No one can ever doubt that God is love. When you can’t understand the hand of God, trust God’s heart. With this timeless truth and wisdom, Dr. Siohvaughn Funches reminds us the kind of love that God can give us even when we’re confused or showered with doubt about his capabilities. Give God the benefit of the doubt. Trust his heart, trust who he is, and never forget that God is love.
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Listen to the podcast here:
When You Can’t Understand God’s Hand, Trust His Heart (Part 1)
The title of this episode is When You Can’t Understand His Hand, Trust His Heart. This is timeless wisdom. When you can’t understand the hand of God, trust the heart of God. Before we dive deep into the message and be forever blessed because of the wisdom and insight that God gives us, and the revealing of Himself that He blesses us with, let’s take a moment, acknowledge God, and let’s pray. I thank you, Heavenly Father, for the opportunity to get at the feet of Jesus again and hear His word. I pray, Daddy, that you the Father of glory will give to each and every one of us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus.
I pray that the eyes of our understanding will be enlightened forever that we may know what is the hope of Your calling. What are the riches of the glory of Your inheritance in us, the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of Your power towards us who believe according to the working of your mighty power. Jesus, I pray that You will expound on the scriptures to us about the things concerning Yourself, Lord. I pray, Lord, not only that we will comprehend the scriptures, but I pray that we will know You more than we will understand You better, Lord. That we will know Your ways and we will trust You more, rest in You more, believe in You and receive more from You, and even all that You have for us in Jesus’ name.
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God Is Love
I love the title of this episode. The title almost tells us everything. It’s sound advice. It’s timeless truth and wisdom. When you don’t understand God’s hand, meaning what He’s doing in your life or the life of your loved ones, or even maybe what He’s not doing, that you’re asking Him to do. Maybe it’s something that you believe God should have prevented, and instead, He allowed it when you don’t understand His hand, you can trust God’s heart. God is love and He is the same yesterday, today and forevermore. On the days when we understand God, God is love. At times when we feel like we are completely confused, God is love. At the times when we pray, and God answers us and we can tell he did so before we opened our mouth to speak, God is love. There are times when we pray, and there may be a period of time where we wait and persevere until we get the answer, yet and still, God is love.
There are things that happen, and it makes us feel all warm and tingly inside and we’re jumping up and down and we’re happy. There are times when things that happen, and we feel like we could flood the earth with our tears. I’ve cried so much at one period of time in my life that I believe my tear ducts went dry. I know that I was crying but I’m very serious, no water was coming out. I don’t know if anybody has cried that much when their tear ducts are like, “You’re still sad, but I’m fresh out. You’re still weeping but I’ve got nothing left.” At that moment, and if there are moments like that in your life, or if you’re going through a moment like that, God is love and God loves you. I believe that God spoke to my heart and let me know that this episode’s message is not only a timeless truth and filled with wisdom from God Himself. It is also a revelation that when you get it on the inside of you, when you perceive it by faith, and when you believe it, it takes you from pending petitions before God to possessing your promises and possessing the answer to your prayers.
There’s nothing wrong with pending petitions before God. The Bible even talks about anyone who comes to God must have some faith. You must even believe that God exists. Even though he’s a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, you wouldn’t be there. You wouldn’t be at the feet of God asking for something. You wouldn’t be in the face of your daddy God asking Him if you didn’t believe He exists. If something in you didn’t believe He was good, that He is loved, that He hears, and He’s willing to answer your prayers. You’re not doing bad if you’re at that stage, but God wants us to go from petitioning Him to possessing what it is we ask for. The prayers of the righteous availeth much. They don’t pendeth much, they availeth much. There should be manifestations of the glory of God. There should be words that God gives you that come to pass.
This is not a place where you stay in the waiting room forever or even too many seasons in life, you ought to possess your promise. Remember what God taught us on for those of you who are reading and have been on this journey with me before. God has made it very clear to us, that our miracles and the things that we desire and the things we longed for and are waiting for are not just for us. God is a big God and even the Bible talks about God blessing us to be a blessing. We’re blessed with believing Abraham, and that’s blessed to be a blessing amongst many other things.
[bctt tweet=”When you don’t understand God’s hand, you can trust God’s heart.” via=”no”]
This episode is filled with wisdom that every believer needs. Especially when we are facing and overcoming those challenges, where we just don’t understand God. This is not about the enemy. If it was about the enemy, I could bear it, but when something is happening, or something is not happening, and it’s caused me to question God. It causes me to say, “God, do you hear me? God, do you care?” We’ve all been there. If you haven’t been there, then maybe you’ll be the exception to that rule and I pray that you are, it’s a terrible place to be. Maybe you will face it or you will be beside someone who is facing that challenge and is at a place where they’re tempted to succumb to the temptation of, “God doesn’t love me.” That’s what the enemy is after. He’s after the Word of God, and the Word of God tells us that God is love. That God so loves you that he gave his only begotten Son.
