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Jesus People Podcast
Kirby Kelly: Why God Allows Suffering & Finding Hope in Pain | The Jesus People Podcast Episode 69
00:47:07
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- [00:00]
A
I still do not theologically understand how evil comes from a good God. I literally don't.
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B
I lost my father when I was 10. Lived my whole life, in a way, with my mom struggling with her addiction. Yet God can still be good.
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A
Like, why would God allow that to happen? I just. I literally cannot, to this day, wrap my head around the concept. You understand the theology, but you've lived it, too.
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B
I know for a fact that. That what came out of that season for me, of all my suffering, I wouldn't trade that for the world. The intimacy that I have with God, the knowledge that I have of God, head and heart, it's just. It is worth so much more to me having gone through the pressing, because
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A
you can go one or two directions. You can get really jaded, or you can get joyful in the middle of
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B
your suffering, but to still have hope that he's going to do something, something. And if he is good, he's gonna do something good.
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A
Guys, welcome to the Jesus People Podcast. We got round two.
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B
Yeah.
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A
With Kirby Kelly.
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B
I'm pumped.
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A
What? We were just saying, like, she. You called it my Harry Potter room,
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B
but then I realized it's upstairs, and Harry Potter lived under the stairs.
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A
It was. Yeah. Right up there.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You guys can't see, but above, on the second story, my little office. It's my little nook now.
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B
I know. And now, like, look at your podcast. It's. I was actually on Tick Tock the other day, and someone was like, I'm a new Christian. I'm looking for podcast recommendations. And I was looking through the comments section, and there were so many people who recommended your podcast. I was like, that's so cool.
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A
Yeah. It's grown quite a bit since. Since you. You were one of the OG Jesus people. So welcome back.
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B
Yeah, we love Jesus People pod.
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A
Yeah. Love it. Well, so you got a new book?
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B
I do. It comes out April 7th. The fabric of Hope. God Makes Redemption into every Season. Thank you. It took me forever to land on a title.
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A
Well, it's really good knowing your story and knowing what God's done in your life. For those of you that don't know, Kirby's husband, Richard, who's in the room, is one of the homies. He. He films these podcasts.
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B
Yeah, he's here all the time.
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A
He's here all the time. We're always cranking on stuff.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But, yeah, I want to get more into your story, and I want to. I want to talk about a few things. I want to talk about the problem of evil.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Because we have a unique opportunity to talk to someone that doesn't just understand it theologically. You're theologically trained. You have masters of divinity. Correct.
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B
Masters in theology.
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A
Master's in theology.
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B
Basically the same thing.
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A
Even better. And. And you've lived a lot of life. You've lived a lot of suffering, you've experienced a lot in your family, and I think now you're at this kind of interesting season of life where you're pregnant.
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B
Yes.
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A
Congratulations.
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B
Thank you.
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A
And as I. I've never been pregnant, but I have had children, and I do know that it makes you think about existential things.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And you start contemplating your childhood. And so I'd love to hear kind of, like, what has that done for you? And take us back into that childhood and kind of how you've been processing that new baby on the way.
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B
Well, if we're starting from there, just, like, the idea of being a mom and stepping into that role and everything. I think one of the most, like, significant things that I've thought about recently is the idea of, like, grieving my mom while also becoming a mom. Because for the people who are listening who don't know me and don't know anything about my Life, back in 2023, my mom passed away. It was sudden, it was traumatic, it was out of nowhere. But it was one of those things that I kind of grieved my whole life because I grew up in a household where both of my parents were addicts. So both of my parents struggled with addiction, and I lost my father when I was 10. We can touch on all of that when and if you want to. I lost my dad when I was 10. And I've. I. I kind of say it and phrase it like this in the book. I've grieved without hope, got saved when I was 14, like, radically saved, and lived my whole life in a way, with my mom struggling with her addiction, kind of grieving her my whole life. But then when she did finally pass away in 2023, I learned how to grieve with hope. And that was a really interesting thing to go through life with, like, the loss of both of my parents and just a million other things. I've gone the child of two addicts and seeing, wow, there really is this problem of, like, evil and suffering and brokenness that we inflict upon ourselves, that we affect other people with, that have very real consequences. Yet God can still be good. Yet God can still interrupt those moments and be actively redeeming it at the same time. And so I think in this season of life with, like, grieving my mom, becoming a mom, thinking about, well, what's it going to be like when I have a little girl? And it's going to be like, you know, I'm not going to repeat a lot of those cycles, but also just like, relying on the Lord to be like, can you help me to, like, best parent this kid and really show her you. Because I didn't have that example growing up. Both of my parents, I wouldn't say that they were Christians. My mom became a Christian later in life, and I have, like, certainty of that. And that's where a lot of the hope comes from. But now I get to actually pour into my child and be that example as best as I can be to showing her this is who Jesus is. And, like, I went through these things. You're going to go through things, but, like, we can actually trust that God is a redeemer. Because I'm not going to be a perfect parent, but I'm going to try and do my best when I step into that season. So I think that's been, like, a big thing recently that I've been thinking about is like, wow, like you said, childhood, and. And how God has already been redeeming this idea of me becoming a mother based off of the trauma and the tragedy I've gone through.
