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Ep #76 Enjoying Intimacy with Jesus in Difficult Times. Stephanie Rousselle

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From Today's Episode

Stephanie Rousselle, Bible teacher and host of the Gospel Spice Podcast, explores ways to delight in God’s goodness and deepen intimacy with God as we navigate seasons of disappointment and loss. She shares her remarkable journey from atheism to Christianity and emphasizes the unique ways Christ appealed to her intellect. Stephanie also sheds light on powerful ways to hold onto hope and experience God’s love in our unexpected stories.

 

02:20 Stephanie’s Journey from Atheism to Faith

09:14 Parenting and Faith: Challenges and Encouragement

15:06 Holding on to Hope in Disappointments and Waiting

22:04 Experiencing God’s Love in Grief

22:32 Finding Hope in Small Moments

25:53 Praying Through Hard Seasons

27:54 The Significance of the Ascension

38:04 Practical Tips for Bible Reading

Today's Verses
  • Psalm 27:4
  • Psalm 139
  • Hebrews 1:3

 

Additional Resources

 

Enjoying Intimacy with Jesus in Difficult Times. Stephanie Rouselle

[00:00:00]

Welcome to the Unshakable Hope Podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kelly Hall, and this is where we wrestle through faith questions, such as how do I trust God’s heart when His ways and delays are breaking mine? We’ll hear from people just like you and me, who have experienced God’s faithfulness when life didn’t unfold as they expected.

My prayer is that God would renew our hope in His word and His love through these conversations.

Kelly: Hey guys, I’m so thankful you’re here. You’re in for a treat of biblical proportions. I just had to say it. The wisdom and inspirational applications from the Bible are so numerous that I had trouble figuring out a title for this episode. But if you’re struggling to find deeper intimacy with God, if you’re struggling to trust him or having difficulty holding onto hope in places of unanswered prayer, I truly believe you are going [00:01:00] to find some rich encouragement through this conversation.

Stephanie Rouselle is my guest today, and she is the host of the Gospel Spice Podcast. She invites listeners to taste and see that God is good. She’s passionate about the truth that we never have to settle for stale spiritual leftovers. I love that because there is so much more to life in Christ.

Kelly: I met Stephanie last summer and through a very special God ordained conversation, I not only found a lifelong friend, but was also inspired to intentionally celebrate the milestones of God’s faithfulness in ministry.

Stephanie, my friend, welcome. I’m so thankful you’re here.

Stephanie: Kelly, it’s my honor and my joy that you would call me a lifelong friend because that’s exactly who you are to me too.

So thank you for that.

Kelly: Thank you. I love listening to your Gospel Spice podcast. I find so much rich encouragement from God’s [00:02:00] word and my heart is often just excited to open my own Bible and see what God has for me. And so I just want to encourage our listeners. If you haven’t listened to Stephanie, please check out the gospel spice podcast and the many Bible studies she has there.

And I’ll have her talk about that a little bit more at the end. But Stephanie, would you start by just sharing with us a little bit of your faith journey and how you came to know Jesus, how the gospel spice podcast came to be?

Stephanie: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the podcast. That means a lot because we share the same heart, you and I to come alongside the people around us to encourage and support them and really remind them, as we remind ourselves of God’s goodness and faithfulness and kindness and gentleness, especially in the hard places. So thank you for the way you’re doing it on your podcast and how we just really kind of do this [00:03:00] together. That’s why I love you so much. So, and it’s funny because, you know, my story really.

If you had seen me, you know, 30 years ago, you would never ever have assumed that God could kind of do anything with someone like me. So I think there’s hope even in that. So I grew up atheist. So I’m French. You’re probably hearing my accent. I’m not American, even though I currently live and minister in the U S I grew up in France as a very strong atheist.

And I mean by that, not just kind of your garden variety atheist, you know, I like hardcore. Intellectual atheist. I grew up in a very intellectual family, very atheist. And so I was really researching and reading. And, and by the tender age of 14 or 15, I had truly adopted atheism as my chosen worldview.

That meant a very difficult world of. You know, I figured the world was a dog eat dog kind of world and I had to come out on top. So a deep sense of competition and of being in control of my own [00:04:00] life and then making my own decisions and my own choices. And it didn’t really matter if anyone got hurt in the process, as long as I got what I wanted.

