"With Feeling!"
EPISODE 176
Point Yourself Toward God
What’s the problem with advice that starts with, “All you have to do is just ...”? How are our struggles like epic beetle battles? And how do we find our special hiding place in God? In this week’s Jesus Said, we draw encouragement from the Lord’s words to Peter as he sank into the sea. And we set Poetry in Motion with two psalms that repeat the refrain, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?” (Ps. 42 & 43). Then in our Reach Out segment, we talk about the quicksand in our own lives, from obsessing over sickness and death to spiraling in our doubts and relationship struggles. The big theme of the episode is God’s faithfulness and strength to deliver, and it’s a message worth returning to again and again. Find the study guide and videos for this series at biblegeeks.fm/talkingtoyourself.
Takeaways
The Big Idea: God can calm our fears, anxieties, and crippling uncertainties.
This Week's Challenge: Lift someone up by offering them an encouraging word.
Episode Transcription
It's like one more time with feeling, you know, it's coming back around to it. Well, hello everyone and welcome to Bible Geeks Podcast. This is episode 176. I'm Bryan Schiele. I'm Ryan Joy. And thanks so much everyone for tuning in. The word I love to use is penultimate and this is in fact the penultimate episode in our guided study here. Talking to yourself that we started last week, we're gonna end Lord Willing next week, and it's only a three session guided study, so this is right in the middle, second to last. Well we've covered where we find this episode now. Boy, we got to pen ultimate quickly, didn't we? We did, we sure did, yeah absolutely. Last week of course we did talk about telling ourselves the truth. It is kind of a big subject. Thinking about our thinking is a challenging thing, and if you were challenged by last week's episode. You are not alone, I was as well. Amen. We are gonna get here into the second episode and that is really a conversation focused on finding hope and I think this is a good place to round out this conversation because like we said last week if we left it there it might be pretty heavy and now we're gonna focus on this conversation starter that we dropped not too long ago and that was called Escape the Quagmire. This is talking to yourself. Escape the quagmire. Quicksand looks solid until you step into it. Suddenly, you find yourself stuck and sinking. To escape the quagmire, you have to avoid flailing. Shed excess weight and grab a helping hand. Desperation can lead to abrupt movements, but it makes you sink even further. We can react to the constant noise in our heads and our feelings of despair in the same way by busying ourselves and flailing about. But that just digs us deeper. In these moments, we have to lay aside every burden, as the Hebrew writer says in Hebrews 12 verse 1, and point ourselves toward God, who always stands on firm ground. So here's the big idea. God can calm our fears, anxieties, and crippling uncertainties. When the storm rages and turmoil within you, remember how Peter reached out to Jesus and cried out, "Lord, save me!" as he began to sing. The Psalms often mirror our sense of drowning in a chaotic sea. Thankfully, they don't leave us there. Consider the identical endings of Psalm 42 and Psalm 43, when the psalmist says, "Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation." Psalm 42 verse 11 and Psalm 43 verse 5. "Why are you cast down, O my soul?" he asks. He wants to understand his despair. The word "cast down" can suggest "sinking" or "melting away." That sinking feeling. If you've felt troubled or down in the dumps, you get it. The psalmist takes responsibility for himself. He says to himself, "Hey, you've forgotten the one fact that could get you through this. You've forgotten who God is." When we have this kind of conversation with ourselves, we learn to lift our downcast chins and force our eyes upwards. Wishing can't do much, but when we hope in the one we know is able to save us, it can pull us back onto solid ground. So here's the big question. What concerns rage inside you and have you reached out to God for rescue? So follow along with this guided study at BibleGeeks.fm/talkingtoyourself and may the Lord bless you and keep you today. Shalom. The big idea we talked about there is that God can calm our fears, anxieties, and crippling uncertainties. I think crippling uncertainties was a Bryanism. You're probably right. It paints, I think, an accurate picture of what our doubts and our fears can do. And the other word that paints a helpful picture for me is calm. God can calm our anxieties, like Jesus in the boat on a raging sea. So we're going to talk about that story in this episode as well. But what was the big question there? Yeah, so the big question that we rounded that thing out with was what concerns rage inside you and have you reached out to God for rescue? And I thought it was really interesting. The first thing that came to mind when I was thinking about this question was an episode of an Apple TV plus show that we watched a while back called Tiny World. And Paul Rudd was the narrator, who you all will know as Ant-Man. They showed these two beetles that were sitting on a log and they were fighting with each other. There's like big horned beetles and there's this dramatic music that's swelling behind them and they're really trying to knock each other off the log. And it's this massive battle that's going on all zoomed in and macro photography and