Transcript

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Dr. Jessica Peck: We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, PreBorn. When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, it's a divine connection. And the majority of the time she will choose life. But they can't do it without our help. Preborn needs us, the pro life community, to come alongside them. One ultrasound is just $28. To donate, dial pound 250 and say the keyword BABY or visit preborn.com/AFR hello.

Dr. Jessica Peck prescribes Hope for Healthy Families on American Family Radio

And welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing Hope for Healthy Families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of the afternoon, getting to spend time with you prescribing Hope for Healthy Families. Can you believe that we are in the third week of January already? You know, so often in past years, January just seems to drag by. But I don't know about you, it is flying by for me. I cannot even believe it. I hope you'll join us on Fridays. We're just Getting started in 52 habits for healthy families. That'll be a year long journey. Every Friday, we'll talk about a new habit. This month we're talking about spiritual disciplines and we're just getting started. We've just done talked about prayer and memorizing scripture and this week we'll be talking about going to church. All of those simple things to help strengthen your family. I have a couple of, other announcements for you before we get started. Started with my guests today. First of all, I want to remind you that we are in the final week to register for the Hannah's Heart Women's Conference. Now this is a conference happening in Tupelo, Mississippi, which is just a little more than an hour from Memphis or Birmingham, depending on where you're coming from. It is a conference for all women. Now, Hannah's Heart is a ministry here specifically for women who are going through infertility, miscarriage, child loss, those kinds of things, family, troubles that can happen, those kinds of traumas and, and heartaches that can happen. But this conference is for any woman. It's a time of biblical teaching, worship and encouragement for women in all walks of life. And they are about getting ready to close registration on Monday, January 26th. But you can get 50% off when you register using the code HOPE50, HOPE50. You can also call and just say, hey, I heard something about a discount code. They'll help you. Or if you are tech savvy, you can go to afr.net/hhc2026 that's Hannah's Heart Conference 2026 afr.net/hhc2026 and I hope that you will be able to go or tell a friend about it who needs to go. The second thing that I want to tell you is that we are starting a preborn ministry this week, Ministry Spotlight. And we'll be partnering, raise money. We'll be talking about that every day this week and especially on Thursday. But we are asking for a gift of $28 to provide one woman a free ultrasound. Giving a mom an opportunity to choose life for her baby. $140 provides five free ultrasound sessions reaching five women with a message of life. And the goal of this campaign is to save 5,000 babies. And you can call 877-616-2396, that's 877-616-2396 or you can donate online at afr.net so many great opportunities for you to be an encouragement and a blessing to others, whether going to a conference, sharing a conference with someone who needs it, or providing an ultrasound for a mom. There are so many ways to find hope in the world. And when we look at the way that the world is going, it is really easy to overwhelmed to feel like all you see is a constant doom scroll. And the truth is, many of us look back at our own personal life, at the past experiences we have. And maybe you are one of those people who just feels like there's been a trail of disappointment. Maybe there's been unanswered prayers. Maybe you feel like you've experienced a leadership failure or you've been hurt in a church situations, or you've been walking through a season of deep suffering that you just never saw coming. Maybe there was a time where you felt like everything was going great, your faith felt strong, maybe you even felt joyful and then all of a sudden the floor just fell out from under you. Maybe you experienced grief or betrayal or just burnout from the way the world is going, or an illness that shook everything you thought you believed. Well, today my guest is author and Bible teacher Courtney Reissig, and she knows this terrain very well and she has written a book called Someone to Believe In. She writes very cand about some of those things about ministry, burnout, church hurts, shame, and even walking through a cancer diagnosis. But in those painful chapters, she discovered something unshakable that she's here to share with us today. While circumstances, people, even our emotions changed, Jesus did not. He was faithful. Yesterday, even when everything else gave way. He is faithful today, and he will be faithful tomorrow. So we are going to talk about that. And, Courtney, thank you so much for joining us today today to talk about this and to provide encouragement for those who are listening, who feel like this sounds so familiar to me and are eager for some help and some hope. Thanks for joining us.

Courtney Reissig: Thanks for having me.

Courtney has long wanted to write a book on the Gospel of John

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, Courtney, why don't you start by just introducing yourself to our listeners, Tell them a little bit about yourself and your journey that led you to be here today to give us this message.

