Russ Masterson & Scotty Smith: Grace for the Moment

Hey, so uh it's kind of interesting for us to chat in this way because I feel like these are the types of conversations we've been having for years.

And then in the past month, as the COVID crisis has hit, uh our conversations have been limited to how are you, how's Darlene, how am I, how are Chrissy, how are the girls, and sharing uh ridiculous or funny videos.

But we really haven't had a meaningful conversation about what's going on.

Absolutely.

It's been a whirlwind, Russ, hadn't it?

I mean, everything is changing, and uh so this is such a gift that we can have a conversation that hopefully others will benefit from.

So I, when thinking through talking to you and just asking you questions about how you feel about different things and how you're thinking about it and approaching what's going on and the different range of emotions and experiences people have going.

Um, I broke it down into four kind of categories or questions, and uh this is kind of how a lot of our conversations have been where I ask you a question and then I just let you talk and I sort of just take notes and try to learn.

Um, and so we'll structure it the same way.

And so the four questions I have are what does it mean to walk in anger during this season?

Um, perhaps people are feeling feeling angry or even like a passive anger, um, and they're not quite maybe they don't even realize they're angry yet, but they are angry, and maybe I don't realize I'm angry, but maybe I'm angry.

So anger, second one would be disappointment or sadness, and what does it mean to walk in disappointment or sadness?

Uh, what does it mean to walk in joy despite the season we're in?

And then what does it mean to walk in hope?

So um the first one, anger.

Uh, you know, the myself coming into this topic um is I think there's probably a residing passive anger inside of me that I usually don't want to admit is there.

But um but I you know get angry at how somebody handles a situation, angry about how a leader's decision, angry that uh you know something was canceled and I wanted to go on it, or angry because I lost money, or um you know, even even just a kind of this passive irritation anger because I'm cooped up in my home with my loved ones more than normal and we're irritating each other more.

So, what do you think about when you think about anger when it comes to uh the situation we're in?

Well, I think it's been an absolute almost daily exercise for me, Russ, from the standpoint of knowing that as people shaped by a larger story, we need to hear the scriptures giving us permission that we don't generally enjoy.

In other words, uh, when I think of the anger, when I think of sadness, many times we start with this, I think, wrong question.

Is it okay to be angry or I shouldn't really be angry?

Especially people that would self-identify with being, you know, connected to Jesus in some way.

And I I'm so thankful for a season called pandemic that really invites us maybe to explore the fact that scripture says to us there are no wrong emotions.

There's no emotion to get over.

That really emotions, including anger, are the are the voice of the heart.

And I think for me, so I've looked at the trigger points for anger, it's invited me to consider what's appropriate disappointment look like?

What does appropriate anger look like?

You know, something got taken from me that was a good thing.

Um alongside of that, how in looking at anger can I begin to say, when did something get overvalued in my catalog of price tags?

You know, uh forgot who first taught me this, whether it was maybe it was Dan Allen or Dan talked about how anger can be an invitation to consider where have I turned a good desire into a goal?

And the inference was only make something a goal that you have you've got complete control over based on nobody else or no other circumstance.

So uh for instance, Darlene and I were planning some really important fun trips and ministry trips to Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Spain, and boom, right out of the chute, they got canceled.

Well, um, I was angry about that a little bit.

Uh we were going to be in Northern Ireland for our anniversary, and I always was already playing out in my head what that would look like.

But, you know, sitting in the reality of the disappointment of value.

How does it take for how does that take you from your standpoint?

You know, so there's this loss.

Yes.

And you do you feel anger either be um aggressive or passive, but in the loss, you feel anger.

Like, what what does that walking through that actually look like for you and maybe different than like what does it look like and feel like for Darlene?

Well, yeah, I say there's been a journey for me, which you know is part of our conversation, part of the the book we've been working on together.

That uh I've lived from my head for a lot of years before I learned to begin to live from my heart.

So emotions have already been always been confusing to me.

But I think now, Russ, what it looks like is I'm more tuned in to name the emotion I'm actually feeling.

I used to confuse mad and sad a lot.

So now for me, one of the things I do is walk.

And quite literally, walking has slowed me down from my running days and biking days.

And so I'm able to get more self-aware, attuned to what's really going on inside of me.

Where is this uh triggering something that's connected to another circumstance?

