Welcome to In The Seams, a podcast by Broken and Mended.
And now your host, David Heflin.
Welcome back to In The Seams.
I know it's been a while since we recorded an episode.
That is because we are in a time of transition with Broken and Mended, where I'm actually
moving out of the governance side of Broken and Mended, where I've been the president
and on the board of directors since the beginning of Broken and Mended as a nonprofit back in
2021.
It actually goes back to 2018 when we started this as a ministry.
But now I'm moving into becoming the full-time executive director.
There's a lot to do, but in theory, it ought to give me an opportunity to be more consistent
with content.
And so we have some plans, even though this is February 28th, and we're recording, I'm
recording this on the last day of February.
It's hard for me to believe we've already had two months, but I believe in the next six
weeks or so, there will be three different podcasts.
So I'm going to share mine today, which is a recording from the Diamonds Conference,
a session that I gave there just back in January.
And then we're going to also upload Timothy Gunnels.
He's been a guest and also a host on this show, a time or two.
And Tim is going to be sharing his recording from the Diamonds Conference.
And so I want to go ahead and lead into mine today.
And I want to let you use your time to listen to the talk more than me, talk it to death
before we even get into it.
But I did want to just give you a little bit of orientation about what the session was
about and what my talk was about.
And so hopefully that will convince you to go ahead and listen to it.
The name of my talk is Finding Joy Through Courage.
And the theme of Diamonds Conference 2025, and I may not have this exactly right, but
it had to do with courage, courage for the journey or something like that.
And so I decided to focus on the fact that there can be joy and we can find joy through
experiencing courage in our walk with chronic illness.
And that may seem like something that's nearly impossible to attain because there's not a
lot of joy that comes in hurting.
But so in my talk, I kind of talk about that a little bit and about why joy can be elusive
and how it gets mixed up with more worldly concept of happiness and that even in times
of sadness, there's still a joy in connection with our relationship with God and our relationship
with others that is something that is transcendent to our circumstances.
And that's maybe easier said than done.
And so I kind of, in other words, when we feel unhappy, joy may seem very distant.
I'm not saying they're unrelated to one another, but they're not exactly the same thing.
So I'll talk through that a little bit in this talk.
Talk about some of Paul's passages in Philippians where he says, Rejoice in the Lord always.
And again, I say rejoice and what he means about that.
But then I move into talking about the false promises of happiness.
And that has to do a lot with the prosperity gospel and actually how harmful that can be.
One of the books that one of the lines I quote from a book from a prosperity gospel preacher
is God wants us to enjoy every single day of our lives.
Well, that puts a lot of pressure on people that are dealing with chronic illness or depression
or any number of difficult things.
And so talk about that and how that misleads us and how harmful that can be.
And I actually end up talking about Lord of the Rings.
And so if you're not a Lord of the Rings fan, you might want to stop when I get to that
part in the talk or maybe not.
Maybe you can understand, maybe you can understand why it's so important to so many people, why
it's been important to me.
But the reason why I appeal to it in this case is because it has a lot to do with seeing
how Tolkien envisioned his characters on a perilous journey, a journey they never would
have chosen a journey where happiness in its in the true sense of that word would have
been impossible.
And yet how they still find joy in the togetherness of their mission.
So the fact that they're doing something meaningful, even against all odds, and yet that they're
doing it together, they're still joy in their relationships with one another, even in the
midst of the danger.
So I'm making an appeal there for us not to be in isolation and how that we can find joy
through, we find courage, I think, only in the joy fellowship.
If hopefully that makes sense as we get into the talk.
I, in other words, I think it's pretty hard to be courageous alone.
I think that eventually usually puts too much pressure on ourselves and doesn't allow us
to experience the true joys God intended for us to have it.
And so I think both courage and joy come come in greater proportions when we are not isolated
from one another.
We'll talk about how chronic illness can isolate us and what we can do in response to that
using some of the tools available to us today.
So I hope that it is a edifying talk.
And you know, certainly if you like it, you'll go ahead and rate the episode also follow
us on as one of one of your podcasts and rate in the same as if you would, that would be
very helpful to us.
And be sure to check out brokenamended.org and either resources there, there are ways
you can get connected to people, you know, that are struggling with a similar thing that
you are.
And anyway, I look forward to sharing more in the near future with you.
And as I said, I hope this is a blessing to you.
Well, I'm very glad to get this opportunity to get to speak to you again.
As Sarah mentioned, I've been able to speak in previous Diamond's conferences, I think
too, this is my third.