So not a very pretty, but at least I was. Consistent with my worldview, because atheism really does lead to these philosophical conclusions when you are consistent with your belief system. And so, I was a very consistent atheist in that way. And then I wanted to be in business because that was part of my way to just kind of gain control of my environment, very dysfunctional family.

Dad was my dad was an alcoholic and my mom was not very easy to live with. And so that was just made for very difficult circumstances growing up. And so part of the solution for me was to, be in business and be rich and successful and that meant I needed to learn English and I wasn’t learning English on the benches of the French public schools.

And so I ended up going to the United States as a foreign exchange student when I was 17 and I did my senior year of high school in an American high school and [00:05:00] I was living with an American host family. Now this was 30 plus years ago, no internet snail mail only. And so this was a full immersion and it just so happened, quote unquote, that my American mom and dad, that’s how I call them now.

We’re still in touch. I was with them a week ago. They live in North Carolina right now. We’re still best friends truly, but they just happened to be Christians. Ta da, you know, and long story short, At the end of my year of living with them, I gave my life to Christ and we could go into the details of that.

And it was very God. You know, God has such endless, boundless creativity that every story is unique and uniquely tailored to each person. To the person he made us to be, and he sees us to grow up as when we’re not believers. And so my conversion story is perfectly tailored to my background as an atheist, because that’s how perfect our God is.

But long story short, I gave my life to Christ. And if you’re familiar with CS Lewis and how [00:06:00] he describes his coming to faith, he calls himself the most reluctant convert in all of England. Well, I definitely would call myself the most reluctant convert in all of France, even though I was in the States, but God just became.

Irresistible. But in a gentlemanly sort of way, and I very quickly through the conversations I had with my American mom and dad over many a dinner table conversation very quickly convinced of the that that Jesus had actually was a human figure that had actually existed and that had actually risen from the dead, which has When you’re an atheist to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, that’s a very uncomfortable place to be.

And so I linger, God allowed me to linger in that space for some time, but I also knew that I, there was no such thing as a half hearted faith. And I knew like I was. Again, God having made me the way he made me, I’m a very wholehearted person. I don’t do anything halfway, which can be a terrifying predicament to be in sometimes.

But in this case, [00:07:00] I knew that if I embraced God, I was all in, and that was a terrifying thought for a control freak like me. And so it took some pretty extreme and dire circumstances for me to realize that my own, you know, Self proclaimed strength and control and self sufficiency and ability to lead my own life to my heart’s content was actually a bunch of illusions.

And to surrender to him was such a gift he gave me. This is, I, I am so convinced we cannot come to faith on our own terms. It is God initiated and God given. And yet at the same time, because he’s such a gentleman, he allows us to. Fully choose him from the fullness of her will, but in a way that is such an irresistible grace in a way.

So, I know I have since then understood that theologically, this is a very complicated situation to deal with, you know, predestination and all of that. So anyway, being intellectual and I just came to faith and I went back to [00:08:00] France. Literally still dripping wet from baptism absolutely convinced I was the very first French Christian ever because I had never met one, right?

I had literally never met a Christian in my life until I did that, right? And so, come back to France and it took me, you know, it actually did take me several years to find an actual Christian church, a Bible teaching church. And I immersed myself in Bible study and theology because that was just the way God had made my heart.

And so, that was 30 some years ago. And I have ever since just by God’s faithfulness and kindness. Even as I am clinging to him, I discover he’s the one clinging to me. So that’s the short story. And since then, so I met my husband, we got married. My husband comes from a Muslim background. So that makes for interesting conversations at home, right?

We’re first generation believers on both sides to this day. No one on his side of his family or no one on my side of the family has accepted Christ. So we’re still the only ones 30 plus years [00:09:00] later. So I understand. Waiting and disappointments because, you know, and all of the lies of like, well, you must be a terrible Christian if you can’t even lead your own family to Christ, kind of, you know, lies we hear.

But we started our family. Both our kids are now young adults. They are both walking with the Lord, which is nothing short of a miracle that I take zero credit in very much in spite of me that they are believers because I know my own heart too well to take any credit. But we’ve lived, we left France shortly after our marriage.

So we say that we have lived for the past two decades on three continents, four countries and five cities through six professional roles. And so we’ve, we’ve moved around a bit and we have tasted and seen his goodness and his faithfulness. And so we’ve lived. You were asking me about gospel spice. Yeah.

