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Real Talk FUMC Pearland
Welcome to “Real Talk", a podcast with an increased intentionality on having honest conversations about faith, church and the real conflicts that surround the complicated realities of today. We invite those who are curious, cautious and considering faith into deeper conversations, even if we don't always agree.
Real Talk FUMC Pearland
“Why does God allow bad stuff to happen?”
Episode Outline: Hard Stuff w/ Reggie Clemons & Bryan White
Join into an honest conversation how we wrestle and reconcile the hard stuff in our lives, even daring to offer an authentic response to the difficult question “Why does God allow bad stuff to happen?”
Episode Discussion Includes
When and how was faith introduced into your life?
How does faith influence your difficult experiences today?
If God is so good, why do bad things happen?
How do you reconcile your difficult experiences with a loving, good God?
Why is it hard for people to accept God’s love amidst tragedy?
How can the church be better examples of God’s presence in the hard stuff?
What hope do you have for those wrestling with faith due to difficulty?
What steps are you taking now to help make those a reality?
What’s one piece of hope you would offer to anyone struggling today?
Join the Conversation:
Reach out to the guest and/or hosts by emailing:
theac@fucmpearland.org or rclemons@fumcpearland.org.
Visit www.fumcpearland.org to learn more.
Want more information about FUMC Pearland? Check us out at fumcpearland.org
Welcome to Real Talk, a place where we have real conversations about faith and doubt with real people. I'm your host, Pastor Thea, and I'm so glad that you tuned in today and we're joined by Pastor Reggie and Brian White, to have an honest and real conversation about why God allows bad things to happen. And so I first just want to jump in and ask you, brian, introduce yourself and why you decided you would share a little of your faith today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my name is Brian White. I guess faith walk for me has been kind of all over the place. So I found Jesus when I was 15, led worship, did all the things that I thought I was supposed to do in my faith, and then kind of walked away for a little while, got really deep into the punk rock hardcore scene for a good little bit and then, when my wife and I started to talk about family, kind of got back in and in the midst of all of that somehow, you know, god in his infinite grace led me back to ministry and so I was a high school and young adult pastor for about six, seven years, had gone to seminary, you know, finished seminary and did that so. So my walk's been kind of all over the place on faith journey. For me it's kind of been all over the place. And now I get to enjoy um, just attending church and hearing great messages from you guys and not having to worry about writing those as often, um, which is great for me too.
Speaker 1:So yeah, well, thank you, and Reggie, why don't you just remind us where you're currently serving and why you thought that'd be a good idea to have a conversation about the hard stuff today?
Speaker 3:Thanks, thea and Brian. Thank you for being here today. I don't know, brian. I truly always enjoy an opportunity to just visit with you, talking to someone and listening to a podcast all the time, so it's been really cool. But I'm the current senior pastor at First United Methodist Church here in Pearland Just been there been at this church almost 25 years actually so truly loved it and really thought that this was an important topic to talk about as people deal with this and deal with their struggling with faith and even with church people. How do you remain faithful to a God that you sometimes think introduces bad things into your life? So I thought that it would really be kind of important to address that and talk about that and talk about some realities in that. So glad to be here, thea.
Speaker 1:Well, let's just jump into it. How does faith influence the way you experience difficult things today? I mean, how are those things connected, your faith and real reality?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm happy to go first. So for me, I think that faith has always been an issue of hope, right, and I said this in a message a couple of weeks back. I think that when I had conversations with my students you know whether they were in high school or college and they were all struggling at that time, I think, as most of us do. Right, you know that 18, 19 year old kid thinks that they know everything. They would say things like well, I just I don't believe, and so my first question was not, you know, why is it that you don't believe?
Speaker 2:it was always.
Speaker 2:Then what's your hope founded?
Speaker 2:So, if you don't believe, if you're not a believer, that's, that's fine, ok, great, then just identify for me where you find hope and when they inevitably couldn't do that Right, because it was always something simple, like you know my next meal or you know a place to stay, or whatever.
Speaker 2:I kind of just continued to talk about the fact that all the things that they were hoping for, hoping in, were extremely temporal, and I think for me, just the experiences that I've had over the course of my life with loss in general have kind of made things or allowed me to see that, you know, there's a hope in Jesus Christ that I can't find in anything else, and so I've chased after all kinds of other things. I've chased after all kinds of other you know situations or money or whatever the case may be, but I have never found the fulfillment that I have in knowing that there's something greater than this for me, and that's really, you know, the biggest thing for me is faith for me has changed my life in the sense that I know that there's something better than what I may be going through at a certain season of my life, that there's always something to gain or always something to learn from that, but then that there's always something better for me in store for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah that's really good, brian, I was really thinking the same thing that a lot of it is about more of the hope of what is to come and how we will really get to where we will truly have a wonderful experience that maybe we can't imagine now, particularly when we're going through stuff. It's sometimes hard to be hopeful when you're going through the dregs of life, and so I think though I always try to focus on that, even in despair to focus on, yeah, but there's going to be a light at the end of the tunnel, we're going to come through the storm, we're going to get there, and hopeful for how that's happening. And then I found that that's been my experience, just like you. There were probably more reasons to get away from faith when I was younger. Life presented a whole lot more stuff to be able to do, but yet then coming back to realize and again, the great thing for me about coming back to a life of faith was having had a powerful background or a foundation to get there to realize that I was missing something.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And also having strong influences in my life, like my mother, who pretty much my mother didn't manipulate me, but she did really convince me that I may be actually not looking at some things the right way. In fact, I still remember the day that she told me that she really wanted me to get back in the church, and particularly to get back in the choir and sing, and she really wanted me to do this before she died. And I said, ok, wow, and the way she said it is like she was getting ready to go any minute, but you know, my mother didn't die for another 20 years, so it was just a really—and I think about that and I like saying you know, sometimes it's really more of the opportunity to have hope in things as we struggle with that. That's when, to me, external influences or people are really critical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that motivation I think is innate in parents, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. You threaten you're going to die sometime soon. Absolutely. You do whatever Absolutely. So they need to do whatever Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I know. For me, I think, the thing about faith that influences my reality of difficulty is just this whole incarnation God with us, right here, right In the dirt right In the real life, and all that comes along with it life and all that comes along with it.
