Blind Faith

Hi, friends, this is Janet Partial.

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Now please, enjoy the broadcast.

Here are some of these headlines we're watching.

The conference was over.

The president wanted to plan on it.

So the Americans worshiping government over God.

It's really rare safety ruled by a nation.

17 years of Palestinians in the Israeli's majority.

I bet it's time for the whole Shaxe.

We hear it.

It's time for the whole Shaxe.

Hi, friends.

Welcome to In the Market with Janet Partial.

So glad we're going to spend the hour together.

Well, here's what I know.

Just because it's part of the human experience.

Our mailing address is East of Eden.

This is not as good as it gets.

And so I'm going to guess that the people listening

right now to this broadcast all across the country,

whether you're listening live

or you're downloading this eventually as a podcast,

you are finding yourself as a follower of price

in one of three positions.

You are either about to walk into the refiner's fire

or you join me today in the middle of the refiner's fire

or you've just come out of the refiner's fire, a changed person.

Never wanting to go back again to who you were

before the Lord really conformed to transformed you

through his refining fire.

And that's the rhythm of life, isn't it?

Until finally, we pass from this life to the next

where real life begins.

This is not as good as it gets.

Remember that is the headline for today,

no matter what you're dealing with.

But we're going to talk about something

and don't leave the room when I say it, okay?

We're going to talk about suffering.

Well, come back.

Listen, it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when

those fiery trials come.

We're all going to suffer.

This is East of Eden.

This is a sinsick fallen world

and our constant battle is against the world,

the flesh and the devil.

And that means there's going to be trials and tears

and tribulation.

And so the question then is,

and I know it's an oxymoronic kind of an idea

because the world certainly doesn't talk like this,

but believers do, if they're immersed in the word particularly,

how do we suffer well?

Well and suffering.

How do you put those two words together

in the same sentence or the same thought?

We live in a post-modern world, a sinsate culture

that all you do is avoid pain at any cost.

You drink it, you swallow it, you look at it,

you exercise it away, you practice immorality,

thinking that will take it away.

The reality is you and I understand

that suffering is a part of this experience.

Now it raises a penopley of questions, doesn't it?

If God is good, then why fill in the blank?

If God is good, why isn't it answering my question?

Why isn't it ending my pain?

Why, why, why?

That is a question for far too many of us.

Every time we enter into that season of suffering,

where we're asking why?

I am thrilled that Chad Roberts is with us

because he could have asked that question over and over

and over and over again, but he didn't.

And because of what God is doing in his life

through his refiner's fire, he now can teach us

how we can see God through the darkness.

And there's a double entendre to that subtitle

of his new book Blind Faith

and we'll get to that in a moment.

In the meantime, let me tell you who Chad is.

He's the founder and lead pastor

of preaching Christ church.

Don't you love the name of that church?

That's one thing I can be sure of.

If I walk into church that says preaching Christ,

they're holding out the word of life

and they're holding fast to that, which is good

and amen to that.

He's the author and Bible teacher for awakened to grace.

He's traveled through 40 countries

sharing the gospel and training leaders.

And in 2018, his life changed dramatically,

but he continues his work as a pastor,

fully sustained by the grace, the power,

and the love of Christ.

Chad, what an honor to have you with us.

Thanks for being here.

So happy to be with you.

Thank you.

Oh, what a joy.

All right.

Tell me first about your coming to faith in Christ.

Well, you know, interestingly enough,

my parents before I came along,

neither of my parents were believers.

And then my mom gets gloriously saved, but not my dad.

And so by the time I come along,

you know, my mom is growing in her faith,

but my dad is just as worldly as they come.

They ended up staying together as Rocky as it was,

but my dad finally came to faith the last 15 years of his life.

So growing up in what I did, you know,

God just gave me such a passion, such a heart for prodigals,

for people who run from God.

And it's just marked me forever.

And I'm so glad that my dad right now,

this very moment is in heaven.

Oh, amen to that, Chad.

So we come to faith in Christ,

and you see God working miraculously in the lives

of your parents as well.

When did you get a sense of what God was asking you

to do with your life for him?

I was extremely young.

I had a family friend who just saw God's call on my life.

And he approached my parents and said,

I want Chad to spend the summer with me

in former communist Europe, in Romania, Ukraine,

all those areas hungry, and I was only 12 years old.

Wow.