I always look forward to it.
I look forward to it.
Not only because I get to share some things, maybe it's been going on in my mind and my
heart and always in step with this great theme like we have this year on courage, but also
because I get to hear from so many of you.
I just finished like most of you listening to Tim, such a powerful session, such incredible
humility, which I just think enhances the boldness of the words when he says them and
sharing his story.
I was able to hear an earlier one by Amber, I missed the middle one, that's what Sarah
and I were talking about.
I had to pull away to work on a sermon, but I hope to go back and listen to that and catch
as many of these as I can.
But my session is called Finding Joy Through Courage.
And so I want to begin a little bit by talking about the Apostle Paul because he commands
the Philippian Christians to rejoice in the Lord always, several times he says this in
Philippians, and then he even doubles down in one place, at least one place, Philippians
4-4, he says, I will say it again, rejoice.
So he's pretty direct about it.
And many have pointed out that Paul is writing this while he's in a prison cell, it's one
of the prison epistles, and kind of make the point that therefore the joy he commands is
not dependent on circumstances.
And I think whether he was writing from a prison cell or not, that would have been pretty
clear by the content and the context of what he was writing.
He's not talking about a circumstantial joy, which we more commonly call happiness.
But I think I guess the fact that he is writing it from a prison cell underscores the point
that he is personally committed to this idea of being able to rejoice in the Lord, no matter
what he's facing, no matter what he's going through.
A closely connected theme is contentment, and a few verses later in verse 12, chapter
4, Paul writes, I have learned the secret of being content in every situation.
And that secret, he doesn't keep it a secret, which I'm thankful for, because he says in
Philippians 4-13, and you know this verse, that he can do all things through Christ who
gives him or through him who gives him strength.
Now that latter verse is often kind of ripped out of its context, and to make it sound like
Paul was talking about some form of American triumphalism.
So you'll maybe hear someone quote this, I can win a football game, or I can score a
perfect score on my ACT, because I can do all things through him who gives me strength,
or him who strengthens me.
But if that were what Paul meant, it would turn contentment and its companion joy back
into a circumstantial based reality.
So I don't think it's really that difficult logically to understand what Paul means, that
joy is rooted in the contentment of being united with Christ in all things.
It's why Paul can say just a chapter earlier in Philippians 3-8, he says he counts all
things as laws compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord.
So I can understand that logically.
Sounds good.
I can tell you that in my experience, my experience of joy does not always match my understanding
of it.
Even before I had chronic illness, I struggled with joy.
And sometimes I thought maybe there's something wrong with my faith.
You know, if you really believe what you say you believe, then you would have more joy
as the accusing voice was shouting into my consciousness.
And I've always just had a hard time.
I think maybe because my mind is so analytical anyway, but I just have a hard time pushing
away this foreboding feeling that something is going to go wrong and ruin even the most
joyful occasions.
It's just kind of been a little bit of a difficulty, a burden that I've carried in my life even
before chronic illness entered into my life.
But I was a minister and still am, but I was a minister and I was fearful of being judged.
And so I kept this secret, I kept this a secret from even those that were close to me because
I thought one of two things, right, they could judge me for you really shouldn't be a minister
if you're having these struggles or that I might somehow inadvertently cause them to
struggle with their faith because maybe someone they looked up to as a minister was admitting
that he was struggling with this very important Christian concept of joy.
But then I began to hurt every day.
And as the days became weeks, as the weeks became months and then the months became years,
I really withdrew to the lonely places of doubt in my heart.
And as I look back on it now, I know as a way of protecting myself almost like trying
to control the situation by keeping people away from me and not adding to my emotional
pain that was already going with my physical pain.
And what it felt like to me, again, this is more retrospective than in the time, but it
now look back on it.
I felt like the, you know, the world was spinning, but somehow I was outside of it.
Somehow I was watching it.
It was like living life, but it really felt like I was watching it and I wasn't really
participating in it.
And if what I'm describing to you sounds like depression, well, you're right.
I didn't start just because you struggle with some things.
Does it mean you're depressed?
But eventually it did become that for me.
You know, and depression is a complex problem.
It has many different causes, but all the numbers say that people with chronic illness,
chronic pain, that they suffer from depression, which with a much higher percentage than the
general population overwhelmingly so.
And so depression can make it harder to experience Christian joy, but it does not eliminate it.
And I want to say this, that you are not sinning because you are depressed in case someone
has told you otherwise.
