E52 Are You Under Attack? How To Discern Consequences, Open Doors and God’s Refining Process (Part 2)

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Jen Cudmore (00:00)
When things go wrong in your life, how do you respond? Last week I mentioned how many believers are quick to blame the devil when life seems hard or complicated and today I want to look at the opposite extreme which is blaming yourself and calling it punishment. And same as before my goal is to challenge the viewpoint. It’s the idea that God punishes people for their mistakes. So this episode is going to be part two. Join me for today’s discussion as we develop awareness and discernment around what’s really going on when we encounter trials and problems. So let’s dive in.

Welcome to Into the Depths podcast. Thanks for joining me today. This is where we have conversations that go below the surface of life.

And today I wanna cover ⁓ kind of the idea of why bad things happen to us, but more in the sense of looking at it from a lens of how can I learn, how can I grow, how can I handle this well? Not so much of big, terrible situations where we’re like, God, I don’t understand why. So let me tell you a story because this just happened to me the other day. To me, this was super crazy.

I was getting ready, doing my makeup, and I accidentally poked myself in the eye. So my eyes were watering like crazy, and I had mascara everywhere. It took me a while to kind of get that back under control and get that cleaned up. Well then, a little bit later, I was sitting on the sofa, and my cat jumped on my lap, and so I started petting her, and she bit my chin. I ended up with a…

two holes in my chin and they were bleeding. It took a few minutes to get it to stop bleeding. I was like, that was super random. I don’t think she’s ever drawn blood before. Well, then I happened to be recording some episodes that day. And of course, in the middle of one of my recordings, the internet went out. So I kind of had to sit there for a few minutes, like, is this ruined? Do I need to start over? Thankfully, I just kept going and it managed to catch itself and it didn’t ruin the episode. So I didn’t have to start all over.

But then later in the day, I went to switch over my laundry and I realized that my washing machine, which is only a few years old, had actually ate the leg of one of my satin pajama pants. And so like, I couldn’t figure out how to get it out. And so I called my husband, he tried, we ended up having to grab my brother-in-law and have him come over with some tools so we could take it apart and rescue these.

pajamas and by the way, the kicker of the day was we got a surprise bill in the mail for $8,000 or something that was years old that we had no idea they’re saying that we owe. ⁓ looking at this, I’m like, okay, this is a lot of like negative things all happening in one day. Is this a clue? So like, you know, we all have days where there could be different reasons why these kinds of things happen. One extreme would be to say, ⁓

I must have did something I must be doing something right and the enemy is attacking me. It’s a satanic attack because he doesn’t want me to accomplish what the Lord is calling me to do. I could have very easily said that, but when I asked the Lord, I mean, I did pause and say, okay, this seems like quite a coincidence. feel like this probably means something with this many things. And I asked, is this spiritual warfare going on? Do I need to pay attention and protect myself from the enemy? And I felt the Lord…

just reassure me that no, these are just normal things that sometimes happen. And I could have looked at that and felt like a victim, like, my gosh, the enemy is really like coming after me. this is why I wanted to pause and be like, OK, let me just ask the Lord what’s going on so that I can make sure that I respond in a healthy manner. But I think another extreme that I’ve recently noticed is that

Sometimes people will look at a day like this and think, my gosh, all these bad things happened to me all at the same time. It must be because I made a mistake or I’ve held onto some sin and God is punishing me. And so that’s where I kind of want to target this episode because I feel like there’s a lot of wrong perspectives ⁓ or a lot of lies that goes into that perspective, I guess I should say. So on the last episode, I addressed the idea that when it comes to when things go wrong,

Sometimes well-meaning Christians assume the enemy is the culprit. And I recorded that episode weeks ago, several weeks over a month ago. And since then, I’ve just kind of been thinking on it and pondering it. Like, I don’t know if I fully rounded it out and completed it. And so that’s why I’m circling back for this part too, because I feel like I had some more things that I wanted to say and expound on. And again, before we dive too deep, let me just really reiterate. Like, we’re not talking about crisis and calamity.

