Shift: Into the Storm | Part 2

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Last week we started a series called Shift to Change Directions Shift.

And I used this illustration to open up our time.

It was when I learned to drive a stick shift.

That's the old school stick shift with the three pedals.

Remember the clutch, the brake, and the gas.

And the way I learned stick is my older brother tossed me the keys and said, go figure it out.

And it was a painful process of figuring it out, of stalling out, of grinding gears, of no other way to get out of first but to gun it.

As a 16-year-old, that was cool.

And yet I feel like we often kind of feel like life is this way.

That somehow we just got tossed the keys to life.

Especially navigating the last several years and figure it out.

How are you gonna, you know, just make your way and trying things?

And maybe you walked in today feeling stalled out in life, maybe in your marriage, maybe in a key relationship, maybe at work, maybe you have a direction that you've been desiring to go down, and and you just feel like you're just kind of grinding gears, it's just never quite locked in, or your RPMs are just running way too high here in the Silicon Valley.

And here's what we asked last week.

How do we shift to the more we're made for?

Like, how do you shift in life to the more that you're made for?

There's this sense and longing inside of all of us that we were made for more.

More than what we're currently experiencing and living and walking through and always striving, but rarely arriving there.

And to discuss this, here's the beautiful and wonderful part is God didn't just throw us the keys, right?

To life.

He didn't say, hey, good luck.

Hope you figure it out.

He's not the older brother here.

He's your perfect heavenly father that loves you, that says, I want to go to great lengths to help you, to teach you, to guide you, to discover the more that you're made for.

And we're actually studying the ancient book of Jonah.

He's this prodigal prophet that was called to preach to the archenemy of Israel, Nineveh.

That's the capital city of Assyria.

I mean, this was the worst assignment you could get in life for Jonah.

And we're studying his life, and Jonah really is an anti-hero for us.

And sometimes we need that, especially from the people we're kind of expecting to do everything right.

Isn't it nice to look at someone and go, okay, I'm gonna learn from what you did and what I'm not to do?

It's the Berenstein bear for any of those who are familiar with him.

You know, the that's the father bear that would always say to his young bear, This young bear is what you ought not to do.

And as we study the life of Jonah and we're discovering the more we're made for, we're looking consistently and seeing in his life the directions he's headed act as a warning sign to us because they're so often the directions we're headed in life.

There's so often our responses of what uh is happening in the midst of different seasons of life, and it's like, hey, that is not the direction you're headed.

How do we experience the more we're made for?

Well, last week he said this, and this is rather obvious, but when we run from God, we shift away from the more we're made for.

Makes sense.

You're created by him, you've been designed by him, intricately made, and when you run from him, you're shifting away from the more you're made for.

In particular, Jonah receives this call to go preach to Nineveh, and it expands uh in Jonah's eyes, God's heart for the world, that God loves every single person on the planet, even Ninevehes, even this incredibly brutal, um, and I read a lot of detail about it last week, and go back and check it out about how bad and wicked and evil the Ninevites were.

But when we run away from God, when we run particularly away from his heart for the world, which is one, his heart for you and every single person, and then when we run from the calling that he's placed on our life, the reality is it's not just prophets that have a calling, but every single follower of Jesus has a calling.

And here was the application.

I just want to remind us of this.

This is gonna be, I'm I'm gonna keep bringing this up because this is part of how we shift to the more we're made for.

Is I gave us the three by five challenge.

Do you remember this?

This means yes, this means okay, some are you with me?

Good, good, good, good.

Three by five challenge.

You have the card if you missed it last week, or if you've already lost your three by five card.

That's fair enough.

Uh and you can always replace it on your own, but we're gonna replace it for you if you need it too.

Um, here's what I'm asking that you would write down three people in your life who do not know Jesus and then pray for them every day.

Like if you want your heart to shift for the things that are on God's heart, you just begin to pray for people that are far from him because they're on his heart.

And all of a sudden, you'll begin to start living in the more you are made for.

And I asked you to write down this prayer, Heavenly Father, would you give me an opportunity to share with someone in some way about you today?

