Trust What God Is Doing | Ecclesiastes 7

or when you push your muscles, it tears the muscles and they build back stronger, like we know how muscles work, but like life is like that. Difficult days is what builds the muscle, like if you're just lifting fives, you're not gonna muscle, maybe not maybe doing anything, honestly. I mean, not if you're like Miko, who's all cut, you know. So me, a five might do something. This is the Crossroads Daily. No experts, no perfect people. Just honest conversations about what happens when the Bible shows up in real life. Welcome to Crossroads Daily, my name's Caleb. - I'm Miko. - Vivian. - I'm Zach. - And we are in the book of Ecclesiastes this week. We're in chapter seven right now. The teacher, who we assume is Solomon, why is this man that ever lived, is just taking us through some wise saying, some teaching, some things that he's tried to understand. A lot of it, as we said yesterday, can feel a little deflating, a little depressing, but there is wisdom in it for us to glean, and I find that I glean it best when I discuss it with other amazing people, like these guys, so that's all.

That's what we're gonna do today. I'm gonna give you guys an easy one. And by an easy one, I mean, a really difficult one. Verse 14 says, chapter seven, verse 14, in the day of prosperity, be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider. Without question, God has made the one as well as the other. Good day, God made it, a bad day, God made it. - Yeah. - How do you, how does that influence the way you live, or how do you bring those two things together? That's a little bit like hot and cold, right? - Yeah. - Like mixing them together. How do you do that? - I think it's comforting to know that like, man, when you're in a bad day, good days are coming. And it's also like a reminder when you're in a good day, bad day's coming too. So it's like, I think there's just a, there's something in there to remind us like, this isn't the end, and it won't be the end until we're in eternity. And I think there's something to, yeah, just remember that like, this won't last forever, so be in it while you can, you know? That seems very like new age, very like whatever, but like be in the moment, but also like, there's real wisdom to that. - I mean, I think this was Solomon was saying last chapter.

- Yeah. - Right, like enjoy the life God has given you. So on good days, don't just waste 'em. - Yeah. - Squeeze it all out, man. - Yeah. - Enjoy the heck out of it. - Carp it at the end. - Carp it at the end. - Carp it at the end. Carp it at the end. 'Cause tomorrow could be a bad day. - Well, that's also like when you're having a bad day or a bad season, one of the things that really can help me is when I do that gratefulness exercise, and I go back through, and I'll like write down a list of the things where God has shown up, and I'm grateful for, and things like that, 'cause then it makes me reflect back on those good days, even going through a tough time, so that I know that this won't last forever, and that I have a balanced approach to looking at life. - Yeah, yeah. That's so true. That is definitely something, as you're saying, that I'm reminded of like one of the first times I came into that realization where like, the day was just like, the bottom fell out, and I remember sitting on my bed at that night, and I don't even know, it was the Holy Spirit, right?

'Cause I, it was the Holy Spirit prompted. Like, well, what did go good today? And I just started like taking note of like, these simple things that I enjoyed, right? The line for, you know, that I was standing in for food wasn't as long today as sometimes it can be, or, you know, the conversation that I had with my son, like, you know, thinking about, you know, some of the things we talked about that day, but just kind of going down this list, and it really, it just completely shifted my whole posture. Like, my experience in that moment, the situation was still the situation, but my experience in it in that moment was just completely different, and I don't know, so it's just saying, and I'm just reminded of that, and I don't know, it's, I still do it from time to time, but I definitely need to just make that a rhythm. - Yeah, I was hearing from this, like, really big CEO speak the other day, runs a huge company, and went through a lot of difficulty that he did not bring upon himself. He got into the role, and like, six weeks later, everything hit the fan, it was not his fault. He was brand new to the thing, and he said, one of the things that kept him going through it is that he understood that crisis is what builds character, right? So the days in the gym, when you max out, right,

or when you push your muscles, it tears the muscles, and they build back, you know, stronger. Like, we know how muscles work, but like, life is like that. Difficult days is what builds the muscle, like, if you're just lifting fives, you're not bringing muscle, maybe not, maybe doing anything, honestly. Not if you're like, Miko, who's all cut, you know. So me, a five-mile do something. So thinking through that, like, one of the ways It's like God is teaching us something. He's building some character in us. I would love for you to think about your life. We're gonna jump in the deep end a little farther even. What is a lesson that you learned through crisis or through difficulty that maybe you would not have learned just through a wide path in an easy day? And while you think about it, I can tell one if you want. So for me, I've been married almost 15 years. - There's difficulty in married? No. (laughing) - Oh, that's okay. It's nice to meet you. - That's a joke. - That's not for you to look forward to. - But before we got married, me and my now wife went through a really difficult time where a lot of people who were supposedly for us came to me negatively about her, okay?

