1.29.25 – More Beauty

SPEAKER 01 : 0:09

Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. This is Jimmy Lakey, and I’m delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at Box 370367, Denver, Colorado, 80237, or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a Word Power Daily Reading Bible Guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address, including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number, 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let’s join Barbara in the studio.

SPEAKER 03 : 1:04

Welcome to Call to Freedom. And you can call that number 1-877-917-7256 anytime, day or night. And I’ve gotten them at night. But I don’t usually get my messages until the next day. So don’t expect for me to call after 7 o’clock at night because I’m out of the office. I am home, usually eating. So thank you so much for your wonderful attention to this program every day. I appreciate you so much. And you’re praying for Call to Freedom and also you’re giving into the ministry. I appreciate that so much. If God is for us, who can be against us? God who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also along with him, along with the Lord Jesus Christ, graciously give us all things? Oh, I love that. We know Romans 8.31. If God is for us, who can be against us? I hear it all the time. But how many of us know God who did not spare his own son, his beloved son, his most prized child? gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with Jesus, graciously give us all things? And that’s what he’s promised to us. And if you believe, if you believe, you will receive what God has promised for you. Oh, what a blessing it is to know that. Oh, I’m so happy to know that God is for us and he is not against us. And Kimberly, I know that you have a great program today, so I’m going to let you go.

SPEAKER 02 : 2:44

Oh, you’re right that he is for us and not against us. And we just have our own ideas of what life is going to look like. And we have our own goals and we think they are the best. We just think that way as human beings. And we forget that he existed before we did, that he has better ideas than we do. That’s right. And I was reading in Job today, and Job, his friends, they just weren’t very helpful. Job was really suffering. He was feeling just very confused. There was so much loss. And Job’s name, I had never looked that up before, but today I looked up the meaning of Job in Hebrew, and it means persecuted or he who weeps. So someone who is feeling persecuted, someone who’s feeling grief, here’s Job. He’s confused. He doesn’t know why any of this happened because… he does believe in his heart that he has remained close to God, that he has done no wrong. And he was trying to explain that and just say out loud, I know that I haven’t done anything wrong. Well, There’s kind of an overall idea that all of us in religion in general, it can be all religions, we have this idea that when we’ve done something wrong, we’re gonna be punished. When we’ve done something wrong, there’s gonna be consequences. We all have this overlying idea of that. Job was simply saying, I know that my heart is right and I’m still experiencing this suffering and this grieving. And so this world is so broken that we know we can experience that brokenness even if we haven’t done anything terrible. And that is simply what Job was talking about. Well, Bildad and Eliphaz and Zophar, those friends, I am putting quotes around the word friends, you know, and they were good friends. Let’s be kind to them because they sat with him for seven days just in the ash heap. You know, they did sit with him without saying anything at all, just listening to him, just sitting with him, being with him. When they did finally speak up, they took that position that you must have done something wrong for this to happen to you. They were thinking in the place of retribution, you know, like there’s a retributive justice kind of a… If you’ve done something really bad, then your consequences are going to be really bad. You must have done something really bad, Jobe.

SPEAKER 03 : 5:41

Well, don’t we believe that now, today? We hear that from people. Well, you know, he got in this accident. He was always prone to do that. Or, you know, did you hear he has cancer? What did he do to deserve cancer? So we all are still in that kind of mode. Accident, consequences, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER 02 : 6:02

Right. I think that’s why I wanted to talk about it, because this beautiful story of Job is actually pointing out that we don’t have to do anything wrong to experience the brokenness in this world. This world is broken, and we are going to experience that brokenness in one way or the other. And we might form our own opinions on how we’re going to handle that. When we form those opinions, we take a position on something, right? And that’s what was happening with Job’s friends. Each one had a position that they were holding to. And Zophar, I think, was maybe the one that was harshest. He was the harshest friend, just really rebuking Job. And in the end, God rebukes all of those friends and said, none of you were speaking rightly. So the position that they took, the position they held that you must have done something wrong. Therefore, you are now experiencing these consequences. Now you have to suffer because you did something bad. God rebuked that and said that wasn’t right. I think we all need to go ahead and just embrace that. You know, just look at that and say, oh, God was rebuking that. Yes. And he alone is right. God is looking for relationship. And Elihu, Elihu was the young one who stayed quiet the whole time until the very end. And his name, Elihu, means my God is he or he is my God. Yeah. And he started speaking rightly of God, that God alone is righteous, that God is superior to man. So God’s ideas and the way his perspective, the way that he thinks is superior to ours. We might be thinking in rights and wrongs and justice and whatever we see as being a consequence or a punishment for something. Those are our ideas. God wants relationship. And he alone has the right perspective. He alone is the one who can educate us on what relationship really looks like. It’s not just a bunch of rights and wrongs and consequences and punishments.