And when you begin to write those names down, pray for them, and then you just start to look for opportunities to share in some way, big or small, a little moment of encouragement, asking for prayer, a way to just share, like, man, today was an amazing day, or church was great, or my small group, or in it.

We share about stuff that we're excited about, right?

And and so if you're excited about Jesus, it's the most natural thing to share about with your friends or families or coworkers, not because you're trying to, you know, do some sort of you know, Bible Olympics and figure out how to beat them.

No, it's like this is just life.

This is, I'm just so excited about this.

Three by five card.

Would you do that with us?

And so we left off Jonah running away from his calling, running away.

God calls him to Nineveh, he heads the opposite direction, heads down south to a port city called Joppa.

Uh, and in Joppa, he pays a fare, hops on a ship towards Tarshis, which is just basically the farthest away from uh he can get from Nineveh.

And this is where we pick up the story.

And the title of the sermon today is Into the Storm.

Would you say that to your neighbor?

Into the storm.

Jonah is running away from that's good over there, by the way.

Running away from God, and he runs directly into a storm.

We often think the storms of life are actually knocking us off course, don't we?

It's just kind of like, hey, that that's actually knocked me off course from the more that I'm made for.

And I want I want you to just maybe think about this.

What if?

What if God actually wants to use the storm in your life to redirect the course of your life?

What if it's the storm isn't so much to knock you off course, but God in his sovereignty wants to allow a storm perhaps in your life to redirect the course of your life?

We certainly find that here in the story of Jonah.

If you got it, would you open your Bibles to Jonah chapter one?

We pick it up in verse four.

It says, Then the Lord sent, or literally hurled, go ahead and say that word, hurled, hurled, because we're going to see it over and over in the text, hurled a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.

All the sailors were afraid, and each cried out to their own God.

And they threw cargo, literally the word hurled, cargo, into the sea to lighten the ship.

Jonah is headed in the wrong direction, and God sends a storm to redirect him.

And you know what's interesting is the storm hits, and what do the sailors do?

They cry out each to their own God.

Why?

Because when you have smooth sailing, you're not so much crying out or focused on God.

Isn't it true?

That's just our human condition.

But all of a sudden a storm hits, and they're like, okay, we gotta do whatever it takes to survive, and we're gonna each cry out to our own God.

No, everyone is doing their part to survive the storm.

Everyone's focused on how do we just get through this?

Except one person.

Jonah.

It says, the text says, but Jonah had gone below deck.

Can you imagine this moment?

Think about if you're the sailors, how you'd feel.

Everyone's crying out in desperation.

It's a life-threatening moment.

The ship is being beaten and battered on every side.

The wind is blowing, you cannot hold course.

But Jonah went below deck, like he's on a cruise, chilling.

But look, he went below deck where he laid down and fell into a deep sleep.

Because when you're running from God, you begin to go on a downward spiral and you start to only care about yourself.

The captain went to him and said, How can you sleep?

Get up and call on your God.

We're all doing our part, Jonah.

Maybe he'll take notice of us and we will not perish.

Notice we.

The captain's going like, hey, it's not just about you, it's all of us.

And Jonah doesn't want to call on his God.

He's running from his God.

He's trying to flee from the presence of his God, and he's faced in a moment where even people who don't believe in his God are asking him to call on his God.

At some point, you just got to wonder at what point does it take for God to get a hold of your attention?

Like how much needs to come into your life?

What storm, what outside voice, what circumstance that you finally go, okay, God, I think I'm paying attention and noticing what you're doing here.

That was so amazing.

The sailors notice and see that, man, we need God in some way to respond.

And Jonah, this is what happens.

This is what happens to us.

And what's even worse is he didn't even care about the sailor's life.

And he just went below deck to sleep it off.

Hard-hearted.

See, I think there's some that perhaps over the season and your relationship with God, and maybe you've been running from him or drifted from him, and you've allowed your heart to get hard, and what happens is we stop caring for people around us.

We become isolated.

We just care about ourselves.

We just begin to focus on me.

I don't want to call out to my God.

I'm just gonna go below the deck and sleep it off.

