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Brenton
 Welcome back to Further. I am Britton Grimm. I'm back. Yeah, welcome back. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, how are you doing today? Pretty good.

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Chris
 Yeah, beautiful day. Love the weather we've got now.

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Brenton
 It's beautiful.

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Brenton
 Yeah, thanks for Paul filling in last week. I was out of the office for the week, and it was good to get out of Iowa for a little bit. It's good to be back.

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Brenton
 Yeah, so let's jump right in. So you covered two chapters this week.

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Brenton
 Good work.

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Brenton
 That was a lot. They're just one, remember? Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's true, allegedly.

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Brenton
 So let's start by just talking about some of the things you said about the soul. So you push back on a common view of the soul that's kind of detached or almost cartoonish. Why is this such an important distinction for us? Where do you see that misunderstanding show up in how Christians, how we approach our spiritual lives?

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Chris
 Well, I think how it shows up is that we just don't give the attention to our soul-slash-spiritual lives that we should.

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Chris
 We tend to pay attention to a whole lot of other things

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Chris
 about ourselves and just about life in general. And I think our failure to understand what the soul is and the significance of the soul plays out in that we really don't give the attention to the thing that in the end actually about us that matters the most. Because our soul is our life. It really is who we are at the deepest level. And it is who we are that's going to last into eternity. So we got into this a little bit last week.

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Chris
 But your soul, even when you die and your body goes into the grave, your soul continues to live. And that's whether you're a believer or unbeliever. Now, we also believe that one day the body and the soul are reunited, but this just shows you the significance of your soul is that there will be a time, unless Christ returns, where you are just a soul.

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Chris
 Okay.

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Chris
 And so I think we just,

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Chris
 along with this, isn't it that our failure to understand the soul we get kind of mystical to us a little bit? It's like, okay,

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Chris
 it's like something we maybe even are unsure of. And so that means we just don't even know what to do with it. And so we just don't do anything with it.

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Chris
 Or we don't think that we're doing anything with it. But we all have this, I think, essence. Even if we're not sure exactly how to define or understand the soul, like we have one. Like there are things that impact us and we feel at a deeper level than simply in our head. And even quite honestly in our heart.

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Chris
 So we could talk about that a lot, but that's a couple of reasons I think that it's really important to understand more fully what the soul is and its importance, significance.

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Brenton
 That's interesting you say mysticism, because I think that's true. What do you think has caused this like total misunderstanding of what the soul is?

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Chris
 Yeah, I don't even know that necessarily. I have an answer to that. We could probably get into this Gnosticism, which was very much an early heresy that the church dealt with and not, you know, has some bear,

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Chris
 a lot of similarities with, you know, the Greek thought about where the body is bad and the spirit of the soul is good. And we need to be, you know, basically saved from the physical body into this spiritual kind of,

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Chris
 you know, it wasn't even really well defined as to what that was. And so we can even see in the New Testament, the apostles, especially John himself, like really battling against the seeds of this. It wasn't even fully fleshed out in the first century, but we know from a church history that the first three, four, five centuries of the church, that this was maybe Gnosticism was the number one issue that we're dealing with. And, you know, closely related to that is this dualism, you know, like, and so body, concrete, like we can see, we can grab hold of it. The spirit is, you know, it's just very kind of elusive. And we think, you know, that's the good part of us, but we don't really know exactly what that is. And the church has definitely been impacted. And even, and I knew just in my time in the church, and especially growing up, there was just tendency to think that, you know, spirit, you know, is gonna be good, but we're not exactly sure about what all of that means, what the body is, you know, it's not good. And so we go a long way into that, but

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Brenton
 I just think- Well, and then there's the other side of that too, you know, the secular side where we are 100% physical, right? Sure. There is no spirit to, you know, as a part of us.

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Chris
 Yeah, well, no, that's true in some sense. And then you also have a lot of spirituality

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Chris
 and even mysticism in the world. Today's kind of interesting, yes,

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Chris
 that because of the enlightenment, we want to think like it's all, you know, the only thing that is real is what you can measure and test and examine. Okay, great. But then our world just will not hold that.

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Chris
 And just, all you have to do is look at movies and, you know, and we're fascinated with things like ghosts and spirits and all of that.

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Chris
 Right.

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Brenton
 Yeah. Yeah.

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Brenton
 Okay.

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Brenton
 So you made a point about Psalm 42 that it isn't, the psalmist isn't saying, I want more of God. He's saying, I can't feel God at all.