everything like that. And then one of the beetles lifts the other beetle up in the air, just fully in the air and the music is swelling. And then all of a sudden they zoom out and you see just these two little tiny beetles on this log and the music gets really quiet. And I thought about the hilarity of that moment when in their world that battle seems so huge. But if you zoom out, I mean, it really is nothing in the grand scheme of things. On the surface, our inner lives, the conversations that we have with ourselves and all of our struggles, they can seem so huge. And they are huge. Not to diminish what we're going through, but when we hand these things over to God and wouldn't we ask him for guidance and strength and support? God is a zoomed out God and he sees things in a much bigger and broader way than we do and it's no problem at all for God to take care of the small things that we bring to him even though to us I think they seem quite large and so that is really the question when we face these difficulties are we bringing these kinds of things to God? There's an old song, pop song called "From a Distance" like God is watching us from a distance And God has this perspective. God can see what it means inside us. He's close to us. He's drawn near. But He also can see the big picture of how this fits into the scheme of things. He can see the future, how it's going to be resolved. He can understand the truth of each person's heart and all of those things. So if we cling to Him, even if we can't see it all, if we can trust that He does, I think that's a really good, helpful way to present that. That can help us find hope. And as we get into this episode, as we have done for a while and we're going to continue to do today, we're going to present each other with an icebreaker question, a little silly way to start this thing out. And the question we're going to ask each other here on the episode is, what comfort food do you reach for when you're down in the dumps? Ryan, whenever you're down there, what are you eating? Down there, I like to find something hearty and warm. I find I like a beef stew. Oh, wow. Chili, like I would probably go for some diner food, maybe a pot roast, you know. That is the exact opposite of a food I would expect somebody to eat and down in the dumps condition. Like I'm thinking Haagen-Dazs or something like that, but no pot roast. Yeah, that's my craving. I see you. For me, it's two words. It is French fries. Those are the things that I reach for most. I could demolish a plate of crispy hot salty French fries. Whenever I'm not feeling super great, there is nothing better than a deep fried spear of potato in my opinion. - See, I would throw some chili on that and maybe we're talking now. - Yeah, put some pot roast on the side, all right. All right, so let's move on to our first segment here on the episode. Really the most important segment, I think, of all these things is to go back to what Jesus said about this topic and Jesus has some things to say in Matthew chapter 14 verse 31 about the way that we have hope in times of trouble. - Well, and this is in that moment when Peter was stepping out, out of the boat in the midst of all the waves and everything and coming towards Jesus and he starts to sink. He cries out, "Save me." And it says in verse 31, "Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him saying to him, 'Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt?'" So as we think about sinking in the quagmire, sinking in the waves and that sinking feeling, as we said in the conversation starter, it seems helpful to imagine this picture, what it must have been like for Peter to have Jesus grab hold of him. And then these words that Jesus said, "Why did you doubt?" So where does that take you? - Yeah, I think a lot of people give Peter a hard time for his reaction and obviously Jesus' response to him here. But who else is gonna be brave enough out of the disciples to ask to get out of the boat? Can I meet you on the water? I mean, that is a pretty faithful question there. Peter is the one who has enough faith to step out of the boat. I certainly would not have, But it really does highlight to me even the power of what Jesus goes on to say next. Because in light of these immediate threats that he's facing, despite all the incredible highs that he's just experienced, now we know that he is not impervious to these unspeakable lows of his faith. Just one right after another, he's got a peak of faith and then all of a sudden it just drops as he begins to sink out of fear. And it's, I think, Paul's encouragement in Ephesians 4 verse 14. We talked about being tossed about by every wind of doctrine. You can be strong and faithful, but then something comes along and knocks you off course. So you go from here to there to here again. And that's what we see from Peter. He is not a very consistent disciple at this point. He's having trouble staying the course. And Jesus keeps giving him opportunities to trust in him. He does rescue him as he's failing. Now, is Jesus frustrated? I'm sure he is. I'm sure Jesus is pretty frustrated in his lack of faith and his doubting. Why did you doubt? You could just hear that sense or that tone from Jesus that he wanted more from Peter. And for me, that might have been my response. I might have done the same thing in that case to see all of the concerns raging around you when there's an immediate and clear threat to you. I think it is probably even more powerful than all the things you know and all the evidence you