Priscilla Shirer, Tony Evans: God is With You in Your Suffering

Priscilla Shirer sits down with Dr. Tony Evans, Chrystal Evans Hurst, Jonathan Evans, and Anthony Evans on TBN’s Praise. Listen in as this inspiring family shares their testimonies of God’s divine disruption in the midst of family pain, loss, and grief.

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But when you know, he has an unconditional will that his sovereign plan overrides our desires for His glory and our good.
And maybe what God wanted to do was to use our loss, which was in his will to help others in their loss and their grief and their hurt and their struggle because God never wastes bad times on us.
So daddy today, how are you?
I think the general public and people who know of you would want to know. How are you doing?
Given all the circumstances? Well, it’s been a, a journey, obviously, uh after being married for 49 a half years to your mom.
Uh and uh having a awesome wife, y’all having an awesome mother and an awesome ministry support.
It’s uh it’s a, it’s a vacant space so that takes some time to get used to.
But the good news about your call is that you don’t let me drift south long enough because somebody gonna call.
So uh and then they always show up and we all have keys and yeah, they be calling at six in the morning, seven in the morning.
Crystal C will call it two in the morning. So it is a little irritating but, but it’s appreciated.
So, uh, but that, that’s really reflective of the closest of our family that we’ve had for all these years.
And a large part of that, probably the predominant part of that was, uh, your mom’s, uh, consistency and commitment to keeping our family tight.
And so we stayed tight and, and so we’re, we’re hanging tough. We’re, uh, we’re, uh, pushing forward, ok.
Pushing forward and ups and downs roller coaster, but pushing forward, we, we y’all raised us to, to be close and that’s why we all currently still have keys to the house because you wanted us to be.
Yeah, but we need to change that role. Now, this is a different season. Yeah.
Too many keys out there gotta be using them uninvited. You cannot have the keys.
I can change the locks, the key don’t work. I can do something.
You really, it’s really Priscilla, isn’t it? Well, she’s the worst.
She comes in, she comes in and jumps on the bed and you know, it, it’s, it’s, it’s serious.
You wanna hang out with you but you have a family.
You got, oh Lord have mercy. Stop.
She does have pictures of her as a six and seven year old.
That’s what she would do where they go. And some for the, for the viewers that don’t know.
Um I, I, I think some people probably watching are like, I didn’t realize that they were all related that happen all the time.
Like that. That’s the thing. Um, our family collectively over the last 18, 24 months at this point.
Um We do one of y’all kind of just want to go through what, what happened.
So the viewers know why? I think the, the best of it started, um, a couple of years ago now.
2018. Is that correct? 2018 where our cousin, she was one of our close, she was really more like a sibling than a cousin.
But winter unexpectedly, uh just her heart just gave out.
So she is 38 years old and um literally, she was fine one day and the next day, her heart stopped.
And so that started a string of losses over the next two years, every 4 to 6 months, another family member passed away.
Um And the reason why we’re acknowledging um dad’s loss in this is because every single person was directly connected to daddy.
So and, and obviously to all of us, but really directly to dad.
So he lost his niece that was winter.
And then shortly thereafter, your brother passed away, then your sister passed away, then your brother’s wife passed away.
So all our aunts and uncles on that side of the family.
And um and then we had another cousin passed away.
Um and then to daddy, your dad in the same month as mom. Um and then shockingly as well.
Actually an eighth person passed away because then my mother-in-law, eight months after mom, my mother-in-law passed away who was very close to all of us as well.
Um, so we had eight losses in the course of two years, just back to back losses.
So, it has been quite a journey emotionally.
Yeah, it’s been, it’s been a lot and a lot of people, you know, don’t up until mommy, maybe they didn’t really know all of that because exactly winter and mommy but didn’t really know about all of that and wouldn’t really think about it because of how daddy operates.
He continues to preach, he continues to keep rolling, he continues to build, he continues to encourage and all of those different things.
So how do you, uh one of my thoughts is as your son is man, this guy keeps going even while it seems like things are falling around him.
And so how do you keep that up, do that?
How are you able to, to be that faithful in a season like that?
Well, I mean, it, it starts with your view of God if, if God is sovereign, if God is in control, if you’re going to trust him, if you believe that there is life to come and if we’re still here and therefore have a job to do, then while we should, while we should uh be struggling with loss, we should be struggling hope fully and not hopelessly.