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Brenton
 How should Christians interpret seasons where God feels like completely absent? I know that, you know, one direction that we can go is just say like, well, okay, I don't have enough faith or whatever and put kind of all back on us. How should we think about those times?

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Chris
 Well, the first thing I want to say is it's hard to give just very specifics where we would say like, this would always be the case

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Chris
 because different people experience

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Chris
 different periods of God's seeming absence and they experience it into deeper levels and in deeper ways. So we have to kind of say a little bit at the 30,000 foot view rather than getting down into the nitty and gritty because the way that you experience it, I'm sure is different than the way that I experience it. But I think what we begin by saying like, this is actually more common than we might actually believe it to be. One of the things that we can really even be,

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Chris
 make these periods worse is we think like we're the only one that is feeling this or experiencing this and this is like, this is unique, we're unique in this. And we saw yesterday that that's not the case and I would just point you actually to one other place in the Psalms.

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Chris
 Psalm 87 is just, I'm sorry, Psalm 88 is a very interesting Psalm. It kind of stands out because it literally ends with this. You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me. My companions have become darkness or darkness has become my closest friend, my close companion. That's where it ends. It doesn't like, there's no like turn to hoping in God in that. And so I bring that up for a couple of reasons. There's one to point out like this, we see this in the scripture and it's there for a reason to say like, there are gonna be times where you are just gonna feel like you are in complete darkness and like,

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Chris
 that's where you're gonna find yourself.

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Chris
 Now, if we really understand this though, we can see what the Psalmist is doing. He's actually not, he's talking to God throughout this. Like he's not just, this is not just in his own conversation with himself.

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Chris
 He's actually talking to God, he's crying out to God.

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Chris
 And so to answer, get back maybe to more specifically answering your question.

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Chris
 I think one thing we need to understand is that God and his sovereignty often allows us to experience these times where he seems to be absent

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Chris
 because as Paul talks about in Romans five, one through five and that's another key passage is that like endurance builds character and character builds hope. So he brings us, this is these times where we have to learn to endure because that endure builds in us a character where we can wait on the Lord. And then when we have that character that actually produces hope because okay, yes, I'm learning to wait on the Lord. And in fact, the word hope in the Bible, I didn't bring this up, I didn't go into this debt, but it literally means to wait, hope means to wait. And I said it was confident expectation is what I talked about yesterday. But so this,

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Chris
 I don't know how well this is resonating but what the Lord does is like if we never have times where we struggle spiritually,

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Chris
 we're probably not gonna grow.

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Chris
 That God stretches us and He allows us at times to go through periods where we really are like, we find ourselves dry, we find ourselves maybe in, even as we talked about yesterday, despondency and despairing and He often does that because what He's trying to do is trying to grow us and to learn that we have to rely upon Him. Like we can't muster it up.

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Chris
 And so you ask, is that a faith problem? And I don't think in many instances that it is. Now, obviously, we can't have faith troubles for sure. We see those in the scripture too, but in terms of what we're talking about here,

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Chris
 a lot of times the Lord is just learning. There's so many commands, especially in the Old Testament to wait on the Lord. There's the famous Isaiah passage, those who wait on the Lord, where we knew their strength. But we want to just have the strength. We don't wanna wait for it.

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Brenton
 So I guess that kind of brings up something else.

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Brenton
 There are other examples of God's, God responding to us. Like in 1 Peter it says,

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Brenton
 so that your prayers may not be hindered. So are there situations where there would be,

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Brenton
 it could be a form of discipline. Do we see that scripturally as well?

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Chris
 Yeah, absolutely. We didn't talk about this yesterday. I briefly mentioned it, but,

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Chris
 Psalmist also says, if I regard aniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Hmm.

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Chris
 Okay, so, and what it means that is if I've got like sin I'm very clearly holding onto and I'm refusing to let go,

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Chris
 I'm just not gonna repent,

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Chris
 then we should expect that we're going to have a feeling that where is God or I'm separate from God. And it's not a matter of the breaking of the relationship, but it is, we might call it a breaking of fellowship. And it's a very much like the marriage relationship is like if you do something to hurt Nikki, you're still married. Like you're still her husband, she's still your wife, that doesn't break the marriage covenant.

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Chris
 But things might be a little tense and there might need to be some repair done. And if you've sinned against her and you refuse to do that, well, you should expect things are not gonna feel like,

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Chris
 maybe want them to feel and they should feel.