And my parents said, no way.

But God dealt with them and dealt with them.

And finally, I went to summers that I was both 12 and 13.

And it just marked my life forever with ministry,

the gospel, missions, and it's all I've known since then.

Wow.

So you grew up living what I was taught as a child,

which is wanting to be on fire for Christ.

And you certainly were.

Yes.

Wow.

So God moves you.

You're getting involved in ministry.

Where was your first place of serving him?

Well, really, just rooted in my home church.

They used to me, even though I was a kid,

they gave me ample opportunity and taught me as a young kid.

God, you know, let no man despise you.

You've God wants to use you.

And by the time that I had reached my 20s,

I knew God was calling me to plant a church

and we planted preaching Christ church

and just continued on in global missions

everywhere that we had opportunity.

Wow.

So how old is preaching Christ church?

25 years old this year.

Unbelievable.

It is.

That's a quarter of a century at the same church,

which is actually fabulous.

But that's been the root.

Has it not because out of there

you've still been involved in a lot of mission strips.

You still have very much of a heart for the mission field.

Do you not?

Oh, you know, the Lord's been so good to us.

And when we started, we said, you know,

we are going to measure the pulse of this church by missions,

not by offerings, not by attendance, not by programming.

We're going to measure our success by missions.

And to this day, 25 years later,

we can completely measure our health,

our pulse by missions.

Wow.

So philosophical slash theological question

as we come up to a break.

Is it me or do you sense that in the church

capital C universal, there has been a kind of

pulling back from missions.

I grew up in a very missions oriented church.

We'd walk out of the church

under a sign that said, you're now entering your mission field.

Do you think that we're as passionate about missions

as we should be or have been in the past?

Well, you know, the people that I hang around, they certainly are.

Maybe it's the company that we keep.

I don't know.

But yeah, the people I'm around, King Demand.

Amen.

May your tribe increase.

Chad, let me take a break and we'll come back.

And I'm going to talk about what happened in 2018

because that was a seminal point in your life.

Chad Roberts is with us.

He's written a wonderful, tender, compassionate, insightful,

biblical book called Blind Faith, seeing God through darkness.

What a descriptor of what it's like to be in a season of suffering.

But for Chad, it has a whole lot deeper meaning than that as well.

He's a great Bible teacher, by the way.

You're going to love this book back after this.

The story of Zachariah and Elizabeth

reminds us that God remembers us and keeps his promises.

That's why I've chosen God hasn't forgotten you

as this month's truth tool, just like he did

through this ancient couple.

God is working in you and through you.

As for your copy of God hasn't forgotten you

when you give a gift of any amount to in the market.

Call 877 Janet, 58, that's 877 Janet, 58,

or go to in the market with Janet Partial.org.

Revising with Chad Roberts, we get to spend the entire hour with him.

He's the founder and lead pastor of Preaching Christ Church.

He is the author and Bible teacher for awakened to grace.

And he joins us with his book called Blind Faith,

Seeing God Through Darkness.

So Chad, I'm going to ask you to take us back.

The reason I asked about always being mission-minded

because the story really starts with a mission trip

to Central America in the year is 2018.

And I left out loud because you were invited to go look

at a Christian radio tower.

I have an affinity, in case you had guests of a bat was.

So I want to hear what happened.

It sounds like a wonderful thing.

First of all, thank you for wanting to check a Christian radio tower.

It's about proclaiming the gospel.

You decided to take this trip and what happened?

Well, we've always loved Christian radio

and always just valued it so much.

Well, so yeah, we're in Central America.

I'm there to train pastors and we decide to hike this large mountain.

We go to, we finally get to the top of a Christian radio tower.

We're actually looking over the border into Honduras

and all of a sudden blood vessels burst behind my eyes.

It's like looking through a spider web of blood.

And of course, you know, I panicked internally in the moment,

but I didn't say anything.

I just excused myself.

I came down off the mountain as quick as I could.

And that by that evening, the blood had dissipated,

but I knew something significant had happened.

So, you know, I get home, I go to the doctor

and they say, Chad, you have no choice,

but surgery and two failed surgeries later.

I was blind.

Wow.

Chad, you're right about this in the book.

I want to linger here because I walked

through this experience with you as much as I could

as a third party stepping into your shoes.

So, the doctor says we can take care of this

and he puts a drop of water behind time

to hold it sounds like the retina in place.

