like
in the movies, I was I was always saying like, oh, when?
When somebody gets walked out like they've done a bad thing, right?
So for.
S5 (12:45):
Me.
S3 (12:45):
Like, you can leave now and then you can. Sorry.
It was you can leave now and then you can
come back later and get your stuff. And I was like, wow,
I don't I don't feel like I have been unethical
or illegal or I don't I'm like, I'm not screaming
or throwing things. I, I it was super awkward for
me to walk back to my office because my other
I only had one other colleague in the department and
(13:06):
she had a heads up. She knew what was happening
to me. And so that like compounded it a little
bit more because I was like, I asked you point
blank what was happening and you knew I was getting
terminated and you lied.
S6 (13:14):
To my face, you know? Um, and in hindsight, I
was like, I felt like the Lord was like, Steve,
what did you want her to do? Like it wasn't.
It's not her fault that this is happening. Yeah.
S3 (13:22):
Um, but I, I was so sleepless that night. It
was like 2:00 in the morning. It was a it
was a manufacturing plant, so it ran 24 hours a day.
My key I went to I came, went to come
back in and get my stuff, like my personal stuff
and my key access had been revoked. So I'd been
locked out of the building. Thing. And so I could,
like other people, didn't know what had happened. So some
of the operators, they saw me like waving and they
(13:42):
let me in it. And I think at 3:00 in
the morning, I cleaned out my office.
S4 (13:46):
Wow.
S3 (13:46):
And it was just it was brutal. And I remember
there was a part of me who was saying, like, Lord,
it didn't have to be this way. And I'm disappointed
at how all of this went down. I'm not saying
that the people who made those decisions were bad people.
I think they were operating in the best business sense
that they knew how, but it just felt really messy and, um,
like devaluing. Like I feel like it wasn't just I
(14:06):
lost my job. It's I lost my dignity. And to
pack it all, like, to top it all off, this
is the middle of Covid, right? So there was already
like multiple layers of uncertainty. And when I go back
to the story of Samuel, he leads Israel so faithfully
and leads them so well. And then they're like, you
know what? We don't want to profit anymore. We want
(14:27):
a king. Our neighbors have a king, and kings look cool.
Let's have a king. And so, Sam, when they said, um,
give us a king to lead us, this displeased Samuel
because Samuel's like, this is an indictment of how little
you trust God and how little you respect me. So
he prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to him,
listen to all that the people are saying to you,
(14:47):
it is not you that they have rejected, but they
have rejected me as their king, as they have done
from the day I brought them up out of Egypt
until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods. So
they are doing to you. And God said, you know what?
Let's give them what they want. I can redeem all circumstances.
So he does give them a king. He gives them Saul.
And that doesn't work out great for Saul or for
(15:09):
the people. And then he gives them David. And David
is a pretty good king. But David has some pretty
major missteps, too. Uh, not only does he have a
personal friend killed, but he also, um, is so arrogant
that he has his people counted against the advice of
his general. And this is a story that I sometimes forget.
The resulting plague, the discipline from God, kills 70,000 people.
(15:30):
It's the equivalent of, like, an atomic bomb. And so
people are killed by the tens of thousands because of
David's poor leadership. All that to say, God says they
can have a king. I'm going to. I'm going to
move in spite of that. This isn't on you. I
don't need you to take this personally. And sometimes that's
been a gift for me. And if Samuel wasn't above
disappointment and Jesus wasn't above disappointment, we're not going to
(15:51):
be above it either.
S4 (15:52):
No, disappointment is definitely, absolutely a part of being human.
So if disappointment is going to happen and it is
going to happen, how do we how do we walk
that out trusting God and and walk it out?
S6 (16:07):
Well, yeah.
S3 (16:08):
I think it's really fair to pray the same prayer
that Jesus prayed, which was, Lord, if you could take
this cup from me, would you do that? And the
Lord said, no. And then Jesus says, if the only
way to get to the other side of this cup
is for me to drink it, will you give me
grace to drink it? And I think there are times
where we say, Lord, I would not have chosen this cup,
but you're not taking it away. So will you give
(16:30):
me the grace to to drink the cup. Share in
the fellowship of your sufferings, so that somehow I might
also participate in the power of the resurrection. It's okay
for us to name what hurts. I love the promise
in scriptures that says that those who go out mourning,
they'll return rejoicing. And for us to say, like God,
I'm in a mourning season, will you? Will you keep
(16:50):
reminding me that on the other side of this is
something beautiful and something right, and something good? And will
you walk with me through the dark? And God is
always super gracious to do that.
S2 (17:00):
And that's Jesus mint right there. So I'm just going
to leave it there.
S7 (17:09):
Well, when life.
S4 (17:10):
Bumps into you in the unexpected happens, maybe it's a disappointment.
Or maybe it's you're suddenly pressed into the unknown. What
comes out of you in that moment? In those moments,
how do we act with integrity? Steve, I know you
were in a situation where. Mhm. I'll let you tell
(17:30):
your story.
S5 (17:31):
Of what happened and how you how you operated with integrity.
S6 (17:35):
So I'm like.
S3 (17:35):
Born and raised Chicago native. I went to school in Indiana,
but my first ministry job was in suburban Detroit. I
worked for a church there for five years as a
youth pastor and young adult minister. Excuse me. And then
I was a church planter, uh, under the auspices of
that church for eight years. And then they invited me
to come back. So, long story short, Kelly and I,
like we were in the orbit of that church for
22 years. So we bought our dream home. Our all
(17:58):
four of our kids were born there. Kelly had a
great job at a local children's hospital. I felt like
I was thriving in ministry, and so everything felt like
it was going up and to the right. And then
we were just thrown a major curveball by leadership. They said, hey,
you're not going to be a pastor here anymore. And
it wasn't for anything that was moral or it wasn't
for anything that we we never really understood why. Like
they couldn't give us a straight up answer. It was
(18:19):
super hard because they said, okay, that that conversation was
on a Monday like this Sunday, we're going to trot
you out on stage and make this announcement together and
you're going to be really good about it. And so
like what was almost worse than getting like, publicly. Oh,
and then they said, we're going to find you another role.