Courtney Reissig: Yeah, so I spent, I spent the last 15 years or so in vocational ministry. So I've led women's ministry. I've been a writer. I've, led adult discipleship in the church. And so I have been writing and teaching the Bible for the last 15 years. Went to seminary, and so I have long wanted to write a book on the Gospel of John. I led a Bible study through the Gospel of John, wrote curriculum for my church on the Gospel of John, and had really prayed about and thought about and marinated in the Gospel of John for a long time, and began working on a proposal about five years ago of trying to think through what that would look like, and eventually led to the book of where I'm at now. So I wanted to write it long before I did, and I think the Lord had other plans, and so I'm thankful that I had that extra time marinating in it before it came to this point.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, about five years ago. I, probably shouldn't say this, Courtney, but that was right in the middle of a little thing that we don't want to talk about or remember, but the start of a global pandemic and global unrest.

Courtney Reissig: Ptsd.

Dr. Jessica Peck: I know, right, Exactly. That's what it feels like. And looking at that, and I feel like when you said five years ago, like, it should always be followed by a sound effect, like, dun, dun, dun, you know?

Courtney Reissig: Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Jessica Peck: It just feels.

Courtney Reissig: Actually, isn't it been like six years? Right.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Yes. Yes, it has. So that was in five years.

Courtney Reissig: We were in the throes of it because it was still, like, sometimes you'd be in school and sometimes you wouldn't type of thing, you know? So we're very deeply in the throes of it five years ago.

Dr. Jessica Peck: So tell us more about the Book of John. Just being a lifeline during those seasons of suffering, of disappointment, of just. It just feels like we have been collectively as the world, like, living in a period of unrest. And then you layer in all of Those personal things, each personal situation that's going through, and it just feels like the world is weary. How did John really become a lifeline to you?

Courtney Reissig: So I. The thing that really struck me about the Gospel of John, the first time I really, landed on me was probably. It was like eight years ago, seven or eight years ago. And, we had. We were in a church transition. We had helped plant the church and had been there for eight years and then transitioned out. And we're in a new church, and everything was kind of disorienting, being in a new place. And I remember hearing a sermon on the book of Hebrews, and the pastor said, preached on the. On the passage at the end of Hebrews where he says, jesus Christ is the same yesterday and forever. And I had just wrapped up teaching a Bible study on the Gospel of John. And John ends the Gospel of John with saying, these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. And by believing, you may have life in his name. And so John tells us the purpose for his book at the end of the book, that everything he's written is so that you would see Jesus for who he is and believe. And it really solidified in my mind hearing that sermon on Hebrews with that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And for. For us and our family in that time of transition, church was a little bit, uncertain and scary because we were in a new place. Everything was not as familiar as it had been. And I needed that anchor of Jesus doesn't change. He stays the same. And drawing on the truth I had learned from John is that John was writing these things at the very end of his life. He's writing these things as an exiled believer, watching all his friends die. And even in that time of disorientation for him, he is still saying Jesus someone for us to believe in. And that's kind of the impetus for the book of. Where I started thinking this is where the book would go ultimately was that Jesus Christ is the same both for eternity past, but also for where we're at right now and where. Where he's taking us in the future in our life.

Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, Courtney, I think that's a truth that can resonate with all of us because you talk about being in a place that feels unfamiliar and. And just feeling disoriented. That is what we felt like since COVID everybody has felt like that. That's a baseline, you know, to go from there because everything feels unfamiliar. I remember my daughter Was a senior in high school when Covid first started. And I remember her coming to me one day and saying, you know, everything that you told me about how this phase of life would be is not true. There is. You told me we've got to prepare for standardized testing. Well, guess what? They canceled standardized testing. There's no graduation. Don't even know if I'll go off to college. I mean, I. All of these things, and I feel like we're in a world where it's constantly changing. We thought social media changed it. Now AI is changing it even more.

Courtney Reissig: Right.

Dr. Jessica Peck: We just constantly feel disoriented and we can think, what is the connection to ancient words, to John, as you said, exiled on the island of papyrus, you know, writing this at the end of his life. How does that truth arch over and, and pierce through we thinking, like, where is God in all of this?