Let me

Kelly: comment on your story first and then tell me how the podcast came to be. But I, that story is so fascinating and I know it offers hope to many people who are listening that their loved ones who are [00:10:00] atheist can also come to know Christ and that in the imperfections of our own parenting, that our children can come to know Christ.

Christ and follow him wholeheartedly. I love too that you talked about how you surrendered your illusions of control to the irresistible grace of Christ. This wasn’t something you were able to do on your own. It was done inside of you, but you had to make a choice and say, this is going to change my life forever.

And then you, you did choose Jesus because he is so irresistible. I, I’m just fascinated by that whole process and it makes me fall more in love with Jesus. Thank you for sharing that.

Stephanie: Thank you. And you know, that’s the thing. I am much more in love with Jesus than I was when I started 30 some years ago.

And I’m sure you can relate to that. Like somehow he is so beautiful and irresistible. And yet even more so 30 years later, somehow, you know, it’s just the beauty of that is well, [00:11:00] it just leads me to worship him. I don’t know what else to say. Right. Yeah. And as for Especially when it comes to children and, and, you know, so many parents who struggle, we get, we literally get emails every day from our ministry, from people listening to us, watching us doing one of our Bible studies, listening to the podcast or anything.

And they’re saying, you know, cause we ask people, we want to pray for you. We consider this the highest privilege. To when you allow us to pray with you and pray for you. So please share your prayer requests. Our team is committed to praying. I share all of the prayer requests to the team with my team, obviously anonymously.

So, you know, your name is perfectly safe, but we pray with you. We join you in the throne room because we understand how difficult it is. And we get so many prayer requests for children for prodigal children of all ages. And it breaks my heart every single time because the cloud of shame, of guilt, of accusation over a mom or a dad whose children have walked away [00:12:00] from the faith, you know, what did I do wrong?

What didn’t I do? What should I have done? What could I have done? The would I, should I, could I? These are from the pit of hell. Because God moves sovereignly through the hearts of everyone. And I’ve heard it said, for me, I remember, like, because I’m a, that control freak slash perfectionist tendancy, God is working on it, but he and I, like, he’s still working on this, right?

And so, during the years of my kids, our kids growing up, I would always beg him, Lord, would you please, allow me to disappear so that you would appear. And I pray that every time I teach at a, you know, at a church or a women’s event, it’s like, Lord, it’s not about me. I want to completely disappear.

I want to be transparent and invisible so that you do what you came to do here. And same thing with parenting. And I’ve heard it said, if you had perfect parents, You’re going to need counseling because your parents were perfect and you’re not. And if you [00:13:00] had imperfect parents, you’re going to need counseling because they messed you up.

So either way, you’re going to need help, and the Holy Spirit is the perfect counselor. And so Well, we all need help, whether our parents were perfect or not. And there’s no such thing as perfect parents. And so as a parent that helped me realize, you know, my kids are who they are, the way God made them with their own ability to choose.

And it is actually much more outside of the realm of my control than I realize. And that brings such peace and freedom. It does. That applies to any relationship, any relationship that is troublesome or painful or brings you heartache. You are not responsible for how people react to the way you try to display God to the best of your ability.

It is not entirely up to you to convince them of God’s goodness. It actually is not up to you. All you can do is be so [00:14:00] fully Integrated within your being with the truth of his goodness that it’s going to seep out of you and dare I say without you even noticing it.

Kelly: Yeah,

Stephanie: right. When you try too hard, it doesn’t really work when it happens in spite of you.

That’s when it’s powerful. And so I think the greatest secret to a life. That is contagious for Christ in the best possible way is a life where I spend the majority of my spiritual impetus focusing on his goodness and his kindness and his sovereignty and his beauty. And, and I would summarize that with the word delight, which is, you know, that’s kind of the core word of my passion for him is that word delight.

As long as I nurture delight and I ask him to nurture delight. He’s going to do in the hearts of others, something that I cannot even dream of doing. So just the relinquishment of that, right?

Kelly: Right, [00:15:00] right. That’s so powerful. I’m, I’m wondering since we’re on this topic, let’s talk about, you’re already discussing it.

how do you hold on to hope in your disappointments and then you’re waiting? I know that you walk through hard seasons, both big and small, like all of my listeners have, like all of us have. And so how have you learned to. Cultivate hope in those places of heartache and waiting.

Stephanie: That is such a good question.