You know, I had a mentor once who's kind of explaining to me, Ryan, when you how to judge like the light on your dashboard of your heart when it's kind of going off to show you that maybe your heart isn't in the best place.

Because isn't it hard to know where your heart is?

Like we go down this path.

I don't think Jonah, Jonah's like, man, I'm running away.

And yet, so often I find myself in this same situation of just allowing my heart to get hard or callous or uncaring.

And my mentor said this.

He's like, I I notice that in my heart, when I care deeply about things I shouldn't care about, that there's something going on in my heart that's not right.

When I care deeply about my March Madness bracket being broken on the first day, second day, good grief, there's been a lot of upsets.

When I if I really, really care about that, if I really, really care that somebody cut me off in traffic, when when I overreact to something, especially things, events, sporting events, when I get so consumed by that, there should be a light going off that something's not right in here.

And then he said this when I don't care deeply about things I should care about.

When when I don't care deeply about my relationship with God, when I don't care deeply about other people and how they're doing, when I'm don't care deeply about the major things of life.

And for some, maybe walking in this morning, you didn't have this realization until this moment that maybe there's some things in your heart and what you're going through and what God brought you here is just to have that heart check moment.

Oh, I'm headed down below deck and I don't want to go there.

I've been saying I'm sleeping it off, but I'm actually running from God, and I didn't realize it.

Text goes on and says, Then the sailors said to each other, Come let us cast lots to find out who's responsible for this calamity.

Now, in the ancient day, uh everything natural was connected to the supernatural.

Everything physical was connected or had a spiritual cause.

And so when they saw this great storm, uh they attribute it to some deity that needs to be appeased.

And the way they would discern kind of how or who was responsible for it, they would just cast lots and let the gods decide.

It was a common way of deciding.

So they cast these lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.

So they asked him, tell us, who's responsible for making all this trouble?

What kind of work do you do?

Where do you come from?

What is your country?

From what people are you?

And all these questions are designed to get around who is Jonah's God that has power over the sea?

And he answered them, I'm a Hebrew.

I worship the Lord or Yahweh, his covenant name, God Elohim, the creator and maker of the sea and the dry land.

Now, this terrified the sailors.

They asked, What have you done?

For they knew he was running away from the Lord, because he'd already told them.

Like, like, here, sailors recognize Jonah's heir, and he doesn't even get it.

He's like, wait a second, your God created the sea, and so you decided to take a cruise.

Doesn't make sense to us.

You're running from him, and now we're in the middle of the sea, which, by the way, in the ancient day, the sea was the place of deep and utter fear, uncontrollable chaos.

And so there's this already built-in sense of fear that surrounding the uncontrollable waves and wind of the sea.

And he's going, Yeah, my God, he created the land, he created the sea, he created all of that.

And they're going, What in the world have you done?

And it's so interesting because Jonah actually had good theology right here.

He knew who his God was.

He just practically lived it out poorly.

And I think for many, sometimes we can get, well, we're theologically right.

We have all the right answers, but practically how we're living it out is wrong.

The sea was getting rougher and rougher.

So they asked him, What should we do to you to make the scene calm down?

There's something that's gotta stop.

We're gonna die.

And then notice his response.

Pick me up.

Here's our hurl word again.

You can say that.

Hurl me into the sea, he replied.

And it'll become calm.

I know that it's my fault that this great storm has come upon you.

Now, notice Jonah's response.

How lame! I mean, think about it.

Gonna calm the sea, and and and he doesn't even care that he's put these sailors at great harm, and he's unwilling himself to do the right thing.

He could have said, option maybe number one, how do we calm this?

Um, turn back towards Joppa.

Let's turn the ship around.

Pretty confident, a heart that's repentant, turn around, headed back in the right direction.

I think God would have calmed the storm that way.

He so didn't want to go that way.

Option one wasn't an option.

Option two, this would have been actually, I guess, a much kind of option.

I'll hurl myself off the boat.

Can you imagine that he put the weight of his life in the sailors' hands?

They're like, wait a second, we don't want to be responsible for you.

He was so cowardly in this moment.

He's like, if you hurl me, then this will happen.