Which was like, I did not expect that. These were people that I thought like had our best interest at heart. And they were basically trying to poison the marriage before it even started. Like, people that should not have done that. It was ridiculous. And, but we pushed through anyway because I knew this is who God wanted me to be with. This is who I wanted to be with, right? And I learned through that not everybody is for you. People who on paper are for you or like, because they're in a certain position in a church or a school are for you, they ain't always for you, right? So you got a way out, like, is this opinion from a person that is for me or not? Like, are they got other motivations? - Yeah. - And like, I was a blissful church kid who just thought everybody's motivations were pure, right? And I was, I need to learn that at like 25 that that is not true. - Yeah, right. - So, yeah. - I can share one. We went through a period of time where my daughter was in college and she got sick. And, you know, she's far away because she's at school and they had done some blood testing on her and they were sending it out.

And they thought that she might have cancer. And so it was very scary because you were waiting for the results to come back and the concern of like, oh my gosh, what does that mean for her? And so during that time, you know, that's not something I would have wanted. It turns out she didn't have cancer, but through that process and some other things related to her, we did find out that she has an autoimmune disease. And so actually I think if she hadn't had some of the symptoms and things that then caused them to do the testing, I'm not sure we would have, she would have found out that she had this autoimmune disease so that she can be better prepared for how to handle that. And so I would say that's a situation where maybe a good thing came out of it at the time. It didn't feel great once their kid to be sick. Yeah. But that you could see how God got worked through that to bring some good out of it. Yeah. I'm thinking, I think the one that's probably most pressing on my heart is probably the situation with my youngest brother who passed. And throughout his he had gotten his mental health diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar and we just saw him like someone who was just a regular guy and then just one summer, a few years ago, it just declined and it just got worse and worse. And it was very heavy on our family.

And but as we were clinking to God in it, like God was giving us a word like trust, trust, trust. And for us, we believe like, okay, he's going to come through this. It was very much so like seeing saw, but in real life, when saw, you know, was tormented by the spirit or Nebuchadnezzar, when he was, you know, for the seven years. So to me, I'm like, okay, like seeing this in person, but then also seeing how, you know, Nebuchadnezzar that time had, you know, there was an end date for that. And so that was when, as God is telling us, just trust me, trust me, expecting a similar outcome for him to, you know, be healed. But then when he passed, it was one of those moments where you got to go back to the drawing board where I'm like, okay, God, why are you telling us to trust you for these years? If this is the result, and it really just forced us to sit in like this idea of what, of God, you're good. That's not a question. But things that you do, how can I work this? Your version of what good looks like doesn't have to match my expectation, right? And seeing how that played out, it forced us to like, know that, I mean, we knew that here, but it forced us to get your heart in agreement with that. Like, sit in that, don't just gloss over this and just say the pretty words. Like, no, this is true, you know this is true.

with this. And it really kind of led us to get to a place of like, if his healing didn't happen on this side of heaven, then Lord, him not being here anymore is the best thing that could have happened. Right? Like that was your mercy. That was like, because now he's with you. You know what I mean? And so I think it's just those concepts that you see in scripture, but then it's like when you live it out and you go through that tension, like you don't come on, you don't come out on the other side of it at the same. Your faith is grown. Like me, my mom, my brothers, our family, everyone whose heart was tied to that situation, like you can notice a huge increase just in your resilience and your level of trust. Like Lord, if we could trust you with this and it still turned out this way and we still recognize your hand on it and the goodness of you in it, I mean, I'm not asking for anything, but you know, anything more like as far as like, but it, but ultimately I feel like that that weathered faith has like grown us in, in a way that, you know, the joyful times just can't, you know, so, yeah, yeah, if we're going through a good day, great, squeeze the life out of it, enjoy it, if you're going through a crisis or a difficulty, know that God is using it to build your character, even if you can't see it, even if you don't know it yet. My challenge for you is trust, Mika was talking about trust, no matter where you are, good day, bad day, it's about our trust in God and what he is doing that we can't even see, we can't even perceive or even understand he is doing something good. And trust is an action, it's not just an opinion. If you find a way to put that trust into practice today, I bet your life will move forward. We'll see you next time.