Podcast

How Do We Walk Through Suffering Without Giving Up on God?

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Unshakable Hope Podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kellie 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 friends. Well, as many of you know, we’re in a series called redemptive wrestling. It’s a Bible story series. I’m being joined by some wonderful Bible teachers, and we’re discovering how we can be freed to trust God’s heart when our life doesn’t unfold as we expected.

We’re looking at how God redeems our hard stories and how wrestling really is the key to [00:01:00] rise up in faith. We discover our God really is faithful and trustworthy. It’s been really fun. We’re on week four today. Hannah Baldwin has joined me for three really encouraging episodes. I’d love for you to go back and listen to those.

We’ve talked about how to heal when we’re angry at God. How to cultivate hope during seasons of disappointment and how to follow God when it’s hard. I wanted to give you a heads up because next week, Jennifer Slattery is joining me for two weeks, two episodes of how to pray through a crisis. Then I have another friend joining me for the last two episodes.

But today we are diving into a particular story in the life of Jeremiah. I absolutely love this story. Jeremiah is one of my favorite heroes of faith. And he, as I mentioned last time, is a world class wrestler. He wrestled through some super hard things in his life and landed in a place [00:02:00] of deep trust in God.

I pray that this particular story is going to bring you as much hope as it has me over the years. So the story we’re looking at today in Jeremiah’s life is where the sovereignty of God bumped up against suffering in Jeremiah’s life and almost derailed his faith.

But we’re going to discover some things that mark Jeremiah’s life and allowed him to actually experience God’s faithfulness and love in the hard. He experienced deeper intimacy with God rather than being sucked into despair. He’s someone who refused to give up on God. He refused to give in when the going got tough. And those are my favorite heroes of faith. This story has transformed my life and helped me live with hope when I was tempted to throw in the towel.

And I’m not kidding about that. . That’s why today we’re talking about how do we walk through suffering without giving up on God? So I’m going to walk you through Jeremiah’s story. And [00:03:00] we’ll pull out some strategies from Jeremiah’s life that we can lay hold of, that we can apply in our own lives. , and then I’m going to share a story for my own life. And the reason I wanted to do this is because

It highlights some things about the character of God that I think will bless you We’re gonna see God’s compassion and We’re gonna discover some beautiful things about God’s heart in these stories.

So last week Hannah joined me to talk a lot about Jeremiah 1, but I’m going to go back to it for just a minute, and then we’re going to jump to Jeremiah 20. So remember in Jeremiah 1 we talked about God’s call on Jeremiah’s life, and we looked at how The Lord encouraged Jeremiah when he had all these excuses about following God into this hard call.

God had already made it clear that this message he was going to preach would not be a popular message and that people were going to oppose him, but God promises very clearly. He gives him two signs and he says to Jeremiah, I’m watching over my word to [00:04:00] perform it. I’m going to keep my promise to you. You can count on it.

And then in Jeremiah 17 through 19, and God said something to Jeremiah that I I really want us to pay attention to. So he’s giving Jeremiah this inspirational pep talk, and he’s right at the end of their conversation. And he says to Jeremiah, get yourself ready, stand up and say to them, whatever I command you, don’t be terrified by them

and then. He so graciously gives Jeremiah a new name, a new identity. He said, I made you a fortified city and an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against this whole land, against the King of Judah, against its officials, its priests, and the people of the land. And then here’s verse 19.

They will fight against you, but will not overcome you for I am with you and I will rescue you declares the Lord. so there [00:05:00] it is.

Kelly: And so without a doubt, Jeremiah would have been really encouraged , by this powerful pep talk, if you can imagine God himself speaking this to you.

But here’s. Here’s the tension,

Jeremiah surely felt fear when God is telling him this. God is saying he’s going to experience opposition. He’s telling him right up front, Jeremiah, this isn’t going to be easy, but I’m going to be with you, and I’ll rescue you. And so I can just imagine Jeremiah going, Okay, I mean, this doesn’t sound really great, but God, I know you’re calling me, I know this is from you, so I’m going to follow you.

