Does God Say No? Part 2

[00:00:00] Cody: Hi, thank you for tuning in to the Logic of God podcast. I'm Cody. 


[00:00:20] Gina: I'm Gina. 


[00:00:20] Cody: And I'm Ben. You're returning. Thank you for coming back. And if you are a new guest, welcome. I'm Ben. 


[00:00:41] Ben: After my brother died, there was a period in my life. Where I was seeking the Lord and I for a very long time had a very pragmatic approach to desires and passions, which is why bother with them because God can just tell me what he wants. And so people were always asking me, what is it that you want to do with your life? 


[00:00:59] And I don't know, whatever God wants, I guess. And I didn't want to want anything. Because it felt like the answer was just going to be, that's wrong, and this is what God wants. I was like, just cut out the middleman, just tell me what you want. And for a very long time, I got no answer on anything. Because that's not the way this works. 


[00:01:18] And once my brother died, I really started thinking about what it is that I wanted. And so I was like, okay, Lord, what I would really like to do is become a famous voice actor. That's what I would like to do. And at that time in my life, oddly enough, I didn't have a job. And I started working part time at my brother in law and my sister's salt spa. 


[00:01:41] And I had a lot of free time on my hands. So I was like, okay, I guess I'll figure out this whole voice actor thing. And I really started pursuing it. And I was praying about it. And I felt that was what the Lord was guiding me to do. And I made maybe 450 total. And that was For every 10 auditions you do, maybe one of them people will see, and then out of every 10 of those, maybe one of them you'll get a response to, and out of every 10 of those, one will be a yes. 


[00:02:07] And out of every 10 of those, one will be actually worth what you put into it. It's miserable starting out in voice acting, but I was making progress, I was working hard, and then at the end of it, And for whatever reason, the guy I was renting a room from passed on that his work had some positions open and I just felt like I was supposed to submit a resume. 


[00:02:29] And it wasn't like I was submitting resumes to everybody. It was weird, but I was like, I submitted a resume. And at first they said no, I was like, Oh, thank God for that. I can continue doing the thing that I want to do. And then just out of nowhere, I got called up by the HR of that company. And they said, Hey, we actually really do need help right now. 


[00:02:46] So would you like to come work for us? And legitimately my heart sank when I got that answer, because it felt that was what the Lord wanted me to do. That I just spent the last year of my life, finally being vulnerable to the Lord and lifting up the thing that I wanted. And now God's saying, great, that's not what I have for you. 


[00:03:04] In fact, what I have for you is something completely different. And this has felt like a confirmation of what it is that I thought for years. Why didn't you just tell me to do this? Like, we could have just skipped this year, and all this work, and I could have moved on. At the heart of it, there was the desire that I had, which wasn't wrong. 


[00:03:22] But why did I want to do it? And the truth is, I wanted to be adored. But I wanted to be adored in such a way where there was no real responsibility. Why did I want to be a voice actor? Because nobody knows what a voice actor looks like. Everyone hears their voice, and then, like, what responsibilities do you have? 


[00:03:38] How many famous voice actors do you guys actually know of? 


[00:03:41] Gina: But I like Spongebob, so. 


[00:03:43] Ben: Yeah, but how many people see the guy who plays Spongebob and one, even know his name? And two, know what he looks like? 


[00:03:49] Gina: I can't remember his name. 


[00:03:50] Ben: See? 


[00:03:51] Gina: I used to know his name. 


[00:03:53] Ben: And that's what I wanted. 


[00:03:54] Gina: Yeah. 


[00:03:54] Ben: I wanted people to know my work, but not have any actual connection to me. 


[00:03:58] And then if I wanted to, then I could say, hey, you know what? That character that you love so much? Yeah, that's me. And that would be fun. And there's no responsibility there. There's no danger. But that's not what God wanted for me. That's not, that wasn't the right intent. 


[00:04:14] Gina: Didn't your microphone break at the end? 


[00:04:16] Ben: It did. Literally to confirm that this was what the Lord wanted. At the end of it, my microphone broke and there was no way to fix it. And it would have cost me more money to replace that microphone than it would have to spend the next five years continuing to do voice acting. So there was no point. But yeah, I spent the next several years doing 


[00:04:35] Gina: not voice, doing not 


[00:04:37] Ben: voice acting. 


[00:04:37] And then suddenly. During a period of fasting and prayer. Literally immediately after that, Cody approaches me and he's like, Hey, so do you want to do a podcast? You didn't even ask me that. We were just talking and we show, we both showed up to a Bible study and we were the only two people who went there. 