That doesn't work and then they go back

and they put in like a silicone mixture, put it in there.

That doesn't work.

But in the process, it just totally eradicates the vision, correct?

So, did you have, before the surgeries,

could you see anything at all?

I could and in the final failed surgery,

the surgeon accidentally tore my retina.

So, that's why I was immediately blind in my left.

And then 15 months later, I rapidly went blind in my right.

My eyesight just diminished week after week.

So, you can imagine, you know, the pressure

it put on my family, the questions around my church,

I mean, how could I even preach

if I can't see a Bible?

And there were just questions swirling about our lives.

Wow.

When the other I went in that 15-month period,

was it attributable to the burst, burst blood vessels

that were on the mountain when you were in Central America?

Yeah, you know, they tell me that so often

what happens when I jumps over to the next eye

and so it's common that then, yeah.

Wow.

So, oh, Chad, let me walk inside your shoes a little bit here.

How could you not be raging mad?

First of all, when the blood vessels burst,

you could have said, why God?

But then when you have a mortal and a white coat telling you,

oh, we've got this, don't worry about it.

Whatever you do, don't look it up on the internet,

he says to you.

So, you would be mad.

Well, it's counsel, I'm sure.

So, it doesn't work, not once, but it doesn't work twice.

And then you have this slow, steadfast, erosion,

eventual loss of vision over 15 months.

How do you not become enraged if God?

Well, you know, I can remember so clearly

there was one night I was lying in bed

and just my vision was just nearly gone.

And back in those days, I don't know if they're still

popular or not, but staples would run these commercials

with this big red easy button.

And I can remember just telling God that night,

it was nearly midnight.

And I said, God, I just need an easy button to hit.

If you would just let me hit that button

and just pause all of this

because it was all happening so fast.

And I remember the Lord just reminded me

what it Paul said in the book of Acts

is through many tribulations that we enter the kingdom.

And God just, you know, through the whole process,

God taught me he doesn't waste anything.

He's not haphazard.

God is not coincidental.

He doesn't do things accidentally.

It all comes with purpose.

Wow.

Could you sense this is a question so many ask

in the midst of suffering, which is,

God, I can't see the purpose in all of this.

And so how do we get to the point?

Because ultimately, I think it's a question of surrender,

isn't it, Chad?

In fact, in the margin of my Bible in the very leaflet

in the front, I've said, God, help me to trust your heart

when I can't see your hand for that exact reason.

If I can't, and then I think to myself,

what is man that thou art mindful of him?

Who is God to have to give me an explanation

of what he's doing in my life?

If I love him, and I can trust him,

and I know that nothing happens to me,

that wasn't first vetted in the throne room of heaven,

sit down, be quiet, and just see where he takes you on this.

But boy, that takes a lot of exercise

and a whole lot of learning how to surrender, does it not?

Well, I think Joe prayed to one of the greatest prayers

in the entire Bible.

He simply put his hand over his mouth.

And I think sometimes that's the response

that we need to give to God, that we are.

He's the creator.

We are the creation.

And Joe, it comforts me.

You know, we ride about it in a chapter in the book called,

Where is God in times of uncertainty?

And it's on the life of Job, in the suffering of Job.

And you remember in chapter 23, in verse nine, Job says,

I looked for God.

He wasn't ahead of me.

He wasn't behind me.

I looked to my ride.

I looked to my left.

Job could not sense God.

And so many believers are in that place today

where no matter how hard they pray,

no matter how hard they trust, they don't sense God.

But what did he say in verse 10?

Job said, but he knows the path that I take.

And I think that's what you're saying.

When you say, I may not be able to see God's heart

in this matter or his hand, but I trust his heart.

And God sees the path we're on.

And what did he say?

When I've come through this, I'm going to be pure and gold.

The refineress fire.

Absolutely.

Wow.

Let me take a break and come back to so many questions

I want to ask you.

I can tell you love the word, Chad,

because what you do in your book, Blind Faith,

is you do character studies of people who are suffering.

So you write about Joseph and Joseph at.

And you write about several other Bible characters.

Job.

And we walk through their experiences.

And every one of those stories, which

are really at their core stories of suffering, by the way,

it's an attribute of God that we can take away.

One of the reasons why we can trust him.

And this is a look.

It's not easy to do this.

This requires muscle memory.

It retires time and the word.

