Have you ever asked the questions, “How can God be good if there’s suffering?”. Don’t worry - we have as well. If we are going to experience real relationships we are going to experience real pain. Life is hard, but God is good. Don’t shy away from this topic or the pain in your life. Lean in and you will experience the full life that Jesus has for you.
Make sure to subscribe to our podcast where you are listening to us so you’ll never miss an episode. While you’re at it, if you found value in this conversation we’d love it if you left us a review – or shared this podcast with a friend. Doing that will help us reach and help more people meet know and follow Jesus.
You are always welcome to join us online or in-person for one of our services every week at live.sv.cc.
Have you ever asked the questions, “How can God be good if there’s suffering?”. Don’t worry - we have as well. If we are going to experience real relationships we are going to experience real pain. Life is hard, but God is good. Don’t shy away from this topic or the pain in your life. Lean in and you will experience the full life that Jesus has for you.
Make sure to subscribe to our podcast where you are listening to us so you’ll never miss an episode. While you’re at it, if you found value in this conversation we’d love it if you left us a review – or shared this podcast with a friend. Doing that will help us reach and help more people meet know and follow Jesus.
You are always welcome to join us online or in-person for one of our services every week at live.sv.cc.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Loving God. Loving people. podcast, a podcast where we dig deeper into what it looks like to live a life where, in the end, all that matters is God and people. Each week we will have candid and authentic conversations about how every day brings a fresh beginning and that the best is yet to come as we work together to help fulfill the mission that Jesus has given us. Now, here's our host.
Robert Watson:
Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to Episode 4 of the Loving God. Loving people. We're sure that's going to be the title. That might still change. So far it's the title.
Chad Moore:
Well, we're probably going to do several kinds of podcasts. So this is just kind of the beginning and it's an experiment-
Robert Watson:
At some point.
Chad Moore:
So this is Number Quatro of the experimento. I don't know.
Robert Watson:
And my name is Robert and I'm here with Chad Moore.
Chad Moore:
Hello.
Robert Watson:
At some point-
Chad Moore:
We got to work on that.
Robert Watson:
We do. It's a work in progress. Thanks for being with us while this podcast is under construction.
Chad Moore:
Please don't turn it off yet.
Robert Watson:
Please excuse our mess.
Chad Moore:
We got good stuff today.
Robert Watson:
At some point, maybe we'll try the Hot Wing Challenge while we just do this interview while eating hot wings and it gets hotter and hotter.
Chad Moore:
Josh showed me that. Have you watched that?
Robert Watson:
I've heard about it.
Chad Moore:
That's amazing.
Robert Watson:
Yeah.
Chad Moore:
I've seen like, I don't know, man, 15 episode, but it's awesome. I haven't eaten a hot wing sauce that makes them all sweat and go nuts, but yeah, so it just progresses.
Robert Watson:
Yeah.
Chad Moore:
The hotter sauce, the hotter sauce, but it's awesome to watch those famous people start sweating and get uncomfortable.
Robert Watson:
Well today we're going to be talking about suffering, so that was a good transition. That was a good...
Chad Moore:
Oh man, lighthearted podcast today.
Robert Watson:
Yeah. Good lead in there. So we're doing the Lord's Prayer as a church. We're walking through it and we're just kind of unpacking hope that's kind of woven throughout the Lord's Prayer dealing with different areas of hopelessness. And when you talk to people who maybe don't want to go to church or they don't want to follow Jesus or whatever, they'll go, "Well, there's just so much suffering in the world." And for a lot of people, that's the hangup, they've either experienced or they've witnessed suffering in this world, and it begs the question how could God be good if there's that kind of suffering? Have you had those interactions with people? Have you had those conversations?
Chad Moore:
Oh yeah, of course. A lot of times somebody told me they're an atheist or whatever and my question is, "Okay, when did you stop believing in God?" Because there's something inside of us that makes us long for more, which means there must be more. Because if we were a random collection of molecules, why would we even ever think that, right? And yet we do, we're philosophical. What's the material purpose for art, you know, that kind of thing. There's something inside of us that makes us long for more.
Robert Watson:
And we all have a, "It should be this way."
Chad Moore:
Yeah.
Robert Watson:
Where does that should be come from?
Chad Moore:
Yeah. Well, the fact that somebody says, because they're suffering, "I'm not going to believe in God," well, how would you know the difference? If it was completely survival of the finished, you would totally believe in suffering, right? Of course, then they might say, "Well, I do believe in suffering, so that proves there's no God," which it doesn't. What does prove there's a God is the fact that you think it's not the way it should be.
Robert Watson:
Yeah.
Chad Moore:
So yeah, just turn that over on its head.