And again, I, you know, just hearing from Amber again today and talking about mental
health, she's just such a good job of addressing those, those issues and some of the attitudes
that people have in the church about it and really how wrong they are.
And so I, you know, I've struggled with depression at times and maybe you have to, and maybe
you are right now, and we've talked about anxiety some in these sessions.
And you know, it's, it's not because you're, you're sinning any more than you have your
chronic illness because of sin.
Ultimately I have learned though, in my experience since all this took place, that joy is not
about avoiding the worst struggles of life.
It is about the Lord of all creation meeting us in those struggles.
And the first thing that we have to do if we're going to hold on to this transcendent
joy is to stop believing the lies about joy from the world.
In a popular book from a well-known author that you would, a preacher actually that you
would probably know, I'm almost certain you would, a prosperity preacher.
The book itself is, is not subtle, but there is a subtly misleading statement that comes,
well, I was just, I happened to be looking at it just recently, but he said, this is
a statement I want to talk about.
He said, God wants us to enjoy every single day of our lives.
And it's subtle because it sounds right.
We think, well, well, yeah, well, wouldn't God want us to enjoy every single day of
our lives.
And it's amazing how such a message then begins to infiltrate the church as if that's the
most important thing that we enjoy every day of our lives.
And the fallout to that message infiltrating the church has been extensive.
The chapter that boasts that statement was called, choose to be happy.
By happy the author means he doesn't, and I quote, he doesn't want you down in the dumps,
defeated and depressed because we have problems.
Now I happen to be reading the Beatitudes on the same day I came across these words
in this chapter.
And Jesus strikes a decidedly different chord when instead of chastising the so-called unhappy
people down in the dumps, what he says instead is blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
And the blessings then from Christ and being in this kingdom do not come in our present
day attitude, but rather in the blessings of God that will outlast this age.
Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us that God wants us to enjoy every single day in
our lives.
And that is an unrealistic expectation to put on any of us in a fallen world.
And it also misses the fact that the most difficult seasons of our lives can be our
most character forming.
This is what Paul teaches us in Romans 3, I'm sorry, 5, 3 through 5.
He says, and not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions because we know that affliction
produces endurance, endurance, proven character, and proven character produces hope.
This hope will not disappoint us because God's love has been poured out in our hearts through
the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
God's call to pick up our cross and follow him also must mean that we're not going to
find every day enjoyable.
But particularly to those of us who struggle with incredible pain and life-altering illness,
this is a cruel expectation.
And crueler yet if you teach hurting people that this is what God expects of you.
The prosperity gospel has exchanged worldly happiness for godly joy because despite all
of our talk about Christ's kingdom not being of this world, we really still love the things
of this world very much.
And too often we would rather have the comfort of health and wealth instead of the comfort
of God.
God's comfort in times of suffering leads to inexpressible joy and peace that has nothing
to do with the happiness of health and wealth.
So ironically one of the reasons we are missing out on Christian joy is that we actually want
worldly happiness instead.
Worldly happiness is all about what we can see, what we can experience in the moment.
But our Christian faith teaches us a different focus as the apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians
4, 17 through 18, our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable
eternal way to glory.
So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen.
For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Paul's not saying that our afflictions are light in themselves.
If we hear him say it that way, we would think Paul is being cruel or dismissive and it is
not that at all.
He is just saying that when you compare them to eternal glory, that they truly are light
and momentary.
Paul even says, it is kind of an interesting word choice I think, they are producing this
eternal glory for us.
Now if we read enough of the apostle Paul and Bible in general, we know that Paul does
not mean that our suffering earns us eternal life, but perhaps he means that it is preparing
us for it in some way.
Now happiness tries to capture a moment in the present and then hold on to it for a long
time even after it becomes part of the past.
Joy embraces the hope of an eternal future that transcends all the circumstances of our
present.
And the reason it takes courage to live in joy is because it points forward to what
we cannot see.
In other words, it takes faith to embrace joy and faith always requires courage.
We know we all feel sorry for ourselves sometimes.
Again I think back to Ambrose talks, he reminded us of Elijah when he was at that despondent
point in his life, where he couldn't see anything else but his own suffering.
It is okay to be there sometimes, but getting stuck there can undermine our capacity to
live in God's joy.
And it takes courage to admit that many of the things that used to make us happy are
no longer attainable and believe that greater joy is possible when we embrace what God offers
us through Jesus Christ.
Though Christian joy is more real to me now than ever, because I let go of the pressure
of being happy and receive the gift of joy as God's grace.
