December 8, 2025 • 57 mins
🌪 Ever wonder why life hits harder after you start doing things right? This week, Chaplain Heidi sat with one of the rawest questions every one of us wrestles with in recovery, faith, and real life:
“I’m changing my life… I’m doing my best… so why do these things keep happening?”
Ecclesiastes 9:11–12 doesn’t sugarcoat the truth:
“The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong… sooner or later, bad luck hits us all.”
Heidi doesn’t dodge the hard stuff. She names the grief, the unfairness, the trauma, the “why me?” — and then she points us to a God who meets us right in the middle of it.
“God is most visible in those who've walked the hard paths.” “If you trust God, then live like you trust Him.” “He wants you to live fully now… not later in heaven.” “Don’t sit in misery. Celebrate this life and expect beautiful things.”
This message is for anyone who’s been crushed by life’s unfairness… anyone who’s tired of waiting for the breakthrough… anyone who’s wondering if God still sees them.
He does. And Heidi’s words this week are a reminder that faith isn’t pretending life is easy — it’s learning to live fully in the middle of everything you can’t control.
📲 Download the FREE Sober Not Boring App — community, support, events, and recovery resources in your pocket. www.sobernotboring.comÂ
👇 Drop a comment: Where has life felt unfair this year — and what’s one way you can lean into joy anyway?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm grateful for your son Jesus.
(00:02):
It's through Him only that we havethe promise of eternal life with
you, and we are deeply gratefulfor that gift so freely given
to all who choose to want that.
And it's in His name we pray.
Amen.
Amen.
Okay.
As I said, we're continuingon with Ecclesiastes.
(00:23):
I had kind of considered maybe tryinggoing live last week 'cause you
know, last minute things go so well.
Trying to figure that out.
But I really wanted to do this message.
I knew, um, in one of my earliestrun throughs, I still listen
to Ecclesiastes every day.
(00:44):
I set it on audio and I listen to it inthe car when I drive and I let it play
from chapter one all the way to the end.
And I'm not sick of it yet, and I hearsomething different every single time.
But really early on, um, thisparticular Ecclesiastes nine
(01:04):
verses 11 and 12, that just.
Sat on my mind for a while and I'meager to just kind of unpack this
and, and see what God has to say andwhere he leads us in all of this.
And I think you might understandwhy as soon as we start reading
some of this, why I am interested,this affects so many of us.
(01:30):
So I'm gonna read Ecclesiastes nine,the first part of verse 11, and it
says this in the message version.
Remember, this is Solomon.
He's on his search forthe meaning of life.
Like what does this all mean?
He has found out he has allthe riches in the world.
He's the richest man at,at on the in the world.
(01:53):
He was also the wisest, and manyprobably would think, well that makes
life really, really easy for him.
And in fact, he found the opposite.
He found out all that wealthyhas, it's meaningless.
'cause when he's dead and gone,other people just get it and get
to decide what to do with it all.
It's meaningless.
At that point.
(02:14):
All the wisdom in the worlddoesn't mean his life is perfect.
He had hardships and strugglesand trials all through it.
So he set out on a mission to findout what matters in this life that
we have here on this planet Earth.
So he said this, I took another walkaround the neighborhood and realized that
(02:37):
on this earth as it is, the race is notalways to the swift, nor the battle to
the strong nor satisfaction to the wise.
Nor riches to the smartnor grace to the learned.
(03:01):
And I love that because I hearover and over and over and over
again, so many people strugglingwith, uh, but I'm changing my life.
I'm doing things the right way.
I've doing my best to live lifethe way I know I'm supposed to.
And all these things keep happening.
(03:22):
Life is so hard.
It's like, I've worked so hard to startthis business and it seems so good, and
then all of a sudden everything's goneand it's, um, upended and taken from me.
My relationship may have fallen apart.
I should have gotten the promotionand they gave it to somebody
(03:44):
else that's newer and doesn'thave the knowledge that I have.
Like, that's not fair.
It's not fair.
Why do these things happen?
And it's all a myth that humanshave control over any of this,
but we so think if we're just thebest, it's all gonna go the right way.
(04:08):
Well, let's go back toAdam and Eve in the garden.
They had the best and theywere perfect for a time being.
They were without sin until theydecided that wasn't good enough.
And that's truly where the first sin was.
Dissatisfaction with perfection.
That's us as human beings.
(04:29):
They had absolute perfection,but but we're not God.
And that started the ball rollingto why things are the way they are.
I don't understand why.
(04:50):
God allows all the time, someof the things to happen that do.
Um, I've had to sit with that a lotover the last little bit of time as
I'm just pouring love into two girls,grieving the loss of their dear friend,
and she's been all over the news.
'cause she was that young pregnant girl.
(05:11):
Yeah.
I can't even tell you or explain toyou the level of grief and trauma
to the people around her as they'retrying to understand why, because
humanly speaking, there's no morehorrific way to have lost somebody
(05:34):
like this when this child was so close.
Like, really?
Why?
Why did this happen?
I don't have an answer for that.
I don't have an answer outside of thefact this world is filled with evil.
This world is so unbelievablybroken and sometimes God allows
(05:59):
things that are beyond ourcomprehension because I don't know.
I do know that in Ecclesiastes,Solomon did say, and he is
the wisest man, so say is God.
So I choose to listen to the words thathe says that really in the big picture
of things, those babies that never diddraw breath here in this world have an
(06:24):
advantage we don't have because all theyever know is God and being with him.
And isn't that an advantagethat they have, that they
never had to suffer this life?
Mm-hmm.
There's maybe a littlebit in this situation.
You know, in my mind, I just praythat God is holding so closely
(06:48):
this young girl, that God receivedthat tiny little baby boy.
But to know why I don't havethat answer, and it's the only
question they keep asking me, why?
Why?
Because humanly speaking, wewant to know those answers.
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Why?
Why did it seem like not as many ofthose kinds of horrible, bad things
happened to me when I was in myaddiction, or I wasn't living close to
God, or I was pursuing all this stuff?
Why, when I
tried to live a better life, whydo I experience these things?
(07:34):
Why do people so solidly in recoverysometimes have that unexpected relapse?
Why?
I don't always know many reasons,I'm sure behind the scenes,
but the why's, I don't know.
I don't know why all the time
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outside of the fact that I do know thatevery single one of those situations is
an opportunity for God to show himselfthrough the people going through it,
through the people around them, andfor those who hear the testimony later,
(08:19):
because sometimes things happen in lifewhere I don't see any other way to make
it beautiful than for it to become apart of somebody's testimony as they're
serving and pouring into other people
because there isn't.
Any possible way of making sinin the horror of it pretty.
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You can't make a murder look wonderful.
You can't make abuse look desirable.
You can't make loss something comfortable.
It's ugliness in ourlife and in our world.
(09:06):
And the thing is, no matter how rightyou're doing it, it's still gonna happen.
I did have that mistake andI'm not drinking anymore.
Here I am in recovery.
I'm working my recovery.
(09:27):
I do this on Sunday morning,like I lean into God.
So far, like my life is just spenttrying so hard to follow this path
that I want to walk and hit still come
and it's getting a lot easier.
(09:49):
But I can tell you in the beginningit can derail you and flatten you.
'cause it's like, God, I'm stilltrying to learn how to do it this way.
And poof, did we really need that?
Now, did I need this lesson of why?
Why?
(10:09):
Sometimes God is silentfor a while sometimes.
Other times I get the answers rightaway, but most times I think God's still
working on that patient's education in me.
Do you trust me?
I have been tested in that.
(10:30):
Do you trust me?
You said you did.
You said you had faith.
So when the trials come, doesthe faith and the trust continue
in any of us and all of us here?
Because it's really easy todo when life is pretty easy.
You know, you're just kind of goingalong and it's kind of like this.
(10:51):
And then sometimes we get this, andboy, this feels good, but we really
feel it when we have those hits.
And we can sometimes sit withthat and it gets kind of easy to
forget that we said we're gonnatrust God and I have faith in God.
(11:13):
I'm trusting him every step of the waythat goes by the wayside real fast.
And then it becomes thisscramble with the checklist.
God, boom, boom, boom.
Do this, do this, do this, do this.
It doesn't ever seem to cross our mind.
It rarely does mine in those times tosay, thank you, God, for this trial,
(11:37):
and I look forward to the lesson in it.
I often think of that after the fact,after I've grumbled and griped at God,
you know, shook a fist, work this out.
This is hard.
But I feel there's great benefit inlearning to thank God even for the trials
(12:03):
because it's where he's the closest andit's where he teaches us what we need
to know for the calling on our life.