But, you know, good luck for you.

And notice the sailors showed compassion for Jonah where he had none for them.

They hear this and they didn't go, okay.

I I I I think here's how I would have been.

Let's be honest.

Okay, so you serve the God of the sea and the land.

You're running from him, you put us all in harm's way.

You went below deck and you slept it off, like you had an anyways.

Uh, and yeah, yeah, throwing you overboard sounds like a good idea.

Throwing you overboard sounds exactly like the right idea.

I don't even care.

You brought it on to your own head.

And notice the compassion.

Instead, the men did their best to row back to land.

Like they're they showed him compassion that he didn't even show them, but they could not.

For the sea grew even wilder than before.

Then he cried out to the Lord, please, Lord, don't let us die for taking this man's life.

Now they're no longer even concerned about the storm, but the consequences of what they are gonna have to do to Jonah.

Then they took Jonah and hurled him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm.

At this, the men greatly feared the Lord Yahweh, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.

Isn't it amazing how God works?

You have these sailors that are caught in someone else's storm in the middle of it.

They're not God fearing, they're not walking with the Yahweh, and yet through this storm, through Jonah's disobedience and his sovereignty, revival breaks out on the ship.

And the sailors come to know the one true God and how he orchestrates and how he works even in the midst of disasters and other people's mistakes.

And so the story concludes, the text concludes, it says, Now the Lord provided a huge fish, and this is where we most famously know Jonah and the whale, to swallow Jonah.

And Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.

And the Lord provided, the Lord sent.

We talked a little bit about this last week, and um Sometimes I think we can easily dismiss the book of Jonah as like, well, could somebody really survive that?

And certainly there's been uh historical uh times where people have survived being swallowed by a fish or a well type deal.

You can go look that up.

But even more than that, if all the miracles, and especially if Jesus rose from the dead, him surviving three days in the belly of a fish is not that big of a deal.

But what I think's interesting about this, like, who would have thought that would be God's like provision?

You know?

One, I think it's pretty funny of God, it's kind of hilarious.

Well, you're you're you're not gonna head the right direction, you're not even gonna ask the ship to go the other way.

Well, I'm gonna get you inside a big old fish, and he's gonna swim you in the right direction.

But here's what's incredible.

Think about this.

God's provision wasn't what Jonah expected.

And I wonder for many of us how God's provision and how he's showing up in your life and how he's working isn't what you expected.

It isn't necessarily what you wanted.

It definitely is what you needed, but because he didn't show up in the way you wanted, you feel disillusioned by God.

You feel like God, I prayed for this and you showed up here, but I can't even get my eyes on this because I'm so focused on you showing up in the way that I want you to.

So, how do we shift to the more we're made for?

Well, especially in the midst of the storm.

God uses storms in our life to shift us back to the more we're made for.

God uses storms.

Now, it doesn't mean that he causes storms.

Certainly, we're going to talk about that because he hurled a storm onto Jonah and he did cause that.

So we're gonna wrestle with that.

But he uses storms to shift us back to the more we're made for.

See, God is not often the source of our storm or our pain, and yet God will not waste your pain.

In his sovereignty, he will say, in the midst of a broken, fallen, tragic world, still, I can turn and use that painful moment and bring about good results.

You know, a passage that I think gets thrown around too quickly when people are going through deep pain and yet dismissed too quickly because we just we don't fully believe it.

It's Romans 8.28.

For I know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose.

Now, do you know the context of Romans 8.28?

The context of Romans 8.28 is just before that, the apostle Paul is talking about that earth is eagerly and groaning as if in child pains and is suffering, awaiting for Jesus to restore and make all things right, that this world is not what it should be.

And then it also says that the saints are suffering and wrestling and hurting and awaiting for Christ to return and restore all things.

And Paul would even say that this light and momentary affliction is nothing compared to the eternal glory awaiting us.

And I know in all things that God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.

Not that that moment was good, not that that act against you was good, not that that evil thing, that trial, that storm, that sickness, not that in any way that is good, but you have such a good God, he can take that evil and that harm, and he says, over the course, I will work it for good, I will take ashes and turn it into beauty, because I'm that kind of God.

