Women of Faith on TBN brings you the best of TBN’s women’s Christian teaching. Here you’ll find content from your favorite women’s Bible teachers, speakers, pastors, and authors, featuring teachings from Priscilla Shirer, CeCe Winans, Christine Caine, Joyce Meyer, Jackie Hill Perry, Lisa Harper, Lisa Bevere, Sarah Jakes Roberts, and more!
have not allowed myself to question the
character of god once i find myself
stepping into that category of
questioning whether or not god is good
or whether or not he loves me or whether
or not he’s sovereign and overseeing all
of this that’s when i stop myself and go
uh that’s not what we do we know who god
is in my life and my family’s life and
we’re gonna stand firm in that because
that’s the hope of our salvation
[Music]
you’ve talked a lot about the armor of
god and i think that’d be really
pertinent right now to understand how
does the armor of god actually help us
have a perspective where we can walk
into this thing boldly with courage
you know what
you said a key phrase that i was going
to use that was rolling around in my
mind and that is opportunity
we could see this pandemic or any
personal dilemmas that we face in our
lives or in our ministries or our
churches or what have you we could see
any of them as something that is a
hiccup in our plan or we can see
everything even the difficult things as
an opportunity an opportunity for what
an opportunity for god to be glorified
in a unique way that through our life he
might not otherwise have the opportunity
to be glorified an opportunity for us to
be strengthened our character built our
spiritual backbone fortified in a way it
would not otherwise have the opportunity
to a way for our perspective to be
shifted so that now i have the lens of
compassion and empathy towards others
that i wouldn’t otherwise have because i
didn’t know that pain i didn’t know what
that isolation maybe felt like but now i
can relate to my congregants differently
if you’re a pastor or the people that i
serve in ministry differently um and
it’s an opportunity for us to do what’s
on what ephesians chapter 6 says
stand firm against the schemes of the
enemy how will we know
what it is
to feel like a victor unless we’ve had
these circumstances in our life where
there was clear obvious demonic
opposition and we saw righteousness
become a breastplate for us we saw that
integrity of character form of
breastplate that staved off the most
serious advances of the enemy we saw our
salvation which is our identity being
not just a ticket to eternity but now it
became a helmet over our minds and it
sort of flipped off all the fiery darts
of the enemy trying to convince us that
fear and anxiety is our birthright how
will we ever know what it’s like for the
word of god to become the dagger of the
spirit so that the enemy doesn’t stand a
chance when he’s trying to come against
us and our families how will we know the
power of prayer oh my gosh i think about
this all the time
as a mom of these teenage boys how will
i ever know the power of prayer unless
in my struggle sometimes with my anxiety
i worry because i watch my boys struggle
with issues of morality or thought
processes or attitude issues and i go oh
man um i don’t want the enemy to take
advantage of their weaknesses or their
frailties well this is the time that i
get to show up in prayer and stand in
the gateway of my home and say not today
say not on my watch not while i’m here
i’m going to be someone who’s positioned
in prayer because now i’ll get to see
what it is to stand firm against the
schemes of the devil in prayer
for my family what a testimony we have
when we we literally
physically practically put on the armor
of god by being righteous believers who
guard our minds in the word of god who
are found on our knees in prayer who are
in the scriptures so that it becomes a
dagger against the schemes of the enemy
when we do that
this is going to be our testimony this
is going to be a decade from now what
the folks coming up after us gave this
is going to be what we tell them we’re
going to tell them practically what we
did to stave off the schemes of the
enemy and they’ll be able to emulate our
lives not because they heard about it
but because we told them
straight from our mouths that we’ve seen
it work in our own experiences
so it’s so encouraging and i i think i
think as we’re all listening we’re
hearing this theme develop of how much
we just have to take advantage of this
moment of what god’s trying to do um
i also think we will look back and take
account for how we spend this time and
so it’s an important word
you’ve gone through a lot of loss on a
very personal level lately a lot of
grief lost your mother lost an aunt lost
one of your best friends
this has not been a season for you i
know that’s been without pain
a lot of people are walking through that
now maybe this was children or parents
and the grief of loss
i’m just wondering from what you’ve
walked through and lost how would you
encourage people today that might be
walking through that right now
sure um
yeah you’re you are right gabe there’s
been a lot of loss seven
people in our family have passed away in
the past 18 months or so seven people
and um and then on the heels of my
mother passing away this past december
the last day of december or december
30th rather a couple weeks later i had
to have a surgery to remove the upper
lobe of my left lung
because of something they found there so
it was this
huge um
sort of