And, and I love that because you’re so deep and you’re not, I hate fluff. So thank you for being the safe space for your listeners to, to wrestle with those questions. And I hate cliches and platitudes, and yet sometimes the things we say can come across as that, because they’re actually just simply true.

And so, you know, obviously the answer to that is clinging to Jesus, but that’s easy to say, but I find it’s very difficult to do.

Kelly: And so

Stephanie: part of it is, Again, and I’ll go back to that word, delight. You know, the word gratitude is a word that has gained much [00:16:00] traction. So just be grateful. Just, you know, write down a thousand things you’re grateful for, right?

And so when Anne Voskamp’s book on, you know, a thousand reasons, a thousand gifts came out, that was powerful because it was new, but now we’ve heard it so many times, just count your blessings, that it feels flat. And yet, at the same time, I know the inclination of my own heart when I am in a season of waiting, when hope is not real, but hope is deferred and makes my heart sick, I forget.

All of the ways that God has shown himself faithful, and I tend to overlook all the areas where he is actually faithful to me right now, because he’s not being faithful, at least so I think in the one area that I’m focusing on. So let’s say if my children are not walking with the Lord, that’s going to be my heartache.

That’s where I’m waiting. That’s where I’m, you know, trying to exercise hope and [00:17:00] believe in the Lord’s goodness. It’s not happening. It’s being deferred. I don’t see it. And so I tend to forget all the other areas where God is being faithful. Well, so counting your blessings is like, well, I’m healthy. Maybe my marriage is going well.

Maybe my car has not broken down today on the way to work. I got a paycheck, you know, so things like that. I know it sounds simple, but it actually really helps because it puts things in perspective. And then because my heart is wicked, I’ll go, well, yeah, but the only important thing is that my children walk with the Lord.

The rest does not matter. Okay. Well, but if it actually happened, if I lost my health, I actually would not be happy about that. So we take for granted the things we have. And we forget to remember them because one thing scripture teaches my heart is that we are a forgetful people. Yes. We forget.

Kelly: Yeah.

Stephanie: And so to remember it really helps.

The other thing I find [00:18:00] helpful. So remembering is one, the other, and I’ll go back to that word delight. Scripture invites us to taste and see that the Lord is good. It’s an invitation, but it’s, it’s really difficult to do because it’s not like we can just take a bite out of God. Like we take a bite of chocolate.

Right. And I love chocolate. So, and yet somehow that’s the invitation we have. So. In my season of waiting, in my season of hopelessness, in my season of hope deferred that makes my heart sick, how do I cultivate an intentionality to taste and see that the Lord is good? Do I even do that? And if I’m honest with you, Kelly, the answer is I’m probably not going to do that.

I’m moping around, I’m miserable. I throw a pity party and, and I’m really good at throwing pity parties. I just am. So I’m not criticizing anyone. I’m just saying for myself. So to realize that, say, wait a minute, what are you doing? You’re throwing a pity party. And yes, your [00:19:00] circumstances are difficult.

Literally yesterday, we got an email from one of our listeners who said that her husband has been in prison for Couple decades for a murder. He did not commit.

Kelly: Oh, how heartbreak.

Stephanie: We’ve been praying for her and I cannot even imagine what she’s going through. And yet the challenge remains the same. So this isn’t being Pollyanna.

This is saying, remember where the Lord is being faithful and cultivate a lifestyle where you look for him.

Kelly: Yeah,

Stephanie: look for him because taste and see be intentional about tasting and seeing that God is good and do that in community too. So that’s the first thing. So remembering delighting through tasting and seeing and then also doing that in community.

I tend to isolate. When I go through hard times, because I don’t want to bother other people with my problems, because I know that there’s other people, other people who go through harder stuff. So who am I to share my own [00:20:00] heartache when my neighbor down the street has something much worse happening to them?

Sharing that with a dear mentor of mine, and she’s full of wisdom. And she said, she has a daughter who has a very severe illness, so she understands very difficult circumstances. And she told me that. She believed that life for a longer, the long time that she could not be sad about her daughter’s illness because she still has her daughter and others have lost their children and so she doesn’t have the right to be sad.

Kelly: Oh no. But

Stephanie: see, we do that, don’t we? We don’t give ourselves permission to embrace our grief because someone else down the street has it worse.