But they never did. And so this is I had
to make this announcement with senior leadership, with a smile
(18:40):
to the 4000 people that attended our congregation. And there
was a part of me who was just screaming from
the inside. I'm like, this isn't fair. This isn't right.
This isn't even honest. We're like, lying to these people.
And the congregation wasn't stupid. Like they could read between
the lines. They started sending in some emails saying, like,
this doesn't make this doesn't pass the sniff test. But
I felt like in that chapter, my temptation was to
(19:04):
get even, to get vindictive, to get vengeful and God.
S5 (19:09):
Or.
S4 (19:09):
Even just say the truth.
S6 (19:10):
Yeah.
S5 (19:11):
Okay.
S3 (19:12):
Um, and in a tone that probably wasn't entirely productive.
But yeah, to get the I was like, we need
to tell our story because people were saying, like, did
Steve have a moral failure? Like it was that ambiguous? Sure.
And Kelly was like, this isn't this isn't fair. Like,
to us as a family, to have, like, this rumor
mill kicked in and he's like, well, we haven't done
anything wrong. And I felt like God was saying, Steve,
(19:32):
I know you're you want, um, you want to get
you want to defend yourself. He's like, but I need
you to trust me, to defend you. And I remember
telling our executive director, I was like, if I have
done wrong at any point in this process, God will
convict me. And I was like, and if I haven't,
God will vindicate me. And both things happened. I think
(19:57):
that in the wake of all that, the Lord was like, hey, Steve,
part of the reason that this went left wasn't necessarily
because you were in flagrant sin, but because you were
immature and because you were selfish and you were a
little bit self-righteous, and you were going to acknowledge that.
And then part of the reason that things went left
is because people are broken and they're acting out of fear,
and they're acting out of insecurity, and they're treating this
(20:18):
more like a business than they are the family of God.
And that's what draws me to the story of Samuel
in first Samuel 12. Any time we're in a transition
and are leaving, one chapter is a chance for us
to be able to say like, Lord, if there are
any loose ends here, I want to make it right.
S5 (20:34):
That's so.
S3 (20:34):
And that's exactly what Samuel did. He goes, here I stand,
testify against me in the presence of the Lord and
his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Whose donkey have
I taken? Whom have I cheated? Whom have I oppressed?
From whose hand have I accepted a bribe to make
me shut my eyes? If I have done any of
these things, I will make it right. And I think
the reason that Samuel can give that speech with a
(20:56):
lot of confidence is he's 98% sure he hasn't done
any of those things, but he's also like an elderly gentleman,
and he's been doing ministry for decades. He's like, if
I wronged you and I missed it, please let me know.
And I believe that when we leave, it's a great
chance for us to be able to say, Lord, I
want to leave with my hands clean and my head up.
If there are any loose ends, please let me know
(21:18):
what they are. And a couple months after we left
the church, we'd been here for, um, we'd been here
for a couple of months, and I. And I felt
like the Lord said, like, Steve, there's still two people
that you wronged in Detroit that you need to make
amends with. And so I tried to do that, and
it wasn't easy, but it was really, really it was
good for my soul. And I want to be the
kind of person who lives my life with super short
(21:40):
accounts and a clean slate. And I felt like in
the recovery movement, in the 12 steps, if you've ever
done that or know somebody who has this, they talk
about making amends. And I want to be the kind
of person who's like, Lord, I do not want to
wait to the end of a chapter to make amends.
And if a chapter is a really good time to
make amends. But I want to keep kind of like
a daily running list to be able to say, Lord,
if I wronged anybody today, let me make it right
(22:02):
before I go to bed.
S2 (22:03):
You know, just with this situation where me and Shawn
are moving on because our leadership has made a decision
to go to a national morning show. You know, we're
not we're not moving on because we weren't doing a
good job or that there was anything un godly going
on at all, right. And in that process, in this process,
(22:27):
I've been able to take those feelings that I have
that are not good, that are not godly and bring
them to God.
S3 (22:35):
Yeah.
S2 (22:36):
That's where they belong. Yeah. And I could be honest.
I'm human. I'm going to have feelings like, hey, man,
but I bring that to God, and he's worked in
my heart so that I can I can move along
from this ministry.
S3 (22:50):
Well, yeah. When I was leaving central, I had Grand
Rapids has art prize every year, and I don't know
if I told you I did an art prize exhibit
once where, like, I built my own pulpit and I.
S5 (23:01):
Had Norman.
S3 (23:02):
And I had people preach to me. It was an
interactive kind of thing called The Preachers because I was like,
preachers spend so much time talking and very little time listening.
So I literally had a guy here in Zeeland help
me build my own pulpit and pew that were like
portable and collapsible. So I set up a pulpit and
I sat in the pew and I let people speak
to me to be able to say, like, what if
you had a chance to speak to the church. What
would you say? And so when I was packing up
(23:24):
my office, I had my little when I was leaving
central to go to the marketplace, I was like, Lord,
where am I going to preach? And I have this
cool snapshot that I took when I was packing up
my car, because my pulpit is right next to my trunk.
And I call it like the I call that moment
like the pulpit in the parking lot. And I felt
like God was saying, like, Steve, you don't need it.
You don't need a building, or you don't need a platform,
(23:44):
or you don't need a radio station to be the
vehicle for God to speak through you to people who
need your help. So I just want to remind you
that your broadcast beacon, um, doesn't have to be physical
to be effective.
S5 (23:59):
Um.
S2 (24:00):
That's a good word, Shawna. Can't speak. So I'm going
to just I'm just going to say thank you, Steve.