Speaker 1:Jesus didn't come into being unaware of the depths of the ills of humanity, the evil that is around us and even the lengths that we will go to hurt others to save ourselves, and yet into. That is where Jesus was willing to go, and I think about even the cross, of those final moments of devastation and despair and this idea that Christ is there difficult most days. I think I'm maybe even more comforted by this idea that I'm not alone in it right now, even as lonely as I might feel even though my circumstances are the most unique to me, which we all believe.
Speaker 1:And they are because no other Thea Curry-Fuston is dealing with what I'm dealing with. And yet that even in that too, god is with me, not just when I'm praising, not just when I'm singing, not just when I'm praying nice, eloquent, lovely prayers, but when I'm in the dirt, dealing with the real life. That who is willing to come on earth and be with us is so good, is full of so much grace, offers new life, resurrection, redemption and all of the holy things. Why do the bad things still happen?
Speaker 3:Well, if you want me to start there, I can actually tell you my personal belief is that we give God a lot of credit for things that God doesn't do.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 3:We actually blame God for a lot of stuff that God's like he would be, just like this He'd be like wasn't me kind of deal. So I think that that's a tough thing to realize, based upon everyone's almost. To some extent it may be worse for people in the church than it is for people outside the church, because we've actually had that upbringing of this and that God's inserting himself into every moment and directing everything we do, and I think we lose sight of the fact that one of the first things God did was give us dominion over our lives and actually ask us to choose to do the right thing, not to be directed. We got to realize none of us are puppets, so we're not actually being inserted into stuff. We're choosing to do things. So one of the things for me is that when bad things happen, I don't blame God. I may be looking to blame somebody, but I'm not blaming God because I think all of us have had the same ability to truly treat people the way we want to be treated, and sometimes people choose not to. Sometimes you just happen to be in a situation or something will happen because it's a timing thing. I don't think God stands up there like you hear people like getting struck by lightning. Right, I don't think God's sitting up there like boom, throw a lightning bolt at these people. I don't think any of that happens, but I think people do and so they will.
Speaker 3:Basically, you know, I've hated the concept of it was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I'm like saying really, because we use that to me way too frequently, saying really, because we use that to me way too frequently, I'll tell a story about a young lady that I knew.
Speaker 3:There was a high school student that went to a football game and there was someone there with a gun that randomly shot and she was hit with a bullet and she was killed or whatever. And this kind of became the narrative at the fact that she was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, the guy who did a wonderful message at her celebration service actually said he said he wants us to stop thinking like that. He said this was a high school student with high school kids at a high school football game. How is this the wrong place in the wrong time? The person that was in the wrong place at the wrong time was the guy who had the gun. Okay, so I think that we need to just change our thinking to realize that no, it's God is good and sometimes stuff happens because stuff happens yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's. For me, it's always funny to hear people say things like you know, why does, why did God let this happen, or why did God allow this to happen? And you know, I think that that's our human nature is to look for someone to blame.
Speaker 2:Like we want to make sure that cause it could never be us, right Like, there's never a thing that we did. And I do think that there are situations, right Like I think in this conversation, I think the one thing that everyone wants to go to is like, well, that's fine, and you know, your life experience is one thing, but what about things like genocide? You know, like, how does God allow that to happen? And for me I go God doesn't allow that to happen. God gave you free will and the problem is is that there are some individuals that use that, who have the proper character and are following the line that they want, that God wants them to follow, and then there are other individuals who take their free will and they run amok with it. And so you have people who, at whatever stage of their life, you know, whatever the, whatever the side is, you know that this is fighting for. I mean, like, we have Israel and Palestine now, um, and each side thinks that they are correct.
Speaker 2:And that's the problem, right, is it? Probably somewhere in the in the middle there's some common ground that they could follow or they could find, but the issue becomes that they become loftier than the other person. Um and so for me, I think, the thing that I've always had to to reconcile myself with Right. I think that you know, like Thea said, I think that we all individually believe that we have this unique sort of thing that's going on in our life, and yet God tells us that there's nothing new under the sun. Right.
Speaker 3:So it's not like that.
Speaker 2:Anything that we're doing is so vastly different than what somebody else is doing or going through. I had to learn that, and I've told this story a million different times, but when my mom passed, she had a massive heart attack in June of 2010, and then my dad was immediately diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer and passed.
Speaker 2:Actually yesterday was the 10-year anniversary of his death, and so that doesn't get easier for me to process, right, I mean, it's still one of those things where, when a holiday comes up and it's close to Easter, that's rough for us. Things where when a holiday comes up and it's close to, you know, to Easter, that's rough for us. But in the same token, I think that when I went through all of that, it was why is God doing this to me? And I think that's what we all imagine it's like why, why is God doing this to me and one of my mentors? The first thing he said is that you know, like when you, when you are with your daughter and she throws a temper tantrum in a grocery store, Are you typically prone to going over and picking her up and telling her how awesome she is? And I'm like, no, you know, I'll walk away from her, Like I don't know her, I don't want to, I don't even want to know her at that point and he said you know, do you think that sometimes in your relationship
Speaker 2:with God that maybe that's what we forget. Right Is that we're supposed to have this personal relationship with God and yet when things happen that are bad or negative in our life, we immediately push them away, and I think that's a human response, right? I think that we do that with family and friends and all kinds of other individuals as a defense mechanism. It's easy for us to kind of separate ourselves from whoever those people are. I think that what we have to realize is that that's not the relationship that God ever intended or wanted for us.