Romans 8 ends this way.

If God is for us, who can be against us?

For I am convinced that neither life nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, height, depth, nothing in all created will ever separate us from the love of God.

That nothing that comes into your life can separate you from the love of God.

See, God uses storms in our life to shift us back to the more we're made for.

I mean, did he he hurled this one?

And I think it's incredibly important that we are able to discern, okay, where are the storms, where are these coming from?

There's four, uh, this is really a theology of suffering.

There's four primary areas where we experience the storms or suffering in our life.

The first is the storm of a fallen world, Genesis 3.

Uh we see the fall that God created, Genesis 1 and 2, the world and everything in it.

And you know what he said at the end of each creative act?

And it was, help me out, anybody?

Good.

It was good because he's good.

And then in Genesis 3, humanity decide to do our own thing, rebel against him.

Sin entered the world.

It's like a cancer, not only of our soul and of humanity, but of the entire world, created fractures and frissions that have just so brought about a world that is not his heart or desire or his intents.

Much the way kind of rust is to metal or rot to a tree, sin has created this devastation on God's creation.

And we live in a fallen, broken world where we have experienced natural disasters, where we have evil rulers, where uh we see all over things that happen.

And first and foremost, this is not his design and his original intents.

1 Peter 5, 8 through 9 says, uh, but be alert, your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Now, in the ancient day, like I said, everyone, um they immediately, every physical reality had a spiritual cause, every natural uh action had a supernatural cause behind it.

In our day, we completely disconnect it altogether.

So we've gone the other way.

There is no spiritual or supernatural anything, and we dismiss it completely.

And yet there is a spiritual realm just as real as our earthly realm or physical or visible realm.

And scriptures tells us, as followers of Jesus, we have an enemy that's prowling around like a roaring lion.

He wants to devour you.

He wants to take you out, he wants you to be ineffective.

He does not want you to live into the more you're made for.

Did you ever wonder like what could be about?

Right?

You're like, what why did work ramp up so intense?

What happened here?

What all of sudden you're starting to make, you know what?

I I really want to honor God in my relationships, and then that sin that has been besetting you, it rises up so quickly, and you're like, oh my gosh, or or you have this attitude, heart thing that's going on.

You're like, where did that come from?

Maybe in your marriage you're really going, like, man, I I want to really work and have a godly marriage, and then all of a sudden you're finding you're in disagreement and argument.

You're like, wait a second, we're all we're gonna do is start praying together.

The storm of spiritual opposition.

And often we don't identify it until we look back and see, oh, there was more there.

Whether there's disagreements or disunity, the enemy wants to provide distraction.

I think one of the ways the enemy keeps us uh blinded in Silicon Valley is busyness.

He just keeps us too busy.

If the devil can't make you bad, he'll make you busy.

It's an old saying.

Or derail you in some sin.

Storm of fallen worlds, storm of spiritual opposition, then the storm of bad decisions.

Galatians 6 tells us that we reap what we sow.

The one who sows to please the flesh from the fresh reaps destruction.

The one who sows to please the spirit from the spirit reaps life.

So often we blame God.

God, how could you?

And yet it was our own bad decision.

You were speeding, and that's why you got a ticket.

Right?

You're you're eating terrible, and that's why, okay, I won't go down too many, but we just make bad decisions.

And we suffer the consequences.

And in a fallen world, because it's a fallen world, we suffer the consequences of other people's bad decisions.

Certainly was the sailors' experience.

And for many, you've either experienced the consequences of your bad decisions, of a broken relationship, of a broken friendship, or the consequences of someone else's bad decisions.

And God says, I will not waste your pain.

I want to bring healing and wholeness in you back to myself.

And then the final, and the I think the hardest to discern is the storm of God's discipline.

Hebrews 12 would tell us to do not um like oh, the word just went out of my mind.

Despise the discipline of God.

Why?

Because God disciplines those he loves, because he's a good father.

In the same way, when my kids were little, if they were running out into the street, I would discipline them to cause momentary pain here to keep them from long-term, devastating pain and destruction.