Well, I’m not referring to anything like traumatic events or tragedy or major loss. This conversation is just around inconvenience and negative circumstances and discomfort, such as your car breaking down or the things that I mentioned at the beginning of the episode. last week I shared that there are four legit reasons why bad things or difficult situations come on us. Number one, it could be open doors, right? You’ve allowed the enemy.

access to torment you because you’re like holding on to unforgiveness. ⁓ You maybe have objects in your home that were dedicated to idols. You perhaps maybe you’ve got some wrong boundaries around your entertainment because electronics can be a portal to allow enemies into your life. There’s there’s so many ways that there could be open doors and those are just a couple of them. The second one is that

It’s simply just the consequence. Every action brings a reaction, right? It’s the idea of sowing and reaping. If you don’t put oil in your car, guess what? It’s eventually gonna stop working. It needs oil to run. If you don’t invest in a relationship, then eventually that relationship will peter out and it will end. So these are just normal results.

from something that happened. So maybe what you’re encountering is just simply a result from a choice that you made. The third ⁓ reason that things could possibly be going wrong in your life is simply, it’s just normal life. There’s actually no technical reason why. ⁓ Life just happens, right? Nobody did anything wrong. Nobody made a mistake. I mean, the reality is appliances are gonna stop working at some point. Weather challenges are going to happen.

Like these are just normal life things and it’s not necessarily the enemy coming after you. And then I think the fourth one that a lot of Christians overlook is the idea of spiritual formation or being tested by God because his goal is sanctification, right? He wants us to become more like Jesus. So we are gonna go through a refining process. We are gonna have to encounter trouble in order so we can ⁓ practice, trust, grow our faith

You build character and things like that. So those were the four things that I had mentioned last week The whole reason I’m bringing up this topic, I mean really my goal was just simply to encourage women to get in the habit of asking God for clarification instead of jumping to conclusions

sometimes there’s areas where we actually need to take responsibility and or learn a lesson or, whatever. And so it, it is important to kind of think through why did these things happen? My goal is not for you to overanalyze every little thing that’s going on in your life. Well, this went wrong. So what’s going on behind it? Like, I, I don’t want you to be like, so hyper aware that you’re like, get a little crazy about it. I’m just simply saying, let’s try to develop some awareness around.

these types of things so that we’re not putting the blame in the wrong spot and so we can own the situation if we need to and make some adjustments on our side. You you can rebuke the enemy all day long, but if the problem did not actually originate from Satan, you’re wasting your breath. Like the situation is not gonna change. Your appliance may have broke because the enemy got in there and messed with the electronics of it. Yeah, that does legit happen, but.

Let’s also face the fact that appliances only work for so long and sometimes they last for a really long time and sometimes they don’t. Things break, this is just normal. And if you’re rebuking the enemy and yelling at Satan and trying to cast a demon out of your appliance or whatever, it’s not gonna work. And so we don’t want to take the wrong action to a situation. And that’s why I think developing some awareness is really good.

But I want to tackle this other concept because I think this conversation really needs much more rounding out on the other side. ⁓ So as I had some discussions with some friends and some pastors around this topic, I realized another really common unhealthy viewpoint is blaming yourself as deserving these problems because ⁓ you did something wrong. So God needs to punish you. that ⁓ let’s just delve into that a little bit.

This one took me a little bit more kind of stretching. This is actually not a normal place that my mind goes when bad things happen to me. I mean, I know when I was younger as a teenager, I remember a couple of times wondering, is God mad at me about something? Like, is he punishing me for, you know, a sin that I didn’t confess and repent of? so it’s not that I’ve never done this. It just, I wanted to really grasp ⁓

this concept and what are the roots, what’s behind it and where does this come from? And I think this prevalent viewpoint really is based in shame. Why do women think that they deserve to be punished when they commit a sin or make a mistake that feels really big to them? And let me just emphasize, it feels really big to you, but it may not be that big of a deal to the Lord.

