Where Was God During the Texas Flood? | Praise Podcast

When tragedy strikes, sometimes we strike out at God. Trust, faith, and belief go by the wayside. But is that fair? Tune in for some thoughts to consider.

https://momo634.com/p/where-was-god-during-the-texas-flood

#bible #anxiety #depression #stress #mentalhealth #ocd #neurodiverse #neurodivergence #neuroscience #Christianity #faith #texas #campmystic #texasfloods #belief #unbelief #questioningGod #flood #tx #txflood

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00:00:00 --> 00:00:04 When tragedy strikes, sometimes we strike out at God.

00:00:05 --> 00:00:09 Trust, faith, and belief go by the wayside.

00:00:10 --> 00:00:11 But is that fair?

00:00:12 --> 00:00:14 Tune in for some thoughts to consider.

00:00:18 --> 00:00:18 Hello,

00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 and welcome to Momo 634,

00:00:21 --> 00:00:26 the daily podcast chock full of faith-filled inspiration and motivation.

00:00:27 --> 00:00:29 Please like, share, and subscribe.

00:00:30 --> 00:00:30 Momo 634.

00:00:31 --> 00:00:35 Motivational moments just for today.

00:00:35 --> 00:00:36 When I was growing up,

00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 the absolute worst thing you could ever say to someone was,

00:00:39 --> 00:00:40 yo mama.

00:00:59 --> 00:01:04 Insulting someone's mother was the pinnacle of bad form and

00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 fights would inevitably break out.

00:01:08 --> 00:01:13 Multiply that by orders of magnitude and you come close to how

00:01:13 --> 00:01:15 I feel about my

00:01:15 --> 00:01:17 other parent being maligned,

00:01:17 --> 00:01:19 as he often is.

00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 My Abba, Father, God.

00:01:25 --> 00:01:26 Why doesn't God,

00:01:27 --> 00:01:28 if God is all-powerful,

00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 why doesn't he just...

00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 I'm no theologian.

00:01:33 --> 00:01:37 Forty-plus years as a Christian who has studied God's word

00:01:37 --> 00:01:39 gives me a glimpse into

00:01:39 --> 00:01:43 what he chooses to reveal about his heart and mind.

00:01:45 --> 00:01:49 I'm not presumptuous enough to say I speak for him in decoding

00:01:49 --> 00:01:50 this question,

00:01:51 --> 00:01:55 but I think we can form the basis to try to help us make sense of things.

00:01:56 --> 00:01:56 Yet,

00:01:57 --> 00:01:58 paradoxically,

00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 not all things do make sense,

00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 or at least they don't on this side of heaven.

00:02:06 --> 00:02:10 The book of Job lays out unimaginable loss.

00:02:11 --> 00:02:15 When we begin with our litany of, Where was God?

00:02:15 --> 00:02:16 Why doesn't God?

00:02:17 --> 00:02:17 questions,

00:02:18 --> 00:02:19 we forget that Satan,

00:02:19 --> 00:02:21 a supernatural being,

00:02:22 --> 00:02:25 has agency in this world.

00:02:26 --> 00:02:31 His role in the Garden of Eden ushered in the way for death to

00:02:31 --> 00:02:32 enter into the world.

00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 In Job's story, people questioned God.

00:02:38 --> 00:02:39 They still do.

00:02:41 --> 00:02:42 God let them,

00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 and by extension us,

00:02:45 --> 00:02:51 know that we don't have a clue about how things work behind the

00:02:51 --> 00:02:52 veil of what we can

00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 see and what we cannot.

00:02:55 --> 00:02:57 That's where faith comes in.

00:02:59 --> 00:02:59 Sometimes,

00:03:00 --> 00:03:00 like with Job,

00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 we won't get answers because,

00:03:04 --> 00:03:05 as Isaiah 55 tells us,

00:03:06 --> 00:03:10 his thoughts are higher than our thoughts and his ways are

00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 higher than our ways.

00:03:13 --> 00:03:18 We believe that with our finite minds and fists shaking at God,

00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 we can order him to do as we will,

00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 or he's not real,

00:03:23 --> 00:03:28 like little Susie Walker posits in an episode here called The

00:03:28 --> 00:03:29 Celestial Bellhop

00:03:29 --> 00:03:29 Experiment.

00:03:31 --> 00:03:35 besides the fact that God has the aerial view and we do not,

00:03:36 --> 00:03:40 and in addition to the fact that this world is beset by sin,

00:03:41 --> 00:03:41 disease,

00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 and decay due to man's fallen state,

00:03:45 --> 00:03:47 that death has entered into the world,

00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 a state we will all encounter.

00:03:51 --> 00:03:54 We forget something major in this line of thinking.

00:03:56 --> 00:03:59 This world is not the world that matters.

00:04:01 --> 00:04:04 but those little babies won't get to grow up to go to college,

00:04:05 --> 00:04:06 walk down the aisle,

00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 have families of their own.

00:04:10 --> 00:04:14 Ecclesiastes talks about how this world is wearying,

00:04:15 --> 00:04:18 striving after relationships,

00:04:18 --> 00:04:19 experiences,

00:04:20 --> 00:04:20 etc.,

00:04:21 --> 00:04:25 all to realize they are the prizes of this life,

00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 and this life isn't the one that counts.

