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Brenton
 Welcome back to Further. I am Brenton Grimm. Andrew, how's it going? Good. Good. Thanks for coming in today. Yeah. It's good to be back.

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Andrew
 Yeah.

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Brenton
 Every time we get someone else on here other than Chris, everyone has their own little niche around here, and yours is global missions. So I'm wanting to have you just start out with an update on what's going on in our global missions here at Harmony.

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Andrew
 Yeah. Yeah. So I kind of mentioned this in the sermon a little bit, but we got several field staff back this summer. It seems like summer is that time. Usually, if there's kids involved, the school year kind of dictates when they're able to come back without disrupting the kids' lives too much.

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Andrew
 And so super excited for that. We've got student trips out in and out all summer. We got one in Albania still. And then we actually have a team leaving for our For the Nations trip, a student trip there to Dallas on the 12th. And then I'm leading our Guatemala kind of multi-generational. It's all adults this time, quite a few college age. And then a couple of us more seasoned adults that are going on the trip for that. So we leave that same day, the 12th, and we'll spend a week there with our partner, Sateka, in Guatemala. So excited for that. And then we got some other trips coming up later this summer, a little bit more exploratory for future student trips and even partnerships for the gospel.

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Andrew
 Yeah, cool.

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Brenton
 Yeah. Yeah, you guys stay busy through the summer. There's always trips going on.

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Andrew
 Yeah, it's a busy time, but it's great to hear kids come back and hear their passion for what the Lord's doing in their lives and even as they look forward to their futures,

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Andrew
 how they're wrestling with their role in God's work.

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Andrew
 And I think each trip kind of offers a unique take on some different things. And I think it's good it's really stretching some of these kids, not just for global missions, although that's certainly my hope for them is they'll really wrestle with that. But even just as believers in interacting with God's world wherever they may end up, we're putting some hard things before them. And that's good. It's good to be stretched. For sure.

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Brenton
 OK.

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Brenton
 You mentioned on Sunday, and I'm convinced every time you preach, you talk about some sort of biography of a missionary.

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Brenton
 I'm curious, what are some of your favorites?

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Andrew
 Yeah. So yeah, admission biographies or missionary biographies,

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Andrew
 even just biographies of Christians in the past, I think are really helpful for us to keep things in perspective. I think sometimes we can get a little intellectually arrogant in our modern setting and thinking we know it all and we know best. And I think it's good to look back and see

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Andrew
 what the church has gone through, what believers have gone through, and how some of the things they were facing are similar to what we're facing and how different things were and how they responded with wisdom and grace.

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Andrew
 So yeah, some of my favorites,

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Andrew
 I would say, I think my favorite missionary story is Adoniram Judson's. He was a missionary to Burma. He actually was sent out by the congregational church.

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Andrew
 And on the way, on a long ship ride, he and his wife were confronted with Baptist doctrines and really wrestled with those.

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Andrew
 And by the time they arrived in India,

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Andrew
 they had decided, you know what, we're Baptists now. And so they got baptized and were henceforth Baptist missionaries. And of course, that was problematic for their sending church and they're already on the field. And so they kind of had to realign how that worked.

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Andrew
 But then they ended up in Burma and just did some amazing work there.

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Andrew
 A lot of suffering, a lot of pain, a lot of difficulty.

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Andrew
 He even went through this major bout of depression that kind of made him unfruitful in ministry for a long time after losing his wife and child. And God saw him through it and He just stuck it out. He persevered even through some of these just awful things that,

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Andrew
 you know, we asked the question why and I'm sure He did plenty of times.

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Andrew
 It's just a very compelling story of serving the Lord in hard situations

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Andrew
 and God's faithfulness to see the work be finished. And He actually wrote or translated the Bible into Burmese and that translation is still used and considered a good translation today. Whereas nothing against Him, but one of His contemporaries working in India did many translations of Scripture, but did it in such a way that it was quick and kind of like, "Hey, we just need to get it done so that people can have something." And most, if not all of those have had to be redone because they just weren't done carefully. And so that's getting on a different topic.

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Andrew
 So I just, yeah, He was very intentional, careful, thoughtful and persevered greatly in His ministry. So Adonai Ramchudsen. I haven't read the main recommended one. I started it. It's a beast.

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Andrew
 "To the Golden Shore" is what it's called. And I started it and I got distracted with busyness in life. I need to restart it, but that's probably the kind of the top version of a biography about Him.