How do I process that?

But you know, I think that the commitment more now is to be more owning of emotions and not grading of emotions and listening to them.

So I make the time to do it.

Uh a lot of times between Darlene and I, that might result in a quicker repentance if my anger, uh, if she becomes the uh target for the uh poor stewardship of my anger.

I've got to own that.

So I just think that in relationship with God, by grace, we have those freedoms that begin to help us think about where are my emotions impacting my horizontal relationships in ways I need to consider.

So process time, intentionality, and uh centering quicker.

What ways do you feel like or do you think people are processing anger right now?

Uh, you know, sometimes I'm not sure we're processing as much as showing it.

You know, there there are, you know, think about who would have thought six months ago we'd be fighting over toilet paper?

You know, we're down to three rolls in our there's I have three little girls and my wife.

We got three roles.

I get to the grocery store quicker than you do, so I can, you know, when they offload the truck.

You have you have all the toilet paper.

But all that being said, you know, you you look at things we've assumed an entitlement to, and when they're taken from us, you know, um, a lot of those emotions get mixed in.

I mean, a prevailing emotion right now behind a lot of anger and sadness is fear.

You know, fear often is the emotion that says to us, you're not in control.

And and Russ, I know for me, when I lose a sense of control, uh anger can become irritation, agitation can become uh far more present in my gut.

And I just have to learn to listen to that, own it.

Um again, it's where the scriptures say, in your anger, do not sin.

The scriptures don't say don't get angry.

But what am I gonna do with it?

What's it connected to?

How can I take this passion and use it more constructively?

Yeah, and I think we do see a lot of anger, sadness, disappointment in the Psalms.

I mean, you got these people writing, you know, they're writing their feelings and their legitimate feelings because they're feeling them.

Um, and so to me, having permission to feel that which you're feeling is incredible, incredibly liberating, because then you can begin to invite the healer of our souls to actually invite God to help us journey through that.

And the the phrasing that's been helpful to me um is you know, as you say, the in the pace of grace, which I think is a slower heart, no matter what up the speed of our life is, in that pace of grace, um to to chase the anger, is to to follow the anger, to to feel that anger, but then to begin to feel like what is what's behind the anger causing that anger.

And I know the anger that I have felt, um my anger is usually passive, just because that's how I tend to emote.

Um my anger has been in the in the loss of certainty or that which I thought was I had under control in my certainty.

And then I get a little angry, a little irritated uh because I've lost that certainty, and uh that which has been helpful is surrender.

Yes, that which has not been helpful is a resistance to the reality of what is, and that's just been processing that.

Can we turn the conversation quickly to actually not just us feeling anger uh but somebody who's actually angry with God?

Like you know, we're in a crisis where people are dying and you're seeing suffering, and maybe you've had you've actually experienced severe loss, whether it be economic or a job, or you've lost somebody in your life, or you're you're grieving something, and you just go, Well, God, aren't you aren't you loving?

What's going on?

Why can't you?

Why didn't you?

Why won't you?

How do you help somebody, or what do you even say to somebody who says, you know what, I'm angry at God?

Well, back to this premise.

Unfortunately, some of us assume that we should never have feelings of anger with God in the conversation.

But the truth is, the Bible has so many great examples of honesty and integrity of people moving towards God with their anger.

Job's probably the best example.

Job is never rebuked in the book of Job for his anger, for his strong language, for his you know, moving into literally God's face with his complaints.

Uh it it's the friends of Job that get rebuked at the end of the book for trying to fix things or minimize them or reduce everything down to uh blame and shame.

But uh Job's a great example.

Jeremiah's a great example, even Jeremiah uh calling God's hand saying, You deceived me.

Uh now what I'm thankful for in that is the fact that we we are angry.

We do get angry with God.

What am I gonna do with that?

The good thing about the God of the Bible is he says, Bring it to me, bring, you know, bring whatever you have anger, loss, fear, concern.

Come to me, come let us reason together.

And uh, you know, I walk with people that need to have the permission to know that just what you said, uh Russ, and you know, it's kind of like in the midst of a pandemic we forgot we're in Lent, and one of the themes of Lent is lament.

And the Bible encourages through the book of Psalms a lot more honesty about these feelings.