Robert Watson:
Yeah. So buried inside of all of us, we know there's a should be and we know that we're not in it. We know that things are not as they should be.
Chad Moore:
Yeah. Well, most atheists, my premise is they do believe in God, they're just really mad at him. Because nobody is hyper angry at the Easter Bunny, and yet most of the atheists I talk to, if you really get into the conversation, they're hyper angry at God.
Robert Watson:
Yeah. Hopefully our demographic isn't kids age eight or whatever because they're going to be really devastated to find out about the Easter Bunny thing. So spoiler alert, there's no Easter Bunny.
Chad Moore:
My parenting advice is always tell your kids the truth. I mean, some things are a game. Some things are just for fun. But anyway, that's a sidebar. We'll talk about that another time.
Robert Watson:
So suffering, it is part of life. It is part of the human condition. It is part of all of our experience. So how, in the midst of suffering, can you find hope?
Chad Moore:
Well, I think what you have to realize is there is meaning and purpose in suffering. One of the things that we'll say here at Sun Valley is you grow through what you're going through. Another way that I'll say that is you don't want to waste the pain of life. If I had never suffered, if I never experienced pain, if I never had any issues, man, I would be completely, totally immature. I mentioned parenting a moment ago. If you see a child that's never been disciplined, that's always been excused of the pain and consequence of life. What you have there is a spoiled brat.
Chad Moore:
The thing about human nature and the thing about our sinful nature of the rebellion that's inside of all of us, pain helps us grow. Pain makes us pay attention to God. Who prays when the plane's going down? Everybody, right? We were talking about atheists a little bit. Even my atheist friends would pray if the plane was going down just in case. But when there's no turbulence and everything is smooth sailing, we forget God, we forget to grow. We sit on the couch and watch Netflix and that's it.
Chad Moore:
So there's a purpose in pain and the purpose in pain is to help us grow through what we're going through. And that is philosophically easy to say, right, but it's really hard to live.
Robert Watson:
Yeah. Lindsay and I recently, we've been having this conversation where, we're looking at our kids, we have great kids, we love our kids, we're like, |I think they might have it too good." Because the stuff that they complain about, the stuff that they're upset about, the stuff that they kind of lose their minds over, we're like, this is not a big deal. Your life might be too good. We might need to let you struggle a little bit more than you're currently struggling in order to realize, "Oh, there's more to life than what I'm experiencing. And there are challenges and things are difficult. I'm going to have to overcome those things."
Chad Moore:
Yeah. So one of the hardest truths to accept, and I'm just going to go all the way here.
Robert Watson:
Let's do it.
Chad Moore:
All Right, you're ready? To live is to hurt, to be in any relationship with any depth of any kind is to sooner or later have some hurt. It is part of the human condition. This is why the Bible says the earth groans for the return of Jesus to make all things new. But I think in the modern world, we have this idea that life's supposed to be easy, I'm always supposed to be happy, I'm never supposed to... And that's just not true. You will experience the greatest joys of your life on the other side of working through pain and hurt. It's just part of life.
Chad Moore:
Faith, hope and love, those three things, and the greatest of those three is love, means that there's going to be hurt. Well, why do you have to have faith? Well, because there's going to be hurt. Do you trust God or not? Why do we have to have hope? Because the human soul has to have hope and there's going to be hard times. And what do we do? We choose to love even when it's difficult, but faith, hope and love is what makes life great, and for those to exist, hurt has to exist.
Robert Watson:
And that's a very un-American philosophy-
Chad Moore:
Totally.
Robert Watson:
Because we hate pain in America. I read some stat. There's a book. I think it's called The Gift of {ain. And I was reading through it-
Chad Moore:
Philip Yancey.
Robert Watson:
It talked through even just our consumption of like all the ibuprofen in the world, like 80% of it's consumed in America, all the painkillers, all the whatever. Like we hate pain, yet pain really is a gift from God because it also is an indicator that things are not as they should be. If I'm experiencing pain, yeah, sometimes it's just growing pains, right? But then sometimes it's there's something that's not right. It's like the fire alarm going off or the smoke detectors going off. My problem is not the smoke detector. My solution is not let me turn that thing off, pull out the battery. Good, it's not going off anymore. The issue is there's a fire in the house, that's just the alarm sounding that things are not as they should be and you probably need to get out.
Robert Watson:
And so sometimes the pain we experience, it's an alarm going off that things are not as they should be. That things aren't healthy or aren't right or aren't how God designed them to be.