And I really think this viewpoint is rooted in a place of misunderstanding who God is and how he views you. it’s the idea that you need to be punished or you deserve to be punished when you make a mistake. That comes from a place of fear. And that comes from an assumption that God is angry and that when he gets angry, he’s got to take out his anger on you for some reason. And ⁓ I think there’s lots of different

ways that this could become a ⁓ limiting belief or a lie that women hold on to. at a glance, when you’re looking through the Old Testament, God does seem mad all the time, but it’s because Israel was constantly behaving out of rebellion. God punishes those who turn away from him with multiple acts of stubbornness and deliberate disobedience and

hard hearts. when you read through the Old Testament, you recognize that this wasn’t just somebody making a mistake. These were people who kept turning their back on God. the judgments that they faced, that’s not how he treats people who turn towards him. People who are seeking him with their heart and they just happen to make a mistake or they just might be struggling with a besetting sin.

If you refuse to submit and surrender to God after he’s given you several chances, then yeah, you’re probably gonna encounter some of his wrath. But when you look at all of scripture, God doesn’t get mad at people when they mess up, when they fail. Just look at Jesus and his disciples. I mean, he rebuked them a few times, but he never punished them. It’s because he knew that they were trying to be good followers. He knew that there was some ignorance going on there. And so he was giving them time

to grow and learn and they didn’t need to be punished when they did something wrong. And we can look at some of the things that they said and did and be like, what on earth were they thinking? Why did they think that was okay? But we can do that all the time too and it’s okay. The Bible says in 1 John 1, 9, if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you. It doesn’t say anywhere that you will be punished. So the first step is if you’ve confessed, then

There’s nothing else that needs to happen, right? The scripture, oh, I forgot to look up this Bible verse, it says, God throws your sins as far as the east is from the west. So when you confess and repent, it’s gone, you’re done. There’s nothing else. Like, why would God punish you for something when you’ve already taken care of it the way he’s asked you to? I mean, there might be something that requires restitution, but not all the time. You don’t always have to go make things right.

And just remember that consequences are very different from punishment. Consequence is a direct result. like telling a lie doesn’t make your microwave break down. Like those are two unrelated incidents.

And this goes back to the whole idea of sowing and reaping. What have you been sowing in your life? If you criticize other people on a regular basis, guess what? You are gonna be judged and criticized right back. If you keep lying to people, then guess what? People are gonna keep lying to you. So there’s patterns there and the consequences are always a correlated response or a correlated result.

It’s a direct result of that sin. It’s not just a random bad thing that happens to you. So that’s how you can tell if you’re dealing with a consequence or not.

But then let’s dive into the truth of God does discipline his children. The Bible says in a couple places, know Hebrews 12 six is the one I have in my notes here. God does discipline those that he loves. But in my experience, it always comes from a place of love with an invitation to grow. And I’m gonna give you a story.

Just the other day I was upset with myself over something and I was kind of like sitting in this place of self-pity like Jen I cannot believe you did this again. Like you know better than to behave like this you should be a better Christian I don’t remember everything that I was going through I might

But I sat down and I was like, okay Lord, I’m having a hard time getting over this one and I need you to help me put it in perspective. ⁓ And you know what he said to me, he was like, I’m not mad at you, but you are better than this. He said, this is not who you are, so let’s try it again. And in my experience, this is always the way that the Lord comes at me with discipline. He never gets angry and yells at me. ⁓ There’s never any sort of, ⁓

punishment like, well, I guess I’m going to have to give you 10 lashings because you made this mistake. No, he always comes and says, Jen, I love you so much, but I want better for you. So I’m going to invite you to come to this different place and let’s look at this differently and let’s try to do better next time. Punishment is not loving. It doesn’t invite you higher. There’s nothing about punishment that even remotely helps us become more like Jesus. So Proverbs three,