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A
Totally.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And it's different when it's a lived experience rather than a theological concept.
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B
Yes. Like, when God becomes real as, like, oh, I actually need to trust you, and you actually are good.
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A
And on the flip side of things, too, like, if you've experienced real evil, real suffering.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You're like, that's so painful. I don't understand. I don't know what to make of that. And in some ways it's like, yes, that's too much for our soul to bear. But even from, like, just a logical understanding of the way the world works and understanding a good God but still allowing this to happen.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I still don't know that I understand. Like, I wrote my. I was a philosophy major at Wheaton College.
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B
Really, I was.
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A
And I wrote my senior thesis, I don't know, like 40 pages or something like that, on the problem of evil. And I went through every single philosopher, Christian philosopher, Christian thinker. What do each of them say about this? And I left that paper more confused than when I started.
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B
I feel like that's philosophy for you, though. But I feel like that topic is a confusing topic because it's. It's hard for us to make sense that God can still be good. God can still be fair when life isn't fair and when life isn't good. I think it's. It's one of those things that we find very hard to mediate, especially when we think about, like, the absolute. I don't know, the absolute form of evil that you could think of, whatever that could be. Like, why would a good God allow these things? I wouldn't necessarily say cause these things, but allow these things to happen.
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A
Yeah. Yeah. Allow. That's a really key word. And so where I want to go with this is I want to talk about the theology of it, because, again, you're. You're a unicorn in this space because you understand the theology, but you've lived it, too. You know, I just got back from Nigeria and what, seeing suffering and seeing pain in people's eyes that I've never experienced in my life.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Like. And just, like, the visceral. Like, I don't know how you live.
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B
Yeah.
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A
With the. The. The trauma that you've endured.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Burn scars all over your body aside. Pain that you're experiencing where you can't go out in the sun because your father, who joined Boko Haram, lit you on fire. That aside, now the. The trauma of saying, well, he killed my mom and he killed my siblings. And to be like, now you got to live with both of those alone, with no parents. Like, why would God allow that to happen? I just. I literally cannot, to this day, wrap my head around the concept. So this is not like a. A teeing up a question for you on a podcast, like, why? I literally don't know.
- [08:24]
B
I don't know. I feel that. I think I still even wrestle with a lot of that, of why would God allow this specific thing to happen? I even think in my own life, it's like, why did God allow, you know, both of my parents to become addicts, to become alcoholics? For me to have gone through everything that I've gone through, I know that kind of sounds compared to everything you're saying, it feels like the scale is.
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A
No, pain is pain, man.
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B
Pain is pain. And I think it's. It's a relative thing, and we all need to, like, understand that. But what I've come just to understand in my own life, if we're talking about, like, the lived experience, like, the lived theology of it, something that I was talking about with a friend recently, was that life only makes sense in reverse. And there's a famous quote on that. I forget who said it, but it's like, we move Forward in life, but it only makes sense in reverse. And I was actually talking. Oh, I know who it was. I was talking with my friend Dr. Howard. He's on Lisa Harper's podcast, Back Porch Theology, and my friend John Michael. And we were. I just walked into the conversation. They're like, well, is God really good if I've gone through all these things? And I was like, this is my kind of conversation. And we ended up talking about, like, looking back on everything that God allowed me to go through, but recognizing how he redeemed it all, how he used it all to shape me, to transform me, to bring about, I don't know, anything. And everything that ended up coming from that season, how it. How it actually was redeemed for good. I think about Joseph. It's like everything that happened to him was intended for evil by man, but God used it all for good. And so it's like. But when you think about that in reverse, it's like, well, then God was always good. And that's kind of one of those things that you really have to, like, sit and wrestle with of, like. I don't know why God necessarily allowed it, allowed those things to happen, other than justifying the fact that he has given humanity free will. And we use that free will to instigate rebellion, which led to a broken world. And it's just ripple effect after ripple effect after ripple effect. And we get hit by those waves from somebody else unintentionally because of the systems that are built up, because of the worlds that cultures and countries we live in, because of broken people and their own vices, because of our own sin and our lack of understanding, of consequence, really forgive them, Father. They don't know what they do. It's like, I think about all of those things, like, in a grand scale, and how God still can take that. And when we give it to him, he can pivot it to be something that's actually redeemed. It's like, well, you were always good, even when we were denying or defining what was good and evil by our own standards. Like, I wouldn't say that anything that Boko Haram is doing is good, but, like, based off of the footage that I've been able to see from you in Nigeria, from what Richard's been doing, it's like, these people still have so much hope. And it's not hope in the sense of wishful thinking, like, I hope things get better, but they have a confident conviction of the truth of who God is. His promises, his personhood, his plans. His pattern. It's like they can't help but hope because they know that this is true, that God can turn anything into good. He can reap, repurpose anything into good. And I think the more that we walk with God and the more faithful we are to actually reading Scripture and understanding the entire meta narrative of the Bible is God redeeming his people unto Himself. It's like, you are good, we are not. Life is unfair, you are fair. And it's hard to say that and, and to accept that and maybe even to receive that when you're in the pit. Been there. But when we get vulnerable and we, we get vulnerable with God about, I hate this place. I hate that I'm going through this. I hate that the world is going through this, that these innocent people are going through these things. I think that just opens up another level of empathy of God being like, I hate it too. And that's why I went to the cross, not just for sin, but for suffering. Because remember, Jesus is also the man of sorrows who was well acquainted with grief.