It requires an overwhelming amount of trust

to be able to say, God, you're in charge.

I'm not.

You mark out my days and you make way.

You make my way clear.

Let me continue with Chad right after this.

We're visiting with Chad Roberts, who's the author of the book, Blind Faith,

seeing God through the darkness.

And it really does tell us how we suffer well.

Not a popular, happy topic, but it's

the reality of not yet being home and living east of Eden.

And the Bible is filled with stories of people who

persevered in the midst of suffering.

And there are wonderful lessons for us if they can do it.

I mean, just think about the scripture that invites us

to join in the fellowship of this suffering.

Not the number one verse for scripture memory for most people.

And speaking of scripture memory, oh, boy, Chad,

two stories out of the book that made me laugh out loud.

One was you walked up to the pulpit at church and you turned your back to the audience

when they knew you couldn't see and they all gasped.

And then you turned around and said, just kidding, which was great.

It broke the ice and nobody was concerned about it afterwards.

Correct?

Yes.

What a wonderful story.

The other thing.

And this was extremely impressive.

You knew that the lights were slowly dimming.

You had that 15 months before you lost your site totally to this day.

You don't have notes.

You have this unbelievable ability to memorize scripture.

And you talk about the verse that says out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

It's all written in there because it just comes out of you.

Talk to me about that.

Were you just voraciously memorizing scripture before the blindness?

Or was this always a hunger and a passion that you had?

I mean, if your church is called preaching Christ, there's a big hint there.

Yeah.

No, I've always loved the word.

And you know, it's amazing what you can do when you have to do something.

And I didn't have the ability to memorize when I had eyesight the way that I do now.

I mean, it really is remarkable.

But you know, people will come up to me and they'll say, gosh, Chad, I wish I could remember

scripture the way that you do.

And I actually had a lady tell me just the other day she said, I feel so guilty because

I did this Bible study a few days ago and I can't remember the scripture.

And I remember asking, or just hit me in the moment, I said, would you tell me what you

ate for dinner 10 nights ago?

And she said, I have no idea.

And that's what that's not the point.

The point is you ate.

The point is that you sustained yourself.

You receive those nutrients.

And that's the point of the Bible.

Just feed yourself every day, feed your soul daily and you'll gain the strength and the

benefit of that.

Oh, I love that.

I've never heard it put that way before, Chad.

So any time of the word is what you're saying is beneficial, whether you can remember everything

you learned the last time you were in a particular section or not.

So how do you memorize scripture today?

Do you listen to an auditory or an audio Bible?

And then that's how you memorize it?

Yeah, you know, I use all of the AI devices and I love you version.

And so, you know, if I'm speaking on one particular verse, I'll memorize it phrase for

phrase.

Just now, you know, sometimes I, you know, just the Lord directs me out.

I'll preach on an entire chapter and I may not memorize it word for word, but I mean,

I know it frontward and backward and I just go, I just go through it and through it.

Wow.

Okay.

That raises an interesting question because if we're, the challenge is to suffer well.

And if we accept invitation to join in the fellowship of his suffering and we have the

reality check that all of us are going to suffer.

It's a little bit and I'm talking to you in the shadow of the nation's capital, but

we're in the mid-Atlantic region and hurricanes are constant happening here.

We're taught how to be prepared for when the storm comes.

Isn't this a wonderful reason to start hiding his word in our heart?

So when the storm comes, I don't know about you, but that's, that's where I go to get

the sustenance to be able to push through the storm.

Absolutely.

When we started laying this project out with life way, it was very important to me that

everyone understands this is not my story.

This book, Blind Faith, I sprinkle some of my story through it, but see, my story doesn't

teach anyone how to suffer well.

It's the scriptures that teaches us how to suffer well and it was extremely important

to me that this is a teaching book that as you so wonderfully said a few moments ago,

it's the characters of the scripture and it shows us the character of God.

That's the only thing that helps us suffer well, not our own determination or our own

strength or self will.

What a brilliant point, Chad, and not only that, but when we read the scriptures about

these individuals, we see how God intervened, how he provided, how he comforted.

And so reading that holistically isn't just the person's experience.

What God did in through and for that person in the midst of their suffering.

And if he can do it for Joseph, if he can do it for Joe, but if he can do it for Jehovah's

to that, he can do it for you as well.