Speaker 2:He never wanted to be pushed away. But the free will aspect of this, you know, I mean and we see this in the garden, right is that you know Adam and Eve have a decision to make. You know we can continue to follow what we've been told or not. And at the minute that that separation happened, and we were separated from what God's intention for us was and to what we have now chosen, I think that we have to have some personal degree of responsibility to say, yes, we can control things up to what we can do for ourselves and what we can do in the world that we impact, but there are certain things that are far beyond our control. Like I cannot influence Netanyahu, right? Like I don't have his number, we can't talk to one another, but I know that he has free will to make decisions.
Speaker 1:I know that.
Speaker 2:Hamas has free will to make decisions. I know that I have free will to make decisions and I think one of the things that, as we're kind of going over what we were talking about this week, one of the things that I started to think about is that if I and I'm saying this in general, right I think Christians are by far some of the worst at this. I think that we do a great job of identifying all complaints and we have no problem whatsoever dwelling on the negative and consistently talking about the things that we wish that we could change. If we spent the amount of time that we spend currently on complaining on doing something more productive and positive in the world, I think it would be amazing what people would see. I think if we backed our words consistently with our actions, then we wouldn't have a problem recruiting or finding individuals who want to make a life change. I think that if we could show them what hope looks like genuinely, then I don't think we would have the problem that we have currently with people saying I don't want to have anything to do with the church because the church has failed people so regularly. And I think, in saying that I have failed people so regularly and I tell Reggie this all the time.
Speaker 2:I know for a fact that there is zero good in me apart from Jesus Christ None. If it was about me, if I didn't have my faith walk, if I didn't have a hope in Jesus, I can assure you that my life would not be centered or focused or even concerned about my fellow man. It would be me me all the time. The only reason I think that I have a prompt or a push to consistently try to make things better for others is because that's what Jesus calls me to do, and not only that, but that's what Jesus showed me how to do. And it's a whole lot easier to follow someone when they can lead appropriately and set the example, and I cannot think of anybody that's ever done it better than Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I know it's very difficult for many people and I would argue, probably those who are further away from God, like, don't have a relationship, aren't interested, aren't ready, are too mad or too sad or too confused to even begin to consistently say you know, if God is so good, then why do bad things happen? Why did this teenage girl have to die? Why did not? Why didn't God intervene? Why didn't a miracle happen? Why didn't God intervene? Why didn't a miracle happen? Why didn't these things?
Speaker 1:And I firmly agree with both of you this beautiful gift of free will and I believe that that is the thing that Jesus Christ really came to do is to set us free. Set us free from the rule that death has in our life to offer us this eternal resurrection, but also to set us free from these other regulations and ideas that we have to be perfect, that we have to be all of these things or earn our way into God's righteousness. And in that freedom there is this freedom to choose right. And so you mentioned the garden. I believe it was like hey, this is not the best for you, but if you do it, you will live. Hey, this is not the best for you but if you do it you will live.
Speaker 1:You will just begin to live further away from me. Right, when you start to rely on yourself to decide between the difference between good and evil versus trusting me, your creator, then, yeah, you're going to choose distance. And what's the first thing they did? They hid, they clothed themselves and then, when asked directly pointedly what happened, blame right. And so they also created distance between each other. And so this is a reality of our freedom. This is one of the options, and yet God gives that to us freely as well, because, again, 100%, I don't think that God wants puppets or robots, or that's what God would have created.
Speaker 1:God wants humans, and it kind of, for me, boils down to the deep level why free will, it's like? Because love is not love if it's not free. It is not love if you are forced to do it. If we would have been trapped, even in the garden, for the rest of our life, it would not have been good, because we would have been trapped versus choosing to live in that communion.
Speaker 1:Right, but you know, you know you mentioned, Brian, like with your parents, heart attack and cancer. I mean, that's my next question of well, how do you reconcile things that are not just someone's actions, like a war or an act of violence? How do you reconcile things like unexpected, you know, heart attack, cancer, tornadoes, hurricanes where people die? How do you reconcile that type of disaster and difficulty with a good, loving, free-giving God believing?
Speaker 3:God? Do we really focus on reconciling events, particularly tragic events? Do we focus on reconciling that so we can understand it? Does it make us better to know why it happened? Is it difficult for us to understand that things happen because things happen? It's almost like if we can find this reason. You mentioned something a few minutes ago about these demands and requirements and rules that we have. I think we often forget that we don't want to deal with this stuff and we can't live under these guises of these demands and requirements, and then we want to blame God for it, when God's not even the one that gave. We gave ourselves those requirements. We created that stuff. So what I typically find helpful to do is to understand that there.
Speaker 3:Throughout my life, I have actually known things have happened. If I didn't understand why it happened. Or if I did understand why it happened, it didn't really have that much of an effect on how I felt about living into it or dealing with it. It didn't really. It never really made me better to understand. It didn't really. It never really made me better to understand.
Speaker 3:I can tell you I've known some people that had a heart attack and died and in some situations that they were severely overweight, they had smoked for 30 years, they had not taken care of themselves, so they had actually created this organism that was truly going to go out in this tragic way from what they did Now. Knowing that never made me feel better about my loss. It never made me feel better about the fact that this person wasn't in my life anymore. So I don't really focus on how am I going to cope without the physical presence of someone that I truly love dearly, for no matter the amount of time, but I've truly. They've been a part of my life. How am I going to do that? Yet still even dealing with me, still being here? I'm still focused on the fact that I know where they are, I know what they're going through and I do not believe that this is the last time I'm going to see them.
Speaker 3:I know that I'm going to experience these folks again, everyone that I've lost, people that I don't even know. I'm going to be experiencing them in eternity. We've been promised this. It's hard to believe in a promise sometimes if you have to really look at it from the standpoint of that's down the road. I'd rather you promise me money and write the check, give it to me today or whatever, just go ahead and put it in my crypto account. I'm good, okay, just go ahead. But it's hard to do that because we're really talking about an understanding that it's competing with how we're feeling. It's competing with where we really are at the time. You know, you talked about, like your parents, brandon, I've lost my parents and.