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Chris
 And it's not the exact same with our relationship with that, but it's pretty close.

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Chris
 And again, we didn't talk about this yesterday because the Psalm doesn't talk about it. And I think that's important for us to understand. We can have these times of depression,

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Chris
 many times we can have them and we haven't actually done anything wrong. Right. And that's one of the things, distinctions we need to make in the church is just because somebody is experiencing depression does not mean that they have sinned. And many times they haven't sinned. And that's like Psalm 42 and 43 are really helpful there. At the same time,

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Chris
 sin does break our fellowship with the Lord. And so we've got to recognize that and be willing to repent, confess and own that part of it. And the truth is, is like this depression thing is very, very complex. And in many ways we're only scratching the surface yesterday and a lot of times it's not just one thing, it's multiple things, right?

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Chris
 And you might start off because you're sick

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Chris
 and you're tired and you feel that way and then in that you might sin.

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Chris
 Guilty of that. And so that can add onto it and it just gets kind of complex. So one blanket answer to all of that is, yeah, not helpful. That's good, that was helpful.

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Brenton
 So to kind of stay in Psalm 42, 43 for a little bit,

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Brenton
 I wanna talk about the way that whoever wrote this, whether it's David or someone else, the way they talk to God,

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Brenton
 they don't seem to hold anything back, right? He's very honest.

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Brenton
 What stands out to you about the way that he brings his struggle to God?

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Chris
 Well, yeah, I'm actually still wrestling with this myself because it's just so, I think, counterintuitive to the way that we naturally think and respond. But he's literally saying, God, why have you forgotten me? He's almost accusatory.

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Chris
 Why have you rejected me? And now he knows that that's not the case. And we know that because of the other things that he says in the Psalm, like you're my steadfast love, you're my rock. Okay, those things don't go together. You're my rock. Steadfast love means that I know that you're committed to me, you're faithful to me. But at the same time, why have you rejected me? And I think that it's just a great example of somebody who's okay with not being okay. And okay with struggling. And okay, like I said yesterday, God knows what's going on inside of us.

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Chris
 So it's even helpful for us to express it, for us to see where we're in error. Like when we actually get it out, like God, why have you, like we do get in God's face. Like I'm not saying that that's ultimately right. It's not right, but that actually helps us to bring it out. Okay, like, yes, something's okay. Something's wrong in how I'm responding to God right now. But what we do is we just, we say, I can't say that to God, but you're feeling it. So like, it's better to actually like this God, how I feel. And for me, it's actually trying to treat God as an actual person,

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Chris
 not as an idea or this is deity.

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Chris
 He's not an idea and he is a deity, but not so like he's like this far off. Like God is trying to hold the truths of God. He is both imminent and transcendent. And when transcendent, it means he's far above us. Okay, but he's also imminent, which means that he's here with us in present. And as a believers, like he's in us. And so like he knows like, God, I'm mad at you. I'm angry at you.

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Chris
 And can we be honest enough to say that to him?

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Chris
 And it's also know like that he, and we're gonna actually get this coming week. Like he's got a grace and mercy and he doesn't meet our struggles and our anger and our hurt with judgment. He meets it with grace. And that's just so hard for us to like, if I'm gonna say to God something that I shouldn't say to God, how is he gonna respond to that? And as his children, he's going to respond to that in like, okay,

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Chris
 and that doesn't mean like he's not gonna correct us.

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Chris
 And in circumstances we may be in, may actually be part of his correction,

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Chris
 but he's not gonna be like, shut up, stop,

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Chris
 like boom, you're okay.

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Chris
 Like, and Job is a great example of how God just, he doesn't, he's very gracious with Job, but he's also not coddling. No, especially toward the end. So that's important. Like God is gracious and he's gentle, but he doesn't coddle. And I'm gonna get ahead of myself, but this week we're gonna be in Matthew 11, come to me all you who are weary and heavy late night, we'll give you rest, okay?

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Chris
 And he goes on, Jesus is going, because I am gentle and lowly of heart. Like I'm tender, I'm gentle, that's the way I respond to you. So just come to me, it doesn't say get yourself, like bring your burdens, unload yourself on me. But then he says, take my yoke upon you. So it's not like a coddling, like, okay, you're good, you're also good, you're, you know, it's all, you know,

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Chris
 I'm gonna get myself in trouble if I keep going with that. But he's, it's both gentle, but it's also correcting and all of that.