You wrote early on in the book and I really underlined this that one of the things one

we're suffering is to learn to have self control.

In fact, you call it the right response.

Talk to me about that.

Oh, yes, you know, that's one thing that I learned very quickly is I cannot control anything.

I can't even control what my body does.

I can't control the breakdown of my vision.

I can't control the way other people act.

I can't control what other people say, but there is one thing I can control.

And that's my response.

That's my reaction.

So when Paul says in Philippians 4, let your reasonableness be known to everyone.

What that word means is that it's the right spiritually mature reaction.

And that's what the world needs to see when Christians suffer.

You know, we don't think about that in that verse that often.

The reasonableness.

I mean, I love that.

And when you contextualize that in terms of suffering, I thought in other words, it's

a message to the world when we suffer well.

Is it not that we're not in control, but he is.

And we have calm in the midst of a storm.

I mean, that has to translate, if done well, powerfully to an unsafe world.

Does it not?

Absolutely.

Well, when we come back, I want to look at Joseph.

You write about so many wonderful people in the scriptures, but take a look at Joseph.

You know, we think of him as a Broadway musical and as code of many colors and all of those

attributes.

But for the more I go back and study his story, there's a whole lot of suffering that goes

on in his life.

And you picked up on that in your book, Blind Faith.

Chad Roberts is with us.

By the way, I've got a link to awakened to grace.com.

That's his ministry.

By the way, also he's the founder and lead pastor of preaching Christ Church and the author

of Blind Faith.

Seeing God through darkness.

More with Chad Roberts right after this.

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We're spending the hour with Chad Roberts who's the founder and lead pastor of preaching

Christ Church.

He's the author and Bible teacher for awakened to grace and he's traveled through 40 countries

sharing the gospel and training leaders all around the globe.

So he suffered blindness in 2018.

That has not stopped him at all.

He continues to serve the Lord with passion.

He is fully sustained as he says by the grace of God.

And he writes with eloquence about his journey of suffering.

But as he said, and I hope you picked up on his humility on this and very impressive,

but very spot on.

He sprinkles his story throughout the book, his word, and he's absolutely right because

he wants us to hear the stories of the saints of old who endured suffering.

And in the word of God, first of all, it'll drive you to the word of God.

Second of all, you'll be able to see how God sustained and comforted and provided for

people who were suffering just as he will for us.

So Chad's story is a launching pad.

And he, not only that, he speaks as one who has learned how to suffer well.

And I don't know about you, but we need to listen to people who have had that experience.

So we too can honor the Lord by suffering well, blind faith, seeing God through darkness.

So one of the many characters that you use as a teaching model for suffering is the story

of Joseph.

And I wasn't being facetious before Chad because I fall into this group.

You know, they turn a Broadway musical into Joseph and his coat of many colors.

And we see cartoons made out of him on that Disney puts out.

And it's really easy to see all of that.

And then you start looking at time and you go, whoa, whoa, wait, how long was he in that

sister?

How old was he when he was taken into slavery?

How many years did he spend in a dungeon?

The Bible says not prison dungeon before being falsely accused.

You talk about fertile grounds for a bad attitude.

That was not Joseph's response.

Talk to me about him.

I love the story of Joseph beginning to end.

And you know, when I think about Joseph, I think how we have the benefit of knowing the

end of his story, but he didn't.

And my favorite phrase in the life of Joseph, remember after he interpreted the dreams and

he felt so confident that, you know, he was going to be released from prison.

I mean, you know, Pharaoh was going to hear a story.

The scripture simply says, two whole years, I just, you know, I think that was the longest

stretch.

I think that was longer than everything that had happened to him previously.

But what that was at two whole years, that was the making of a godly man and it wasn't

wasted time.

Yeah.

Well, I need to think about it.

Fourteen years in prison, Chad, and he, yes, he comes someone who interprets dreams for

a cup of air and a baker and that's going to have a profound impact on his future once

he's lifted out of prison.

But when you think about being falsely accused, I mean, we can relate to that in 21st century

America.

I think we see crime shows on the air all the time, somebody who's suffered an injustice

and being imprisoned for something they didn't do wrong.

And you really come out of there with a freedom of choice of your attitude.

I'll never forget Bonhoeffer writing when he's talked about the cost of discipleship

that even though he was being held by the Germans, they could take everything away from

him.

And his food, his family, all of the creature comforts, but they could never take away

he said, his freedom to choose the right attitude.