Courtney Reissig: Yeah. And that, I think is the most comforting part of a book like the Gospel of John is that we can look at our life and say, oh, we're like the first ones who've gone through it. What we're experiencing and whatever disorientation we're feeling, whether it's from COVID or it's from, church hurt, or it's from like a physical suffering, like cancer or any type of relational suffering, any of those things we can feel, it has a tendency to make us feel like we're the first and the last. We're alone. And the beauty of the Gospel of John and John writing this to us is a reminder that we aren't alone, that he's telling us to look at Jesus as the one who's worth believing in. And then all of the things in the Gospel of John point us to the Savior who is with us. the whole upper room discourse in John 13:17 is this comforting reminder that Jesus says, I'm not going to leave you as orphans. I will come to you. You will not be alone. And so there is nothing that we have walked through or are walking through as believers that, that, that wasn't on God's radar, that he was not unaware of we were going to walk through. And then he provides the Holy Spirit to guide us and to direct us and to comfort us and to draw near to us and to give us perspective. And so John is a familiar friend to us. he writes, I, I always feel, so emotional. I read the story of Peter, how Peter is restored at the end of the Gospel of John. And he wants to know about, well, what about this man who's not going to die. And what about him? What about me? And I am always struck by that story, because by the time John records that story in the Gospel of John, Peter has already died. And I mean, they walk through a lot together. And his friends are dead, and yet he still is writing these truths about Christ that he is still someone for us to believe in. And I've not suffered like that. I've not lost all my friends. They're not all dead. They're not all. They didn't all suffer horrible deaths at the hands of the Romans. And yet John is reminding us you can still believe in him. And so how much more can I believe in him? As a 21st century Christian in America, with all the comforts that I have, how much more can I believe in him? It doesn't negate the hardness that we walk through, but it reminds us we have a familiar friend who's walked it before us as well.

Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, that's such interesting perspective to think about John writing this at the end of his life, because the book of John kind of ends on a high note, you know, and it ends in victory and redemption, and there's hope, right? And you kind of read it like that. But to think that, no, he knows exactly, like you said, that the disciples have been killed in terrible, terrible ways. And yet he is still writing that, still reflecting on the end of his life after he has suffered. Suffered himself. Yeah, enormously. That is so encouraging. And we're already up against our first break, Courtney. I can't believe that. But when we come back, I really want to talk about the deeply, what you call the deeply personal nature of Jesus in this book and how that ministers to us. Because I think what you said is something that really resonates with someone who's going through something you start to isolate, you start to think, I feel alone. No one could have gone through this. No one can understand the, you know, the specifics of my circumstances. Nobody can feel like that. But that, that is a lie. And we know also from John that the thief comes to steal, to kill, to destroy. But we can, we can have an abiding life in Christ. So when we come back, I want to talk about that. But before we do, before we go to our break, tell us where people can find the book, Courtney.

Courtney Reissig: Well, Amazon's always a, trusted retailer, so you can find it on Amazon or you can find it on bnh.com Robin and Holman is my publisher.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Someone to believe in embracing the Savior who stays the same when Everything else changes. I also want to let you know that Courtney has written a children's book because of course I would let you know as a pediatric nurse, as a mom. It's called Seth and the Very Scary Storm. Beautiful story of God being with you even when something scary is happening. Really great resource for families. And for me, living on the Gulf coast, having lived through many a scary storm, this was encouraging to me and I'll be sharing that with, people I love. And I hope that you will too. We'll be right back with more from Courtney Reissig to all talking about someone to believe in.

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Too Good to Not Believe by Brandon Lake and Cody Carnes: I can't resurrect a man m with my own hands but just the mention of your name can raise the dead all the glory to the only one who cares Jesus is here Jesus is here. God the wonder working God for the miracles I've seen Too good to not believe the wonder working God you heal because you love all the miracles we'll see come Too good to not believe Too good to not believe Too good to not believe. I've seen cancer disappear I've seen broken bodies heal don't you tell me he can't do it. Don't you tell me he can't do it. I've seen real life resurrection, seen mental health, restore it. Don't you tell me he can't do it don't you tell me he can't do it I've seen families reunited I've seen prodigals return don't you tell me he can do it don't you tell me he can't do it I See troubled souls delivered I see now it's finally free don't you tell me he can do it don't you tell me he can do it Salvation love the streets don't you tell me he can do it don't you tell me.

Dr. Jessica Peck: He can do it welcome back, friends. That is such a powerful message. Don't you tell me he can't do it he is too good to not believe. Too good not to believe by Brandon Lake and Cody Carnes.

Author Courtney Reissig writes about trusting Jesus when everything else changes

And that's really what we're talking about today. I'm talking with author Courtney Reisig, who was asked the question, where do you go when all that once stabilized your spiritual life suddenly shifts underneath you? When your faith is shaken and your leaders fail you? When you're languishing in ministry burnout, when you're grieving a friend who walked away from God? When the doubts, disappointments and sufferings of this broken world tempt you to walk away from him too? Well, we, as I said, we have author and Bible teacher Courtney Riessig, who has wrestled with these questions, and we're talking about that, that she's talked about in her book, Someone to Believe in embracing the Savior who stays the same when everything else changes. And we were just talking before the break about how it seems the world has fundamentally changed in the last five, six years. And underneath all of the global strife, underneath all of the national unrest, we have personal trials, traumas and tragedy that happen. And Courtney, we were just about to talk about the deeply personal nature of Jesus in this book. It can be so easy to feel so discouraged, to feel forgotten, to feel unseen, to feel just deeply soul weary. How does the deeply personal nature of Jesus. How did that minister to you in your own story? And what encouragement can we have from that?

