 has heard no mind what God has for you today. And that is hope. I'm Amy Schaefer. I am here with Corey and Sidney Sidney. Tell us about our guest today. Well, you know, long suffering is a fruit of the spirit. But how many of us truly want to go through hardship and endure pain? Well, coming up on hope today, we're going to have a conversation with Glenn Damon, a pastor from Washington state who was passionate about helping the body of Christ navigate through tough times and discover God's character in the midst of it. You know, Corey and Amy, I think this is a conversation. We all walk through storms. You know, I've heard it's either you're out of a storm, you're about to walk through one, you're in one, you're coming out of one. But it's so important for us, Corey, to just really understand and have a perspective of God when we're going through trials and tribulations. And you know, when I think about that word navigation, I think about a ship and a boat. And I think about the different generations like I'm part of the millennial generation, then there's the baby boomers. And sometimes there's this disconnect of information. And I think that both sides need to really listen. And it's such a wonderful thing when the elders can come and begin to say, Hey, I've been through these storms. I've learned how to navigate the winds, the winds of change, the winds of family, the winds and dynamics of relationships and ministry. And as time changes, it's important that we take the time to use wisdom and say, Hey, listen, how do I do this without sinking my ship and sinking my life at the same time? So this is a really good conversation. I love this topic. I just love hardships and trials and suffering and tribulation. It's my favorite thing ever. It's funny because my favorite scripture growing up was, you know, in this world, you'll have trouble and trials and tribulations, but be a good cheer. I've overcome the world. And at that age and stage, I had not even touched of trials or tribulations or suffering. But I do know this, that it is that deep work of God in you when you do go through stuff, when you go through the fire, when you go through the storm, when you go through the winds, you go through the floods. That is when some deep things come out of you and you see the deep things of God. That is why, Sydney, you have to know the character of God. It's better to know before you enter the trial than it is when you're just trying to figure it all out and get lost. Yeah, you know, I think it too, like when you're walking through hardships and tribulations and trials, there's even times where God, he reveals an aspect of himself. And I know our guests, he'll be sharing about that in just a moment. And, you know, as always here on Hope Today, our heart is for you. We know that many of you you call into Cornerstone, which produces Hope Today from all different parts of whether you're in the Pennsylvania area, you're in Pittsburgh, you're in Florida, Alabama, wherever you are. I know we have like when we're on YouTube, if you watch us from there, that a lot of you are really walking through some hardships and some hard times and we don't want to make light of any of those situations. And we just want to let you know that we are always here for you 24-7 and we have a prayer line that we would love for you to call. You can call at any point, any moment during the show at 888-665-4483 because this is why we exist and why we're here because we want you to hold on to Jesus and know that you're not alone. Well, you know, if you're going through a storm or even feel shipwrecked, this next conversation is for you. And joining us today, I talk about how to shelter in the struggles of life is Pastor Glenn Damon of River Christian Church in Stevenson, Washington. And as we dive into this conversation, it is our heart here on Hope Today. You will have a greater revelation about God, his nature and character as you are going through life. Pastor Glenn, we're so glad to have you joining with us today. Well, thank you. It's a joy to be here. And even though it's early morning on the West Coast, it's still good to be here. Well, we're so glad that you are up and you're ready just to pour out your heart and wisdom to our viewers. And before we dive into our conversation about how to navigate through the storms and the struggles of life, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Well, I grew up on a farm in Idaho. And then from there, I've been pastoring rural churches. And that's kind of been the focus of my ministry. And so for the last 30 years, I've been here in Stevenson, just serving the Lord and enjoying learning to grow in him. And I think that's the journey. The journey really is not about ministry. It is so much about just growing in Christ and growing in the understanding of him. Yeah, it's so important to just like growing in our knowledge and understanding of God. And I just want to ask you, Pastor Glenn, so what has your experience been like as a pastor? You know, you wrote a book called The Lighthouse where you really help people navigate through the struggles and hardship of life. So can you tell us what your experience has been? You said that you've pastored like small churches in different places. What has it