Trusting God in Suffering: Is He Still Good When This Isn’t? Laura Story

Laura Story: Christianity is the only religion that's based on what someone else has done on our behalf. So, I would say just exhale for a moment and realize as much as I'd love to give you a to-do list, maybe the first step really is that Psalm 46: "Be still and know." Cease striving and know that I am God. Know that in a deep soul-resting way, in the fact that He is God and I am not.
Dave Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.
Ann Wilson: And I'm Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is FamilyLife Today. Hey, it's been great having some time off, which is not really time off.
Dave Wilson: The knees are healing. I'm starting to walk. It's been a little bit relaxing over the last few days. But what's really even better?
Ann Wilson: Having time off while still listening to all the great guests that are coming on the show.
Dave Wilson: Bingo. I can't wait to hear what Sheryl and Laura Story will be discussing today. Laura is the best.
Ann Wilson: We love her.
Laura Story: I'll often say you can't always choose what you walk through, but you can always choose how you walk through it. So, if you feel like you're not in control of what's happening with your health or any of these things, we can choose to continue to trust God and in many ways revere Him. An example of not doing that, I think about a woman in our church who was unhappily married for 20 years. Her husband was unfaithful, just a sad story. They divorced and then she spent the next 20 years bitter and resentful. So, you look at it and think she basically had 40 years of unhappiness. In her not being willing to let go and forgive and trust that God is writing a good story, even though it had some hard pieces, things that none of us would wish upon anyone. I think that reverence is also looking at the hard path that the Lord has led us down. A lot of people have just devastating stories from their childhood. How do we trust the God that allowed that? I don't have all the answers for that. But I do know just because sin shows up in a certain part of our story, it doesn't mean that God is any less good. I was at an event in Houston, Texas, doing this benefit concert for the victims of this flood that had come through, and so many people had lost so much. This woman walks right up to me and she goes, "So, why does God allow bad things to happen?" I'm like, "Wow. Is there a theologian around here that can answer this?" But what I was able to say to her was that would take a long time for me to even try to explain and I'd still do it poorly. But the two things I see in Scripture, I see two answers that the Lord gives us from His word. One is in Romans 5, where it talks about sin entering the world through the fall. So, yeah, God is not the author of evil. But that's not the only answer we see. We also see John 9 where this man is born blind. The disciples are like, "Whose fault is this?" and Jesus says he was born blind that the works of God might be displayed. So, I think there's something in there with revering God and seeing that even though He is not the author of evil. Joni Eareckson Tada is one of my favorite people ever. Something she has said before that I just hid in my heart was "God often uses that which He hates to accomplish that which He loves." That's where we revere God in just trusting Him to say I didn't see my story going this way. I didn't see my marriage, my family, my career going this direction, Lord, but I have to trust that You are sovereign and that You are working this together for good even when it doesn't feel good. And that's reverence. I was born with congenital nevi, and my response to that when you become self-aware and you're like, "Okay, I'm different," was to hide and I wanted to stay hidden. I thought we could do all the things that God wants me to do, but let's not do that out front. Let's do that in writing, in coaching, in talking to people. But what we're not going to do is get in front of people and say here I am with all of my imperfections on display. Like you would never do a podcast or anything with a microphone. Why in the world would we do that? But I remember when the Lord spoke to me, "I've called you to write and teach," and just impressed upon my heart that through you I will get glory. You're not to focus on how you look, how you appear to people, just love God and love people. That's all I want you to do, and do it with the gifts and talents and calling that I've given you and let me do the rest. There was a time in my life where I didn't know if I would ever get married. I've been married twice. I was divorced. I had such a sweet season with the Lord through that period. I have been married to an amazing man for the last 18 years. Very well loved despite my imperfections, maybe even because of. I can see God's wisdom when I think about what I could have been without these imperfections. I have asked Him for healing and like Paul, He has said, "No, my grace is sufficient for you." I'm grateful now, but I wasn't for a long time because it's a struggle to get to the point where you can say, "God, I accept not just that this thing that has happened to me or this thing that's a part of who I am, part of my makeup, part of my story, did happen, but that You're going to work good out of it and You decided not to act because that was the best for me at the time." That's a hard pill towards reverence to swallow. Paul is such a rockstar, but he says the craziest stuff. I was talking about Romans 5. One of my favorite verses is when he starts talking about