Chad Moore:
Yeah. Well there's two sides to that, so one is you got a problem, two is you want something better. So there's no beautiful music without the pain of learning to play the instrument, right? There's no beautiful marriage without the pain of working through the intimacy it takes to get there. There's no beautiful athletic performance without the pain of the weight room and the training. So there's two sides to that. One side is warning, the other side is if you want to win at life, there's going to be pain. So one protects us and one provides us something better. Both things are at play.
Robert Watson:
And there's this progression, you have pain, and if you persevere through the pain, now you've built some character, you've built some faith, and now you have hope. Talk about, because you've experienced pain and you've gone through this journey, and on the other side, your faith has grown. Your relationship with God has grown. Your hope has grown.
Chad Moore:
Yeah.
Robert Watson:
Talk us through that process.
Chad Moore:
Yeah. So one of the most common pieces of marriage advice I give, I may have said this here recently on a podcast, is don't give up, grow up, but that's a piece of advice I give to myself in all kinds of areas of life. What pain does is it causes you to pay attention. It is that warning side. And if you persevere through the pain, you do come out different on the other side. I call it the tunnel of chaos. I learned that from another pastor.
Chad Moore:
What we want to do, to your point, as Americans, is we want to avoid the pain. And so there's a hundred different ways to medicate the pain. It doesn't have to be ibuprofen. It can be shopping. It can be a hobby. Whatever I can do to take my mind off the pain, that's what I'll do. But when there's something painful in life and you begin to work through it, it does mature you. It does strengthen you.
Chad Moore:
One of the things that I'm a proponent of is counseling if you have an issue in a relationship. Well, I've gone to counseling, my wife and I have gone to counseling, and I never enjoyed it. Not one time. There was a season in our lives, some people may know this, some may not, but years ago, my wife and I were separated for a time. And so we both decided we were going to work on the marriage. And so counseling was on Tuesdays. And so I'd wake up Tuesday morning and I'd be like, "Oh crap. It's Tuesday," right? Because I don't want to go to counseling. So what are you do in counseling? Well, you deal with the pain. You look at this thing that you want to grow through and deal with.
Chad Moore:
So now, here we are 15 years later, and there's an intimacy and an honesty that we have, that when other people hear about how honest we are with each other, it shocks them. But the only way, so here's the benefit, the only way to experience the real love of God and the real love of someone else is to be courageous enough to be the real you, and the only way you can be the real you is to be honest.
Chad Moore:
And so as much as it took us all kinds of pain to get there, as much as, even in current reality, honesty is painful, it takes us to a place of intimacy that is worth the price. That intimacy is deep. It's rich because it's real. And then of course trust increases and all of that, but we would not experience those moments without the pain to get there. So it strengthens you. It teaches you how to, for lack of a better way to say it, to live in the real. You think of a crazy person, why are they crazy? Well, they don't live in reality. Well, if you avoid pain, you're not living in reality. You're just escaping it.
Chad Moore:
And again, I'll say it this way again, the only way to experience the real love of God and the real love of people is to be courageous enough to be the real you, but real relationships are going to have some real pain. And so you deal with it and then you experience the real joy of it on the other side of that tunnel of chaos.
Robert Watson:
Well, and I can remember you talking about counseling and you didn't have lots of great things to say about it while you were in it, while you were going, and frustrated and all of that because it was gut-wrenching and painful and all of your stuff is just exposed and being brought to light and all of that. And it's just, it's not a fun process. Nobody enjoys that process.
Chad Moore:
Well, yeah. So on the podcast, it's 100% vulnerable here. I remember one day, my Christian counselor, I mean, I just cussed him out and I did not keep it PG. I mean, we went rated R and I let him know what I thought about him. Now he goes to Sun Valley. But out of that, he and I actually built a great friendship because there was so much honesty, right? Had I sat there and went, "Well, I'm the pastor. I'm not going to really let him know how I feel about this," one, I wouldn't have been healed, two, we wouldn't be friends, and three, he probably wouldn't be at Sun Valley. The moral of that story is not cuss more. The moral of that story is life's painful.
Robert Watson:
And don't pretend.
Chad Moore:
Don't pretend. Don't Christianese your way through things [inaudible 00:13:32] speaking language to just mask over what's going on. Life is hard, there's lots of pain in the world and God is good. And if we will choose to grow through what we're going through, there are some great things on the other side.
Robert Watson:
Yeah. So Jesus, as he's praying this prayer and giving us this framework for us to learn how to pray, for us to learn how to relate and connect with God, he's praying, "Your kingdom come," talking to God, "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." So as we're experiencing things not as they should be in this world, how does that apply to this problem of suffering in the world?
Chad Moore:
Okay. So in this moment in the prayer, so I'm going to repeat what you just said just to emphasize it, so your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Well, everything is right in heaven, right?