[00:04:55] And it was a night where there's supposed to be plenty of people there, but it was just us. And we figured, Oh, why don't we just stick around and talk? And so one of the things that Cody brought up was, yeah, I'd like to do a podcast, but I can't find anyone to do it with. I'm like, I have some experience in this stuff. 


[00:05:09] I'll do that with you. And then Gina, our actual one celebrity, the only successful 


[00:05:15] Gina: podcaster, 


[00:05:17] Ben: was nice enough to join us on this little venture and here we are. And it's not that we're all that successful here. We have people who listen reliably and apparently it's not that common for people to have even the number that we have listening. 


[00:05:29] So seriously, for all the people who listen. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. 


[00:05:33] Gina: We love you. 


[00:05:34] Ben: We love you. And the feedback that we've gotten from people has been great for the, for the people that I know and love who listened to this and the people that you guys have talked to. It's been great getting people's feedback and being able to edify even a handful of people. 


[00:05:47] And there was a time in my life where my pride would have said, this is just stupid. This is ridiculous. We're barely reaching anybody here. But at the heart of it, But God's given me a set of gifts and that period in my life was me growing in those gifts and also learning that it's not about me. And I needed to do that. 


[00:06:05] And I would have never gotten to do this with you guys if I hadn't at some point lifted up what I wanted to God and God choose to change it to suit his need rather than mine and not even my need, what I wanted. 


[00:06:20] Gina: And you still get to do the cool voices. I 


[00:06:22] Ben: do on occasion. I'm sure it's grating for some people. 


[00:06:26] I understand a lot of people's fear in approaching God because it does feel like he's just going to tell you, no, what you want is stupid. And I know better. So shut up. But that's not what he's doing. What he's doing is he's highlighting the things about you that are self centered and that you need to work on. 


[00:06:44] And he's highlighting the things that can be used for his kingdom. And he's saying, this is what I want you to do with these. You need to die to yourself. And it's painful and it's hard. What Cody talks about all the time, the process of sanctification. I'm going to talk about that later. Thank goodness. 


[00:07:01] Gina: It's like that verse that says cut your hand off. 


[00:07:03] Ben: Mhm. 


[00:07:04] Gina: Like, sometimes it hurts that bad. 


[00:07:05] Ben: It does. It's horrendously painful. And that's one of the reasons I've been avoiding it for so long. But I wasn't avoiding it because I really wanted to know what God wanted. If I'd known what God wanted, or if I was trying to get to what God wanted, then I would have given Him what I wanted and said, Lord, this is what I want, but use it how you see fit. 


[00:07:24] And that's literally, oddly enough, something that Christ himself prays Gethsemane. Jesus said, it's Matthew 26, verses 38 to 39. Then he said to them, My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch for me. Going a little farther, he fell on his face to the ground and prayed, Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. 


[00:07:46] Yet, not as I will, but you will. Jesus himself had human desires that were contrary to his purpose because he's human and that's part of who we are. That second part of what he said, Yet not as I will, but as you will, is the crucial part. And so if Jesus was afflicted with this, we can't expect to be afflicted any differently. 


[00:08:06] Gina: I feel like if Jesus could just go on that walk to his death. Like I can do anything. I think that's what we have to keep in mind when the Bible says I can do all things through Christ. It's not I can have whatever I want and be rich and drive a Range Rover. It's if Jesus can get spit on and harassed and hated and abused and tortured. 


[00:08:31] I can do anything because of that. 


[00:08:33] Cody: People always want the good, especially in the non denominational movement. You hear moving in the spirit, and the healing, and speaking in tongues, and everybody wants that. And they claim, the disciples had it, why don't we have it? But they don't really look at the root of that issue there and if you want what the disciples had You need to live like the disciples were living. 


[00:08:57] You're not dying to yourself and sacrificing your own wants and needs You're not at the cusp of being murdered every single day for what you're doing How do you think that just because they had it you get it to sitting in your cozy couch? drinking your star schmucks and Living your day. No, that's not how it works. 


[00:09:18] You want to get to the Wonders and miracles you need to live in a just Overwhelming consecration of your life to God. 


[00:09:31] Gina: It's not easy if anybody ever tried to make it seem easy They're lying to you 


[00:09:36] Ben: and I'm with you It does seem weird to me that there are people who will go Oh, yeah, I would love to be able to place my hands on people and and heal them You 


[00:09:43] Gina: But what does that glorify? 