Courtney Reissig: Yeah, so I think there's probably layers of it. So when I first started writing the book or working on the proposal for the book, I was thinking of other things I had walked through. I had a cancer diagnosis, at the beginning of COVID actually, and, and how Christ drew near to our family in that moment. We've walked through infertility and a number of different things. We've walked through transition, in church, I mean, just things that were disorienting in our life. And I wrote the proposal for the book and submitted it to a couple publishers and they were like, can you get me the full proposal and we'll keep talking. And I was on staff at a church at the time, and I worked full time. And so I was like, yeah, I'll get you all that information. And then I never did because I was working full time and. And I was on staff in a large church and we walked through a crisis there of, a cover up of some sex abuse that I was made aware of as a staffer. And so it was a deeply disorienting time where I left staff and our family was disoriented and it was kind of, it was really public in where we were living. And in that time, after I revisited the proposal because I didn't have a job and was like, I just will revisit it again. And as I revisited John, I was reminded that I needed to wait, I needed to marinate on it a little bit more and spend more time in the Gospel of John. And I needed it for that moment. And so for me, in many ways, working on that book over the course of that year after was my way of staying anchored to the cross and my way of staying anchored to Christ, of when I wanted to say, I don't trust anybody, I don't want to deal with any of this nonsense anymore. Spending, time in God's word and every day having to wake up and work on this book that I had said, yes, I was going to write. Being reminded that Jesus Christ is trustworthy and I can trust him. And I can, I can find hope for him when I've sinned and failed. And I can find hope for him when others have sinned and failed. And he is the one worth believing in when everybody else is not, or every other circumstance is not. And so that was kind of the thing that really anchored me is that I might not be able to trust my circumstances, but I can trust Jesus. And that's what I need to hang on to, is that he has not changed and, and that has, anchored me and still continues to anchor me to this day.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, I think, you know, listening in, I can't believe all that you experienced. I'm so sorry that you experienced that. Courtney. That sounds like a very, very challenging time. And I know there's people who can relate and we have a sense in this world, you know, we know again from the Book of John, one of my favorite verses is that in this world you will have trouble, but you can take Heart, you can be of good cheer because Christ has overcome the world. But at the same time, we know that circumstances will happen. We know that people get sick. We know that there are accidents that happen. We know that there are bad things that happen in the world. And I think kind of our coping mechanism is to try to find people in the world that we kind of hang our hat on and we follow as spiritual leaders and we're like, oh, but this person, this person encourages me. And then all of a sudden you find out there's a scandal as you talked about. You know, there's a disappointment, there's a quote, unquote, moral failure. And the whole Christ world just kind of takes this collective broken sigh, like, oh, no. And it just. It hurts us. And we're like, not again. Where does that surprise come from? You know, why are we so surprised when people fail us? And, and how should we reframe our expectations and perspective?

Courtney Reissig: Yeah, I think there's. You don't even have to name a name or anything like that, because another one will come. So there's no point in naming names of any scandal that we know, because the reality is, is that people are going to fail us. I'm going to fail people. I mean, we are broken human beings. But I think. I mean, you ask a really good question of where does that come from? Because I've asked the same question of myself. Why am I so disappointed every time? And I think for me, what I had to come to terms with over the last couple of years is that I was putting. I had an unhealthy idolatry of Christian leaders.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Oh, that's bold to say.

Courtney Reissig: It is. I had a, an unhealthy idol. I. It seemed right to say I. I believed I was in the right camp. So I'm going to be in this camp and I'm going to follow these people and I'm going to adhere to these theological truths, and I'm gonna. If I fit into this camp, then I. I've arrived. I'm. I'm good. And so when people in that camp don't follow the Bible or follow Jesus and make sinful mistakes, then that's a little shaky because you're like, well, I thought I was on the right side here. I thought I was group and I had to. To come to terms with. I had an idolatry of leaders that the we in our hearts are so prone to, that we want to hang our hats on a person we can see, and we want. We want to feel like we're in the right group. And I think even in the Gospel of John, I mean, Jesus speaks to those, that type of impulse. Nicodemus believed he was right, and, and everyone else believed Nicodemus was right. The fair, we, we view Pharisees as bad because we've, we've heard theological teaching of how they were moral moralists and legalists and but in that time period, to be a Pharisee was actually to be the most religious person in the room. And that was who Nicodemus was. And Jesus is like, you got to be born again. None of, none of the things. Being a Pharisee and following a Pharisee and that being your, your camp that you're in is not going to save you. You have to have something from the inside out, something you can't do for yourself. And I think I wanted to be in the right camp so badly, and I wanted to believe that, have a hero I could hang my hat on. And there's a song that my kids listen to, a kid's song, and it talks about there's only one hero and his name is Jesus. And I think that's what we have to come back to. And I think it's a failure of biblical literacy on our part to hang our hats on spiritual leaders when the Bible doesn't hang their hat on anyone else but Jesus. So all of the people we look at in scripture, they all have a reason not to follow them. Abraham was a liar and gave his wife. He, he couldn't. He. He made foolish choices all along the way and didn't trust the Lord.