Robert Watson:
There's a culture to heaven-
Chad Moore:
Yeah.
Robert Watson:
And it's different than the culture we have here.
Chad Moore:
That's exactly right, so we want that in the here and now. So part of the Christian life is we take the ways of heaven into the real world. So let's apply this to pain. Most of life, as far as quality of life, how we grow, what we experience, it is really not about what happens to us, but how we respond to it. And somebody right now is arguing with me in their mind, "Well, this didn't happen to you."
Chad Moore:
Okay. As much as we can, this is not going to be emotionally satisfying, but then we'll come back to it, let's step out of whatever you're feeling or experiencing right now into objectivity. Why is it somebody rich, beautiful, famous, has everything that we want, everything that we think would satisfy us, everything that we think would make life complete and they commit suicide, or they overdose on a drug, or on and on. And they're-
Robert Watson:
Or they're just miserable.
Chad Moore:
Or they're miserable. Yeah, there's dozens of stories of that, right? And yet-
Robert Watson:
That we know if.
Chad Moore:
Yeah.
Robert Watson:
And then there's all the ones that they've done a good enough job masking it. Yeah.
Chad Moore:
Okay. So circumstances are great, and yet, misery. And last week, I'm in the home of a 23 year old kid that's got brain cancer. And this dude like rocked my world full of joy, the attitude that he had, and he wasn't like full of crap when he was telling me this. I mean, I'm with the kid looking him in the eye. It's real. He's met Jesus in the midst of this suffering. So why is it this person in pain is at peace and this person who's pretty and in a moment of prosperity, right, is experiencing turmoil? Because it's not what happens to us, it's how we respond to it.
Chad Moore:
So, "Your will be done," okay, now the emotional side of it, "Your will be done on earth as it isn't heaven," is help me to respond to the reality of the pain of life with heavenly ways.
Robert Watson:
In light of the reality of heaven.
Chad Moore:
In light of the reality to pain, may your heavenly ways work in me in such a way that I respond to the pain of the world like Jesus would if were in my place. Let heaven flow in me and through me. God, work it in, and I will work it out in the world. I mean, that's that part of the prayer.
Chad Moore:
And what I've learned is, okay, so we're talking about counseling and I didn't want to go and all that, you talked about forgiveness a couple of weeks ago, to forgive is to agree with heaven, right? When we practice those heavenly ways, it heals us and it takes us to a place, even if we can't see it right now, it takes us to a place where we're experiencing joy in a heavenly fashion that we didn't even think was possible, right?
Robert Watson:
And we can have joy in suffering.
Chad Moore:
But it's on the other side of the pain. It's through the pain. It's God's will in us in the midst of a broken world. There's a little bit of a mystery to it.
Robert Watson:
Yeah. It's unnatural too. It's supernatural,
Chad Moore:
Well, it's heavenly culture, not earthly culture. And that pain and learning that is one of the things that makes us long for God and long for heaven and long for Jesus, which is why John in the book of Revelation says, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus," and the response from heaven is amen, right? Bring it. But when I grow through what I'm going through, on the other side of that tunnel of chaos there is a little bit of heaven in the real world.
Chad Moore:
There's also, I was talking to a guy the other day that's fallen apart about some different things going on, and my honest opinion was, "Dude, what are you going to do when something real bad happens?" And the reason that is, is because when you walk through pain, and I was gracious and compassionate and all that, that's what I was thinking on the inside, but when you go through some things, that God does some bulletproof stuff on your soul, and you just began to look at life differently. And suddenly, a flat tire is not as big of a deal as it used to be, right?
Robert Watson:
You mentioned visiting with this 20-something year old dealing with brain cancer and all of that.
Chad Moore:
Yeah, yeah.
Robert Watson:
Years ago, there was a student that shared his story. And this is a student who was dying of leukemia and it had come back and the doctor said, "This is it. This is the end of it." 17 year old kid. And the camp that I was a part of, we made this video of his story. And in the video, I'll never forget it, he says, "I'm not afraid for myself." He goes, "I'm dying. I know that." He says, "I'm afraid for everybody else who's so distracted they don't realize that they're dying too." And it was that that pain gave him such clarity and that perspective to understand all of us are dying. All these things we're chasing after are temporary. None of these things are going to satisfy. None of these things are going to last.
Robert Watson:
And so God's kingdom will last. God's kingdom come, that's an investment in our eternity with God. That's perspective. And I just, I'll never forget that 17 year old. "I'm not afraid for myself, I'm afraid for all the other students I go to school with who don't know Jesus and are so distracted with whatever games and chasing after whatever."
Chad Moore:
Oh yeah.