Kelly: That’s

Stephanie: not how it works. And she told me, she said, it is not. Because there is a wedding down the street that I cannot rejoice because today is my birthday. Oh,

Kelly: wow.

Stephanie: So the little reasons to celebrate, it’s my birthday, should not be shadowed by the [00:21:00] big reasons to celebrate. And in the same way, the little griefs, And grief is grief is grief is grief should not be compared. So not comparing and doing this, not in isolation, but in community. I’m sorry, that was a long answer, but I, it’s,

Kelly: it’s real, isn’t it?

It’s so real. And I appreciate so much what you said, because yes, we remember. And sometimes I will write the words. I remember at the top of my journal and just make myself list. Daily things to help me focus on God’s faithfulness. It reframes my disappointments with the hope of Christ. And then the other thing, the gratitude as we are remembering, we’re also being grateful.

But the 3rd thing you talked about about grieving. I think this is 1 of the big keys to cultivating hope during heartache. We can’t stop. Have hope if we stuff our grief, we have to bring that to the Lord. We have to talk about it and we have to hear from him, from his heart. So many times when we bring our grief to the Lord, he meets us in those places as the good shepherd [00:22:00] who leads us beside still waters and lets us settle down in green pastures.

And he ministers to the depths of our heart and brings soul healing. Sometimes it’s just, I see you, I love you, but it’s actually an experience. Experience of how much we’re loved in that place that we’re not alone. And just knowing, sensing, feeling the love of God for us in our grief is hugely healing.

Stephanie: And, and a couple more points on that. I so agree with you. It’s so true. And then two things, two more things. First is I remember also for me, I would lose hope in difficult circumstances because I was expecting. God to show up in big ways, right? Maybe it’s just me, but like he’s going to show up and save the day and there’s going to be something incredible happen.

And this wasn’t a matter of like testing God. This was just what God is really big. So he’s going to show up in big ways. And I’m, learning [00:23:00] still, and I’m, I’ve learned that through grief and heartache that God whispers. probably more often than he shouts. And so the whispers are going to be, you know, A flower or I want to say a sunset, but like a flower speaks to me more than a sunset these days, for whatever reason, but like the little things or a bite of chocolate and that’s okay.

Or a song or, you know, small things and to allow his whisper to reach me through the small things, not just wait for the big thing, the big breakthroughs, but the little things and that’s one. And the other is grief, like joy. Shows up at the most unexpected and inconvenient times.

Kelly: Yeah,

Stephanie: you’re going to be, you know, in line at the grocery store and you’re going to hear something, smell something, see something, hear something.

That’s just going to bring waves of grief. It’s going to [00:24:00] remind you of the situation you’re hopeless about when you weren’t thinking about it, because there is that. Memory of, of grief that just comes unannounced, uninvited, but you know, joy does the same thing. Joy comes unannounced, unexpected delight comes that way in a flower, in a sunset, in the smile of a child, in a bite of chocolate, in a scented candle, whatever it is, joy comes And invades our hearts just as unannounced as grief does, because I think it’s the Holy Spirit.

Yes, the joy and the delight. So, to open the door to grief as much as to joy, I think is, and to be on the lookout for joy when it comes is important as well. So,

Kelly: Mm. That’s so good. So good. We can hone our senses to be on the lookout every [00:25:00] single day. God, I don’t want to miss you today. Where are you showing up?

Show me your joy. Show me your presence. Show me what to focus on. I had a dear friend on the podcast who talked about the day her son committed suicide. And it is, that’s so heartbreaking. It took such a long time for them to heal. But that very day, her mom just hugged her with tears in her eyes and said, Beth, we’re going to look for God’s goodness.

And God showed up in such tender ways. And like you said, sometimes the joy was just this sweet thing that would happen in a place where they expected. Deeper grief, and they would just see his hand in a sweet, tender, kind way, bringing hope and joy because we can joy is doesn’t mean being happy, clappy joy.

It’s simply the presence of God.

Stephanie: Yes, yes, yes.

Kelly: So I would love for you to share with our listeners how you prayed. During hard seasons. How do [00:26:00] you talk to God in these places? And could you bring in some scriptures that have encouraged your confidence in God?

Stephanie: Oh, that’s so hard. , how do we pray when things are hard?

I don’t think it’s the, you know, people say that as long as you’re sincere and you’re pouring your heart out to God, it’s enough. I want to challenge that a little bit. I think there’s a lot of truth to that, but it has to be biblically based. And so pouring our hearts to God while remaining on the path of biblically sound.