SPEAKER 03 : 8:30

And yet, today, Kimberly, we see people who, if something terrible happens, they blame God. They don’t see an enemy. They don’t see Satan who is trying to usurp everything from out from under us. It’s like a story I heard about North Carolina, the flood region of North Carolina. This one man who lost his home, he lost his son in the flood, and he just, I give up. There is no God anymore. And he had been a churchgoer until he saw the orange shirts coming down the road where his house used to be and taking all of the junk and everything out of there so that they could rebuild. Then he realized there is a God. We’ve got to realize there’s an enemy there. who is out to get us, steal and destroy from us. And I don’t believe that Job gave that a moment of thought in his life that, you know, Satan is doing this. In fact, I copied what you’re talking about in Job 33. It says, God is picking a quarrel with me and he considers me his enemy in verse 10. And so Job didn’t consider Satan, who was the one who was responsible for all that.

SPEAKER 02 : 9:48

Right, right. Yeah, you’re right. Many times we do not consider. We just look to God and say, why would you allow this to happen? If you are a good God, if you are a loving God, why would you allow this? And you’re right. Those questions come up. My friend Holly, who just recently lost her husband, and I know some of you have heard me talking about her. She has been such an inspiration to me. And she’s so honest and transparent. She’s just so authentic in her anger the first couple of days. You know, she was really blaming God. And yet she put that anger in check. She chose to put it in check and to believe that God had something better for her. And just recently I had a conversation with her. She was telling me how she’s walking through the house now and all the things that they had bought for Gary, for her husband, all those things that are sitting there, every subscription he’s had. and the puzzles that they bought for him to do, and the medications that were brand new, and the different foods they were going to try. She’s looking at all of it now and realizing, I don’t need any of this. And she had this temptation to hold onto some of it, but very quickly realized that She was wanting to hold on to her beloved. She was wanting to hold on to the memory of her husband. But if she chose to hold on to these things, they were not him. trying to hang on to a routine or any of those things that were in the home was not hanging on to her beloved. It was, it was a lie. And she recognized it as a lie that she shouldn’t be hanging on to the lie, but just looking forward. And she was so brave. She told me, I saw in that moment that I just need to sweep up these pieces and put them away. Put them all away. Yes. Yes. How brave. I saw her resigning. And I know resignation can hold kind of a negative context, but I saw it as a sweet surrender, kind of resigning. Like it was a resignation to, okay, life is different now. And I’m going to resign my position that I had before. I’m going to resign that routine and all of the things that were attached to that routine. I’m just going to resign them over to the Lord. Yes. And let him take precedence.

SPEAKER 03 : 12:27

It’s like that song that Evie used to sing. Give them all. Give them all. Give them all to Jesus. Shattered dreams, wounded hearts and broken toys. Yeah. A beautiful song. Yes. It is beautiful. Yes. So we’ve got to really listen to the Lord, especially when we’ve gone through loss. Okay, Lord, what do you want me to do? Yes, what do we do now? What do we do now? two or three on one side and two on the other side and were in arms against each other. That must have been a terrific, traumatic time for you, Kimberly.