If God would have spoken and said, “I so loved you that I gave my only begotten Son,” but actually never gave him, that’d be questionable, but surely, he gave his only Son. When you think about that, especially parents, those who have family members or significant others that they deeply love, you know you’re not giving up someone you deeply love other than love. It must be an even deeper love at that point. We know that God loves us and we believe that God loves us.
During times of challenge, or of turmoil, when we feel like we need God to move a certain way, or we need God to show up by a certain time, and it doesn’t happen the way we think it needed to. This is not about being spiritually spoiled. This is about really believing, “I needed God and when I needed him, I felt like he wasn’t there.” This is a very serious thing. If you are a believer, walking with that thorn in your side, God is here to remove it. If you’re someone who will eventually face this temptation, you’ll be prepared for it. Either restoration is taking place, or divine intervention is taking place through this show to either prevent you from succumbing to that particular temptation because to me, it is the deadliest is temptation. It goes against the very purpose of God in all of us at the very heart of God.
God has done all that He has done, went to great lengths, that we may never fully understand because He loves us that much and He wants an intimate and personal relationship with us. When the enemy makes people feel like, “Where was God when I needed Him? I feel like He let me down. I feel like this happened and He could have stopped it and He didn’t and I interpret that as a lack of love.” No matter what it has been, people who are aware know that my only sister was killed in a car accident many years ago when I was sixteen years old. She was and that was a very difficult time for me, my parents, especially my mom, and my grandmother. I’d never heard my grandmother wail the way that I did.
That was a time where we were at a fork in the road. This is a time where you’re either going to believe God is who He says He is because of the work at the cross. Because of His son, Jesus, or you’re going to believe that God is who the enemy says he is because of a circumstance that arose in your life that you don’t feel is favorable to you, and maybe for good reason you don’t feel so. God said that death is even his enemy. It was certainly a sad and a trying time, but God, above all things, for the healing and with so much pain that was very important then. As I reflect back, it was even more of a blessing that that didn’t turn us away from God. That probably was the biggest blessing out of all of them. God did surely restore us all. He’s truly healed us all.
God uses my mom to minister to other people who have lost ones dear to them, even their children. God has turned that whole thing around and what was meant for evil, God has certainly worked it together for our good. God is not a respecter of person, so what He did for us, He’s willing and able to do for you. The reason why we need to know this is because all of us face challenges like this. This the temptation the devil will throw at every believer and most likely more than once. It’s also important because we won’t understand everything that happens to us in our life. God has given you plenty of wisdom and even discernment. I believe that God has blessed me with some wisdom and some discernment as well. To Him be all the glory.
God Is Wisdom
We don’t understand everything. Let’s be honest. If you know me, you know I like to keep it real. My son says, “100 all the time.” I’m known for that in this family. I love to keep it real, and the truth is this, God loves me. I love God, but God doesn’t always do things the way I think that they should be done. This is when I have to dig my heels, have faith in deep and know who God is. Reflect on good times. Reflect even on times where I thought that, “God, do you know what you’re doing?” I’m like, “God, take the wheel,” and I’m like, “Jesus, get the wheel from God. Apparently, he’s not too certain about what he wants to do.” I’m very concerned and I have to realize that God has not just possession of wisdom. God is wisdom.
I possess wisdom, and I think that there’s a difference. I’m the creation. He’s the Creator. He’s the teacher on the student. Master and servant. There’s a superiority with God. We don’t understand it. We may not like it, but that doesn’t mean God doesn’t know what He’s doing. God definitely knows what He’s doing. This is why one of the reasons I really liked the book of Job, is because it’s very humbling and Job was a just man. Even God said that, but Job, in a way needed to be humbled because Job, I believe was a proud man. We can’t even let pride sneak in. Even with us people who are close with God, know things about God, that we know so much, or have such an in-depth relationship with God that there’s nothing else to learn, or that we have arrived, somehow. We have not.
We’re continually being transformed into the image of Christ. Because we all face this temptation because there are times that we will not understand what God does, and if we’re keeping it real, there are going to be times we don’t like what God does. We don’t like when He did it. We don’t like what He didn’t do. We’re going to have to really dig our heels of faith in deep. When we don’t understand his hand, we’re going to have to trust his heart because it is critical. It is critical that we don’t judge God, Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith when he hasn’t even finished manifesting these things in our life. It’s finished in the heavens but hasn’t finished manifesting in the earth.