And so what I mean by that is that do I allow the Lord to inform my prayers, even in my hard times,

Kelly: right.

Stephanie: And that’s where we prepare for the seasons when we are not in those seasons, because we do not constantly live in grief and despair. So in the seasons when we are not, we equip our hearts and our minds [00:27:00] with scripture.

So that when the hard times come, we have a biblical pattern to pray. And a lot of that is also equipping ourselves with fellow sojourners. So not again, not doing this alone. I find that. When I cannot pray, my friends can for me and vice versa. So to not isolate. And again, this is, you’re cultivating the environment, both in your inner heart, through your time of, you know, immersing yourself in scripture and externally through your friends, your family, your network of believers around you.

So that you can be for them what they need when they don’t have that, and then they can be that for you as well. So I would say when you pray, there’s that element of riding the wave of the prayers of someone else. And I would say most of all the prayers of Jesus. So now this is, you know, something that is oftentimes overlooked in conservative evangelical [00:28:00] circles is that one of my favorite events in the life of Christ is the Ascension.

The Ascension is something that is overlooked, but I love to study theology and Christian tradition and seeing how the Ascension has been understood by biblical scholars over the centuries, and we have lost the wonder of the Ascension. At the Ascension, Scripture tells us that Jesus ascended back to the Father, and Hebrews says that He is now at the right hand of the Father, doing what?

Interceding for us. So at the ascension, Jesus in bodily form with a human body enters the throne room of heaven. That means that right now in this moment, there is a human body who is linking all of us humanity to the throne room of God by the gateway, if you will, of his own body being fully God and fully man.

He is in the throne room of God. And what is he doing? He is interceding for us. He is [00:29:00] Just like the Holy Spirit is interceding with words and groanings that we cannot understand in the same way the son is doing that by the spirit to the father on our behalf.

Kelly: What

Stephanie: that means is that when I pray, it’s not so much jesus joining me as it is me joining Jesus in prayer. So it’s remembering that I’m praying in the name of the son because I am in the name of the son. He’s the one who’s actually uttering the words. In the throne room and and my words are obviously but a shadowy echo of his words, but just to remember that I have the fullness of the presence of the son of God when I pray in my despair because he is interceding for me in this moment.

He is bringing to the father the depth of, I mean the cavernous depth of my despair and my heart. He knows all about it. He is praying with me, for [00:30:00] me. And if I remember, because the problem in prayer, at least for me, is that I’m like, does, is this prayer according to God’s will? How do I know that he’s going to answer this prayer?

So there’s always that element of, well, I don’t really know if I am praying according to God’s will. How do I know when I’m praying for something that it is going to happen? Well, I don’t think Jesus has that kind of quandary, right? Like whatever he prays is according to the will of the father. So to say, Lord, I want to pray.

What you pray. I want my my prayer to be an echo of your prayer. You know, when Jesus says what you bound on earth will be bound in heaven. He’s really saying my prayers in heaven there you get to echo them on earth. Can you imagine that? So the Ascension is Jesus going to the throne room. So that what so that the Holy Spirit can descend at Pentecost, right?

Those two are connected. And what is the Holy Spirit descending at Pentecost, but him lodging into our hearts [00:31:00] so that he can intercede with us with those groanings we do not have. So in other words, there is this, Jacob’s ladder type thing of the son ascending so that the Holy Spirit can descend into our hearts so that we have this highway of connection through prayer.

And all of a sudden, when I consider all those things, that makes prayer. Desirable and beautiful and all of a sudden I get to spiritually taste and see that the Lord is good through prayer, even in my despair.

Kelly: Oh, wow. That is so full of hope. So full of in. Couragement. So many times when we’re panicked or fearful, we’re just focused on, okay, I’ve got it.

I’ve got to help God know how to solve my problem. And so we kind of rummage. It’s like we’re rummaging through our junk drawer trying to find the right solution. Yeah. What am I going to say? What’s going to help? What’s going to fix it? What does he need to know? [00:32:00] And that what you just shared is so powerful to free us.

From all of those wrong ways of thinking about God’s heart, about our connection to God, about our prayers. Wow.

Stephanie: Yeah. I think that’s why, you know, obviously King David did not know about, Christ. He was writing about the hope the Holy Spirit was giving him of the Messiah that would come.