11 and 12. I love this scripture. says, ⁓ do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his rebuke for the Lord reproves the one that he loves like a father to the son in whom he delights. So here’s the thing, just like parents correct a child that they dearly love, it’s the same concept. But I want to point this out in every version that I looked up, it ends the same way.

the child in whom God delights. you can’t focus on the fact that God disciplines without focusing on the fact that God delights in you, okay? he may need to discipline you because we all can use an extra, we all need correction at some point in our life. We are not gonna get it right every time. But the thing is,

When you can look at that and say, okay, he delights in me and he is correcting me and disciplining me because he wants what’s best for me. Let’s not forget that discipline always comes with love. It always comes from a place of he cares so much about us that he is not gonna let us stay in this place that is miserable and ungodly, right? He’s not gonna let us get away with bad behavior. He’s gonna keep convicting us.

and asking us to grow. if you think that you, so if you struggle with that idea that doing something wrong should always bring a punishment, if you’ve got that idea in your head that bad behavior or doing something wrong should always equal punishment, then we’ve got to push back on that because that’s a lie. Think about it this way. Little kids, let’s talk about a kindergartener.

Would we punish a little kid for messing up the alphabet? No, we would never. We would give them another chance and another chance because we know they’re only five or six and they’re trying. Learning takes a little bit of time. We’re gonna give them time. We’re not gonna get upset because they got the letters out of order. What about when a kid falls off a bike? Like we know it takes a little time to learn how to ride a bike, right? And that’s like there’s grace as we’re learning and growing.

Sometimes people will say, well, I keep making the same mistake over and over, so God’s got to be tired of me. And there may be some truth to that. But again, he never comes to you with punishment. He is going to come to you with an invitation to do better, with that nudge or that encouragement that, Hey, let’s try it a different way next time.

So if you’re concerned about punishment, if you’re concerned about God’s judgment coming on you, then this is a great time for prayer and reflection. Do I have some wrong beliefs around sin? Do I have some wrong beliefs, some lies ingrained in my brain about what forgiveness looks like or how God reacts to his children?

And I know that if you just sit with him and try to sort that out, he’s gonna show you where he may have some patterns that are out of line. So when it comes to handling trials, the two extremes, at least from my point of view, is you’ve got those who are super quick to blame the enemy and make him the culprit, or those who are super quick to blame themselves and say, deserve to be punished.

the reason that you’re encountering some struggles right now is probably somewhere in the middle. It’s most likely one of those four explanations that I shared on the last episode. But then ⁓ as I’ve been contemplating this a little bit more, actually think there might be two more explanations. So let me throw these out there so you can be thinking about these as well. You know, we have to remember that we as humans were made up of body, soul and spirit, right? Three parts.

together as our whole being. And when your whole being is out of balance, it can create issues. So if you’re not taking proper care of yourself in various areas, you could see some consequences for that. So what do I mean? Okay, for example, I remember there was a time in my life where I was really having a hard time sleeping.

I kept waking up in the middle of the night. had a hard time falling asleep when I went to bed. And so it got really frustrating and I prayed a lot. was like, Lord, what is wrong? What is going on here? And what he showed me is that I wasn’t managing my stress correctly. And so, you know, I thought for a while that maybe somehow the enemy was coming in and attacking me while I was sleeping. And I was like, I don’t understand how

Satan is getting access to me when I feel like I’ve put up a pretty good shield around my bedroom. And so what the Lord showed me is that there were a couple things that were ⁓ causing it. There was hormone imbalance, there was poor diet, lack of exercise, ⁓ poor stress management. There were several things that were causing me to not sleep well. And so my whole being was out of whack. And so it wasn’t anything to do with spiritual warfare, although that does occasionally happen.

So there’s another thing to think about if you’re dealing with some sort of trial around the idea of your health, body, soul, spirit. One question to ask is have I not been taking proper care of myself in a certain area? Another thing that could look like is maybe it’s taking a really long time to heal from an illness or an injury.