SPEAKER 02 : 13:24

It was difficult. It was very confusing. And there was a lot of grieving, really. And in the middle of those ashes, because that’s what it looks like. It just looks like something got blown up and there’s just a bunch of ashes left. Yes. In the middle of the ashes, we have a choice. Are we going to stay focused on the ashes? Are we going to stay focused on our self-pity? Grieving is good, but if we let it go so long that it becomes self-pity, and then you just get stuck in that cycle of pity, poor me, poor me, that’s not good anymore. No. And are we going to be angry and let that anger? We can be angry. That’s not a sin, but we can sin in our anger by letting it become rage, hurting other people with it, by letting it become resentment and bitterness and having a root of bitterness in our lives. We don’t want anger to become that. That’s when it becomes sin. And what are we going to focus on? Are we going to focus on the ashes and all of the feelings that come with loss and in the brokenness? Or are we going to choose to believe that there’s beauty? God promised us beauty for ashes. And that’s in Isaiah 61. When we choose to believe that God’s promise is never going to be broken because he’s not a man that breaks promises. He’s not a man, he’s God. He does not break his promises. And he told us he’s got beauty for ashes. We just have to look up. We’ve got to look to him and see the beauty. Are we gonna choose that? What am I gonna do in the middle of this loss? Am I gonna stay focused on the ashes or am I going to choose the beauty? I love what Corrie Ten Boom had to say, that there is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still. I love it. Yes. That is God’s beauty going down to the deepest, darkest places of our lives. And he is the one who knows how to work all things together for good. I know we say it a lot. We’re going to keep saying it until we all get on board and believe. that God is at work to make things beautiful in our lives. One of Corrie Ten Boom’s stories is about all these fleas in their housing, in the barracks. There were fleas that infested every bed and every person that lived in that place. And they were all getting welts and they were itchy. And the soldiers, the way they handled it was just to shave everybody. And so those precious women had all their heads shaved. It was just a horrible, I know it was horrible. It was an ash heap. We were looking at brokenness and ashes. And Corrie was just so fed up and hated the fleas and was mad. She was mad. And her sister Betsy said, we need to thank God for these fleas. We need to thank God. We need to see the beauty of the fleas. They didn’t see it right away. But turns out that their particular barracks, their place was the only one that the soldiers never went into. So everybody would crowd in there to have devotions and to read the word of the Lord and to sing worship songs. But the soldiers never went in to bother them or stop them.

SPEAKER 03 : 17:08

I know.

SPEAKER 02 : 17:09

And the reason why was the fleas. The soldiers did not want to go in there.

SPEAKER 03 : 17:16

So sometimes we must endure some real discomfort, Kimberly, in this life, knowing that God knows the plan that is ahead and He provides the light in our Lord Jesus to bring us into the light again.

SPEAKER 02 : 17:33

Yes, I like picturing Corrie Ten Boom resigning her position on the fleas. Okay, let me resign here. Let me take your position, God. And let me say thank you. Let me have a heart of gratitude. And we can do that in every situation. Our circumstances truly are transformed when we choose to view them differently, when we choose a new perspective. So if we come to a conclusion that our new boss at work or our new pastor in our church is immature and we need to get rid of them, you know, if the boss were thinking, no, we just can’t work with that person or we cannot work with this pastor. we have got to remember they are there because God is on the throne. God allows these movements in life, you know, and he knows what to do with them. And if it is a broken person that needs to move on, we need to take that to the Lord first, not come to our own conclusion. When we come to our own conclusions, wow, I was talking with a, I consider her a friend. She goes to my church and she is not happy with the pastor. And she started telling me all the reasons she wasn’t happy with the pastor. And I knew that if I walked away from her, I was just gonna let her drown in her own opinions. I don’t want to let my friends drown in their opinions. I want to help. So I was asking Holy Spirit, what would you have me say right now? What do you want her to hear? And he reminded me of the story in 2 Chronicles 20. and how there was war going on. And Jehoshaphat had gone before the Lord and spread out all of the other Kings, the enemies, all of their rantings and their threats toward Israel. He spread that out before the Lord and said, God, we don’t know what to do. We are too weak, but you know, you know, Every time we do that, our Father comes through for us. Every time. And so I said to my friend, don’t forget that when you feel like there’s a war going on, our Heavenly Father sends out the praisers, the ones who will worship him. He sends them out first. And that’s what happened with Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20. Oh, if it’s been a while since you’ve read it, pick it up and read it today. It’s such a good story. In that chapter, we are looking at Israel who really feels trapped. But when the king consulted and took counsel with the people, he appointed them and that they should sing unto the Lord and praise the beauty of holiness. That’s the revised standard version of second Chronicles 20 verse 21. He sent the people out to sing unto the Lord and praise the beauty of holiness. And they went out before the army. Yeah. And they said, give thanks to the Lord for his mercy endures forever. That can be us in every situation. And so when I told my friend, don’t forget that the worshipers, the praisers go out before the war, before the soldiers. And she’s at this place right now where she just said to me, oh, no, no, no, we’re not on the same page. We really just need to get this pastor out. And I was thinking to myself, wow, we really aren’t on the same page.

SPEAKER 1 : 21:19

Wow.

SPEAKER 02 : 21:20

It’s time to resign our position. We need to resign and get on the same page with who our God is and what he tells us to do and how he wants to lead and guide. He has something really perfect for us in the middle of our situation that seems imperfect.