Robert Watson:
It's such a clear perspective.
Chad Moore:
And you think about the person, their biggest issue in life is they want the new outfit they saw in the fashion magazine, or they can't wait to get the new car, and their whole life was about that. How shallow is that person? How weak are they and how unfulfilled can you be? And yet all of us have this idea that that's where it's at. And then you meet another person that's walked through some pain that has some depth to them, and that's who you want to hang out with, right? Just because that is a little bit of heaven in the real world. It's focusing on what matters most. It's allowing your kingdom come, your will be done in me regardless of what's happening in the world. And it's just a whole other level.
Chad Moore:
When Christians realize that it's about Jesus, you really began to grow up. I'm going to take us on a little sidebar here, but we'll come back. This whole prosperity theology thing will lead you to utter despair and emptiness, this whole idea that God is a means to my end versus God is enough. And what I've learned in my life is when Jesus is all you have, you really realize he's all I need. And it just takes you to another level. And then, when good things happen in life or whatever, you just enjoy it at a whole other level. When bad things happen in life, it doesn't stop you or crush you because there's a deep work that God's done on your soul.
Robert Watson:
That runs way deeper than our circumstances.
Chad Moore:
So somebody that's suffering right now, great prayer is your kingdom come, your will be done in me, as it is in heaven. May heavenly ways flow in me and through me, regardless of what I'm going through.
Robert Watson:
Yeah. And whatever you're going through, as my Grandma always says, this too shall pass.
Chad Moore:
Yeah.
Robert Watson:
It's temporary.
Chad Moore:
Yeah, grow through what you're going through. So I won't quote your grandma, I'll quote Winston Churchill. If you're going through hell-
Robert Watson:
Keep going.
Chad Moore:
You just want to keep going. Yeah, you don't want to stay there. So you just keep moving forward. And life is hard. And life is also seasonal, to your grandma's point. There are wintery, horrible, icy, cold days, but summer's coming and God can be trusted. Yeah.
Robert Watson:
That's good. Well, we're out of time, and so I think we'll wrap up here. Just real quick, one last question. What's one thing that people who are listening don't know about you? Anything. Go.
Chad Moore:
Oh, well, I've been at Sun Valley for 15 years and I think I've told all my stories.
Robert Watson:
So I've worked with you for 16 years and I just found out last week that you grew up with an alligator.
Chad Moore:
Oh yeah. That's true.
Robert Watson:
Nobody knows that.
Chad Moore:
Okay. Well, technically, you wanted to change the subject from suffering, didn't you? So technically, I did not grow up with an alligator, my dad had an alligator. And his name was Jimmy James and he lived in a little pond. We call it a stock tank in Texas. My parents were divorced, so my dad had a place kind of outside the city, had some acreage. And he had this little alligator somebody gave him. And he would ride out on the tractor and throw marshmallows in the middle of the pond. And this little alligator would swim out.
Chad Moore:
Well, I came home from college, and that alligator, last time I saw it, it was like a foot and a half long, just a little baby. The thing was like three and a half feet long. And I'm out there fishing and I'm like, "Dad, Jimmy James is massive." And my dad's like, "Oh yeah, I've been feeding him marshmallows." And then one day, Jimmy James just went missing. And I'm like, "What happened to him?" and he goes, "Well, he probably went for bigger water. He's stretching out."
Robert Watson:
So you thought. He was just waiting for you to get lured back into the stock tank.
Chad Moore:
Maybe.
Robert Watson:
He needed a bigger meal than marshmallows.
Chad Moore:
Yeah. Okay, that's something. I've never told that story at Sun Valley. So yeah, we had an alligator and his name was Jimmy James.
Robert Watson:
All right. Well, you've come a long way, Chad.
Chad Moore:
I guess. I kind of miss the alligator days, frankly. I have days lately I'm like, "You know, it'd be all right being out on the tractor and throwing marshmallows out to Jimmy James and mowing the pasture."
Robert Watson:
And feeding marshmallows to Jimmy James.
Chad Moore:
But anyway, I digress.
Robert Watson:
All right. Suffering. Thanks for joining us for this podcast.
Chad Moore:
"Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is heaven." That's great stuff.
Robert Watson:
We'll see you guys next time.
Chad Moore:
All right.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for joining us this week on the Loving God. Loving people. podcast. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast wherever you're listening to us so you'll never miss an episode. While you're at it, if you found value in this conversation, we'd love it if you left us a review or shared this podcast with a friend. Doing that will help us reach and help more people meet, know, and follow Jesus. And lastly, you're always welcome to join us online or in person for one of our services every week at live.sv.cc. Thanks for joining us.