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Andrew
 And then there's a lot of other biographies you can read about Him. So many of these missionaries have multiple biographies written about them, all of varying lengths. So if you like short biographies, you'll find options

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Andrew
 and there's longer options. A couple others I've really enjoyed recently, and maybe I've mentioned these on previous podcasts, but I'll say them again. One is "Things As They Are" by Amy Carmichael. And I listened to the audio book for this. And I really found this one helpful because she reflects on her ministry as it's happening. And she's writing back to her supporters, telling them, "Hey, here's a real picture of what's happening." And she's challenging them to realize that missions is hard. It's a spiritual battle and they need prayer. As missionaries, they need prayer. They can't win the battle without prayer and just exhorting her supporters to be prayers.

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Andrew
 And the whole book is kind of depressing because she's describing all these opportunities to share the gospel and just how the door is slammed in their face. And they're seeing the gospel take root in people's lives. And the people at that time in India were doing really evil things to keep the gospel from taking root in people's lives, like poisoning their family members or whisking them away or marrying them off or things like that.

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Andrew
 And so every time or a lot of times, they started to see some progress in someone spiritually.

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Andrew
 The devil would in a way kind of snatch that seed up.

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Andrew
 And so, you know, everybody likes to hear the victory stories since she wrote a book on the close calls and the failures. But again, she's like, "This is our day-to-day ministry." And there were some victories and she certainly saw fruitful ministry as she persevered. But so that's just a good book on perspective in missions. And then maybe my favorite missionary biography that I've listened to, and I would highly recommend the audiobook

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Andrew
 because it's Shadow of the Almighty by Elizabeth Elliott. She's writing a biography of sorts on her husband, Jim Elliott. He's the one of the men who was killed right when they were trying to make contact with the tribe they were reaching. And then, you know, through that, her and the wives, the widows, were able to successfully kind of plant a church there. So, Jim Elliott had a lot of journals and things like that, that he wrote as he grew up, as he prepared for ministry, as he dated Elizabeth. And so she's reading these journals and commenting on them. And it's just kind of fun because it seems like she's just sitting across the table from you and she's telling you about Jim's life and how he loved the Lord and wanted to serve him. And I think it's a really good reminder that, you know, and a lot of people look at his life and it's like, man, it was cut short and God could have done so much more with him, but he died young. And kind of related to the topic of my sermon this week, you know, another one of those great examples of like, why did that have to happen? And if you know the story, there's a movie on it, that tip of the spear and other biographies and books about their work.

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Andrew
 You've come to find out it was a big misunderstanding. It's the reason they died. And it was this rumor and it was all based on this false understanding of who these guys were and why they were there. And it really was senseless being a human from a human perspective. But it's just part of the story of how that church or how the gospel took root in that tribe and how a church was formed.

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Brenton
 And that story lives on.

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Andrew
 That story lives on. Yeah. And it does. And, you know, again, it's one of those things like now 30 years later, it's inspired another generation of missionaries.

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Andrew
 And so...

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Brenton
 That's one of those names that if you, you know, you think of missionaries, Jim Elliott comes up, right? Yeah. I mean, he's very well known. I don't know how well people know the story, but that's... Yeah. Yeah. There's things to be learned from that, I'm sure.

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Andrew
 Yeah. It'd be like a great trivia. Hey, name one of the four missionaries that was killed in Ecuador that is not Jim Elliott.

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Andrew
 Some people might come up with a saint, but I don't know if the other two. Unfortunately, I don't know if they're as popular. I don't want to come to your trivia name.

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Brenton
 All right.

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Brenton
 Well, yeah, thanks for that. That's super helpful. And actually all the books that you mentioned will have in the show notes for you guys. If you want to check some of those out, I'd encourage you to. Okay. So on to John 11,

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Brenton
 another, you know, familiar kind of narrative here with the death of Lazarus. And you, you know, the story of the book, you know, and you, you know, this week kind of took the suffering side of things, right? So how do we deal with the suffering in our lives and what's the purpose of it?

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Brenton
 And so I guess my first question is when discussing something like suffering, oftentimes Christians will respond with the same kind of normal tropes, like God's ways are higher than our ways or everything happens for a reason. And this can seem like,

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Brenton
 and maybe is an attempt to avoid the issue, right? So why do you think many Christians often have an incomplete view of suffering in light of, you know, so much scriptural teaching on the subject?

