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The Resting Place
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The Resting Place
Healing The Shadowy Places
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The valley isn’t just something you survive. Sometimes it follows you home, reshaping what you believe about God, about yourself, and about whether love can really reach the places that hurt. In this episode of The Resting Place podcast, we start with the logic of the incarnation: the Father, Son, and Spirit desire to share their life with us, drawing humanity into the divine dance of love rather than leaving us stranded in separation.
From Psalm 23, we name a hard truth: everyone passes through the valley of the shadow of death, and not all shadows lift when the season changes. We talk about trauma, grief, and the lingering residue that can make parts of the heart feel inaccessible to God. Along the way, we look at Jesus stopping for the woman with the issue of blood and why he makes space for her story, not just her miracle, as a revelation of the Father’s heart and a blueprint for spiritual wholeness.
Then we step into Matthew 26 and Gethsemane, where Jesus models what it looks like to stay joined to the Father under crushing pressure. We explore the fear behind so many of our questions, “If God is good, why?”, and the core lie beneath it: “You will be alone.” We also challenge the habit of papering over pain with “I’m fine,” and why honest prayer and weakness become the doorway to healing and lasting peace.
If you’re wrestling with suffering, anxiety, or the feeling that God was absent, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs hope, leave a review, and tell us what line hit you the hardest?
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Welcome And Scripture Roadmap
SPEAKER_02Hi everyone, I'm Ben. And I'm Logan, and we're the Robins. Welcome to the Resting Place podcast. If you want to get ready, we're gonna go to Psalm 23 to start, and then I'm going to pivot from Psalm 23 to Matthew chapter 26. Matthew chapter 26, and then I will maybe make a detour into Luke as well, but we will uh see what the Lord uh has in store. So Psalm twenty-three. And I want to start this evening by making this statement to kind of frame where we're
Incarnation And The Trinitarian Dance
SPEAKER_02going. The whole logic of the incarnation is this. When I say incarnation, I mean the coming of Yeshua into human form. The whole logic of the incarnation is this that the father, son, and spirit wanted to share their life with us. The heavenly logic behind Yeshua's coming is that the father, son, and spirit desired to share their life with us. The patristic fathers would teach something called pericuresis. And in pericuresis, what they're talking about is the divine dance that was going on before the creation of the world between the father, son, and spirit, three unique individuals sharing their love with one another in a perfect way. And that love demanded another to share their love with. And in demanding another to share their love with, they created mankind in their image. It says, Let us create mankind in our image. And in the dance of Pericaris' perfect love, loving perfect love, loving perfect love, we were spun out of that dance as one the Trinitarian Godhead wanted to share their love with. Now we know the story that Adam chose delusion and sin and severed our relationship with the Father, and then took it further and damaged us even more by believing that separation was God's idea. And in seeing mankind spiraling into nothingness, the Father in his goodness said, No, I don't believe I will allow my creation to be sent into destruction. What I'll do is I'll go myself and I'll reconcile them and the whole of the created order back to myself so that we can once again be joined in union with one another. I don't believe I'm gonna let the enemy have the last word. I don't believe I'm gonna let separation have the last word. What I'm going to go do is I'm going to go and I'm going to make everything right myself.
SPEAKER_01I'm going to go and I'm going to fix it.
SPEAKER_02I'm going to go and I'm going to restore them to their place in the Trinitarian dance. I'm going to go and I'm going to mystically restore them to their place in the Trinitarian dance with me myself. I will go. I will do it. For the cause, for this one great cause, so that he could love us and we could love him back. The whole of the gospel is that God loves us with everything he is, and we have been designed to be made whole by that love. And in being made whole by that love, we then can love him with our whole hearts. With our whole hearts. I'll chew down a tree right now talking about faith and the power of God, and I'll go after it, and we'll get the whole room running in circles, and it would be incredible. We'll have a good time. As the old saints used to say, they'll be swinging from the chandeliers, and it'll be awesome.