a hurricane of events
so there’s emotional recovery happening
right now for us slowly but surely and
physical recovery in in my case and what
i’ve really felt has been a bedrock for
our family and by the way we’re
stumbling through this like anybody
would in this situation so i’m certainly
no expert on this
but i felt such a freedom to ask god my
questions
without questioning god
does that make sense
like to go ahead and be job and be like
habakkuk and say i kind of don’t get it
i kind of don’t get lord how in the
world not healing my mother is going to
bring you more glory than what we were
praying which was that you would heal
her on this side of heaven i kind of
don’t get why my best friend and cousin
winter you would allow her you know one
day we’re playing with the movie we’re
going to go to the theater to see that
was our thing that’s what we did go eat
hot buttery popcorn and have a nice
coca-cola and see a chick flick
why we could be planning that one day
and then her heart stopped beating the
next day i don’t get how that’s gonna
bring you more glory than if you would
have responded to us the way we prefer
so i can ask those questions
the freedom in being able to voice my
disappointment to cry the tears to just
straight up grieve
i think ministers need to be told and
leaders need to be told like it’s okay
you know see the therapist
have the conversations cry the tears
stay in bed for a while take the
sabbatical
do what you have to do let your mind low
just stop being so productive it’s okay
the world can go on without us ministry
continues without us we can ask our
questions and bring to him our frailty
and humanity
and we can do all that without
questioning the character of god and
that’s what’s carried me i still believe
god is good
i still believe he has a plan and a
purpose for my life and for my family
everything i believe before we lost
these seven loved ones about god is the
same thing i know to be true about him
now he hasn’t changed just because i’m
in the valley
in fact i get to experience all of those
characteristics more now
than i ever had before and i’m extremely
grateful for that so has it been
difficult yes am i asking questions of
god yep because i don’t get it probably
won’t
but i have not allowed myself to
question the character of god once i
find myself stepping into that category
of questioning whether or not god is
good or whether or not he loves me or
whether or not he’s sovereign and
overseeing all of this that’s when i
stop myself and go uh that’s not what we
do we know who god is in in my life and
my family’s life and we’re going to
stand firm in that because that’s the
hope of our salvation
that’s so good so helpful i think for
all of us to hear because we all have
those moments where we’re questioning
we’re not quite sure
what god’s doing and we want to know we
seek those answers but we don’t always
know it’s not always clear
thank you for being so personal even
walking through that journey you’ve
walked through with us and just what
that’s been like for those who might be
walking through the same thing
one of the subjects you’ve talked a lot
about you wrote a movie about this is
the subject of overcoming and i know in
my reading of revelation so much this is
what god wants he says i want to reward
you as overcomers that’s a big idea and
a big principle what does it mean for us
as christians to be overcomers i think
the world looks on and maybe they don’t
know what it means for christians to try
to overcome how how can we do that how
can we be
overcomers how can we learn from that
idea
that’s right
um there’s a friend of mine named
catherine catherine um wolf you may
actually know jay and catherine wolf
that katherine suffered a stroke when
she’s 26 years old and she’s it’s a
decade later now
but the message of hope that this girl
brings i have not heard anything like it
it’s unparalleled in my experience
because she discusses this idea of
overcoming but she discusses it through
the lens of suffering because she’s now
living with all the effects of having
had this massive stroke that really did
wipe out a lot of her ability to
function normally and she says that it’s
interesting how western christianity um
in particular whenever we meet up with
suffering we’re immediately praying that
god will resolve the suffering that he
will take that issue out of our life
that is causing us to basically have to
overcome so we pray it away as opposed
to first praying
lord find me faithful while i suffer
that is the definition of overcoming
the definition is that i am in the midst
of the struggle i’m in the midst of the
pain the tears are falling from my eyes
but because i know who i belong to and
because i know that this is not the end
of the story and because i know that
this is not my home that this isn’t a
period for me on the end of the sentence
of my life that there is an eternal
destiny waiting for me that i can still
live with my chin held high with a peace
that passes all understanding i know
death is real but death has lost its
sting it doesn’t control me it doesn’t
make me anxious it doesn’t make me
fearful but i trust god with my life and
that i know my life and the life of my
loved ones is in the palm of his hand so
it doesn’t mean i don’t suffer it just
means that while i’m going through the
suffering i’m praying lord find me
faithful help me to overcome lord
because i know what you’ve put in me and
the strength that you’ve given me access
to by your spirit