Speaker 1: Good morning and welcome. We're continuing our series of conversations
Speaker 1: about freedom, and maybe you think this morning, what does
Speaker 1: freedom have to do with my purpose and being fulfilled
Speaker 1: and what life is all about? And just give a
Speaker 1: thought to this way back our forefathers said, we believe
Speaker 1: that all people are created equal and endowed by their
Speaker 1: creator with certain and alienable rights like life, liberty, and
Speaker 1: the pursuit of happiness. And so freedom gets tied into
Speaker 1: the idea of happiness and how we find fulfillment. And
Speaker 1: last week we talked about the God who hears, and
Speaker 1: today we're thinking a little bit about the God who heals.
Speaker 1: And I shared with you the quote from Tolkien's book
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings. This is frodo.
Speaker 2: I wish it.
Speaker 1: Need not have happened in my time, So do I
Speaker 1: said Gandalf, And so do all who live to see
Speaker 1: such times. But that is not for them to decide.
Speaker 1: All we have to decide is what to do with
Speaker 1: the time given us. So I think all of us
Speaker 1: understand that feeling that'll be in circumstances and to be
Speaker 1: going through things in our life and in our journey
Speaker 1: that are unsettling that we wish were not happening that
Speaker 1: we wish had never happened. And so when we look
Speaker 1: at that and recognize that there are some problems and
Speaker 1: there are some things that need to be addressed, it's
Speaker 1: important to remember that God is working for our freedom.
Speaker 1: John sixteen thirty three. I've told you these things so
Speaker 1: that in me you might have peace. In the world,
Speaker 1: you will have trouble, But take heart, I've overcome the world.
Speaker 1: And so there is an acknowledgment that the world's broken,
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of things in it that
Speaker 1: aren't working right. But God hears, and then also God heals.
Speaker 1: So when you begin to think about that, and you
Speaker 1: think about brokenness and what it looks like and what
Speaker 1: it means, what kind of brokenness in your story and
Speaker 1: in your life needs some healing. Maybe personal failure, chronic sin, addiction, trauma,
Speaker 1: family dysfunction. Maybe you just have a ruminating mind and
Speaker 1: it wears you out. Maybe it's depression or anxiety, emotional
Speaker 1: battles that wear us down. Maybe it's relational battles that
Speaker 1: finally wear out our hope. So when you begin to
Speaker 1: think about that, and you think about life, and you
Speaker 1: think about the biblical narrative and what it has to
Speaker 1: teach us. You got to admit that a lot of
Speaker 1: the key characters in the biblical narrative suffer from incredible brokenness.
Speaker 1: Adam and Eve had some obvious issues. Abraham passes off
Speaker 1: his wife as his sister to Farah so he could
Speaker 1: save his own life. He has a child with his
Speaker 1: wife's servant, Hagar. And if you know church history, and
Speaker 1: you know the history of religions, then you know that
Speaker 1: still has reverberations into our modern culture today. Isaac, he
Speaker 1: has the process of deception. Jacob joins with his mother
Speaker 1: to deceive Isaac and to steal his brother's birthright. Dysfunction, brokenness.
Speaker 1: Stephen Specter writes the patriarchal narratives display the blessings of
Speaker 1: being favored by God, but also reveal its human cost.
Speaker 1: Abraham and his descendants are both exalted and riven by
Speaker 1: their chosenness, and as a family they inflict severe distress
Speaker 1: on each other. Seen from that perspective, much of Genesis
Speaker 1: twelve through fifty is an account of dysfunction and trauma,
Speaker 1: but the narrative arc of Genesis leans in the direction
Speaker 1: of spiritual, moral, and emotional growth, and that opens the
Speaker 1: possibility of healing and reconciliation for that to happen. The
Speaker 1: text stresses the importance of human kindness, love, and forgiveness
Speaker 1: as well as God's grace. So when we're goin to
Speaker 1: think about that and the brokenness that comes up with it,
Speaker 1: we get to this store. Jacob played favorites with his children,
Speaker 1: and he set up Joseph to be at odds with
Speaker 1: his brothers. But Joseph is also arrogant, and he doesn't
Speaker 1: show much discretion in what he chooses to say out loud,
Speaker 1: and then that leads to great division. Eventually, Joseph is
Speaker 1: sowed into slavery. He arrives in Egypt, he goes through
Speaker 1: a process in Egypt, and eventually comes to power in
Speaker 1: Egypt over the famine. But it all starts from dysfunction. David,
Speaker 1: the Great King of Israel, has a great deal of
Speaker 1: brokenness in his story at all levels mental, emotional, relational, sin,
Speaker 1: on and on it goes. When you look at Matthew's
Speaker 1: genealogy of the story of Jesus of Christ, you find
Speaker 1: all kinds of interesting people in the genealogy. The patriarchs
Speaker 1: are there, but so is Tomorrow. Tomorrow a woman who
Speaker 1: is in one of the most broken stories of the Bible,
Speaker 1: rehab a woman of ill repute, Ruth who's not even Jewish.