Psalm 23 In The Dark Valley
SPEAKER_02I've been in a couple of those, and those are incredible. Those are very fun. Those are very fun.
SPEAKER_01Um but I felt like the Lord shared with me a revelation on healing the shadowy places of our hearts.
SPEAKER_02The parts of our heart that remain damaged through trauma, tragedy, trial, tribulation, and things that are often outside of our control. David in Psalm 23 says this, the Lord is my shepherd. I don't like the way the NLT writes this. I like the way that this flows out of the NKJV, so I'm gonna pull it up out of my blue letter Bible. Thank God for blue letter Bible. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul, he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. And verse 4 yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you, Yahweh, are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over. This is all happening in the valley of the shadow of death. It's this profound picture David is painting of feasting in front of his enemies in the middle of trial. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This is obviously one of the most famous psalms. We quote this one, we memorize this one, we get tattoos of this one, we love this psalm. David gives us a propound a profound picture of a life being led by the Good Shepherd. In verse 4, he gives this profound revelation and vivid word picture of walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Now, I don't know if there was a more perfect person in all of Scripture to give a picture of someone who would walk through the valley of the shadow of death on a regular basis. David knew what it was to walk through the valley of the shadow of literal death. This is not a metaphor for David. This is not something where he's saying, I went through this and it was like death, and the Lord was with me, so I was okay.
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_02You can go through the Rolodex of his story and find time after time after time after time after time that this man faced death down and was able to pass through the valley of the shadow. Come out the other side, and the key to the entirety of the entire thing is for you are with me. He found a way to remain joined in great trial, in great testing, in great tribulation. This man found a way to remain joined. If there ever was a man who knew what it was to walk through the valley of shadow of the shadow, David is that man. And I have found a couple of things to be true in my life up to this point. I'll be 40 next year, so I'm starting to get on the
Trials Are Inevitable And Form Us
SPEAKER_02other side of being young. Starting to get there, I'm close. And I have found a couple of things remain true. Number one, everyone passes this way. No one gets to go around. You have to pass through. Everyone. Whether by our own choices or choices that are completely out of our control, that we had nothing to do with, we all passed this way. We all, Jesus said, testing will come, trials will come. One of his most famous parables, the house that was built upon stone, lasted when the winds and the wave came. Jesus was warning us and telling us, listen, guys, just because I'm going to make all things new does not mean you will not face trial. You will not face tribulation. James takes it further and says, Count it all joy. When you're faced with various temptations and trials, for the working of those trials produces patience. And when patience has had its perfect work, it will produce maturity in you. Jesus was letting us know these things are coming, and everyone will face them. You will. Again, this is not something that I would have signed my name up to teach. I don't like that one. That one is one that I would like, I would prefer not to have to talk about. I I love the faith thing, I love the power of God thing, I love the love of God, I love the intervention of Yeshua in the lives of so many people who are broken. I love talking about how Jesus would go out of his way to find people that were controversial and bring harm to his ministry by stopping for people that couldn't do anything but harm him. Saint Veronica, the woman with the issue of blood, couldn't do anything for that man's ministry. She could only bring controversy to him. It's all she could do. She was a broken woman with a flow of blood, who many scholars believe was there because of poor choices she had made. She's unclean and not supposed to be in public. Furthermore, she's not supposed to be anywhere near a rabbi. And Yeshua, when she touches him, stops. This man was on his way to Jairus' house. Jairus was a leader in the synagogue. He would have been very influential in that region. He would have been someone who could have advanced the cause of the gospel in that region. And Jesus is about to go to his house and raise his daughter from the grave.
Jesus Reveals The Father’s Heart
SPEAKER_02Just go do that, Jesus. Just go do that. Go do the thing that's going to advance your ministry. Go do the thing that's going to help you reach more people. Go do the thing that's going to be able to advance the cause of your message in the earth. And maybe we can turn around some of the hate that we're getting from so many of the synagogue leaders. Maybe they'll begin to change their mind. If we get J. Iris on our side, maybe we can convince them that you're not of the devil after all. And maybe we can get access to more of these high places in ministry. Jesus throws the playbook out the window when he says, Who touched me? He knew who touched him. No, he knew. This man knew.