I know you’re going to be with me and I know you’re going to rescue me and I won’t be overcome. So this is what I want to present to you. Whenever we receive a promise from God, actually, whenever we look at the future, We all have expectations of what that is going to look like.

But can you imagine the kind of expectations Jeremiah must have had in his mind? [00:06:00] Without a doubt, he developed a picture in his mind of what the opposition would look like, and what God’s rescue would look like. And I’m sure he saw himself Completely unharmed and rising above and being victorious so it looked promising. But this isn’t exactly how it played out. It didn’t play out the way Jeremiah expected. And I think that’s so important for us because we all have times in our lives and we experience disappointment when the promises of God’s don’t seem to align with the realities of our lives. And therefore, we deal with unmet expectations.

And I shared last time, what one of Susie Larson’s friends said to her about expectations, which I just love. Expectations are simply premeditated disappointments. We will experience disappointments in our lives because we have expectations and our hope is in a particular outcome rather than fully in the Lord.

But now I’d like to jump ahead to [00:07:00] Jeremiah 20, where the rubber meets the road for Jeremiah, and really he’s at the lowest point in his entire life, I think. , the false prophets are preaching peace. There’s going to be peace. And Jeremiah is saying, no, that’s a lie. God has said, we’re Babylon is coming.

You’re going to be taken into captivity. So turn to God. Trust Him. He will help you. He’ll be with you. But even though Jeremiah is saying all these things, nothing is happening to prove he’s telling the truth. And people are just blowing him off. Nobody believes him. The leaders are not turning to God. There are death threats, people are making up songs about him, he’s humiliated time and again.

Jeremiah, though. And I want to point this out. He does have a few faithful friends, a few friends who are following God. And through these friends, he experiences God’s kindness and mercy in the difficulty of this ministry. But the worst part is, recorded in chapter 20, when he hits absolute [00:08:00] rock bottom. So, Pasher, who is the chief officer in the temple of God, he’s supposed to be a priest of the Most High God, he’s actually a false prophet.

He hears what Jeremiah is preaching, and he had Jeremiah beaten, and actually from two commentaries I read, this means he was whipped, and the traditional punishment back then was 40 lashes minus one. So he had open wounds gouged in his back, it was horrible torture, and then he was placed in stocks. Where he’s bent over. He’s in a contorted position. His hands and neck are held in place. He can’t move his body would be going into muscle spasms and he was left there all night long in a public place in the temple courts. He was humiliated and mocked. And I can’t even imagine the kind of pain he was in.

This is the treatment that was reserved for criminals, for [00:09:00] false prophets. And this was at the hand of someone who supposedly. Is , a representative of God. So, there is just extreme injustice. If you’ve ever experienced injustice in your life, you know how much anger that can cause to rise up inside of you.

So he’s released from the stocks the next day.

Kelly: And here comes my favorite lament prayer in all of scripture. It starts in verse seven. You can read it in its entirety, but I’m just going to summarize it. Basically, Jeremiah is saying, God, you promised me rescue. You promised to protect me.

You told me I’m a fortified city. Yes, I’ll be opposed, but I won’t be overcome. But right now, in case you haven’t noticed. I am overcome and I’m not seeing any kind of rescue. Jeremiah goes on to explain he felt abandoned. He felt betrayed. And then we see him wrestling through the temptation to give up on God.

And it’s almost like he’s saying, you know, God, [00:10:00] this whole prophet thing was really your idea. I didn’t come up with it. I didn’t want to do it, but I’ve followed you through the hard and. Through the worst day of my life, and I’m just wondering if I can just, resign, is there a retirement plan anywhere in my future?

We see this emotional pendulum swinging back and forth. And then basically he says, but I can’t walk away. From you because I love you. I love the truth of your word. I love this nation. And then we see a huge swing in his emotions again. He begins to remember all of the mocking and the death threats and the humiliation and the opposition he has faced for years from many enemies.