And and we're going to take that. We're going to
live that out. Right. Lashawna.
S8 (24:11):
Yep.
S2 (24:15):
Let's trust God when life doesn't make sense because he
sees what we can't. When I was in my 20s,
my dream was to get a record deal, and I
recorded my first album and shared it with my pastor
at Evangel Temple in Springfield, Missouri. Pastor Jerry said Perry,
one of my friends is Darryl Harris of Starsong Records.
(24:38):
I think he needs to hear this. In fact, he's
coming to town. I'll set up a meeting. This was it.
My dream was coming true. Darryl listened to my music
and said, nope, your lyrics are too deep.
S5 (24:54):
Oh, no.
S2 (24:55):
You need to simplify. Read this book on lyric writing
and we'll talk later. I was devastated, but now I
can look back and thank God for that closed door.
I really think I would have crashed and burned in
the music industry. I really do, just because of knowing
now what I've gone through in my life, and if
I would have put a record deal into that mix.
(25:18):
I think it would have been a crash and burn.
God saw what I couldn't see. So, Steve, God sees
what we can't.
S3 (25:27):
Absolutely. And when we continue the story of Samuel, we
see that God speaks to him and says, hey, Saul
is kind of no longer qualified to be king, so
I've rejected him. And I need you to go to
Jesse's house, and we're going to we're going to show
you which one of his sons will be Saul's successor.
So Samuel falls all those instructions and sees Jesse's firstborn son, Eliab,
(25:49):
in his gut. He's like, well, surely this is the guy.
And the Lord said to Samuel, do not consider his
appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The
Lord does not look at the things people look at.
People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks
at the heart. And they did this for another seven
rounds before he got to David. So there I don't
know if you've ever had this, but there are times
in my life where I'm like, Lord, this makes sense.
(26:10):
He's like, no, it doesn't. I'm like, well, this makes sense.
No it doesn't. And we just keep going around and
around and around. And finally we get to the thing
that doesn't seem like it makes any sense at all.
And God's like, I, I have an angle on this
that you do not have. Will you trust me? And
it's hard to do. But in the moments where we
have done that, we look back and we say, well,
of course God did it that way. There wasn't any
(26:31):
other way for that to happen.
S4 (26:32):
I want to give credit to where credit is due,
but I think let's just call it Tim Keller, because
he says a lot of smart things.
S5 (26:39):
He sure does.
S4 (26:39):
He it was the quote is this, though, in theory,
maybe you know something along the lines of if God,
if we knew everything that God knows, we would actually
pray that he would do the things that he's doing.
S5 (26:52):
Hmm.
S3 (26:54):
Yeah. That's great.
S4 (26:55):
I mean, that's what we're talking about, right? Like, God
knows things that we don't know. He sees things that
we don't see. And when things happen in our life
and it's we're completely blindsided or it's, you know, something
that is wrecking us and we can't see how God
could be good in it. If we knew what he knew,
we would actually ask maybe for the things that are hard.
S3 (27:17):
Yeah. Timothy Keller also says, when we get mad at
God for not doing things our way, it's the ultimate
revelation of our interior pride, because we're assuming that we
know what is best for us and our family and
our season and our work. When God is saying like,
that's nice that you think that, but your perspective is
so limited. And again, that's not a shame. That's just
(27:39):
God's perspective.
S4 (27:40):
And this may seem silly, but I just think about
when my kids were little. My my son just loves popcorn.
To this day. He loves popcorn. But when he was little,
he would wake up in the morning and want popcorn
for breakfast. And I'm like, no, we're gonna have some
eggs and some bacon, you know? And he to him,
that just wouldn't make any sense whatsoever. Why I wouldn't
just give him popcorn for breakfast. Right. But as his mom,
(28:00):
knowing this boy needs nutrition to grow and become everything
that you know, he's meant to become today. So the
Lord just. He sees and he knows so much more.
S3 (28:09):
So good.
S2 (28:10):
You know, there are some things, though, that are that
are so hard and so horrible and even I can
say horrific that we won't see how it made sense
until the other side.
S3 (28:23):
Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that sometimes we we forget
that God's timeline is different than ours. And that's why
I'm so grateful for Hebrews 11, because it's this great
passage about all these people who did amazing things by faith.
And if you remember, there's a one line that says,
like by faith, some women saw like their dead raised.
And then the very next verse is like, and by
faith some people were sawn in two and died. And
(28:43):
I'm like, wait a second. I like the faith that
gets people raised from the dead, not the faith that
sustains me while I'm literally losing my life for the gospel.
And it was both of those people had faith. And
he goes, some of them didn't get what they wanted,
what they desired until after their resurrection. And it's okay
for us to say God's timeline is much, much longer
(29:04):
than ours. We like to do things in milliseconds and minutes.
We live in a soundbite culture. We live in a
world where like, if if what I'm microwaving takes longer
than 90s, I start stomping my foot. And I like
to tell people like, we live in a microwave world.
God is a slow roasting God.
S5 (29:21):
Oh that's good.
S3 (29:22):
Like God is a pit barbecue master where he's like,
I've got this brisket. It's going to be done in
30 hours. Uh, it'll be really good, but I need
you to wait.
S4 (29:29):
God moves slow.
S2 (29:30):
Yeah. He does. I love that passage. It says a
thousand years, Lord, are like a day that has just
gone by. Or like a watch in the night. Yeah,
that just puts things into perspective for me. We can
trust God. Well, we need to trust God.
S5 (29:49):
And we can.
S1 (29:51):
Thanks for letting Barry and Shawna walk the real life
journey with you. The content from the podcast comes from
their live show. Barry and Shauna. Mornings on 89.3 Moody Radio,
Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reach out to us by texting 800
968 8930. And please subscribe.