Speaker 1: All of that to say, God uses broken people, and
Speaker 1: he uses broken people because there really aren't any other
Speaker 1: kinds of people in the world, just broken people. So
Speaker 1: somehow you've begun to think that you're too broken to
Speaker 1: be a part of the redeeming story, that you're too
Speaker 1: broken to be a part of a solution in your
Speaker 1: own home and in your own family, even to heal
Speaker 1: from your own brokenness. Think again, because that is a
Speaker 1: part of the story. Then there's Moses. Moses was raised
Speaker 1: in the tradition and luxury of Egyptian royalty, and then
Speaker 1: he got into some trouble and he murdered someone, and
Speaker 1: then decided that the best course of action.
Speaker 2: Was to run away. He just ran away.
Speaker 1: He ran away from his obligations, he ran away from
Speaker 1: his family, he ran away from his responsibilities in the palace,
Speaker 1: and he spent the next forty years.
Speaker 2: Think about that. He spent the next forty.
Speaker 1: Years moving on, getting on with his life, just leading
Speaker 1: a quiet life. He doesn't go back to check on
Speaker 1: his loved ones, he doesn't go back to check on
Speaker 1: his friends. He doesn't check on his family. He's just
Speaker 1: decided he'll just watch his father in law sheeps. Not
Speaker 1: even in business for himself. He's going to watch his
Speaker 1: father in law sheep, and he does so for forty
Speaker 1: years brokenness. Not exactly the person that you would call
Speaker 1: on to fix things that are broken.
Speaker 2: But here we are.
Speaker 1: And so during that long period, we're told in Exodus
Speaker 1: two and three that the king of Egypt died and
Speaker 1: that the Israelites were groaning in their slavery and there
Speaker 1: were issues going on.
Speaker 2: But God heard their cry and he began to take action.
Speaker 1: So one day, as Moses is tending his father in
Speaker 1: law sheep, he notices that there is a a bush
Speaker 1: that has caught on fire, and he notices it's not
Speaker 1: being consumed, and so he thinks, I'm going to go
Speaker 1: check this out, and he does. He goes over to
Speaker 1: the site and he hears the voice of God. Take
Speaker 1: off your shoes, Moses, this is holy ground, and he
Speaker 1: does so, and now God begins to speak to him
Speaker 1: about what's going to happen. He's going to send Moses
Speaker 1: to help the people be delivered. He's heard the groanings
Speaker 1: of his people. He's a god who hears, and now
Speaker 1: he's going to send Moses and he's going to go
Speaker 1: and he's going to have them speak to Pharaoh and
Speaker 1: be delivered, and he's going to take them, the Israelites,
Speaker 1: to a promised land that he had given to Abraham
Speaker 1: and Isaac and Jacob. And this big promise begins to unfold,
Speaker 1: and then Moses kind of gives that a little bit
Speaker 1: of thought, and he's not quite sure how it all
Speaker 1: is going to fit together and how he fits into it.
Speaker 1: So how does God respond to this broken man and
Speaker 1: the broken story. He not only extends in mercy, but
Speaker 1: he says, you're just the man I need for the job.
Speaker 1: You're my chosen purpose to accomplish my will in the world.
Speaker 1: I'm going to free people and I'm going to change
Speaker 1: the circumstances through your influence and your journey. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why God is so merciful and gracious in all
Speaker 1: of the stories, but he's merciful and gracious in our
Speaker 1: stories too. He always responds to us in mercy. Moses
Speaker 1: doesn't think he should be the person. He feels disqualified,
Speaker 1: he feels underqualified, But God keeps calling him anyway, And
Speaker 1: I think he keeps calling each of us into a
Speaker 1: place of service, into a place where we can make
Speaker 1: a difference in the world, where we can see the
Speaker 1: Kingdom come and God's will done on earth as it
Speaker 1: is in heaven. Do you see yourself as being used
Speaker 1: in God's hands for God's purposes? His interactions with mothers
Speaker 1: tells a few things about God. Number One, God sees
Speaker 1: a big picture. God sees things in Moses' life, and
Speaker 1: how he's uniquely equipped. Think about it. Is there anybody
Speaker 1: on the planet more qualified to do this than Moses.
Speaker 1: He knows about Pharaoh, he knows about royalty, he knows
Speaker 1: about the practices of the palace, and he's raised as
Speaker 1: a Jew, and so he understands the plight of his people.
Speaker 1: He knows his own history obviously as a relationship with
Speaker 1: the divine God of the Israelites. And so who really,
Speaker 1: when you just look at the raw information, who would
Speaker 1: be better qualified. He's rough, He's lived forty years as
Speaker 1: a shepherd out in the middle of nowhere. But there's
Speaker 1: something about him that's very, very important, and he sees
Speaker 1: the big picture. He sees the big picture in our
Speaker 1: story as well, and then deeper motives. God sees that
Speaker 1: Moses has missed guided as his choices were, that he
Speaker 1: was responding to the situation with the Egyptian shoulder as
Speaker 1: an act of protection. It went wrong, and it should
Speaker 1: have happened differently. But God looks at our deeper motives
Speaker 1: that Moses, in fact, in this moment of great failure,
Speaker 1: was acting as a shepherd, was acting for the cause
Speaker 1: of justice, and it went wrong, and it's not the
Speaker 1: right thing. But God does look at the motive. He
Speaker 1: sees something in us that's worth calling out. He had
Speaker 1: forty years for the passion of youth to wear off,
Speaker 1: to gain a little bit of wisdom and maturity, and
Speaker 1: he looks at our deeper motives of what's going on
Speaker 1: in our hearts and in our minds. We're going to
Speaker 1: come back to this right after this break.