have. Sometimes we throw all that evidence and all that trust and everything else, the stories that we've built up about something. We throw them out the window sometimes so quickly when we're faced with these kinds of immediate dangers. And I don't know, Jesus rescued him, he saved him, and that's awesome. But I don't really fault him too much. We've all been there. I've certainly been there. And it's amazing how Jesus does still reach out his hand to him in this moment. And Peter surely never forgot that moment. In a lifetime of moments, there are days that you just forget and never remember. But when Jesus reaches out his hand and grabs you as you're sinking into the water, that shows up with you all your life. I think so. Yeah. And what a reassuring picture because that's what he's doing for us all the time. As you said, I was thinking about this phrase, "Oh, you of little faith." I noticed that it's only used a handful of times. Here he asks Peter, "Why do you doubt, O you of little faith?" And then a little earlier on when Jesus was asleep in the middle of the storm in the boat, he asks almost the same question. He says, "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" in Matthew 8 26. But he also speaks to us, all disciples, in the more ordinary moments of our lives, which can sometimes feel like stormy seas he says in Matthew 6 verse 30 but if God so closed the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven will he not much more clothe you oh you of little faith therefore do not be anxious and so in the storm oh you of little faith Peter sinking oh you of little faith and us whenever we're overwhelmed with our anxieties about the daily things of life, oh you of little faith if we don't find our trust in Him. And it's just helpful, kind of metaphorically I guess, that picture of Jesus sitting in that boat or Jesus reaching out to Peter, you know, that idea of Jesus being with you in the midst of the storm, he's really asking Peter why. I mean, he says, why do you doubt? This doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make sense to be afraid whenever Jesus is right there. And Jesus is still with us and He's caring for us. He's trustworthy just like He was then. There's a song that we sing. I think it's the second verse. I love this verse. It says, "Be still, my soul. The winds and waves still know His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below." Jesus is still in control. Jesus has as much power now in our lives as He did over some water molecules or whatever else was going on back in those days. just a good reminder that the Lord is trustworthy. And really I guess that kind of leads us into our second segment here, which is Poetry in Motion. So again, we are going back to the Psalms. And if you were involved in the reading that we suggested last week, you will know where we're going here. We're going to Psalm 42 and Psalm 43. These two Psalms are, I would say they're basically one Psalm. They're so intertwined with each other. the first two Psalms of book two of the Psalms. And so as we break these things down, I think what we're gonna see is this constant sense of calling out to God and trusting in Him even when a lot of stuff is going bad around us. Absolutely. They are meant to be read together, as you can see from the refrain that we'll see appearing in both of these Psalms. And the main point of this first section here in verses one to two is this longing to be close to God. He says, "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?" And those words, pants and thirsts, it's this picture of his life having gone bone dry as he has this desire that nothing will quench but coming before God. And the lesson that I take from this is what a privilege it is to worship God. This is written by one of the sons of Korah who were worship leaders in the temple, but it seems like he's not near the temple. He's far up north near Mount Hermon as we see in verse 6 and he longs to worship God in his temple again. But of course we can worship God from right where we are. And so what a gift that is because we were made to glorify God. were made to draw near to Him in fellowship and devotion and praise. And so it shouldn't surprise us when we find joy and peace and all the things that the psalmist here is longing for that we find it in worshiping God. Worshiping God, we do it for His glory, but there's this benefit that we find, this kind of secondary benefit of finding our place in the world because that's what we're here to do, whether through our obedience or acts of service or just declaring how good he is. So he has this sorrow that seems to be giving him a deep longing. What is the source of all that sorrow? - There are a lot of people around this psalmist who are mocking him, they're mocking God, and the whole thing is just making the psalmist mournful. Of course we could understand and put ourselves in his situation. If he is in fact away from his home and people are giving him a hard time and making life difficult for him, I think we could imagine a scenario where we would also be sorrowful beyond imagination. And so he says, "My tears have been my food day and night while they say to me all day long, 'Where is your God?' These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down, oh my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God. My soul is cast down within me, therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon from Mount Mazar." And that's in Psalm 42 verses 3 to 6. We see this oppression that he's