Speaker 3:I've lost siblings recently, even a couple of months ago, and you know I can't lie to you. There's pain, there is pain there and I'm still hurting from that standpoint, but hurting just from the standpoint of the physical attachment that we had. Right now, If you want to spend some time talking about the joy that I know we're going to have and the joy that I know they're experiencing right now, that's a totally different chapter in this life book and that's a much longer chapter for me and in fact, I find more joy in being able to express that I wouldn't want anyone to. Truly I don't wish pain and suffering, in particular from the standpoint of loss, on anybody, but yet, as long as I've been living, it's something we've all had to go through at some point.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yet as long as.
Speaker 1:I've been living.
Speaker 3:It's something we've all had to go through at some point. So it's like how do we help people cope after having to deal with stuff? And I actually do. I do focus a lot on resurrection for people, because Jesus did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think for me, it's a matter whatever the situation may be in your life, right, like we had an opportunity to make things great and to continue the way that God had intended. And when humans right, like I'm not gonna put blame on just Adam and Eve, I think, in general, right Like we've continued to do this throughout history I think that when we continue to make the wrong choices, or when we continue to allow, you know, this negativity and the things that come into this world death, sickness, all of these things are not the way that God had intended our life to go. He wanted us free from those things, right, but the free will choice that we have, like those things, they're going to lead to consequences. There are going to be consequences of certain things and I think for me you know Reggie hit the nail on the head, you know when he's talking about there are mitigating factors, right, in certain people's deaths, like my mom was a smoker since she was 13 years old, so this wasn't this mass surprise to us.
Speaker 3:But in the same token, I think what I've learned to do is to celebrate the life that she had, rather than you know, to then dwell on the life that she didn't, and I think that you know, had it not been from my mother's influence, I would not be who I am today.
Speaker 2:Right, my siblings would not be who they are today. I am unbelievably thankful that I got 26 years with my mom, because there are people I know, you know, kids that I mentor now that have very limited, if not non-existent relationships with their parents, and so for me to have, you know, 26 years with my mom, 27 years with my dad, those are things that I celebrate and I think if we're going to call, you know, funerals and things like this a celebration of life, then why are we dwelling on the death?
Speaker 2:I mean at a certain point, you have to be able to celebrate what you were given. Everyone has a time when their card's going to be punched right. And I don't know when mine is. You don't know when yours is. Thea has no idea when hers is. I know that all I can do is control the time that I have on this earth.
Speaker 2:I can spend every day directing people to hope and positivity in this world, then that to me is a win. Right Like that's. That is what I really seek after more than anything else, and so I could absolutely say you know like when, when my parents passed away, it was horrible. It's hard still. You know, it's tough to know that my mom wasn't able to meet three of my four children that my dad was unable to meet two of my four children.
Speaker 2:You know that I didn't have those moments with my dad where I could say, hey, how do I handle this as a father you know like. I didn't have those moments, but that's okay. You know, there are moments where God became that replacement for me and I had to say, look, I can't do this.
Speaker 2:And this has got to be you, and you've got to make this happen, because I can't. I don't know how to do it, I'm not equipped in this area, and he equipped me when I needed to be equipped, and so for me, I go. I can't dwell on the loss. I have to focus on the fact that it's such a win that I got so much time with them and that they were so. It's this huge blessing to my life and that's where I go. You know, when people say, like, what do you hope in? I hope right, like I know that I have a hope that they've prepared a place for me. You know.
Speaker 2:I don't know what that looks like. You know what I mean. I have my own ideas right, like this is like that, what dreams may come moment, like where you're creating and kind of painting your heaven or whatever. But like there's that part of me that goes, I'm just excited about the fact that we get to be reunited, in whatever way that looks like whatever way.
Speaker 2:And it doesn't matter to me, because you know, reggie and I were talking about this. I used to hate when people would come up to me and say things like well, you know, I know your mom and dad are just looking down on you and they're so proud of you and I would go. I really hope not. My hope would be that, as they're spending the eternity, that they're more focused on that, because what I'm doing down here is still horrible. Like this is awful, they get to spend eternity with Jesus Like. My hope is that their focus is far beyond that. Like great, be proud of me, but do your thing. Like I've got it down here, you know, and I think that I don't ever want to be the guy who just feels like, well, you know, this happened and this happened and this happened and it's this, you know, it's this God that's supposed to be loving and wonderful and omniscient and omnipresent. He's supposed to do all these great things for me.
Speaker 3:I'm owed nothing. He doesn't owe me anything.
Speaker 2:He gave me life, and that's good enough for me. I doesn't owe me anything. He gave me life, and that's that's good enough for me. I get to wake up with air in my lungs every day that he allows me to do that and that's a gift and that's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:And I'm not promised that and I'm not guaranteed that, and I don't know what happens tomorrow, but I know that he gave me today and that's good enough for me, so it doesn't matter to me. You know what happens tomorrow, the next day or whatever. I've got enough to worry about today, and so that's what I'm going to focus on is today, and I'm going to focus on the wins that I took. You know, even amidst the loss, what was the win that I got from?
Speaker 1:that. Yeah, I love how you both kind of mentioned the whole, like the lack of obsessing over the death and or the difficulty or the problem or the issue, and I think that's just as you were saying. Both of you were saying that I thought, well, that's exactly what Jesus did when he did resurrect. You know, my question had been like how, what, where were you for those two days where you like, did you leave the tomb this morning? Was it last night? Like, give me the logistics. And like you know, why do you still have those scars Like I don't understand, Like I would do? You still have those scars like I don't understand, like I would have had. So I do have so many questions about the logistics, but, and I feel like, even as he comes into you know the, the locked upper room, and they're like, how'd you get to the door? He's like, really, that's your concern, um, get out of here. I have something more for you, right? He's talking about this future, this. Go here, here's my breath. Go, go, go, go, go, quit. Why are you still here, um? And I think that, think that's that's um telling that. Yeah, just like we don't need to focus on the death. That was, that was bad enough, Don't you still remember it? Those of you who stuck around, yeah, it was awful. Um, I don't want to talk about it. Let's talk about the future. Let's talk about the.