[00:09:45] Ben: Exactly. It's like, why are you thinking this would be, is it because it would be neat? Oh great. I have superpowers. I can heal people. 


[00:09:54] Cody: They just want to be Oprah Winfrey. Bang, you get a car. Bang, you get a car. 


[00:10:00] Ben: Yes. Yeah, I could go out and I could find random sick people. And I could make them feel better, and then I could go home and live my life just as I always have. 


[00:10:08] No! You're expecting that your life wouldn't change in any real way. 


[00:10:12] Cody: And it's with giving up nothing, like, yeah. They, they want to have that, but not to give up anything. 


[00:10:20] Gina: If you look at the story of the Israelites, when God provided, like, the manna from heaven to them, and, like, it wasn't enough. Like, it wasn't enough. 


[00:10:29] They wanted meat, okay? So God gave them meat. Enough meat to kill them. Like if you really look at God's provision. And like, the way that just a random person in our era would receive a gift from God. It's never enough. It's never enough prosperity. It's never enough help. It's never enough healing. It's never enough friends. 


[00:10:51] It's never enough notoriety. It's never enough cool stuff. That's just our culture. And so I think about if, if Ben had the gift of healing and he went out and healed a bunch of people in Jesus name. I'm not even sure that people would care. I think it would be sensationalized in a small group, but it wouldn't be this great, meaningful thing. 


[00:11:13] There's so much more power in the discipleship of a man than in the one time laying of hands, boom, you're done. The long game has so much more value to me than This like instant gratification where someone's, wow, thank you, not thank God, and it glorifies the man and not the person. 


[00:11:35] Cody: That speaks to the world of convenience we live in. 


[00:11:38] If you could go in and, you know, lay your hands on somebody and they're healed, that's a low investment. You're not investing anything into that person. You're taking care of their immediate want or need and the healing. But have no investment in the healing of their soul and Continuing on with the discipleship and caring for that person's soul. 


[00:12:06] You don't give a crap about that person at that point You're just wanting to heal them. 


[00:12:10] Gina: If it wasn't enough for the Israelites to have all of the evidence of God's existence That they had through the exodus and just their provision and God's presence with them and the Ten Commandments And Moses and all of those amazing things like how are we supposed to respond to something like that? 


[00:12:29] If it wasn't good enough for them to have all of those miracles from God himself How are we going to respond to one random man coming up or woman and coming up and saying be healed in Jesus name or Prophesying over somebody which is more like fortune telling in our era like it's meaningless 


[00:12:49] Ben: There's an interesting healing event that's recorded. 


[00:12:52] I can't remember in which Gospels it is There's a story where there's a group of lepers who approach Jesus and they say Lord have mercy on us we're lepers and Jesus says, go show yourselves to the priests. And as they go on their way, all of them are cured of leprosy. And they're all super happy and they all run off happy. 


[00:13:09] Only one of them, which happened to be Samaritan, which were the enemy of the Jews, turned around and went back and gave glory to God. Gave glory to Christ. And bowed down before him and said, thank you. And Jesus notes, weren't there ten of you? Where are the other nine people? You're the only one, looks like. 


[00:13:26] Go your way. Your faith has made you whole. Amen. It's fascinating to me that most of the stories, when you really look at it, where something miraculous happens, where there's a healing, Christ doesn't stress the miracle of the healing, and the focus of the story isn't the healing itself. It's the implication and the reaction of the people after they've been healed. 


[00:13:47] When these guys got healed, only one of them came back. There was only one person who was made whole. And it wasn't because he got his 


[00:13:55] Gina: miracle. 


[00:13:56] Ben: Yeah. It wasn't because he got healed because the other nine guys got healed too. They didn't immediately become Christians. They didn't immediately start following Christ. 


[00:14:04] Only one of them did. And it's fascinating how often you see those stories. And there are points where like he goes to his hometown and he can't do many miracles there because no one has faith. And yeah, there's a lot more that you can look into with that, but. I think the point is that, yeah, you guys are absolutely right. 


[00:14:20] Miracles in and of themselves aren't the be all and the end all. They don't make Christians out of us all. 


[00:14:26] Gina: If that's what it takes to convince you you're a shallow Christian, that's harsh, but 


[00:14:30] Ben: It is the truth. And that's backed up by the parable about Lazarus and the rich man. Where there's the poor man who goes to heaven, and there's the rich man who goes to hell. 


[00:14:41] And then he says, just send me as a ghost to talk to my brothers, and then that'll convince them. And Abraham replies, they've got the prophets, they've got scriptures. They have all, they have the truth already. If that doesn't convince them, a dead man is not going to do it. 