been like for you to walk with people that are going through hardships? What has God shown you? Well, I think, you know, the reality is life is is filled with hardship. I mean, we are constantly imbarded, bombarded with with challenges. And I think back at this last four or five years, the amount of changes that have occurred in in our culture and in our society. And really these devotionals were an outgrowth of kind of COVID when that hit. And how did I how were we to connect with people when we were kind of isolated? The church was shut down for a time. And so these devotionals were really written from that context, because we have a culture today that's just driven by fear. You know, we see fear today in terms of politics, we see fear today in terms of all the environmental issues. COVID certainly struck fear into hearts of people. And so as a pastor, you know, how do we encourage people and how do we give them strength to face the challenges that our culture is now facing? And so that's really, really the starting point of of the book. And what my desire is, is that that we really develop a better view of God. You know, I think that the problem is we are, the scripture says we are to fear the Lord and to fear him. But the problem is we fear everything but God. And we have to go back and recognize that God is the one who established this universe. He's the one that's in control. And so we don't need to fear because the crisis we're facing, I think in our culture today, and it doesn't matter whether it's in our culture or in our individual lives, the crisis is not a crisis of morality. It's a crisis of theology. It's a crisis of our understanding of God and who he is and how that connects with us in our life and how we then view our life because how we understand God will influence how we view our circumstances and the adversity that we face and the struggles we face. And so that's really been the bulk of what I've learned in ministry is that people are facing challenges. I face challenges every day, but it only comes from my relationship with God. Can I deal with those challenges? In a past, Glenn, you brought up like a really good point, I think, at this whole idea of fearing the Lord. I mean, we know fear is so rampant in our culture. And we even see like after the pandemic, there's so many of these aftershocks, you know, like so many people are just suffering and going through things. So what would you say when it comes to fearing the right thing, fearing the Lord, but when you're walking through a hardship and a hard time, how does that go hand in hand? How do we have the fear of the Lord and how does that fit into when we are walking through suffering? Because suffering is inevitable in the human experience. I think the book of Job gives us a good example of that. You know, as you read the book of Job, the thing that Job was dealing with when he went through that incredible suffering where he lost everything. The question that Job was dealing with was why? Why did God allow this to happen? Why did God bring these circumstances into my life? And that was the question his three friends that showed up that they were asking as well. And that's the question we always ask when we're going through suffering is why me? Why is God allowing this? But really the key to the book of Job is found when a life who shows up who was kind of the fourth friend and he comes along the scene and he says you're asking the wrong question. Instead of asking why, we need to be asking who. You know, who is the one that's in control? Who is the one that's overseeing our universe? When we think about suffering, you know, we deal with the why, but God calls us to deal with the who and to recognize he's in control and he's the one that's overseeing. He's the one that's orchestrating things. I always like to say that God is not the cause of evil. He's not the cause of suffering. We live in a broken world because of sin and sin brings suffering, but he's the orchestrator of those things that he takes those things and he orchestrates them according to his purpose so that he can bring his change in us and his perspective in our lives. And that's what we need to get out of suffering is suffering is the tool that God uses to reorient our thinking because it confronts us with our values. It confronts us with what's important and it confronts us with our understanding of God. If we have a limited understanding of God, then our problem is going to be overwhelming. Paul says, you know, that all things work together for good to them that are called according to his purpose. He doesn't say all things are good because suffering is not good. It's not part of God's design, but he works and he accomplishes his purpose in the midst of our suffering. But when we have a faulty view of God, when our God becomes too small, then our problems become overwhelming. And that's why I say that really what we have in the struggle with suffering is a theological question, not just a circumstantial question. You know, oh, go ahead, Pastor Glenn. I didn't mean to go ahead. Now, one thing I just love like what you're talking about, because there's like two quotes in your book that were just really hit home for me. And you said one of them is trials and adversity are