So try to walk people in their own story knowing that God's the best place to take that anger because he's gonna listen, love, be, and uh help our hearts come to a centered place.

Do you think that there is an intellectual answer, intellectual framework that somebody can learn or hear about, you know, how does a loving God allow suffering?

Is there an intellectual answer to that that will actually satisfy a person's heart?

You know, we're holistic.

As image bearers of God, there's this interplay of body, soul, and spirit, you know, and we are thinking beings, which is awesome.

But, you know, I'm always concerned when someone is either just looking for answers or too easily satisfied with answers, because the ways of the heart, there's an interconnection there of emotion, of affection, of longings that absolutely good better information helps.

And there are better books on suffering than not, there are you know better sermons on suffering than not.

So absolutely we want to listen to what the scripture says about suffering and pain and loss, but it's never just an intellectual phenomenon, Rust.

You know, the the ways of the heart are deeper than that, fortunately.

And uh it's where you know uh head, heart, and hands are intertwined in a way that we want to walk with people through this change, giving them understanding.

But, you know, this is this is a very long sentence, but let me offer one illustration which I love.

T.S.

Lewis in talking about heaven said that a lot of us have the notion of heaven all wrong.

Some of us think when we get to heaven, we'll finally have all of our uh questions answered.

C.

S.

Lewis said, I think as soon as we get to heaven, the questions are so unimportant uh to be in the presence of this merciful, gracious God.

It's like it's the resolution, it's the consummation, it's the completion, it's the healing of all the things that represent not knowing or knowing in part.

And I like that because uh is more than just a health is the the intellectual thought is like this idea that God could be asymmetrical in a relationship to something and that he could at the same time uh hate suffering and also walk in suffering with us to use it for some good, and that that's asymmetrical, difficult for us to comprehend, but that it's possible for God.

So I think, in some measure of humility, if I can conjure that up, that can be helpful.

Um, there's also uh the idea that perhaps there's just something I don't know.

Is it possible that there's something I don't know?

And if that's a possibility, then perhaps it's one of those topics.

And I think that is help, that's that is a helpful thing.

Um and that you know, that we're we're limited, that there's a world to come when all this will these questions will melt away and that'll be a good world, but but we'll we'll have these questions while we're here.

Um and it's nice.

I like that you said that the information was nice, that it's intertwined.

It's not that we don't have to have any information, but at the same time, uh it's not that all the information is all sudden going to satisfy our hearts.

Yeah, knowing knowing is far more complex.

Knowing is highly relational, and I think in my journey, uh like yours, in which there's been stories of loss and pain, uh, you know, uh answers are not just enough.

And the scriptures hold out something more beautiful called healing, called uh mystery.

And mystery is a good thing, but the the journey of fellowshipping and the sufferings of Christ run right through the season we're in right now of Lent.

You know, here we are, hard to believe.

Is it not this Sunday is Palm Sunday?

Next Sunday will be Easter Sunday, and and the reality that we are called to confront the suffering of God in the midst of a global season of suffering.

And uh that's a holy mystery.

It's one that invites us to be quieter, perhaps, to listen more than we simply launch, but to know that God does not despise our questions.

God can handle the disruption of our hearts far better than we do.

Yeah, and my mind cannot argue with my heart that any suffering I've been through has created uh has created good in time.

You know, that the um the passage suffering produces endurance, endurance, uh, you know, character, character hope, you know, that I can't argue that that actually operates as true in time.

Um while my mind still doesn't like it, and I don't like the event itself, that somehow God has this ability to transform even that, um, and that he walks with us in and through all of this.

All right, so that's anger.

Uh let's move a little bit into sadness or disappointment.

Um maybe distinguish the difference of what you think about the differences between uh anger and disappointment, and then uh well, let's start there, and then I got follow-up questions.

Well, in some ways, you know, and this is simplistic, so that means it's not sufficient, but it'll at least function for the conversation.

In some ways, anger is born more out of not getting something I think I deserve or something I had control over.

Sadness is having something taken from me that I thought was mine.

So, you know, they're in other words, they're very similar emotions.

In fact, some of the angriest people you know are actually the saddest, they're just more comfortable with anger than sad.

And some of the saddest people you know need permission to be angry.

So uh sadness uh representative more of loss, uh, anger more representative of you know, I've been wronged.