And then we see another swing, and he begins to remember God’s promises, and this is something so important for us to remember. , he began to declare God’s promises out loud. Lord, you are with me, like a mighty warrior. You fight for me. Not [00:11:00] one detail of my situation escapes your notice. You are just. I can count on you to care for me.

And then we see him surrendering his story. And then his deep conviction of the goodness and love of God erupts into him singing praises to the Lord. But in the very next breath, Jeremiah sinks again into despair, saying, I wish I’d never been born.

I wish I’d been saved from all the sorrow and suffering in my life. Why did I ever even come into this world and end my days in shame? I mean, my heart aches for this guy. But honestly, I just want to hug him. I’m so thankful that the Lord preserved his emotional warring for us in scripture.

Honestly, there have been times when I so related to Jeremiah’s story just to the losses that he described . The ongoing hardship in his life. That I started calling myself Kerllymiah and I know Jeremiah and the Lord were having a conversation about this in heaven and I can’t wait to [00:12:00] talk to him when I get there.

so We see this rollercoaster of wrestling. We know for certain that Jeremiah’s relationship with God was restored because the very next words we see in scripture are these, and the word of God came to Jeremiah. He wrestles until his relationship with God is fully restored through the power of God.

Kelly: He wrestles until his faith rises victorious. He doesn’t restore this relationship. He just remains in conversation. He refuses to give up on God. , and here’s what I love so much. We never see God saying to Jeremiah, try harder, do better. Suck it up. Pray more. Get over yourself. Come on, get with it. But instead we see this beautiful invitation

jeremiah, come to me just as you are. Let me restore, refresh, strengthen you. I absolutely love Jeremiah. I mean, the guy. [00:13:00] I’m so grateful for this conversation. He remains an authentic gut-honest conversation with God and we see we have the freedom to come to God with all of our mess without tidying it up first

he doesn’t wrap up. His very difficult, heartbreaking situation with a bow. In fact, he refuses to rush to res resolution. He remains in the tension of conflicting roller coaster emotions. And Jesus loves to meet us in our places of truth telling , this is where we experience his love and his rescue.

Dr. Rob Reimer, who’s the author of soul care. He says, if we don’t process our disappointments. It will derail our faith it will shipwreck our relationship with God. , so if we don’t process our disappointments, we easily get caught up in the comparison trap. And I know from my own life, if I don’t process disappointments, I can end up watering down my view of God.

I start hearing myself. [00:14:00] Believing him for the least he can do rather than the best he can do. Or another thing I’ve noticed, and hey, I’m just being real. I’ve noticed this sort of sarcastic weariness that can seep in every now and then in, and I hear myself saying, well, of course, something else bad happened.

What else could we expect? I mean, the moment I hear that, I know, okay, I’ve got something that needs to be healed deep down inside. So I just want to run to God and we know that only a fresh awareness of God’s love and goodness rescues us in these places. But I look at his wrestling and I think, well, what was his secret? What can I learn from him being able to do this so well, to wrestle so well, to suffer so well.

And the Lord led me to Jeremiah 17, seven through eight, and I found something there that it is so critical to remaining in conversation with God when my heart is broken. Jeremiah wrote this, but blessed is the man who trusts. In the Lord [00:15:00] whose confidence is in him, he’ll be like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream.

It doesn’t fear when the heat comes, its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. I love the image of a tree, this strong immovable unshakeable tree. So we see that Jeremiah. Already has a deep rooted confidence in God that remains unshakable, even when his circumstances shake him.

And so here’s what I’ve learned. This is so powerful for me. We can be convinced and confused at the same time. That’s what we see in Jeremiah’s wrestling. We can give ourselves the freedom to say, Hey, god, I’m fully convinced that what you say about yourself is true.

I’m convinced you’re faithful, but I’m so confused by how this is being lived out in my life. And I need you to talk to me about this and that’s where the freedom comes. , it’s [00:16:00] absolutely impossible to move from a place of deep brokenness and heartache into a place of deep restored intimacy with God, without processing our disappointments.