If life is easy all thetime, what are we learning?
Look what I can do.
Look what all my work got me, isn't it?
(12:24):
Aren't I amazing?
There is a lot of I that happensbecause, you know, as humans we
have this thing called an ego
and it interferes with so much and it's,
I think it's one of the greatest weaponsthat is used against us is our ego.
(12:48):
It's what justifies us when we'reangry, when we're going through it.
I can remember, as, you know,relationships would crumble.
I'll talk now.
Uh,
for me, I'll just say like with kids,with some of my kids, I'm like the un
it felt like the unfairness of this.
(13:10):
I'm like, I picture littletiny me in front of God
screaming and this is not there.
Throwing my little toddler temper tantrumas I'm seeing it in this tiny little
view to a God who is seeing the universe.
He understands the why ofwhat's happening to me.
(13:30):
He understands the hurt that I'mfeeling, and he is right there loving
me as I'm being called to trusthim, even in the loss of children
that I want in my life so badly.
And it took me a long time
(13:51):
to finally say, God, thank you evenfor this and for the lessons you're
teaching, even as I say it through tears,
because it's the only thingthat will make it make sense
because there's a reason behind all of it.
(14:12):
Because we live in a world wherethere is good and there is bad.
And every single day that we wake up andface the world, it's a war outside of our
doors, and we get to choose the way we go.
And trust me, it's harderto go the good way.
It really is because the calling ishard on our life to do that, because
(14:37):
life isn't always going to be fair.
There are people who will experience abuse
deserve, Nope, it never is,but it's the world we live in.
But I don't want that to happen.
I don't want that to happen to anybody.
(14:59):
I really don't.
I would love that to never happen.
I would love sin to be gone andwiped off the face of the earth
because wow, what an amazing, joyfulexistence being on this planet would
be instead of the hardship that it is.
But the more you sit and you look atthings, God is most visible in those
(15:23):
who've walked the hard paths that love himand praise him and talk about it openly.
That is when you see God,
that's when he's shown.
I don't want a God that justsays, I'll fix all that for you.
Let me make that all right for you.
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Don't worry about it.
I got you.
Do what you want.
I got you.
I'll fix it all.
There's no good.
There's no bad, there's no right.
There's no wrong.
It's just do whatever you wantto and then we'll all hang out
in heaven and party forever.
He could have chosen todo that, but he's God,
(16:04):
there is no room in heaven for that whichis not God, which I am particularly.
Glad about.
'cause I don't want hate there.
I don't want suffering.
I don't want abuse and violenceand murder and bloodshed and lying
and gossip and every single awful,hurtful thing on this earth.
(16:30):
Cancer, non-existent
addiction, not in heaven.
I want all things related to God, andI can't imagine living a life absent
of his love, because as love is shown,love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
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goodness, perseverance, self-control.
You know, those good things,
you know, that's our choice every day.
Even in the face of this, theunfairness that comes our way.
People judging us, yet there's a druggie.
All the drunks comingfor Christmas this year.
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Wonder how she's gonna be.
Yeah, there's gonna be that.
No matter what we do, there's gonnabe people that won't accept you.
There will be people that leave you view
family, friends, jobs willgo to people less qualified.
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You may not get the shift you want.
You may not get the
salary.
Housing can be difficult.
My car breaks down,struggling with my kids.
My kids are having troublesand they're hurting.
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All these things happenover and over and over.
It's how we've responded them.
That shows you whereyour walk with God is.
Can you still wake up in the morningand praise him, say, I love you,
father, thank you for every answerto prayer, no matter what it was.
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I struggle with that every day.
It's not easy to pray over peoplewho voice hatred towards you.
It's not easy to pray with love forpeople that you know actively want
to harm you through words or action.
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It's not easy to pray for a denominationin a family that chose to throw you
away and mean it because you love them.
So every morning is a struggle forme as I do this and God knows that.
It's why I do it first before it takesroot, because I've noticed I used to
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put that group off towards the end.
You know, do all thefeel good stuff first.
And I noticed that left me withjust that little bit of bitterness
because I'm not praying for you first.
No way.
You don't deserve it.
Well, there's not a whole lot thatI deserved and Jesus just stood
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right up and said yes immediately.
And if all I have to do for what he'sdone for me in all circumstances,
the good, the bad, and the unfairis to continue to love people.
I don't think he's asking too much of me.
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I am not saying that it's easy andI'll never say that it's easy, but
it's not asking too much of us.
No, we don't get a pass on hating anybody.
As I've said before, I've searchedand I've searched and I've
searched, God, can I hate this one?
Can I hate this one?
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Well, if you want them to suffer,hell then go ahead and hate them.
But my son died, so nobodywould have to go there.
That's ego thinking.
You can reserve hatred for certain people.
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I had to come to terms withthat because I had hatred
for certain people, for certaingroups, for certain religions.
I have to call it what it was.
I had hatred.
I was awful in my thoughts and words.
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And that's ego.
I'm not any better than them.
I'm no better than them, than,I'm better than someone who
might get a job promotion.
I didn't get.
I'm not even gonna use thetraining for a race thing.
'cause no matter how muchI train, I'm still slow.
It doesn't matter.
Everybody will stillbeat me, but it's okay.
(21:25):
No matter how often unfairthings happen, it's still
exactly the way it's meant to be.
God intends that for a very specificreason and the more I'm turning my ship
around to understand that, the more I'mrecognizing even with those uncomfortable
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bits in my life that I want gone,
just wait Heidi.
God's gonna do something beautiful 'cause.
Look what he's already done.
Mm-hmm.
He's taken the hardest things I haveexperienced in my life, and I think
for a lot of people that know my story,they immediately go to, oh, you know
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that that abuse that wasn't the hardestwas excommunication and shunning That
was hands down the hardest momentof my entire life to stand there so
unbelievably isolated and abandoned.
If I had only known how close and howbig God was in that moment, he's like,
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child, I just gave you your freedom,
and I saw it as loss.
My freedom to me at that timewas the worst loss I could have
ever fathomed in all this world.
I lost everything.
My entire family, both sides, people.
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I love my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, mygrandma who was still living at the time.
If only I had seen
God in that moment because it was, it wasstep one in the journey he had for me.
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But why me?
This is more than I can bear.
I can't do this, but you can,because God's doing this through you.
He created you.
He knows you.
So if you wonder why God allowed it,it's because he knew you could handle
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it, because he made you and designed youknowing your journey that was coming.
So don't get derailed when the hardstuff in life comes when the opposite
of what you thought was coming happenswhen at the last moment what you
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thought was happening doesn't whena door closes that you thought was
opened, when people less qualified getsomething that should have gone to you.
Jesus said, if you wanna be firstin heaven, seek to be last on earth.
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So the hard thing is.
That means you congratulate thatcoworker that got the job that
you were more qualified to get,
or someone else that might not havea family they're trying to deal with.
Got a shift that is better suitedtowards family life and you didn't.
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Or maybe somebody's recovery looksa lot easier than mine does, or
I'm doing all the right thingand my family still is making
me pay the price doing it.
All right.
God's like I know.
I know it's part of the plan.
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You said you trusted me,
so do we in those moments.
Thank you.
God, thank you for that answered prayer.
I know you must have somethingso much better in store for me.
And it will happen,
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but sometimes he allows you to wait
when that door closedafter they handed me.
Apparently Heaven has papers that youtype out on a typewriter and get signed
by people that says you can't come here.
So they handed that to me, basicallymy ticket to hell papers and
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closed the door, and I stood there.
I didn't know that 30 years later,
the blessings would happen.
That's how long it tookto start the harvest.
I'm glad I didn't know it then.
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Do you really want to knowhow long it's gonna take?
I'm telling you, you don't.
'cause if I would've heard then 30years, I'd be like, I'm done now.
I can't do this for 30 years.
But here I am.
I did it for 30 years and oh,the School of God is a tough one.
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It's hard,
but it's because he's equippingyou to live life on this earth.
And this life on earth is hard.
And it needs people who go throughhard things on life and learn those
lessons because there's countlessothers coming behind you that have
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to walk through the same thing.
And as Solomon learned, thereis nothing new under the sun.
Nothing.
Nothing we've experiencedhasn't been experienced, has
been experienced by others.
I mean to say there is no new experiencethat we face that others haven't.
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It's what we do with it.
So what.
Do we do with that?
Bad things happen.
It gets unfair.
Just have faith and move on.
I guess just accept what it is.
He just finishes with saying Sooner orlater, if you're looking at people who
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seem to live a charmed life and thingsare great, and why is it so easy for them?