SPEAKER_01He turns and finds this woman. And has her explain the whole of the thing.
SPEAKER_02The whole thing gets explained in front of everyone. This is the only woman he ever calls daughter in scripture. Daughter, your faith has made you whole. What's he doing in that moment? Jesus is stopping. Because a physical healing in her body would not have been enough to bring her heart into wholeness. There was something shadowy still in her heart concerning, oh, concerning the nature of the father that had to be dealt with. And if Jesus didn't stop in that moment, she would have carried wrong thinking and wrong perspective about the nature of the Father and how he felt concerning her the rest of her life. I'm going to address someone that I shouldn't be anywhere near. Why? Because there's wrong thinking in there about the Father, and I've come to reveal who the Father really is. Jesus is revealing the nature of the Father in everything that he does. I uh was having a conversation with a dear friend of mine recently. Came to visit us from Tennessee and talking with him, and I said, you know, we talk a lot about the kingdom of God in the church. We do. We talk about the kingdom of God, and that's you know, some of the primary teachings from uh our apostle, and that's some of the primary teachings from you know, profound voices like Bill Johnson. It's on the kingdom of God, and that's good. That's good and that's right. But what Jesus was doing was he was revealing the heart of the Father in everything he did. When he's teaching messages, what he's doing is he's not revealing this obscure thing called the kingdom. He's taking the heart of God that's been hidden throughout all of eternity, and he's laying it bare before humanity. And that's why he's constantly saying, He that has ears to hear, let him hear. He that has eyes to see, let him see. I'm showing you something that's been hidden for all of eternity. It's not something called the kingdom, it's the heart of God. And it could be rightly said, it could be rightly said, the kingdom of God could be the revelation of the heart of the Father.
SPEAKER_01David was revealing something to us that Yeshua would model.
SPEAKER_02We're gonna get there in just a moment. David is revealing something to us that Yeshua would later then model perfectly for us.
SPEAKER_01Number one, we all go this way.
SPEAKER_02Number two, if we're not careful, the that the shadow from the Valley of the Shadow can stay with you long after you leave the valley. What do I mean by that? I mean if we're not careful, what will happen is we'll go through trial, we'll go through tragedy, we'll go through fill in the blank, and there's various degrees that everyone walks through of these situations. You can fill in the blank anywhere that you want. And what can happen if we're not careful is these moments of profound trauma, what they'll do is they'll shadow pieces of our heart, make them inaccessible to the love of God. Why what do you mean when you say they'll make them inaccessible to the love of God? I'll explain. I've been um repeating this phrase with our local company a lot over the last year, and I'm sure Levi is tired of hearing it. But I've been reading this book called Beginning to Pray. I've beg I've been beginning to read a book called Beginning to Pray by a beginning. I've gotten through two chapters, so um in a year. It's a profound pace that I'm setting in this book reading thing. Um I've been I've been setting this pace of profound speed and you know getting through this so quickly that I had to circle back to to chapter one, and
Honest Prayer Heals Hidden Places
SPEAKER_02I got through chapter one and stayed there for about six months. Um and in this book, actually, I'm gonna, Samuel, will you open my bag up for me and grab those two books out of there? There's two in there. I'm just gonna pull it out. You gotta unbuckle it, buddy. There's a button underneath that. Oh, we're struggling. Uncle Skylar will help you. That's okay. There we go, bud. There's two, and I just need that bottom one right there. Yep, no, no, other one. There we go. Thank you, buddy. Beginning to Pray by Friar Anthony Bloom. He's an Orthodox uh minister. And the initial chapter in this book, he's teaching on why God is absent in our prayers, and the various ways that we find God absent when we're seeking him in our prayers, and dealing with some of the challenge that we face in um prayers that often seem like God is absent.