Speaker 1:You know what's going on, and I think the same with, like you said, with these, these people that we've lost to be able to be like well, what was their life? How will their life continue to impact me? How will they live on? Will I let them live on through me and through this realization you also mentioned, you know sometimes, what I think.
Speaker 1:What the church does that can make it difficult is that when we do focus on the death right, I mean something I love about the way the United Methodist host funerals celebration of lives is the casket may be open for a little while, but then it's closed and it is not reopened because we are here to celebrate life and resurrection, and that's going to be the message. And, yes, we're going to deal with the fact that this person is gone and that is painful. We're going to cling to the hope of what their life has meant, what it will continue to do, and the resurrection that is to come. That's where the glory is right and how important that is and how much I know, I value that, to know that that's going to be mine. It's going to be about the goodness and the glory and the celebration.
Speaker 1:But I was also thinking about how often too, it's church people who want to make things better. Right, they want to try. They say things like I'm sure your parents are looking down on you and you're like looking down, no, enjoy yourself. What about me? Or one of my favorites is well, I guess God needed another angel.
Speaker 2:Okay, there we go. Or God needed him more than you.
Speaker 1:God just needed him more than you, yeah, and so let's talk about that. How can that like? Just how does that help and or hurt the situation when people say things like that?
Speaker 2:God didn't need them at all. I think that's the funny thing that you know, like and I started to answer, like I felt horrible, right, Like after I was processing through the death of my parents, and people would say things like that it just got to a point where I was like let's not play this game with each other anymore. And so I would say things like you know, look, God didn't need my mom or my dad, he doesn't need me. Yeah, he allows me to be a part of the life that he has, he life that he has given me to live, and I think that he is gracious enough to set a path before me. That could be easy, right, If I make the choices that I need to make, but he's also set the path before me. That's going to be a little more difficult if I don't make those choices.
Speaker 2:At the end, I think that those paths converge in the same place, right, it's. Just how long do we want to take to get there? Because he's got this short, easy way to make it happen. And then he's got a way that's going to be a little longer for you, because you decided to go through the briar patch or whatever you know, instead of going the easy way, and so for me, I think you know when people would say things like that, it was, it was irritating, but in the same token, it was one of those things where I was like this is an opportunity for me to have a conversation that's legitimate about why I feel the way that I feel about this.
Speaker 2:I do not think that I'm the best person to come to when it's a matter of death.
Speaker 2:I will tell you that I think that my view has been warped significantly, and a lot of that comes from not just the death of my parents. I mean, when I was 11, my best friend's dad shot himself in the house when I was staying the night. When I was 15, I lost my best friend to suicide as well, and so there's a lot of things that I think come along with experiencing things like that at such young age and things. But for me, I can see that there was no good in that situation. This was a bad situation, but there was a vast amount of good that came from that situation. I think those deaths impacted me in a way that made me want to work with adolescent kids, because I thought if I could just keep it from happening to one more kid then it was a great day and I tell my wife all the time I'm like, look, I have a real strong feeling I'm going to go before you, mostly due to my propensity for fried foods and things like that.
Speaker 2:But I'm like, look, I have a real strong feeling I'm going to go before you, you know, mostly due to my propensity for fried foods and things like that, right, but I'm like, if something were to happen to me, yeah Right, reggie and I both can tell you where we love to eat.
Speaker 2:We'll tell you the best places in Pearland. But we, uh we. When we talk about that, I said, you know the thing that the only question that I really want anybody to ask at my celebration of life is if Brian had a positive impact on your life. If you can say, knowing him made me a better person, raise your hand. And if I can get one, then I did a good job. Yeah, If I can get one, then I did a good job. Now, everyone after that is just icing on the cake, right, Like, but if I can get that one, then I did a good job. And so that's the focus that I have. Is that, yeah, wholeheartedly right, Like I could dwell on whatever I wanted to. Or, like you said, Jesus' focus was not like yeah, let's talk about all the things. Right, it was, let's move forward. The mission stays the same.
Speaker 2:Come on, Regardless of whether or not I'm in it or you're in it or you're in it, the mission stays the same Whether we're here at this table talking about this or we've never talked about it before, god is still setting the mission forth. That great commission is still relevant to every single person who is a follower of Jesus Christ, and if that's the case, then you have to continue that, and so my job should just be to use every breath that I have to make that more positive for someone else, and that's really where I kind of hone in and just kind of focus.
Speaker 3:You know we may have lost sight of the fact that we tend to forget that we live in an age. We live with certain things that we have available to us but, like you said, the mission hasn't changed. The techniques we may use to try to get the mission out or ignore the mission may have adjusted, like, obviously, when Jesus was actually here and when he sent everyone out with the Great Commission, it wasn't done on a podcast, okay, he actually said that to people directly, so we know that what we do. So it's kind of interesting. There's so many things that we do, particularly when bad things happen and particularly in terms of dealing with the grief and grieving people from death. There's so many times that we really want to focus on. What can I say to make this person comfortable? What can I say to them to make them feel better?
Speaker 3:Which is where I think those whole silly statements come up from the standpoint of you know well, god wanted them more than he needed them, more than you did or they needed to be. And I'm like, well, no, that more than he needed them, more than you did or they needed to be. And I'm like, well, no, that doesn't have anything to do with any of this.