SPEAKER 03 : 21:39

Yes, and sometimes all it takes is one person, Kimberly. It’s like, I’m going to go back in the 20th chapter here. to verse 14 all the people were standing before jehoshaphat king jehoshaphat and they were probably weeping and crying and all the emotions were being seen and the spirit of the lord came upon jahaziel the son of zachariah and he said listen all judah and inhabitants the lord god says do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude for the battle is not yours but god’s And they listened to this one man, Kimberly. That’s how one person can change the hearts. If he’s got some ungodliness in his heart, he can change a whole crowd of people against the leader, or he can change a whole crowd for the leader. So we’ve got to listen to the right words from the right people. And God gave him a plan, and then Jehoshaphat went to prayer. Oh, this is one of my favorite chapters. It’s just so good about praise. You know, Psalm 22, verse 3 says, God inhabits the praises of his people. He lives there in our presence. He doesn’t live in our complaints. He doesn’t live in our, you know, greediness and grumpiness. No, he lives in our praises. That’s so good.

SPEAKER 02 : 23:05

Yes. Yes. Going back to Job 33, where we started out. The young man, Elihu, And His name means, let me say it again, He is my God, or my God is He. When we choose to look at how supernatural our God can work things out, He’s not limited to our natural realm here. So He can take a situation and work it out supernaturally. Our worship and our praise will come alongside that, and it’ll cause it to happen faster. So what you’re talking about there in chapter 20 of 2 Chronicles, that is a bunch of people who could have turned against… the Lord and blamed him and said, why would you put us in this position? But instead they start praising and worshiping and quickly that enemy was defeated very quickly. They were routed, you know, that’s, that’s what we want to see. We want to see that our God can turn something so miraculously. And in Job 33 verse 17, we see God is the one who turns man from his wrongdoing. It’s not about us turning to God and saying, you’ve done me wrong. No, no. God is the one that turns us from our opinions and our wrongdoing. And he keeps us from pride. He cuts pride off of us. Pride is the one that would stand up in the way and take a position and say, I know I’m right. I know it needs to be done this way. But God is the one who’s constantly working to get us away from that pride so that we can turn toward Him.

SPEAKER 03 : 25:03

turned back to him we were made for him not for our reckless choices yes and they are reckless choices that we may are if one person could really uh complain about his situation it’s paul the apostle he you know he went through beatings he went through scourgings he went through stonings he went through being in the ocean or the mediterranean sea for so many days And he could have said, I’m through. I’m done. This is it. I’m over. I’m through with this. Instead, he just said, my God delivered me out of all of this. I’m so glad he gave that in 2 Corinthians. He really described what he had been through physically. And he says, my God delivered me from this. So when we have the right attitude, Kimberly, it’s just so important that

SPEAKER 02 : 25:54

It is. We can declare that God’s grace is enough. His supernatural grace in our circumstances is enough. It’s more than enough. And just to finish out with Job 33 in verses 27 through 30. It says that the man who has been saved from his reckless ways, because God, God did that. God pulled him out of those reckless ways and showed him the truth. That man looks upon other men and sings out to them. He says to them, I have sinned and perverted what was right. And it did not profit me yet. God did not. requite me according to my iniquity. Instead, he redeemed my life from going down to the pit.

SPEAKER 03 : 26:45

There is so much here in this chapter. You bring out singular chapters, Kimberly, and I go home and I’m studying them. Wow, this is so good. And we’ve got to go back. I hope you can come tomorrow because we’ve got to go back into Job 33 and talk about people that hear from God, people that are on their deathbed or their sickbed and how God delivers them up out of it. So I hope you’ll join me again tomorrow. I look forward to it. Thank you. God bless all of you listening. I hope you receive something from this. Oh, take joy, my friend. Take joy.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:21

Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. You may get in touch with Barbara at Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may leave your message at 1-877-917-7256. Call to Freedom is a listener-supported radio ministry. Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up Call to Freedom ministry. Power partners support Call to Freedom with prayer and monthly financial support. You will be blessed supernaturally. We invite you to visit Call to Freedom’s website, www.freedomstreet.org, where you can hear Barbara’s daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials. You may share your praise reports and heart cries by mailing them to Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may email us at barbracarmack at freedomstreet.org. Until next time, remember, Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy.

SPEAKER 1 : 28:44

Thank you.