That’s two different perspectives and struggle.
And so when the hope is there, then you keep going, even if you’re going slower than you used to, even if you’re going with sadness or tears or struggles or uh you know, sleepless nights, you still, you still go because God is still true to his word.
He’s true to his promises. He’s true to his provisions and he’s true to our, our future.
So, so and there’s still people, other people are grieving too.
So, you know, during this season of COVID and race and politics and economics and all the global crisis we’re facing, we’re not the only ones grieving.
So they need, they need, they need ministry too. So you gotta keep ministry to our local flock.
First of all, it’ll cliff but then nationally through the urban alternative, we, we, we wanted to, to let what God was doing with us and through us and in our pain, be a ministry to others as well as we walk this journey together.
Because everybody is gonna walk this journey at some point in their lives.
And speaking of continuing to do ministry, that is why we are all sitting here together is because we, we collectively made a decision to try to figure out a way to use what we’ve been facing and how we’ve dealt with it to, to minister to, to people.
So we did something very unique.
Um We, we have a, it’s, it’s a, it’s a book but it’s like this, it’s the conversation, it’s a family conversation.
We all have different, crazy, different personalities. I’m this hyper emotional one.
Uh Crystal is the, she’s the smart, like logical. She’s really super smart.
So right here you may think she’s being quiet but she’s formulating things that she’s gonna say in a minute that are gonna change her life, no pressure.
Um this personality as you’ve seen and very close to the smart one.
So I mean, she’s also smart and dynamic but she’s growing up, she got in trouble for talking a lot.
But now it, God’s used all things for good. You know what I mean? He’s worked out.
I show you God is the miracle working because that’s his personality and then Jonathan’s the, the athlete, the the self-proclaimed favorite.
Um but, but no, he, he makes a decision and then he goes after it.
But we get to talk about how from all these different personality types, how we held on to, to, to faith in these moments.
So I, I wanna know just, just a kind of a blanket statement.
I mean, a blanket question for everybody is how specifically given all the things that we face collectively and things you face in your life.
Um As an individual, how have you, what are some practical steps you’ve taken to hold on to faith when life was shaking you up, Chrissy when we talk about um you dad and how you have continued to do ministry.
I think while this is definitely a major, major loss for our family, there have been lots of things over the years that have happened that have been hard that you all have had to walk through and what we’ve seen you do and seen you do consistently and faithfully is stay the course.
We didn’t just see you and mom do that. We saw our grandparents do that on both sides.
So there’s this legacy of faithfulness that has been deposited in us generationally as a legacy.
We are not when people ask me how I’m doing or they ask any of us how we’re doing.
I think to say that we’re able to do that because of our wiring.
That’s just a small part of the, the design is also something that has been gifted to us and granted to us and blessed to us by generational faithfulness.
And so while it’s hard, it’s not hard while it has been uphill, it’s been at a pace that’s been doable.
And I think at the end of the day, what we have done individually um and what I have done individually is um you know, the Bible says, we, we look to Jesus who is the author and the finisher of our faith.
And if I can take a little liberty with that, you know, I look to dad, you know, I look at mom, I look at her example and I say, OK, if they can do it.
I can do it, you know.
And I think that um the good thing is when I share that and say, ok, it’s because of family and because of legacy and because of support and because I can go to daddy and say, ok, dad, this is hard.
Like I have these questions and I have that relationship with my dad to do that.
The, the good news is for somebody who listens and says, but that’s not my story.
Well, then dad always tells the story of course of his dad who didn’t have that.
So any of us get to start anywhere.
And if you don’t have a dad to look at like I’ve been able to look at my dad or look at our aunt, you know, auntie or look at her siblings or look at each other for support.
You do have somebody to look at, you know, someone who is the author and the finisher of your faith.
So my ability to keep it going is not because I got some juice to keep it going.
It’s because there it’s faithfulness to stand on from legacy that I’ve inherited.
That ultimately traces its way back to Jesus Christ.
Like this setup is not a representation of what we’ve been through. OK.
This, this is, this is nice what we went through with crocodile tears.
What we went through was the lowest of the low when daddy told us the news and ran to the other side of the room and was bawling crying and, and then Anthony and Priscilla chased after him and they were bawling crying and then I felt like somebody rubbed icy hot all over my body and didn’t even know what to do.