Speaker 3:And then also, when people, you know, people that have been we've experienced this people that have been sick either short or extended periods of time, and then we pray. We pray for healing, which we should always pray for healing. We pray because we want people to be healed or whatever, but then that doesn't happen. So then, well, why would God take? They? Were such a good person, why would God take them? Why would God allow this to happen to them? And I struggle with this and this year even did a funeral and just had this real epiphany of something to say to people, because I've been dealing with this for so long and I said you know, I think we need to understand something so that we would stop looking at it like this. God does not take people. Okay, jesus is not in the taking business, he is in the welcoming business. So, basically, we need to look from the standpoint of Jesus was welcomed, welcomed people into his presence, into his midst. Jesus is the one that's standing there looking to do what we probably could not do, particularly with some of the people. We know we could not be there waiting, but I'm going to welcome them with open arms. I'm just going to hug them. I'm going to grab them because I love them, no matter what is going on. We struggle with that stuff, so maybe we think God does, because we certainly attribute any feeling that God has to the way we would feel about things, because, of course, we're made in God's image, so God must look at stuff the exact same way we do. But and you know, we know this is not true. I think that as we talk about how we want to provide comfort for people, I think the best thing that we can do for someone is to just let them know I am here with you, whatever you're going through. However you're going through it. I probably don't have, even as a pastor. I don't have any skill to make what you're going through better. I wish I could wave a magic wand and you'd feel better. I don't have any ability to do that, but I do have the ability to let you know you're not alone. I am right here with you and Jesus is right here with you, and we're going to be here to allow you to get through this Again, like we just talked about, to truly celebrate the existence of people that we've loved. Let's just be honest, everyone that's truly even gone we might not necessarily consider them loved, all good people. Yeah, okay, I have not gone to one funeral where I actually stood up there and then someone got up there and said you know, this person was really horrible. I don't even know why I'm here. Okay, why is anybody here? Well, why are we doing this? Because we should just let them go. Never been to one of those.
Speaker 3:There's typically always something to say and I know, as I celebrate folks' lives, we will celebrate people's lives, but what I actually will celebrate part of my message, every single funeral I do is about Jesus, is about the goodness of God and it's about resurrection.
Speaker 3:I stole something from Jerry Pennington years ago which I use at every single service I do and I say folks, I need you to understand that as we come here today, jesus never preached any funerals, he only preached resurrections, and so we need to understand that to the point that we say that we know there is more to come and it's going to be much greater than what we do. I will just say this, because you said something and I thought about it. I said like, well, you know, it's kind of like when we're there and we have these questions about stuff that have, why was this and why was that, or whatever. I truly do believe this, I believe this in my heart of hearts. Then, when I'm actually standing before Jesus, all these questions that I have today in my existence will be nonexistent. I won't even be worried about those questions anymore. They won't even matter. I'm here. Whatever that was then, this is now, and I do believe in living in the now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a mentor who used to say all the time, you know when we would talk about things that were, I guess, disagreements in the church, right, because this is always happening with theology or dogma or whatever it is that you have.
Speaker 2:And my favorite thing that he used to tell me is I tell you what, when we get to heaven, why don't we talk about it? And he would always go because I just I have a real strong feeling we're not going to care anymore. And I mean that to me is just that's beautiful, right, like that's a Christian ethic is, you know, like there's so many things to worry about, but we don't need to bicker over the small ones. There's just nothing there.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think what you said too, reggie, is we're trying to offer comfort right, I mean this is best intentions. People say these things to people grieving because we're grieving too, and I think in reality, we're not really good at grieving.
Speaker 2:Any of us. Yeah, that's true, any of us.
Speaker 1:I don't know anyone who's like got the grieving down. You either wall it off, and this is what I do. You either wall it off or you wallow in it. I mean, that's kind of the only options I've been able to come across right, and so I just kind of get real selective and, unfortunately, probably more times than I should just wall it off, build a wall, don't deal with it, because wallowing in it can be so hard. Right, but I love what you said, reggie, and as pastors I definitely have learned is the best thing I can do, and not just in grieving, really probably in all of my ministry is be present.
Speaker 1:Be present. And I've left a few churches over the years, not because I didn't work out, but every time I left, there was never, never. Thank you for doing this program. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for starting this. Thank you for building this. It was thank you for being there when my mom died. Thank you for walking with me through our third miscarriage. Thank you for praying with me when me and my dad were unable to talk to each other.
Speaker 1:Thank you for being there, right, and I was just going to share. I heard this a long time ago, like on a KSBJ commercial break or something, where the man said that the best thing that we can say to someone who's dealing with a difficult situation is that sucks.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because you just own it. Yeah, you validate it, you sit with them in that. You don't fix it, you don't heal it, you don't change it, you don't pretend like it's not there, you just validate it. And how often we want to fix it, we want to offer a solution, we want to preach them out of their grief. And it's just man, if we could, and as I think about how could the church, christians, those who believe in resurrection, believe in eternity, believe that God is with us here in the now, how could we be better examples of that and illustrations of that? And I would say it's that simple that when you or someone else is dealing with something difficult, own it, validate it.
Speaker 3:I just read that in my devotion today, that's exactly what the guy was saying that you should do. Because now I'll tell you something. It's really interesting, I think, what we do and the reason we have these statements and we come up with these things to say, because then we can actually put a period on it. I can pretty much tell you well, you know, god took them, or well, it was their time, or whatever. Because when I do that, then I can say here's your reason and now I can move on.
Speaker 3:Ok, if I'm going to say that I am here for you, then I'm actually going to have to be with you at the service. I'm going to have to be with you after the service. I'm going to have to be with you as long as you're struggling. If I'm here for you, it's going to basically extend my amount of time to help care for you, which I'm like saying well, we live in these accelerated lifestyles, right, I don't have time to do everything that I need to basically say let me just put a stop to this and I'm moving on.
Speaker 3:Exactly, if I'm going to be here with you, if I'm going to commit my life and I think again, as I don't think this is a pastor's job.
Speaker 3:I actually think this is a job that people who truly want to say I do want to care for you and I want to love you because Jesus loved me and if I'm, jesus didn't put a period on his love, why should we, why should we just get to that point and say, well, you know, well, I loved you yesterday in your time of grief, and now that you're doing well, or even I've given you enough of my time, why should I stop loving you?