going through. There are people who are giving him a hard time. They're calling on God, almost mocking God, and it's causing him a lot of real anxiety and sorrow over this whole thing. And so I I think we see in these first few verses here about his cast down nature. He feels cast down. And I think that fits in with the quagmire mentality, right? And the sinking in the sea. He feels like he's drowning. He feels like he's at the bottom. And so this is actually the first of three times in these two Psalms that we see this phrase and these verses be repeated. He obviously does see that God is his salvation. So at least there's a silver lining there at some level, but everything surrounding hit this question, like, why are you cast down, oh my soul? You could see why. I mean, you could really connect with him and understand what he might be going through. And so we see much more clearly that when there are these people around us who are pointing the finger at us or trying to get us to move off course or they're making fun of God, that can be really discouraging to people and to us. And so for me, I see this story of a man who is like standing alone in his faith and wants to worship God, but nobody around him is supporting him in that. And so where does he take his water theme or this drowning theme next in this psalm? His longing for spiritual water, which was thirst before, has led his imagination, I guess, from the desert to waterfalls and seas, where he now feels like he's, like you said, sinking and drowning. He says in verse 7, "Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me." I'm just being thrown about. There's waterfalls on top of me. There's seas and waves all over me. He's being beaten down. Yeah, he is being beaten down and he feels like he can't keep his head above water, it seems like. But then we get to verse 8 and it's like his faith persists. I have this picture of a fist thrusting out of the waves as he keeps defiantly fighting to hold on to God and hold on to his trust in him whenever the troubles seem overwhelming. He says, "By day the Lord commands his steadfast love." He commands his steadfast love. That's a really cool phrase. And at night, his song is with me, "A Prayer to the God of my life." And so these songs of praise continue even in the night he finds himself in. And those words, day and night, we found them back in verse 3. His tears were his food day and night. But now he knows God's love is with him by day and his song is with him by night. And so it's the day and night theme is turned upside down. But like our thoughts tend to do, the psalmist returns to a familiar pattern here, right? Yeah, it sort of goes to what we were talking about last week and maybe even the week before that where At least I connect with what he's doing here where he loops He is repeating the same thing over and over again to himself And really the question I think he asks himself is are these people right? Where is god and as you tend to do the louder people are shouting at you You have to maybe wonder am I missing something? Are they actually right because he says I say to god my rock So there he's got this firm conviction and faith in the Lord. "Why have you forgotten me? "Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?" So he's wondering where God is, what's happening here. And he says, "As with a deadly wound in my bones, "my adversaries taunt me while they say to me all the day long, "where is your God? "Why are you cast down, oh my soul? "And why are you in turmoil within me? "Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, "my salvation and my God." So in verses 9 to 11 here of Psalm 42, he's repeating the same thing over again. And so he's asking himself why. He's asking God why. He really wants to know because he hopes in God. He trusts in God, but he doesn't understand what is happening to him. And he says, "I shall again praise him." He wants to know the answers. He wants to praise the Lord. He wants to worship God, but has God forgotten him? Should he continue all of this morning that he's been doing so long? And this is not a problem solved, let's just kind of move on Psalm. You know, so often, wouldn't it be nice if, oh yeah, all you got to do is just do whatever. And I am a little bit skeptical of anytime where somebody tells me, all you have to do is just fill in the blank, because they probably don't understand the nuance or the details. They're probably oversimplifying it, overgeneralizing it. For the Psalmist, he's grappling through this. He's got to roll it over in his mind meditating on it and thinking about this thought over and over and over again. And that's not a bad thing because we're going to see that eventually he comes to a very positive place with all of this. But now he's just trying to figure out what is happening here. So as the enemies are threatening him, where does he keep turning over and over again? Well, he turns to our defender and our stronghold. And I appreciate what you said about the way he's dealing with this issue. It is not a simple formula for salvation. - Three steps to make yourself happy. (laughing) - Nope. - It's not quite like that. The answer is God, if you wanna boil it down. And that is simple, or it's uncomplicated, I guess, in a way. But we said, I think in a previous conversation, maybe the last episode, that what we were talking about was very real. - Yeah, oh yeah. This psalm is very frank and honest. The psalmist works through just the trouble and difficulty that comes for a servant of God who wants to worship God, but is having a hard time holding on to his confidence and his hope whenever troubles are overwhelming him. And so he sees the troubles continue here in verses one and two of the next psalm, psalm 43. And it says, "Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me. For you are the God in whom I take refuge. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?" And you talked about the word rock. You are my rock. And then here he uses the word refuge. Like, you are my safe place. You are my fortress. And that word makes me think of that little tiny room at this cabin that my son likes to go in and hide out. It has this tiny little door and low ceilings and I think he just feels like he's found his own cozy cubby hole. I remember having hiding spots like that as a kid where I could hear people outside, but I felt like I was securely concealed and protected from everything outside of it. And the psalmist probably has a more secure mountain stronghold in mind, a real, obviously he wasn't thinking of a little room, but it's not a literal place he's going to flee to for protection. It's God. God is the stronghold. God is the hiding place. And if we're blameless in a matter, God knows, no matter who's lying about us, no matter who is slandering or pursuing us or whatever's going on, we stand or fall before God. And if nobody thinks much of us but God, we'll be alright. He can be our safe spot. He can see us through whatever difficulties come. And when we know what He thinks of the matter, maybe we don't need to try so hard to defend ourselves. And I think that's what the psalmist is finding here is I'm calling on you to vindicate me, God. I'm calling on you to defend my cause because you're the one who can get the job done much better than I ever could. This is such a great transition, I think, from Psalm 42. And now it's much more positive. much more hopeful. He's almost just accepted what was happening and now he sees clearly that God is there, that God is willing and ready to save him as his refuge. And then I think as he closes this thing out, he says the same thing again, but this time with much more joy. Like you see this progression from the very first phrase he uses as like just the sorrow and despair. The second is a a little bit more inquisitive trying to figure out from God. And then now as he closes this out he says, send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy and I will praise you with the liar. Oh God, my God. You know, wow, what a shift these made here, why are you cast down, oh my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God." And that I really think is the focus here. This hope now, this feels much more hopeful. Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God. Those are the last three verses of Psalm 43. And so I think this word hope there just shines out now that He sees what God can do and will do, and he envisions this now in a much more real, tangible way than he ever could before. He pictures this joy, this excitement of going back home to worship. It's his light at the end of the tunnel moment, and it took him a while to get there. He had to go through the valley of the shadow of death to get to a point where he could fear no evil, to get to the point where he was okay trusting in God because he knew God was with him. was leading him and that he would be with him, but it doesn't mean that he just jumped to the end of the journey. It took him a while to make it through his questions, his fears, and man, I don't know if there's anything else that could show us in a more real or raw way that what you're struggling with is okay. So long as you find your way at the end of it all to a positive place where you can hope and trust in God, if that journey leads you there, then that journey was worth it because you found yourself trusting in God in a way that you maybe never could have before, had you not gone through something like this psalmist is going through. This phrase that he keeps repeating is, it's a chorus, it's a refrain. It's like in a song, when he said that, it's like one more time with feeling, you know, it's coming back around to it. But I liked how you at the beginning of this psalm, you talked about how this phrase is kind of like how we talk to ourselves sometimes, replaying things. And then you brought it here to the ending of now, when I say it, it means a little bit something different for me. I've worked through it and that's how scripture can be for me. These words of hope can be, you take it and you were saying it to yourself. And it meant one thing at the beginning. And then at one point you were just hanging on for dear life to it. and you just, the words were maybe just words representative of hanging on to God and you were just saying it. And then you come to the other side of it and they have newfound depth because God has seen you through and you're able to speak them with a different renewed conviction. Yeah. And so that is Psalm 42 and 43. Let's move on to our third segment here on the episode, our final segment in that is our reach out question. Reach out, reach out and touch someone. Okay, Bryan, our reach out question is where we dig a little deeper into the conversation and often get a little personal. So here it comes. What is your quicksand that leaves you feeling stuck, Bryan? It was funny how reading this Psalm and you see almost yourself in it in a way. And it happens to me too, even just recently, I had a friend who came to me and was talking to me about a struggle that she was having. daughter was going through some difficulty and she was trying to explain to me how hard it was for her to know how to handle dealing with her daughter and trying to explain to her daughter what was going on. Her daughter wound up having a newborn baby who was sick, who had a fever and you know, a lot of parents, I'm sure first-time parents even, can know that feeling of the first illness and what uncertainty, what fear they have and it's so easy maybe to just minimize it and be like, "Oh no, everything's gonna be fine." 