And yet, you know, I think if I were to summarize all of scripture. In terms of what is our hearts deepest longing in prayer in our relationship with God and everything I would use Psalm 27:4 that says, you know this is. David talking, he says, one thing I have asked of the Lord and that I will seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire or to delight [00:33:00] in his temple.

That summarizes it. This is David. David saying, I want to position myself so that I am fully aware of the presence of God in my life so much. So that it’s like I’ve moved in with him.

Kelly: Yeah.

Stephanie: Or in other words, he’s moved in with me, which again is the Ascension and Pentecost or at once you know, Jesus ascending and the Holy Spirit descending, that’s, that’s God, you know, as Eugene Peterson says it in the message, God moving to the neighborhood, but it’s also this idea that like, I want to dwell with God, I want to be with him, I want to gaze upon his beauty, I want to be so familiar with him that my entire life is defined by him.

Not even my relationship with him, but by him even closer, more intimate. And so we in Christ have an even greater. Reason to rejoice than King David did. And so that’s my life’s ambition to be able [00:34:00] to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life and to gaze upon his beauty. That is the one thing.

I mean, David has asked for many, many, many things right in his life. So how can he say one thing I’ve asked? Well, it’s the one thing that summarizes everything. And in prayer, I think at the end of the day, the one thing we’re asking. Is to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That’s not saying, Oh, I want to go to heaven.

No, it’s saying, I want such immediate intimacy with you today. And I want to cultivate a life that allows that, that I can gaze upon your beauty as if You were right there in front of me. That’s the one thing I ask. That’s the quintessential. Essence of prayer. I think. Yeah. And when I do that, the hope just welling up deep inside when we consider this as the reality that can be ours.

Kelly: Yes. Wow. I don’t like to say wow all the [00:35:00] time, but that is a moment. It deserves a good wow. It deserves a good wow and a hallelujah. And you know what you described, I love Psalm 27, all of Psalm 27. So I would just encourage our listeners that if you are struggling right now and just want to connect with the Lord in some deep places.

Just go there and meditate on some of those truths and Psalm 139, which just reminds you how deeply and amazingly you are loved, how intimately you are loved by the God who created you.

. I love how you described just dwelling the intimacy of being with the Lord. And I just want to say that there are, we all know stories where somebody is walking through something very difficult or tragic,

Kelly: I’ve heard so many different stories, but they will say, , Kelly, you know what a control freak I am. But there I was in that place, I felt more peace than I could ever imagine.

we truly can [00:36:00] Experience intimacy with God in our hard places, in our, in our stressful places. He is with us. We are never alone. We are never alone.

Stephanie: Oh, amen. Wow. Yeah. Mic drop on that. Wow. We’re never alone.

How many times have we heard this? But I wanna challenge my own heart. Do I even, do I actually believe this a hundred percent?

Kelly: Yeah.

Stephanie: And the answer is honestly, no, Kelly, not even today, not after 30 years of walking with him. Much too, I want to say much to my shame, but that’s the whole point. It’s not, that’s the thing.

Like the enemy is going to want to shame me because I’m realizing I don’t believe this fully, that God is always with me. And yet I believe it more today than I did before. So that’s progress that he is making happen. So to say no to the shame and the guilt of the fact that I like to say we are half baked masterpieces, right?

So we’re masterpieces, Ephesians tells us that. We are God’s masterpiece created for good works, right? [00:37:00] So for sure. But we’re half baked, we’re a work in progress, we’re not done, we’re in the oven, we’re still baking in the oven of fiery trials, that’s how we bake, that’s how we become this yummy bread, I’m French, I talk about food all the time, sorry, but like, that’s how it happens, and as you bake in the oven of your trials and sufferings, the aroma of bread is so good.

It’s so good. Is all around you and it smells amazing and it’s so enticing and it makes all of us as we’re watching you bake in the oven of your trials and your afflictions. It’s making me smell and taste and savor that the Lord is good just by the smell of your, the aroma of your half baked masterpiece.

So imagine heaven, what it will be like.

Kelly: Oh, I can’t even imagine. I look forward to that. And it is fun to imagine that it helps reframe our hard times with hope. And the Bible does tell us we are a fragrant aroma of Christ wherever we walk. Now, [00:38:00] Stephanie, I want you to tell us a little bit about your website, gospelspice. com, and what you have there. But first, before you just close us with that thought, tell us what you would say to somebody who picks up the Bible and says, This feels so boring and hard to understand. It’s confusing. And I remember when Susie Larson, when she first picked up the Bible to read it through, she said, God, it looks so boring.