I mean, you’re talking about going all the way to the low of the low and, and crystal talking about those examples.
Um that obviously being the lowest in my, in my view.
Um But them holding on the faith through the lowest of the low, like people need to know that the Evans family ain’t sitting up here.
This, this is nice. That’s not what it looked like.
Um This is, this is, you know, a year and a half later or however long we’re able to use that time.
Um You can know I wrestled with God big time.
I was like, man, we prayed your word says this, that I was, you know, based on the scriptures.
Dad always taught, take the scripture and throw it back into God’s face because God is, is, you know what I’m saying?
Obligated to His word. His word is obligated to him.
So we did all of that um where two or three gather, we had the whole world praying, we had it.
So we, we did it by the book and we had an expectation um that God is gonna come through and it felt like he didn’t, it felt like we just we were just like, yeah, there’s a lot of people feel like that.
A lot of people are like, yeah, you know, so, you know, is he God or not?
You know what I mean? And, um, and so people need to realize that that’s what it really looked like.
It didn’t look like this. And so when we’re watching mom and dad hold on to faith through those times, it was some hard times that looked like hard times um that, that we had to go through.
And so it’s definitely been a wrestle. Well, the, the book is called divine disruption.
Um and I having trying really hard, you have to try really hard for me, an emotional person if you’re anything like me, I know, I’m hoping a lot of the viewers are like me because it’s sometimes the lonely world out here in this family, but everybody’s so, so strong.
But um of i it’s called divine disruption.
So I, I wanna know finding God in disruptions.
What do you need to do to change, to get your perspective to where you can see God pass?
Because disruption is such a, it’s such a thing for an emotional person like me.
How do you see God when, when there’s so much disturbance?
How do you get that, that, that, that clear Daddy or Priscilla or anybody? But I, well, you know what?
There are many times in the Bible where people are struggling with God habe wants to know why, how long job’s big question is why did the righteous suffer?
You know, so it is fake news to assume that to be committed to Christ means that you will not suffer in this world.
You will have tribulations. John 16 33 says, but then he says, be of good cheer.
I have overcome the world. So the circumstances are never to have the final say.
So although they are real that you have to deal with.
So the question is, how do you deal with them?
Well, a lot of times what people do is they want to find God in the midst of it when they haven’t built a relationship with God before it came.
And it’s hard to pour a foundation in a storm. You, you, that’s a hard thing to do.
The idea is to increasingly build your confidence in a sovereign. God. God has two wills.
He has a unconditional will or conditional will.
His unconditional will means he’s gonna do it whether you like it or not because he’s decided to do it.
His conditional will means he’s gonna do it if you meet the conditions.
Well, obviously it was God’s unconditional will to take mom home at 70 years old when he did because we met the conditions and he still did it.
So that’s his unconditional will. But if you only believe God has a conditional will, then you’re gonna be disappointed when you’ve, when you’ve met the conditions and the opposite thing happens.
But when you know, he has an unconditional will that his sovereign plan overrides our desires for His glory and our good.
And maybe what God wanted to do was to use our loss, which was in his will to help others in their loss and their grief and their hurt and their struggle because God never wastes bad times on us.
He uses them for good times for others.
Just to your point, dad about building your confidence and your relationship with the Lord before the storm comes.
I think one of the um ways that people can do that, I know it’s been helpful for me.
I didn’t even realize I was doing it but actually writing down and keeping a track record of when you see the fingerprints of God in your life.
Um I look back now and realize I was probably just keeping a little journal.
I’m not one of those people that journals like every day or, you know, even every, you know, religiously every week or anything like that.
But just when something happens that I see the fingerprints of God opening a door or closing a door that in hindsight, I realized was his best plan for me.
Um Or I see something happening where it’s just what some would consider ordinary, but there’s the traces of God’s handiwork, just moving things around.
I write that down because you won’t remember what happened a decade ago.
But when you open up this little book, you’ve written, scribbled some notes about what God has done and then you look back and you begin to actually see how things that seem disconnected at the time or just seemed like it wasn’t going your way, how you’re watching God work that out.
Then it helps to build your confidence when you’re going through something now because you realize, wait a minute if he sustained me in my twenties and my thirties.
