 Hey guys, what's up? It's Isaac David and this is The Daily Disciple where I help you follow Jesus daily. Today we're doing something a little bit different. I asked you guys on Instagram, asked me any questions about theology, life, personal, whatever, and you did not disappoint. So today we're doing a little Q&A. If you want to submit a question next time, make sure you're following me on Instagram at its Isaac David. Now, without further ado, let's get into it. There's a lot of questions, so I'm going to try to keep my answers pretty short. First question is, how do I overcome doubts about God? I'm not sure if this is in context to his existence or his goodness, but in either case, look at the evidence of his existence in all of creation and of his goodness in your life. The fact that you have family relationships, a place to live, like food to eat, that is all evidence of God's goodness. So let that play into your belief in his goodness, right? It's evidence for it. So there's no reason to doubt, even still, our feelings don't always reflect reality and sometimes we may still struggle to trust. But in that case, we got to continue to follow our values even when our feelings don't line up. What's the biblical answer to loneliness? Well, I would say is that ultimately the answer to loneliness is full connection with God and intimacy with Jesus. When we experience loneliness, that's an aspect and a result of the fall because our connection with others and with God was broken off. But because of Jesus, now that relationship can be mended and even though we still experience those, that loneliness, that disconnection on earth, we can get a taste of that connection and intimacy with God when we trust in him and follow him and continue on in intentionally pursuing that relationship with him through reading our Bible and through prayer and also fellowship with other believers. When are you planning on writing another book? I'm not exactly sure. For those of you don't know, I've published a book already led her to my father, what your son wants to tell you, but doesn't you can pick it up if you have a dad or whatever you are a dad. It's great for fathers and sons. When am I going to write another book? I'm not sure. Writing a book is a lot of work, so whatever the topic is or issue, I need to be really, really passionate about it in order to get a full book's worth out. So I'm just waiting for that kind of thing, that idea to spark. What are your thoughts on the balance of waiting and action in life and love with God's timing? This is actually something that I've thought a lot about over the last year or so because I used to be of the mindset that it's like, no, you just do your thing, don't even worry about it, and eventually God will present you in terms of like a romantic relationship. He'll present you with somebody and it'll all be good. But we don't treat a lot of other things in life that way. We don't treat like having food, right? We have to go work for food. We have to go out. We have to do things in order to live our lives. We don't expect God to just put it in front of us. And I think that's the same way with relationships. I don't think we should be desperate or forcing anything to happen, but I do think we should be intentional in engaging in friendships and relationships, being intentional in community and leaving opportunity for those, I don't know, connections to be made and for those relationships to flourish. What does that look like practically? I think that means intentionally getting in a community with guys and girls, people from the opposite gender and forming friendships with them. And that doesn't mean forcing anything or like you have to be with this person. But it does mean intentionally spending time with people to really like, I don't know, invite and open those opportunities up. God just didn't like, just doesn't always just say like, oh sit, just do your thing, like, you know, stay home, whatever, I'll do everything for you. Like, no, we got to go out, take action that doesn't mean forcing anything. How have you been doing during lockdown? For those of you who don't know, I live in Canada, Winnipeg to be specific, and COVID restrictions are still insane up here. I know for a lot of people in the United States and maybe across the world, I'm not sure. But for people in the States, it's like, I'm seeing everything open up and everyone's getting back to their normal life. That's not the way it is here. So it's been challenging. It's definitely given me a lot of opportunity to work on ministry, online ministry and stuff like that and study and self development. But it's been really, it's been a taxing season and I'm looking forward to the next. If you had to move anywhere in Canada, where would you want to live? Well, I already live in Canada, but somewhere else in Canada, I would move to Banff or Jasper. Absolutely beautiful if you've ever been there. Some of the best that those are like two best places in Canada, in my opinion. Do you think more men are embracing purity, waiting for marriage, even if they weren't before? This is interesting. I don't know if more men are per se, I guess I'm in a community where a lot of guys are committed to pursuing this kind of life of purity and sexual purity. I know pornography is still a huge issue for people in terms of like relationships. I think there is a significant amount of guys that are like Christian guys that are committed to saving themselves for marriage and I think that's awesome. I think the big trouble right now is though the pornography issue and recently actually launched a boot camp. It's called the online purity boot camp that helps you break free from lust and online pornography. And if you're interested in it, you can go to the link in my bio and get it. It's a 10 part video series and it's going to help you break the shackles of lust and online pornography. It's such a big issue. Even if you pray with faith, why do bad things still happen? This is the biggest, the biggest question I feel like we all have to deal with is even