Solomon says, as sooner orlater, bad luck hits us all.
No one can predict misfortune like a fishcaught in a cruel net or birds in a trap.
So men and women are caughtby accidents, evil and sudden.
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That's why it happens.
It's not because God wants you to suffer.
It's not because God takes great delightin suffering and hard things coming.
But it just means that every personon this planet has their time coming.
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You can be cruising along, goingjust as good as can be, whether
you're living a good life or a bad,
you can be living this good life rightalongside somebody living this bad life.
And you're like, think of jobone after another, taking hits,
and this one's just a cruising.
Do you really think there's nevergonna be a fall for this one?
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Who cares?
Even if through the 80 some years of theirlife on earth they just cruised through,
died a millionaire, beautiful mansion, allthe cars and family and kids, and maybe
they got that straight to hell ticket.
Did they win?
Mm-hmm.
Was that little puny life on earththat seemed a little comfortable?
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Okay.
No.
No,
I will take my life of hardships andfailures and falls and difficulties any
day over an easy life heading to hell.
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'cause it's a very real thing.
Life is always gonna be filledwith hardship and unfairness and
we need to be a people that arebuilt to walk through that because
we're walking through it with God.
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What he wants for us
is to be a light through it, toshow people where God is in this.
We can't see God, butwe can see his church.
The actions of his church arevisible to everybody around us.
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So how do we act andbehave in those things?
I really hate to think about how I actedand behaved through some of my trials.
It wasn't pretty.
I was ugly.
I was pissed off.
I was so angry for so much of my life.
It's not fair.
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Not fair.
Why me?
So am I saying I'd prefersomebody else to go through it?
Why would I wish that on somebody,
probably back in the day, I would'vegladly that person's horrible.
Why can't they have this?
(31:10):
'cause God's said, but I loveyou and I have a plan for you.
And I want you to be free ofthe bondage you were raised in.
'cause we can often be inbondage and not even know it.
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I didn't know that's what I was in.
I didn't.
So we sit here saying, wehave to live this life though,
to just wake up every day, get through it.
Hope it doesn't get too bad today, maybetomorrow be better and then do it again.
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And I hear so manyChristians living that way.
Sure.
Hope Jesus comes quick.
'cause boy, how muchworse can it get, man?
Just get through this life.
And I mean, it is the most ho hum,dreary existence ever of just trying
to survive and get through it.
Just another awful hardday to get through.
(32:15):
Sure.
Hope Jesus comes real fast.
Life is awful.
It sure can be if that's what you sitand look at, if you just sit and look
at the garbage heap that life can be.
Yep.
It's a pretty ugly, stinky, messy thing.
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What was the purpose of Jesus though?
So we could just sit and look at the mess,so we can sit and look at this broken
world and just go, what's the point?
You know?
Okay, God, I guess I'll just keepdoing this and until you decide I can
go to heaven and then it'll be good.
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And God's like, no, I want youto live like it's good right now.
What did my son do on that cross?
Do you think it was so we could livethese miserable, ugly, angry lives?
Hateful, bitter?
Is that what Jesus did all that for?
(33:24):
So we could feel like that?
I don't think any of our heart experienceseven came close to his heart experiences.
Try being God in a baby form.
Those of you who've raised a baby, can youimagine God saying, I'm willing to be that
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helpless and dependent in this human body,
and I'm gonna walk alongsideyou and grow up, and I'm gonna
teach you and explain to you.
I believe Jesus took such delightin this planet and in this world.
(34:19):
I believe he took delights in sunrisesand sunsets in the laughter of children
and the beauty that expressions oflove are in all their many forms.
I believe he saw the beauty inevery single human being on the
planet because he knew them all.
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Oh, I created that one.
Look at her.
Yeah, this world is broken and it'sfallen and it's filled with sin.
But if we look around even in itsbrokenness, my goodness is beautiful.
Just even go to the world itself.
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Deserts, there's beauty there,mountains, there's beauty.
The wide open plains.
There's just, there'sbeauty there in the oceans.
The North Pole, the SouthPole, every continent on this
earth is filled with beauty.
It's everywhere.
(35:24):
There's beauty in a dandelion growingthrough a crack in the concrete.
There's beauty in that tree growing outof a rock in the middle of the water.
There's beauty in the sky at night.
How about that?
Aurora we've been ableto see so often lately.
(35:44):
Do you think God wants us to livea life like this and not see it?
Then what was the point of it all?
He created this worldbeautiful for us to enjoy.
This time of the year is so hard for somany people, myself included, and yet.
(36:04):
When we sit and think about what we'vebeen given, are we supposed to walk
around sad and broken and defeated?
What do we have?
Who do we have
him
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not?
So we can live laterwhen we get to heaven.
And I sat with that for a while
because we're all wrapped up in thehustle and bustle of figuring life out.
Busy, busy, busy, busy,work, work, work, work, work.
(36:47):
And God said, we dohave to work to survive.
But
remember that command forSabbath keeping, he gave.
Why was that a commandand not a suggestion?
(37:07):
If you can't look at this and see God,you need to spend more time with God.
If you can't hear the sound of childrenlaughing and imagine God just taking joy
in that you need to get closer to God.
If you don't hear God speaking toyou, you need to get closer to God.
(37:34):
God expects you to step away from thehard times of life, to lean into him
and enjoy it, to laugh with your friendsand your family, with your kids, to
take great joy in the people around you.
To delight in this world.
I'm even challenging myself to lovewinter this year and here we go off
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to the races, snow and polar vortexesenough for three years already, as far
as I'm concerned, but I'm determined thatI'm gonna enjoy it because he sent it.
It's here for a reasonand truly it's beautiful.
And quite selfishly, I'm findingout I love how I feel when
(38:20):
I notice things like that.
I love being the old grandma just
falling on her back in a big old pileof snow and just making ridiculous
snow angels in my front yard.
'cause that sky man is just stunninggalaxies and stars in that moon.
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It's beautiful.
I listen to the wind coming throughthe trees in that pine forest
and it just sounds like water.
Rushing water.
It's beautiful.
And when you listen, you start tohear how much life is out there.
Ari's like, oh, I couldn't standthe quiet out there in the woods.
(39:02):
And I'm like, you haven'tbeen out in the woods then.
Oh, when you sit there andyou listen in the stillness,
you find out it's not still.
There's so much life, so muchlife, even down to the creaking
and snapping of the trees.
They're just dormant.
The life is down there in those roots.
(39:23):
It's coming back.
It's what God wants for usno matter how hard life is.
Why do you think he createdbeautiful thing and beautiful people?
Why do we have a beautiful planet withthis ride of glorious colors out there?
Why do we have a beautifulsky and things to see?
(39:44):
Why did he create peoplethat we love and care about?
Do you think he didn't knowhow hard life is on its own?
Do you think we have a God that doesn'tcare about our joy and our delight
and our laughter because he does?
Those are God given emotions.
(40:07):
Those of us in recovery, we're wellversed in feeling the heaviness, the
hurt, the pain, the suffering, thebondage to addiction, all of those things.
And we talk about those feelings so often.
Do we share the joy and thehappiness and the laughter?
Do we express those beautifulmoments that we've had?
(40:31):
I experienced a beautiful moment at Meyer.
Two of them, a Robin was working, soI got the best hug in all the world,
and b. This dear man, probablylate seventies, early eighties,
looked at Mike car and he goes,boy, you must sure like ham a lot.
I had more hams in that thing, and I'mlike, my husband and I, we kind of, we,
(40:56):
we started this nonprofit and we havequite a few people that come through
and we just really love to feed people.
So when there's a good deal, man,you know, we just really try to make
the dollar stretch and we stock upwhen there's been this great price.
So I said, I'm actually feedinga lot of people and, and this
dear man stood there admired.
He goes, what do you do there?
(41:16):
And I found myself able to describe all ofyou, this community and, and what we do.
And he's like.
Where do you do this at?
And I said, in Fenwick.
And he started chuckling and he goes,
they need it out there.
That's what he said.
(41:37):
That's exactly what he said.
And he was such a bright spot in Meyer.
You know, I'm on this mission.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, rush, rush, rush.
And yet I took the time to have thisbeautiful conversation and we had
a chuckle about being in Fenwick,but he said, man, God bless you and
your husband and everybody there.
(41:58):
He goes, my wife and Iwill be praying for you.
Oh.
I sat there with a smile on my faceand I'm checking out and I'm going
out the door and all of a sudden Ihear this voice, Hey, wait a minute.
And here he comes.
I didn't know men that age could stillmove that fast, but he was just trucking.