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Brenton
 I guess, talking about this practically, like how, as you've wrestled through this, what steps have you taken to become,

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Brenton
 to kind of put away our,

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Brenton
 the way that we usually talk to God, right? And actually to become honest with him, how do we start to get past that hurdle of, this is how I should talk to God, but not necessarily being honest.

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Chris
 I mean,

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Chris
 I think I've somewhat answered that. It's not easy, it's something I'm still very much learning to do. The best thing I can point everybody to is like, this is actually using scripture and as a guide and talking to God in the way, and maybe even in the words that we see in the scripture, like in Psalm 42 and 43, like we're gonna put, you know, I'm gonna talk to God and I'm gonna say actually what the psalmist is saying and learning to have that kind of language.

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Chris
 And, you know, for me, it's a lot, I have a lot of conversations in my head with myself

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Chris
 about the, even about the truth, like even in Psalm 42 and 43, like God, why have you rejected me? Why do I feel like you've abandoned me? But I'm actually, what I'm doing is I'm actually going over it in my head to myself. I'm not actually talking to him.

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Chris
 Does that make sense? Like, okay, I'm wrestling with this, but it's actually an intellectual thing. And so trying to move it from my head and to my heart and my soul, like in my soul, it takes some practice and it takes some effort.

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Brenton
 Yeah, it feels very unnatural at first.

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Chris
 Yeah, sure, sure, it's not.

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Chris
 Now, some people are better because they're more,

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Chris
 they're more, as it says, but in touch with their emotions, they're more familiar with emotion language.

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Chris
 And so it can be easier on that end for them. And some of us have to just learn how to do that.

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Brenton
 All right,

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Brenton
 you talked about the two ditches

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Brenton
 that we've historically fallen into regarding depression.

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Brenton
 And that's either reducing it to just brain chemistry or the assertion that Christians shouldn't struggle with it at all.

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Brenton
 What do you think drives those two extremes? What do you think was behind that?

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Chris
 Now you're getting really into where there can be some significant controversy on this, because Christians, I find, are all over the perspective, are of all different perspectives on this, okay?

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Chris
 And the two wide extremes, the one, the brain chemistry, is where there's just a heavy influence of modern psychology.

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Chris
 And so we can there be more influenced by what the world has said and says in their position and they don't leave any room for the, really for the spiritual, there's no room for God. And it's all basically scientific. I mean, so somebody might say, "Hey,

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Chris
 if you have a problem with your blood pressure, you take medication, why if your brain chemistry is off, why wouldn't you take pills?"

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Chris
 And I'm not suggesting, by the way, and I hope that this was clear, that may not be appropriate in some instances, but it's not sufficient as like, this is it, just do this because our mind, like our brain is, our mind uses our brain, okay? But our brain is not, and our mind is not equivalent to a different organ in our body. So you can't, the mind and the physical heart are like, that's not the same thing. And so yes, there may be brain chemistry that goes haywire or has some struggles. And there very much are instances of that. And I personally believe that there are times where medication to help people who have chemical imbalances is appropriate and might even be necessary. But I don't believe it's ever sufficient to address the issue. And that's because we're not simply body or organs, we're also spiritual beings and those two things. I think the Bible very clearly says is that the soul is what brings all of who we are together.

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Chris
 So there's that extreme.

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Chris
 But on the other extreme is where that comes from. I just, I mean, I just think historically, there's been a lot of times a reaction to, there's always reactions and overreactions. So I think that there's been an overreaction to what much of modern psychology has to say, especially in terms of depression. And so we just go to the other side and say, that's all just from a secularized standpoint. And so it's just, it's not correctly interpreting and understanding how God has made people. And so we just, we overreact and we don't like anything that psychology suggests is by default wrong. And I think that that's just, I think it's just an error as well.

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Brenton
 Yeah, I think of,

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Brenton
 if there's any scriptural basis for that side of it, like the,

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Brenton
 that we shouldn't struggle with this, like you'd think about the fruit and fruit of spirit, right? That, we are commanded to joy. And so I think there's probably something to be understood of that, of like a biblical argument toward that. But I don't know how you deal with like what we're talking about today, right? I don't know how you deal with a lot of the Psalms if,

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Brenton
 unless they just see that as, you know, they're sinning.