It's the Perry and Shaunna podcast on the real life
journey with you, reminding you that you are ABBA's beloved
child and that Jesus has called you into his massive
mission to heal the world.
S2 (00:18):
Trusting God in the unknown. It was last Thursday. I
went to Zeeland Hospital to get some blood work. When
I walked in there, there was this woman who was
completely losing it. Stress. Outbursts of anger. Everyone in the
lobby could hear her. Security was there. I checked in,
(00:39):
got my blood drawn, and as I walked out of
Zeeland Hospital, this woman was sitting on the bench talking
to someone on the phone. She had cooled off, but
I could tell she was still troubled. I started back
home and I was about a mile from the hospital,
and I felt prompted to go back. No, Lord, that
can't be you. I turned my Rav4 around and I
(01:04):
thought to myself, I can't believe I'm doing this. Lord,
you're going to have to show me the way, you know?
And it turned into an amazing open door to bring
light and hope into a stranger's life. Who really needed it?
You know, and it's because I've learned to hear when
God speaking to me in real time, the Holy Spirit. Just.
(01:24):
You get that feeling. But it's it's kind of a
thought in your mind. And Steve, talk about the prophet
Samuel learning to hear God's voice at a very young
age and then going on to share God's Word with others.
S3 (01:37):
Yeah, I love the story of Samuel because we we
think that he's probably elementary school age when he has
God kind of speak to him at the very first time.
And if you know the story and many of us do. Uh,
he hears a voice. He's not accustomed to hearing the
voice of God, so he automatically assumes that it's Eli
who is kind of like his his house dad, his
his ministry mentor. And so he he keeps running into
his room and saying like, well, here I am. You
(01:58):
called me and after a couple rounds of that, Eli says, no, no,
that's the Lord. And I want you to try this
next time. Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. And I
had a chance to do a spiritual formation retreat a
couple of weekends ago, and I remember asking myself and
the gathered attendees, what would our days look like if
every morning started with, speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
(02:18):
And if we did a check in throughout the day like, oh,
it's lunchtime, instead of just saying like, hey, Lord, bless
these nachos, also say speak, speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
And some psychologists tell us that all of us have
like a lull in the mid-afternoon, like that 2 to
4 window. And we're having, like our post-lunch sugar crash
and we've run out of momentum. That's another good time
to just check in and say, speak, Lord, your servant
(02:40):
is listening. Um, sometimes I've tried to pray that prayer
before I go to bed to be able to say like,
Hey God, you don't promise to speak to our dreams.
But there's a template in the scriptures of you speaking
through our dreams. If there's something that you want to
speak to me subconsciously, speak, Lord, I'm listening. But a
world that is so full of chatter. Sometimes it's hard
for us to say, like, Lord, I am actually listening
(03:01):
because there's so many other kind of data points that
are hitting us.
S4 (03:04):
Yeah, it's so good. We're talking with Steve Norman of
Winning at Home today, and just last week, I think
it was last week. Things were kind of swirling right
now in our world, but I think it was just
last week my counselor had recommended just spend five minutes.
I just want you to sit in God's presence and
just just experience him. Just be there with him. And
(03:26):
it's in that quiet place that we hear his heart
towards us. Yeah. And Saturday morning I got to the place.
I was like, okay, I'm just going to sit for
five minutes with the Lord and just be in his presence.
And I laid down on the carpet and by the
end of the first minute, I was crying just to
(03:47):
be in the presence of God and to let his
love wash over me and to I mean, I think
it's in that quiet place that we learn to discern
his voice in God's Word. For sure, for sure, for sure,
for sure. We learn his his tone, his character, his
the kinds of things he says. But it's in that
quiet space that we learn to hear him so that
(04:07):
in the midst of life and the hustle and the
bustle and the crazy, in the middle of a conversation,
you can hear God speak to you in that moment
and give you clarity 100%.
S3 (04:16):
And I, I have also heard that it's not just
enough to hear it. Sometimes God wants to speak to us,
but many times God wants to speak through us to
another person like you just referenced Perry. And sometimes there's
a lot of terror in being able to say, like,
I don't know where this person is in their spiritual journey.
If I offer to pray for them, or if I
offer to give them a word of encouragement, what happens
if they shut me down? And that happened to Samuel.
(04:37):
Like a lot of times I read the story and
I like stop where he finally realizes it's the Lord,
but then the Lord's like, Hey Samuel, I've been trying
to speak to Eli and his family. They're not listening.
So I'm going to speak again to them through you.
This is going to be a hard word. This is
going to be something that Eli is not going to
want to hear. And we see that in the text.
(04:58):
Like the next morning when Eli walks into the room.
He's like, so what'd you hear? You can almost sense that.
Samuel flinches because he's like, I don't want to give
you bad news. And I'm not saying that every single
time the Lord gives us for me, more often than not,
it's a word of encouragement rather than a word of rebuke.
But even if it is a word of rebuke that
can that has to be framed in gentleness to be
able to say, God wants more for you than what
(05:20):
you're settling for. How can I help you take a
step forward?
S4 (05:24):
And it's God. It's God who loves you saying this.
And so don't you. Wouldn't you want to know?
S3 (05:29):
Right? Penn and Teller are not people of faith. They
are like atheist magicians. But I remember one of them saying,
I think it was Penn who once said, like, I
don't believe in God. He's like, but if you do
believe in God and you believe that God has given
you a word to help me or even to save
me spiritually, he's like, you have a moral and ethical
obligation to tell me the truth. And I thought it
was fascinating for somebody who doesn't even believe to be
(05:51):
able to say, if you believe, you have to speak
on God's behalf.
S2 (05:56):
Yeah. And it takes it takes courage. It takes a risk.
And learning to hear from God is a art.
S3 (06:03):
Yes.
S2 (06:04):
It's not a science. Right. And we got to be
willing to take the risk.