'Cause this parent was really distraught with what was happening and this friend of mine was explaining how she went from really just having a fever to thinking about thoughts of having to bury her newborn child. And it went from this place to that place in no time flat. And she just didn't know how to comfort her daughter or encourage her daughter. And I hear a story like that and that's me. I have been there. I have been in that position. as a parent, in my own health struggles and things that just, I can so easily find myself taking one small thing and letting it snowball into something much larger. And this quicksand thought where you find yourself getting stuck or you're sinking and there's nothing you can do. And as we talked about in the conversation starter, you want to flail around, you want to try to solve it yourself, but you know that's not the solution because it's only going to make things worse. I think for me, I'll just admit like to overly Googling things that are happening to me and things that I'm feeling and I'm getting old like I'm 40 I'm making my way from this youthful pliable sort of springy body that I used to have and now I'm creaking and crackling and all kinds of things that are happening and you know there are times where I'll be Googling around and clearly Google tells me every time that there's something terrible happening and And, you know, I'll diagnose things and even compounding with stories like things that happened to my dad last year and stories I've heard through the pandemic and all the things that just you could use as evidence to make a case that you're going to die. And that's okay. You know, it's okay for me to acknowledge my mortality. It's okay for me to find myself seeing the end of my life and being prepared for that. But what perspective do I have? What am I thinking about when I'm allowing those thoughts to spiral out of control? It's not a good situation to leave myself in, like the psalmist there, like this parent who is encouraging her daughter. At some point, we have to lift up our eyes. And that for me has been the biggest game changer, is just to see how much God loves me, how much God is in control, how much power he has over the things that I bring to him in prayer. And when he wants to do whatever he wants to do, it will be completely within his control to do that. And so I'm okay. I just have to keep reminding myself over and over again that I'm okay when I'm following God. I'm okay when I'm letting him take control. And it doesn't mean that I'm going to say that once and just brush myself off and get back up and never think about it again. No like the psalmist, I'll probably have to tell myself that over and over and over again until I finally understand that He means it and I mean it. - That was really well said. I related to a lot of that, the mortality questions, which we're gonna talk about a little bit in the next episode, but that idea of death seems unnatural. - It does, doesn't it? - Yeah, it seems like we should not end in that way, which the Bible speaks to that, that God has put eternity in our hearts. - And in our knees and in our back. - Yeah, exactly, all those things. - And I don't think I ever would have found my way to solid ground on those kinds of thoughts and ideas without faith. I guess you could find a hopeless acceptance, resignation maybe, that's where my faith, my honest belief that Jesus did raise from the dead changes everything for me. But that's, again, that's not to oversimplify the issue or make it like, okay, there you go. So move on. I've had, I think in my youth or whatever, in my twenties, I think especially, I had a lot of that kind of thought. A lot of doubts became kind of quagmire for me. I remember this one time sitting in a movie theater and just spiraling just in the darkness. I wasn't even paying attention to the movie, just thinking about like existential crisis type stuff about death, about my doubts and what do I know, and finding my way to faith slowly. In the months and years after that, I found a different place to stand. But for me, more recently, in the last few years, there have been times when my footing with people I love started to feel like quicksand, where my relationships fell into conflict for some whatever reason, And that left me feeling whatever, isolated or new challenges arose as we worked through things and had to find our way to new ground together. And looking back, I can see God's hand pulling me out, leading me through those things. And I can see the blessings and the strength that He's brought in the midst of those issues. And the more of those experiences I have, the more of those times that I can see through faith that God has always been faithful, the easier it is to settle into a confidence that even though I don't see the answer and I may never see the answer, that God is still at work. And that's been kind of a refrain in this episode. God is faithful. God is a stronghold. Keep looking to Him