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Chris
 Yeah, well, they, yeah, I don't think that there's actually been in many instances,

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Chris
 a deep study in a very serious,

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Chris
 try to understand everything that A, the Bible says, and then also what has God revealed through nature

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Chris
 that can help us to understand human nature. And so maybe this is a point, because this is really important to me, and I think it's really important for us to understand this whole topic, is that God reveals truth in two ways, okay? He reveals truth in His word and in His works, okay? Word and works. So obviously He reveals truth in His word, and that is the ultimate, our ultimate foundation and authority, okay? Bottom line is there. But we know that the word also tells us that God has revealed truth in His works, i.e. in nature.

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Chris
 And we accept this when it comes to the medical field, like that God has revealed how to treat various diseases and health issues and all like, like almost everybody accepts that. Like I don't know that I know anybody who doesn't believe that God has revealed to us scientifically, like truths about how the world works. And we're really thankful for that, right?

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Chris
 And even, I don't wanna get off here, but even what we're doing right now and the technology we're using to do this, like that, nobody went to the Bible and said, here's how we can make the internet work, okay?

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Chris
 And so that, but that's God revealing that to human. We don't come up with that on our own. And so what I'm trying to get at here is, is that we should expect that God has revealed things through His works in nature about the human mind, heart,

[00:30:51:01 - 00:30:53:14]
Chris
 strength, and about the soul

[00:30:55:02 - 00:31:09:09]
Chris
 that can help us to understand how God has made us and how we could be the healthy individuals, the flourishing individuals that He would have us to be. The problem is, of course, because of sin,

[00:31:11:13 - 00:31:19:05]
Chris
 that human nature and even science is fallen.

[00:31:20:13 - 00:31:26:00]
Chris
 And so we've gotta do the hard work of saying what is actually true,

[00:31:27:04 - 00:31:45:15]
Chris
 but what has been affected by the fall in such a way that it actually is not reflecting the truth of how God has made things to be. And that's really, really tough work. So what a lot of Christians want to do is we either wanna totally accept what modern science says,

[00:31:46:16 - 00:31:56:08]
Chris
 then let's just accept it without any, like, okay, let's wrestle with it. Is this really telling the truth? Or we wanna go to the other extreme, we're just gonna throw it out the window altogether.

[00:31:57:17 - 00:31:59:18]
Chris
 And those are easier approaches.

[00:32:01:07 - 00:32:07:06]
Chris
 But personally, I don't think that they're gonna need to be the one that's gonna help us to fully understand

[00:32:08:12 - 00:32:21:00]
Chris
 the world and in particular people as God has created them and the cure for the ills that affect us.

[00:32:23:02 - 00:32:23:05]
Brenton
 Yeah.

[00:32:24:07 - 00:33:11:10]
Brenton
 Okay, yeah, a lot there. So you said that we often experience depression because we've put hope in something that can't carry the weight. And this is a conversation that I'm sure we've had a million times of idolatry, right? And you even called it out by name on Sunday. But I guess my question, and maybe it just bears repeating, is a lot of this stuff can happen subtly the way that idols kind of take over our lives. How can we be more proactive on the front end of this stuff, right? Like, it's probably more apparent than we recognize. Sure. But how can we be proactive in this fight?

[00:33:13:01 - 00:33:17:14]
Chris
 Yeah, I mean, this is, like you said, we come back to this so often.

[00:33:18:22 - 00:33:34:13]
Chris
 One of the reasons we do is that the Bible comes back to us so often, right? And this literally is the whole story of the people of Israel, right? Like it's just continually going after idols, continuing after idols, God continually calling him back, continually calling him back.

[00:33:35:14 - 00:33:51:00]
Chris
 And if we actually go to, say, Deuteronomy, where Moses is giving the people again before he dies, he's giving them the second reading and he's preaching to them from the law.

[00:33:52:01 - 00:33:55:05]
Chris
 And in that, like his remedy is, is like here's God's word.

[00:33:57:02 - 00:34:08:15]
Chris
 And he literally tells them, you know, like you need to attach this to your body and you need to put it on the doorposts of your home. But he also says you need to talk to your children about this as you sit down to eat, as you walk on the road,

[00:34:09:23 - 00:34:24:15]
Chris
 and just as you go about everyday life and having God's word at the center. But it's also God's word, and this is easily, and this is the word of God's grace. It's not just law, it's not even mostly about law.

[00:34:25:19 - 00:34:43:17]
Chris
 It's about God has shown you grace. God is a God of steadfast love. God's a God who has freed you from slavery, i.e. for us, sin and death. And like God's done all these things for you. And now here's the way to walk in this new life that he has given you.