[00:14:57] Gina: No, that's the, that's the, look here, it's shiny, and people get excited for a day. 


[00:15:02] But it doesn't last for eternity. 


[00:15:04] Cody: Is that a parable or is that real? The only time Jesus used proper nouns for Who knows? 


[00:15:12] Gina: Thank you. Mr. Theology. We love you 


[00:15:16] Ben: I don't know cody. Was it real? No, 


[00:15:18] Cody: I don't know. 


[00:15:19] Ben: Nobody 


[00:15:20] Cody: knows. I just like throwing that out 


[00:15:22] Ben: It's a fun. It's a fun thought because he doesn't Use names for any of his other stories. 


[00:15:28] That's just the one time it seems And maybe he was talking about a real event, maybe he wasn't, but either way, the truth remains. 


[00:15:35] Cody: Yeah, it doesn't change the meaning. It's just food for thought if you're listening. These 


[00:15:40] Gina: are the details that Cody notices when he reads his Bible, and it amazes me. 


[00:15:46] Ben: And to be fair, the details in the Bible are often what change things from being interesting to being deep. 


[00:15:51] Gina: Yeah. 


[00:15:52] Ben: Let's go to, can we bargain with God? It seems, because going off of the story that you said, or that you were talking about earlier, your personal story. Yeah. It seems like you bargained with God to an extent. Do you think you managed to change his mind with your request? You bargained with him in some way? 


[00:16:11] Gina: I don't think that I changed his mind. But I think I put myself in a contract. I think he was like, okay, I'm a promise keeper. So are you? And I was not. And I don't know. It's tough to know if we can truly change God's mind. Like I've heard so many different arguments on different prayers that were said in the Bible. 


[00:16:34] And like, I don't know. God's purpose and how he may have said not right now to certain destructive activities, but did somebody really sway him or was he already kind of inclined in that direction? It's like confusing because God is so mysterious and I can't pretend to know his mind and his heart fully because I'm not God, but can we change his mind and can we should we bargain with him? 


[00:17:01] Can we bargain with him? I feel dirty knowing that I bargained with him like it feels like the wrong thing to do 


[00:17:09] Cody: but even look at that Okay, so He said yes, and you ended up failing that contractor, that bargaining chip. And was that for you or for him? 


[00:17:22] Gina: What do you mean? 


[00:17:23] Cody: Did that teach you a lesson about your character? 


[00:17:25] Gina: Absolutely. 


[00:17:26] Cody: Okay, so You see this, and Ben touched on one of them earlier, is Sodom and Gomorrah, you have this back and forth with Abraham and God, Abraham starts, well if there's 50 holy ones would you save? And it's no, and he goes, it gets down to 10, I think is the last number, and it's still no. So did God know that there was not 10 and that Abraham would go there and he could have just left it at no? 


[00:17:50] But God is teaching Abraham through that is this is stuff I've already thought about, dude, they're evil. They're corrupt. It's time for them to go. But he still humored Abraham. And that is what we get from scripture. And you see something similar, I think, and you've talked, I think you've mentioned it before, as well as the 40 years that, uh, The Israelites had to wander in the wilderness and you have Moses going into prayer to save the Israelites because of their wicked ways, but they get saved, but they end up having to wander the wilderness and can't enter the promised land anyway. 


[00:18:31] So they still end up dying and it would have been maybe Moses would have entered the promised land by then, if he didn't have to wait 40 years for what he prayed for to come to fruition of what God had already willed. 


[00:18:44] Ben: Yeah, I think, I do come back to this verse a lot, it's the verse in Esther, that the Jews will be saved even if you don't help but you and your family will die, and who knows but that you were put here for this purpose. 


[00:18:56] I think that when we attempt to make deals with God, we're putting ourselves, locking us into that kind of an Esther moment. God's already set things in motion, and he's going to do things the way that he sees fit. When we try to bargain with him. We're attempting to wrestle control away. And we're saying, Hey, look, here's something that you already own, but I think it's mine. 


[00:19:18] I can, I control this. If I offer this thing up to you that you already own by right, then you should do something for me because I offered it to you. And God looks at that and he says, you're weird. You think, okay, you thought this through. Okay. I'll tell you what 


[00:19:38] Gina: I'll hold you to it. 


[00:19:38] Ben: Yes. This is something I was going to do. 


[00:19:42] Because this is what you asked for. Like you, in your case, you don't know if you would have had Shiloh or not. You probably would have regardless. But if you had approached it with the attitude of, Lord, I don't know what your, whatever your will is, let it be done. And instead, you had a child that God just gives you, not expecting it. 