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A
Yes.
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B
And I think just brokenness, it can, it can take us away from God or it can build us to have a better heart that looks like the Father's, to actually go and be the church in the world. And so there's so much redemption that comes out of the lived experience of suffering. And that's just seen all throughout Scripture and in the life of believers who have walked through it, but who have chosen to walk with God and to choose who. When you don't have the answer of why I'm choosing the who of who God is, who he always is, who he has always been, versus just trying to always get the why behind things. Because oftentimes it makes sense with time. And if it doesn't, now, I know it will when I'm in heaven with him. It's a long winded answer, but I
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A
think it's so interesting that the book of Ecclesiastes says even the pursuit of knowledge is vanity.
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B
Yes.
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A
Like, everything's vanity. It's all grasping after the wind. You're never going to catch it. If we really understand our position under Christ, that, that in the grand scheme of things, like he is an eternal, all powerful being and we're gonna die in like 60 years.
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B
Literally. I'm like, I'm about to be 30. I'm like, I've lived almost half of my life. Like, what?
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A
Let's hope you, let's hope you more than that. But like, but even you brought up Joseph.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Dude, Joseph lived complex trauma.
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B
Like, are you kidding me?
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A
Homie was sold into slavery by his brothers.
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B
Yes.
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A
Left for dead in a pit. They literally forgotten, completely forgotten. Some people pick him up, they sell him into Potiphar's house. He gets accused of rape by his wife, thrown into prison, falsely accused. A dude comes in, he interprets the guy's dream. The guy's like, I'm gonna remember you. I'm gonna go take you out. Forgotten again. Years go by. Complex trauma, complex trauma. Everyone's forgetting me. No one cares about me. Where is God? I love how we like read these Bible verses in these Bible stories and we're like, oh, that must have been, you know, a really tough couple months.
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B
We read five verses and it's like, this was his whole life.
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A
This was years, decades of complex trauma. And he had had the dream that he was going to ascend above his. His brothers. I guarantee you he didn't think it was going to be through complex trauma and suffering. That part I guarantee he didn't think it was going to be in a prison cell that wasn't like our nice cushy prisons not to, you know, you know, whatever here in the west. This was like, you're in your own excrement type of prison and he's being left there for years. And then finally he interprets Pharaoh's dream. Ascends at the second command in all of Egypt. And he looks back at his brothers who are in a fame and they come to Egypt and they're like, where's some food? We were just hu.
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B
Feed us documents in their father's name. Like, don't do anything to us.
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A
Right, Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And now they need something from this dude that they don't even recognize anymore. Yeah, like that's the thing. They won't even recognize you. Like, God can take that evil situation, that complex trauma, and build you into a person that is unrecognizable by the people that wounded you. So that when they come back and they need something, they don't even recognize you. But you know who you are more fully because of that time spent in the wilderness, because that time spent in the prison, because that time spent being falsely accused. And then you have the season and from the suffering to then turn around and go, you didn't know what you were doing, what you meant for harm. God used for good.
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B
And that's the gospel lens, because our
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A
king went to the cross.
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B
It's like, I think about it this way, and I write about this in the book too. Just like on the idea of suffering, about how it's so easy for us. And I'm not saying this to demonize anybody or make anybody feel bad, but to maybe just, I don't know, shatter the rose tinted colored glasses if we do have them on in any way where it's like, God, like, you know, everything's fine with God, he's great, he's in heaven, everything's good, I'm in the pit, I'm going through suffering. When it's like, he endured the cross. And when we really think about Jesus, right, Jesus being God and fully human, going to the cross, he had to accept the full weight of punishment, the full weight of God's wrath, to, to be separated, like from that source and to endure that level of wrath. We. I'm like, I will never experience that. I'm saved because Christ went through that. And it's like, when I think about the degree of suffering I went through in my life, I'm like, that doesn't compare to the full weight of God's wrath upon me and feeling completely abandoned. Like, there were times where I felt abandoned, but was I actually abandoned by God? No, I just didn't see him. I wasn't pursuing him. I was distracted by other things. I mean, you name it, but Jesus felt completely abandoned on the cross because he had to endure the full weight of God's wrath. And it's like when I think about the suffering of the cross and how that ended up bringing about the biggest blessing for all of humanity, I think about in a way smaller scale, the suffering I go through. And it's like, well, what can God bring about here if he could bring about salvation from suffering? It's like, what, what an analogy I use in the books and why I'm wearing my little lemon shirt today is because it's like, life gives us lemons. And it's so funny because did you know that lemons were actually genetically modified by us? Like, they don't even exist in nature. And it's like, yeah, duh, we make our own lemons. Like, welcome to a broken world. But it's like God is the sugar who makes lemonade. But it's like you need that component. You need God to come in. And so the, the cross is just the ultimate example of that, of how God can take something that is completely sour and bitter and if you were to squeeze it with your hands, you'd be like, I didn't even realize I had all these cuts and scars. Like, what the heck? But he brings the Sugar to actually make it something that's refreshing.