[00:34:44:23 - 00:34:54:18]
Chris
 And so that's really kind of the starting point. And then we look at our lives and we say, like, what are the things in my life that I am substituting

[00:34:56:10 - 00:35:12:03]
Chris
 for the life that God has given me and as believers now in Christ? That again, you know, that takes work, takes effort. This is why we need people in our lives who can help us to see these things.

[00:35:14:02 - 00:35:19:07]
Chris
 So like we talked about community yesterday, this community is so important. I think it's also important to,

[00:35:20:13 - 00:35:31:15]
Chris
 and this is a whole other level, but for me, it's been, this has been huge. And you and I have talked about this extensively is like you go back and you look at how you've been formed in life.

[00:35:32:18 - 00:35:40:07]
Chris
 Like we all grow up in an environment, a home environment for most people, a church environment, a religious church environment

[00:35:41:09 - 00:36:05:04]
Chris
 that has formed us in such a way that it has formed idols in us for everybody. Like our families have values. You just look at your family growing up and you say, what were the values of our family? What was the most important? And even in believing homes, there are going to be values that make things idols, whether it be achievement,

[00:36:07:20 - 00:36:15:20]
Chris
 like achievement, like wealth, like in terms of we are wealthier than some people,

[00:36:16:23 - 00:36:34:07]
Chris
 it might be in terms like we are good people, we're good moral people, we're hard worker, like all of those things. And none of those things are necessarily wrong in and of themselves. That's the terrible thing about idols, the deceiving thing about idols. Most of the times idols are not bad things, they're good things that we make the best thing.

[00:36:35:13 - 00:37:06:23]
Chris
 And so you look at your, I think this is, I honestly, it is huge. Maybe this is unpacking something new for a lot of our listeners here, but just look at your family that you grew up with and what was important to your parents and what are the things, these are our family values. And even things like you could say church, well, the church, and we can look at that sometimes, and that's great, that can be really, really great going to church, but it can subtly be the thing that our value is, is that we're good moral religious people.

[00:37:08:03 - 00:37:08:09]
Chris
 Okay,

[00:37:09:11 - 00:37:16:00]
Chris
 and suddenly that has become the thing.

[00:37:17:04 - 00:37:28:07]
Chris
 Okay, and so it takes again some work and it's always helpful to have somebody, like if you're married,

[00:37:29:13 - 00:37:43:17]
Chris
 Eva went on and she was able to see some of these things before I was able to see some of these things. And he said, oh yeah, of course, yes, I've seen, I've known that a long time, I've seen that in a long time. And sometimes we just need to ask.

[00:37:45:11 - 00:38:16:11]
Chris
 Sometimes, you know, we need to have a conversation if we have siblings, like, okay, what was it like for you growing up and things like that? So then the other thing I would just add is, what are the things that we run to help us deal with the difficulties of life? What are those things that we can go to for comfort? And we all have them. Is it food? Is it entertainment? Is it sex? Is it work?

[00:38:18:09 - 00:38:26:08]
Chris
 You name it. And again, this is hard work and we don't wanna do it, but we love those things. It's like when you,

[00:38:27:10 - 00:38:40:21]
Chris
 where do you go when you're sad or when you're exhausted or when you're disappointed, you know, in those different things, what do you turn to?

[00:38:42:16 - 00:39:08:06]
Chris
 It's hard. It is hard, but I'll just end on this, this question on this. What we have to see is that those are things that are actually sucking the life out of us. And the biblical picture of idolatry is that idols, the Bible says like the wood and stone and all of these things, and those who follow them become like them.

[00:39:10:20 - 00:39:10:20]
 (Laughing)

[00:39:10:20 - 00:39:26:02]
Chris
 And in other words, the picture is, to help us understand it, is they form us. So that's the kind of people that we become. And so it actually sucks the life out of us rather than giving life to us.

[00:39:28:06 - 00:39:29:18]
Chris
 I guess I should, you know, like,

[00:39:30:18 - 00:39:43:15]
Chris
 everybody can laugh at this, but the Lord just can always continues to convict me. I went home yesterday afternoon and ate half a bag of potato chips. So I'm doing that. I love potato chips. How did you feel?

[00:39:44:17 - 00:40:02:08]
Chris
 Well, it felt good in the moment, but afterward, I'm like, what did I do this? I love potato chips. I don't eat them hardly at all anymore, just rarely, but this is a great example. I was tired, exhausted, and it's not, there's not wrong, it's not right. I wasn't sinning, but it's just like a point, it's like, okay, what's,

[00:40:04:00 - 00:40:13:16]
Chris
 it just is a picture of me of a bigger, like what we often do. And then on the other side, we're like, wow, that was really a very good idea.