Courtney: God uses broken people, but they're not our ultimate hero

David did not make wise choices and was sinful all along the way. The only one we can. And Peter was absolutely foolish at a number of turns. But yet the broken, it shows us that God uses broken people. And he can use broken people, but they're not our ultimate hero. Jesus is our ultimate hero. And we can follow people as long as they're following Jesus. And we can be. We can grieve over their failure, but we don't have to lose our faith over their failure because they're not the ultimate hero in the story.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, that goes back to what you were saying earlier about understanding the deeply personal nature of Jesus. And I think you're right. And you called out a lack of biblical literacy because when you're not reading God's word, God's word directly to you, you cannot know who you are until you know who God is. And, you got, you only know that by reading the Bible. And so we try to put in. And you called it out, you said idolatry. And I agree with you, Courtney, that we try to have these human substitutes for what should be the deeply personal nature of Jesus. Now obviously God equips people to equip the saints for good works to encourage us. And there's so many examples of that, particularly in the NewSong Testament, but no one who is that perfect person. And I think we would do really well to remember that. And one of the things trends that I'm seeing that's concerning, especially since COVID is the rise of online engagement. And we see people following influencer, which is not inherently a bad thing, but when you swap that out for discipleship and that's what you're doing, instead of reading God's word directly yourself, instead of going to church, instead of engaging with people who are walking alongside you, holding accountable, I think that's where we can get off step. Do you, do you see that?

Courtney Reissig: Absolutely. I think the influencer culture is incredibly dangerous for, for believers because the, there's no substitute for flesh and blood relationship with someone who knows you. And we, we have traded a lot of that. Covid really obviously exacerbated it because we could not be in person. But. And that also kind of increases that whole I'm in this person's camp. And you can curate ideas that only fit your own ideas based on online engagement. So like I have an algorithm that I don't intentionally build, but it's there. And I'm, I, I always joke, my algorithm is shoes and teacher, memes because that's what I'm a teacher. So like if I have a bad day at school and I talk about how like students behaves, all of a sudden, Instagram's feeding me all the teacher memes and I'm like, I'm kind of thankful for that. It makes me laugh. But I mean, depending on where you're at, you can be. Your discipleship can be based on something that suits your own interests. And that's incredibly dangerous because the Bible doesn't suit our own interests. Sometimes the Bible is really hard on us in ways we need it to be hard on us. And I think that we also then create these platforms for people who don't have any vetting process that, that the local church provides for people, like if you're going to be a leader in a church. And so I do think it can be incredibly dangerous and I think for women in particular m, that women spend a lot of time online and they, they use discretionary time to spend a lot of time online, and they're discipled online and they get, truth online. And so they are more willing to engage there than they are with flesh and blood people who are going to walk through life with them. And I do think it can be incredibly dangerous. I mean, I say this as someone who is doing a podcast, and yeah, so, like, I think that there's a space for that, but I think when the accountability isn't there for any one of us, we are not meant to be in isolation. We are meant to live life in community. And, that community cannot happen primarily in an online space.

Dr. Jessica Peck: I think it's just so tempting because then we want to believe in those people because you, it's. It's a counterfeit relationship because it feels like, oh, they know me, but they really don't know you, you know, and they can be encouraging. And like you and I are talking and I pray, I pray every day that I will be encouraging and that I will be an instrument used of the Lord and that he would speak through me. But I'm also telling you, you need to go to church, you need to be in a small group, you need to be walking with a pastor. One of the things you said, Courtney, is really important because one of the dangers of influencer culture is that there is a lack of accountability even there. And it can be really tempting to just. You, you want to serve your listeners, so you just say what you want to say. But there's no. There's no tension. There's no conflict back there. There's no accountability there. So it makes it easier to kind of stay online because you think, oh, this is comfortable. They're just telling me everything that I want to hear. Oh, yes, I was hu. So they're just telling me, yes, you were hurt. Yes, you should be hurt. That was terrible. But, like, where's the hard part? Where's the work of forgiveness and grace and recovery? Those things can be really hard. And there's also, like, that secret shame that we keep with us that keeps us from. From engaging with our faith, and we stay in those spaces. How do we. What is the step? Where do we go from here, Courtney, if we recognize that.