'cause he found me and hegoes, this is all I have.
(42:22):
But he says.
Please let me donate to your nonprofit.
And he handed me all themoney that he had on him.
Wow.
You know, I just shared with him whatwe do and what I was doing and he
says, I sure wish I could do more.
And I just said, you have no ideahow much you've done already.
'cause I needed to hear that today
(42:47):
because I was like, okay, God.
You know, we're at theend of this fiscal year.
Hmm.
And it's really taken a lot of faith.
'cause you know, it's, I'm not driven bymoney, but things like this take money.
You know, we make a dollar stretch,the likes of which I'm like, it's
(43:10):
a good thing I was a single mama.
Six.
I learned how to stretch a dollar.
But God is teaching me trust.
In all things, the hardthings and in the good.
In those moments like that elderlygentleman at Myers, those are
those beautiful moments of livingfully now that God has for us.
(43:32):
Here he goes, I'm gonna bless you throughthe people around you, through this
planet and this world that I've given you.
I want you to open your eyes andsee it, but more than that, don't
just see it as you're cruisingby at 90 because life is busy.
You need to step away from the busyand learn some quietness with God.
(43:58):
Go for a walk through thewoods, MCC up the road there.
They got a beautiful trail throughthe woods and they're all groomed.
I suggest walking through those woods.
It's beautiful.
Taking some time with your family at home.
Not to talk shop or to do a quickcatch up and then leave, but spend
(44:20):
some time together, talk, have aconversation, maybe play a board game.
I don't care, but take delight and joyin the people that God has in your life.
It's important
you know that he loves you whilehe loves everybody else too.
So get to know as many of them as you can.
(44:45):
My biggest takeaway from today is, yeah,I know life is hard and you get flattened,
and it happens over and over and over.
I know,
but this is what God is asking us to do.
Even now, don't sit in misery.
Oh, it's gonna be so much betterwhen I finally get to heaven.
I'm just gonna endure this life.
God doesn't want you to endure this life.
(45:06):
He wants to celebrate this life,to relish it and to treasure it.
To leave this life better because youwere here, because you were such a
beautiful spot of light to everybodyyou came in contact with because you
lived a life that pointed out to people.
Did you see that?
Did you know this person?
(45:27):
Did you know what happened?
Wasn't that sunrise amazing?
Don't the trees look beautifulwith all the fresh snow on 'em?
Isn't the moon amazing when it's shiningand it's bitter cold and your dogs are
taking a while to do their business?
Hurry up.
(45:50):
And the more I sat with that, I'm like,what a great example of what recovery is.
Because recovery for those of usin the drug and alcohol sense,
that's a lifelong thing, right?
Who here is fully recovered?
All better?
I'm recovered now.
All better.
Don't need nothing.
(46:11):
If you feel that that's you, I'm gonnapray for you because that pedestal
gets real tall and it's a real longfall because recovery is for life.
But really the analogy can bethe same for those of us who know
Jesus, that life we're given.
(46:33):
That's his whole life ofrecovery, also that we're living.
And if we're called to this, you caninclude that in your life of recovery.
Why are we so miserable?
Do we make recovery look appealing?
If not, maybe becomefamiliar with recovery.
(47:01):
Maybe your recovery is sobriety,and that's a beautiful thing.
Sobers beautiful.
But recovery is living fully now,
and that's what we'recalled to no matter what.
(47:22):
That's what Solomon foundin all his searching.
What is the meaning of it?
I worked my finger to the bone.
I have everything at my disposaland I didn't deny myself
anything and it meant nothing.
I got nothing.
I still feel empty.
(47:46):
Wisdom had it all.
I had all the wisdom.
I know everything.
Everybody comes to me forsolutions and I give them the
answer and I'm still, I hate life.
He said, I hate it.
And it set off that search of where is.
(48:07):
The meaning this life here, what is it?
Because we all end upthe same, A dead body.
It's not pretty to think of justwe're all future dead bodies,
but we all finish the same.
So he goes, what is it about?
And this is exactly what he found out.
(48:29):
It's all about, as I've saidbefore, if the wisest man that
ever lived speaks, don't you thinkwhat he has to say has truth in it?
He dedicated himself to searchingout meaning, and he came to this.
So if you don't feel like youenjoy your life fully, bring it
(48:52):
to God because he wants you to.
But God, do you knowwhat my life looks like?
And yeah, I do.
I do.
'cause I led you to exactly this.
Now do you trust me?
And if you do trust God andyou do have faith in God, then
(49:14):
why do we live like we don't?
Filled with worry andfrustration and irritation.
Driven to exhaustion, which leadsto bitterness and it is just life.
We literally, as children of God, savedby Jesus should be the happiest people
(49:42):
around in a way that makes no sense.
Where's the smiles?
Where's the laughter?
Where's the joy?
Because that's who we should be.
If we're Jesus people.
Isn't a guilt thing.
'cause I have days when you're notseeing the joy, joy, joy on this face.
(50:03):
Sometimes I don't feel the joy, joy,joy down in my heart either for those
of you know that song, old Lively thing.
But really when you recognize thatthis life here is just the shortest
of stopping points in the big pictureof our life, it's so we can share
(50:27):
with as many people as possible.
The amazingness of God, the joy of God,the fullness of life is only found in
God if you are trying to find it withinyourself because you are a God of sorts.
You're gonna be looking andsearching your entire life through,
(50:49):
and you will never ever find it.
He dwells in us, but we are not him.
It was the desire of Adamand Eve to be just like God.
To be God's.
That led to the downfall of all.
So trust the creator.
Trust the one who made you, buttrust him enough to live a life
(51:14):
of happy, grateful joy today
on Earth as it is right now,
not later in heaven.
It's why I titled it on Earthas it is up there, because we
(51:38):
experience the angsty stuff here,though it's so hard here on earth.
Heaven's gonna be so amazing and it'sgonna be so perfect and it's, we can
get excited talking about that life.
God wants us to be excited talking aboutlife right now on this earth right now,
(51:58):
without everything changing, without itimproving, without it getting better.
Right where you are inevery situation you're in.
Live your life fully knowing that Godis in charge and that you are not.
Humans have never had controlover anything, and we never
(52:21):
will, but we keep trying to.
All the problems in the world arebecause humans are trying to control
something that cannot be controlled.
Whether the Planet Wars, countriesleadership, name it all, I don't care who
(52:43):
thinks on this planet, they're in charge.
They're not.
God might allow it for a time.
I was finding myself feeling a bitfearful because of the direction
things are going in this world.
It is not pretty out there.
There's a lot of restlessness and Ifeel on the brink of something awful
(53:09):
and that brought some fear,and I've worked really hard.
I'm letting go of the fear.
I don't care what humans chooseto do because they can't do
anything unless God allows it.
So if I trust God, I'm gonna trusthim enough to live my life joyfully.
(53:31):
Trusting him with the yuck, trustinghim in the hardest of times, knowing
that God, this is gonna be amazing whenyou turn this around and I'm asking
you to do the same in your hard times.
Don't get impatient in the waiting.
(53:56):
I had so much impatience in my waiting.
I tried to force things my way.
Okay.
God, you're too busy, obviously.
So I'll fix it for you.
I'll choose.
Yeah, I want a relationship.
I don't wanna wait on you,so I'll choose this one.
Well, I got a string offailed relationships to share
for the, to show for that,
(54:21):
all these plans that I had
because I thought thatwould make life better.
How many of those do youthink are in play today?
Not a single one.
Absolutely none.
I had my kids and I alreadyenvisioned holidays.
All six of my kids and all theirspouses and all the grandkids,
(54:45):
all packing in my house.
Do you think I ever envisioned that?
Only two would be in my life right now?
No.
Nothing went the way Ithought it was gonna go.
Nothing including the additionof this man in my life.
(55:07):
The most unexpected things happen at themost unexpected of times, and that's God.
So trust him during the hard times.
But don't forget that he'scalling us to live fully now and
expectant faith and trust in him.
(55:31):
We serve a Father God, whois a keeper of promises.
He has never failed.
Do you really think he's gonna fail you?
He won't.
I don't know how long we'regonna keep going in Ecclesiastes.
We'll see how much longer it goes.
But the wisdom in this is pretty profound,and if you just find yourself struggling
(55:56):
and wondering about life, there's theability to listen to it on audio, or
you can choose to read it, whateverversion you want to, but just listen
and see what God says in it through you.
I am challenged to my core tobring it all the way back down
to the basics, to the absolutebasics with God as the foundation.
