Breaking Bread Podcast

It is easy to overlook the losses our kids are enduring these days. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Craig Stickling highlights what many of our kids are experiencing as their lives have been put on hold during these days of COVID-19. Fortunately, parents are equipped with a few helpful tools to minister to their losses.

Some tools for the toolset:

• Acknowledge their loss. Don't down-play it.
• Kids have had limited experience. Bring perspective.
• Connect with their loss. Resist shifting the focus to yourself.
• They will be fearful. Help them express it.
• They will be frustrated. Help them channel it.
• They will be scattered. Help them focus.
• They will be absorbed in the present. Help them see the future.

What do we do with emotional pain when we can't make it better? (Hint: David, Hannah, Jerimiah, Job, Habakkuk and Jesus all did it.) In fact, the example is so abundant in the Scriptures you can't miss it. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Ted Witzig Jr. will answer this question and make it very accessible to all who endure pain.

• Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust.
• Lament includes four steps:
  • Turn to God
  • Make a complaint
  • Make your request
  • Move forward in trust
• Lament connects the experience of our pain with the reality of God's promises.
• Some people are afraid to lament because it often deals with raw emotions and difficult questions. However, lament is actually an act of faith as we turn toward God in our pain.
• God has given lament to the individual who is suffering.
• God has given lament to the community who is suffering with an individual.

Suffering nearly touches us all and is a common human experience. Suffering is bad. Period. Yet, God steps into this badness. Somehow His knowledge of it and presence in it has some redemptive qualities. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Brian Sutter with Fred Witzig take the topic of suffering head-on and expose the hope that suffering affords.

• Suffering rises from different places. One type of suffering results from consequences from our actions. Another type of suffering results from calamity completely outside of our control. And yet, a third type of suffering comes about when we, by choice, pick up our cross and follow Christ.
• Throughout time, suffering has proven to be a catalyst for either rejecting God or growing faith in God.
• Throughout the Bible we have examples of men and women who, out of their suffering, turned to God and asked "why this suffering?" God is big enough to shoulder our complaints. There is a difference, however, in asking "why" from a standpoint of faith and a standpoint of no faith.
• There are some advantages suffering brings. Suffering gives us a Godward perspective. Suffering helps us identify what matters in this life. Suffering allows us to identify with Christ's suffering. Suffering helps us rid our hearts of sin. In time, God can use suffering to bring us to a settled place in Him.
• Suffering is often coupled with our loves. Those people and things most dear to us carry the potential for suffering. This risk to love is the risk Christ took and suffered on our behalf.
• According to God's purposes, He alleviates some suffering while at other times equips us to endure.
• God calls us to walk with those who are suffering yet doing so requires patience and silence.

God has made us to be healthy through the COVID-19 crisis. Sometimes that's hard to believe. On this episode of Breaking Bread, Brian Sutter helps us untangle our thoughts and emotions so we can walk these days with a healthy mind.

What we need to know about ourselves…

• We each have an emotional reservoir with only so much capacity. The stress resulting from the COVID-19 crisis can quickly overwhelm us. We need to make the effort to process the emotions we are feeling so as to manage our capacity to absorb stress.
• Fear, the awareness of danger, is understandable during these circumstances. Fear left unattended can quickly evolve into ruminating thoughts of "what ifs". This anxiety can be troubling. Our "what ifs" will be answered in time.
• Our emotions play to our fears. Emotion will "color the story" and very often over-shadow logic. It is important we engage our thoughtful rational processes.
• We do not all have the same roles in this crisis. Medical workers, authority figures, mothers, fathers, community members all have slightly different concerns. Step into your duties and support others in theirs.
• Isolation is most unhealthy when we perceive we have been cut off from supply lines. Forge and maintain connection with others in accord with the given precautions.
• Recreation can be healthy. Having fun is important. Escape has its place. Entertainment should be done with moderation.
• God has created us to be healthy through trial and will very likely, in time, bring good from these trials.

Prayer is a conduit of God's power, provision and purposes. Through it God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven. What should we pray for? And what do we do with unanswered prayer? Joe Gerber addresses these questions and casts a vision for a culture of prayer.

The Moravians, an unassuming, powerless, group of refugees prayed mightily for one hundred years. The effects of those prayers cannot be estimated and are still felt today. This is no surprise to anyone who understands intercessory prayer. Prayer makes a difference. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Joe Gerber recounts this history and lays a foundation for prayer today. Listeners will be inspired by the privilege and responsibility of prayer.

Sometimes little things make big differences. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kaleb Beyer relays three small things that exist in happy marriages.

3 Small Things

Be Purposeful

• Highly happy couples practice meaningful touches throughout the day, boosting relational and individual health.

Be Present

• Highly happy couples aren't just spending time together because they are happy; a big part of the reason they're so happy is that they are spending time together!

Be Positive

• Highly happy couples quickly stop a negative train of thought or action by replacing unhappy or angry thoughts or actions with positive ones to combat negativity.

Taken from "The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages: The Little Things That Make a Big Difference" by Shaunti Feldhahn

The apostle Paul encouraged the Ephesian church to forbear with one another. Forbearance requires a skill set that is growing increasingly foreign in today's world. A world where individual preferences abound and we have increasingly less reason to endure with those things that do not suit us. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Arlan Miller and Kaleb Beyer flush out the attribute of forbearance and expose it for its Christ-like beauty.

• Forbearance is enduring with someone or something that doesn't comply with your favor.
• Forbearance is not forgiveness, which requires an offense to be pardoned.
• Forbearance is acknowledging an annoyance but tolerating it.
• Forbearance is not "facing", which happens when we confront an unfavorable issue and urge change.
• Forbearance is expecting the irritant to exist and not becoming bitter that it does.
• Forbearance is not enjoying, appreciating or celebrating the annoyance.
• Forbearance is receiving people and loving them despite their unfavorable attributes.
• Forbearance is not ignoring or avoiding people or who do not strike your fancy.
• Forbearance is an attribute of Christ towards you.

Parenting kids can tee up disagreement between parents. Why? Parenting styles differ. However, it doesn't have to drive a wedge in a family. In fact, by working together couples might just get parenting right. In this episode Brian and Alison Sutter finish addressing the four basic parenting styles and expose God's overarching purposes.