The Fellowship of Suffering (#884)

Where is God when our hearts are filled with agony? Is he behind our circumstances orchestrating them? Is he allowing them for some higher purpose for us? Is he just an indifferent spectator, watching us go through them? Or is he in them with us, holding our pain as he invites us to hold his as well? Wayne shares an experience with Kyle from a couple of months ago that has taken him on a new trajectory, gazing not only through the victory of the cross but the agony that God feels for the broken Creation and his loss of relationships with people he loves because of lies told about him. While we all crave joy and comfort, there is more to be learned in our pain and sorrow. As the Preacher said in Ecclesiastes, "Sorrow is better than laughter; it probes the depth of the heart." (7:3) They also talk about the inspiration of Scripture earlier in the podcast.

Podcast Notes:

  • The video recording of this podcast.
  • Wayne's video series — The Jesus Lens
  • Picked Cherries - a new way to share podcasts.
  • DATE CHANGE: The next Jake Colsen Book Club session will be held Sunday, March 5, at 1:30 pm PST.  You'll have to work that out in your own time zone. We will explore Chapter 10: Won to Trust, as we process how Jesus teaches us to trust him and what he wants, rather than trying to get him to give us the outcomes we want for ourselves. We will stream it live on my Facebook Author Page, but if you want to be part of the conversation, you can get a link to the Zoom Room by emailing Wayne and asking for it.

3 Comments

  1. Thank you Kyle and Wayne for these conversations…appreciate your sharing what you are discovering. Sue

  2. Father already has the victory through Christ’s work upon the cross… But man does it take a lifetime of trusting to let Him have all our stuff…even stuff we didn’t know we had. Piece by piece, and bit by bit we press forward for the mark of His calling within us. Often, we religiously think the end goal is to be able to go minister to others. Slowly, we may discover our daily need for Him to minister to us as we minister to Him. The only real way to minister Him to others is to let ourselves receive His compassion, then we’ll have the true compassion we need to take Him to others around us. Without His compassion we to often judge according to our flesh and miss the God given opportunity to see His love in action outside of our own needs.

  3. I’ve been listening to the story of the past year, praying for you at the beginning when you were unable to share that Sara had left you, and weeping through the story as it unfolded, through the joy and the pain.
    And as the concept of hidden trauma became a reality, certain doors to healing have been revealed in my own life. One or two of those doors have been opened, but I’m aware that there’s stuff hidden that I can’t face yet.
    In the same way, I’m seeing that others are possibly suffering from the effects of past trauma and I’m finding that I’m starting to be more compassionate and less judgemental, when their behaviour isn’t as I’d like it to be.
    So, as you are moving into new and fresh territory, whilst the truth of it resonates with me, I can’t say I’m understanding it yet: holding others’ pain and holding God’s pain. Wow!
    I’m finally back with my wife in China so I’m really appreciating the podcasts as I currently don’t have fellowship with any Christians at the moment.
    Thank you Wayne, Sara and Kyle for sharing your hearts with us.
    PS. As a Brit, I’m totally OK with the word ‘crap’.

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