And the freedom to acknowledge, I can be convinced that what God says is true, and confused about how he’s working in my life. , that’s what God uses to rescue us.  

So that we can land in a place of deep conviction. We will be more solidly anchored to the truth of who God is. And so what I love so much is that as I have walked through injustice and through hard things, I look at Jeremiah and I see that in his life, in his whole long life, that we don’t see bitterness taking root.

We don’t see cynicism being displayed. We don’t see him trapped by comparisons looking at his life compared with other lives. So when we are in a place of a pile of hardship, and I have 100 percent been there, we are really vulnerable to [00:17:00] being derailed ,

So how do we keep our heart anchored to God? So I’m going to share my own story in just a moment, but just to summarize these three important things that seems so,

they seem so simple, but they have handed me so much hope and courage and freedom over the years. First of all, we remain in conversation with God, no matter what, no matter what we’re dealing with. We refuse to give up. We refuse to give in. We tell God the truth. We stand firm in the freedom that we can be convinced that everything God says about himself is true and confused about how his love is playing out in our lives.

We can be convinced and confused at the same time And then we rehearse god’s promises we declare his word out loud And we can I mean we can even go to jeremiah 117:7-8. I love this so much god I want to be somebody who trusts in you whose confidence is in you Transform me into someone who is so [00:18:00] deeply rooted in you so deeply confident in you That I don’t fear when obstacles come.

I don’t fear when hardships arise and I continue to bear fruit and Father, I just thank you that in Jeremiah 29, 11, you tell me, I know, you know, the plans you have for me plans to prosper me and not to harm me plans to give me a hope and a future father. I know it’s true even right now, even in my brokenness, even when my heart is crying out for relief and I don’t understand what you’re up to.

I know it’s true. And the third thing, and this is just a part of the other two, we respond to God’s invitation. He is always issuing an invitation. I want to talk to you about this. He, he’s so attracted to our gut wrenching, authentic, truth telling, He’s so attracted to our brokenness and our honesty.

And in these places, he will draw near and we will experience him. And we get to this [00:19:00] place where we just say,, this gets me so choked up because I’ve been in these places. I know them all too well. God, I know you’re worthy of my trust. God, I know you’re so faithful. You’re absolutely so tender in the ways you pursue our hearts in these places of hardship.

He wants us to know how much he loves us, and he will show us, he will reveal himself to us. He will bring healing to our wounded hearts. So I’m going to share a story with you about how this played out in my own life. And then I’m going to share a really cool contemporary story as we wrap this up.

Kelly: So years ago, . I was starting to feel discouraged, but I didn’t understand why I was still in close relationship with God. But I kept sensing God saying, Kelly, I want to talk to you about this place in your heart. I kept feeling like God was saying, come away with me.

. I wasn’t okay deep down inside, but I didn’t know what it was. So I just kept [00:20:00] putting God off. And saying, I don’t really want to talk about that. God, because I don’t know what’s there. I don’t have time to fall apart. , but as time passed, I began to notice this low lying depression developing in my life and kind of a numbness over my emotions.

Kelly: And so I talked to a friend of mine and, I just told her what was going on. And she said, you know, I’m feeling the same way. Maybe we should go on a prayer retreat. And so the two of us decided to just take a weekend and go up in the mountains and just spend some time in prayer.

As the day approached, I began to talk myself out of it, and I thought, This is ridiculous. I do not need to get away to have God speak to me. He can speak to me right here. I don’t want to spend money on myself. I don’t want to take time away from my family. I need to be home.

It felt selfish. It felt indulgent. So I had completely talked myself out of it. I was about to call my friend and tell her, but I received a letter in the mail, . I hadn’t opened it. It was from a friend [00:21:00] of mine who had just had a women’s retreat. And the verse inside was Matthew 11, 28 through 30. So I’m going to read it to you out of the message version. It says, Are you tired? Are you worn out, burnt out on religion?

Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace and I won’t lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me. And you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. So I read this and I just started crying because that’s the exact message.