How important is that for us, his saints?

Oh, it's everything.

Our perspective is everything and that's what Satan wants to skew.

That's what he wants to twist.

That's what he wants to, to sour in our life.

But no, when we have the right attitude and our view is right and that's what gives

us that is scripture people like Joseph.

Now we can face anything.

I call that chapter the King's prison because he wasn't in an ordinary place.

And you know, I loved that chapter so much because I talk about my own experience, visiting

an Egyptian prison, which was so fascinating on its own, but it nothing like as you described

it, the dungeon that Joseph would have been in that day.

Yeah.

And yet didn't have a bad attitude.

I can't tell you how convicted I am about this.

Speaking about dreams, I'm going to go back to Joseph in a minute, but and dreams are

obviously very much a part of Joseph's story, but you wrote with such tenderness and transparency

about how you dream at night and technicolor and then you wake in the morning to the darkness.

And boy, that just hit me right between my ribs because I thought, wow, again, Satan,

before you even put your feet on the bedroom floor, you could say, oh, I'm so mad.

And right before you even get started and kick your slippers off, Chad, you have to

start choosing the right attitude.

That's right.

That's exactly right.

You know, no one told me going from a sighted man to a blind man that I would still dream

and vivid color.

And I could see at I mean, I love to go to bed because I can see everything.

I tell my kids, I'm only blind half the time, the other time I'm dreaming.

But when I would wake up, especially in those early days, to pitch blackness and no matter

what I did, nothing changed, days like that, my emotions would have kept me in bed.

But I would, I would set up on the edge of my bed.

I've done this more times that I can count.

And I would say this is the day that the Lord has made.

I will rejoice and I will be glad in it.

And I'd go on with my day.

And by the time the Lord and I had had my coffee, well, we were having a great day.

But I had to learn joy is not a feeling.

It's a choice.

James 1, 2 says count it all joy when you encounter trials of various kinds.

Boy, can I tell you how that gets driven home to me, Paul writing from prison to the

church at Philippi and says, this is big brother, Paul, I have learned in whatsoever state.

I'm in to be content.

It didn't come naturally.

He had to make that choice.

And if Paul had to work at it, so do we.

And it's an exercise of the will.

You know, sometimes free will drives me bonkers because it gets me into trouble with sin.

But there are other times when I'm so grateful for free will because I can choose to have

that attitude of gratitude.

And I have to tell you, Chad, I laughed out loud.

That is the verse I say every day when I get up in the morning, every single day, the

fact that I'm breathing, he's gotten here for a purpose one more day.

So this is the day the Lord has made.

Let me rejoice and be glad in it.

Well, I had to learn I'm not going to, I'm not going to let emotions lead the way.

I'm going to, I'm going to let my will lead the way.

Why?

Because my will is saturated in the word of God.

And that's what's leading the way for me.

Wow.

Let me go back to our friend Joseph.

You said there are three principles, one, what the Lord was with Joseph, number two,

second principle, look for God's provenance.

And then the third principle is serve others.

Those are fascinating takeaways from the life of Joseph.

Talk to me about that.

Well, again, I just don't know if Joseph being in the situation he was in, not knowing

the end of his story, having no promises out of God's word, the way that we do, did

he feel God with him, but yet over and over, the scripture says the Lord was with him.

And I think sometimes we base everything on how we feel.

No, we have to base our faith on what we know from the word.

And I may not feel God with me in a particular moment.

I may not feel God with me in a certain situation or even a season, but that doesn't take

away the fact he will never leave us nor forsake us.

So good.

So good.

How did Joseph look for God's provenance?

Well, you know, I remember writing that portion of the book.

And I remember telling such a wonderful story about President Abraham Lincoln.

And I love that story so much of Providence.

And it's there.

We just have to look for it.

And I think, I think with Joseph and all that he suffered and all that he went through,

I think he did in the end, I think he knew God was with him.

I think there were times he didn't feel it, but I think he did know it.

And isn't it interesting?

Well, the last thing most of us would think about when we're under the crushing pain

of suffering is to serve others.

I love this.

Talk to me about this because I, again, you talk about an attitude of gratitude and

CS Lewis said it beautifully.

He said, the will has to proceed the emotions.

And this is a perfect example of this.

So how do you serve when you're suffering?

Well, I had to learn this.