[00:20:00] Gina: It would mean so much more. I mean, not that Shiloh's mean. No, 


[00:20:03] Ben: she's a beautiful kid and But I look 


[00:20:05] Gina: at the hand I played and I'm not proud of it. 


[00:20:07] Ben: Mm hmm. 


[00:20:08] Gina: Like, I'm not. I can't be, because I was not obedient. I wasn't patient. I was like, I'm ready. Let's get this show on the road. I'm having my last kid by the time I'm 30. 


[00:20:18] All of that happened. She was born two days before my 30th birthday. It's great. She's here. I'm glad. 


[00:20:25] Ben: The only times I've ever seen in the Bible where someone changes God's mind, quote unquote, in a positive way is when they repent. When Ahab repents and sackcloth and ashes. And really, there aren't too many other times I can think of offhand. 


[00:20:41] I know there are other times where people repent, and so There's also Nineveh. Like, Jonah goes to Nineveh and they repent, because they know that they'll be destroyed. And eventually, Nineveh is still destroyed. 


[00:20:53] Cody: I was gonna say, I think that's even a funny story in this conversation, because Jonah prays against that multiple times. 


[00:21:00] God says, you're still gonna do it. Nineveh repents, but what Jonah prayed and how he felt was still how it ended 


[00:21:08] Ben: up. But it didn't happen in that generation. And that's the fascinating thing to me. What God says is going to happen still happens. And every instance of someone trying to change it for their own benefit, I think there's King Hezekiah where he prays that his life could be extended because I think that's King Hezekiah where there's a king of Israel, or actually Judah rather, on his deathbed. 


[00:21:33] And That's it. A prophet comes and he says, the Lord says you're going to die tonight, and he prays that God will spare him. And so there's the shadow on the steps of the temple, I think, that extend, or is it the palace? I'm sorry, I'm butchering the story. But moral of the story is there's a poultice effect that's applied to his boil and he recovers. 


[00:21:52] And he's given, I think, 15 more years to live or something like that. But because he is the king, there's an emissary from Babylon that comes and the king shows off all of his wealth and all of the beauties of the temple and everything. And then, it turns out that because this king lived, he doomed Israel to be conquered by Persia. 


[00:22:13] Because he was an idiot, and he just showed everything off. And if he had just accepted what God had said, then who knows how things could have been. Now honestly, there would have been a point where they were going to be taken anyway. But the conditions for them being taken probably would have been different. 


[00:22:27] And that's the point. The reason I keep pointing back to Esther, God's will be done, but what will happen to you? You can accept it, or you can fight against it, and maybe you'll find some temporary reprieve there, but in the end, it doesn't do you any good. 


[00:22:41] Gina: Last year, last Christmas, we were like, Okay God, no more biological children, we understand. 


[00:22:48] Let's talk about adoption. So, like, we're praying and I was like, okay, this worked for our friends. Let's try this. Just God, it costs X amount of dollars to adopt a baby. Private adoption. If you provide a job that pays that amount, we will save that money for a year. And that will be our confirmation because you've provided this job that is this exact dollar amount. 


[00:23:19] And that will be our confirmation that you have said yes. Couple weeks in, I get a job offer for the exact amount. Job falls through. Door closes. God said no. Three months after, our next door neighbor was adopting through the same agency that we had been looking at. And they got scammed out of, I think, 50, 000 from an adoption scam from the birth mother. 


[00:23:44] Ended up selling the baby on the black market and nobody knows where the baby is to this day. And the agency couldn't do anything to help them, so they lost all this money. They ended up moving away suddenly, they were so traumatized, and if I had forced it there, we could have been in that situation. God saved us by saying no, and showed us that this was not a reputable thing to do with this agency. 


[00:24:12] But if I had continued pushing and not taken his no for an answer, Then we could be really struggling right now because that's a lot of money. Yeah, and it's just a lot of heartbreak. I mean, they had a nursery set up. They were, they had lost so many babies to miscarriage. They had adopted two children out of foster care. 


[00:24:29] They were such kind people. All they wanted was to have one newborn in their life and it just never happened. And it's sad, but God protected us, but I was upset. Like I was heartbroken because I thought this is it. This is our yes. I was like crying I was so excited and it was a no and I'm really happy that I obeyed that because this year has been a huge growth Opportunity for us for me, especially but man, I kept trying I kept asking. 


[00:25:05] So no, no bargaining with God is not honorable. 