S4 (06:08):
I also think telling other people what you heard from
God takes some learning into as well. You know what
I mean? You don't want to step in with. Thus
saith the Lord. You know and tell people, this is
what God told me. So. Yeah, I've heard this one before.
God told me, I'm going to marry you. It's like, well,
that's terrifying.
S2 (06:26):
I didn't say that to this lady at Zeeland Hospital.
I said, I said, I can see that you're troubled. Yeah.
Can I help you in some way?
S3 (06:35):
Yeah, yeah. And how did she respond?
S2 (06:38):
She just started telling me her story. And then I
just said, can I pray for you? And I was
ready to jump into prayer. She was open, but she said, here,
let me check something on my phone. She got done
on the phone and I got done praying and she said,
are you busy? So I ended up giving her a
ride to the dentist and.
S3 (06:56):
Oh my.
S2 (06:57):
Goodness, being able to speak into her life. And so yeah.
S3 (07:00):
So you were the hands and the feet and the
wheels of Jesus.
S5 (07:03):
At that moment.
S2 (07:05):
I love that. I love being the wheels of Jesus.
They're really cool wheels.
S4 (07:14):
We are going through a big change. You may have heard,
maybe haven't heard. Big change here at Moody Radio. Moody
radio is restructuring and so moving to all national programs.
So moments like these I think sometimes can make us
ask the question like, how is God going to respond
to this news? As if he doesn't know, as if
he doesn't have a plan, right? Bit of a silly question,
(07:37):
but we can rest in knowing that God has a
plan and God is working out his plan. And some
of the help in that comes from looking back.
S3 (07:46):
Yeah, and one of the passages that I love is
in First Samuel chapter seven. He's older in this part
of the story where the Israelites are struggling with the
kind of like ongoing combat with their nemeses, their neighbors,
the Philistines, and they get some progress in that particular battle.
And then when it's done, it says this in first
Samuel 712, Then Samuel took a stone and he set
(08:06):
it up between Mizpah and Shen. And he named it Ebenezer, saying,
thus far the Lord has helped us. And then the
very next verse says, so the Philistines were subdued and
they stopped invading Israel's territory. Which is funny, because I
think I would have waited for the Philistines to stop
invading my territory before I set up a stone. But
maybe he set up a stone. While things still weren't
great to be able to say, I don't know how
(08:28):
the next chapter is going to go, but this chapter
has been resolved by God. And so I'm going to
put a semicolon here and be able to say like,
this isn't the end of the whole story, but at
this point in the story, we can say with great
confidence like that, the Lord has been our help.
S2 (08:44):
You know, and it's going through this change with Perry
and Shawna? Uh, it's good for me to look back,
because in 2010, we left Phoenix, Arizona, and we decided
to move back to West Michigan. We decided to move
back to Michigan, and we lost everything in a fire.
And so we came back with nothing. And I was
(09:07):
doing the work that I still do with frontiers, and
I needed a studio to be able to record a
little podcast radio feature that I do. And Jack Haberman
knew the guy that was promoting my feature. Jack was
our former manager and Jack said, yeah, Perry can come
in and record a spot here. So I came in here.
And then that led to Jack and I sitting down
(09:29):
in his office one day and and oh, there goes
the lawnmower.
S4 (09:33):
That's something, isn't it?
S2 (09:36):
All right, bring that. Bring that thing right in here.
I don't know if you can hear that, but at
any rate, Jack said. hey, you want to do the
morning show? And so not only did I have a
place to record my radio feature, but I was given
a morning show. And God just provided out of nothing.
(09:59):
So here I am. I'm moving on from Moody now,
and I realize God's got something good for me because
I can look back and see what he did in
the past.
S3 (10:08):
Yeah, one of my favorite authors, Perry, says people don't
fear change. They fear loss. So if I were to
tell you, hey, Perry, you're going to get $5 million
and never have to work another day in your life.
And I told you that today that would be a change.
But you might feel optimistic about that because it doesn't
it doesn't involve like, a setback. And so I think
when we say every change, um, has gifts and every
(10:31):
change has some losses, and I think that I love
the posture that you and Shawn are taking in all
of this to be able to say, like, it's okay
to grieve. It's right to grieve. It's important to grieve.
It would be dishonest not to grieve. And we can
hold two things in our hands at the same time.
One is morning and then the other one is hopeful anticipation.
And that's going to be my prayer for the both
(10:51):
of you as you go forward.
S2 (10:53):
Yeah, we're so grateful for that. And and I know
that you've gone through some losses in your life, and
you can look back in hindsight and see how God
has provided for you.
S3 (11:03):
100%. And there have been some choices that I never
would have chosen for myself, but in hindsight, I could
see why God had to choose them for me. Because
they've been good for my soul. They've been good for
my marriage. They've been good for my family, even though
they've been really hard.
S2 (11:18):
So if you're struggling with the fact that Perry and
Shawna are moving on, or maybe there's just something way,
way bigger that you're struggling with, remember what God has
done in the past because that God is the same
faithful God that has a hope and a future for you.
(11:38):
If we're going to trust God in the unknown, We're
gonna have to make peace with disappointment. Yep. Steve, I
know you've faced disappointment. God led you to leave a
thriving ministry at Central Wesleyan, Holland and move into the
world of business. This was an awesome place for you.
An awesome opportunity for you to be light in the marketplace.
(12:03):
I know at one point it was going swimmingly and
then you were blindsided. So tell us that story of
disappointment and how you made peace with that.
S3 (12:13):
Yeah, I Perry, I had taken a pivoted to the marketplace,
and Kelly and I, my wife Kelly and I had
said like, this won't be a forever thing, but it'll
be probably 2 or 3 years. And we got seven
months into it. And my boss, I was in the
HR department said, hey, I need to have a conversation
with you. And I was like, can you tell me
what it's regarding? He's like, just meet me in the
conference room. And he's like, your position is being eliminated,
(12:34):
effective immediately. We'll have somebody walk you out. And like
in the movies, I was I was always saying like, oh, when?