That could possibly be linked to the fact that you’re holding on to some bitterness and you haven’t dealt with forgiveness and you haven’t let that go. There are a lot of things emotionally that we hold onto that create physical problems. So maybe the reason it could be contributing to a slow healing process could be because you haven’t dealt with some emotional issues that are going on inside of you.

Another example could be, you know, maybe the reason that you’re struggling with a specific doubt or a specific fear or a specific pattern of negative thinking, maybe that’s because you haven’t actually dealt with the stronghold or the mindset that’s underneath that. You really have to watch your patterns. You really need to learn to pay attention to what’s going on and the cycles that you go through. And there’s a whole much more to that too, but.

something to ponder as you consider what could possibly be behind a particular trial that you’re dealing with. Is there something ⁓ in your whole being that’s out of lack, body, soul, and spirit, because those all go together? And then there’s also the fact that sometimes God allows bad things to happen in our lives so that he can get the glory for it, right?

So there’s that story in the New Testament and the gospels where there’s this young man and they, the people went to Jesus and they were like, why is he blind? Like ⁓ it must have been, you know, his sin or his parents sin or something like that. I mean, back then they really attributed ⁓ physical issues to sin. And ⁓ Jesus said, no, this, this happened so that God would get the glory when I healed him. And like, that’s just such a really cool story. And so sometimes

God is gonna allow difficult circumstances or he’s gonna let some things go wrong because he wants to come to the rescue later and So, you know, those are just a couple other possibilities Now look I I don’t mean to come across With the idea that dealing with trials is is easy that it’s simple that it’s just cut and dry you figure it out and you move ahead it’s really not and

You know, one of the pastors that I submit to for accountability and making sure when I talk on this podcast that I’m interpreting scripture correctly, she pointed something out to me that was really powerful. She’s like, you got to be really careful with absolutes because a lot of times in scripture, God does not talk in absolutes. And so we as humans, it’s our nature to want answers. We want certainty. We want black and white. And God doesn’t always go that route.

Sometimes when we wanna know why, the answer can be a little bit ambiguous, is the word. Like it’s not clear because it’s not so much about the actual answer, it’s about the journey that we take getting there. So sometimes the reason why doesn’t actually matter, but it’s in the process of asking, it’s in the process of wrestling with.

the situation that we grow. It’s in that tension, that in-between place where we’re trying to have conversations with the Lord and trust Him and accept where we’re at. hopefully, hopefully I was able to address this in a way that it’s not coming across as a really simple formula of A plus B equals C. Like I really want this just to be a conversation.

to get you thinking around what’s really going on because there might be something where I need to take responsibility to make my life better. does the why matter? Does the reason that things are going wrong in your life ⁓ even, I mean, is it even a thing? sometimes it might not be. Like we can make too much of things sometimes and that’s not my goal. But asking why from a place of genuine curiosity,

that leads to solutions, not from a place of frustration or like demanding answers, but coming from a place of Lord, I really want to understand so that I can respond well, so that I can handle this better in the future,

That’s when it matters. That’s when asking what’s really going on here, what’s underneath all of those negative circumstances, because it leads us to a direction where we can find solutions

So as you go about this week, let’s explore the depths of these final thoughts. You’ve always, you’re always gonna encounter trouble, right? But if we don’t recognize the source of the problem, then we can’t handle it correctly. And sometimes we even make life harder on ourselves.

When a negative situation arises, let’s make it a habit to start asking the Lord, okay, what’s really going on here?

Let’s not jump to conclusions as can be really easy. Let’s not pin the blame on something or someone that doesn’t really need to be blamed. Let’s dig a little deeper and see if there’s a place where we need to take some ownership and take some responsibility and then we can move forward in a healthy manner in a positive way. So bless you friends. I hope you have a wonderful week. See you next time.