Beyond Sunday
Beyond Sunday
Where's God? (Easter Sunday)
In this Beyond Sunday episode, Dena and Kate unpack Pastor Greg’s powerful Easter message that launches the new series, Where’s God?. Together, they explore how to trust God’s presence and care—even when He feels silent—and how faith can anchor us through life’s most difficult seasons.
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Thanks for listening!
Welcome to Beyond Sunday, the King of Kings podcast, where we explore what we're taking beyond Sunday from our message series. My name is Dena Newsome and today with me I have Kate.
Kate:Solberg, and I'm the Associate Campus Director at our Northwest Campus.
Dina:Yes, I'm so glad you could be with me today. You know, I don't know if you know there was a big holiday on Sunday. Yes, there was Easter, and Easter is known for a lot of candy and sweets, you know, commercially. Also, this week our nation is celebrating National Jelly Bean Day. Jelly beans when I was growing up were like the Easter candy. That was like what you put in anything. Do you have a favorite jelly bean flavor?
Kate:Yes, the entire bag. I actually can't buy jelly beans because I will be tempted to make myself ill by eating all of them, so I love jelly beans.
Dina:I like jelly beans. I wouldn't say they're my favorite. Now, okay, here. Do you like the black ones too? All of them.
Kate:Really Every flavor, okay, okay.
Dina:Now are you a fan of, like Bertie Botts beans or those? What are the ones with all the different flavors that they give you the little spinner and there's like oh, the bad flavors.
Kate:Yes, yes, no, I don't want any bad flavors. No, all of those things?
Dina:Yeah. Why would someone pay for that? Cause you live for the adventure.
Kate:No, I just want good tasting jelly beans in my mouth. Period.
Dina:No adventure with it. No, okay. Okay, I'm a big fan of orange jelly beans. They're my favorite. I'll pick out the orange ones, yeah. I don't like the white ones. Yum, I don't even know what flavor they are, I don't know. Happiness, happiness, joy. It's the fruits of the spirit. There you go, okay, so going from happiness to suffering. Our Easter message was talking about where is God, and this was the kickoff to a sermon series that we're starting when is God, and it'll be the next several weeks that we're kind of diving into that, and Pastor Greg Griffith led us off today or on Easter, with talking about how God sees our suffering and relating that to the suffering that Jesus went through at Easter. So what was kind of your biggest takeaway from this week that you're taking beyond Sunday?
Kate:I think my biggest takeaway was that Jesus sees our pain and calls us by name.
Dina:I wrote that down too.
Dina:Great minds think alike.
Dina:Yeah, it is very easy to feel isolated when you're suffering and to know that other people are going through that, but to know that your Savior knows and sees that Right yeah, definitely.
Dina:Yeah, that's a good one, I think, just the idea of that God sees our suffering, but we all have that suffering and maybe there's periods in our life where we're not going through something. That's a real low valley or our quote unquote suffering is minor in the respect of the grand scheme of our lives, but that there's probably a period coming where we're going to have the loss of a spouse or the loss of a parent, or your kids moving out or things like that, where you're going to go through those harder times too. And for me, a lot of what Greg spoke into just reminded me of this may not be what I need today, but these are great reminders for when I am in those valleys. Yes, I agree. So when he started talking, he talked about we need to remember when we ask where is God, who our God is like, that he sees us, that he's with us, like when you think about who our God is, what are the characteristics that stand out to you or what kinds of things.
Kate:I love that God is consistent. I love when scripture talks about him being the same yesterday, today and forever. Same yesterday, today and forever. There are surprising things on earth, but God doesn't surprise us with who he is. He reveals who he is. He doesn't change and he is reliable. We can count on that.
Dina:Being able to trust that. That's a big thing, and what really stuck out to me in talking about where is God, or who our God is, is that trustworthy peace. Yes, there, I think a lot of human earthly suffering comes from unmet expectations or misuse of trust, and so that hurt comes when those earthly sins happen, and God's never going to do that. He's never going to be less than what we expect and he's never going to misuse our trust. One thing that I wrote down that I really liked that Greg said was when you don't feel His presence, he sees your pain. When you don't see his power, he sees your heartache. When you're at your lowest, he isn't high up off somewhere, he is nearby. What do you think about?
Kate:that I wrote that down too, but my wording was a little different. Oh, go ahead. I know, pastor Greg gives, you've heard it probably four times here, so I just heard it once. But when I listened I heard when you are at your lowest, god is on all sides, which I thought was awesome too.
Dina:Yeah, surrounding you, yes.
Kate:With the bubble, yeah, surrounding you.