When somebody gets walked out like they've done a bad thing, right?
So for.
S5 (12:45):
Me.
S3 (12:45):
Like, you can leave now and then you can. Sorry.
It was you can leave now and then you can
come back later and get your stuff. And I was like, wow,
I don't I don't feel like I have been unethical
or illegal or I don't I'm like, I'm not screaming
or throwing things. I, I it was super awkward for
me to walk back to my office because my other
I only had one other colleague in the department and
(13:06):
she had a heads up. She knew what was happening
to me. And so that like compounded it a little
bit more because I was like, I asked you point
blank what was happening and you knew I was getting
terminated and you lied.
S6 (13:14):
To my face, you know? Um, and in hindsight, I
was like, I felt like the Lord was like, Steve,
what did you want her to do? Like it wasn't.
It's not her fault that this is happening. Yeah.
S3 (13:22):
Um, but I, I was so sleepless that night. It
was like 2:00 in the morning. It was a it
was a manufacturing plant, so it ran 24 hours a day.
My key I went to I came, went to come
back in and get my stuff, like my personal stuff
and my key access had been revoked. So I'd been
locked out of the building. Thing. And so I could,
like other people, didn't know what had happened. So some
of the operators, they saw me like waving and they
(13:42):
let me in it. And I think at 3:00 in
the morning, I cleaned out my office.
S4 (13:46):
Wow.
S3 (13:46):
And it was just it was brutal. And I remember
there was a part of me who was saying, like, Lord,
it didn't have to be this way. And I'm disappointed
at how all of this went down. I'm not saying
that the people who made those decisions were bad people.
I think they were operating in the best business sense
that they knew how, but it just felt really messy and, um,
like devaluing. Like I feel like it wasn't just I
(14:06):
lost my job. It's I lost my dignity. And to
pack it all, like, to top it all off, this
is the middle of Covid, right? So there was already
like multiple layers of uncertainty. And when I go back
to the story of Samuel, he leads Israel so faithfully
and leads them so well. And then they're like, you
know what? We don't want to profit anymore. We want
(14:27):
a king. Our neighbors have a king, and kings look cool.
Let's have a king. And so, Sam, when they said, um,
give us a king to lead us, this displeased Samuel
because Samuel's like, this is an indictment of how little
you trust God and how little you respect me. So
he prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to him,
listen to all that the people are saying to you,
(14:47):
it is not you that they have rejected, but they
have rejected me as their king, as they have done
from the day I brought them up out of Egypt
until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods. So
they are doing to you. And God said, you know what?
Let's give them what they want. I can redeem all circumstances.
So he does give them a king. He gives them Saul.
And that doesn't work out great for Saul or for
(15:09):
the people. And then he gives them David. And David
is a pretty good king. But David has some pretty
major missteps, too. Uh, not only does he have a
personal friend killed, but he also, um, is so arrogant
that he has his people counted against the advice of
his general. And this is a story that I sometimes forget.
The resulting plague, the discipline from God, kills 70,000 people.
(15:30):
It's the equivalent of, like, an atomic bomb. And so
people are killed by the tens of thousands because of
David's poor leadership. All that to say, God says they
can have a king. I'm going to. I'm going to
move in spite of that. This isn't on you. I
don't need you to take this personally. And sometimes that's
been a gift for me. And if Samuel wasn't above
disappointment and Jesus wasn't above disappointment, we're not going to
(15:51):
be above it either.
S4 (15:52):
No, disappointment is definitely, absolutely a part of being human.
So if disappointment is going to happen and it is
going to happen, how do we how do we walk
that out trusting God and and walk it out?
S6 (16:07):
Well, yeah.
S3 (16:08):
I think it's really fair to pray the same prayer
that Jesus prayed, which was, Lord, if you could take
this cup from me, would you do that? And the
Lord said, no. And then Jesus says, if the only
way to get to the other side of this cup
is for me to drink it, will you give me
grace to drink it? And I think there are times
where we say, Lord, I would not have chosen this cup,
but you're not taking it away. So will you give
(16:30):
me the grace to to drink the cup. Share in
the fellowship of your sufferings, so that somehow I might
also participate in the power of the resurrection. It's okay
for us to name what hurts. I love the promise
in scriptures that says that those who go out mourning,
they'll return rejoicing. And for us to say, like God,
I'm in a mourning season, will you? Will you keep
(16:50):
reminding me that on the other side of this is
something beautiful and something right, and something good? And will
you walk with me through the dark? And God is
always super gracious to do that.
S2 (17:00):
And that's Jesus mint right there. So I'm just going
to leave it there.
S7 (17:09):
Well, when life.
S4 (17:10):
Bumps into you in the unexpected happens, maybe it's a disappointment.
Or maybe it's you're suddenly pressed into the unknown. What
comes out of you in that moment? In those moments,
how do we act with integrity? Steve, I know you
were in a situation where. Mhm. I'll let you tell
(17:30):
your story.
S5 (17:31):
Of what happened and how you how you operated with integrity.
S6 (17:35):
So I'm like.
S3 (17:35):
Born and raised Chicago native. I went to school in Indiana,
but my first ministry job was in suburban Detroit. I
worked for a church there for five years as a
youth pastor and young adult minister. Excuse me. And then
I was a church planter, uh, under the auspices of
that church for eight years. And then they invited me
to come back. So, long story short, Kelly and I,
like we were in the orbit of that church for
22 years. So we bought our dream home. Our all
(17:58):
four of our kids were born there. Kelly had a
great job at a local children's hospital. I felt like
I was thriving in ministry, and so everything felt like
it was going up and to the right. And then
we were just thrown a major curveball by leadership. They said, hey,
you're not going to be a pastor here anymore. And
it wasn't for anything that was moral or it wasn't
for anything that we we never really understood why. Like
they couldn't give us a straight up answer. It was
(18:19):
super hard because they said, okay, that that conversation was
on a Monday like this Sunday, we're going to trot
you out on stage and make this announcement together and
you're going to be really good about it. And so
like what was almost worse than getting like, publicly. Oh,
and then they said, we're going to find you another role.