(56:26):
It is a huge leap of faith and trust,but I have a year that I just came
through that has been nothing butanswered prayers beyond my imagination.
I can't wait to see what he does, andI'm not talking just about in my life.
I love seeing what he'sdoing in all of you.
(56:49):
It's beautiful.
So live life, expecting beautiful thingsto come and enjoy this beautiful life
and world that you have right now.
Mm-hmm.
I'm grateful for your son Jesus.
(00:02):
It's through Him only that we havethe promise of eternal life with
you, and we are deeply gratefulfor that gift so freely given
to all who choose to want that.
And it's in His name we pray.
Amen.
Amen.
Okay.
As I said, we're continuingon with Ecclesiastes.
(00:23):
I had kind of considered maybe tryinggoing live last week 'cause you
know, last minute things go so well.
Trying to figure that out.
But I really wanted to do this message.
I knew, um, in one of my earliestrun throughs, I still listen
to Ecclesiastes every day.
(00:44):
I set it on audio and I listen to it inthe car when I drive and I let it play
from chapter one all the way to the end.
And I'm not sick of it yet, and I hearsomething different every single time.
But really early on, um, thisparticular Ecclesiastes nine
(01:04):
verses 11 and 12, that just.
Sat on my mind for a while and I'meager to just kind of unpack this
and, and see what God has to say andwhere he leads us in all of this.
And I think you might understandwhy as soon as we start reading
some of this, why I am interested,this affects so many of us.
(01:30):
So I'm gonna read Ecclesiastes nine,the first part of verse 11, and it
says this in the message version.
Remember, this is Solomon.
He's on his search forthe meaning of life.
Like what does this all mean?
He has found out he has allthe riches in the world.
He's the richest man at,at on the in the world.
(01:53):
He was also the wisest, and manyprobably would think, well that makes
life really, really easy for him.
And in fact, he found the opposite.
He found out all that wealthyhas, it's meaningless.
'cause when he's dead and gone,other people just get it and get
to decide what to do with it all.
It's meaningless.
At that point.
(02:14):
All the wisdom in the worlddoesn't mean his life is perfect.
He had hardships and strugglesand trials all through it.
So he set out on a mission to findout what matters in this life that
we have here on this planet Earth.
So he said this, I took another walkaround the neighborhood and realized that
(02:37):
on this earth as it is, the race is notalways to the swift, nor the battle to
the strong nor satisfaction to the wise.
Nor riches to the smartnor grace to the learned.
(03:01):
And I love that because I hearover and over and over and over
again, so many people strugglingwith, uh, but I'm changing my life.
I'm doing things the right way.
I've doing my best to live lifethe way I know I'm supposed to.
And all these things keep happening.
(03:22):
Life is so hard.
It's like, I've worked so hard to startthis business and it seems so good, and
then all of a sudden everything's goneand it's, um, upended and taken from me.
My relationship may have fallen apart.
I should have gotten the promotionand they gave it to somebody
(03:44):
else that's newer and doesn'thave the knowledge that I have.
Like, that's not fair.
It's not fair.
Why do these things happen?
And it's all a myth that humanshave control over any of this,
but we so think if we're just thebest, it's all gonna go the right way.
(04:08):
Well, let's go back toAdam and Eve in the garden.
They had the best and theywere perfect for a time being.
They were without sin until theydecided that wasn't good enough.
And that's truly where the first sin was.
Dissatisfaction with perfection.
That's us as human beings.
(04:29):
They had absolute perfection,but but we're not God.
And that started the ball rollingto why things are the way they are.
I don't understand why.
(04:50):
God allows all the time, someof the things to happen that do.
Um, I've had to sit with that a lotover the last little bit of time as
I'm just pouring love into two girls,grieving the loss of their dear friend,
and she's been all over the news.
'cause she was that young pregnant girl.
(05:11):
Yeah.
I can't even tell you or explain toyou the level of grief and trauma
to the people around her as they'retrying to understand why, because
humanly speaking, there's no morehorrific way to have lost somebody
(05:34):
like this when this child was so close.
Like, really?
Why?
Why did this happen?
I don't have an answer for that.
I don't have an answer outside of thefact this world is filled with evil.
This world is so unbelievablybroken and sometimes God allows
(05:59):
things that are beyond ourcomprehension because I don't know.
I do know that in Ecclesiastes,Solomon did say, and he is
the wisest man, so say is God.
So I choose to listen to the words thathe says that really in the big picture
of things, those babies that never diddraw breath here in this world have an
(06:24):
advantage we don't have because all theyever know is God and being with him.
And isn't that an advantagethat they have, that they
never had to suffer this life?
Mm-hmm.
There's maybe a littlebit in this situation.
You know, in my mind, I just praythat God is holding so closely
(06:48):
this young girl, that God receivedthat tiny little baby boy.
But to know why I don't havethat answer, and it's the only
question they keep asking me, why?
Why?
Because humanly speaking, wewant to know those answers.
(07:08):
Why?
Why did it seem like not as many ofthose kinds of horrible, bad things
happened to me when I was in myaddiction, or I wasn't living close to
God, or I was pursuing all this stuff?
Why, when I
tried to live a better life, whydo I experience these things?
(07:34):
Why do people so solidly in recoverysometimes have that unexpected relapse?
Why?
I don't always know many reasons,I'm sure behind the scenes,
but the why's, I don't know.
I don't know why all the time
(07:55):
outside of the fact that I do know thatevery single one of those situations is
an opportunity for God to show himselfthrough the people going through it,
through the people around them, andfor those who hear the testimony later,
(08:19):
because sometimes things happen in lifewhere I don't see any other way to make
it beautiful than for it to become apart of somebody's testimony as they're
serving and pouring into other people
because there isn't.
Any possible way of making sinin the horror of it pretty.
(08:45):
You can't make a murder look wonderful.
You can't make abuse look desirable.
You can't make loss something comfortable.
It's ugliness in ourlife and in our world.
(09:06):
And the thing is, no matter how rightyou're doing it, it's still gonna happen.
I did have that mistake andI'm not drinking anymore.
Here I am in recovery.
I'm working my recovery.
(09:27):
I do this on Sunday morning,like I lean into God.
So far, like my life is just spenttrying so hard to follow this path
that I want to walk and hit still come
and it's getting a lot easier.
(09:49):
But I can tell you in the beginningit can derail you and flatten you.
'cause it's like, God, I'm stilltrying to learn how to do it this way.
And poof, did we really need that?
Now, did I need this lesson of why?
Why?
(10:09):
Sometimes God is silentfor a while sometimes.
Other times I get the answers rightaway, but most times I think God's still
working on that patient's education in me.
Do you trust me?
I have been tested in that.
(10:30):
Do you trust me?
You said you did.
You said you had faith.
So when the trials come, doesthe faith and the trust continue
in any of us and all of us here?
Because it's really easy todo when life is pretty easy.
You know, you're just kind of goingalong and it's kind of like this.
(10:51):
And then sometimes we get this, andboy, this feels good, but we really
feel it when we have those hits.
And we can sometimes sit withthat and it gets kind of easy to
forget that we said we're gonnatrust God and I have faith in God.
(11:13):
I'm trusting him every step of the waythat goes by the wayside real fast.
And then it becomes thisscramble with the checklist.
God, boom, boom, boom.
Do this, do this, do this, do this.
It doesn't ever seem to cross our mind.
It rarely does mine in those times tosay, thank you, God, for this trial,
(11:37):
and I look forward to the lesson in it.
I often think of that after the fact,after I've grumbled and griped at God,
you know, shook a fist, work this out.
This is hard.
But I feel there's great benefit inlearning to thank God even for the trials
(12:03):
because it's where he's the closest andit's where he teaches us what we need
to know for the calling on our life.
If life is easy all thetime, what are we learning?
Look what I can do.
Look what all my work got me, isn't it?
(12:24):
Aren't I amazing?
There is a lot of I that happensbecause, you know, as humans we
have this thing called an ego
and it interferes with so much and it's,
I think it's one of the greatest weaponsthat is used against us is our ego.
(12:48):
It's what justifies us when we'reangry, when we're going through it.
I can remember, as, you know,relationships would crumble.
I'll talk now.
Uh,
for me, I'll just say like with kids,with some of my kids, I'm like the un
it felt like the unfairness of this.
(13:10):
I'm like, I picture littletiny me in front of God
screaming and this is not there.
Throwing my little toddler temper tantrumas I'm seeing it in this tiny little
view to a God who is seeing the universe.
He understands the why ofwhat's happening to me.
(13:30):
He understands the hurt that I'mfeeling, and he is right there loving
me as I'm being called to trusthim, even in the loss of children
that I want in my life so badly.