When we don’t have a complete picture, how can we judge the artist who’s in the process of drawing something? We’re like, “I don’t like that.” He’s or she’s not done. Sit back and relax. This artist isn’t renowned without reason. If that can be true for a natural man or woman who’s an artist, or some songwriter, you’re like, “I don’t like the first two lines.” That’s fine, but then, later on, we hear this song and Beyoncé sings it and we’re all like, “I even got teary-eyed.” We have to be able to trust God and trust Him through the process of things. I like to cook and bake. I’m baking for example, and I may have an egg and some unsalted butter. If you were just to stick that stick of butter and start chomping on and in your mouth or just take that egg, crack it and start swallowing it down. It’s pretty disgusting, it’s gross, but if you allow God to finish the baking through me and put the other ingredients with the other ingredients is how God works things together for our good.
Isolated they’re not good, but once he works it together for our good it comes out and you got these chocolate chip cookies or lemon pound cake. It’s the kind that makes you want to slow down and eat, you’re like, “I cannot be in a rush. Because as much as I want to devour this, I don’t want it to disappear.” It’s like, “I want him to be here with me forever, but I want to eat him.” That kind of conflict arises when the food is really good. We have to know that even if we don’t understand it, and even if it doesn’t make sense for a while since it takes a while to bake a cake, it takes a while to come up with a hit record. It may take a while for an artist to come up with a painting, like Da Vinci or something that is renowned and selling for millions and millions of dollars.
These things may take time. We may not understand everything, see the whole picture or hear the whole song. Let’s not judge God, the author, and finisher of our faith, by one page in our entire book of life, or one chapter. Let’s give God the benefit of the doubt and trust His heart, and who He is, and God is love. God loves you and we judge that by the fact that He gave up his only begotten Son for us. I love the timing that He did it. It was when we were at our worst as the Bible says. You were at your worst and I was at mine.
[bctt tweet=”You wouldn’t be at the feet of God asking for something if you didn’t believe he exists. ” via=”no”]
This is good because if God will give you His very best, if He will give you the most while you are at the worst, while he’s receiving the least, nothing from you. What do you believe God will do now that He has made you right with himself? Now that you and Jesus are one? Now that Jesus has said, “The way God loves me, He loves you. You don’t need to ask me to pray anything for you. You can pray to the Father yourself. The way He answers me, He will answer you.” How much more do you believe He will do now? The Bible talks about God who didn’t spare His own Son but freely gave Him up for us all. How will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
Working Everything Together For Your Good
We have to remember, Jesus is God’s best. He is God’s most. That’s the biggest gift He could give and the lesser gifts always are encompassed. They always are included in the greater blessing. The lesser is always included in the greater and by way of example, if I give to you a $100 bill, you can’t be afraid. I won’t give you $20 because we know that several $20 bills actually are inside that $100 bill. The $20 is the lesser blessing. It’s in the $100. When God gave us Jesus more than all the money and all the world, everything good. Everything good stems from Him. Everything good, just, glad, joyful, all light, all love, anything you could ever think of that’s good and even things we haven’t even realized, all comes from Him. When God gave us Jesus, He gave us all of the lesser blessings.
I encourage you like I have to be encouraged. Do not allow, beloved, a time, a season or an event or events in your life that you don’t understand to cause you to doubt what you do know and understand. What you do know and understand is that God is love. He loves you. If He gave you Jesus, then with Jesus, He will freely give you all things. You also know and understand that even though everything may not be good, God will work everything no matter what. He will work everything together for your good. That’s great news. That’s enough right there, like, “Stop and go home and just say, ‘Thank you, God.’”
That’s seeming like more than enough, but we’re going to keep going. We’re going to look at the Bible of what I believe is a very perfect example of how important it is to know and believe that God is good. That He’s working all things together for our good, and that it pays off in huge, everlasting ways. That even when we don’t understand God’s hand, that’s what He’s doing or maybe what He’s not doing, or the time it’s taking Him to do it, we can trust His heart. Knowing that God is love, and he does love us very much. We’re going to look at the lives of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. I’m in the New King James Version. Most of you know that in John 11 verses 1 through 44. We’re going to go through this story. It will probably go rather quickly, but there are moments when I will elaborate and share with you some of the things that God shared with me as I was spending time with God and allowing him to minister this to me.