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A
Yeah, yeah.
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B
And, and life giving. I mean, like, we live in Texas. Like, like, I love a cold glass of lemonade in the summertime, like, especially from the fair, like that good, refined sugar, you know, but it's like that's what God does in those situations that we never expected could ever be sweet only because it seems so sour.
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A
Yeah. And I think in the macro sense, we live in the muck of it. But the not yet of glory, you know, there's.
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B
Yes, there's the now and not yet.
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A
The now and the not yet. We're still in the the now, the muck, the.
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B
The.
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A
The nastiness, the confusion of it.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And what I think is so interesting about Christianity is it's. The Bible is constantly talking about glorying and suffering everywhere. When you. When you are elevated in the kingdom of God, it's because you're the lowest.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I share this in the documentary your husband's directing or editing right now on Nigeria. But there was this moment in Nigeria where this lady who had been shot in the face by Boko Haram, it missed her brain and went through her eyes.
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B
And.
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A
And she is the most joyful person I've ever met. And she grabs my hands, and she's blind now. She grabs my hands. She just starts dancing with me, and she starts saying, we will dance one day in the kingdom together. And that night, I'm laying in my bed and I can't sleep, and I'm just laying there and it was like, boom, Holy Spirit dropped on me. He said, that dance will be a greater honor than if you were invited to the White House right now. Because in the kingdom, getting to dance with her who is the greatest will be far more significant than being invited to go meet with Donald Trump right now in the White House. And to have that glory now the glory of just getting to spend time with her will be greater. And it almost feels cheap to even communicate it because it was such an intimate moment with me in the Lord. And what it was is it was a flip of my concept. It was a flip of my concept of greatness. She's not well known. She doesn't have a million followers. She doesn't have status. She doesn't have money. She lives in a shack that's 100 degrees inside and sleeps on maybe a crappy mattress or a rug. And yet in the kingdom of God, in about 20 years, she is going to stand before him and her crowns are going to be beautiful.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And I think right now, it's. It's. It's one of those deals where we just. In the west, we are so comfortable.
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B
Yeah, don't get me started on that. Literally, though.
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A
Yeah. And I. I remember being in Nigeria just thinking, like, I don't know that I could live this way. But they're happy about it.
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B
It's because I think in the west, we've also been so conditioned that joy and satisfaction and happiness come from circumstance. And we are positioned and we are in a place where a lot of us are privileged enough, where it's like, we can cultivate that for ourselves. Whereas that. And I went to this thing called the Lausanne Congress a couple years ago, and it was like a global gathering of over. I want to say, like, in South Africa. Well, no, the one that I went to was in Incheon, South Korea. Richard was in South Africa when I was over there. And there was over, like, 5,000 believers from over 200 nations, a lot of which were persecuted. And all the people who were sitting at my table were in these persecuted countries. Nigeria, Morocco, Pakistan. I mean, countries that I can't even say. And I'm just sitting there, like, I post videos online about Jesus from our
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A
safe, little beautiful homes.
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B
Literally, though, and they're talking about the suffering that they are going through. Like, yeah, when I get back home, I have to bury my nephew who was murdered by some Muslim jihadist groups in Nigeria. And I'm just sitting there like, but they have so much joy and hope in Jesus. And I'm like, it's because they know. And I think about just the gospel, like, going back to antiquity, the actual times in which the gospel writers and the biblical writers were penning these words inspired by the Holy Spirit. They know what it's like to have nothing but to have everything in Christ. Because joy isn't something that comes based off of circumstance. It's based off of Jesus. Like, it's actually based on being connected to the Father. It's a fruit of the Holy Spirit. So it's like, for us in the west, who are so comfortable and it's so easy to get, like, these little shortcuts of abiding and finding joy in these places and manufacturing patients in this department or whatever, it's like there are so many other people who are completely and utterly dependent on Jesus. And it's like, of course they have the joy of the Lord because they actually have to abide in Him. And I think that is what suffering teaches us. It is. It is such a hard but amazing lesson to learn, is that suffering teaches us to depend on God to actually abide in the Lord because he's the only one who can get us through it. And it's like from that, those, those natural fruits come. So I'm like, yeah, I have joy. Yeah, I have peace in the midst of chaos. When it feels like I'm in the eye of the hurricane, it's like, I actually have this peace because I can only be grounded on Jesus because everything else is flying around me. And that's what I. What I think of when, when watching all the footage that he's editing. Thinking back to my own experience of just being surrounded by the persecuted church. I'm like, you really have to rely on the Lord. And they're like, yeah, duh, that's the gospel.