But they never did. And so this is I had
to make this announcement with senior leadership, with a smile
(18:40):
to the 4000 people that attended our congregation. And there
was a part of me who was just screaming from
the inside. I'm like, this isn't fair. This isn't right.
This isn't even honest. We're like, lying to these people.
And the congregation wasn't stupid. Like they could read between
the lines. They started sending in some emails saying, like,
this doesn't make this doesn't pass the sniff test. But
I felt like in that chapter, my temptation was to
(19:04):
get even, to get vindictive, to get vengeful and God.
S5 (19:09):
Or.
S4 (19:09):
Even just say the truth.
S6 (19:10):
Yeah.
S5 (19:11):
Okay.
S3 (19:12):
Um, and in a tone that probably wasn't entirely productive.
But yeah, to get the I was like, we need
to tell our story because people were saying, like, did
Steve have a moral failure? Like it was that ambiguous? Sure.
And Kelly was like, this isn't this isn't fair. Like,
to us as a family, to have, like, this rumor
mill kicked in and he's like, well, we haven't done
anything wrong. And I felt like God was saying, Steve,
(19:32):
I know you're you want, um, you want to get
you want to defend yourself. He's like, but I need
you to trust me, to defend you. And I remember
telling our executive director, I was like, if I have
done wrong at any point in this process, God will
convict me. And I was like, and if I haven't,
God will vindicate me. And both things happened. I think
(19:57):
that in the wake of all that, the Lord was like, hey, Steve,
part of the reason that this went left wasn't necessarily
because you were in flagrant sin, but because you were
immature and because you were selfish and you were a
little bit self-righteous, and you were going to acknowledge that.
And then part of the reason that things went left
is because people are broken and they're acting out of fear,
and they're acting out of insecurity, and they're treating this
(20:18):
more like a business than they are the family of God.
And that's what draws me to the story of Samuel
in first Samuel 12. Any time we're in a transition
and are leaving, one chapter is a chance for us
to be able to say like, Lord, if there are
any loose ends here, I want to make it right.
S5 (20:34):
That's so.
S3 (20:34):
And that's exactly what Samuel did. He goes, here I stand,
testify against me in the presence of the Lord and
his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Whose donkey have
I taken? Whom have I cheated? Whom have I oppressed?
From whose hand have I accepted a bribe to make
me shut my eyes? If I have done any of
these things, I will make it right. And I think
the reason that Samuel can give that speech with a
(20:56):
lot of confidence is he's 98% sure he hasn't done
any of those things, but he's also like an elderly gentleman,
and he's been doing ministry for decades. He's like, if
I wronged you and I missed it, please let me know.
And I believe that when we leave, it's a great
chance for us to be able to say, Lord, I
want to leave with my hands clean and my head up.
If there are any loose ends, please let me know
(21:18):
what they are. And a couple months after we left
the church, we'd been here for, um, we'd been here
for a couple of months, and I. And I felt
like the Lord said, like, Steve, there's still two people
that you wronged in Detroit that you need to make
amends with. And so I tried to do that, and
it wasn't easy, but it was really, really it was
good for my soul. And I want to be the
kind of person who lives my life with super short
(21:40):
accounts and a clean slate. And I felt like in
the recovery movement, in the 12 steps, if you've ever
done that or know somebody who has this, they talk
about making amends. And I want to be the kind
of person who's like, Lord, I do not want to
wait to the end of a chapter to make amends.
And if a chapter is a really good time to
make amends. But I want to keep kind of like
a daily running list to be able to say, Lord,
if I wronged anybody today, let me make it right
(22:02):
before I go to bed.
S2 (22:03):
You know, just with this situation where me and Shawn
are moving on because our leadership has made a decision
to go to a national morning show. You know, we're
not we're not moving on because we weren't doing a
good job or that there was anything un godly going
on at all, right. And in that process, in this process,
(22:27):
I've been able to take those feelings that I have
that are not good, that are not godly and bring
them to God.
S3 (22:35):
Yeah.
S2 (22:36):
That's where they belong. Yeah. And I could be honest.
I'm human. I'm going to have feelings like, hey, man,
but I bring that to God, and he's worked in
my heart so that I can I can move along
from this ministry.
S3 (22:50):
Well, yeah. When I was leaving central, I had Grand
Rapids has art prize every year, and I don't know
if I told you I did an art prize exhibit
once where, like, I built my own pulpit and I.
S5 (23:01):
Had Norman.
S3 (23:02):
And I had people preach to me. It was an
interactive kind of thing called The Preachers because I was like,
preachers spend so much time talking and very little time listening.
So I literally had a guy here in Zeeland help
me build my own pulpit and pew that were like
portable and collapsible. So I set up a pulpit and
I sat in the pew and I let people speak
to me to be able to say, like, what if
you had a chance to speak to the church. What
would you say? And so when I was packing up
(23:24):
my office, I had my little when I was leaving
central to go to the marketplace, I was like, Lord,
where am I going to preach? And I have this
cool snapshot that I took when I was packing up
my car, because my pulpit is right next to my trunk.
And I call it like the I call that moment
like the pulpit in the parking lot. And I felt
like God was saying, like, Steve, you don't need it.
You don't need a building, or you don't need a platform,
(23:44):
or you don't need a radio station to be the
vehicle for God to speak through you to people who
need your help. So I just want to remind you
that your broadcast beacon, um, doesn't have to be physical
to be effective.
S5 (23:59):
Um.