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Andrew
 Yeah. I think, I think a lot of times maybe we don't really wrestle with suffering until we're in the midst of it. Yeah. So it's easy to, you know, hear the teaching and not along and say, yeah, I get it. Uh-huh. And then the suffering comes the hurt, the pain, the difficulty comes.

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Andrew
 And it's like, Oh, okay. Here it is. And I think sometimes we're individually, you know, the person going through that it's just so overwhelmed and they're consumed by it and probably rightfully so that they can't see past that initial pain and the diff and the difficulty they're in.

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Andrew
 And so I think, you know, everybody in the outside who's not dealing with it at the time has that theological perspective. And can see the bigger picture. And, and I think that's when the unhelpful reminders and they're well intentioned almost all the time, right? There it's, you know, we're trying to help. And we say those things like, you know, everything happens for a reason. And, but in that moment, that's not even necessarily what that person needs. Because they are dealing with something difficult. And I think, you know, I think that's a really good thing. I think we try to shortchange that human process of dealing with grief. And so I think, I think sometimes we focus on the, maybe in our teaching, we focus on the big picture of suffering and we forget to teach on how to maybe respond to and walk with people in their suffering. And, and some of that could be because it's easier to talk about the theological big picture in the end.

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Andrew
 And it's harder to walk with somebody through it. And so we just, maybe we don't want to do that because it's uncomfortable.

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Andrew
 But I do really think that, that sometimes we just, as those observing suffering need to remind ourselves that this person probably knows the truth, but they just need somebody to come alongside them and encourage them and support them in that moment and love on them, grieve with them.

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Andrew
 And once, you know, kind of, if, and look for signs, because I think sometimes people can wallow in that far longer than they should.

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Andrew
 Lamenting is good. Lamenting is important.

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Andrew
 But lamenting should result in putting our trust in God. That should be the end.

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Andrew
 And so I think as brothers and sisters observing suffering and pain, we lament and help them lament and observe closely and work toward that. But those blunt phrases aren't the first thing those people need to hear. The first thing they need to hear is, "Yeah, this is awful. Yeah, this is terrible. Let me be a shoulder to cry on. Let's just cry before the Lord and take this to Him."

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Andrew
 And I think if we do that, I think we start doing that more.

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Andrew
 I think, and just kind of make it a routine habit of our, the way we interact with each other in pain,

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Andrew
 then I think we can switch to, "Okay, let's start trusting God in this." And He may never show us what the good is in it, but let's see if we can see it. Let's work toward that. And sometimes we do get those little glimpses of glory through it, you know, like the Jim Elliott story.

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Andrew
 And other times we don't, and it's a mystery. And we can just scratch our heads forever,

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Andrew
 this side of heaven, and never get an answer. Like kind of like Job did, right? Job never truly got an answer to his... We get to see it because we're reading scripture, but God answered Job and just said, "Deal with it. I'm God, you're not.

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Andrew
 I'm sovereign. I have my ways."

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Andrew
 And Job accepted it, but that wasn't the first thing God said to him. That was like 40 days later or whatever after his friends miserably tried to encourage him. Yup.

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Brenton
 We can probably learn something from those friends, huh?

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Andrew
 Right.

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Brenton
 What not to do. Yeah.

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Brenton
 Okay. So, you know, given those tropes, what would be a more helpful answer to this question? You know, without immediately appealing to mystery like we often do.

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Andrew
 Yeah. Again,

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Andrew
 I think we lament. I think we cry with them.

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Andrew
 I think we ask questions. Not questions that lead them to, you know, not critical questions maybe that way or get them to second guess. Especially if it's something where they could feel guilty for whatever happened. Like, "Oh, that's my fault." Like that's not the kinds of questions we want to ask, but more like,

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Andrew
 "Hey, how have you seen God be faithful in the past?" And maybe they can even come up with examples in their own life of how God has gotten them through difficult times in the past and just remind them, "Yep, so you've seen it in your own life.

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Andrew
 And we know, like, this hurts now and it's difficult."

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Andrew
 And then we can move into some of those truths that, you know, God is going to make... He is using this for His glory, but there is no guarantee that our good doesn't have pain and suffering through it. And His glory doesn't involve difficulty. And I think that's just something we need to continue to teach, especially when things are good for people and things are like...