- [24:06]
A
And I'm like, 100. I feel like it's baked in because it's lived for them. And I think what's different is, like, lived experience is everything. Like, you can have theology that's perfect and. But until you've actually experienced suffering, your theology of suff is. Is incomplete.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Theology is only as good as it enables you to live out the gospel correctly. Right. As it enables you to become love. Yeah. And so you could, you could know Aquinas and you could know all of the different theologians and all of their positions on the problem of evil, like I did, and still be completely ignorant to evil.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
It exists.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
And what I think I have come to is I still do not theologically understand how evil comes from a good God. I literally don't. I don't. I don't.
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B
I don't know if I would say that evil comes from a good God because evil is the absence of. When I think about who God is, if he is in essence, what is good, if there is any void or absence or rebellion against him or. Or rejection of Him. I think that is the opportunity and the space in which evil can come.
- [25:20]
A
I want to take a quick minute and tell you about a devotional book that I just wrote. It's called the Gratitude Reset. And the reason why I'm so passionate about this book is because all of the lessons I learned in the battle that I had with anxiety are now put into this book. All of the scriptures that I could find on anxiety all came back to one solution, and that was prayers of gratitude. So in this devotional book, you're going to get those scriptures, you're going to get a lesson, but then you're also going to journal out what you're grateful for. You're Going to journal the burdens that you're going to give to Jesus because we're called to cast our cares on him because he cares for us. And then you're going to pray for others as well because anxiety is inward focused instead of looking at others and saying, how can I bless them? How can I get my mind onto serving people? And then you're going to jot down notes that Jesus gives you. So I would love it if you could check this out. The link will be in the show notes or you can go to the jesuspeoplemovement.com thegratitude reset I hear that. I hear that argument. Yeah. Like that, that evil is not a created thing. It is the absence of light. So darkness actually doesn't really exist. Yeah, it's. It's nothingness. All that exists is good. Who is that again? I gotta go back to my philosophy books. All that exists is good. I understand that. I still believe that God's. If he's the creator, he still set up a universe.
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B
Yeah.
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A
The way he did.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so I still am like, well, you still set it up that way.
- [26:36]
B
Yeah. And the balance of God's sovereignty and man's free will, it's one of those things that the, the more and more that I think about it, I feel like this, just like a lot of concepts in the Bible, the more I'm like, oh, yeah. But it's because there's like 10 layers to every verse. Like it's, it's so rich and deep. And maybe we're not able to fully understand those things because of our limited capacity, because of our own biases and, and our own understanding. Right. Leaning on our own understanding. But it's like, I feel like there, there's this, there's this show that Richard and I watched a long time ago. I forget what it was, but it was like there was like this character, like superhero Char, where he was kind of like sovereign and existed in every plane of time. So he knew everything in every plane of time. And that was the first time I kind of understood, like, wow, like God's sovereignty. He has always been, he has always known in a way. But this, this superhero figure was like existing in a world where he, where these people, he didn't give it to them because he's not God. But these people have free will to make these decisions, but he knows exactly what's going to pan out. And that kind of gave me this perspective of like these things coexist in a way that I could barely comprehend through this one, like, superhero show or whatever. And I. I just think that there are some things that are too grand and wonderful. I mean, people looked at the fate, looked at the face of God as best as they could in the Old Testament, and it's like, it was just like they couldn't even look at him because they were just in awe and fear because it's. It is just too great. And I think that even, like the problem of evil and suffering in God's goodness and all these things, if we were to, like, if you were to try to scale it back and be like, okay, just have a glimpse of what looks like from my point of view, I don't think we'd be able to handle it. Just thinking about from beginning of time, I am affected today in the year 2026. I'm like, I could not comprehend that, but I can apprehend it in the sense of. I might not be able to fully comprehend the idea in full, but I can grasp this concept as being true, that we have free will, but God is still good and he is sovereign. And all these things, it's like I can at least apprehend and grab hold of that fact and make sense of that fact alone. Right?
- [28:49]
A
And those are the two things I don't. I. I don't think I will ever understand this side of heaven.
- [28:53]
B
Yeah.
- [28:53]
A
I don't understand how free will interacts with sovereignty, and I don't understand the problem of evil.
- [28:58]
B
Same.
- [28:58]
A
And, And I have studied enough, I have wrestled enough, I've gotten angry enough to get to the end of it. And to be like, the kingdom of God is when you become a child, period. And there are so many things that I will not explain to my son. Like, he asked me the other day in the car, I actually posted about this.
- [29:15]
B
He.
- [29:15]
A
He asked me. He goes. He goes, are who's stronger, us or Satan? And at first I was like, I don't know that I know the answer to that.
- [29:23]
B
That's a little nervous.