And it took me a long time
(13:51):
to finally say, God, thank you evenfor this and for the lessons you're
teaching, even as I say it through tears,
because it's the only thingthat will make it make sense
because there's a reason behind all of it.
(14:12):
Because we live in a world wherethere is good and there is bad.
And every single day that we wake up andface the world, it's a war outside of our
doors, and we get to choose the way we go.
And trust me, it's harderto go the good way.
It really is because the calling ishard on our life to do that, because
(14:37):
life isn't always going to be fair.
There are people who will experience abuse
deserve, Nope, it never is,but it's the world we live in.
But I don't want that to happen.
I don't want that to happen to anybody.
(14:59):
I really don't.
I would love that to never happen.
I would love sin to be gone andwiped off the face of the earth
because wow, what an amazing, joyfulexistence being on this planet would
be instead of the hardship that it is.
But the more you sit and you look atthings, God is most visible in those
(15:23):
who've walked the hard paths that love himand praise him and talk about it openly.
That is when you see God,
that's when he's shown.
I don't want a God that justsays, I'll fix all that for you.
Let me make that all right for you.
(15:44):
Don't worry about it.
I got you.
Do what you want.
I got you.
I'll fix it all.
There's no good.
There's no bad, there's no right.
There's no wrong.
It's just do whatever you wantto and then we'll all hang out
in heaven and party forever.
He could have chosen todo that, but he's God,
(16:04):
there is no room in heaven for that whichis not God, which I am particularly.
Glad about.
'cause I don't want hate there.
I don't want suffering.
I don't want abuse and violenceand murder and bloodshed and lying
and gossip and every single awful,hurtful thing on this earth.
(16:30):
Cancer, non-existent
addiction, not in heaven.
I want all things related to God, andI can't imagine living a life absent
of his love, because as love is shown,love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
(16:57):
goodness, perseverance, self-control.
You know, those good things,
you know, that's our choice every day.
Even in the face of this, theunfairness that comes our way.
People judging us, yet there's a druggie.
All the drunks comingfor Christmas this year.
(17:19):
Wonder how she's gonna be.
Yeah, there's gonna be that.
No matter what we do, there's gonnabe people that won't accept you.
There will be people that leave you view
family, friends, jobs willgo to people less qualified.
(17:40):
You may not get the shift you want.
You may not get the
salary.
Housing can be difficult.
My car breaks down,struggling with my kids.
My kids are having troublesand they're hurting.
(18:04):
All these things happenover and over and over.
It's how we've responded them.
That shows you whereyour walk with God is.
Can you still wake up in the morningand praise him, say, I love you,
father, thank you for every answerto prayer, no matter what it was.
(18:26):
I struggle with that every day.
It's not easy to pray over peoplewho voice hatred towards you.
It's not easy to pray with love forpeople that you know actively want
to harm you through words or action.
(18:50):
It's not easy to pray for a denominationin a family that chose to throw you
away and mean it because you love them.
So every morning is a struggle forme as I do this and God knows that.
It's why I do it first before it takesroot, because I've noticed I used to
(19:10):
put that group off towards the end.
You know, do all thefeel good stuff first.
And I noticed that left me withjust that little bit of bitterness
because I'm not praying for you first.
No way.
You don't deserve it.
Well, there's not a whole lot thatI deserved and Jesus just stood
(19:32):
right up and said yes immediately.
And if all I have to do for what he'sdone for me in all circumstances,
the good, the bad, and the unfairis to continue to love people.
I don't think he's asking too much of me.
(19:54):
I am not saying that it's easy andI'll never say that it's easy, but
it's not asking too much of us.
No, we don't get a pass on hating anybody.
As I've said before, I've searchedand I've searched and I've
searched, God, can I hate this one?
Can I hate this one?
(20:16):
Well, if you want them to suffer,hell then go ahead and hate them.
But my son died, so nobodywould have to go there.
That's ego thinking.
You can reserve hatred for certain people.
(20:37):
I had to come to terms withthat because I had hatred
for certain people, for certaingroups, for certain religions.
I have to call it what it was.
I had hatred.
I was awful in my thoughts and words.
(21:01):
And that's ego.
I'm not any better than them.
I'm no better than them, than,I'm better than someone who
might get a job promotion.
I didn't get.
I'm not even gonna use thetraining for a race thing.
'cause no matter how muchI train, I'm still slow.
It doesn't matter.
Everybody will stillbeat me, but it's okay.
(21:25):
No matter how often unfairthings happen, it's still
exactly the way it's meant to be.
God intends that for a very specificreason and the more I'm turning my ship
around to understand that, the more I'mrecognizing even with those uncomfortable
(21:45):
bits in my life that I want gone,
just wait Heidi.
God's gonna do something beautiful 'cause.
Look what he's already done.
Mm-hmm.
He's taken the hardest things I haveexperienced in my life, and I think
for a lot of people that know my story,they immediately go to, oh, you know
(22:07):
that that abuse that wasn't the hardestwas excommunication and shunning That
was hands down the hardest momentof my entire life to stand there so
unbelievably isolated and abandoned.
If I had only known how close and howbig God was in that moment, he's like,
(22:31):
child, I just gave you your freedom,
and I saw it as loss.
My freedom to me at that timewas the worst loss I could have
ever fathomed in all this world.
I lost everything.
My entire family, both sides, people.
(22:54):
I love my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, mygrandma who was still living at the time.
If only I had seen
God in that moment because it was, it wasstep one in the journey he had for me.
(23:22):
But why me?
This is more than I can bear.
I can't do this, but you can,because God's doing this through you.
He created you.
He knows you.
So if you wonder why God allowed it,it's because he knew you could handle
(23:42):
it, because he made you and designed youknowing your journey that was coming.
So don't get derailed when the hardstuff in life comes when the opposite
of what you thought was coming happenswhen at the last moment what you
(24:04):
thought was happening doesn't whena door closes that you thought was
opened, when people less qualified getsomething that should have gone to you.
Jesus said, if you wanna be firstin heaven, seek to be last on earth.
(24:27):
So the hard thing is.
That means you congratulate thatcoworker that got the job that
you were more qualified to get,
or someone else that might not havea family they're trying to deal with.
Got a shift that is better suitedtowards family life and you didn't.
(24:49):
Or maybe somebody's recovery looksa lot easier than mine does, or
I'm doing all the right thingand my family still is making
me pay the price doing it.
All right.
God's like I know.
I know it's part of the plan.
(25:12):
You said you trusted me,
so do we in those moments.
Thank you.
God, thank you for that answered prayer.
I know you must have somethingso much better in store for me.
And it will happen,
(25:33):
but sometimes he allows you to wait
when that door closedafter they handed me.
Apparently Heaven has papers that youtype out on a typewriter and get signed
by people that says you can't come here.
So they handed that to me, basicallymy ticket to hell papers and
(25:55):
closed the door, and I stood there.
I didn't know that 30 years later,
the blessings would happen.
That's how long it tookto start the harvest.
I'm glad I didn't know it then.
(26:16):
Do you really want to knowhow long it's gonna take?
I'm telling you, you don't.
'cause if I would've heard then 30years, I'd be like, I'm done now.
I can't do this for 30 years.
But here I am.
I did it for 30 years and oh,the School of God is a tough one.
(26:39):
It's hard,
but it's because he's equippingyou to live life on this earth.
And this life on earth is hard.
And it needs people who go throughhard things on life and learn those
lessons because there's countlessothers coming behind you that have
(27:02):
to walk through the same thing.
And as Solomon learned, thereis nothing new under the sun.
Nothing.
Nothing we've experiencedhasn't been experienced, has
been experienced by others.
I mean to say there is no new experiencethat we face that others haven't.
(27:24):
It's what we do with it.
So what.
Do we do with that?
Bad things happen.
It gets unfair.
Just have faith and move on.
I guess just accept what it is.
He just finishes with saying Sooner orlater, if you're looking at people who
(27:46):
seem to live a charmed life and thingsare great, and why is it so easy for them?
Solomon says, as sooner orlater, bad luck hits us all.
No one can predict misfortune like a fishcaught in a cruel net or birds in a trap.
So men and women are caughtby accidents, evil and sudden.
(28:08):
That's why it happens.
It's not because God wants you to suffer.
It's not because God takes great delightin suffering and hard things coming.
But it just means that every personon this planet has their time coming.
(28:35):
You can be cruising along, goingjust as good as can be, whether
you're living a good life or a bad,
you can be living this good life rightalongside somebody living this bad life.