God had been speaking to me for months. Come away with me. Kelly let me talk to you about this. And so I called my friend and I was trying not to cry, but I just said to her through my tears. Hey, I was going to call you and cancel, but this is what happened. So now I’m all in. God’s got something for us.

And then she called me back and said, [00:22:00] The exact same thing was going through my mind, Kelly. I was just about to cancel, but I heard your message. And now I know God’s got something for us. God is worth it. So we’re going . So we went. And we spend time during the day in prayer in beautiful surroundings. We get together for meals. And 1 day we drove up to , a mountain lake. It was absolutely beautiful. And we were both separated from each other, I had a blanket spread out and I had my journal and I was listening to some music.

But my friend came to me and she said, Kelly, I just had a vision of you. God just spoke to me about you. I had a picture in my mind of you covered in ashes from head to toe. You look like those people at the World Trade Center when they were covered in dirt and debris

and the word God spoke was mourn. Does that mean anything to you? And I started crying. So far, you’ve heard me say that about four times but honestly, honestly, God [00:23:00] broke through the walls that were around the deepest part of my heart. And I realized what he was saying to me was, Kelly, you need to grieve. God just made it so clear through his spirit that I needed to grieve more of the losses that we had experienced in the decades of our, of raising our children.

But it confused me because I said, God, I’ve grieved and grieved some more. I mean, how could I possibly have more to grieve? But here’s the truth. When you walk through disappointments in life, There’s usually layers and layers of disappointments that are linked together. And I’ve seen so many people who have been, like me, confused by, I grieved the dream that was lost, but they didn’t grieve all the implications. I’m going to tell you how God began to heal my heart, but before I do, what I love so much about this is it would have been so easy if someone had said, how are you? And I’d say, I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. That’s how I am. I’m totally fine. But [00:24:00] I really wasn’t, I was just surviving.

And I just love so much that God loves us too much to allow us to stay in places. Where the enemy is stealing joy out of our lives, where the enemy is keeping us trapped in places of woundedness and loss and disappointments. , I just love how God pursues our hearts and comes alongside of us and says, I’m going to rescue you.

I’ve got so much more for you than this. And the other thing I love so much about God’s heart is that he didn’t say, want you to try harder. I want you to pray more. I want you to pray differently. I want you to add this spiritual discipline. God just came with so much love. And this is how he works. He draws us with loving kindness. He doesn’t draw us with condemnation.

That’s not his voice. If you’re hearing condemnation, that’s the voice of the enemy. It’s not his.

We see the example of Jeremiah remaining in conversation with God, and that’s his invitation to us. I will [00:25:00] never leave you. I’ll never abandon you. And when I got home, I spent weeks and weeks just in extended time with the Lord. Actually, he led me to this song called Held. That just talked about the promises that you’ll be held and God just kept speaking this over my heart, Kelly.

I’ve never abandoned you. I’ve never left you. I, I love you and I love your family. I listened to the same song and I wept in places that were too deep for words and God began to heal my heart. And the other one of the ways he healed my heart was he uncovered the deepest lie and at the very core of my heart.

God put words to my deepest offense, my deepest wound. And it sounded, my prayer sounded like this, Lord, when I read the story of my girls lives, what I see is neglect, not the care of a good shepherd. I just keep seeing this pile and pile of hardships. Why didn’t you let them be okay before you added more suffering [00:26:00] in their lives?

I’m offended and I’m hurt. . It looks like you’re neglecting them. I know it’s not true. That’s not who you are. I need you to help me see differently. So I was convinced about what was true about God, and I was confused about how His love was being was playing out in my life, and in my girls lives, . And then he led me to the story in John 11, when Lazarus died. And you remember the story, Mary and Martha and Lazarus were his very close friends, and they sent him a message saying, your friend Lazarus is sick. And then in verse 5, it says this, Jesus loved Martha and his sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was for 2 more days

he loved them and he waited. And that makes no sense, right? You love these guys, your friend is sick, you’ve healed tons of people, and yet you’re waiting. It doesn’t make [00:27:00] any sense. But Jesus, we don’t see him wringing his hands in worry. We don’t see him urgently packing his bag and Rushing to him, we see peace and he says to his disciples, this sickness won’t end in death.