[00:25:08] Ben: So it's not, it seems that the answer is both yes and no. Yes, you can try to change God's mind and he may give you something that you think is a concession, but in the end you would have been better off never trying at all. 


[00:25:23] Gina: It's kind of like when you get, you have a kid that's mommy, I want to eat this whole bag of candy. 


[00:25:29] It's not good for you to eat the whole bag of candy. You're gonna get a bellyache. Just have three pieces. The kid sneaks off, eats the whole bag of candy, pukes everywhere. I told you. 


[00:25:42] Ben: We've addressed a lot of tough times that we've been through. Tough times in the Bible. Tough times all over the place. Why does all of this have to be so hard? 


[00:25:51] Gina: Because God wants us to suffer. That's the article you sent me. 


[00:25:56] Ben: Cody, you've got some splainin to do. 


[00:26:00] Cody: Oh, how to get into this. 


[00:26:02] Gina: Do you want to read Teddy's quote? 


[00:26:04] Cody: That wasn't me. Well, I do. I do think yours will lead into what I was saying. To 


[00:26:09] Ben: start with, I have a quote from Theodore Roosevelt, nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, and difficulty. 


[00:26:20] I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. That's not scriptural. We don't usually include quotes outside of scripture, except G. K. Chesterton and whatnot. We make exclusions for the poets. But, I do think that there's a lot of truth in what Teddy Roosevelt said there. Because honestly, the people that I've known in my life, who I respect the most, were all people who overcame enormous struggle. 


[00:26:51] And I've never looked at a single person anywhere, fictional, real, who had a completely easy life and no struggle at all, and thought, that's what I want. That's a person I want to be like, that's a person I want in my corner. But why is that? 


[00:27:04] Gina: I know this person who has a very good life. Like, very loving family. 


[00:27:11] Has never really been through stuff that I've been through. It's really hard. This is a person in a position of authority. And A church that I respect and it's really hard because she'll ask my advice sometimes because she knows that I've been through some things and it's really hard because she has very little patience and empathy and compassion for people who've gone through certain things because they've made a bad choice or because they haven't had support from their family. 


[00:27:39] It makes it. It's very challenging to have a good relationship with that person, to really respect their opinion because they don't have the experience to back it up. There's something to be said about trials because you come out more mature, you come out having been refined, and you can like then acknowledge that you're never really going to fully arrive. 


[00:28:01] When a person hasn't really had that experience. It's really hard to relate. And I think that that difficulty for me makes it hard for me to be vulnerable to her because she wouldn't understand. You don't have anything in common. I am able to use what God has put me through or what God has allowed me to live through for his glory. 


[00:28:26] And that makes me relatable. And it makes other people relatable to me. But it's really challenging when you've never really had to experience some of the harder things in life, like being a teen mom is one that's kind of isolating. People don't get it. Having miscarriages, people don't always get it. It causes you to respond in immature ways that would not be as loving as they could be if you had educated yourself or had gone through it yourself to begin with. 


[00:28:52] Does that make sense? 


[00:28:53] Ben: I think the real thing is strong. Real love is strong. Real hope is strong. Real joy is strong. And we have tons of charlatans throughout the world offering us counterfeits. And when we look at people who've truly suffered, We see the real thing because a person who can love someone who has mistreated them like going back to my mom and her sisters Her love for my grandfather is still there and her love for her sisters is there now I love my sisters, but they never gave me the same kind of treatment that my mother's sisters gave her Not to say that they were bad people, but they were misled by my grandparents. 


[00:29:32] And in the end there was still wrong things that were done. My mom loves them and they love her. And the that love there is real and it's clear that it's real and they know that it's real and it's a beautiful, strong, real love because they know there is nothing they could do to deserve the love that my mom gave them. 


[00:29:52] Gina: Oh, that's beautiful. It's very Christ like. 


[00:29:55] Ben: It is. And that's how you know it's real. If they never did anything wrong to her ever, and the past 30 years were all rainbows and sunshine, yeah, I don't, I wouldn't doubt that my mom's love for her sisters is real, but at the same time, how real can it possibly be if it's never had any kind of challenge? 


[00:30:13] Cody: It's a very good point, and I think that goes into the testing of our faith. How can you have true faith if that faith has never been tested? And James, I'll read it here real quick. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 


[00:30:37] And let steadfastness have its full effect. That you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. And you won't hear me quote Francis Chan too often. 


[00:30:48] Ben: I was wondering about that Francis Chan quote. 