And you're like, think of jobone after another, taking hits,
and this one's just a cruising.
Do you really think there's nevergonna be a fall for this one?
(28:59):
Who cares?
Even if through the 80 some years of theirlife on earth they just cruised through,
died a millionaire, beautiful mansion, allthe cars and family and kids, and maybe
they got that straight to hell ticket.
Did they win?
Mm-hmm.
Was that little puny life on earththat seemed a little comfortable?
(29:22):
Okay.
No.
No,
I will take my life of hardships andfailures and falls and difficulties any
day over an easy life heading to hell.
(29:42):
'cause it's a very real thing.
Life is always gonna be filledwith hardship and unfairness and
we need to be a people that arebuilt to walk through that because
we're walking through it with God.
(30:03):
What he wants for us
is to be a light through it, toshow people where God is in this.
We can't see God, butwe can see his church.
The actions of his church arevisible to everybody around us.
(30:26):
So how do we act andbehave in those things?
I really hate to think about how I actedand behaved through some of my trials.
It wasn't pretty.
I was ugly.
I was pissed off.
I was so angry for so much of my life.
It's not fair.
(30:47):
Not fair.
Why me?
So am I saying I'd prefersomebody else to go through it?
Why would I wish that on somebody,
probably back in the day, I would'vegladly that person's horrible.
Why can't they have this?
(31:10):
'cause God's said, but I loveyou and I have a plan for you.
And I want you to be free ofthe bondage you were raised in.
'cause we can often be inbondage and not even know it.
(31:30):
I didn't know that's what I was in.
I didn't.
So we sit here saying, wehave to live this life though,
to just wake up every day, get through it.
Hope it doesn't get too bad today, maybetomorrow be better and then do it again.
(31:54):
And I hear so manyChristians living that way.
Sure.
Hope Jesus comes quick.
'cause boy, how muchworse can it get, man?
Just get through this life.
And I mean, it is the most ho hum,dreary existence ever of just trying
to survive and get through it.
Just another awful hardday to get through.
(32:15):
Sure.
Hope Jesus comes real fast.
Life is awful.
It sure can be if that's what you sitand look at, if you just sit and look
at the garbage heap that life can be.
Yep.
It's a pretty ugly, stinky, messy thing.
(32:41):
What was the purpose of Jesus though?
So we could just sit and look at the mess,so we can sit and look at this broken
world and just go, what's the point?
You know?
Okay, God, I guess I'll just keepdoing this and until you decide I can
go to heaven and then it'll be good.
(33:02):
And God's like, no, I want youto live like it's good right now.
What did my son do on that cross?
Do you think it was so we could livethese miserable, ugly, angry lives?
Hateful, bitter?
Is that what Jesus did all that for?
(33:24):
So we could feel like that?
I don't think any of our heart experienceseven came close to his heart experiences.
Try being God in a baby form.
Those of you who've raised a baby, can youimagine God saying, I'm willing to be that
(33:54):
helpless and dependent in this human body,
and I'm gonna walk alongsideyou and grow up, and I'm gonna
teach you and explain to you.
I believe Jesus took such delightin this planet and in this world.
(34:19):
I believe he took delights in sunrisesand sunsets in the laughter of children
and the beauty that expressions oflove are in all their many forms.
I believe he saw the beauty inevery single human being on the
planet because he knew them all.
(34:40):
Oh, I created that one.
Look at her.
Yeah, this world is broken and it'sfallen and it's filled with sin.
But if we look around even in itsbrokenness, my goodness is beautiful.
Just even go to the world itself.
(35:03):
Deserts, there's beauty there,mountains, there's beauty.
The wide open plains.
There's just, there'sbeauty there in the oceans.
The North Pole, the SouthPole, every continent on this
earth is filled with beauty.
It's everywhere.
(35:24):
There's beauty in a dandelion growingthrough a crack in the concrete.
There's beauty in that tree growing outof a rock in the middle of the water.
There's beauty in the sky at night.
How about that?
Aurora we've been ableto see so often lately.
(35:44):
Do you think God wants us to livea life like this and not see it?
Then what was the point of it all?
He created this worldbeautiful for us to enjoy.
This time of the year is so hard for somany people, myself included, and yet.
(36:04):
When we sit and think about what we'vebeen given, are we supposed to walk
around sad and broken and defeated?
What do we have?
Who do we have
him
(36:25):
not?
So we can live laterwhen we get to heaven.
And I sat with that for a while
because we're all wrapped up in thehustle and bustle of figuring life out.
Busy, busy, busy, busy,work, work, work, work, work.
(36:47):
And God said, we dohave to work to survive.
But
remember that command forSabbath keeping, he gave.
Why was that a commandand not a suggestion?
(37:07):
If you can't look at this and see God,you need to spend more time with God.
If you can't hear the sound of childrenlaughing and imagine God just taking joy
in that you need to get closer to God.
If you don't hear God speaking toyou, you need to get closer to God.
(37:34):
God expects you to step away from thehard times of life, to lean into him
and enjoy it, to laugh with your friendsand your family, with your kids, to
take great joy in the people around you.
To delight in this world.
I'm even challenging myself to lovewinter this year and here we go off
(37:58):
to the races, snow and polar vortexesenough for three years already, as far
as I'm concerned, but I'm determined thatI'm gonna enjoy it because he sent it.
It's here for a reasonand truly it's beautiful.
And quite selfishly, I'm findingout I love how I feel when
(38:20):
I notice things like that.
I love being the old grandma just
falling on her back in a big old pileof snow and just making ridiculous
snow angels in my front yard.
'cause that sky man is just stunninggalaxies and stars in that moon.
(38:41):
It's beautiful.
I listen to the wind coming throughthe trees in that pine forest
and it just sounds like water.
Rushing water.
It's beautiful.
And when you listen, you start tohear how much life is out there.
Ari's like, oh, I couldn't standthe quiet out there in the woods.
(39:02):
And I'm like, you haven'tbeen out in the woods then.
Oh, when you sit there andyou listen in the stillness,
you find out it's not still.
There's so much life, so muchlife, even down to the creaking
and snapping of the trees.
They're just dormant.
The life is down there in those roots.
(39:23):
It's coming back.
It's what God wants for usno matter how hard life is.
Why do you think he createdbeautiful thing and beautiful people?
Why do we have a beautiful planet withthis ride of glorious colors out there?
Why do we have a beautifulsky and things to see?
(39:44):
Why did he create peoplethat we love and care about?
Do you think he didn't knowhow hard life is on its own?
Do you think we have a God that doesn'tcare about our joy and our delight
and our laughter because he does?
Those are God given emotions.
(40:07):
Those of us in recovery, we're wellversed in feeling the heaviness, the
hurt, the pain, the suffering, thebondage to addiction, all of those things.
And we talk about those feelings so often.
Do we share the joy and thehappiness and the laughter?
Do we express those beautifulmoments that we've had?
(40:31):
I experienced a beautiful moment at Meyer.
Two of them, a Robin was working, soI got the best hug in all the world,
and b. This dear man, probablylate seventies, early eighties,
looked at Mike car and he goes,boy, you must sure like ham a lot.
I had more hams in that thing, and I'mlike, my husband and I, we kind of, we,
(40:56):
we started this nonprofit and we havequite a few people that come through
and we just really love to feed people.
So when there's a good deal, man,you know, we just really try to make
the dollar stretch and we stock upwhen there's been this great price.
So I said, I'm actually feedinga lot of people and, and this
dear man stood there admired.
He goes, what do you do there?
(41:16):
And I found myself able to describe all ofyou, this community and, and what we do.
And he's like.
Where do you do this at?
And I said, in Fenwick.
And he started chuckling and he goes,
they need it out there.
That's what he said.
(41:37):
That's exactly what he said.
And he was such a bright spot in Meyer.
You know, I'm on this mission.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, rush, rush, rush.
And yet I took the time to have thisbeautiful conversation and we had
a chuckle about being in Fenwick,but he said, man, God bless you and
your husband and everybody there.
(41:58):
He goes, my wife and Iwill be praying for you.
Oh.
I sat there with a smile on my faceand I'm checking out and I'm going
out the door and all of a sudden Ihear this voice, Hey, wait a minute.
And here he comes.
I didn't know men that age could stillmove that fast, but he was just trucking.
'cause he found me and hegoes, this is all I have.
(42:22):
But he says.
Please let me donate to your nonprofit.
And he handed me all themoney that he had on him.
Wow.
You know, I just shared with him whatwe do and what I was doing and he
says, I sure wish I could do more.
And I just said, you have no ideahow much you've done already.