tool God uses to strip away insignificant things in our lives. And the second one is the issue is not the size of the struggles we face, rather the real issue is the size of the God in whom we trust. And I know a lot of times, even in my own life, when I'm walking through something, it's sometimes it's just like that question of why am I going through this God? What is happening? And I love what you're saying is just like looking at who he is and having a greater understanding and perspective of the nature and character of God. Pastor Glenn, I just want to ask you, can you share with us the time that you went through a really rough time and then God showed you who he is? Boy, there's there's a number of them. But even recently, you know, I've been going through some challenges in ministry. You know, ministry is the call to ministry is a call to pain. And I think sometimes as pastors, we don't realize that. And when we start ministry, you know, I've been in circumstances where some of the people closest to me have ended up being critical and my ministry. And so there's always that challenge. But one of the things that I like to do is I like to go out at night and take night pictures of the Milky Way, because it's a reminder to me of how big God is. The James Webb Telescope has estimated that the furthest light out there, the furthest star is 28 billion light years away. Well, a light year is, you know, the speed of light is to go around the earth seven times in a second. That's the speed of light. Now multiply that by 28 billion light years. And the Bible says he measures the universe with the span of his hand. Now, if our God is that big, and I think when we're going through trials, and when I go through trials and I'm, you know, facing circumstances, and we all have them where we're we're faced with our limitation, because that's what trials confront us with our failures, our limitations. And we face circumstances that are beyond our ability. We need to remember that the God who measures the universe with the span of his hand is the one who says I will take care of you. And that's why, you know, to me, it just helps me to realign when I go out and look at the stars and just remember God is so much bigger than anything that I face. And he's in control and he's got a purpose for this. But his perspective is different than mine. My perspective is how does this affect me in the here and now? How does this affect me in the present? God's perspective is how does this affect eternity? And so in our suffering, he realigns us to get us to view things from an eternal perspective rather than a present's perspective. And Pastor Go and I love that so much and just seeing like that vision. I know the three of us when you were just speaking about, I know for AV being a pastor when you were talking about, you know, building a church, it's like it's just a ministry of pain. But just even in the midst of like what you're walking through and what you're going through, just that vision of you just standing out and looking at the galaxy, looking at what our creator made. What? Ah, like sometimes I think all of us like that those moments when we're able to go out in nature, I love going on walks and just being among the trees and just even being like, God, you did really, really good on earth that we get to live here and enjoy it. And you know, Pastor Go and I just really just feel in my spirit, you know, a lot of people can relate to what you're walking through of a hardship, especially in ministry or maybe their ministry might be in their job or with their family. Can you just take a moment and speak to the heart of that viewer, that person that's watching right now that really feels like everything is out of control. Can you take a moment just to speak to their heart? Well, again, we look at God. Our tendency, how does the finite grass the infinite because that's the struggle. And we grasp the infinite by making him finite. So in order to try to understand God, we bring him down to our level and we make him into kind of a Superman, but he's still a man. And the challenge, I think in the midst of suffering is going back and saying, God is so much grander than we can imagine. And he's infinite in all of his attributes and all of his character. So we have to put our circumstances within the context of that by just learning to trust in him. You know, Psalms 37 says, delight yourself in the Lord and he'll give you the desires of your heart. That's not a blank check. That's a promise that if we delight in him, he becomes the desire of our hearts. And I, you know, you look at people that go through incredible suffering. My wife had just read the autobiography of Corey Ten Boom. And we look at her life and we look at Joni Eriksson. You know, here are individuals that have gone through incredible suffering, but they've triumphed through that. And the reason was is because they learned that their delight was not in their circumstances or their situation. Their delight was in God. And that's, I think, what we we've lost some in our Christian faith is that we focus on our worship, on what God has done for us rather than who he is. And when our focus is only on what he has done for us, the problem is then we become driven by not only