And even in my teenage years, when I look back and see little things I wrote down and I go, oh my gosh, the Lord was the Lord was moving even then to derail me into, into a particular direction that track record becomes a booster for you in the current things that you’re facing in your life.
So I, I’ve even done that with my sons. I’ve kept a little journal for each of the boys.
I bought a little journal when I started. When my oldest was five.
I went to Ross dress for less in the back corner there.
They’ve got these little journals for 5 99 and I’ve had the same ones for, I guess now, 15 years.
And every now and then when I just see just a little hint in a question they’ve asked or a conversation we’ve had or some way I can see God working and moving and something he’s lined up for them.
I write it down because I wanna be able to give it to them and say, look, if, if he did this for you, then when you hit the bumps of life, which we all are, then you can trust him because he’s already proven to you that he’s going to be faithful.
And Jonathan, you mentioned wrestling with God, which we are watched.
You do first hand because you are the athlete of the family like you, you do this and then you end up here, you work out and you end up doing.
But like that’s just kind of how your mind works.
But as we talk about as, as we’ve heard these things that were said, I remember, I think in chapter nine of the book, you basically talk about getting to a place where you realized that God’s answer was yes or yes and you had to get yourself there.
Can you, can you elaborate on that when it comes to? Absolutely.
Um Just thinking about, you know what dad is saying in his conditional and unconditional will like we met the conditions.
So I’m like, uh I’m just waiting. I did it the whole time.
I’m hopeful and I’m watching mommy kind of decline and I felt like this was a great opportunity for Him.
Yeah, I put it on him.
God, this is a great opportunity for you now know you need to take advantage of this one.
This is a, this is everybody’s watching.
Um And so I, I kind of got to a place where I really felt was hopeful about it.
And when he basically said no, that’s how I received it initially that we did all of this and you just didn’t come through.
Um, you didn’t make a way out of, out of no way, you know, you didn’t do those things.
But then God, you know, in my quiet time and silence in silence and solitude, I got clarity and just spending time with God.
And he just said, you know, you don’t understand my victory.
You’re complaining because you don’t really understand what Jesus Christ has done.
And it was hard for you to watch your mother die.
But how much harder was it to me to watch my son die?
So your mother can actually live when I thought about the life that has been given in his unconditional will that his unconditional will even meeting his conditions was better than what I prayed for trying to meet his conditional will.
Um You asked for healing. She’s got it. Um You asked her to be with family. She’s got it.
You asked her to be well taken care of. She’s got it. You don’t understand.
I’ve given you everything you asked for on a higher level than you ask for it and you don’t understand it because you’re a kid.
You, you’re not, you know what I’m saying? It’s the same thing with my kids.
They just don’t get it until they get to a point of maturity where they’re able to say, oh dad, his will is just best.
And um and now we can do what my mom always said with my mom. Like she’s not yours.
We can do what our mom always said. Your greatest ministry will come right out of your greatest misery.
And um and keep on going.
You know, one of the ways me and daddy encourage each other, you know, through football is, you know, in, in football, every player has to retire.
It happens every time and the players that are still on the field are sad.
You know, because that’s the, that’s their guy.
But all you can do is put your head down and keep playing until you retire too because you want to hear the coaches say the same thing to you that he said to him well done.
You played hard, here’s your gold jacket to enjoy retirement. And that’s what Mommy’s doing.
She retired, she’s enjoying that retirement in his rest and we’re gonna put our heads down.
We’re gonna keep playing hard all the way to the finish.
There are so many things that we had had to, to learn.
I mean, I, I didn’t realize, I, I think daddy told me this.
He thought that when we were going through this and, and mommy thought this too, she would look at me and be like, are you ok?
But it wasn’t a normal, are you. Ok.
It was kind of like, uh this is the kid that could fall apart with, with this much weight on him emotionally that it was that kind of, are you OK?
And I, all the things that we’ve talked about all the lessons that I learned along the way, even in the hard moments of my life, I didn’t realize we’re training me for this moment in the book.
Um I can’t remember what, what chapter, but we tell the story of, of the karate kid, which I won’t tell the whole thing.
Now, Priscilla tells it a lot.
I mean, the karate kid, you know, the, the one with Daniel son and Mr, the original, the original stuff, although that was good too.
But the original one, you know, Daniel Son wants training and in karate.