This is one of the Bible’s testimonies of a family that I feel like I can most closely relate to. Some of you may have known my story and may have even read my book, The True Story for God’s Glory. I explain a bit about this in the book. You can get an understanding as to why this minister to me. Especially given the circumstances that occurred in my own life at some point in time in my past. I like it because, to me, it’s the worst. The strongest thing came against us, the darkest thing came against them. In my life, I have felt like that. God reminded me that He told me, the reason for the evil that broke loose in my life was because of the love of money and the Bible declares nothing but the truth from God and God said the love of money is the root of all evil. It’s one thing to deal with a few devils. It’s another thing to deal with the legion. It is neither here or there to be faced with what God has himself who cannot lie, says is the root to all evil. That’s not the next level, that’s unprecedented, off the charts. It’s not even on this hemisphere, type of challenges.
The Sisters of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, are in a very similar situation. Where if God doesn’t do it, it simply will not get done. I tell people, “I don’t have Plan B faith. A lot of the things that God has allowed to transpire and my life have been things where I do need God.” That’s not a cliché. That’s not a cute Christian saying. It’s an absolute utter truth. If God doesn’t do it, it will not get done. There were people who even wanted to help me, but they could not. There were people who could have helped me and they would not. I said, “This leaves me nothing, but to get at the feet of Jesus. Humble myself and saying, ‘God, I need you. If you don’t do it, it will not get done. Money can’t buy it.’” It’s not about who you know. None of that matters. You just really need God.
Martha, Mary, And Lazarus
This is not like, “Give me another car and you have two in the garage.” I’m talking about what you got to need. I believe Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, that family is a picture of having a real need facing the most serious challenge. I love this example because we know that if God can do the most, the lesser challenges are a breeze. God takes care of this one with the word so we know he can take care of the other ones with the word or less. I’m going to start at verse one of John 11. I’m reading from the New King James Version, and allow the Holy Spirit to minister to you when he ministered to me. If he gives us something afresh now, I’ll share it with you. If we don’t finish up, God bless us, we’ll be finishing up next episode about this particular family. Allowing God to nourish us and take all the truths from it.
The Bible says, “A certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister, Martha. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.” These are not strangers. These are friends of Jesus. They know the Lord. He knows them. You get as close as to be able to anoint someone with fragrant oil, and we know she didn’t throw that oil across the room on Jesus because the Bible says that she wiped his feet with her hair. He certainly wasn’t walking, when she did that he was sitting down. These people are in each other’s presence and spending time together.
It’s very important to know that these are people who are close to Jesus. Yes, circumstances can arise that are seemingly contrary to you, or dark or devastating, even though you’re someone who’s close to an intimate relationship with Jesus. That doesn’t exempt us from the challenges of life on this side of heaven. The Bible says, “Therefore the sister sent to him saying, ‘Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.’” Jesus was here in the physical form then, and now He has ascended, sitting at the right hand of God and also in us who are Holy Spirit field, but I liked that they sent to him. When you have an intimate relationship with God, trouble breaks loose, you know what to do. You know to get that word to Jesus. Say, “Jesus. Help me, Lord. I don’t know what’s happening. They called, they said this and that.” That’s our way for sending it to him. Our way of speaking to him now is not to send a courier right on foot. To get to Jesus, we need to open our mouth and pray and even sometimes you can with groaning. Even that’s a prayer before God. God can even translate your tears. Sometimes it can be so devastating when you don’t have words to articulate what you’re feeling. That’s why I love praying in tongues.
Meditating On The Love Of God
I love how the sister said to Jesus, “He whom you love is sick.” This is vital at every stage of our life. One of the most important things we can do as believers is take time to relish in and meditate on the love of God. For us to ask God to give us a personal revelation of your love for us. Do that for us. Nourish that God, daily. Remind us of that daily on a continual basis. That’s something that I do not believe, that you can ever have too much of. You can never have too much of these things. Revelations that God loves you are the things that keep you going.
It really is, especially when you don’t understand why God is doing something, why God allowed something, or why He hasn’t answered yet. Those are the things that make the difference between people who give up and people who persevere and possess their promises because they did so persevering in faith. Faith in what? I don’t even think that it’s faith in God doing it. There are people who believe the leper was saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. You can.” He knew that he was able, but if you’re willing. Knowing that God is willing, comes from an understanding that God loves you. Knowing that he can is just general knowledge about God. Anybody taught about God. Even from a scientific perspective. Never even have opened up the Bible. God is all powerful, they will say something like that.