If you've seen the study guide you read the takeaways that I put in there, this is the
part that some of you will be really excited about and some of you may roll your eyes,
but if you roll your eyes I can't see you anyway, so no worries there.
But yes I want to talk about Lord of the Rings for a minute.
Lord of the Rings is something that's helped me a lot in a lot of ways and I'll try to
explain that a little bit.
But Lord of the Rings and other talking works, you know of course they're fantasy literature,
but they've helped me understand something about the connection between joy, fellowship,
and courage.
And for those of you who you're not fans, you get tired of people who are fans of Lord
of the Rings, always talking about Lord of the Rings, believe me I've had to kind of
censor myself here as I preach at church because I can't use the illustration every week from
Lord of the Rings.
But for those of you that feel that way I want to appeal to you for a moment and I'm
not trying to make you read the books, certainly not for everyone, but I think it would be
good to invest at the time to at least watch the movies.
I'm talking about the original trilogy, not the Hobbit movie so much, but the Lord of
the Rings movies from Peter Jackson and you will at least understand some of the references
and I think you will understand just by even if it's not really your thing and you would
at least understand the appeal of the story.
And so I would encourage you to do it.
It takes you a little while because you probably could read a short book anyway in the amount
of time it would take you to read Lord of the Rings.
I mean watch Lord of the Rings but it's worth it.
I think you ought to do it.
But the question whether you're a fan or not is why does Lord of the Rings, why won't it
go away after all these years, what keeps drawing people back to it?
If you're a Lord of the Rings fan, I meant to bring these two books with me in here but
I left them in my office.
I'm in the Lord Church library right now so anyway I'll mention them to you and hopefully
you can be able to look them up if you are interested.
But I read two books in preparation for this talk and I recommend both of them actually.
The first one is called The Gospel According to Tolkien and it's by Ralph C. Wood and the
second one is called Finding God in the Lord of the Rings and that's by Kurt Brunner and
Jim Ware.
The former is a deeper theological work so the one that's called The Gospel According
to Tolkien and the latter is really more of a devotional book.
I like them both.
I sometimes like the deeper reflection more than the devotional stuff but I thought they
were both valuable.
But here's what you need to know about Lord of the Rings for this talk.
The story is driven by the fellowship of nine characters who represent the fate of all Middle
Earth.
If you think about something similar like the Knights of the Round Table it's really
only superficially similar because the Knights of the Round Table are in a lot of ways they're
all Knights, they're all alike.
But in the fellowship of the Ring the nine people that are brought together are actually
different races.
Yes, they're fantasy races so to speak but you have an elf and a dwarf and they don't
like each other traditionally or historically.
In Tolkien's world anyway you got four men, I'm sorry two men and those two men are at
odds one another two for a different reason I won't get into right now and then you got
the four hobbits that are with them.
And so they're varied, they're very diverse, they even have some enmity between them or
at least their peoples do and yet what brings them together is a quest to save Middle Earth
from absolute tyranny by the enemy of all free people Sauron.
And Tolkien presents their task as hopelessly defeated at several junctures but their courage
is always bolstered by their love for one another and for their love of what is good
and beautiful in a world that seems hell bent on eradicating those virtues.
The plot revolves around several friendships but at the heart of those friendships is the
relationship between Sam and Frodo and again if you don't know the story you won't get
the reference as much but it's a very very special friendship and when Sam reflects on
the past heroes who face mortal danger this is what he tells Frodo.
He says but I expect they had a lot of chances like us of turning back only they didn't and
if they had we shouldn't know but they had been forgotten.
We hear about those as just went on and not all to a good end mind you.