And so um both are important parts of life, you know, and and the most mature people I know, Russ, the deep souls, the old souls, whether they are 35 years old or 85 years old, are those that have learned to suffer well.

They're they're familiar with loss and grief.

They're they're they're not looking at God as simply a way of minimizing reasons to get angry or uh a formula not to hurt and not to be sad, but but to be present in that journey.

And sadness, you know, sadness is uh even our savior is known to be a man of sorrows, you know, and it's a beautiful thing to know that however deeply we weep, there's one that meets us in our own tears that truly understands whose sufferings really are the journey to our own um season of grief and moving through grief into something different and healthier for the benefit of our neighbors.

What do you think uh that's like?

I mean, obviously we have you know the framework of grief by uh Kubler-Ross, uh denial, if I can get it right, denial, um acceptance, uh anger, uh bargaining, something then acceptance, a missing one in there.

Um how do you think about grief?

Yeah, I think grief is a journey, and and grief is not something so much to get over, but to grow through.

Once again, I think that's the pace of grace.

We're not just hurrying up to get over this thing, but how, as you said earlier, how in the loss, how in the pain, how in a pandemic, how in a completely planned summer that's now completely turned upside down, how do we grieve that, but grieve with hope?

How do we grieve in a way of really having the Lord meet us there as a father who comforts us, who's a father of mercies of God of all comfort?

So, you know, uh journey's key, but you know, I because I've because I sabotage my own grief journey after the death of my mom for so many years, uh, I've I've learned to embrace the way of grief as a way really to a sweetness and acceptance and really uh a life of compassion that apart from being willing to grieve, you just don't get.

So um it's different for different folk.

We all grieve differently, but there usually is a trajectory through many of the items that you have mentioned.

And but we do it best in community, Russ.

And that's why you know, Redeemer, Church Family here, we want to build communities where people have permission to grieve, have permission to tell their stories and to bear each other's burdens.

And uh certainly that's a part of what's going on.

I mean, here we are having to use Zoom because we can't meet in the new sense.

The first thing is I I resisted grief because I thought it would be too painful.

But actually, by resisting grief, I was resisting healing.

Yeah.

And and and we're gonna all have to deal with any any pain that we've experienced, whether it be uh minor or major in this season, or minor and major in our past, in any of it would lead.

grieved and where I the mistake I made was thinking that that I wouldn't be able to handle it or I I that it would overwhelm me to the point that you know I just wanted to to resist it but the the problem is is the problem doesn't go away and it would pop up in other ways and now I see completely different because I see it as um almost as a way of life that not only do we grieve that which we lose um all the losses of the last month should require grief and that should be for the person with the second home who can't get on a plane to go to it you'd go oh you know oh you know oh first world problems that sounds so bad well that's a loss any loss requires grief in the person who just lost their job as a barber that requires grief too that we don't have to minimize a person's pain or experience to say well you you aren't worthy of grief um that actually any change should is it should require and it does require us to grieve it um even a good change a lot of times I have found it requires some grieving because something changed and it there's gonna be some part of sadness to that change that requires a little bit of reflection a little bit of feeling the feelings of it for me that that process has been uh if I can get quiet enough to actually feel the things I feel rather than just busy myself and move on or entertain myself or just you know take in the next bit of news.

I've been trying to walk to work more walk to my office because nobody else is in the building obviously a church building so I could walk here and uh it's been so good in this last month to walk that path uh and gain an extra 45 minutes of quiet a day just to to figure out what it is that I'm feeling each day.

And a lot of times it's filled with all these little minor grieving processes that I used to would have thought that would have been um uh something I wouldn't be able to handle or it would have been like all sad in some way but actually that that grieving process has been that the healing of it can be so good that whether the trauma is huge and it is filled with sadness or whether that trauma is much more minor um disruptive in life that it's still it's still worthy of our grief.

Still trauma, still disappointment, still sadness.

Do you have any other thoughts on disappointment and sadness before we one little thing that's so relevant to what we're sitting in right now is uh you know to the parents that are uh listening in or will listen in later uh it's gonna be really important that we do exactly what you said Russ that you know we've got kids of different ages that have a lot of stuff to grieve now the the the graduation party that didn't happen uh the soccer league that just got canceled for who knows if not forever.