[00:40:16:01 - 00:40:16:02]
 (Laughing)

[00:40:16:02 - 00:40:22:07]
Chris
 So at least you're realizing. Especially when you look at the bag and it says, you know, 1600 calories, but yeah.

[00:40:24:05 - 00:40:27:06]
Brenton
 Yeah, okay, let's wrap up with this one.

[00:40:28:23 - 00:40:36:09]
Brenton
 You ended up connecting this passage to Jesus experiencing the abandonment from the Father

[00:40:37:19 - 00:40:39:00]
Brenton
 so that we never will.

[00:40:40:07 - 00:40:53:21]
Brenton
 When someone is in the middle of depression or whatever these situations are, what does it actually look like to fight for hope through just a normal weekday?

[00:40:54:23 - 00:40:55:04]
Brenton
 Yeah.

[00:40:58:01 - 00:41:05:14]
Chris
 I'm gonna turn this back on you in a second. So I mean, like, I would like to hear, you know, your, what you have to say on this.

[00:41:07:16 - 00:41:20:11]
Chris
 I think for, I'd begin this and it would be like, there's no pat and easy answers. I even hesitate to respond to this because sometimes it's just like literally just holding on and making it through.

[00:41:22:12 - 00:41:28:01]
Chris
 It's just like, it's enduring and it's just,

[00:41:30:05 - 00:41:30:23]
Chris
 I'm gonna just,

[00:41:32:03 - 00:41:32:14]
Chris
 literally,

[00:41:33:21 - 00:41:35:09]
Chris
 I'm just gonna hold on till tomorrow.

[00:41:38:05 - 00:41:46:21]
Chris
 And there's, I think we can actually discourage people greatly if we just give overly pat answers to, you do this, you do this and you'll be okay.

[00:41:47:23 - 00:41:49:21]
Chris
 Like, it's gonna be okay, it'll get better.

[00:41:51:21 - 00:41:53:16]
Chris
 I'm not saying that that's not inappropriate,

[00:41:54:16 - 00:42:20:01]
Chris
 but it would be inappropriate on its own, especially to people who are in deep nardis. And sometimes when they're, which is like literally is like, we've just got to trust the Lord that he is going to, put ourselves on his mercy and say, okay, I'm just gonna hang on, I'm gonna hold on.

[00:42:21:05 - 00:42:48:19]
Chris
 I think that it's really important when we're in these times, this is where, and the last thing a lot of times we wanna do is actually wanna talk to people and reach out and say things, but that's absolutely essential if we can get ourselves to do it. It's just to say, hey, pick up the phone, text somebody and say, hey, I'm really, really struggling and I just need you to, you just need to be with me. I need you in this.

[00:42:51:12 - 00:42:56:03]
Chris
 I don't think that the right answer here is, well, you need to read your Bible and you need to pray.

[00:42:57:16 - 00:43:13:08]
Chris
 That's sure. Those are true. Like, I mean, that's true, but to say that to somebody in the moment, they actually might do more harm than good. Maybe a better response is, let me read the Bible and pray over you.

[00:43:15:07 - 00:43:18:15]
Chris
 Or let's just like, I'm here and I'm not going to,

[00:43:19:23 - 00:43:26:13]
Chris
 I'm not going away. And so, yeah. How do you answer that?

[00:43:26:13 - 00:43:27:02]
Brenton
 Yeah,

[00:43:28:03 - 00:43:52:08]
Brenton
 the first thing that comes to mind is for me, my tendency is to wanna move fast, really fast and not treat it as real. Like, it's just me, it's just me feeling bad for myself or whatever, but I think, yeah, to not rush past it, to not just try to fix it, to understand like where,

[00:43:53:21 - 00:44:27:17]
Brenton
 like what is actually happening and to do that wrestling. But I think that the wrestling with the actual issue needs to be done, like you said, over and over in community, because I can't do that by myself. I have a hard time, I don't know, diagnosing issues on my own. And so, a plug for maybe two things here, your pastors first, but also our biblical counseling.

[00:44:29:12 - 00:44:59:22]
Brenton
 I think we have a lot of resources here to help you work through those things. And so, I'll just say, like the amount I've benefited from you, from your counsel, from other people in this church has been incredible. And so, community, but also just not moving past it too fast, because it's fake. I think that's what I've found is, you find a lot of fake solutions that don't hold water very long.