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Andrew
 The more you can pre-teach about suffering, about suffering when somebody's not going through it, the easier it is for them to recall it when the suffering hits.

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Andrew
 So I think the more we can remind people, because we get this prosperity gospel type thing where if I'm obedient and good and do everything the Lord says, then everything's going to work out in this human way. And that's just not reality of what we see in Scripture.

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Andrew
 We see some of the most faithful people in Scripture suffer the most.

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Andrew
 And again, Job's a great example of that. I think that Joseph is a great example of that. I think the widow who served Elijah is a great example. You know, there's just so many of these stories in Scripture that here's people who are faithful. Elijah himself, just faithfully serving the Lord.

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Andrew
 And man, their lives look miserable and they look awful. And David, a man after God's own heart, kills Goliath. And the next several years of his life, he's on the run and living in fear and acting like a madman so that he doesn't get taken out. And when we think about those stories, it's like, here's these guys when they're serving the Lord the most faithfully.

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Andrew
 And from a human perspective, they look miserable. And that you read the Psalms and some of them are laments and David crying out. And some of them are the sweetest expressions of love for the Lord and the most intimate times David has as he leans on the Lord in those difficult times. Yeah.

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Brenton
 I really like your point about preparing for times of suffering, right? It's a lot easier to kind of work through the mental side of this in times of peace rather than waiting until something hits. And so, you know, I mean, our corporate worship gatherings, you preaching, I mean, we talk about these things a lot. And so really taking that to heart, not feeling like, "Oh, I'm not struggling with anything right now. We can wait on this. We need to do the hard work up front and be ready because things will inevitably hit us and we need to be ready to deal with that in a healthy way."

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Andrew
 So yeah. Yeah. There's no guarantee that if you do things a certain way and life will be good.

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Andrew
 Yeah.

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Andrew
 We have to expect difficulty. We have to expect pain and struggle.

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Andrew
 It's just, that's the reality this side of the fall. And it's the world we live in. And to think that we are individually special and we'll avoid it,

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Andrew
 we're just setting ourselves up for failure.

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Andrew
 And unfortunately, some people seem to experience way more suffering than others. And again, that's one of those mysteries. I can't explain why,

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Andrew
 but it is just a reality. And sometimes that's just what God has called us individually to. And I take great comfort in what it said about Paul. I think it's on his conversion and

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Andrew
 Ananias has told something to the effect of, "Paul's going to face great sufferings in order. I'm going to be glorified through his sufferings as he reaches the Gentiles." It's a poor paraphrase, but, and he does. And you read later, Paul's talking about all these horrible things he's gone through and for the sake of the gospel.

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Andrew
 Yeah.

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Brenton
 Verse 4 says Lazarus, his illness was for the glory of God, so that the son of God may be glorified through it.

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Brenton
 That's a hard truth when you're the one actually going through the suffering. How can we not only mentally make sense of this, but also believe it in our hearts while in the middle of suffering?

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Andrew
 Yeah. So I think that's a great question. I think that,

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Andrew
 I don't want to go back to,

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Andrew
 I do want to go back to it, but it just seems like I think our relationship with the Lord is so vital to our spiritual health in good times and bad.

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Andrew
 And I think when times are good, we're leaning into the Lord, we're trusting Him, we're spending time with Him, He's our strength. Then when times are bad, that's the habit we're in. That's what we're used to. That's how we function in it. We function, it's our MO. And so things hit and it's just like, where do I go? Well, I go to the Lord in the good things, so I'm going to go to Him in the bad things. And maybe we lean in more, maybe we do go to Him more in those. But if that's not our habit when life is good and things are happy,

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Andrew
 then I think a lot of times we can go the opposite way and think, "Well, God owes me and He's not delivering for me." And so I think just a good habit of having a healthy relationship with the Lord. And I think Jesus is a great example of this, and we're going to see this later in the Gospel of John.

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Andrew
 And Jesus is going to, He's going to be on the cusp of His arrest and His great suffering, and He's going to pray in the garden.

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Andrew
 And it's going to be an awful night and He's going to be sweating blood and

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Andrew
 He's going to be asking God if there's a way that this can happen a different way, take this cup from me.