And there's a lot of things and what what we want to do as parents is to be familiar with our own sense of loss and grief so that we really can just listen to our kids.

You know what we need from each other when it comes to discipline and loss is being present without seeking to be impressive.

We don't have to have the answers you know we don't have to make it feel good to our kids you know and absolutely we should never say you know to our kids oh great you know your grandparents went to war you get to go to Netflix to get over it you know no we're we have let's listen to whatever our kids are saying and this isn't fair and let's just don't worry about fixing it because you know fixing it is not the journey to joy.

Fixing it is not the way of getting to a sweetness of heart and core reality that I know we want to move into and and that grace is all about yeah and that's hopefully how we're trying to parent our girls in these days is to ask them every once in a while like you know you are you sad about anything are you disappointed about anything as much as we ask are you joyful about something what are you excited about and to let them talk without us overparenting in the uh response of which usually they already know what we're about to say.

I well joy you know uh you know it's like I I've received one email everybody sending emails uh I received one email an article talking about permission to be joyful um and I've definitely I think we've all seen the increase of levity and laughter and you and I sending really ridiculous uh videos that we would not show out in public of what we find funny if people doing all the pretty fish you send me occasionally I would yeah pretty fish is definitely appropriate the the Jack Black dancing in a speedo uh moves towards inappropriate but really really really good not inappropriate at all it's it's I sent that to you you didn't send that to me let's put the record straight that's right uh and yet it's like all of us are finding increased uh movement towards levity and laughter uh during during disappointment during social isolation so it's almost like we require this permission to be joyful we feel like we'll life laugh in public I mean we'll laugh in private with our phones and a video but are are we quite able to how how able are we allowed to be publicly joyful while other people are suffering so what does it mean for us um if our circumstances is one where there's disappointment but we're not in the middle of like massive trauma, massive suffering, what does it mean for us to walk in joy?

Well I think I love the image you just gave because uh now that we're all to some extent quarantining, isolating etc, we, you know we're in our neighborhoods more and we're waving at people across the way six feet from us and there's something we're discovering I think in the loss discovering in the sense of not having control that we're in a larger community.

And I think we notice that because there's something that God has done to wire into the color green that's blasting at us this spring or you know the sound of the bird that's singing even though a pandemic is racing through the culture.

I think noticing I think also uh I mean in a profound sense in Psalm 19 the writer of Psalm 119 talked about Lord it was good that I was afflicted that I might learn your decrees so there's there's something good about going into seasons of affliction and suffering that should not be confused with punishment.

There's something about loss of control loss of things that that really can put our heart in a place to say what does true joy really consist of and I think at the end of the day or night it's going to be relational.

I mean our kids love it when we can be close to them during a sense of loss is you know probably uh to certain degrees of connection and conversation have ramped up in value just that I'm with you and that you're not alone.

And I think joy therefore is uh it's a relational category it's not just an emotion.

It's not tied to your Enneagram number your Myers four letters or anything it's just a core reality that is greater than happiness because it's not contingent upon circumstances.

But it's just a knowing it's a knowing that I do have a father.

I'm not an orphan that um this pandemic as an expiration date God's love does not so I think you know your question could take four more podcasts of us but I think just the core reality being love by God and a sense of Lord you know be my father father me in this and there's a sweetness and the joy that comes with that that is unlike anything else yeah the day the market first dropped I think I told you this we were on the phone one day uh when it went from like 27 down to 20 I mean it was a crazy drop.

It's amazing you know I was like anybody else and I was checked it and did the calculation of how much money we lost and uh there was a point in the amount of loss that it it did become comical but it it was like we lost so much that it was like oh well clearly I can't rest my being in that anymore.

And it sort of revealed it's not ultimate exactly right it revealed it revealed how much I was actually doing that and not realizing it because when the crutch got ripped away it was like oh wow I was actually leaning on that a little bit more than I thought and well that's ripped away for now um and it revealed like I was leaning on it and that's actually it was a little painful uh still painful to kind of swallow that number but at the same time it's been very relieving in a way to rest back okay like what okay what is stable well the Lord is stable uh his provision and nourishment for my soul my absolution righteousness my forever belovedness I mean these are the things that uh actually hold me and make me stable um you know the relationship category with God and then the relationship category with people for us you know that's we're in a small house with family we have that real privilege and then of course there's people who don't have that privilege and are more isolated uh and yet they still know in that isolation and loneliness it actually reveals the fact that it is relational categories that we find joy because they're feeling the lack of it and then they're feeling uh the measure of the increase of joy when they get the phone call from a friend or you know a church member or a pastor who calls to check on them that our joy is more deeply rooted in God and in relationship than any of these worldly things that truly can be ripped away.