Speaker 2: Welcome back.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Healing Conversations on KABC seven ninety M
Speaker 1: Dave Roberts. We're talking about brokenness, Moses's brokenness. How many
Speaker 1: of us feel like our story are so broken that
Speaker 1: we just don't have anything to offer. We can't be
Speaker 1: very useful, we can't ever be what we once hoped
Speaker 1: to be. But the entire biblical narrative, and especially the
Speaker 1: story of Moses, reminds us that God looks at a
Speaker 1: lot deeper things. He sees a big picture, He sees
Speaker 1: things we can't see or things we've forgotten. And then
Speaker 1: he looks at our motives. I think that's so important.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you and I have to be honest about our motives.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we need to forgive ourselves for failures, that we
Speaker 1: had the right motives, but we made the wrong choices.
Speaker 1: Other times we need to confess that we've made good
Speaker 1: choices with bad motives. Sometimes we've made bad choices with
Speaker 1: bad motives. But motives matter. God looks at the condition
Speaker 1: of our heart, and even when things don't turn out
Speaker 1: exactly right, he sees something deeper in us, things that
Speaker 1: we can't even see ourselves.
Speaker 2: And God is full of.
Speaker 1: Grace and redeems our failures and even redeems the motives
Speaker 1: behind them. Then number three sees hidden potential. God sees
Speaker 1: something in Moses that no one else sees. That he
Speaker 1: can look at Moses. He can look at his story
Speaker 1: and remember, Moses is now eighty years old. He was
Speaker 1: in Egypt for forty years, and now he's been tending
Speaker 1: sheep for forty years. Not many people look at a
Speaker 1: person at that stage of life and see a lot
Speaker 1: of hidden potential. But God does. God does, and so
Speaker 1: there's this opportunity. There's this moment. And when God looks
Speaker 1: at a person who's been shamed and disqualified and in
Speaker 1: many ways exiled into the wilderness and sees potential, sees
Speaker 1: someone who has something worth salvaging, something worth celebrating, and
Speaker 1: think about it, Moses becomes this heroic character.
Speaker 2: Very few of.
Speaker 1: Us think of Moses in the state that he's in
Speaker 1: at this stage of the story. God sees something in him,
Speaker 1: and he sees something in you. God sees our hidden potential,
Speaker 1: even when we think we've been used up, when we
Speaker 1: think we've been disqualified, are shamed into submission, or misused,
Speaker 1: or mismanaged, our unappreciated, more extreme cases, abused. We have
Speaker 1: a million ways to get broken, but God still sees
Speaker 1: our hidden potential. What would you change if you believed
Speaker 1: God sees in you hidden potential and is calling you
Speaker 1: to accomplish something, to heal something down inside of you
Speaker 1: that's been broken for a long time. God knew Moses's story,
Speaker 1: and he knew his journey. He saw the big picture
Speaker 1: and the deeper motives. But he saw in him a
Speaker 1: champion who could lead his people to freedom, and he
Speaker 1: begins to heal the brokenness of his life. Number four
Speaker 1: he sees in Moses' willingness to listen. Moses saw the
Speaker 1: burning bush, went closer. God spoke, Moses listened. God said
Speaker 1: this is holy ground. Take off your shoes, and Moses
Speaker 1: took off his shoes. God may see our weakness and
Speaker 1: our failures and our selfishness, but he also sees, when
Speaker 1: in spite of it all, we're willing to listen and respond,
Speaker 1: that the best way to navigate brokenness is to get
Speaker 1: really serious about humility and listening and being teachable and
Speaker 1: being curious and interested in what God might say or
Speaker 1: what he might do. It matters to our healing, and
Speaker 1: it matters to the health of our relationships that we
Speaker 1: are able to listen.
Speaker 2: Are you able to listen?
Speaker 1: It says in Psalms forty six, Be still and know
Speaker 1: that I'm God. God looks for willingness to listen as
Speaker 1: he works to heal what's broken in us. And then
Speaker 1: number five he sees his anxious doubts. As God tells Moses,
Speaker 1: you're the person, Moses has a very long list of
Speaker 1: reasons why he's not the person. He has a very
Speaker 1: long list of reasons why God should pick someone else.
Speaker 1: He has his own anxiety and fears about what God
Speaker 1: is saying.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Moses could have seen this opportunity in a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways. He could have seen it as a moment
Speaker 1: of revenge. He's going to go back. He's going to
Speaker 1: show everybody that he shouldn't have been run out of town,
Speaker 1: that he's stronger than they thought. He's going to get
Speaker 1: revenge on the old system that's abused as people. He
Speaker 1: could have seen it as a time for his own edification.
Speaker 1: He's going to become a hero. He's going to ride
Speaker 1: back in and save his people. But he didn't see
Speaker 1: any of that stuff in himself. What he saw instead
Speaker 1: was the fact that he was really not ready for it,
Speaker 1: and he gives a whole list of reasons why he's
Speaker 1: not ready for it. He doesn't talk very well, he's
Speaker 1: not an eloquent person. He's just not the right person
Speaker 1: for the job. That God's probably made a mistake, that
Speaker 1: he really one by one just has a lot of
Speaker 1: reasons why he's not the person, and God's gracious like that.