Dina:Yes, with a bubble, yep, yeah, one of the other points that I really liked that Greg talked about was that we can be real with God. How does that come to light in your life, like, how do you feel like you've learned to be real with God?
Kate:Yeah, yeah, that was a great point too, where God, when Pastor Gregory reminded us how God can handle all of our emotions, no matter what emotion we're feeling, and he pointed us to Psalm 13, when King David cries out, you know how long will you forget me? Will you forget me forever? And I think not. Everyone realizes God wants us to be honest with Him. He doesn't want us to attempt to clean ourselves up or cover up things. He wants us to be completely honest because that is who he is with us and we are. Most is the word malleable Mm-hmm by the Lord when we give him all of us and that includes all your emotions good, bad, ugly, and we know they're In all those categories. So, yeah, I liked how he you know, and God intentionally included that in the scripture when King David was lamenting, and so that's important to remind ourselves Right, and it is very different.
Dina:I liked how he vocally said it differently, because we do. When we read scripture it tends to be in this nice tone of voice, because we're reading aloud with our study group or whatever. But that anger, that despair, that hurt does come through in that Right. We may not always remember that Right. Yeah, I grew up thinking in my head not because anyone ever told me so that my prayers were polite. Oh, you know what I mean, that I was always asking for things and thanking for things. And as I learned more about my relationship with God, I have angry prayers.
Dina:And I can remember I was 21, 22 years old when my mom got cancer and I was so angry at God because here is this woman who, in my eyes, had followed him all of her life, had raised three children to love him, had done so much for the church. Why, god? You know why is this? And I can remember standing in the shower and yelling at God and afterward I was thinking I lived in an apartment at the time and what did my neighbors think? But I just unloading that from me to him because he can take it, he's not going to crumble under that, and so it's okay to release that to him and that was a click for me where I understood he's not going to turn his back on me and I can be angry with him, right, and it's still going to be okay, right, and he already knows it anyway.
Dina:Yes.
Kate:Because he sees in my heart, right, right. So when you speak it, you're also saying I'm trusting you with this. I, when you speak it, you're also saying I'm trusting you with this. I want to share this with you. I want you to minister to me where I am.
Dina:Right here it is Now. Shape me Right, mold me Right. Yeah, what can I learn from this? Right, the illustration that Greg used about our friend Chris in Fremont going through the experience of having a brain tumor and then being cancer-free, and then having a brain tumor and then being cancer-free and now facing that again, I think that's something a lot of people could relate to in their life, whether it's with cancer or another medical issue, physical ailment. You know. That's, I think, a struggle that everyone has gone through or knows they're going to go through. When we talked about, you know, remembering who God is and that he sees us at those times, like, what did you take away? You know, how did that story relate to you, either on a personal level or a broader level? You know about Chris.
Kate:Well, like my heart went out to her. Of course, Um, it's hard enough to have cancer once, let alone go into remission battle again, um, and do it all over again. But I think it makes us address this whole. We know God is good and we know there's terrible things that happen on this earth, and so humans are always trying to rectify those two things. God is good, he's all powerful, Yet these things happen. How does my brain put that all together? So I think that's why there's if you search it up, there's endless sermons and teachings and books on where is God, Because it might be the number one universal question.
Kate:I don't know. It's up there, but I think what I thought of was in difficult times in my life. That's where I drew closest to the Lord, because I knew there was no other answer that was going to satisfy my soul. There was nothing that would give me comfort other than Him, and so I know God doesn't give us difficult things, but he uses them. So this earth is full of difficulty and strife, and the Lord allowed that when he gave us free will. So he, I feel like in His goodness said I'm going to use this for good. Yes, and so I feel like from what Pastor Greg told us, Chris has drawn close to the Lord. Close to the Lord, you know she has. I'm sure I don't know for sure, but I'm sure because of that she longs for when her body will be restored. It makes us long for heaven when all the difficulty is done. And so while we're on this earth, you know we keep working, we press on, we draw to God, knowing these difficulties won't last forever.
Dina:So I think it's when we try to carry them on our own that then we struggle. But when we fall to our knees and release them to him is when we can turn to him and feel his comfort and his power and his kindness. More example of that in what Jesus experienced in our broken human world that he was lowly to come down and suffer for us to take that away. I have my very best friend in my whole life, who lives very far away now, but she lost a child very early on her firstborn and she was never close to Jesus in her life and as we got to know each other better and she understood where my faith was in my life, she said to me at one point I think you would think differently if you had ever lost a child.