So he goes to Mr Miyagi and Mr Miyagi basically has him managing his house, cleaning cars, painting fences, standing the floor and he just, Daniel becomes extremely frustrated.
He’s like you, this is not what I’ve learned for.
Yeah, I came here to train to be able to be excellent at the craft of karate.
And so Mr Miyagi sees his frustration and he starts throwing punches and Daniel without thinking about it begins to block all of these punches and kicks that are coming his direction.
He did not know that all of that training that seemed unnecessary and seemed mundane and just like he was actually accomplishing nothing in that mundane training was actually everything that he needed to be prepared for the fight.
He was learning, he was becoming masterful at the craft.
It just didn’t look like it in the moment that even as a worship leader and traveling around and all of us in our different uh we collectively do things a lot together.
But for me, even as a worship leader and stuff, I didn’t know and being in full time ministry, I didn’t know that I was capable of that fight of the fight we have gone through collectively.
I did not know I was capable of that.
And the, the punches that got the blocks that came out of me naturally.
I was like, oh, I really do believe this. I really, I didn’t know that I believed it this deep.
So a lot of my faith through that time came through from you.
You never knew it because you would come to me and say, I mean, you were settled in, I’m not even worried about it.
It’s, I already know it’s gonna work out and you would say, do, do you think it’s weird that I’m so hopeful?
And I would say no, I’m right there with you. I mean, that’s what we were.
So, so the greater the disappointment, you know, that we felt.
But that’s, that’s the training that you had because I believed, I guess I believed kind of along the lines of what you’re saying, like mommy, even though I don’t want to see her in pain, I don’t ever want to experience that on any level.
I don’t want anybody to ever have to experience watching a family member. Um, go through that.
But I think I just knew, I cognitively and in my heart knew like, uh, this is, our faith will play itself out.
That’s the bottom line and you are right. Yeah. It’s, it’s so wild to me. Um I didn’t.
Uh chapter was the chapter 15.
We talk about Well, Crystal mostly talks about doing the right thing along the way as you are.
Um all the things we talked about.
You’re understanding that God is, is divine or God is, um has a conditional unconditional will.
You’re learning about what it means to really be hopeful. But what about the day to day?
Like, what do I do next? The right thing along the way, even when you’re hurting?
Can you speak to that? Yeah.
You know, I was literally uh just recently talking to my daughter who’s 30 years old and whatever she was asking me.
Um my answer as I answered her, you know, I heard Mommy’s voice because it was the, the same thing.
You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a new problem to her, but it’s not to me.
But one of the things we know, Mommy would say all the time is this too shall pass.
Um When you have a history with God and you know that the thing that seems the most difficult for you in a moment that you’ll get past it.
And I keep talking about our history.
But I even remember our grandmother saying is, you know, daddy’s a doctorate of theology and our uncle was a doctorate of sociology.
He had a Doctor of Sociology. And I said, did people ask you, how did you do that?
Like, how did you have these kids that were so highly educated?
And she said, I just kept doing the next right thing to have Children who were law-abiding citizens and were good people.
Like I wasn’t trying to achieve that.
And I think when people would ask mommy and daddy about us, how do you do that?
Like, how do you get four kids who are all still involved in your church or involved in ministry?
What they were doing was the next right thing.
And for mommy that was fixing dinner and making and putting cheese on, we don’t know what it was, but it tasted good because cheese was on it and, and the, and the idea that this was not necessarily the specific thing.
I don’t think you could correct me that you had in mind.
It was just that we would love God, love each other and be faithful.
Um So I think the next right thing is look at where you are and what I was saying to my daughter today is often we’re looking at the big thing and thinking, how do we get through the big thing?
Um Moses asked God the same question when God stopped by the burning bush and said, all right.
So it’s time I need you to tell Pharaoh to let my people go.
And Moses is like, how am I gonna do that?
And God said, what do you have in your hand?
So we’re often looking purpose and calling and what am I supposed to do?
And how is God gonna get me through this?
And we walked with mommy through that season one day at a time, um getting her, what she wanted to drink, trying to make her comfortable being there for each other.
And so the next right thing is not the next right big thing.
It’s usually the next right small thing and because it’s the next right small thing, it’s usually something that’s obvious to you to do and it’s easy.
It’s right there. So I think if I could say anything to encourage everybody from my experience, it’s stop trying to get over the mountain and just make sure you don’t stumble on that one rock that’s in front of you and just keep going forward.