[00:44:59:22 - 00:45:02:16]
Chris
 Yeah, yeah, that's really good.

[00:45:03:19 - 00:45:05:14]
Chris
 So, go back to Job.

[00:45:07:05 - 00:45:10:00]
Chris
 You get to the end of the book, and he goes through all of it.

[00:45:11:11 - 00:45:20:23]
Chris
 He says toward the end, I had heard of you with my ears, but now my eyes see you.

[00:45:22:11 - 00:45:31:16]
Chris
 And so, I think the scripture's point is too, if we do endure, and if we do even sometimes just hang on,

[00:45:33:03 - 00:45:48:08]
Chris
 with the help of all the things that you just mentioned, is that where the hope is, is that we're actually going to come not only to hear about God, but to experience Him, to see Him work.

[00:45:49:11 - 00:46:03:08]
Chris
 And we have lots of instances in the scripture, and in my own life, and I think maybe even for you, is like, yeah, this was hard and difficult and still is, but what I'm gaining from it,

[00:46:04:12 - 00:46:11:23]
Chris
 is that's the only way I would have gained it if it is through going through those difficult times.

[00:46:12:23 - 00:46:16:07]
Chris
 And I would just add here, and that's the last thing I'll say,

[00:46:17:13 - 00:46:20:00]
Chris
 I think having a plan ahead of time,

[00:46:21:20 - 00:46:24:14]
Chris
 of like, especially if you've been there before,

[00:46:26:00 - 00:46:29:20]
Chris
 and recognizing like, okay,

[00:46:31:15 - 00:46:35:19]
Chris
 this is not, okay, I'm not surprised that I'm feeling this way.

[00:46:37:04 - 00:46:42:01]
Chris
 Like, it doesn't, it's not a shock to us. Like, okay, this is,

[00:46:43:16 - 00:47:17:11]
Chris
 this is gonna be the reality for me. There are gonna be times in my life where I feel this. And then having like an idea of like, when I get here, what are some things that I can do in this moment to help me to work through it? Instead of when you just, you're not ready for it, and you get there, and like, I don't feel like doing anything. I can't hardly do anything. And you just don't, like, there's nothing there for you. But like, okay, when I feel myself starting to get this way, I'm gonna start, I'm going to then reach out.

[00:47:19:20 - 00:47:20:16]
Chris
 Right? That's hard.

[00:47:22:00 - 00:47:30:07]
Chris
 Right, but what I'm saying is, is like, instead of waiting until we are in the very deepest part,

[00:47:31:15 - 00:47:40:01]
Chris
 where it's, and I know it is for a lot of people, like, you get to that, you like, I can't, I literally can't, I can't get out of bed. Yeah.

[00:47:41:06 - 00:47:54:16]
Chris
 Okay, and I mean, that's the way it is for more people than we might think. I can't get out of bed, I don't want to do it so much that it's like, almost I can't physically do this.

[00:47:58:15 - 00:48:25:22]
Chris
 My suggestion is, is most of the time it doesn't necessarily come on, like, just all of a sudden, like, boom. It's a, you can start to see the signs. And when you start to see the signs, okay, all right, I know I'm headed that way. And I'm gonna be there before too long, so how do I, well, I still have some in me to maybe to reach out, or I need to go for a walk, or I need to, like, I need to go see the doctor.

[00:48:28:11 - 00:48:34:06]
Chris
 It's easier said than done, I get it, but just,

[00:48:35:12 - 00:48:35:19]
Chris
 right?

[00:48:37:06 - 00:48:39:12]
Chris
 And the choices that we make too,

[00:48:40:21 - 00:48:58:22]
Chris
 that maybe contribute to us getting to that place. Not always, like, sometimes it's just there, we have no part in it, but there are other times where, whether we're not resting, or eating right, or exercising, or whether we do something, when we choose to sin,

[00:49:00:06 - 00:49:01:09]
Chris
 so, yeah.

[00:49:02:19 - 00:49:05:02]
Brenton
 All right, well, thanks.

[00:49:06:20 - 00:49:19:14]
Brenton
 Yeah, we'll be back with continuing our All In series next week, appreciate your work, good conversation today. If you have any questions, ask at furtherpodcast.com, and we'll talk to you next week.

[00:49:19:14 - 00:49:22:02]
 (Upbeat Music)