And you have a perfect heavenly father that when you're headed in the wrong direction, when you're making some of those bad decisions, he certainly will allow those consequences to come into your life to be a wake-up call so that you will turn to him and experience life because he loves you.

In fact, it's the most loving thing he could do.

See, God uses the storms in our life.

In many of the cases, he doesn't cause them, but he works in them and through them to shift us back to the more we're made for.

I think sometimes we're looking at the storm you're walking through and go, well, which one is it?

Fallen world, spiritual opposition?

Can it be a combination?

Certainly.

Certainly, there are times where almost all of these are at play, or a few of them.

How important is it to know exactly which one?

Well, I think the question that the sailors asked is so important that we should ask of God.

You remember what they asked?

What should we do?

What should we do?

God, I'm in the middle of the storm.

I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm confident you won't waste this storm, and you're actively at work in my life.

And so, what should I do right now?

God, I'm in the middle of a storm.

I'm not really sure why or what's going on, but but I'm confident that you will not waste the storm, that you're using it, and it's not gonna shipwreck me, and it's not gonna take me off course, but you actually want to shift me and on course to what you're doing.

So, what should I do?

And you just begin to lean into him and he will show you.

God will use every painful event in our life.

He does not cause every painful event, and yet he will use it for us to become more and more like his son.

I think the question as we close is where is God in the middle of the storm?

I don't know what you're walking through, what you're wrestling with, and how deep the pain and heartache.

But I think that's what we really wrestle with is God, where are you?

In the Gospels, there's an account of Jesus in the middle of the storm.

And it's uh fascinating the parallels.

If Jonah gets to be the anti-hero, this young bear is what you ought not to do, then we see Jesus, the ultimate prophet, the son of God, and we look to him of this is who he is, and what he is doing and how he's working.

In Mark chapter four, it begins this way, and we discover the God in the middle of the storm.

Said that day when evening came, he said to the disciples, Let us go over to the other side.

Hey, we're headed, we're gonna go to the other side.

Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along just as he was.

He had spent a very long, exhausting day of ministry in the boat.

There were also other boats with him.

A furious squall came up.

It wasn't hurled, but there was a furious squall on the Sea of Galilee, and waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.

Now, here's some of the parallels.

Jesus was in the stern sleeping on the cushion.

And the disciples woke him up and said to him, Teacher, don't you care if we drown?

And isn't that the question?

In the middle of the storms of life, in the middle of the pain, in the middle of the heartache, in the middle of the diagnosis, teacher, Jesus, don't you care?

Because Jonah went below deck, and his was a sleep of apathy, a sleep of indifference, a sleep of, I don't care about me, and I don't care about anything else, or particularly you.

And that's what we interpret God, especially in the storm when he feels silent or distant.

Disciples, don't you care?

Like, how can you sleep in the middle of this?

The storm is raging.

Jesus was asleep for a different reason.

It wasn't apathy.

See, Jonah worshiped the God who made the land and the sea.

Jesus is the God who made the land and the sea.

Jonah needed to be hurled into the ocean to calm the sea.

Jesus just speaks and is still.

And immediately it's calm.

And the disciples' response was the same even as the sailors, and they were terrified, going, Who is this?

That even the wind and the waves obey him.

See, Jesus' sleep wasn't a sleep of apathy, but it was ultimate peace.

Why?

Because he fundamentally has all authority.

And he told his disciples on the front end, we're gonna go to the other side.

And so he didn't say there's not gonna be storms along the way.

But what he did say, we are going to the other side.

And as long as I'm in the boat with you, regardless of the weather outside you, regardless of how big the waves get, regardless of how strong the wind blows, you are good because my presence is enough in the boats.

I'm with you.

See he was asleep of peace, not apathy.

Because he was in full control, even though the outside felt uncontrollable.

And what would it be if we began to take our cues from Jesus instead of the storm?

If we began to look to him and how he's responding, realizing he can just utter a word, and it stills.

God, if you're at peace, if you're not shaken, in the wind and the waves, I can be at peace and unshaken.

Where is God in the middle of the storm?