Speaker 1: Seems to me that a lot of times broken people
Speaker 1: are humble. Brokenness somehow takes out the fight and the
Speaker 1: starch and the pride, and it causes us to be
Speaker 1: in a space where we are anxious about a lot
Speaker 1: of things. How could IF fix that? How could I
Speaker 1: cure that? How could I be a part of a
Speaker 1: solution in that with my own issues and my own stuff.
Speaker 1: And God patiently deals with our anxious doubts.
Speaker 2: One by one by one by one.
Speaker 1: He acts like that with us. And then finally number six,
Speaker 1: God sees in Moses a self effacing leader. He sees
Speaker 1: a person who has the capacity to be incredibly strong
Speaker 1: and courageous. That Moses will find himself and find some
Speaker 1: strength that he never knew he had. But he also
Speaker 1: finds in him someone who will remain dependent on God.
Speaker 1: And is this complex story begins to unfold. We're going
Speaker 1: to see Moses again and again and again and again
Speaker 1: as a self effacing leader pointing the people to God,
Speaker 1: coming back to God, remembering again and again, this is
Speaker 1: not about me. It's not about how smart I am
Speaker 1: It's not about my strength. This is about God. It's
Speaker 1: about what he can do, It's about his calling. It's
Speaker 1: about what he desires for me. And that is so
Speaker 1: incredibly important as we think about that, as we think
Speaker 1: about what it means for us. So how does God
Speaker 1: respond to this broken man in this broken story? He
Speaker 1: extends him Mercy says, you are just the person that
Speaker 1: I need for this job. You're exactly who I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: And how does he respond to the brokenness in our story?
Speaker 1: Let's go back to where we started this conversation. What
Speaker 1: is the brokenness in your story? What makes you feel shamed? Disqualified?
Speaker 1: Is it choices you've made?
Speaker 2: Is it chronic failure?
Speaker 1: You know, acute failure where we just wake up one
Speaker 1: morning and we just spectacularly fall apart is one kind
Speaker 1: of thing, but the kind of shows up week after
Speaker 1: week and year after year that just stays with us
Speaker 1: and we think, by now I should be over this.
Speaker 1: That's a kind of brokenness that eats away at the
Speaker 1: very center of our soul.
Speaker 2: How do you deal with that? Is it relational trauma?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 1: Are you in a relationship, in a marriage, have some
Speaker 1: children that you just can't parents? You just can't seem
Speaker 1: to get along and it's not working. There's just constant
Speaker 1: friction and stress and sadness and grief and anger. Brokenness
Speaker 1: is an addiction.
Speaker 2: There's so many ways. Is it financial? Is it career?
Speaker 1: Is it self doubt? There's so many things that cause
Speaker 1: brokenness in our lives and in our story, and we
Speaker 1: start to see ourselves as less than and we walk
Speaker 1: around in life feeling wounded and hurt and overwhelmed. I
Speaker 1: just want to remind you there are really no people
Speaker 1: in this Biblical story that don't display incredible amounts of brokenness.
Speaker 1: And it's not because they're somehow significantly more terrible than
Speaker 1: the next person. The fact of the matter is they're
Speaker 1: just people. But the good news of the narrative of
Speaker 1: the Bible is that God uses broken people, uses them
Speaker 1: again and again.
Speaker 2: And sometimes I hear.
Speaker 1: People say the Bible is just propaganda. Well, it's very
Speaker 1: bad propagand it's broken people who suffer frequent failure, but
Speaker 1: are encountered by a divine God who loves them, who
Speaker 1: reaches out to them. Not only that, but uses them,
Speaker 1: doesn't cancel them, He doesn't keep them from being a
Speaker 1: part of the story, part of the narrative, a part
Speaker 1: of what matters. Instead, He's a God of mercy. He
Speaker 1: forgives them, he sees the potential in them. He looks
Speaker 1: at the deeper part of their heart, of who they
Speaker 1: really are. There's a passage in the New Testament says,
Speaker 1: even when our hearts condemn us, he doesn't commit us.
Speaker 1: We're often so hard on ourselves. But God shows mercy
Speaker 1: to us, and thank God he does.
Speaker 2: We need that.
Speaker 1: Some of us this morning need a chance to heal.
Speaker 1: God doesn't have a plan B. He just has a
Speaker 1: plan A that whatever has happened to you, and whatever
Speaker 1: you've suffered through, and however you see yourself or think
Speaker 1: of yourself, God today would say to you, Hey, anyone
Speaker 1: who's in cry, this is a new creation. The old
Speaker 1: is gone and the newest come. You don't have to
Speaker 1: carry this around. You can lay it down and you
Speaker 1: can set it aside, and you can be done with it.
Speaker 1: And we'll come up with a brand new plan A
Speaker 1: from where we are right now. Whatever happened before is
Speaker 1: the past. We'll make a new plan A. Paul says,
Speaker 1: this one thing I do forgetting what is behind, I
Speaker 1: reach forward to take hold of the prize for which
Speaker 1: God has called me heavenward. So give that some thought,
Speaker 1: let that resonate in your heart.
Speaker 2: We're coming up to a.
Speaker 1: Break, and maybe you just take the next few minutes
Speaker 1: and think, what if I could have a fresh start
Speaker 1: in a new beginning. What if God really can heal
Speaker 1: the deep brokenness in my heart and mind. We're going
Speaker 1: to pick that up right after this break. Welcome back
Speaker 1: here listening to Healing Conversations on KABC seven ninety. I'm
Speaker 1: Dave Robertson. We're welcoming into the studio. Eric mclennanan. Welcome Eric,
Speaker 1: Good morning, Dave. How are you man, I'm good. How
Speaker 1: you doing.