though we have faith, why doesn't God just fix things? Like why doesn't God just make people healthy that we pray to be healthy? Or why doesn't he protect people that we pray for them to be protected? Or why doesn't he give us the things that we ask for and pray for with faith? And I mean the prosperity gospel movement will try to convince you that it's because you don't have enough faith that you don't get those things, that bad things happen. You need to have more faith and if you've had enough faith, then God would give you everything you want. Money, fame, popularity, health, wealth, success, all of it. But that's not a biblical perspective. According to the Bible, suffering plays an important part in the life of the believer. In Romans 5 verse 3 it says this, more than that we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. We can't pretend to know God's exact plans or purposes and why we experience these different sufferings or why these bad things happen, but what we can have faith in is that God is using them all for our good, our eternal good and His glory. And if we can truly trust in Him knowing that He has the standard of goodness, He is the Alpha and the Omega, He is in control, He is sovereign over circumstances and He is a loving Father for us, I think that's where we need to be even when we don't understand. How do you deal with spiritual discouragement? This is a really tough thing. I think I'm going off the last question. When you have a prayer, like a very specific prayer and it doesn't seem to be answered, that can be really discouraging. You're asking God, why are you doing this? I really wanted this. Like, this was something that was really, really important to me. And it's almost like a close friend, you ask a close friend to do something and then they fall through and you're kind of like taking it back. You're like, I thought we, I thought we had that connection, right? And so that spiritual discouragement can be real or even just getting apathetic in your faith. I think the first thing that we need to do is understand that our emotions, like all that disappointment and maybe that discouragement, like those things will try to fuel us into pulling us away from God. Those things will try to reaffirm lies that we're already believing. God doesn't care about me, God's not with me. All this doesn't really matter. And it'll try to play into those things and pull you away from God. But what we need to do is see, okay, these are negative emotions that I'm experiencing here, but I want to reorient my focus off of these emotions onto Jesus because I want to follow Jesus. I want to follow my values over what I'm feeling. That's where I need to be led and that's where I need to be going. So even when I do feel discouraged, I keep moving towards Christ. Even though it may be tougher and it's not as pretty and it's more messy and maybe my Bible reading isn't as enthusiastic or my prayers are more stale, I'm going to continue to move towards Christ because it's not about how I feel, it's about where I've put my trust because ultimately my trust is in Christ and even though my feelings doesn't reflect that always, I'm going to continue to move towards Him and that's what I encourage you. Don't just put a stop on everything just because you don't feel it today. No, continue on knowing that your feelings don't need to define your walk with Christ. Feelings will come and go. There'll be beautiful joy and fulfillment and just excitement in Christ and some days there'll be discouragement and disappointment but we continue to follow Christ because He has given everything for us to know us to have that intimate relationship with us. Where do you see yourself in five years? I have no idea. I have no idea. Like I could tell you where I would like to be in five years. I'd like to be self-employed, I'd like to be married, maybe a kid, I don't know, but that's kind of like where my heart is. I'm just going to try to work hard and do the best I can. Even though feelings of insecurity and not measuring up come up quite a bit, I'm still going to press on and we'll see what happens in the next five years. But yeah, that's where I'd like to be. I'd like to be doing Daily Disciple and Redeem 180. For those of you who don't know what Redeem 180 is, you can follow it on Instagram at redeem underscore 180, I'm pretty sure, or just at Redeem 180. But that's an organization all committed to helping the everyday Christian user, social media platform for Jesus and just Daily Disciple helping you follow Jesus daily. Like some of those ministries, man, that is my life right now, that is what I'm so committed to. And when I'm able to do that full time, I will be like so thrilled with that. That's where I see myself in the next five years, maybe in a relationship, maybe married. Yeah, but I mean, ultimately, I think we can get so out of hand with these five-year plans, 10-year plans is where I want to be. This is where I'm going. And I used to be really obsessed with that. But then I just realized that all of those things, every time I made one, it was just total, like, not true. God led me in a different direction or He moved me in a different way. And ultimately, we don't know. And so I'd rather be responsible, plan for the future, strategize, do all that, yes, but also know that you are following Christ. You're not following your own plan, your own strategy, your own desires, your own dreams, your following God's dream for you. And that's going to be the best thing for you. You can trust Him in that. Okay, I don't want to make this video too long. So if you have another answer to one of these questions, leave it in the comments down below. I'm sure people would love to hear from you. Thank you so much to all my patrons on Patreon. There is an amazing 40 patrons on Patreon. The goal is to get to 50. So if you can help and support on a monthly basis, five bucks a month, and you can join on Patreon, that would be absolutely amazing link in bio to do that. Thank you so much guys for watching and I will see you next time. God bless.