'cause I needed to hear that today
(42:47):
because I was like, okay, God.
You know, we're at theend of this fiscal year.
Hmm.
And it's really taken a lot of faith.
'cause you know, it's, I'm not driven bymoney, but things like this take money.
You know, we make a dollar stretch,the likes of which I'm like, it's
(43:10):
a good thing I was a single mama.
Six.
I learned how to stretch a dollar.
But God is teaching me trust.
In all things, the hardthings and in the good.
In those moments like that elderlygentleman at Myers, those are
those beautiful moments of livingfully now that God has for us.
(43:32):
Here he goes, I'm gonna bless you throughthe people around you, through this
planet and this world that I've given you.
I want you to open your eyes andsee it, but more than that, don't
just see it as you're cruisingby at 90 because life is busy.
You need to step away from the busyand learn some quietness with God.
(43:58):
Go for a walk through thewoods, MCC up the road there.
They got a beautiful trail throughthe woods and they're all groomed.
I suggest walking through those woods.
It's beautiful.
Taking some time with your family at home.
Not to talk shop or to do a quickcatch up and then leave, but spend
(44:20):
some time together, talk, have aconversation, maybe play a board game.
I don't care, but take delight and joyin the people that God has in your life.
It's important
you know that he loves you whilehe loves everybody else too.
So get to know as many of them as you can.
(44:45):
My biggest takeaway from today is, yeah,I know life is hard and you get flattened,
and it happens over and over and over.
I know,
but this is what God is asking us to do.
Even now, don't sit in misery.
Oh, it's gonna be so much betterwhen I finally get to heaven.
I'm just gonna endure this life.
God doesn't want you to endure this life.
(45:06):
He wants to celebrate this life,to relish it and to treasure it.
To leave this life better because youwere here, because you were such a
beautiful spot of light to everybodyyou came in contact with because you
lived a life that pointed out to people.
Did you see that?
Did you know this person?
(45:27):
Did you know what happened?
Wasn't that sunrise amazing?
Don't the trees look beautifulwith all the fresh snow on 'em?
Isn't the moon amazing when it's shiningand it's bitter cold and your dogs are
taking a while to do their business?
Hurry up.
(45:50):
And the more I sat with that, I'm like,what a great example of what recovery is.
Because recovery for those of usin the drug and alcohol sense,
that's a lifelong thing, right?
Who here is fully recovered?
All better?
I'm recovered now.
All better.
Don't need nothing.
(46:11):
If you feel that that's you, I'm gonnapray for you because that pedestal
gets real tall and it's a real longfall because recovery is for life.
But really the analogy can bethe same for those of us who know
Jesus, that life we're given.
(46:33):
That's his whole life ofrecovery, also that we're living.
And if we're called to this, you caninclude that in your life of recovery.
Why are we so miserable?
Do we make recovery look appealing?
If not, maybe becomefamiliar with recovery.
(47:01):
Maybe your recovery is sobriety,and that's a beautiful thing.
Sobers beautiful.
But recovery is living fully now,
and that's what we'recalled to no matter what.
(47:22):
That's what Solomon foundin all his searching.
What is the meaning of it?
I worked my finger to the bone.
I have everything at my disposaland I didn't deny myself
anything and it meant nothing.
I got nothing.
I still feel empty.
(47:46):
Wisdom had it all.
I had all the wisdom.
I know everything.
Everybody comes to me forsolutions and I give them the
answer and I'm still, I hate life.
He said, I hate it.
And it set off that search of where is.
(48:07):
The meaning this life here, what is it?
Because we all end upthe same, A dead body.
It's not pretty to think of justwe're all future dead bodies,
but we all finish the same.
So he goes, what is it about?
And this is exactly what he found out.
(48:29):
It's all about, as I've saidbefore, if the wisest man that
ever lived speaks, don't you thinkwhat he has to say has truth in it?
He dedicated himself to searchingout meaning, and he came to this.
So if you don't feel like youenjoy your life fully, bring it
(48:52):
to God because he wants you to.
But God, do you knowwhat my life looks like?
And yeah, I do.
I do.
'cause I led you to exactly this.
Now do you trust me?
And if you do trust God andyou do have faith in God, then
(49:14):
why do we live like we don't?
Filled with worry andfrustration and irritation.
Driven to exhaustion, which leadsto bitterness and it is just life.
We literally, as children of God, savedby Jesus should be the happiest people
(49:42):
around in a way that makes no sense.
Where's the smiles?
Where's the laughter?
Where's the joy?
Because that's who we should be.
If we're Jesus people.
Isn't a guilt thing.
'cause I have days when you're notseeing the joy, joy, joy on this face.
(50:03):
Sometimes I don't feel the joy, joy,joy down in my heart either for those
of you know that song, old Lively thing.
But really when you recognize thatthis life here is just the shortest
of stopping points in the big pictureof our life, it's so we can share
(50:27):
with as many people as possible.
The amazingness of God, the joy of God,the fullness of life is only found in
God if you are trying to find it withinyourself because you are a God of sorts.
You're gonna be looking andsearching your entire life through,
(50:49):
and you will never ever find it.
He dwells in us, but we are not him.
It was the desire of Adamand Eve to be just like God.
To be God's.
That led to the downfall of all.
So trust the creator.
Trust the one who made you, buttrust him enough to live a life
(51:14):
of happy, grateful joy today
on Earth as it is right now,
not later in heaven.
It's why I titled it on Earthas it is up there, because we
(51:38):
experience the angsty stuff here,though it's so hard here on earth.
Heaven's gonna be so amazing and it'sgonna be so perfect and it's, we can
get excited talking about that life.
God wants us to be excited talking aboutlife right now on this earth right now,
(51:58):
without everything changing, without itimproving, without it getting better.
Right where you are inevery situation you're in.
Live your life fully knowing that Godis in charge and that you are not.
Humans have never had controlover anything, and we never
(52:21):
will, but we keep trying to.
All the problems in the world arebecause humans are trying to control
something that cannot be controlled.
Whether the Planet Wars, countriesleadership, name it all, I don't care who
(52:43):
thinks on this planet, they're in charge.
They're not.
God might allow it for a time.
I was finding myself feeling a bitfearful because of the direction
things are going in this world.
It is not pretty out there.
There's a lot of restlessness and Ifeel on the brink of something awful
(53:09):
and that brought some fear,and I've worked really hard.
I'm letting go of the fear.
I don't care what humans chooseto do because they can't do
anything unless God allows it.
So if I trust God, I'm gonna trusthim enough to live my life joyfully.
(53:31):
Trusting him with the yuck, trustinghim in the hardest of times, knowing
that God, this is gonna be amazing whenyou turn this around and I'm asking
you to do the same in your hard times.
Don't get impatient in the waiting.
(53:56):
I had so much impatience in my waiting.
I tried to force things my way.
Okay.
God, you're too busy, obviously.
So I'll fix it for you.
I'll choose.
Yeah, I want a relationship.
I don't wanna wait on you,so I'll choose this one.
Well, I got a string offailed relationships to share
for the, to show for that,
(54:21):
all these plans that I had
because I thought thatwould make life better.
How many of those do youthink are in play today?
Not a single one.
Absolutely none.
I had my kids and I alreadyenvisioned holidays.
All six of my kids and all theirspouses and all the grandkids,
(54:45):
all packing in my house.
Do you think I ever envisioned that?
Only two would be in my life right now?
No.
Nothing went the way Ithought it was gonna go.
Nothing including the additionof this man in my life.
(55:07):
The most unexpected things happen at themost unexpected of times, and that's God.
So trust him during the hard times.
But don't forget that he'scalling us to live fully now and
expectant faith and trust in him.
(55:31):
We serve a Father God, whois a keeper of promises.
He has never failed.
Do you really think he's gonna fail you?
He won't.
I don't know how long we'regonna keep going in Ecclesiastes.
We'll see how much longer it goes.
But the wisdom in this is pretty profound,and if you just find yourself struggling
(55:56):
and wondering about life, there's theability to listen to it on audio, or
you can choose to read it, whateverversion you want to, but just listen
and see what God says in it through you.
I am challenged to my core tobring it all the way back down
to the basics, to the absolutebasics with God as the foundation.
(56:26):
It is a huge leap of faith and trust,but I have a year that I just came
through that has been nothing butanswered prayers beyond my imagination.
I can't wait to see what he does, andI'm not talking just about in my life.
I love seeing what he'sdoing in all of you.
(56:49):
It's beautiful.
So live life, expecting beautiful thingsto come and enjoy this beautiful life
and world that you have right now.
Mm-hmm.
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