Dina:You can't go through an experience like that and still believe that there's a higher power. That's gracious. And my response to her was I can't imagine going through an experience like that and not believing in a higher power. That's gracious, because I don't know where my comfort would come from and that like and I mean again, she's still my best friend and some of our faith discussions are the best things in my memories of our relationship, of just her perspective. But how hard is that for people that don't have the comfort of knowing Jesus died for them to, like you said, reconcile that faith inside of what's happening.
Kate:Right.
Dina:Yeah, so giving God all of our emotions, the good, the bad, celebrating with him. And then Pastor Greg talked about even when you can't see his hand, you can trust his heart. How did that speak to you can?
Kate:trust his heart. How did that speak to you? I think a lot of what we already talked about we know God's ways are higher, his thoughts the two. I don't know how God works that out when we see him face to face, but one of those two things will happen. I think It'll either all make sense or it won't matter anymore.
Dina:Right, right. And then Pastor Greg kind of wrapped up with his balloon illustration, and if you were not able to be in our services at Easter, I encourage you to go watch him online. You can do that on the app, on our website, um, on our Facebook page, and check out. Uh, because that was all about hope and I really liked, um how he talked about. We fill ourselves up with a lot of things, um, and when those things are of the earth and of our own concerns, we drop just like the balloon that fell to the ground. But when we let God fill us, or when we focus on his hope and the hope that he gives us, we fly right up Like it's just hope. Is that hope floats? Isn't that a saying or a movie?
Kate:or a book, or something?
Dina:Nope, it does. Hope floats. So what else is your like looking at this and we're jumping into this series? What are some things that you're hoping for or what are you excited to learn more about as we look at Where's God over the next month?
Kate:I just, I hope every week. I'm trusting that, you know, people who come and worship and hear the message will just be reminded of God's goodness and will be courageous to trust in his true words with each day and either in a difficult season or preparing for a difficult season, that it will be encouragement, that it will be. You know what gets us through those difficult times. Yeah.
Dina:I'm just excited to hear more, because I think that we focus a lot on how our faith gives us that hope and the happiness Same thing that jelly beans give you on a much deeper level.
Kate:So much sugary goodness.
Dina:But I think that our faith is tested when we're in those valleys and when we're suffering, or when we're standing there asking where is God in this Right?
Kate:Or why did God let this happen? It also opens a door to minister to people who are going through it. When you can relate and say I've walked that path, I can walk alongside of you now or encourage you. So God uses it in that way too, yeah so.
Dina:I feel like he's a sit-in-the-mud-with-you God. Oh yeah, you know what I mean. He's not going to walk by and throw you something to get out of the hole. He's going to come and climb in the mud with you.
Kate:Yeah.
Dina:Yeah.
Kate:That's a great image.
Dina:Talk you into getting up, can do it, or just lift us up when we need it.
Kate:Oh right, Put it all on him. It's none of our.
Dina:Yeah, Well, he is the best encourager, the strongest encourager, but, yes, at those times where we've got nothing left, he's holding us up Right and I, yeah, I'm very thankful for those times in my life. Yes, that's been a struggle, but you're right about how we use those to minister to each other. I know for me personally. I went through a divorce several years ago and with my not like the public at large I wasn't posting on social media or anything but with my circle of friends or the people that I worked with at the time. I was pretty open about my own faults that were contributing to struggles in my marriage and what I was trying to do about them, and I had countless number of people come to me and say thank you for being vulnerable.
Dina:I'm looking at my own marriage and how I can prevent things like this from happening, or what I'm doing to contribute to our growth as a couple, or our growth as a family. Whereas, again, I talked about isolation that it's easy to isolate yourself when you're suffering because you think that no one else is going through this, and it is a time when we can share and learn from each other. Or, like you said, I can walk with you because I've been there, right, yeah.
Dina:And it may be slightly different, but I got you. Right, yeah, all right. Any last thoughts before we close up for Easter week.
Kate:I just jotted down. When Pastor Greg pointed out, when Mary cried outside the tomb and Jesus called her name, I just thought that was so precious and just. Mary's faith was precious and in her disbelief and not understanding, Jesus was right there and once he said her name, she knew it was him. So it's just that intimacy between the Lord and his children. I just I love that. That was a big takeaway for me.
Dina:Yeah, and like you said, that line that Greg said of God knows your pain, he knows your name, right, and his encouragement at that point was are you listening for him, right? Yeah, that's a great thing. That's kind of my all right. Am I listening? Am I taking time in my suffering to listen for how God's working Well? Thank you so much for being here, kate. We will continue Beyond Sunday next week, looking at the next message in this when Is God series, and until then, let's keep living our faith beyond sunday.