S2 (24:00):
That's a good word, Shawna. Can't speak. So I'm going
to just I'm just going to say thank you, Steve.
And and we're going to take that. We're going to
live that out. Right. Lashawna.
S8 (24:11):
Yep.
S2 (24:15):
Let's trust God when life doesn't make sense because he
sees what we can't. When I was in my 20s,
my dream was to get a record deal, and I
recorded my first album and shared it with my pastor
at Evangel Temple in Springfield, Missouri. Pastor Jerry said Perry,
one of my friends is Darryl Harris of Starsong Records.
(24:38):
I think he needs to hear this. In fact, he's
coming to town. I'll set up a meeting. This was it.
My dream was coming true. Darryl listened to my music
and said, nope, your lyrics are too deep.
S5 (24:54):
Oh, no.
S2 (24:55):
You need to simplify. Read this book on lyric writing
and we'll talk later. I was devastated, but now I
can look back and thank God for that closed door.
I really think I would have crashed and burned in
the music industry. I really do, just because of knowing
now what I've gone through in my life, and if
I would have put a record deal into that mix.
(25:18):
I think it would have been a crash and burn.
God saw what I couldn't see. So, Steve, God sees
what we can't.
S3 (25:27):
Absolutely. And when we continue the story of Samuel, we
see that God speaks to him and says, hey, Saul
is kind of no longer qualified to be king, so
I've rejected him. And I need you to go to
Jesse's house, and we're going to we're going to show
you which one of his sons will be Saul's successor.
So Samuel falls all those instructions and sees Jesse's firstborn son, Eliab,
(25:49):
in his gut. He's like, well, surely this is the guy.
And the Lord said to Samuel, do not consider his
appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The
Lord does not look at the things people look at.
People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks
at the heart. And they did this for another seven
rounds before he got to David. So there I don't
know if you've ever had this, but there are times
in my life where I'm like, Lord, this makes sense.
(26:10):
He's like, no, it doesn't. I'm like, well, this makes sense.
No it doesn't. And we just keep going around and
around and around. And finally we get to the thing
that doesn't seem like it makes any sense at all.
And God's like, I, I have an angle on this
that you do not have. Will you trust me? And
it's hard to do. But in the moments where we
have done that, we look back and we say, well,
of course God did it that way. There wasn't any
(26:31):
other way for that to happen.
S4 (26:32):
I want to give credit to where credit is due,
but I think let's just call it Tim Keller, because
he says a lot of smart things.
S5 (26:39):
He sure does.
S4 (26:39):
He it was the quote is this, though, in theory,
maybe you know something along the lines of if God,
if we knew everything that God knows, we would actually
pray that he would do the things that he's doing.
S5 (26:52):
Hmm.
S3 (26:54):
Yeah. That's great.
S4 (26:55):
I mean, that's what we're talking about, right? Like, God
knows things that we don't know. He sees things that
we don't see. And when things happen in our life
and it's we're completely blindsided or it's, you know, something
that is wrecking us and we can't see how God
could be good in it. If we knew what he knew,
we would actually ask maybe for the things that are hard.
S3 (27:17):
Yeah. Timothy Keller also says, when we get mad at
God for not doing things our way, it's the ultimate
revelation of our interior pride, because we're assuming that we
know what is best for us and our family and
our season and our work. When God is saying like,
that's nice that you think that, but your perspective is
so limited. And again, that's not a shame. That's just
(27:39):
God's perspective.
S4 (27:40):
And this may seem silly, but I just think about
when my kids were little. My my son just loves popcorn.
To this day. He loves popcorn. But when he was little,
he would wake up in the morning and want popcorn
for breakfast. And I'm like, no, we're gonna have some
eggs and some bacon, you know? And he to him,
that just wouldn't make any sense whatsoever. Why I wouldn't
just give him popcorn for breakfast. Right. But as his mom,
(28:00):
knowing this boy needs nutrition to grow and become everything
that you know, he's meant to become today. So the
Lord just. He sees and he knows so much more.
S3 (28:09):
So good.
S2 (28:10):
You know, there are some things, though, that are that
are so hard and so horrible and even I can
say horrific that we won't see how it made sense
until the other side.
S3 (28:23):
Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that sometimes we we forget
that God's timeline is different than ours. And that's why
I'm so grateful for Hebrews 11, because it's this great
passage about all these people who did amazing things by faith.
And if you remember, there's a one line that says,
like by faith, some women saw like their dead raised.
And then the very next verse is like, and by
faith some people were sawn in two and died. And
(28:43):
I'm like, wait a second. I like the faith that
gets people raised from the dead, not the faith that
sustains me while I'm literally losing my life for the gospel.
And it was both of those people had faith. And
he goes, some of them didn't get what they wanted,
what they desired until after their resurrection. And it's okay
for us to say God's timeline is much, much longer
(29:04):
than ours. We like to do things in milliseconds and minutes.
We live in a soundbite culture. We live in a
world where like, if if what I'm microwaving takes longer
than 90s, I start stomping my foot. And I like
to tell people like, we live in a microwave world.
God is a slow roasting God.
S5 (29:21):
Oh that's good.
S3 (29:22):
Like God is a pit barbecue master where he's like,
I've got this brisket. It's going to be done in
30 hours. Uh, it'll be really good, but I need
you to wait.
S4 (29:29):
God moves slow.
S2 (29:30):
Yeah. He does. I love that passage. It says a
thousand years, Lord, are like a day that has just
gone by. Or like a watch in the night. Yeah,
that just puts things into perspective for me. We can
trust God. Well, we need to trust God.
S5 (29:49):
And we can.
S1 (29:51):
Thanks for letting Barry and Shawna walk the real life
journey with you. The content from the podcast comes from
their live show. Barry and Shauna. Mornings on 89.3 Moody Radio,
Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reach out to us by texting 800
968 8930. And please subscribe.
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