You know, I don't know why, but Saturday nights were my worst days.

And I just struggled the most.

You know, through the week, I'm here at the church.

I'm leading the staff of, you know, we're, I'm always busy, but Saturdays, it wasn't

like that.

And Saturdays, I struggled.

Well, you know what we started doing?

My church started serving the homeless and we would take a home-cooked meal every Saturday

to the homeless shelter, one of them here in our town.

And the more I began serving, the happier I was.

And I just noticed how my entire attitude changed.

And you know, that's what Joseph did.

Joseph could have heard these men's dreams and Joseph could have had the attitude, well,

you know what, God, you want me to interpret dreams, get me out of here, you know, change

my circumstance, get me out of this prison, but no, he served right where he was.

And that's the choice we have to make in our sufferings.

You know, that's such an important point, Chad, because I think for a lot of us when we're

in the midst of suffering, we're sort of marginalized that are suffering.

And there's some truth to this that suffering does tend to isolate because you can have

a wonderfully supportive spouse, but if you're struggling with something, you can have

the prayer support, the physical presence of that person.

But ultimately, you're in the refiner's fire all by yourself.

And that's a toughy because you think, I'm isolated, my suffering puts me in a place

of isolation, or I've allowed myself to go into a place of isolation.

But you turn that around and you start feeding the homeless, and you just break through

that barrier, do you not?

Well, you know, in the book, we also talk about the difference between isolation and

solitude.

Yes.

We're in solitude and we said in the book, solitude is when you are alone with God, isolation

is when you are alone with you.

And that's not a healthy space.

Yeah.

Such wisdom in this book, I just love it and I, you know, the reality is, as I said at

the top of the hour, it's not a favorite topic of anybody's, but it's a reality.

Not when, not if, but when these fiery trials come in this life, you will have tribulation.

It's a guaranteed the Lord tells us.

So we have to get over the shock and awe, realize it's going to happen, and get prepared

now.

And one of the ways you can do that, and this is why Chad is such an excellent teacher.

Start studying the characters of the Bible who suffered, which by the way is an over-helming

number of people in the scriptures, and you can learn how God was there, how he provided,

how he met their needs, and he'll do the same for you.

Blind faith, seeing God through darkness, Chad's new book, back after this.

Blind faith, seeing God through darkness, that's the new book by Chad Roberts.

He's the founder and lead pastor of preaching Christ's church.

He's also the author and Bible teacher for awakened to grace.

He's traveled around the globe, sharing the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and

training up leaders.

And this is a wonderful study in suffering.

And yes, he quotes, sprinkles his story throughout, but basically he wants us to get into

the Word and read the stories again of those who suffered.

And there's no shortage of those stories in scripture by any stretch of the imagination.

So Chad, if I can, I was, there's such wisdom.

And this isn't just empty flattery.

I have to tell you, you really tackled this subject compassionately through the first

person narrative of what you've had to done.

And there's just something about a wounded comforter that impacts us so well, and you certainly

fall into that category.

But your understanding and your application of the Word is wonderful.

I'm going to talk about time because you talk about the fact that when you had to learn

patience that you had to wait for people to pick you up because you couldn't drive

anymore.

And that you knew that all of this was about bringing you to maturity and completing

you.

The good thing which he has begun, if I can put it in scripture.

But you also love the phrase.

You talk about us being Amazon prime Christians.

Talk to me about this because I think in a world where the data tells us now you're lucky

if you spend 15 seconds on a website, you can't flip through your smartphone fast enough

and you're lucky if you get a minute when you're watching television before you hit the remote

control.

Sitting and waiting is antithetical to the American pace of life right now.

And yet it is crucial in our maturing in him.

Talk to me about this.

Absolutely.

You know, it doesn't matter what changes in our society, that matter, what technology

changes, patience is still a spiritual fruit.

And I had to learn that.

I had to learn it in ways I never thought that I would.

You know, as you mentioned, I say in the book, when my life came to a grinding halt,

you know, I couldn't just jump in my car and zip through town.

I couldn't just jump on an airplane and go to another country like I was so accustomed

to.

Now I'm standing in my driveway with a backpack feeling like a kid waiting on someone to

pick me up to take me to the church office.

It was awful.

And I can just remember the Lord, you know, maybe it doesn't resonate with everyone,

but I can just remember the Lord telling me, just picture a lush fruit and now take a

bite out of it.