[00:30:52] Cody: I like, in, in one of the studies he has, he talks about the word test in this, and it's something that would relate to smiths and the purification of silver. 


[00:31:03] And you would heat the silver up really hot, and the impurities would go to the top. And, uh, You would throw off that impurity and keep doing that over and over again until you knew that it was pure. And how you knew it was pure was the reflection in the silver would be very clear and you could see your own face in it. 


[00:31:25] And I think that is important. Like into God testing us in the process of sanctification He's gonna keep testing you to make this crap come to surface come to head so that you can deal with it Throw it off. So you become more like Christ. 


[00:31:43] Gina: I really like that. It reminds me of like There's this idea that the burden is easy and the yoke is light when you become a Christian, which gets taken out of context a lot, but how does that fit in with this idea of sanctification and then also life? 


[00:32:03] Not getting what you want from God. 


[00:32:06] Ben: I've always found this verse to be really fascinating. Yeah, Matthew chapter 11 verses 28 through 30 is what Gina is referencing. Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 


[00:32:25] My yoke is easy and my burden is light now it's weird because what we're called to do elsewhere in the Bible is to die to ourselves a Process that sounds fairly painful and hard and it is both 


[00:32:39] Gina: And also be hated by the world and turned from our mother and father and separate families And yeah 


[00:32:45] Ben: He didn't come to bring peace but to bring war brother will be turned against brother father against son Mother against daughter against mother vice versa so on and so forth all the way down the family tree You So, it does seem strange that Christ would say, My burden is light, my yoke is easy. 


[00:33:02] And yet, I do think both are true. Because while you're on this walk with Christ, suddenly you realize that all of the suffering that you have, if you truly trust him, has a purpose. And oddly enough, Nietzsche, a famous atheist, once said, If you have the why, you can suffer any how. You're welcome. If you have a purpose, you can endure pain. 


[00:33:27] God is the ultimate purpose. And He, in every point of your life, through the power of the Holy Spirit, will give you love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. And as long as we are earnestly seeking Him, and at times He feels distant and we need to seek Him all the harder because of it, through the anointing of God's Spirit, Despite the suffering, when we choose to trust Him, He gives us peace. 


[00:33:53] He gives us joy. And the times where I've felt the most certain about God's hand in my life, and I felt the most joy, were the times where I was fighting the hardest against external factors. Honestly, as hard as this past week has been, more so for you guys, but it's been rough for me too. These past few days, I haven't been able to sit for more than a few minutes with the stuff with you guys, and my parents moving, and a bunch of other things just all going off at the same time. 


[00:34:25] But, I felt purpose through all of it, and I felt peace through all of it, and it's been a really great week, and I was praying yesterday with my dad. And I broke down in tears, not because I was upset, but because I, it dawned on me, oddly enough, it seemed like for the first time, just how blessed and beautiful a life I have and how fortunate I am that I can be here with you guys. 


[00:34:48] How fortunate I was that I could give you guys an, an avenue to solve at least one of your problems. 


[00:34:54] Gina: We're so thankful. 


[00:34:56] Ben: And thanks to my mom and dad too, they're the ones who offered the car, but to be somebody to me. Who someone else can turn to in a moment of crisis, that's a beautiful thing. But if you don't have God and you don't have a reason, then what? 


[00:35:10] Why would you ever want someone to turn to you in a moment of crisis? What would be the point of it? Oh, someone else is, you know, shoveling off their problems onto you. I don't need any of that. I have my own problems to deal with. But no, not only is God pushing you to seek people out and become useful and try to shoulder their burdens alongside of them, He's giving you the strength to do it, and he's giving you meaning to do it, and that way his yoke is light, because if without it, a fraction of that work would be impossible, it would be unreasonable, it would be pointless. 


[00:35:45] Gina: Arm in arm, like with our brothers and sisters, the burden is much lighter. And when we, like for me this week with the gifts thing, the boxes of gifts that were shipped to us, I took a burden on myself by trying to wrestle with the whole, do I open them? Do I throw them away? Do I need to know what's in them? 


[00:36:04] Do I bring them in the house? Do I give them to the kids? I burdened myself. God had already spoken. I just wasn't thinking. The burden is much lighter having known that he's already spoken. It was such an easy decision from there. What is burden to you? Because that is the defining factor of if your burden is truly light. 


[00:36:24] And if you can redefine those things, you might find that your life is much more enriched than you thought. I'm glad to hear from you that you feel so, I don't know, joyful about where you're at, because it has been hard and I'm sorry. So, like, the kids listen to the little Bible hymns, and, like, this verse, Rejoice in the Lord always, and again, I will say rejoice, they say it so forcefully in this one song that the kids love, and it's okay, they have to say it twice. 