It’s for God’s glory so that God’s son may be glorified through it. . When I read that through the Holy Spirit in this season of healing, I can’t tell you how hard it hit me.

I started weeping and the message God was speaking over my heart, I love you and I love your girls. he was impressing upon my heart. My delays are not evidence of diminished love. My delays are not evidence of my rejection of your family.

My delays are not evidence of neglect. I just sensed God was inviting us into a better story than we could ever write on our own. And that’s what we see in the life of Lazarus. Jesus waited until he was definitely dead.

There was no question about it. And they rolled away the stone [00:28:00] and he called out and Lazarus was resurrected from the dead and thousands came to believe in Jesus because this one event.

I’m just so grateful that God is so creative to heal the deepest wounds in our heart. He is always at work, and He is working in and through our hard stories, through our hard places. And he is bringing beauty out of the ashes and we will see something glorious.

We’re going to see his hand up close and personal, and we are going to land in deeper places of trust and intimacy with the Lord than we’ve ever been before. Just like what we see in the life of Jeremiah. Before I go to this other contemporary story,

I just wanna lay out this this section of verses about endurance from Romans five. So it’s verses three through four. We can rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character. And character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out [00:29:00] his love into our hearts.

By the Holy Spirit, whom he’s given to us, this is our gift. His love indwells us, his spirit indwells us. Our circumstances may disappoint us, but our God and his love and our eternal hope and our salvation will never disappoint us. His love can never be removed from us. And in Isaiah 60, 22, we read, at just the right time. I, the Lord will make it happen.

It’s such an invitation for us , to bring our expectations to the Lord and just say to God, purify my expectations. I want them to be in you rather than in an outcome. And that’s what happens as we wrestle through everything that stands in the way and remain in conversation with him. We land in a place of deeper trust where God is glorified.

Hallelujah. I’m so grateful.

Kelly: We land in a place where we experience God’s healing, his love, his intimacy, his faithfulness.

He himself does not disappoint us. [00:30:00] We will always see his goodness and mercy here on this earth.

Want to tell you this story it’s a recent story. I just came across.

And I love it because it’s just a picture of perseverance, of endurance. So This happened in 2008. Heather Dornadin was a runner for the University of Minnesota, and she was competing in a team event. It was the 600 meter final she had completed two laps, and as the last lap began, she tripped and she fell, and it wasn’t just a stumble, I mean, she face planted. She had been close to the front, but now she was far behind the pack. But she quickly got up. She wasn’t injured. She quickly jumped up and she started running and she began to close the gap. , she was in a full sprint. She passed the last person, and then she passed the next person, and then the next person, and right at the last second, she moves into first place, and as she crosses the finish line, everyone in the arena went crazy.

It was [00:31:00] absolutely amazing. You can watch this on YouTube. You can just Google Heather Dornadin, 2008 runner, it was so much fun to watch. . And one of her interviews, she said, this was such a powerful memory for me, , I just thought to myself, well, it’s a team event, so I’m just going to keep running because at least I can gain a few points. She got up and persevered and endured and stayed in the race, even though She didn’t really have any idea that the outcome could actually be that she would win , but she just thought, well, I’m going to just finish.

I may be in last place, but I’ll get some points. And then as she was finishing this lap and just about to go into first place, she heard the announcer saying, watch out for Heather Dornadin.

Here she comes.

I love that so much. I just imagine the Lord in all of heaven cheering us on and declaring when we are enduring in the difficult places in life, Watch out! Watch out for her! Here she comes! That’s [00:32:00] my girl. Here she comes.