emotionally by our circumstances, but theologically by our circumstances. And God invites us into a relationship to know him. And when we know him, the more we know him, the more we realize from an internal perspective how these things that we face in the present really are temporary. What's eternal is that relationship with him. And that's to me where it starts dealing with suffering in our life. That's so good. Pastor Glenn, when you were studying the attributes of God, what was one of the most shocking attributes that's maybe sort of off of our radar? I think the one that we probably struggle with the most that I think is the most difficult for all of us to grasp is holiness. You know, because we can we got a sense of love because we love. We got a sense of righteousness and justice and and but his absolute holiness that he is absolutely perfect and pure and all that he does and who he is. That's the one attribute that I think that we really struggle with and probably won't fully grasp until we get to heaven that he is he is pure untainted by sin. And the remarkable thing is the holy God is willing to enter into a relationship with us. And that's something that I don't think we'll ever fully understand the wonder of that. Pastor Glenn, I just think even that word holy, I think of times, you know, in worship when we just think, holy, holy, holy, we're crying out. I mean, it just does something to us just to recognize the holiness, just having that reverence and awe for God. And, you know, we just thank you so much for just taking this time to just share your heart and your wisdom, how we can just suffer well and just keeping our eyes on Jesus. Thank you so much for joining us all the way on the other side of the nation in Washington state. Well, thank you for having me. It's been an honor and my pleasure. And his book is called The Lighthouse Discovering Security and the Radiance of God's Character. And when we come back, we're going to take a moment just to speak to your heart, to encourage you and to inspire you. If you are walking through a storm and if you feel shipwrecked, well, guess what? We have a special word just for you. We'll be right back. No matter your age or circumstances, God wants you to move forward. Join bestselling author and teacher, Dr. David Jeremiah in a master class, revealing how to live fearlessly. You'll discover that it's never too late to find your purpose. Dr. David Jeremiah reveals powerful ways for people of any age to live a life that's meaningful. Inside forward, you'll uncover strong Bible teaching coupled with incredible real life stories and practical biblical insight. Learn how God wants to expand your dreams, give you divine direction, equip you with tools to overcome fear and much more. Request your copy of this life changing book when you support Cornerstone Television. Call 888-665-4483 or give online at ctvn.org slash donate. Find air times for a turning point with Dr. David Jeremiah at ctvn.org. Donate and request his book forward. Thank you for your partnership with Cornerstone TV. We just came off of an amazing conversation with pastor and doctor, Glenn Damon. In today's scripture, I want to read this to you that we want to reflect on today. It's from John chapter 8, verse 12. And it says, Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won't have to walk in darkness because you will have the light that leads to life. This is such a powerful scripture. I love that the Bible is really filled with if then statements. If you walk with me, you will have light. And light in this scenario is not just the visible, tangible light, but the mental light, the clarity. I think that's what everyone wants. People are always asking questions. You're going to videos on YouTube. You're looking up things on Google. How do I, how to get through? How can you fix? How, how, how, how? And sometimes God will lead you to the end of your house and getting to the end of you because I think a lot of times it's ego and it's a sense of pride as well to say God, I'm not going to acknowledge you when he says acknowledge me in all your ways and I will direct your path. Many times we feel like I have to figure this out myself. I have to, I have to figure this out. So Google, you tell me. And, and so the God of our own intellect begins to be the one that we worship with our questions and with our thought processes. And if you're in darkness right now and you're getting to the end of yourself, this is a primary opportunity to humble yourself and say, God, I don't really know what I'm doing. There's a scripture in Proverbs. It says there is a way that a man thinks in his heart to be right. But the end of that way is destruction. I remember the first time reading that scripture, I was terrified to know that I could think that this is the right way. This is the right thing to do. But I am so off from the direction that God wants me to be. And understanding this is there's a difference between what is good and what is God. Now God is always good. And sometimes we'll see, oh, this is a good opportunity, but if it's not a God opportunity, it could be a trap for you somewhere in your life. So if there's some areas of clarity, I'm telling you, I encourage you to humble yourself and just get in God's