Dr. Jessica Peck: That.

Courtney Reissig: Yeah, I think that understanding that there's a, like a healthy, relationship with online spaces versus real life spaces. And so I, I think that if you're primarily only listening to people who think like you, that might be a little bit dangerous because the local church is full of people who don't think like you. I go to church with people who don't think like me, they don't vote like me. They don't. They don't choose schooling options like me. They don't look like me. And there's a lot of value in that.

Dr. Jessica Peck: There. There is, absolutely. And walking in community with a pastor who is held accountable by a church structure and authority in the church body and all of those things and all of that. To point us back to what your message is, Courtney. Someone to believe in. And that someone is Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And I think we miss out when we try to substitute that relationship with other earthly relationships that are meant to supplement but not substitute the personal relationship we have. That is living, breathing. I'll tell you what, Courtney. It is my lifeline, my relationship with Christ. And when we come back, we'll provide more hope. How do we find hope that holds when the world is seem to. We'll be right back with Courtney. Reissig The AFR app is a powerful tool, but it does have limitations. You can't use it to change the oil in your vehicle or get rid of carpet stains. It won't walk the dog, won't pick up the dry cleaning or take the kids to practice. But while you're doing those things, you can listen to your favorite AFR content through the app on your phone, smart device, or Roku. Just go to your app store or visit afr.net Listen to AFR wherever you go with the AFR app.

Praise You In This Storm by Casting Crowns: And I'll praise you in this storm And I will lift my hands you are who you are no matter where I am and every tear I've cried you hold in your hand you never left my side though my heart is. Torn. I will praise you in the storm.

Courtney Reissig talks about people who are questioning their Christian faith

Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is praise you in this storm by casting crowns. And that's exactly what we're talking about today. It seems like the world is just a storm of chaos and fury. You open up the news every day and it just seems like every day something bad is happening somewhere in the world. Someone, who we thought was good has done something bad and disappointed us and let us down. But today I'm talking to author Courtney Reissig, who's giving us such an encouraging reminder that we have someone to believe in, embracing the savior who stays the same when everything else changes. This is a book that she's written after a personal period that she shares about in the book of walking through things like a cancer diagnosis and a leadership, a church hurt and all kinds of things. That we're all experiencing every day. And she has also written a book, for children called Seth and the Very Scary Storm. It's a really charming, comforting book that talks about how we can help preserve our kids faith. Why does God let bad things happen and how can we trust him that he is good even when the world does not seem good? That is a message that is for all of us. And I know, I know that, I know that, I know that someone out there listening is just thinking, where is God in all of this? Well, Courtney is bringing us, bringing God to us and Jesus in a very personal way through the book of John. She has just summarized for us and reminded us this that the book of John was written by the last man standing Jesus and the twelve disciples. John was the last person here on earth. He had watched Jesus die, be raised again and then return to heaven. And then he had watched all the other apostles die and really suffer unspeakably. And yet he is here to say this is someone to believe in. That was the message that he gave. And you know Courtney, you and I were talking during the break and you talk extensively in your book about people who are deconstructing their faith, people who are disillusioned by the bad things that are happening and thinking what is this really? What is your, what is your survey of that? What are you seeing as someone who's worked in ministry and what what encouraging message would you give to us as we see someone maybe who's deconstructing their faith? And we're, we're disheartened and we're concerned and we're discouraged.