rejoicing in your suffering because at first you're like, "What in the world?" But he goes on to say because suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint. A few years ago I just had a bit of a lightbulb moment when I realized, and I think of it in the context of my kids, that it's not the vacation Bible school that I'm sending my kids to that is producing character in them. The Lord uses that. It's not even the Scripture memory that I'm making them do. It's not the Sunday school attendance. The Lord uses all of that. But if they just did those things in a perfect world that I created and curated for them, protecting them from any sort of harm or suffering, then the Lord would not be using the right ingredients to do the work that He desires to do in the life of my kids and in my life as well. So, again back to reverence, it's revering the Lord to say the Lord knew that my daughter Josie would have a father with a brain injury that would have a vision deficit and a memory deficit and that he would have seasons of stepping back because of his health. The Lord knew that. At first, Josie's 13 now, so maybe 10 years ago I began to see how the disability in our family was affecting the children. Both my husband and I had lots of fear and anxiety about that. But here we are 10 years later and things are not easier in any way. But I can honestly say I am seeing my kids grow in their character and in their endurance. It's exactly like Paul says it. I'm seeing that develop in them because of how they are applying the truths of God that they're learning with their real-life hardships. And that has been a beautiful thing to see.
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Laura Story: I do want to ask you to pray for the people who are listening, for them to be transformed by recognizing God's faithfulness and goodness. But before we do that, I know that there's somebody that's listening that's like, "You know, that sounds great for you and that sounds great for Sheryl. But I read my word and I don't get reverencing God. I am in this situation and I don't understand why He's not showing up for me." I can't believe when I read in the Scripture where David says that I would have fainted if I hadn't believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I'm in the land of the living and I see no goodness here. What can that person do to begin to see God with new eyes? I think first of all, I know you used the word "do," and there is an aspect of action on our part, but just remembering that God, that's one of the things that's different about our religion per se than other religions is that other religions are based on what we do for some God or some entity, some deity. In Christianity, to my knowledge, is the only religion that's based on what someone else has done on our behalf. So, I would say, dear brother or sister, just exhale for a moment and realize as much as I'd love to give you a to-do list of things to do to grow in this area, maybe the first step really is that Psalm 46: "Be still and know." Cease from striving and know that I am God and know it's not like an intellectual know, it's like a deep soul-resting in the fact that He is God and I am not. I think that's a good first step. I'd say the other thing, all of the stuff we've talked about today is not meant to be done outside of community. We have to believe that even though our relationship with the Lord begins as a personal relationship with the Lord, that's about the only thing personal. It is an interpersonal faith. He calls us to a body. When He calls us the bride of Christ, He's not talking about you're my bride and you're my bride. He's not a polygamist. He is married to the church, and it's just this reminder of how much we need each other. When we're having those hard seasons, I had someone come up to me after church and they said, "Hey, I'm going through a really hard season and I don't know if I should be singing this song, like you're singing the song about the goodness of God. 'All my life You've been faithful, all my life You've been so, so good.' I don't even know if I should be singing that because I just don't believe it." And I was able to say to them, "No, no, no, it's when we don't believe it, that's when we need to sing it all the more." And not just us singing it, and even if you are at the place where you can't sing it, that's why you still come to church and you allow your brothers and sisters to sing it over you and believe for you until, as the Lord is doing that deep work of restoring your own faith.
Ann Wilson: That's so good, Laura. Would you pray for that person?
Laura Story: I'd love that. Thank you. Father, we know that You are near to the brokenhearted. You're near to those who are crushed in spirit. You are a God who weeps with Your people and deeply feels those emotions and even a God that calls us like we see in the Psalms to be honest with You. I think about David saying, "How long, O Lord, will You forget us forever?" You delight when we come to You with our honesty, but You are not a God that leaves us there. You are a God who does that beautiful work of restoring our faith because our faith was never built upon our own efforts. Our faith was never based on the amount of Bible studies we did or the Christian track record we have. It's only based on Your faithfulness and ultimately the work of Christ on the cross for us. So, I pray that that dear brother or sister right now would feel Your spirit and if they don't, that they would surround themselves both with Your word and Your people until they do. We pray it all in the name of Jesus, amen.