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Andrew
 And so He's anticipating the difficulty,

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Andrew
 but instead of complaining about it or fretting about it, and He's definitely experiencing the weight of it, but He's taken it to the Lord. And I think, again, we see in Jesus' life a habit of doing that. He's constantly trying to get away to be with the Father. And so when the rubber hits the road, He's doing the same thing. He's going to the Father because He knows that's where He's going to find comfort. He knows that's where He's going to find His help.

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Brenton
 Yeah. I think you kind of touched on this a little bit as you were talking there, but if we're not doing those things, if we're not actually believing that our suffering has a purpose,

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Brenton
 how can that change our response to the situation? Like what changes in us?

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Andrew
 Yeah. I think sometimes we get entitled as Christians and we get this idea that we're God's chosen people, and we are, but that doesn't mean we're immune to anything. And so, again, as God's chosen people, sometimes that means you go through the wilderness and you go into battle and you face difficult things.

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Andrew
 And so, yeah, I think sometimes we develop this sense of entitlement where we expect certain things from God, we don't get them, then we get mad at God, because He didn't serve us the way we thought He should. And yes, we have a servant God and He loves giving us things and He does desire our good, but our perspective on His good, perspective on our good is not His. And He knows what's truly good for us. And so many times the good we think we have in mind is distorted by our culture and our own perception of reality.

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Andrew
 We start believing that God owes us certain things because our neighbors, our friends, our family, our society tells us a good God would do these things for you, or God wouldn't allow these things from you if He truly loved you or things like that. And I think there's just so many things like that that are just blatantly false, that we slip into believing because they sound so good.

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Andrew
 Because we don't want to suffer. We don't want to be uncomfortable. We don't want difficulty.

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Andrew
 I don't. I don't like it. You know, when things go wrong in my family and with my stuff, it's frustrating and I wish it hadn't happened.

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Andrew
 But if I step back and I remember, it's all His and this life is temporary.

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Andrew
 And I just, I put myself in the right perspective,

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Andrew
 then it helps so much to just remind myself about eternity, about God's plan,

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Andrew
 and just the finiteness of life. There's just everything we see is temporary. And really the only thing that will last in a significant way is our relationship with the Lord. And in some capacity, and I think there's still an uncertainty about it, like our relationships with others who love the Lord. And it's certainly going to be different in heaven. But the one thing that will last and will be true is God.

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Andrew
 And all these things that I worry about, things that break my car, my house, my washing machine and dryer, or broken bones in our bodies, and all these things, they're not going to matter in heaven. Because He's going to make them new and He's going to perfect everything that needs to be perfected.

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Andrew
 And if it's not

[00:31:42:21 - 00:31:45:21]
Andrew
 worthwhile, it's not going to be in heaven.

[00:31:47:19 - 00:31:52:00]
Andrew
 And so therefore, it shouldn't ultimately matter to me here on earth.

[00:31:53:12 - 00:32:03:13]
Andrew
 And I think we just forget that. We just get caught up in our daily lives. We just get caught up in the moment because everything here feels real and it is real for now.

[00:32:05:18 - 00:32:19:05]
Andrew
 But I think it's just helpful to step back regularly and remind ourselves that it is temporary. And that there is a renewal coming when none of this will.

[00:32:20:14 - 00:32:37:05]
Andrew
 We probably won't even remember these insignificant things that mean so much to us in heaven. And if we do remember them, we're going to look back and be like, "Why did I ever get worked up about that?"

[00:32:39:05 - 00:33:03:06]
Andrew
 Now, that's easy to say from that perspective. And again, I don't want to minimize suffering and pain and difficulty because it is real and it is a powerful part of our experience. But again, I think that perspective is the right one to have where let's put ourselves on the other side and look back and just say, "Okay, it's a light and momentary affliction." That's Paul's words.

[00:33:05:13 - 00:33:21:20]
Andrew
 So yeah, all that long answer, short summary, what we're experiencing is light and momentary affliction. And the more we can remind ourselves of that on a daily basis, I think the better off we're going to be when those afflictions do come.

[00:33:23:10 - 00:33:23:15]
Andrew
 Yeah.

[00:33:23:15 - 00:33:26:05]
Brenton
 Yeah, that's good.

[00:33:28:09 - 00:33:34:06]
Brenton
 All right. So you quoted Bruce Milne.

[00:33:35:08 - 00:33:36:07]
Brenton
 Is that how you said his name?

[00:33:36:07 - 00:33:40:20]
Andrew
 I think so. Yeah, Bruce Milne. Great. Milne? Milne? No.