Speaker 3:There's nowhere I've ever read that, and so I'm like you know I've got to make sure that I understand part of my life is going to commit to people. That is going to take my time. That is going to take my time, and yet I've come to understand that the blessing is that is, that it is the greatest time I ever spend doing anything. I get more joy out of pastoral care than anything I do. I really do. So I'm like saying, if we could just understand and switch the narrative on even why we do stuff, then maybe we would understand a lot better and maybe people would get a lot greater benefit from it.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah. There's a whole lot more to offer condolence than just a casserole.
Speaker 3:I think so, no, but but there ain't nothing wrong with casseroles. I just want to make sure. No, no, no, yeah, okay, we're good we.
Speaker 2:But I think that you know, when you drop that off to someone, I think that it would be really beneficial rather than just drop it off to say, hey, can we eat with you? Yeah, Can we spend time with you?
Speaker 3:Can we?
Speaker 2:remember the things that they were, the people that they were. Can we talk about that? And, dude, I think that you were talking about. You know that Jesus is in the business of welcoming. I mean, you want me to karate, chop through a table right there, that'll get you ready to go. I think that, knowing that right and again it all comes back to this hope I think that we you know, thea and I have talked about this you and I have talked about this.
Speaker 2:I think that that hope is just. It's indescribable. And what I think that we don't understand is because we always want to place things in our own terms.
Speaker 3:Correct.
Speaker 2:We want to be able to somehow define God, right, and I think that you see this, no matter what religion, it is right. I mean, if this is Norse, if this is Greek, you know, like everybody has these human sort of gods. And so we try to do the same thing, I think, with Jesus. We go well, he was here and so there's got to be a human perspective. Well, no, he was 100% God and still 100% human, and that math doesn't equate for us. So we immediately go well, how do we make this, Like, how do we put him in this box? Right to say, this is understandable now, and I think that God just kind of giggles, you know, at us because it's like you're not going to understand me and, honestly, just be content with the fact that you don't have to control all of this.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Like that's the greatest gift he gave me is that I don't have to be in control.
Speaker 2:Thank God that I'm not, Because, again, my selfishness is going to override most things, and yet he still sees me, and I think that this is the greatest thing that you said too, Thea. I mean, you say a lot of great things, but this is one of the best things that you said is just this idea that you know God is consistent in our faith, but he is going to, he's going to be with us, he's going to give us grace. All of these things I think we forget regularly. I think that we just we space out on that and we don't, we don't think about the fact that, like there's just there's a gift and a grace and a hope that's so much better than anything that we can comprehend and it's not my job to understand it.
Speaker 2:It's my job to again follow the mission.
Speaker 1:Well, I like what you said, reggie, too, about. You know well, if I can just give you the reason I can put up here and I can move on about my day versus actually being with you.
Speaker 3:It just reminded us.
Speaker 1:I mean, well, aren't we called to be the body of Christ, christ? Isn't that what we are, Little Christians or little Christ out in the world walking around continuing Christ's holy presence here on this earth, in the flesh right? And so for us to the church, which is not a building, it's the gathering of those believers. If we would be more willing to be with people right, which means we got to deal with our own grief.
Speaker 1:We got to deal with our own stuff. And or be okay that we're grieving too. Though I don't know your father, the loss of your father is pulling up loss in me that I haven't dealt with, that is hurting me right.
Speaker 1:Or the loss of a teenage girl is making me remember the loss of my adolescence and the things, that I was in the right place at the right time, but how there were others who weren't and took that away from me. And now I have to grieve that because I haven't yet right. And again it's a big, old, long mess that I can't put a due date on to be finished with. But if I'm willing to be with somebody in their grief, be with them in their difficulty, even with their wrestling, it's not just about loss, it's in the wrestling and the pain and the heartache and I love what you both said too. It's like it's so much more than showing up and giving them a gift.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:It's the gift of your presence. Sit on the porch, listen to the story again. Listen, be with them. Actually, you don't even have to tell them, you're not alone. Prove it, prove it, yeah, be sure.
Speaker 3:Let them not be alone, alone, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that if, again, if we, those who claim to believe in this resurrected Lord that offers us eternity, could be in those moments, maybe they'd be this much less difficult right, there's a reason why those disciples gathered together back in the upper room.
Speaker 1:Why would you go back to the place that you just were before this horrible tragedy to be together? It was a space big enough for all of them, right? They didn't other than that they had tiny little houses. No one could all be there, and so being together, I think is really would be my you know call to any believer. How do you deal with difficulty? Be in it, yeah, be there, right with the people.
Speaker 3:I've never heard anyone say to me, going through grief, someone that's just lost someone. I've never actually talked to them a week, two weeks later where they've actually said you know, I've been going through all my grief and everything, but one of the things that I'm tired of, I'm tired of all the people calling me and coming by to see me and taking care of me. I've never heard anybody say that to me, which means it's not happening, that they're not going through that kind of fatigue. Now you said something interesting that I think may actually point to how the church needs to learn to get it right and to truly get some things right.
Speaker 3:I think that sometimes the way people may feel about the church and what we do is that we are actually better defining the body of Christ than being the body of Christ, and I think that's what we need to work on, because if we're going to be the body of Christ, then we're going to recognize there's some stuff that we're doing wrong and there's some stuff we're not doing, and then we're going to actually begin doing that. It is certainly much easier to define something in terms of how you want it to be than to actually be it in terms of how it was intended. So I think we all have lived that and we understand that, and I really think that we will have a lot less opposition from folks outside the realm of that if we actually just start being that. If we say that's what we're going to be, that may not mean everybody is going to agree. Everybody didn't agree with Jesus. We know this. We actually know exactly what happened.