[00:36:59] And it's important that we rejoice, like, to really think about the beautiful parts of every day of our lives, even when we have broken bones and a total trach, and, yeah. The one thing that has been different about this week and this experience for me is just the trust. One of my friends, the first thing that she did was she called me, like right after I got off the ambulance, she called me and she said, don't doubt what God is going to do for you. 


[00:37:28] And I was like, okay, I won't. And that changed everything for me. Just remembering not to doubt it. Even if we get stuck with a bill. Even if stuff gets weird for a few months. I'm not going to doubt it. Because he hasn't let us down. He's only elevated us. He's only prospered us, but not in the way that you think. 


[00:37:51] It's just, Cody and I come from very weird backgrounds. From very little, very little. And in ten years of knowing and dating each other and loving each other, he has grown our lives exponentially. And I have no other option but to rejoice in that right now. No matter what happens, we're alive. We're alive and I'm so thankful. 


[00:38:15] My kids are fine. And I'm so thankful. Turning around in the backseat yesterday, we got hit, and it was like that slow motion moment where you're like, and I turned around expecting that there was going to be horrible stuff in my backseat, because that's where we got hit. And they were fine. I mean, they were screaming, but everybody was okay. 


[00:38:39] I rejoice, because it could have been so much worse. Anything else? Did we cover everything? 


[00:38:45] Ben: Go suffer more. 


[00:38:47] Gina: Oh 


[00:38:47] Ben: yeah. What did you mean by go suffer more? 


[00:38:50] Cody: Go suffer more. We talked about, like, the test and purification and praying and for what you want and all of that, but there's this, and it was like a free class that I did on Hillsdale or something, like anybody can go take it. 


[00:39:06] It's more of a narrative interpretation, no theology really at all, but there's a translation by Robert Alder of Genesis 16. 9 and it is the story of Hagar and Sarah and Abraham and Sarah not getting pregnant. So Sarah gives her servant Hagar to Abraham to kind of circumvent their And if, if I can't get pregnant, she's my servant, so she can act in my place and I'll have babies vicariously through my servant and we'll do that. 


[00:39:45] And it, it worked. Abraham and Hagar got pregnant and she's going to have a baby and then Sarah gets super jealous. And. Basically forces Abraham to kick her out and the Lord's messenger said to her, return to your mistress and suffer abuse at her hand. And the Lord's messenger said to her, I will surely multiply your seed and it will be beyond all counting. 


[00:40:15] And the Lord's messenger said to her, look, you have conceived and will bear a son and you will call his name Ishmael for the Lord has heeded your suffering and the end there. So the Lord recognizes that she's been suffering with Sarah, but also tells her to go back and suffer some more. But there's also this great promise of through Ishmael. 


[00:40:40] It's almost like the Abrahamic covenant coming to fruition through her child as well because he will prosper and it's not if you follow that line, it's different but He heard her and recognized that she was suffering but also told her to go back and suffer more to Have this blessing through her lineage and her son and kind of told her to get over it Suffering is not necessarily something God shies away from or saves you from. 


[00:41:11] Sometimes He'll put you into that. 


[00:41:13] Gina: But it's God's will for me to be healed. It's God's will for me to be happy, right? We heard a pastor say that the other day. Oh 


[00:41:21] Cody: yeah. 


[00:41:22] Ben: The question is, is your happiness contingent on your externals? The fruits of the Spirit are interesting in that they are not going to match with what happens around you. 


[00:41:32] Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. All of those things you can have through the power of the Spirit regardless of what happens around you. And that last one, self control especially. Why on earth would you need self control if nothing important is happening? 


[00:41:49] A 


[00:41:49] Gina: man without self control is like a city with its walls torn in two. I've been praying that over my family because self control is the hardest thing for us. It's for Cody and I, for the kids. Discipline and self control are two of the hardest things that we face. The, we have the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness. 


[00:42:08] We have those in spades, but self control, oh, no, 


[00:42:11] Ben: he saves the best and hardest for last. 


[00:42:14] Gina: Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to our podcast today. If you liked what you heard, please feel free to subscribe and share and leave a positive review. And if you would like to connect with us on social media, you can do so on Instagram and Facebook at the podcast. 


[00:42:30] The logic of God. You can also send us an email at Maine dot the Logic of god@gmail.com. Thanks again for listening. We hope you have a great day.