Courtney Reissig: I think the Gospel of John provides a tremendous encouragement to those who feel like they want to walk away from it all. I think that the, there's a number, there's a book called the Great Detourching and they talk about, the authors talk about the, the reasons why someone might walk away. And one of the reasons would be this like, they call it like a casual dechurching where you just kind of like ah, I stopped going to church and I just kind of like fall away. And I think, I mean the Gospel of John speak to that in that there's no middle ground when it comes to following Jesus. You can't come to him at night like Nicodemus. You've got to, you got to be all in, in the day and you've got to be born again and you can't have a one foot in the world and one foot in the church type of mentality But I think the one that we hear about the most and maybe is the most grieving to us is the ones who walk away because of a, maybe an intellectual block where they can't, they don't, it doesn't make sense to them, and they just can't. They can't reconcile it. Or the ones who have been deeply hurt by the church, whether it's, hurt by, church members, where they walk through some conflict with other church members or someone who held a position of authority in their life, deeply, disappointed them and hurt them, and as a result they find Jesus not worth believing in. Those are the people that I have a real, heart for as I was writing the book. Because it is confusing because there is a real disorientation that comes when someone who, who preached God's Word to you and who taught you God's Word and who exercised some spiritual authority in your life then does something, whether it's, it's intentionally harmful, like, like spiritual abuse or physical abuse or sexual abuse, or whether they were neglectful and allowed that to happen. That can be incredibly disorienting. And it can lead people to think, well, if this person who I learned God's Word from did this to me, then Jesus must be like this, then he must not be worth trusting. And I think the Gospel of John provides us with a very clear answer that those, those people are not the ones we're supposed to be believing in. That Jesus is the one who does not change. And I think one, one story in the Gospel of John that I think gives us a real picture of that, ah, is the story of the man born blind. And he's healed by Jesus after he's lived his entire life blind. And when he's healed, you would think everyone around him would be rejoicing that he's healed because he's been blind and now he sees. And instead of rejoicing with him, the Pharisees question him, doubt him, and cast him out of the temple. And even his own parents, won't even come to his aid. They say, well, he's old enough. Ask him what really happened to him. And Jesus finds him and says, do you believe? Do you believe in me? And, and he says, I am the good shepherd. And I find that juxtaposition of him calling himself the good shepherd, when these other shepherds who, who are supposed to be rejoicing with a man who is, who is now blind, seeing, instead cast him out of the temple as one who's following Jesus and they can't have someone following Jesus in the temple. And I think that is an answer to those who might be looking at the scriptures and saying, or looking at Jesus or looking at the church and saying, I'm done. I can't do it anymore. I think John tells us that, yes, these other shepherds are wolves in sheep clothing, but the good shepherd will never leave you. Now, this is not saying that all shepherds are bad. All pastors are bad. There's some incredible pastors. My pastor is one of them. But there are some who really hurt people. And Jesus tells us, us, John tells us, is that Jesus is the good shepherd that we can trust.

Dr. Jessica Peck: That's such a comforting thought to have. That, Jesus is the good shepherd. And when you look back through the scripture all the way through the Old Testament, there were some good, seemingly good guys who did really bad things. There were really bad guys who did really horrible things. But all through we see flawed characters for sure. And God still works to accomplish his purpose. And I think there are people who, who think, okay, I can see that. I can see how, how God is still good even when people are not. There are people who may go on that bridge and then that. But they think, but I'm done with church. Not going back there, not going to engage. My faith is just going to be really personal. I believe I'll pray, I'll read my Bible on my own, but my faith is just going to be right here, close to here, very personal. What, what is the danger in that? What do we miss out on when we take that protective stance there?

Courtney Reissig: When Jesus gives his final words to his disciples in the upper room in John 13:17, there's an understanding that it's the collective people of God who will be the testimony of his goodness to the watching world. And so the assumption is that. And then, and then it's lived out in the Book of Acts where they are. When you become a believer, you then join yourself to some other believers who are also, who also have been saved by Jesus. That's not to say that you should stay in the church that you're in if it's not a healthy church. But I think there is an expectation in Scripture that we will align ourselves with other believers and live as a new community. We are not. There's nothing in the Bible that points to a lone ranger type of Christianity where it's me and Jesus and we kind of grow together. And that's all that there is. There is an expectation that we will grow alongside a family. It's called the family of God, where there's mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and we. In the same way that we look at a person who doesn't have a family as someone who is not able to experience the fullness of what it means to be human, a person who doesn't have the family of God also is not able to experience the fullness of what it means to be a new human in Christ. So we, we are desperately in need of that community.

Courtney says there are some Christians who are spiritual orphans

Now that doesn't mean that your local expression doesn't look different than once did, but I do think there's an expectation that we are walking alongside brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers because we need to grow up in our faith. And orphans don't grow up to be fully functioning adults in the way they're supposed to. They need a family. And there's no orphaned Christians. Jesus even says, I'm not going to leave you as orphans. He gives us the Holy Spirit, but then he also gives us brothers and sisters to walk alongside.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Oh, Courtney, that, that is really thought provoking to think about. There are some who are maybe even self, self proclaimed spiritual orphans. You know, I'm just going to be an orphan in that way. But you're so right. There's no biblical model for that. There's no story of someone who got hurt by the church, walked away and just said, like you said, it's me and Jesus. It's messy. And it will be messy until, until God makes all things new and one day that will come. And that's the hope that we have in the, the future, that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. And that means in the future. And I think that's one of the byproducts of all of this online engagement and influencer culture because you can really fine tune the messages that are given to you to just say what you want to hear. That's what we see. I think that's why my, companions are rising so much in popularity, because they're just trained to tell you what you want to hear. And that is not what the word of God is trained to do. It says the word of God is piercing. It will pierce through bone and joint and marrow. That does not sound pleasant or warm fuzzy. That can be hard. But, it's in those hard places, in those valleys where we grow and where our faith grows and gives us hope for the future. Is that, is that the vision that you're trying to remind people of?