Well it's it's really profound to realize that the Apostle Paul in the primary letter in which he used the word joy more than any other letter is while he is in a house arrest in Rome.

So you know I I love stories like that of the Apostle Paul who's not riding from a condo in the Mediterranean drinking six pina coladas, you know, toasting us but he's suffering he he's he's not even sure will he be released from this imprisonment but there's there's a transcendent joy that's not that it is supernatural but it's not it's not weird.

It's just like you said something good happens when the price tags change when I begin to realize I've looked at you know rich's romance, the ability to control my future retirement at a certain age I've hit the wagon of my joy to those things foolishly.

They would never be enough even if I got them plus a truckload of more toys and and that that's good and we want that for ourselves as adults we want it for our kids to begin to think about how does grace change the price tax so that my joy is not dependent upon things I have no control over.

So the last is hope the last question is about what does it mean to walk in hope and this is I think for me in the last month it has surfaced and become more relevant in my heart than in previous years.

And actually you talk a lot about hope and you've talked to me a lot about hope because you use that framework of creation fall redemption restoration a lot and restoration being uh the you know the fulfillment and the future world to come that we have and we have hope in that world and what's interesting is I think for so much of my life and so much of even hearing you talk, um there's been a part of me that tunes out when you have begun to talk about that.

And I think it's because um it just wasn't bad enough.

Like you know it's like I I get hope in the Lord for now but this idea of hoping in the Lord for a future world you know like that's something like that's out there but um the idea of that belief was not something that felt um kind of tangibly the word accessible or needed um but in the last month where it's like God this world is broken.

I mean this world is fragile and how much to hope in a world one day where there's not going to be illness and there's not going to be sickness there's not going to be fear that causes hoarding and there's not going to be tears like like all of a sudden for me is connected a lot a lot more that's me my preacher intro into this question but what is it what does it mean?

What does it mean to walk in hope in a season of difficulty?

Yeah well hope in the scripture is such a profound category it's just present everywhere really beginning of the book of Genesis running all the way through Revelation but but hope really is in summary becoming more alive in my heart to what God says the future holds and remembering that more into the present for for instance you know we it it means that there's gonna be some displacement a lot of us grew up with really silly notions of heaven being a place where we all get our heart in halo and we just sing hymns all day long and maybe have a fried chicken break or something like that.

Because that's what Christians do.

They sing and eat.

You know the the way the Bible describes the future it is alluring it connects so deep within our heart you know uh in many ways we have these deep deep deep deep longings that are so good that are given to us as image bearers of God they get sabotaged by lesser narratives and we we don't hope we end up being too easily satisfied.

But but hope uh what God has wired us for is the day of all things beautiful all things new and again here we are in the in the cusp of Easter that's God's yes to paying the price for what we want more than anything else and we'll have in completion.

So those that are alive to heavenly hope which means the true king returning again Jesus coming back again to finish making all things new we will be in an eternity of perfect relationship.

The Garden of Eden will seem as though it truly was just the preview of coming attractions and and the more we I think Rust for you and I in the position we're in as teachers the more we can make concrete reality the scriptures that really describe a future that we're already participating in.

If we have that hope if we have that sense of the the future is absolutely devoid of brokenness, sin, death, uh madness, then we show up more in our communities.

We become better neighbors we become redeemer church that cares about where you guys are living on the streets.

We we we we you know the the future is not in doubt we don't know all the details don't have to have them but it is so good beyond all we can imagine or ask or hope.

And therefore we live for better things.

We live to be you know husbands that are present and and dads that play and uh neighbors that care.

So uh you know hope is enormous and uh it's it's something that we may have to do a an additional podcast on.

Yep.

Well that's a good place I think for us to for now for us to be hoping in that for each other for each other's families and for anybody who would watch or listen later on uh wherever you are at uh whatever you're feeling our hope for you is that the God of great comfort uh will be with you walk with you and know you grace and peace to everybody