because we don't have it in ourselves. We are not as strong as we think we are, but He is stronger than we could ever imagine. And that's a, I think, a helpful thought. I guess as we did in the very beginning of this episode, just understanding how much perspective and how much strength and power God has and the fact that we get to call on Him and reach out to Him in prayer is such a powerful blessing that we have. And really, I think not only that blessing that we have in Him, but maybe this leads us into our challenge for this week and the powerful blessings that have in each other. I am ready to face any challenges that might be foolish enough to face me. So this week's challenge is to lift someone up by giving them an encouraging word. This psalmist has given us some encouraging words. Jesus gives us encouraging words and surely, I hope, sometime in your life, someone has seen you in a difficult time and given you, as the Proverbs writer says, a word fitly spoken, something that gave you the hand that you needed to lift you out of the quicksand. It always reminds me of that, whatever preacher story that everyone loves to tell about the guy who's standing on the roof during the flood and how the helicopter came and the boat came and he just said, "No, no, I trust God will take care of me." And at the end, he realizes after he's died that God was the one who sent the helicopter and the boat to rescue him or whatever. And it just sort of makes me wonder how often I get in my helicopter and I jump in my boat, figuratively speaking, I can step in and offer somebody an encouraging word or a helpful listening ear. And what would the psalmist's life have been if even maybe one or two people around him would have counteracted all the negativity in the world with just an encouraging word about how God is faithful? So just an interesting way to close this thing out. And as we think together about reaching out to the Lord and asking him for help, let's close this discussion out with a closing prayer. And you'll find the suggested prayer in the study guide is, "Lord, fill me with abounding hope and peace." That's in Romans 15 verse 13, abounding hope and peace. It's a really amazing picture as a contrast to the drowning in the quicksand of trouble and despair. So let's go to God in prayer. Our holy God, our Father and our creator, we call on you to lift up our drooping heads and remind us of your gracious and loving care that you extend to us today. We too often can get stuck in our thoughts of despair and loneliness and this preoccupation we have with all the cares of this world. We know Father that you've created us to be temporary and to be here on this earth as pilgrims and sojourners. We're not here for eternity and we praise you for giving us hope of a place that we'll never experience this kind of pain and fear and concern. We know this isn't how you want us to live forever. And we see how joyful in anticipation these faithful people in your word are presented to us. And we ask for the kind of peace that comes in a relationship with you through your son Jesus. Help us to pause when we become overwhelmed and help us to remember how temporary our troubles really are. Show us that the determination of Jesus is something that we can pursue and grasp toward as we see the troubles in front of us, help us to see your will and choose it over our own. We ask that you would fill us with an abounding hope and peace, the kind of peace that surpasses anything that we can ever understand. We love you for who you are and for what you continue to do for us. We pray that you'll please be with us in our lack of faith sometimes. We ask that you would help us to trust in you and increase in that faith every day. We offer this prayer in Jesus name, amen. Amen. So next week we'll get into our final episode and final conversation that would be the ultimate, I suppose. Yes, not the penultimate, sorry, go ahead. The ultimate conversation in this talking to ourselves and that is about hearing God. So we've talked about facing the facts and finding hope and now we want to talk about hearing God in the midst of our thoughts, which has kind of been in the background of all of these conversations. These all kind of overlap in a lot of ways. So we're looking forward to getting into that conversation. And if you want to prepare for that, you can read Luke 12, 13 to 21, Psalm 19, 7 to 14, and James 4, verses 14 to 16. I think we see here a great example of God needing to redirect our thoughts. And that is the big thing that we're gonna be talking about on that next episode. How we can get stuck in our own thoughts. We can think that we have it all figured out or that we can figure it all out. But newsflash, as Jeremiah constantly talks about through his great letter, we can't trust our own thoughts. We need somebody else to come in and speak some sense to us after we've told ourselves the truth about things. So hopefully that'll be a productive conversation as we close out this Talking to Yourself series. Thanks so much everyone for tuning into the Bible Geeks Podcast. You can find us on our website at BibleGeeks.fm. You can find show notes for this episode in your podcast player of choice or at BibleGeeks.fm/176. Again, you can go to BibleGeeks.fm/talkingtoyourself to find all of these episodes, all of these episodes meaning three, just a really long series, but hopefully it's been pretty powerful. So thanks again for tuning in, and until next week everyone, may the Lord bless you and keep you. Shalom. [music]