[00:33:40:20 - 00:33:42:16]
Brenton
 I was wondering if that was a hard E there.

[00:33:44:20 - 00:34:30:21]
Brenton
 So he said, this is a long quote, so I'm just going to read it because nobody remembers it. So he said, "What is true here at the level of physical illness can be extended to all the trials we face as Christian disciples. Our natural response is to rebel against them as alien intruders, which must be expelled from our lives as quickly and painlessly as possible by every means available, including God's miraculous intervention. With hindsight, however, another perspective is possible. We can offer our trials to God for Him either to remove or to retain as He pleases, thereby bringing glory to His name and deepening our faith and possibly that of others too."

[00:34:32:06 - 00:34:53:17]
Brenton
 So long quote. There's a lot of good truth in there. You pointed out that this is essentially what Jesus says in verse 15 when He says, "For your sake, I'm glad that I was not there so that you may believe." So, you know, in reference to Lazarus' death, Jesus is saying, "Hey, we waited these two days. There's a reason we waited these two days and that's for your sake."

[00:34:55:00 - 00:35:23:06]
Brenton
 Practically, how can we begin to learn how to view our suffering as an opportunity for growth? Right? So this whole kind of boil down the message, like we're saying, Jesus uses our suffering for our good so that we can become more like Him. Right. So how can we practically actually believe that and know that in the middle of suffering?

[00:35:23:06 - 00:35:28:14]
Andrew
 Yeah. Yeah. I think we see it with other things that are just kind of natural in life.

[00:35:30:04 - 00:35:32:19]
Andrew
 You know, when we want to get in shape,

[00:35:33:22 - 00:35:35:10]
Andrew
 we go to the gym,

[00:35:37:01 - 00:35:42:12]
Andrew
 we get on the treadmill, we work hard, we sweat, we breathe hard.

[00:35:44:07 - 00:36:00:16]
Andrew
 The next day we're sore, we hurt, and there's a small level of suffering. And then we go back and do it again. And it's like, why would you do that? You know, you're in pain. It's like, well, because I see on the other side the benefit.

[00:36:01:17 - 00:36:02:09]
Andrew
 I've seen others

[00:36:03:15 - 00:36:04:19]
Andrew
 go through it.

[00:36:06:01 - 00:36:16:09]
Andrew
 You know, they've told me their stories of suffering. And then I've seen the results and they're skinny and they're healthy or they're, you know, whatever, they're happy.

[00:36:17:21 - 00:36:45:11]
Andrew
 And so it's like, I want to do that myself. I want that result. And so I think, you know, the same's true for education. You know, we see people come out on the other side with a degree or the ability to do medicine or be a lawyer or whatever. But it wasn't easy. It was sacrifice and suffering and frustration and pain of a different sort.

[00:36:47:00 - 00:36:59:11]
Andrew
 But we always say it was worth it because now you can do this. And so I think just kind of those natural experiences that we do

[00:37:01:15 - 00:37:31:15]
Andrew
 I think if we stop and think they can help us make that spiritual connection, that if God wants us to grow and change and be more like Him, there's going to be a learning process. And so I think just naturally sometimes that involves suffering for some of us. And it means we're going to go through some hard things so that, and more than likely because we wouldn't have learned another way.

[00:37:32:22 - 00:38:20:12]
Andrew
 And as a parent, I can see this with my own kids. You know, one kid you can say, "Hey, go do this and I'll go do it." Or "I'd like you not to do this and they won't do it." And then the other kid, it's going to take them a few times of punishment and difficult. And I'm not, I don't want to make a false connection here. You know, God's not vindictive toward us. He sees us with love, but He does discipline those He loves. And sometimes in order for my child to learn, they have to experience some pain along the way through the consequences of their actions. And you might tell them not to do something a certain way and they do it, and then

[00:38:21:13 - 00:39:04:20]
Andrew
 they hit their head. Well, if you'd have done it my way, you wouldn't have hit your head or whatever it may be. And so I think sometimes the suffering and difficulty and problems we face in life, we experience as an opportunity for us to grow, to understand God better, to appreciate Him more, to get a better perspective on what He's doing, to have empathy for other people who are suffering. I think there's so many different ways God can use certain types of suffering in our lives to shape us, to be more like Him and to make us more useful for Him and His Kingdom.