And the Lord said, that's patience and it became sweet to me.

And the Lord just taught it to me in such wonderful and kind and gracious ways.

And you know, I tell people today, there's been far more gain than there's been loss in

blindness.

I'm just truly, I can say it with a pure heart, a pure conscience.

I'm so thankful for it.

There are lush green pastures.

I would have never known had God not Psalm 232 made me to lie down in them.

Wow.

It really is about so many things that we learn only when we suffer.

Doesn't that tell you something about the human condition that, you know, it's the

idea of CS Lewis again about whispering us in our joy and how he shouts to us in our

pain because that's a way of getting our attention.

And then we're willing to do the tough stuff we won't do when we're just whistling past

the graveyard on a regular basis.

So I love the way you talk about that.

This attribute of patience is important.

I always used to say, Lord, I think your clock is broken because it seems to not be working.

It's far too slow.

And you talk about the three answers we get for prayer, yes, no, and wait from your

perspective.

And I love the way you're harken back to Isaiah and this one.

Why is it so crucial that we learn to wait upon the Lord?

That's an easy Bible verse.

Most of us memorize early when we're getting into Bible memorization.

But it's one thing to memorize it.

It's a whole other thing to do it.

Why is it so important?

Well, I think it's special to the Lord.

You know, Christians would do well to watch the calendar, not the clock.

And I think it's such a special thing to the Lord when we wait, you know, I remember

the Lord asking me out of that scripture in Isaiah, will you be one of those?

Part of they.

I said, Lord, what do you mean?

He said they that way to burn the Lord.

That's a special group of people.

Those are people who find pleasure in saying, God, I may not get the outcome.

I'm hoping for the prayer may not be answered the way that I think it should be.

But ultimately, I trust you and you're worth waiting on.

Wow.

You tell the story.

I know this story.

I wonder if some people listening across the country don't, but talk to me about Mary

and George Mueller, because this ties into the idea that God is never late.

Oh, the Mueller's what examples of faith and that's what I love.

You know, not only do we share the scriptural characters, but we

go back into church history and we tell wonderful stories of church history.

You'll have to refresh me.

Was that the story of the bread and the milk?

Yes.

Yes.

And Bristol.

All in the opening.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

They get up that morning and all of the orphans, there's no food in the house.

And George Mueller, he lines up all the children, just like normal, empty bowls, empty cabinets,

nothing.

And he tells the children.

We're going to thank God for our daily bread today.

And they pray.

And while he is praying, a knock is on the door and it was the local bread baker.

He said, God woke me up in the middle of the night and told me to start baking bread.

And then the milk, the milk delivery man, his heart broke down right in front of the

orphanage.

And he told George Mueller, if I don't get rid of it, it's going to spoil could the

children use it.

And what did Mueller say?

Not only did God give us bread, not only did God give us milk, he gave us fresh bread

and fresh milk.

It's only God can, wow, Chad, there's so much more in the book.

And so let me just ask for a capstone again, I'll repeat myself because it's true.

Let's not kid ourselves suffering is not fun.

It was not designed to be, but it is unbelievably important in changing who we are in conforming

and transforming us to the image of Christ, back to Isaiah, how dare the pot say to the

potter, what are you doing?

Well, this is God molding and shaping us.

So just one last word, Chad, for someone who's in the midst of suffering right now, what

would you say to them as a word of encouragement?

I would say it's not fun, it's not fair, but it is worth it, because God doesn't waste

anything.

Chad, what a wonderful and memorable conversation.

Thank you, brother.

May the Lord open wide more doors of opportunity for you to share your story into

and encourage the saints because suffering is a reality.

It'll end when real life begins.

We're not yet there.

So in the meantime, it's important that we learn to suffer well for what it's doing for

us and what our suffering can do for others as well.

Chad's book is marvelous.

It's called Blind Faith, Seeing God Through Darkness.

And again, I have a link to his website, AwakenToGrace.com.

It's all there on my information page.

By the way, someone you know might be struggling right now and then they have missed this broadcast.

Send them the link or take them to wherever you find your favorite podcast and put in

today's date and ask to see and listen for Chad Roberts.

This is his conversation, his story, his encouragement to somebody who's hearing right now.

My thanks again to Chad Roberts and to you friends.

We'll see you next time on In The Market with Janet Farnsville.