presence and begin to ask God. Just ask him, say, God, I don't know what to do about this job. God, I don't know what to do about this marriage. God, how do I parent my kids? God, what do I do about all of the addictive apps that they're using in time? I mean, I think this is something that resonates and I know that Pastor Amy, you probably have so much insight with your children growing and with family. Share with us some ways of clarity that would help people today. Well, number one, I've been shipwrecked before. Number two, I've watched my kids shipwreck. Number three, you might be in a shipwreck right now. I mean, it happens where you're headed somewhere, you're going somewhere, you're on this journey, and then it doesn't turn out like you expected. It's shocking. Like, I mean, I've stood at times just shocked that it didn't turn out as I had planned. So when I read this scripture and I read that you will have the light that leads to life, I'm thinking about that revelation light. Like when you're in a moment, you don't know what to do. You've talked to all the counselors, you've gone to the pastor, you just feel stuck. What do I do? You need what we call revelation light, where the Holy Spirit will bring something to your remembrance. He'll lead you and guide you into all truth. He is the way out. He knows the way out. He knows your life. He knows the next step to take. So what I'm asking today is for you to ask, God show me, give me revelation, insight, supernaturally of what my next step is to get out of this addiction, out of this depression, out of this constant mental torment or pain or physical pain. God, give me that revelation light. And I believe that that light in your life will help lead to life or to that lighthouse. There is an answer for you today. You are not in the dark anymore. That is, that's good news to me. You're not in the dark anymore today. You're walking in the light as he is in the light. I just love this conversation because I think all of us, I mean, as much as we don't like to talk about suffering, let's keep it real. Nobody wants to be going through. You know, when everything, usually it happens, I know in my life, maybe it's not for you, maybe I don't, it probably does. Like everything is going well. You're like, oh, this is coming to pass. Look at God's promise. I'm praying that I'm all happy then, boom. And it just slaps you in the face and it knocks you off of your knees and you're just like, what happened? What's going on, Lord God? Like I'm holding on to your word. I'm believing what you said. Like this isn't the way that I thought it was going to turn out. And in those moments, it can feel so crushing and you feel like, where are you, God? Have you, have I missed it? Have you forgotten me? Do you see that I am your child? And you are crying out maybe in the middle of the night and you're like, God, do you see me right now? And it is in those moments. And I think one of the scriptures that sometimes comes to my mind is count it all joy when you face trials of every kind. And even in those moments, and I encourage you to do this, I will just start lifting up my hands and I will begin to declare who God is. I'll be like, God, you are faithful. God, you are my rescuer. God, you are my deliverer. And in those moments, I begin to take my mind off of what I am going through and I focus it on God and I say, you are a good God. No matter what it looks like, maybe I don't understand what's going on but you know what's best for me and I am going to trust you. Though you slay me yet, I trust you. And it's this place that we have to get into our walks with God where we're just like, we live in a fallen and a broken world, y'all. It is the truth. People are crazy. Things go down. It's not the way God intended. But you know what? I love that Jesus is the way. And when you hold on to Jesus in the midst of the midnight hour, when you cry out to him, he will carry you. And I'm speaking from a place where I have been multiple times, where I have seen Jesus literally carry me through the midst of the storm and what I've been walking through. And if that is you today, we are just inviting you to hold on to Jesus, allow him to carry you through the suffering and know he is not letting you go and he's gonna walk you through that pain and that trial and that suffering. And we are so glad that you have joined us today on Hope Today because this is why we exist. This is why we do what we do to encourage you. We're throwing out a hope rope to you today and saying, hold on, baby, to Jesus because it's gonna be all right. Weeping indoors for a night, but joy comes in the morning. You might be in a night season, but let this be a sign to you today that your joy, the morning season, the morning time, it is coming and you hold on to Jesus. You stand on the word. You keep praising him. You keep worshiping him and know that better days are coming. We love you so much. We are always here for you. Have a great day. On Tomorrow's Hope Today, discover the key ingredient to pursuing true happiness. Author Anthony De Stefano shares how you can find true joy and happiness by inspiring you to seek after the one who matters most. Don't miss Tomorrow's Hope Today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.