Speaker 3: I'm doing good?
Speaker 1: Moses, Moses, Brokenness, got Healing. There's a lot of stuff here.
Speaker 3: There are times that we start the show and you
Speaker 3: look and you're like, oh, we're gonna talk about brokenness today. Fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we've talked about this before.
Speaker 2: Maybe we've not talked about this.
Speaker 1: On the show, but I think it's really important as
Speaker 1: a speaker that I talk about the things I'm learning,
Speaker 1: not the things that I already know. And then that
Speaker 1: necessarily means that I kind of have to talk about
Speaker 1: my own brokenness, which is not hard to find, you know,
Speaker 1: It's it's not a difficult thing to come up with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting talking about Moses because he's he's certainly
Speaker 3: one of like the pillar hero characters.
Speaker 1: I think I said last week, but he must have
Speaker 1: the best press agent in the world. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: because his reputation is so stellar.
Speaker 3: It's a Mount Rushmore thing. And I even think it's
Speaker 3: kind of funny because I can tell that you were
Speaker 3: raised with him as the hero, because you even said,
Speaker 3: you know, he got himself into trouble, you know, killed
Speaker 3: the guy, and then yeah, I just gotta just kind
Speaker 3: of killed the guy.
Speaker 2: You like glossed over it, right a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, back in the day you glossed over
Speaker 1: because he was a hero, but now you gloss over
Speaker 1: because you don't want that kind of violence in the story.
Speaker 2: You're gonna have to scrip over.
Speaker 3: It's definitely something that has emerged in culture, kind of
Speaker 3: the acceptance of the flawed hero.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, like if you just take Batman for instance,
Speaker 3: like the Michael Keaton Batman of the nineties was just
Speaker 3: a cool guy. Yeah, you know, got the ladies, had
Speaker 3: a lot of money, and just fought crime right, no
Speaker 3: issues except for the Joker. And now we make Batman
Speaker 3: movies that are dark and he's got all these flaws
Speaker 3: and you know, he's tormented and all these things, and
Speaker 3: I think it makes them less heroic and more approachable
Speaker 3: for people watching the stories. I feel like we are
Speaker 3: doing that more now in the church, at least than
Speaker 3: when I grew up. It used to be be like Moses,
Speaker 3: you know, part the seas God can do anything through you,
Speaker 3: be bold, And I feel like we are having more
Speaker 3: conversations about wait, no, but was he was broken? He
Speaker 3: was flawed, and that's okay.
Speaker 1: And I think there's a continuum there, you know, like
Speaker 1: it's unhealthy to be over there on the hero worship side,
Speaker 1: and that's true culturally, you know, that's true.
Speaker 2: Politically that's true.
Speaker 1: And then it's also almost equally as dangerous to be
Speaker 1: on the cynical side of everybody's you know, broken and
Speaker 1: they're not who they say they are and they're hypocritical
Speaker 1: and yeah, and somewhere in the middle is they're human
Speaker 1: and they do have faults, and we don't cancel them
Speaker 1: over that or hate them over that, you know, And
Speaker 1: one of those startling messages of the scripture is in
Speaker 1: all things God works for the good. Not everything is good.
Speaker 1: There's a whole lot of things that are not good.
Speaker 1: There a lot of people that are broken in such
Speaker 1: significant ways, and yet God promises to bring good out
Speaker 1: of it. So it might and it's fascinating. You know,
Speaker 1: I started the segment today quoting Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: You know, that is the story. You know, Smiegel is
Speaker 1: this character that's so deeply flawed, and yet the resolution
Speaker 1: of the story can't happen without him. It is ultimately
Speaker 1: his own brokenness and those very things that causes the
Speaker 1: final redemption and the destruction of the Ring and all
Speaker 1: of those things. Sorry if I'm spoiler here, it's an
Speaker 1: old story, but you know, I think that is kind
Speaker 1: of our hope that the brokenness not only we can
Speaker 1: be used in spite of it, but somehow we're uniquely
Speaker 1: qualified to be of use in life, in you know, relationships,
Speaker 1: in so often our pain is really what we have
Speaker 1: to share, and it makes us useful in very specific ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think what I'm getting at those like I
Speaker 3: think sometimes we glorify religious leaders a little bit, and
Speaker 3: we think that they have something that we don't have
Speaker 3: some kind of holiness, which is why Number one, it's
Speaker 3: why we're so shocked when there's like a scandal like
Speaker 3: that person cheated on his wife. I thought they were
Speaker 3: so holy. Right, They're just a human. They're just the
Speaker 3: normal broken person that God is using in a specific way. Right.
Speaker 3: And then it also makes us go, well, I could
Speaker 3: never be that. I could never minister, I could never
Speaker 3: talk to someone about God. I can never because I
Speaker 3: am not who that person is. And that stops people,
Speaker 3: I think sometimes from doing things that they could be doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's aggression here. You know, God hears, God heals.
Speaker 1: And next week we'll talk about God's sins because there's
Speaker 1: there's a definite present sense.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you say sins, sins. That's a Texas problem.