Speaker 3:But the fact of the matter is I find myself more times than not wanting to be what I should be and how I'm supposed to approach things, particularly from a perspective of the people of God all people of God than defining who I want to do that with and who I don't, and then saying that's okay, because then I'm defining it and I don't Trust me. Y'all don't want to live according to my definitions. They're not going to work for you, okay, but they don't work for me most of the time, but you get it right, yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:And I think the thing too that I thought thought I had never, I guess, equated like my loss with loss of something, you know what I mean Like there's another type of loss, and I think that one of the things that people do right and I think that we as people do a lot of times is, if you've had a loss right, Like if if someone loses their mom or their dad, one of the things that I always say is I don't get it.
Speaker 2:I say is I don't get it, I lost my mom and my dad, but your loss is vastly different from my loss. It's your loss. Yeah, I don't get it, and you are absolutely right. The greatest thing that you can say in that is this sucks.
Speaker 3:Um.
Speaker 2:I have a friend of mine that just lost her father, Um, one of my, one of my mentors uh, one of my greatest mentors and when I sent the first text message to her, it just said there are no words. I'm sorry, I'm here if you need me. And I always put after that. That's not idle. So please don't think that I'm saying that because it's the good Christian thing to do Like I'm going to pray for you or whatever that means.
Speaker 2:If at 3 am you need me, you can call me and I will pick the phone up, and I think people need to know that, right? I think that we do a really good job of. I'll pray for you. Okay, great, why don't you just do that when you're with them? Maybe you could just knock that prayer out now, because you guys are there. Just go ahead and do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that, even that I'll pray with you is something so much stronger than.
Speaker 2:I'll pray for you. Yeah, it is, I'll pray with you. We're in this together Right now. Right, yeah, right.
Speaker 1:So what's one piece of hope you would offer to someone who's struggling in a difficult season? And that's got them wondering. You know, how could God be good if I'm dealing with difficulty? What's the one piece of hope you'd offer them?
Speaker 3:I'll let Brian offer the final comment, but I think we've actually hit this so strongly today is that what people need to enable them to achieve hope and to find hope is they need presence. They need us to be there. They don't need us to just tell you where we sometimes think that, well, what we are is really not. We're not even a GPS. We're just going to give you a map and you figure it out. But I think we need to be there.
Speaker 3:If you need to go to to Hope Town, I need to get in the car with you and drive with you there to where we arrived there together. So I think anybody struggling today you need to do two things you need to truly figure out who it is that you can talk to. That's going to not only give you hope for the journey, but to take the journey with you. But you also need to do something else. You need to basically realize that you are also going to be called on to do the same thing You're going to be called on to when you're not going through it. In fact, there may be something that you're going through right now, today, that's going to help somebody down the road. You need to be present and be ready to do that, and it is in our presence that I think we actually deliver more comfort to people than anything else we could do.
Speaker 2:That's a good word For me. I guess I'm going to go ahead and give a little backhanded comment.
Speaker 2:I think that if you're in a place right now where you're struggling, I can tell you that it may get worse before it gets better, but it's going to get better and I think that's the focus. Right Is that it may absolutely get worse. I think that the vast majority of us who have given our life to Jesus can tell you that things did not get easier for me as a result, but things always got better and whatever it is that you're going through now, there's a plan for that, for your life. I'm not saying that that was a plan for that individual's life. I am saying that you can look back on that and say God intended something good out of what happened. That was bad and the loss of my parents led me into ministry which was the best thing that could have ever happened for me.
Speaker 2:You know my dad. I was in law school at the time and my dad was like well, do you even like doing this? And no, I don't. Okay, well, do what you love, and what do you love. You know, my wife always says, like, what do you want to do when you grow up? And for me, I went. I know that I want to affect kids' lives in a better way.
Speaker 2:And I thought that was teaching, but then I was like I don't really know that I could share my faith the way I want to in teaching, but I can as a high school and young adult pastor, and so being able to do that was life-changing for me. And not because, you know, like it was just this, I finally answered a call. I mean that was a great thing. I'm glad I did that because I think God had been, you know hitting me up for years.
Speaker 2:But the best part of it was that these kids, these people, when you find common ground, they teach you so much more about yourself than you ever thought you were going to learn, you know. And so I think that there is good that can come from whatever the bad is that you're going through? Whatever the struggle is that you're going through, it is temporary.
Speaker 2:It is temporary and it's going to hurt and you're going to have to go through it and that's okay because it makes you stronger. You know, when you work out those muscles hurt but they get bigger and they get stronger and it's the same thing for your life, and I think that people have to see that and so the hope that I think is offered.
Speaker 2:I can't offer it, number one, it's Jesus that offers it. But I can assure you that it's a far better comfort than anything that anybody else is going to be able to provide for you, any substance, you know, anything that you're doing, jesus is going to be a comfort that is going to be so much better for you.
Speaker 3:Amen.
Speaker 1:For anyone that I think is struggling today, especially with their real difficulties, and then this wrestling with God too, it's just to get honest. What is it that's really bothering you? What are you really afraid of? Ideally, get honest with yourself, get honest with God, and then find someone you can get honest with and say out loud I'm scared that my mom has cancer, because she won't be here to see me make her proud. Right, whatever Like get down to what are you really?
Speaker 2:afraid of what?
Speaker 1:are you really wrestling with, and let someone in on that, and then, and then you won't be so alone, which is really what makes, um, I think, the things much more difficult.
Speaker 1:Thank you both for such an honest and real conversation today and thank you for tuning in. I also want to make sure that you are marking your calendars for um, our live event podcast on the patio. Thursday, april 25th at grace pizza, six to 8m. Come out, enjoy a live panel as well as an opportunity for you to see and meet some other listeners, as well as ask your own questions about faith. Thanks again for tuning in to this episode of Real Talk recorded here in Pearland Texas. We invite you to check out our website at fumcpearlandorg to check out additional events and opportunities for you to engage in real talk about faith and relationships.