That’s great. That’s amazing disruptions in our life are God’s um God is wanting to reset us and uses a disruption to do that.
Can you talk about what that that means?
God allows confusion, chaos, trouble because he’s trying to get things that are either out of order back in order or to take us to a new level.
Hebrews chapter 12 talks about God shaking things in the physical because he wants to do something in the spiritual.
So when there is disturbance in the five senses of our lives, in the environment of our lives, in the chaos of the culture, it is because he is shaking things to remake something in its proper order.
Things have gotten either out of order or there is a new purpose that he is moving to.
And so he will, he will allow Pharaoh to get tougher so that you can leave Egypt and not get comfortable there.
So he will create. So I I just want to encourage people if you’re going through pain, struggle, disappointment while those feelings are real and you don’t deny them.
Also ask God what new thing, what new experience? I I love job 42 he’s come through great loss.
I mean 24 hours, his whole world falls apart, his business, his family, his workers, his Children, his health, everything falls apart and he never even found out why the book never tells job about the conversation between God and Satan.
But in chapter 42 he makes a powerful statement.
He says, I’ve heard about you with the hearing of the ear.
I’ve been to bible study, been to church, been to small group, all that been to Sunday school.
But now I have seen you with my own eyes.
So ask God when your world falls apart to make himself visible to you in a new way and he wants to do it because of what he allowed to disrupt your ease and your comfortable situation right there.
Can we, can we just go around and I, I would love to hear and I don’t, I, I’ve never asked this either in what way specifically and, and as it relates to each of you has this disruption reset you.
Like what, what is a re what is something that has been reset?
And I’ll just say for me, um the, the, the purpose behind what I do has changed drastically, it’s changed drastically.
Um The most important thing to me has always been family, but now that’s on some other level, uh the most, uh one of the uh the second things has been ministry, but now it’s, it’s very purposeful and intentional and if I’m going to miss something family wise to do ministry, I won’t do that anymore like that.
That is something that reset in me and, and uh it’s help, help open my eyes to what I really have and appreciating that and not the rat race of trying to get more and, and be more and be, you know, the, the, the bigger thing.
Um What, what about, what about you? Um I would say y’all know I love Kanika. Yes.
Um which is my wife. Yes. Sister in law.
Um but, you know, she’ll tell you, I don’t even, I don’t know if it’s the way that I’ve grieved.
Uh, but she’ll tell you, I mean, my appreciation for her tangibly has skyrocketed, um, because she’s living her mother’s life.
Basically. Another version of the same, basically.
And, um, 11 of the things that broke my heart for daddy is the plans that he had for him and mommy at 70 is he talked about having these plans to travel.
Do you know, kind of tone down in the ministry and ramp up with just him and mommy just kind of riding off into the sunset type of idea.
And when mommy died at 70 that just spoke volumes to me about time and people and treasures and plans and just life and so with my wife and Children.
Um I, I don’t really live on it. I’ll do it later. Mentality. I live on it.
I’m gonna do it right now. Mentality and not take any of that for granted.
Yeah, I would agree. I think that’s, it’s along the same lines that mom said to us incessantly.
Mom said to us, y’all need to stop and smell the roses. That’s what she would say.
That was her sort of encouragement to us and challenge to us. Um Mom did that very intentionally.
She enjoyed her life. She would intentionally tack on extra time to ministry trips for the two of you to enjoy each other.
We didn’t know where she was at. We didn’t know where she was at. You go on a cruise.
Yeah. The Dallas theological Seminary would take these ministry cruises and she would just hop on and enjoy seeing the world and also the foot, the footsteps of Paul or whatever.
Um And so she did that very intentionally and I remember her saying, you know, if she could go back and do her life again, she would have started that mindset sooner that even as you’re going through out raising kids and working and whatever she would have stopped to smell the roses sooner, enjoy your life.
Um And so you all did that, you know, she was always posting pictures, hash tagging it two peas in a pod, the two of you enjoying your life together.
And so that’s kind of stuck with me.
What do I need to do even as we are continuing in ministry and raising our boys and all of that?
But how can we just pause and intentionally just enjoy the ride and there’s nothing nonspiritual about that.
You know, people, people think exhaustion is a badge of honor like you.
Yeah, but Ecclesiastes is clear, he’s like, enjoy your life.