Speaker 3: I know. I just don't want people think that you're like,
Speaker 3: next we're going to have this amazing thing where you'd
Speaker 3: like do this crazy thing where you're talking about how
Speaker 3: God sins, you know.
Speaker 1: Gather around the radio because we're practicing a new theology.
Speaker 1: No God sins people, s C and D s any
Speaker 1: sins broken people. You know, what a crazy, crazy reality
Speaker 1: that and and how redemptive, is it?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think we do live in a culture
Speaker 1: that doesn't know what.
Speaker 3: To do with brokenness totally. Yeah, we don't know how
Speaker 3: to deal with it. Well, I feel like we think
Speaker 3: we know what to do. We we point, and we
Speaker 3: laugh and we condemn. To point the attention away from
Speaker 3: our brokenness seems to be what we're good at doing well.
Speaker 1: And I'm fascinated today by the level of anger in
Speaker 1: the world. And some of that anger is directed towards
Speaker 1: individuals who represent sides in our culture, you know, Conservatives
Speaker 1: and progressives, whatever, Democrats and Republicans, and we hate the
Speaker 1: people that stand for those sides. But we also hate
Speaker 1: economic systems and we hate you know, systems of government.
Speaker 1: I mean, we hate philosophical ideas as if one is
Speaker 1: the right one and the rest of them are a mess. No,
Speaker 1: they're all broken, right, and all the people are broken
Speaker 1: and all the ideas are broken. Because it's just more
Speaker 1: complex than that, you know, And why we we need
Speaker 1: to make heroes out of some things and villains out
Speaker 1: of others. It's kind of fascinating to me. I think
Speaker 1: we just want to be so sure that there is
Speaker 1: a resolution coming that if only everybody would do this
Speaker 1: day and it would be okay. But as long as
Speaker 1: you have human beings involved, you're always going to have
Speaker 1: to be vigilant and you know, keep up and you know,
Speaker 1: revamp and reassess and reorganize.
Speaker 2: That's just a piece of it. Yeah, it's a piece
Speaker 2: of being human.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this God sees the big picture. Yeah. Point it
Speaker 3: is kind of interesting because I struggle with this. But
Speaker 3: in the flip side, like I believe this a little
Speaker 3: too much, almost like fate, because well because sometimes with God,
Speaker 3: sometimes in relationships with my wife, and I mess up,
Speaker 3: I do something, I go Yeah, but in the big picture,
Speaker 3: I'm a pretty good guy. Yeah, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: And so I almost like believe it too much and
Speaker 3: I let little things fester because I'm like, but I'm
Speaker 3: like ninety five percent a good guy who cares about
Speaker 3: this five percent right, right, that makes sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you know again, we're we're in that
Speaker 1: same thing of you don't throw one over for the
Speaker 1: other because if either one becomes really unhealthy. You know,
Speaker 1: I only live in the big picture. Don't ask me
Speaker 1: to be practical, you know, or you know, I forget
Speaker 1: to look at the big picture and I'm lost in
Speaker 1: the weeds. I'm always down here, you know, being hard
Speaker 1: on myself, are feeling bad or lost in the circumstances.
Speaker 1: So I think somewhere in the middle of that is
Speaker 1: you've got to have a little bit of big picture
Speaker 1: and you got to have a little bit of responsibility
Speaker 1: in the details too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I need to I need Everyone is always
Speaker 3: saying like, you need to zoom out and like see
Speaker 3: the big picture ELEVENM. I need to zoom in. I
Speaker 3: need to zoom in more because the reality is there
Speaker 3: are times where the little things can affect the hole. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, And the little thing that
Speaker 3: is festering can be the thing that triggers.
Speaker 2: Right something you know. Yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker 3: But I'm ultimately glad that God sees the big picture
Speaker 3: even bigger than I am able to see, and knows
Speaker 3: me on that level.
Speaker 1: And there's something super redemptive about that idea of you know,
Speaker 1: I need to be responsible for my behaviors and choices,
Speaker 1: but I don't need to be responsible for the well
Speaker 1: being of the whole world and everything in it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Somewhere between those two things where I want to do
Speaker 1: my best today, and then I also want to let
Speaker 1: it go to that bigger providence and that bigger picture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is We're coming up on a break, so
Speaker 3: I'll just start the conversation about this one and we
Speaker 3: can tackle it when we get back. But this next
Speaker 3: point that he sees our motives is the other thing
Speaker 3: that I deal with, because this is also an in
Speaker 3: between one because I can say to somebody that I
Speaker 3: hurt but I didn't mean to, but my motives were this,
Speaker 3: but I still did it and it still hurt them,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. And so this is kind
Speaker 3: of what that feels like, borderline making excuses for actions, sure,
Speaker 3: but also could be true. This is like kind of
Speaker 3: a sticky one to sway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I agree with that, But I also think
Speaker 1: it's one of the more redemptive ideas because I think
Speaker 1: the intention of our heart is really important to God
Speaker 1: and how how much it's important to get in touch
Speaker 1: with that more than our performance. Now, our performance matters,
Speaker 1: and obviously we can break this down, but I think
Speaker 1: that's the heart of the conversation is why is it
Speaker 1: redemptive to say God sees the hidden motives as opposed
Speaker 1: to being you know, I don't know threatening or something.
Speaker 1: We're going to pick that up right after this break.
Speaker 2: Welcome back.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Healing Conversations with Dave Roberts and Eric
Speaker 1: mclenahan on KABC seven ninety and we were.