00:04:31 --> 00:04:32 We often get distracted by,

00:04:32 --> 00:04:33 ooh,

00:04:33 --> 00:04:33 shiny,

00:04:34 --> 00:04:36 and miss what we should be working toward,

00:04:37 --> 00:04:39 the life to come.

00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 This life is just the entrance exam,

00:04:44 --> 00:04:48 and each of those kids has now passed it with flying colors.

00:04:50 --> 00:04:55 When David lost his son in 2 Samuel 12,

00:04:55 --> 00:04:55 he said,

00:04:57 --> 00:04:58 But now that he is dead,

00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 why should I fast?

00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 Can I bring him back again?

00:05:02 --> 00:05:07 I will go to him, but he will not return to me.

00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 This brought me comfort when I lost my own child.

00:05:14 --> 00:05:18 Knowing my child was already with God and that someday we would

00:05:18 --> 00:05:20 be reunited was a

00:05:20 --> 00:05:21 glorious thought.

00:05:23 --> 00:05:24 Where was God?

00:05:25 --> 00:05:30 Right where he was when he watched his own son die.

00:05:32 --> 00:05:35 We don't serve a little G God.

00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 God came to earth in the form of a man.

00:05:42 --> 00:05:48 God laid down his life and understands the loss of a beloved child.

00:05:50 --> 00:05:52 Satan is active.

00:05:53 --> 00:05:57 He goes about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

00:05:58 --> 00:06:00 If he can get us to question God,

00:06:00 --> 00:06:04 a tactic he successfully employed in the garden,

00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 if he can get us to doubt,

00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 if he can get us angry that they were just babies,

00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 and make us forget where they are right now,

00:06:15 --> 00:06:19 having surpassed the trials and travails of this world,

00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 catapulted straight into the one that counts,

00:06:24 --> 00:06:26 then he gets a temporary win.

00:06:27 --> 00:06:31 Temporary because Jesus overcame death.

00:06:31 --> 00:06:37 1 Corinthians 15 tells us death is swallowed up in victory.

00:06:39 --> 00:06:43 We come into this world with the clock already ticking and a

00:06:43 --> 00:06:44 finite number of

00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 grains of sand in the hourglass.

00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 The clock will run out for all of us.

00:06:51 --> 00:06:52 Some,

00:06:53 --> 00:06:53 like my baby,

00:06:54 --> 00:06:57 and the children at a camp in Central Texas,

00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 or the victims of senseless school shootings or drive-bys,

00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 sadly are taken from us too soon,

00:07:05 --> 00:07:06 we feel.

00:07:08 --> 00:07:11 But that's because we have plans for them.

00:07:12 --> 00:07:14 We want time to enjoy them.

00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 We aren't ready to say goodbye.

00:07:19 --> 00:07:21 Yet the peace I have,

00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 knowing that one of my children has made it already,

00:07:26 --> 00:07:27 without a doubt...

00:07:28 --> 00:07:33 that they have been spared the myriad of things I complain

00:07:33 --> 00:07:35 about every day that are

00:07:35 --> 00:07:38 endemic to this mortal coil?

00:07:39 --> 00:07:42 No, I cannot begrudge anyone that.

00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 It's why I homeschooled our kids,

00:07:46 --> 00:07:50 giving them more time in the Word of God than they would have

00:07:50 --> 00:07:51 had otherwise.

00:07:53 --> 00:07:55 Why we have raised them in the church.

00:07:56 --> 00:07:59 because we are pointing them to the next life.

00:08:01 --> 00:08:02 A better life.

00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 The life that counts.

00:08:06 --> 00:08:08 Eternal life with God.

00:08:10 --> 00:08:12 Is it hard when these tragedies come?

00:08:13 --> 00:08:14 Yes.

00:08:15 --> 00:08:20 But we pull together as one and we see beauty come out of the ashes.

00:08:22 --> 00:08:26 We celebrate lives now at eternal peace and rest.

00:08:28 --> 00:08:32 And we exercise faith and a dependence on a good,

00:08:33 --> 00:08:33 loving,

00:08:33 --> 00:08:34 benevolent,

00:08:35 --> 00:08:36 capital G,

00:08:36 --> 00:08:37 God.

00:08:39 --> 00:08:43 When people talk about having a personal relationship with God,

00:08:43 --> 00:08:49 it's in times such as these we can rest in and on that relationship,

00:08:49 --> 00:08:54 knowing God feels our pain and can wipe away our tears.

00:08:55 --> 00:09:01 If not here, certainly in the next life as evidenced by Revelation 21.4.

00:09:01 --> 00:09:02 Where was God?

00:09:04 --> 00:09:04 Where he always is.

00:09:08 --> 00:09:11 seated upon his throne in heaven,

00:09:12 --> 00:09:15 where he can weave all of the sorrow,

00:09:15 --> 00:09:16 toil,

00:09:16 --> 00:09:22 and pain of this world and work all things together for good.

00:09:23 --> 00:09:24 Romans 8, 28.

00:09:26 --> 00:09:28 When my child died,

00:09:29 --> 00:09:34 it gave me a reason to strive even harder to make heaven my

00:09:34 --> 00:09:35 home.

00:09:36 --> 00:09:43 When God's child died, he did it so you could make heaven your home.

00:09:47 --> 00:09:52 Thanks for listening to Momo 634, motivational moments just for today.

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