- [29:24]
A
And then I go, okay, well, buddy, who's. Who's stronger? You were a T. Rex. He goes, a T. Rex. Okay, what if you could tell that T. Rex in Jesus name to leave? And he'd leave. He's like, I'm stronger. Then I go, okay, so who's stronger? You were Satan. He goes, me with Jesus. And I go, that's it. And I did not go into all of the complexity of how Satan fell and how he was an angel and a third of the demons fell, and I didn't go into demonology with him. I just explained to him, like a child, you have authority. And I think those are some of the things we need to grab onto with these concepts that are too complex for our soul to bear. I'm not saying we ignore them. No, theologians exist for a reason.
- [30:05]
B
Exactly.
- [30:06]
A
But theologians exist for the purpose of love. And there's a reason why so many people lose their faith in seminary. Yes. Because they become Pharisees.
- [30:13]
B
Yes.
- [30:14]
A
And because they lose the wonder and they lose the childlikeness. And I think sometimes the most beautiful gift we can give the Lord, it's. It's one of the only things we cannot do in heaven. Heaven is give a sacrifice of praise in the middle of our suffering because there will be no more tears, there will be no more mourning.
- [30:31]
B
And that's the hope of heaven. And that's the promise that we cling to, is that, like, all things will be made new. It began in a garden. It was resolved in a garden. When I think of Gethsemane and Jesus relinquishing his will to the Father, I will drink from this cup. Please take it away from me, though. But I will drink this cup of wrath dying on the cross, and it will all be resolved in a garden. And it's just beautiful. The cyclical.
- [31:00]
A
Cyclical.
- [31:01]
B
Yeah, I can't talk. The cyclical nature of just the Bible and how it's just this cycle, you know, creation, fall, redemption, restoration. Like, we just see this cycle in all the little stories and all the big stories. And I love especially that you pointed that out about even seminary. That was one of my biggest prayers when I went, was God. Please continue to keep my. My heart soft to you because it's so easy to know all the Bible answers. And I think a lot of people have hurt when it comes to mediating God's goodness and having hope in him. Because people have just completely dismissed our suffering, have completely dismissed what we've gone through with. Well, God is good. Well, you should just pray about it. You should just have more faith. And it's like, I'm suffering, Carol. Like, what do you mean, have more faith? I have faith, but I think having just that, allowing yourself to still have that wonder, but allowing yourself to still have that softened heart to go to God with the hard questions. That's what this book was birthed from originally. I was gonna call it why God? Because the theology in this book answers two questions. Why God? Why would you allow this? But also, why God? Why should we trust and turn to God? But we ended up calling it the Fabric of hope. Because that's a little prettier. But that's the real heart book of we. God isn't dismissing your pain and your questions and your suffering. He wants you to bring it to him and to actually meet him in the middle of that wrestle. Because I know for a fact that what came out of that season for me, of all my suffering, I wouldn't trade that for the world. The intimacy that I have with God, the knowledge that I have of God, head and heart, Heart. It's just. It is worth so much more to me having gone through the pressing. I mean, diamonds are made through that, right? It's like through the pressing and the crushing and the refining and all those things, it's like I have something way more valuable. Having gone through what I've gone through. Do I wish that on my worst enemy?
- [33:09]
A
No.
- [33:11]
B
But I see the value in what God redeemed from those situations and places.
- [33:16]
A
Totally. Totally. Yeah. And it's not just the crushing and the pressing and the heat. It's time.
- [33:22]
B
Time.
- [33:23]
A
It's time spent under those things, you know? Jack gave you one of the crystals. We were just at a. Crystal. We're not gonna. We're not New Age.
- [33:29]
B
New age. No, not just a little mineral from the earth.
- [33:32]
A
Yes, yes. But like, we were learning. So, like me and Jack, because he's obsessed with rocks, we went to. We took a little boys trip. He's six. And we went to this. This crystal, like a mining farm, a mine.
- [33:47]
B
Yeah, I see those on Tick Tock all the time and they look so cool.
- [33:49]
A
It was fun, dude.
- [33:50]
B
Really.
- [33:51]
A
It was really fun. And we're digging into this. This mountain like that had been carved out. And we're pulling out these crystals and it's just like this beaut. Like, I'm like, it's a treasure. It's a treasure. How did this naturally get created? With these sharp, pointy edges and like, it's perfectly flat. And it was pressure over time for thousands of years that then created this beautiful gem. And that's just such a picture of what God does.
- [34:27]
B
Yeah.
- [34:27]
A
With suffering, it's like, consider it pure joy. When you face trials of many kinds. For the testing of your faith produces endurance. That word testing means to scrape off impurities off of a gold that's been refined and melted down. And so we do not despise our suffering because they're producing fruit and they're producing hope. And we look like Jesus. That's how we grow into his image is if he's the son of suffering and we are enduring sufferings, and we consider it joy to get the opportunity to suffer as our Savior did.
- [34:58]
B
And that's.
- [34:59]
A
That is. That is the childlike mentality that I saw in Nigeria that I'm hearing from you. That takes, I think, the wrestling and some of the anger to get. And none of those are bad.
- [35:10]
B
No, God, like, I've felt all those things.
- [35:13]
A
And you read the Psalms and you're like, these are some gnarly prayers, the laments. They're yelling at God.