He's with you.

He's in the boat.

As a follower of Jesus, he's with you.

He's not indifferent, he cares.

He's just not shook.

I'm gonna bring you through this.

Nothing in all created things, nothing that comes into your life, physical or spiritual, will ever separate you from my love.

And that's all that matters.

And that's enough.

No, it's more than enough in any storm of life.

You know, as we close, I think one of the areas that has been a storm for many is the storm of doubt.

Where you just wrestle with God, and you know, if you look at TikToks and there's a whole if you type in deconstruction, I don't even know if you should do this, but deconstructing Christianity, you'll just find a whole nother world.

Many of you already know it.

But you go, okay, where is God in the middle of my doubt?

What do I do with that?

When I was at Moody, studying to be a pastor, newly married, went through what some over Christian history would call like the dark night of the soul.

Today we'd call it deconstructing your faith.

Back then, I really didn't have a whole lot of language, it's just called doubt.

Growing up in the church, and then having my life transformed by Jesus, my senior year of high school, like I shared last week.

You would think, like, oh, Ryan's never struggled or doubted.

And yet the waves of doubt hit my life so strongly.

What I was studying, leading into higher critical thinking and higher criticism, biblical criticism, that just created all this swirling doubt.

And I had this crisis of a faith.

Now, here, think about this.

I'm studying to be a pastor, and I don't even know if I believe in God anymore.

And I'm asking all the existential questions and going like, oh my goodness.

And I felt like if I was to utter my doubt, I would have betrayed my family and this brand new bride.

So I kept it to myself.

And I just wrestled and wrestled and wrestled.

For months.

And honestly, I was afraid to ask some of the questions because I was afraid I didn't have a God big enough for the questions.

You there?

There's some of those things that you maybe you grew up in church, and so you're like, yeah, I don't know if we have an answer.

One day I got to the end.

Because it meant a whole trajection and life change.

It was like, okay, I God, if you're real, I need you to show up.

And if you're not, I'm done.

I'm out.

I'm which meant I'm gonna find a different career.

I'm gonna tell my wife that she didn't marry a man of God.

Tell my family.

It was like felt the heaviest of weights.

I remember going to a coffee shop downtown Chicago, and I took the Bible, did the thing that you tell people not to do.

I just said, God, if you're real, show me.

And he showed up.

He showed up, like I started reading, and it's in Isaiah, and it was like the words just left off the page, and God's like, no, no, no.

Even in your darkness, even in your doubting, even in your wandering, I am real and I will show myself to you.

If you search for me, you'll be found by me, says his word.

It was such a journey back.

I walked onto my campus at Moody and went to the president of the university.

I had a friendship with him, and he was the first person that I shared my doubt with.

An older wise mentor.

It was amazing.

As he began to counsel me, share his story, and all of a sudden I wasn't alone.

And he was signing a book, one of his books, to send out to donors called The Trouble with Jesus.

And I just took that book and I just ate it up, and I just was good.

It was like I'm starting my relationship with Jesus all over again, starting from the ground up.

And I and I just want to say for those who are here that are wrestling, that are doubting, that are deconstructing, you have a God big enough for every question.

Don't suffer silently.

He will be found by you as you search for him.

God, I just pray for my friends.

As the storms knock and rage around us.

God, I pray for those that are just walking through just such painful, life-altering storms, that the trajectory of their life's gonna look different.

That you're with them, would you meet them?

That you're not shook by it.

Would you walk closely with them?

Would you encourage them?

That you're with them and nothing will separate them from your love.

God, I pray for those that are walking through the storms of their own making.

This moment would be a moment of repentance, a moment of saying, God, I'm sorry, I'm turning to you, I'm stopping that.

Just that like wake-up call.

I've been blaming you, but it's really my fault.

God, right now, I just pray for those that have been doubting.

Those that felt like if they even spoke that they might fall completely away from you.

Would you right now reveal yourself, speak to them, surround them, accept, meet them so personally.

Thank you.

That you do not waste, but you work in the midst of our pain.

Now we're confident that you will take all things and turn them into good for the though for those who are called according to your purpose.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

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