Courtney Reissig: Yes, we are. we're not meant to do this alone. And this is not to say that it's not going to be hard. I think there are some places where people live where it's hard to find a local body of believers to gather with, and that's hard. And I think, think, it doesn't mean you have to go and be super involved. It doesn't mean you have to. I mean, for our family, we've not. We.

Dr. Jessica Peck: We.

Courtney Reissig: We joined another church, but we're not super involved. We. I mean, we. I was on staff, and my husband was an elder in a. In a previous. In our church plant. We were in. So we've been always all in with all both feet. And. And right now we're not. And so I don't think that means you have to be all in. I do think it means that you have to make a reasonable attempt to try to find a place where you can gather with God's people. whether that means, you do it out of your house for a while with some believers until you feel comfortable, or you, just go and sit in the back and wait until the Lord moves. I think that there's a lot of grace for, for finding your footing after some disillusionment. But I do think the Lord will show up and meet you there. but we're not supposed to do it alone.

Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, that just reminds me of the scripture from Ecclesiastes 3. To everything, there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. And Solomon also said there's nothing new under the sun. And sometimes it can feel like, well, this world is different and these things are different, and the Bible's not applicable. But when you look at the Bible, Courtney, you're talking about the core themes of family dysfunction, family hurt. You're talking about family drama. You're talking about, you know, sins like greed and lust and murder and all of those things, that those are all the same. And that can give us such encouragement that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, forever. And maybe the. The modern application of the cultural context of the way that we're experiencing it is new, but the heart issue under all of it is the same.

Courtney Reissig urges readers to read John 1 to find hope and encouragement

So, Courtney, in our. Our last few minutes together, I want you to speak to that person who is feeling disillusions, who is just kind of floating along thinking, this has been a tough season. I'm just kind of waiting to see what happens. How could they engage with the Book of John to find hope and a reminder that Jesus Christ is still right there?

Courtney Reissig: Yeah, I hope that if they, if they got the book, that they would read it slowly. that they would, they could read the book alongside the, the chapter of John that I'm going through. But I also think if they didn't have the book, they could start with John 1 and read it all the way through and ask themselves, how is this fulfilling the purpose that John writes? John writes with the purpose of these things are written that you may believe. And so how is what's happening in this story that I'm reading pointing to belief in Jesus, pointing to him as being believable? And I think that that's what I would encourage someone to do is read it devotionally read it and ask yourself, how do I find him believable? Where am I tempted to doubt that he's believable? And how does this passage change my understanding of who he is or enhance my understanding of who he is? Is.

Dr. Jessica Peck: I think sometimes that can just be really hard to do. And when you. We were talking about deconstruction, one of the great flaws of deconstruction is that I hear so much language. You know, I'm. I'm deconstructing it and then reconstructing it so that I understand it, so that it reflects my understanding, my experience. And yet that's so counter scriptural. You know, I think of, the verse that is so well known to so many. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. And all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your path. Even that though that path may go through the valley of the shadow of death. You reminded us, Courtney, that he is our good shepherd. And I think of Psalm 23 as being so comforting and such a reminder in that whether we're in the valleys or on the mountaintops. But in my own life, I have found that very little growth happens on the mountaintops. Very little growth happens in the celebration. If we lived in a Stepford kind of perfect world, then where. Where would that growth happen? But we can believe that God is good even when the world is not. I just. Thank you so much, Courtney, for sharing this message today. That the hope of Christ is not just for the hurts that you have yesterday, the struggles that you are in today. It is for the unknowns that are for tomorrow. And as we're looking through January, we think there are so many unknowns, we don't know what the future holds. But we do know who holds the future. And he is trustworthy. He is a good shepherd. Thanks, Courtney, for reminding us too, that the last man standing of those 12 disciples lived his very last breath saying he is worth believing in. The book is called Someone to Believe In, Embracing the Savior who Stays the Same When Everything Else Changes by Courtney Reissig and also her children's book Seth and the Very Scary Storm. Wherever you are in your faith journey, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. And if you're in that season of struggle, I pray that you'll see Jesus as someone to believe in. I'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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Jeff Chamblee: Opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.