- [35:19]
B
Yeah.
- [35:19]
A
They're like. Like borderline name calling. And where are you?
- [35:24]
B
Yeah.
- [35:25]
A
Are you even good? I think sometimes we like to give God our perfect little, nice and neat, cute, pretty prayers. And he's like, have you read the Bible?
- [35:33]
B
He's like, tell me what you're really feeling.
- [35:35]
A
100. And what's so interesting is, is God really begins responding to Job.
- [35:40]
B
Yes.
- [35:40]
A
When Job's just real, when he just gets honest. When David goes out and he's like, they're all gonna kill me. Where are you? You say you're my good shepherd. Explain this to me, Lord. And I think God isn't afraid of our emotion. He's not afraid of our authenticity. In fact, he's like, please, what I don't want is. I don't want you going and saying, lord, I'm so grateful. I tithed and I fast, and I'm so thankful I'm not like this Pharisee. He wants the Pharisee that rips his robe and says, lord, I'm a sinner. Have mercy on me. He wants the authenticity, wants the honesty. Because you read the b. It's gnarly. It's. It's unfiltered, uncensored. It's raw.
- [36:23]
B
Totally.
- [36:23]
A
And when you realize the climax of the story is the creator of the universe being whipped to the point of his ribs showing.
- [36:33]
B
Yeah.
- [36:34]
A
Paraded up across naked, laughed at with his mom watching. And then put on a cross to suffocate to death. The most horrific death.
- [36:43]
B
Abandoned by all of his friends, but one.
- [36:45]
A
Everyone left him. And then you realize, oh, wait, that's the climax. I mean, I guess you could say the resurrection. But, like, you. You don't. Sometimes I think sometimes people don't realize that Sunday came two days later. Those 48 hours were really dark.
- [37:00]
B
A lot of us are just in our Friday right now. We're still our Saturday, where it's like, God, where are you? You were supposed to show up, weren't you? The disciples, I mean, they. They gave up hope. They're like, okay, well, he's dead on a cross and we literally watched him get buried in someone else's tomb. I mean, the. The women were the one that gathered that and went on Sunday to finish it. But I'm just like, a lot of us are in that place today where it's like, I have just given up hope completely because I'm in my Friday, I'm in my Saturday. But it's like the hope of the gospel is Sunday's coming. Sunday's coming. But that's based on. And this is like an overarching theme that I talk about in the book. The plans, the promises, the presence and the person of God. Like that is what we hope in. That's. And even to kind of backtrack, you talking about the Psalms. Two things. Number one, whoever is listening or watching, it's really interesting. If you go and you look, there's a lot of psalms that are paired together. There's a lot of psalms that are paired together, like, coupled together. When you read it, where it's like, everything sucks. My enemies, my life. Oh, my gosh. And it's like, you know what? Yeah, like I'm saying that over exaggerated, but it's like if I were being hunted by men and living in a cave, fearing for my life. No, I'd be afraid too. I'd be like, God, what's happening? Yeah, but then it's like a lot of these are coupled with. With a psalm that follows right afterwards. Like, my God, you are so good, my God. And it's like this shift happens even. Even in lamentations. And what I've noticed, at least in my studies of just the laments in general, of like, bearing your soul before God with all of your anger, with all of your. Your sadness, with all of your hopelessness.
- [38:43]
A
Yeah.
- [38:44]
B
Laments always end in the high note of hope. They always do. And that's something that I really noticed in my grief. I've read so many books in my grief. I read a lot of lamentations and a lot of the psalms in my grief, and that was just an overarching theme, is that there's always this high note of hope at the end where it's like, but you got her good. But you got like you. But you are steadfast. Your love is always pursuing me. And it's always this call back to truth. It's like, be honest with God. Like, I feel like this, and I feel like this, and I feel like this. And your feelings are valid to. To a point of identifying the problem of what's going on, maybe in here or just in. In your life. But we need to return to the truth of our hope. Is confident. Is. Is confident. Assurance in the truth of the promises, plans, personhood and purposes of God, like always. And so that's what the laments taught me, is that it is okay to be that vulnerable and honest with God, but to still have hope that he's gonna do something. Maybe not what we expect, but he's gonna do something. And if he is good, he's gonna do something good.
- [39:55]
A
Yeah. And the one you mentioned was the presence of God, too. I think any seasoned Christian can look back at their life and see the suffering they've endured and be like, I was closer to Jesus in those moments than any other time, literally. And so when it says in the Psalms that it's better, maybe the proverbs, it's better to go to the house of mourning than the house of rejoicing. I remember being in seasons of suffering when my best friend died or when everything went to hell in a hand basket with my ministry and my career and my business and all of it. And just, like, being like, I get that. I. I get that his presence is more near now.
- [40:32]
B
Yeah.
- [40:33]
A
I get that he's actually. It felt like his voice was louder.
- [40:36]
B
Yeah.