At least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end and that's
kind of you know that's how Sam talks it can be a little hard to follow grammatically but
his point is that we go on because that's what we need to do even when we don't know
what the outcome of going on is going to look like because it's right because it's courageous
and it's what is required of us whatever is going to happen to us but there's another
quote from the return of the king it's not Sam speaking but it's made about Sam and
he was in the evil wasteland of Mordor in other words when he was at his highest point
of danger I like this even better and it points back to the reason why we can't turn back
even when all appearances for hope have vanished says there peeping among the cloud rack above
a dark tour high up in the mountain sound and Sam saw a wide star twinkle for a while
the beauty of it's most heart he looked up out of the forsaken land and hope returned
to him for like a shaft clearing cold the thought pierced him that in the end the shadow
was only a small and passing thing there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach
Christian joy is having the courage to believe that the light can never be swallowed up in
darkness no matter how dark the moment is it's seeing that one star high above the clouds
and knowing that the truest light the light of the world cannot be vanquished nor those
who walk in it by owning this truth or but owning this truth is not about lone ranger
kind of courage Frodo could not have made it could not have completed the quest without
Sam nor Sam without Frodo and neither of them without the courage of the fellowship and
the other friends who fought just to give them a chance this is not accidental for Tolkien
when he puts this in the book Tolkien who was a devout Catholic he gives us a vision
of the collective courage of the body of Christ through the fellowship of the ring so would
the first book I mentioned about the gospel according to Tolkien he wrote this about
Lord of the Rings and about this idea of the body of Christ being reflected in the fellowship
he says even when faith is an act of knee bent confession alone in one's own room it
is not a solitary and individual and private thing faith is both enabled and sustained
by the body of Christ called the church the community of God's own people I have a habit
sometimes trying to put too much into one talk and I'm sure that I've done that this
time but here's my conclusion stated negatively we cannot embrace joy without the courage
to look forward and we cannot have courage without each other isolation so I've been
talked about today but it is the greatest detriment to Christian joy and Christians living with
chronic illness are at great risk it would take a whole other talk to discuss all the
reasons why this has happened this debilitating isolation but for now I'll just say we can
only control what is ours to control and the more isolated you are the more Satan's plan
for chronic illness in your life will win over God's plan for you so what can we do
well you're already doing it by being here and I this weekend or even if you watch this
later you're taking a step because you're refusing to be alone you're finding solidarity
with other fellow sufferers and other people who are committed to following Jesus in their
suffering and there are other ways to extend that fellowship some of those have been mentioned
you know where you could have a more frequent connection whether it be discord or you find
a social media group broken amended has Facebook group to appreciate it Tim mentioning our
resources a moment ago I'm not sure if you mentioned the social media Facebook group
that we have but support groups like we have with broken amended or one way as well virtual
technology of course allows us to meet in meaningful ways like we are right now even
when we can't be together in person in other words I think isolation 30 40 years ago maybe
even 20 years ago was even it was harder to overcome than it is now and we have some tools
that can really help us now I think the best scenario the ideal scenario is to be in a
supportive church that wants to stay connected with its hurting members and forms a support
group around that commitment or at least a robust visitation program you heard me say
it's the ideal situation I know it is not the reality for a lot of people so if you
can't have that because your church just isn't there for some reason then there are still
ways to connect to so many of the ministries that you'll hear about this weekend and this
was mentioned already to by amber and also I think by Tim a little bit this idea of taking
a step you don't try to do everything at once you can't try to be belong to 15 different
communities at the same time that you haven't been a part of before but maybe take a step
to be part of a meaningful Christian community and then I would say and I've heard this issue
raised today but in some of the comments about friendship where people feel like and you don't
have any friends in your life that could understand your struggle if that's true then I encourage
you to pray that God will remedy that and you can ask right we have to ask God I would
ask God to lead you to your Sam in your life which is a friend who will never leave your
side nor you his or hers courage comes from Christian fellowship that helps us live in
the moment by embracing the transcendent joy of Christ while believing in the eternal future
he has promised us it's pretty wordy last statement so I want to read it one more time
just see if we can digest it a little bit courage comes from Christian fellowship that
helps us live in the moment by embracing the transcendent joy of Christ while believing
in the eternal future he has promised us when it closed with the final verse of Psalm 16
then I'll pray and I understand we'll have some we'll have some quick Q&A you reveal
the path of life to me in your presence is abundant joy at your right hand our eternal
pleasures let's pray God I'm grateful for the time they've had to be able to share
what's you've been stirring in my heart God these most of the time God I know we were
kind of leaning from the words of the apostle Paul who did not did not duck away from the
subject of suffering in fact he embraced it for himself as a way of sharing in the fellowship
Christ and he embraced it as a way of looking to a future with you where suffering will
be no more it takes courage to live that way God because it's so easy to stay focused on
just every bad thing that's happening around us and to think things won't get better or
we won't make it for some reason so I I just pray that you give us the strength give us
the give us the courage and to recognize God that we don't possess those things by ourselves
that we possess those things as a part of the body of Christ and as a gift from the
Holy Spirit so God we thank you for this eternal joy that these eternal pleasures that are
at your right hand and I pray while we wait for that God that already in a way we can
start to experience that through these abundant joys that are in your presence help us to
learn to be in your presence more and more we pray this in Jesus name Amen.