I love to imagine. God is our champion. He is our hero. He is the one who fights for us. He is cheering us on to greater heights of spiritual victory than we can even imagine As we endure I think we should Imagine the cheers of heaven and the power of God in these places Because he’s a God who is always with us

Jeremiah endured, because Jeremiah refused to give up. God caused beauty to rise out of the ashes of his life. He wrote things that we are enjoying and being encouraged by thousands of years later. In Jeremiah I have loved you with an everlasting love.

Jeremiah could not have written this if he had not personally known and experienced God’s love. That’s one of the rewards he experienced on this earth before his eternal reward. This is God’s voice. I’ve loved you with an everlasting [00:33:00] love. I’ve drawn you with loving kindness. I’ll build you up again and you will be rebuilt. , and that is one of the beautiful messages. Of hope that people love to quote from the writings of Jeremiah. I’ve already talked about Jeremiah 29, 11, that the Lord’s plans are to prosper you, not to harm you, to give you a hope in a future.

And then we know Jeremiah 33, three, it’s one of my favorite scriptures out of Jeremiah called to me and I’ll answer you and I’ll tell you great and marvelous things you could never figure out on your own. And then this other beautiful, glorious thing that rises out of the ashes of Jeremiah’s hard life is something that was probably written by him, but we don’t know for sure. It’s in Lamentations. We don’t know who the author is. Many think it was Jeremiah, but it sounds so much like Jeremiah’s heart. I’m going to read it. As if it came from Jeremiah, so the writer of lamentations is looking at the destruction [00:34:00] of Jerusalem and he’s saying everything I’d hoped for has been lost.

And then he says, and yet I still dare to hope I still dare to hope this is just so beautiful.

Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this. The faithful love of the Lord never ends. His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness. His mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, the Lord is my inheritance. Therefore, I will hope in Him. It’s so encouraging.

This is the glorious beauty that can arise out of our lives when we endure. Heather Dornigan stayed in the race. I love that example of endurance. When we fall or when we fail, we know that we too will have such an incredible, epic finish. We just looked at Jeremiah’s finish, all these inspirational truths that continue to bless our heart from the power of God being worked out in his life simply because he endured and [00:35:00] remained in conversation with God.

We will all fall and we will all fail, but God says in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart because I’ve overcome the world. We are overcomers. We will not be overcome. Jeremiah was an overcomer, even though it looked like the, an earthly person had overcome him.

He wasn’t overcome. God’s purposes were still carried out his beautiful, victorious finish was written in Jeremiah’s life, and it was better than anything he could have imagined. Heather Dornigan never could have believed that just because she got up off the track, that she could have actually , landed in first place at the end of that race.

We too can live overcoming, enduring victorious lives. As we continue to remain in conversation with God in our difficult places, as we wrestle things out with God, as we rehearse and declare everything we know to be true about God, we [00:36:00] too will land in places of deeper intimacy with God.

We will actually experience treasures of God’s love and faithfulness and strength, and we will be able to hand this wisdom and our beautiful stories to other people to give them hope that and hand them courage in Galatians 6, 9. It says, Don’t grow weary in doing good for in due time.

You shall reap. A reward if you don’t give up, and that’s what today has been about. It’s about the beauty and the reward of wrestling things out with God. Our hope is not in outcome, our hope is in the Lord. I want to just close with this beautiful, powerful quote by Ann Voskamp, where she declares the difference between lament and complaint. That’s our invitation. from God. Come to me. Pour out your laments.

Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has his ear to our hearts, a God who [00:37:00] transfigures the ugly into beauty. Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief. In any benevolent God it’s a distrust

of the love beat of the Father’s heart. Father, may we never be people who distrust the love beat of your good heart. Fill us up. With the passion and the desire to remain in the race, father, help us hear your voice, inviting us to talk to you, to wrestle out everything that stands in the way of deeper intimacy with you.

May we be like that tree, planted by streams, with our roots going deep into your living water, Father. May we be people who don’t fear when the troubles come, but continue to bear fruit.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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, kellyhall. org [00:38:00] and pick up some free resources while you’re there. Thanks for listening to the Unshakable Hope Podcast.