- [40:37]
A
It felt like his presence was nearer. And it felt like there was more hope in those times when I just stopped and I was like, okay, I'm a soup sandwich now, Lord. Like, I got nothing. You're. It's all yours. Because really, I don't have anything anymore. And I think that what suffering does is it. It forces you to peel your fingers off of your life. And. And when you get to that place of, like, just. It's all yours, Jesus. I got nothing left. Because you can go one or two directions. You can get really jaded.
- [41:07]
B
Yeah.
- [41:07]
A
Or you can get joyful in the middle of your suffering. Those are the two directions. And jaded is here. Joyful is here. Amen. But. But the. This process, the uncurling is hard. Is really, really sucky.
- [41:21]
B
Yeah.
- [41:21]
A
It's no bueno. It's no fun.
- [41:23]
B
It's true. But it's good. You look back on it and it's like, I'm not necessarily glad I had to go through that. I wish that I had a picture perfect life. But all the fruit that came from it, I'm like, I'm glad I went through that in some weird, ironic way.
- [41:41]
A
Right. And I think that's where, again, I think my message to anyone listening to this, that's in the middle of it is. It is a choice. Being in Nigeria and watching them forgive, it felt like this is a choice I'm making. My husband and my son were killed three weeks ago. I'm choosing to forgive, and I'm choosing to be grateful, and I'm choosing to have hope in Jesus. And it didn't. For some of them, it didn't feel like. Like visceral. Felt like, yay.
- [42:13]
B
Yeah.
- [42:13]
A
It felt like I am wrestling towards joy. I'm wrestling towards hope. And that's what I love about the title of your book.
- [42:20]
B
Thank you.
- [42:21]
A
And I would encourage you gu. We're going to put the link in the show notes for her book, the link in the description. If you're watching on YouTube, go check it out. Because, Kirby, you're a brilliant writer and you're a brilliant thinker.
- [42:32]
B
I appreciate it.
- [42:33]
A
And you're a brilliant woman of God. And I'm just so grateful for your story. I'm grateful for your ministry. I'm grateful for what he's done in your life, because I think I can feel it. I can feel like, oh, man. Like, Lord, you really did take what was intended for evil and use it for good in your life and in my life. And there's a connection we have as the body of being like that. Like, you've been there, too. You've experienced that, too. And then you've experienced the burrowing under the mountain and then getting out the other side refined and like, whoa. It's. It. It is truly something that you cannot experience in life without Jesus.
- [43:09]
B
Exactly.
- [43:10]
A
And. And we have the hope of a suffering son of God that then resurrected and chose to resurrect us with him.
- [43:19]
B
Yeah. He weaves redemption into everything.
- [43:22]
A
Yeah.
- [43:22]
B
Like, read the Bible. Period. Read the book, too, but read the Bible.
- [43:27]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, could you pray as we close? Could you just pray for someone who might be going through something and as someone who has experienced suffering, experienced a lot of hardship, and has studied theology and has studied the problem of evil and then kind of come to this place of recognizing the hope of heaven and the hope in a suffering God? Could you just maybe just pray for them if they're in that moment right now?
- [43:52]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Lord, I just first want to honor Ryan, and I just pray, Lord, that you would continue to bless this podcast, bless his family, bless his ministry. Thank you, Lord, that I was allowed to just come on here today and share a snippet of my story of what you have done in my life. And I'm just so thankful God, for what you have done in my life, life, because I would not be here without you in more than one way. And I just pray for the person out there today who is just wrestling with pain, who is wrestling with the hard questions, who is wondering, where are you? Why won't you heal me? Why did you allow me to go through this? Why did they do this to me? Why is this how our world is? Why is this the consequence of my actions? God, whatever why people are struggling with today. I pray that they would be met with a greater answer. And it's who and that it's you, Jesus. God. I pray that you would meet them with your comfort like a blanket, that you would just swaddle them and comfort their soul today. And I pray that they would also find confidence in you like a banner, that they could just rally under you and declare that you are their God and that you are victorious. That you are the God who can go in and claim territory where battles have been lost. But God, you can come in and win the war. And I pray that over their minds, their hearts, their bodies and their souls today, their stories, their past, their reputation, their scars, God, that you would bring the healing, the healing that would testify of your goodness to many others, to other generations. God, I don't know what they're going through today, whoever's listening, but I pray that you would give them permission, that they would feel that permission. They have it from you, I know, to just be real, to lament, to weep, to cry, to mourn, to wrestle, to be in that place. But I pray that you would also give them the confident, hope and assurance that you are a redeemer who will pick them up, who will set them on solid ground on you as a foundation like Lord. And that they would be able to withstand and grow and, and be refined in this place and. And become who you have called and created them to be. I pray that they would realize that there is no waste to their wounds and that their wounds have a why and that can be used for something so much greater than we could ever expect. I pray that as they think about their lives and look back, that they would see where your hand was weaving in redemption today. And if they do not yet understanding or perspective, God, that you would begin to move in their life right now, today with just weaving hope into their story. And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
- [47:01]
A
Amen. Thank you, Kirby. Thanks for having me on, guys. Thanks for being with us this week. We'll see you next week.