Ann Wilson: Amen. Okay, so Laura, we talked a lot about how reverence impacts us individually. But how does it impact us as a married couple? How does it work for our marriage?
Laura Story: I don't think it's just a coincidence that people get married in churches. I think when you get married, you're coming before the Lord and you're making vows to each other, but in many ways you're making vows to Him. Marriage was His idea in the first place. I always envision a marriage, people say it is between two people and it's like, yeah, it's between two people with God in the center and a whole lot of other people surrounding you pushing you towards each other constantly. And that's what our marriage has been like, at least. But ultimately it's the vows we take before the Lord because it can't just be about how much I love my spouse. I think about Martin and I, we were just giddy happy when we got married. But as everyone knows, you don't just stay giddy happy for 22 years. But really what holds a marriage together is that commitment that we make to the Lord. So, in many ways it's the reverence towards God that holds our marriages together. I'll tell you another interesting story. We hit a really rough patch about five years in, and I'll never forget we're sitting there with a marriage counselor. To help you understand kind of what was so tough, Martin's unable to drive, unable to work. So, we're sitting there and he's frustrated with me that I get to work. And I'm frustrated with him that I have to work. Or he's frustrated with me that he doesn't get to drive, and I'm frustrated that he can't drive and I have to drive all the time. So, there's all this frustration. I'll never forget the counselor asking us, he said, "If I was to ask you guys what's the biggest problem in your marriage, what would you say?" And we both immediately said: "Martin's brain injury." It's the only thing we'd agreed on in months was Martin's brain injury was the biggest problem in our marriage. And the counselor goes, "Wrong." He said, "The biggest problem in your marriage is your sin. The biggest problem in your marriage is your selfishness, both of you." And once we began to see marriage as an opportunity to die to self, and that's a huge part of reverence is this humbly coming before the Lord, acknowledging Him as not only God, but God over every relationship in our life, every aspect of every relationship in our life, I think that was a big turning point for us and really how reverence has played a big role in our marriage.
Ann Wilson: I am thinking about the person who has a spouse that is a non-believer or a spouse who maybe isn't willing to deal with trauma or triggers or to sit down with a counselor and hear that your problem is really sin. How does reverence from one spouse impact a marriage? How can it?
Laura Story: Well, first of all, just acknowledging what your job is in your marriage. You are not responsible for saving your spouse. We have a Messiah to do that. God is the one that draws hearts, and so acknowledging what our role is and what our role isn't. We cannot nag him into the kingdom. That is not a great strategy. But our role is showing in the way that we live, showing just the beauty of God and the holiness of God and the trustworthiness of God in the way that we revere Him. Whether that's through the habits we've talked about, church, God's word, prayer, things like that, our goal, honestly, is to make an unbelieving spouse curious. And when they see a transformed life, then they become curious. So, Martin and I, I became a Christian before he did and he just began to see something different about me. And I've heard so many stories because the truth is a believer makes a better spouse. Whether they believe it or not, they're seeing aspects of your joy that's not tethered to circumstances, your respect for them, not because they're necessarily acting in a respectful way, but because the Lord's commanded us to respect our spouses. They're seeing different ways that the Holy Spirit is changing your heart, and that becomes the testimony. It's been a real privilege to be with the folks at FamilyLife Today, and it was nice that they asked me to share a song, just an old hymn that has formed my life in the area of reverence. (Singing) Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty God in three persons, blessed Trinity Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore Thee Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee Which wert and art and evermore shalt be Holy, holy, holy, though the darkness hide Thee Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see Only Thou art holy, there is none beside Thee Perfect in power, in love, in purity Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty All Thy works shall praise Thy name in earth and sky and sea Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty God in three persons, blessed Trinity God in three persons, blessed Trinity
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