Speaker 2: Talking about motives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think that reality God sees our hidden motives.
Speaker 2: So you said that's a struggle for you, Yeah, what
Speaker 2: are you thinking? I think it's.
Speaker 3: I think it's nice to know that God like really
Speaker 3: knows my heart and I don't have to explain my motives. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because when I try to do it in relationships with
Speaker 3: other people, it sounds like I'm gaslighting, right, or it
Speaker 3: sounds like I'm trying to just get off the hook
Speaker 3: or yeah, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Well, and I think you know are you? I mean
Speaker 1: that's the that there is a piece of that where
Speaker 1: it could be comforting to know that God looks deep
Speaker 1: in our hearts and see what's really going under. Maybe
Speaker 1: the way to say it is God sees the deep remote.
Speaker 1: God understands us. He understands what we were thinking and
Speaker 1: how but that works both ways. He understands that, you know,
Speaker 1: we never intended to get that right, we were playing
Speaker 1: a game the whole time. You know, we were gaslighting.
Speaker 1: We're gaslighting God. Yeah, you know, but he also understands.
Speaker 1: I know that's not where your head was. I know
Speaker 1: that's not where your heart was. I know that you
Speaker 1: just a led to be and be led to see
Speaker 1: and then you you know, looked in the mirror and went,
Speaker 1: how did I get here?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So I think it's a it's a redemptive idea that
Speaker 1: God sees something deeper in us, and we're specifically talking
Speaker 1: about Moses.
Speaker 2: He sees something in Moses.
Speaker 1: That even though it turned out really badly, there was
Speaker 1: something in there that was good. Yeah, something that was
Speaker 1: defending and fighting for the right things and it all
Speaker 1: went wrong. But it's just redemptive to know that it's
Speaker 1: not about our performance, that God sees something more than
Speaker 1: just how did I do today?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, he sees our potential. I think it's
Speaker 3: it's kind of hard enough to believe that sometimes without
Speaker 3: even adding brokenness to the equation, that we would have
Speaker 3: something to offer that God could use, that we have
Speaker 3: skills and talents or anything God can use. And then
Speaker 3: there are times that our brokenness really makes us feel
Speaker 3: like we're disqualified right that God could never use me
Speaker 3: too broken too. What do you say to people who
Speaker 3: are feeling that that way.
Speaker 1: Well, in my experience, I think it is the brokenness
Speaker 1: that becomes the thing God can most use that it
Speaker 1: allows you. I mean number one, pain, dysfunction, hardship are
Speaker 1: what we share in common, and it's the facade that
Speaker 1: we fight to get past. And I think social media's
Speaker 1: added a layer to that. My experience is when I
Speaker 1: can sit down with people and I have a really
Speaker 1: rare privilege. I mean, this is true, it's heavy in
Speaker 1: some ways, but it's true. People come into my office
Speaker 1: and share very deep things, you know, very deep pain
Speaker 1: and trauma and dysfunction and you know, sometimes it's in
Speaker 1: a marriage and you know, whatever it might be. Man,
Speaker 1: that's sacred ground. That is somebody it is. It creates
Speaker 1: connect to, It creates an opportunity to really talk about things.
Speaker 1: And you know, we do a program here that's a
Speaker 1: bigger program across the nation. It's called grief Share. And
Speaker 1: what makes grief Share so powerful, Well, it's people who
Speaker 1: have gone through incredible brokenness because of grief, because of loss,
Speaker 1: but how therapeutic it becomes for them to share that
Speaker 1: with each other and talk about it and tell their stories.
Speaker 1: And so I think the pain, the brokenness is actually
Speaker 1: an entree, whether it just affects us by allowing us
Speaker 1: to have compassion for other people, or it actually gives
Speaker 1: us experience to go, hey, I've been where you are
Speaker 1: and I know how that feels, and this is what
Speaker 1: I learned and this is one of the things that
Speaker 1: mattered to me during that time. So I think our
Speaker 1: brokenness can become the very thing that God uses to
Speaker 1: teach us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder sometimes it feels like, you know, there's
Speaker 3: a big fad right now with cold plunging.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you have you ever cold plunged?
Speaker 1: No, I'm more of the in the comfort area of life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we used to do it all the time when
Speaker 3: I played football at a ZUSA Pacific and you get
Speaker 3: done with a summer practice and then you know, jump
Speaker 3: in an ice bath. And it was a low budget
Speaker 3: an AI school, so it was just literally trash cans
Speaker 3: fill with ice and water, not one of these fancy things.
Speaker 3: But there's something about a cold plunge where literally you
Speaker 3: do it every day, but literally it hurts the first
Speaker 3: time you get in. Every time, like there's no, there's
Speaker 3: no When you get in after a minute, you get
Speaker 3: used to it, but then when you get out and
Speaker 3: you come back the next day, you're not like used
Speaker 3: to it again. Yeah, you know what I mean, don't
Speaker 3: build up like there's a and I kind of feel
Speaker 3: like that's how this is. Sometimes that you don't, You're
Speaker 3: never gonna feel worthy. You're never going to feel like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm not broken anymore. I'm healed now, so I can
Speaker 3: go do something. And every time you try something, it's
Speaker 3: going to not feel right at the beginning.
Speaker 2: You don't.