It’s all vanity, you know what I mean?
It’s just like, you know, and so that’s a part of the Christian living that we often toss to the side for Christian living that you can be diligent and faithful and consistent in all those things and still have rest, have a sense of Sabbath about your life and enjoy the ride.
I think um what I’ve heard over and over again.
Um And I, and I said this to at her funeral too is just mommy was very good about intentionally seeing people because she was decisively moving slower.
Um She took time to remember things to talk to people.
So I think um in the spirit of being intentional and slowing down um both for my family to just making time to make sure that the people around me, not just that I have time to enjoy my life, which is a part of that, but also having the bandwidth working on that to have the bandwidth to be present.
Um for, you know, the people that God brings across my path that I don’t expect or I wasn’t planning on that day um to make room for that, you know, speaking about mommy always just gets me, I just, I feel her all the time, just the, the just the love of our mother.
And I remember um I think it was me and Priscilla were standing over her bed.
We were all in and out out of the house so much in those uh period.
But in the last few months, we were just all there. And our mother’s concern was for you.
Like our mother’s concern was what about the people who are praying?
Like when she felt like her health was going a different direction.
She was like, but all these people are praying.
What about the people who are about, what about their faith? What about their faith?
What are they gonna like? She was concerned about you?
And as I shed tears about that worried that the body of Christ would be, would stumble in their faith potentially if the Lord didn’t answer prayers because so many people were praying that way.
And as I sit here, I’m very like, man, this is a message from our mom for you of what it looks like to hold on to faith.
It wasn’t when, when she, when you, when I just think about her saying, what about those people?
Well, mom, we are here to talk to those people and people, you were so worried about the people.
You wanted to make sure we’re ok.
We’re here to share what it looks like to hold on to faith and it hurts and it doesn’t feel good.
But there is something to be said about hurting.
But knowing that you’re anchored at the same time and that is what it is.
And, and I know that the crystal mentioned that everybody may not have a family like this, but you, you get to start, you get to start that story.
You have, you have a choice to start that story.
You have a choice to have chosen family around you, which sometimes in some cases, it’s like this is my family, but I just, I love that.
We are sitting here and I just see her tears and what about them?
And we are getting to address those people that’s, um, on behalf of our mom who wants you to hold on to faith when life is breaking your heart.
Um, and in just a few minutes, we’re gonna, we’re gonna close, we’re, we’re so grateful that we got to spend this time and daddy, you kind of already did it.
But just I want you one more time because you have so much to say.
This is one of the though.
He is a well of knowledge like a deep, I, I’ve never even seen the bottom of that.
Well, I don’t know where it is, you know.
But can you look into that camera and just give, just give the viewers just one more?
What does it look like? What do they need to do for a heart that’s breaking?
I know that there’s somebody, uh there’s a bunch of people on the other side of this screen with tears running down their face.
Please look at them and talk to them about what else they could do to hold on to faith in this moment.
Well, one of the things your mom said she was getting sick and sicker, she said, don’t let my illness deter you from God’s Word and proclaiming it, what she was telling me was hold on to God’s Word and his truth, in spite of the circumstances that you see us going through.
So I just want to challenge everybody who’s struggling, who’s hurting, who’s going through difficult times.
You tether yourself to God’s word, you memorize it, you quote it, you think about it.
You have people telling it to you, his promises, his encouragement.
You, you read, you read that upper room discourse where he’s encouraging his disciples on his way to the cross because he kept giving them hope.
The Holy Spirit. If you’ve accepted Christ into your life, the Holy Spirit is there and he’s called the comforter.
He’s the Paraclete. He is the one who helps you to make it through during tough times.
So allow the Holy Spirit by requesting it that you don’t have to go through all commotions.
You say Lord God, Holy Spirit because he’s the one that Jesus left here to represent Him inside your heart.
Holy Spirit comfort me because you are the comforter, encourage me by the word. The word is the truth.
The Holy Spirit is the experience of the truth.
So he takes the truth of God and makes it light up in your soul.
So ask him to light your soul up to dry your eyes, to comfort your heart, to settle your fears and he will do it because you’ve come to the Lord through his method based on his word, to get it done.
That may not mean your circumstance will change today or tomorrow, but it means that you will change in your circumstance and when you change, you’re managing what used to be managing you.