[00:39:05:23 - 00:39:16:11]
Andrew
 And so just like working out in the gym or studying hard to get to that next level of education to be productive in society,

[00:39:18:08 - 00:39:23:12]
Andrew
 God uses difficulty to mold us and change us and shape us into

[00:39:25:05 - 00:39:33:04]
Andrew
 these beautiful images of Him, imperfect now, but one day we'll be glorified and we'll be fully perfect.

[00:39:35:06 - 00:40:06:22]
Andrew
 So yeah, I think practically we can try to learn from all those little suffering things and reflect on them and even ask God, "What do you want me to do with this?" or "How do you want me to grow through this?" I think it can be tricky to say, "God, what are you trying to teach me with this?" Because sometimes we can get a little too self-focused on that. Sometimes things just happen and it's just part of living in a sinful world.

[00:40:08:08 - 00:40:26:05]
Andrew
 And so I don't want to get over-spiritual on every little thing, but I think it is a helpful practice to just continually go to before the Lord and say, "Okay, God, how do you want me to grow? How do you want me to learn? Is this something I'm supposed to learn from? Or is this just one of those things that's horrible about life?"

[00:40:28:09 - 00:40:35:07]
Andrew
 Because the reality is death is going to come for us all until Jesus returns.

[00:40:36:15 - 00:40:41:13]
Andrew
 We can get upset about people dying and it's sad and we should be sad.

[00:40:43:02 - 00:40:45:10]
Andrew
 But to be mad at God when somebody dies,

[00:40:47:20 - 00:40:48:20]
Andrew
 it's like, well,

[00:40:50:10 - 00:40:57:21]
Andrew
 I think we've got to be careful there because everyone is going to face death this side of heaven, this side of Christ's return.

[00:40:59:06 - 00:41:25:00]
Andrew
 And again, I think the timing of it compared to eternity, I think it's certainly tragic when a younger person dies versus someone who's lived a full life. But that 80 year gap compared to eternity really is very, very small. And so from God's perspective, He's looking down and I think He's like, yeah, that's not even a vapor of time.

[00:41:26:10 - 00:41:35:20]
Andrew
 And for us, again, rightfully so in a sense, it's a huge tragedy. Life was cut short. There's all these opportunities and things that person could have done.

[00:41:37:03 - 00:41:59:08]
Andrew
 And so I think, again, continually looking toward eternity and reflecting back from God's perspective on our lives can be a helpful exercise in shaping our hearts to counter days and consider things from God's perspective.

[00:41:59:08 - 00:42:16:18]
Brenton
 Yeah. Yeah. I think we've mentioned this on the show, I think quite a bit, but not every instance of our suffering is discipline or is... I think we need to...

[00:42:18:04 - 00:43:04:07]
Brenton
 Even though we don't know the purpose, I don't think our first response should necessarily be to, what did I do to deserve this? Right? Right. So we need to, at that point, I think I think you're right. We need to have an eternal perspective on it and we need to eventually, and there is a time for Lamat, there's time for mourning, but eventually we need to reach the point where we're asking God, like, what do we do with this? How do we grow? And that is a part of that eternal perspective that we need to trust. Even though we don't know, we need to trust that God knows and that He cares for us and that He loves us and He's good. And so, yeah, good conversation.

[00:43:04:07 - 00:43:13:10]
Andrew
 Yeah. Yeah. I think whether it's natural suffering or spiritual suffering, sure. We got to move forward. We've got to keep our eyes on the Lord. We got to move forward. And

[00:43:14:10 - 00:43:17:07]
Andrew
 to your point, I don't think it's all that helpful sometimes to...

[00:43:18:13 - 00:43:46:06]
Andrew
 And we won't know sometimes. Is this something the Lord is chastening me with or is it just the natural way of things right now in this world? And we can wonder that, but if we stay stuck there, we're not going to grow. We're not going to move forward regardless. So let's continue to seek the Lord and get our eyes on Him instead of point the finger at ourselves or at the Lord.

[00:43:48:04 - 00:44:02:18]
Andrew
 That's where His grace is abundant. And even if it was a correction of a loving father, that's exactly what it was. It was a loving father who wants us to draw close to Him. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:44:02:18 - 00:44:16:23]
Brenton
 All right. Well, thanks, Andrew. Thanks for your work this week on the sermon and for coming in here to talk. Yeah. Thanks for having me. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out, ask at furtherpodcast.com, and we will talk to you next week.