Can you jazz it up a little? So I just wonder if you could speak to those who are struggling in that way.

Stephanie: Oh, and I can still relate. I struggle with that, you know, on and off. I think it’s very human. It’s very normal. Don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel ashamed. The fact that you’re picking up your Bible and trying to read it and it feels like sand in your mouth, you are picking it up.

You’re trying to read it. Good for you. You have not given up. That is half the battle. You have not given up. So keep doing it. My little trick that I find it always has always worked so far the day it stops working. I let you know, but so far has never let me down. Is that I’m always. In the Old Testament and the New [00:39:00] Testament at the same time, but never in the same spot.

So the way I do is that I literally open my Bible and start reading in the Old Testament where I left off yesterday or whenever I was in my Bible last. It doesn’t have to be every day. You know, it’s okay whenever you can, as much as you can. And I read. And sometimes it’s a line or two, sometimes it can be a chapter or two until it feels like I’ve had my full and or something hits me or not, or then I’ll get bored and I move on.

Then I switch to, so it could be a line or a chapter or whatever. Then I move on to the New Testament and I pick up where I left off last time I was there. And so, and I’m going to read usually in the New Testament, it’s shorter, a line, a couple of verses, maybe half a chapter, whatever, paragraph. And then I ask myself, okay, this might be the only time in my entire life that I am reading this particular passage in the Old Testament and this particular passage in the New together.

Because they’re rotating at different speeds because I, there’s no rhythm. It’s, I don’t do like Bible in one year, Bible in three years, whatever. I like, I’m always, [00:40:00] Whatever I left off yesterday. So then I’m asking the Lord, can you please connect these passages for me? If this is the only time in my life, you are serving me this particular meal with this particular menu of this, you know, appetizer of the old and this entree of the new, help me savor them.

Help me see. And I literally spend time trying to connect the two. Now I’m a Bible geek. I have a lot of knowledge that I can bring to that, but that’s not the point. The point is the Holy spirit does the work. So do that, like a few lines from the old, a few lines from the new, and ask the Lord, how do these passages connect?

What are you trying to tell me through the lens of these two together, put together maybe for the only time in my entire life? And then ask yourself, what does this tell you about Jesus? Especially the connection between the two and do not be satisfied with the easiest thing that comes to your mind. Dig a little until you are [00:41:00] surprised until you are amazed until you are shocked at something you’re discovering that you had no idea was there.

So stick with it because I promise you he delights in delighting you with his word.

Kelly: That’s so good. I’ve never heard anybody talk about it that way. I’m pretty sure am I. I just stumbled on that like many, many years ago and it just works. And I’ve been telling everyone because I think it really works.

That’s great. Well, tell us at GospelSpice. com we can find you and the Bible studies. And I want to understand the Bible studies because I think they connect to your podcast.

Stephanie: They do. So we, the podcast is kind of the easiest way to stay in touch where I teach once a week and then we have a guest once a week. So we alternate on purpose and these are hopefully in depth Bible teachings.

And then we have the Bible courses that we offer to go deeper where we have workbooks. It’s really like a full on Bible study where we’re inviting you to study scripture. [00:42:00] And I have the privilege of being your tour guide through scripture. No more, no less. I’m just a tour guide. And so that’s what we do.

So the podcast right next to your podcast on wherever you’re listening to podcast is probably the easiest way to be in touch and otherwise on our website. And we have all sorts of free content, really fun, high quality, free content. So make sure to go to gospel spies. com and check out the free tab because you really want to get all those free resources that are going to draw you deeper into God.

Kelly: Stephanie. Thank you so much for blessing our hearts today with new insights into God’s word.

Stephanie: Thank you, Kelly. I absolutely adore you. Love your ministry. Keep it up. You’re doing a great job. And so many of us are so blessed by your faithful presence here.

Kelly: Thank you, my friend.

If you were encouraged in your faith today, it’d be great. If you’d help get the word out by subscribing, sharing with a friend or leaving a review, I’d love to hear from you. You can reach out through my website, kelly hall. org and pick up some free [00:43:00] resources while you’re there. Thanks for listening to the unshakable whole podcast.

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