That right there tells you like, “There’s nothing He can’t do.” Obviously, people who have a relationship with Him and spend time on the word know that there are things God can’t do like lie. You know that but even for somebody who just on a strictly intellectual basis, has some understanding about God. They’re going to understand that God is not limited in power. If he’s arm wrestling with someone, they’ll lose every time. People can believe that but that’s not enough. It’s not enough to know that God can. When you have a revelation about how much God loves you and you really have to understand that the love is unconditional. This may not be how your parents loved you. This may not be how your spouse or ex-spouse loved you. This may not even be how you love yourself, but you have to distinguish. You have to make a difference between God’s love and what sometimes people call love or maybe what TV has painted the picture of love.
[bctt tweet=”It is critical that we don’t judge God when he hasn’t even finished manifesting things in our life.” via=”no”]
What Love Really Is
We’ve got to get an understanding of what love is. When you read Corinthians 13, you get just that. You understand better what love is. It is self-sacrificing the love that God is talking about. That is the unconditional love of God. That is the love that is a decision. “I decide to love you no matter what.” “What if you hate me?” “I love you anyway.” “What if I just rebel against you?” “I love you anyway.” I may not enjoy you as much doing that, but I deeply love you. Your wrong cannot change God’s love. God cannot change. The Bible says Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. God is love. To change him in that regard would literally be the power to change the very essence of what God is made up of, who he actually is. That’s an impossibility for the creation or anything to come. Everything is a creation of God’s, but for the creation to come and change the Creator, that’s not ever going to happen.
We shouldn’t even spend time meditating on that because that’s not going to happen, but we should spend time meditating on the fact that God loves us. When we’re faced with challenges, especially serious ones like this, what Martha and Mary we’re going through. If you can just get a glimpse of these people, not when you know the story hindsight, but I want to slow it down. Let’s go through this like them. They did not know what we know, now that we’ve read John 11 in its entirety. Now that we’ve heard that preach. They didn’t know that. It’s like you and I. Sometimes we read the Bible and we feel like they have some advantage or something that we didn’t have.
The book that God hit me right about that part of my life and what I went through, having been married to not just someone in the NBA, but married to the lifestyle. Married to the game and some of the good that came with that and all the hell that went along with it. That people may not realize, goes along a lot of times with money and fame when God is not in the midst. It’s important at moments like that, and when you’re going through things like that, that you have a real revelation and an understanding. That you’ll be deeply rooted in the truth that God loves you. That’s vital.
That literally becomes everything. It’s the difference between people who give up and kill themselves and people who persevere and then later we’re clapping. We’re like, “We didn’t know you went through that. We’re so proud of you. You’re strong. You’re a pillar of strength.” From Peter denying Jesus outside to standing up on the day of Pentecost and preaching a few words and 5,000 people get saved. It’s a huge difference, and it will take you there having an understanding that God’s love for you is everlasting. God said, “I love you with an everlasting love.” It’s a love that these waters can’t drown out or fire that can’t be quenched or snuffed out. God’s love is everlasting and it is everlasting in this sense when things are going good, God’s love for you is there. When things are not going so good, God’s love for you is there.
I wanted to take a moment and have us meditate on that. The wisdom that God has given me is not just to go and try to, “God loves me.” You want to think about that, feast on that, hear anointed preaches about that when trouble arises. To do it on a continual basis is better. If there’s a marathon to run, it’s better for the people who exercise, as opposed to the person that four weeks before the race for the marathon, he’s like, “I’ve got to get in shape.” It’s better to already be in shape for this marathon of life, so to speak, and exercise. Exercise your spiritual muscles. That’s in prayer with God. That’s in time, letting God speak to you. Time in His word. Time hearing, not just anybody preaching. I would not recommend that, but to hear somebody who is willing to allow God to speak through them.
We’re going to pick up next episode right here. We only got to verse four but I believe everything that God said was relevant and worth saying. Until then, may God continue to bless you and keep you. Surround you with His divine protection. May God cover you and the words of promise and the dreams He has given you with the blood of His son, Jesus. May God not allow any settling for less than God’s best be in any of us. If it be in any of us, we pray God your hand will uproot it in Jesus’ name and you will bring repentance changing our mind, wherever it needs to be changed. Especially concerning who you are.
Give us, God, a real understanding. A real knowing and a solid, unshakable everlasting faith that no matter what, I know my Father loves me. I know that He loves me. I know that He cares. I know that He hears me and I know that He’s going to answer me better than I ever could have asked him because he is working everything together for my good. He has my back. He is with me and He will never leave me or forsake me. God give us that and give us that more exceedingly and abundantly above all we could ever ask, think or imagine. Let every blessing that flows from knowing that you love us manifest in every area of our life. Leave no stone unturned. In Jesus’ name, we pray. I love you. God bless you.
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