Speaker 3: You don't have to feel a certain way to then
Speaker 3: go serve God, or you don't even have to feel
Speaker 3: a certain way to then like approach God to talk
Speaker 3: to him. You just have to get in and do it.
Speaker 3: And the next time you do it might not feel better, right,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, It's going to be hard
Speaker 3: every time. There's something about that that just just just
Speaker 3: just do it. Don't wait until you're healed or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's a Maya Angelou And I'll butcher
Speaker 1: this quote because I don't I can't remember. But you know,
Speaker 1: we ask ourselves, who am I to do this? And
Speaker 1: you know her phrases, who.
Speaker 2: Are you not to?
Speaker 1: You know, I think the hidden potential in people, the
Speaker 1: gifts they have that they're afraid to try, they're afraid
Speaker 1: to exercise. A quoted this before, but there's a survey
Speaker 1: that was done of one hundred people that lived to
Speaker 1: be ninety nine, and they were asked this question, if
Speaker 1: you had your life to live over it, and what
Speaker 1: would you do differently? And three answers emerged. Most common.
Speaker 1: Number one, I would reflect more. You know that idea
Speaker 1: of I would spend more time just thinking about life
Speaker 1: and what.
Speaker 2: It means and what it is. And then the other.
Speaker 1: Is, I would celebrate more. I would be more present
Speaker 1: in my moments. And the third one was I'd do
Speaker 1: more things that live beyond me. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: how sad you get to the end of life and
Speaker 1: go oh. The first one was I would risk more.
Speaker 1: I would risk more, I'd reflect more, I'd do more
Speaker 1: things live on because we played it safe, you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't feel qualified. We didn't try that. And how
Speaker 1: sad that we get to the end of our life
Speaker 1: and we didn't use ourselves up. You know, we didn't
Speaker 1: leave it all on the field. We kept holding back
Speaker 1: and holding back, and we were never who we could
Speaker 1: have been to our family, We were never who we
Speaker 1: could have been in our church community or our own
Speaker 1: community or whatever that is. And you know, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: to think about this in terms of God heals brokenness.
Speaker 1: Are we willing to try that out? Are we willing to,
Speaker 1: as you illustrated it, take the plunge? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: put ourselves out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. If if life was a black mirror episode, some
Speaker 3: kind of dystopian thing where we had to wear our
Speaker 3: brokenness and struggles like on our forehead, right or something,
Speaker 3: it almost would feel good, Yeah, because you'd walk around.
Speaker 1: And go, oh, me too, Yeah, disclosure.
Speaker 2: Me too.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm not the only one dealing with this. Oh
Speaker 3: look at you two. Let's talk about this. But we
Speaker 3: don't do that. No, we hide and we go into
Speaker 3: our little corners and we don't tell each other, let
Speaker 3: alone tell God and that it's just not it's not
Speaker 3: the way we were meant to.
Speaker 2: So we stay here to be in the book.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've talked about this before, but I've
Speaker 1: shared the story about Janesee and the recording artists in
Speaker 1: the seventies and and she wrote a very personal journal
Speaker 1: entry about her experience as a teenage girl. It was
Speaker 1: inspired by an article she saw in the paper, and
Speaker 1: so she wrote this diary entry and then someone saw
Speaker 1: it and said, you have got to turn that into
Speaker 1: a song, and she was like, no, this is very personal,
Speaker 1: and she eventually wrote and did the song. I learned
Speaker 1: the Truth at seventeen. And she said later that, you know,
Speaker 1: that was such a self revealing song that she didn't
Speaker 1: want to do it and it was very vulnerable.
Speaker 2: But she said, throughout.
Speaker 1: My career, young girls would come to me and say
Speaker 1: me too, me too. And I think that that risk
Speaker 1: of sharing vulnerability appropriately, you know, you got to do
Speaker 1: it in appropriate context. But we all do have something
Speaker 1: inside of us, and God does intend to heal it.
Speaker 1: You know, there's this great Old Testament phrase that we
Speaker 1: hear several times that God has says someone, well, you
Speaker 1: intended for evil, I'll use for good. What was intended
Speaker 1: for evil, I'll use for good. And that's the ultimate
Speaker 1: sort of healing, isn't it. What could have broken us
Speaker 1: turns us instead into people that you know we have
Speaker 1: something to offer. Well, I hope what you hear today
Speaker 1: is that wherever you find yourself, whatever your story looks like,
Speaker 1: whatever has gone on, remember this God still speaks and
Speaker 1: calls and includes us even in all of our brokenness.
Speaker 1: The Biblical story it just contains broken story after broken story.
Speaker 1: And yet these are the main characters of God's work
Speaker 1: in the world and God's accomplishment in the world. And so,
Speaker 1: wherever you find yourself, whatever's happening, take a minute to
Speaker 1: be reflective, to think about where it is that God
Speaker 1: might heal you, To listen to know God sees you
Speaker 1: with grace and love and mercy and wants to embrace
Speaker 1: you with his forgiveness and with his grace. And so
Speaker 1: maybe today you take a minute and you think about
Speaker 1: how God might use you to be a force for
Speaker 1: good in your own home and your own family, maybe
Speaker 1: just in your own inner world, to fill a place
Speaker 1: of peace and redemption. And so as you go out
Speaker 1: there today, remember that God not only hears you, but
Speaker 1: God heals God blessed, Thanks so much for listening. To
Speaker 1: have a good day.