SPEAKER_01I'll hold it.
SPEAKER_02And he says this there are other ways too in which God is absent. As long as we are as long as we are ourselves, as long as we ourselves are real, as long as we are truly ourselves, God can be present and do something with us. Can be present and do something with us. But the moment we try to be something that we are not, there's nothing left to say or have. We become a fictitious personality, an unreal presence, and this unreal presence cannot be approached by God. Read that again. There are other ways too in which God is absent, as long as we ourselves are real, as long as we are truly ourselves, God can be present and do something with us in another, and said in another way, as long as we are authentic, as long as we are honest. That's probably the most simple way to put this that I could is that as long as we are honest with him in prayer. Thank you, Levi. As long as we are honest with him in prayer, he can be present with us and be able to do something with us or bring some level of transformation to what we are doing. But the moment that we try to be what we are not, the moment we try to be what we are not, there's nothing left to say or have. We become a fictitious personality, an unreal presence, and this unreal presence cannot be approached by God. This unreal presence cannot be approached by. Number two when we go through challenging situations or tragic situations or trials or tribulations or simply life because life has a way of wearing us down. Things happen. I read I read a book and uh the name of that book was A More Christ-like God, and one of the one of the uh chapters, I'll edit it, but one of the chapters the title was this God is good and crap happens. That is an edited down version of what that title is, God is good and crap still happens. And the shadow of those events or moments can stay with us and distort what we believe about the Father. And if we are not careful, what will happen is this will allow the residue or the shadow of those moments to darken the corners of our hearts and make them inaccessible to God.
SPEAKER_01Matthew twenty six and verse thirty-six.
Gethsemane And The Fear Of Abandonment
SPEAKER_02And I think even the name Gethsemane means press or all or oil press. And there have been many profound ministers that have done such an incredible job of teaching the pressing that Jesus went through. And I'm thankful for those, but I believe the Lord has shown me something here. And it says in verse 36, it says this Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, Sit here while I go over there to pray. And we all know that Jesus is about to be betrayed into the hands of his captors, and they're going to take him before the high priest, and then they'll take him before Pilate, and then Herod, and then Pilate again, and then eventually they'll scourge him, and then eventually they'll put a crown of thorns on his head, and eventually they'll take him out to the place of the skull, and they'll crucify him there. This is about what he's, he's about to go do the thing that he came for. The interesting tension that Jesus finds himself in here is this. This was the purpose for which he came. This was the penultimate act of reconciliation. See, Jesus wasn't just reconciling when he was on the cross, he was reconciling with everything he did. He lived a life of reconciliation. He lived a life of revealing the heart of the Father. He was reconciling the creation back to the Father in everything that he did. The penultimate act of reconciliation was the cross, but he was reconciling in everything that he did. And he's coming to the crescendo. He's coming to the moment that he's been sent to the earth for, but there's a tension here. And we fed into this tension or bought into this tension by teaching things like when Jesus went to the cross, the father turned away. The father turned his back on him because he couldn't look on sin. When Paul teaches the Father was in Christ, reconciling the cosmos back to himself. It says that he sweat great drops as of blood. His sweat became as of great drops of blood. He was in agony of spirit. I'm gonna read it, but he's in the middle of great tension, he's in the middle of great anxiety, he's in the middle of great fear, and we find him wavering. Sit here while I go over there and pray, and then he takes his three closest friends. Sit here while I go and pray, and then he takes his three closest friends and asks them to pray with him. I don't know if you caught that. And then he invited three to come and pray with him while he was in the middle of the great of the great pressing of his soul. He takes three with him and says, Hey, would you help me pray? The distinction and honor that comes along with that invitation is mind-blowing to me. Yeshua is in need of ministry. It says in one of the gospel accounts that an angel came and comforted him.
SPEAKER_01Jesus needed help. And he invites his friends to help him.
SPEAKER_02Sit here while I go and pray, and then he takes Peter and Zebedee's two sons, James and John. And he became anguished and distressed, and he told them this. He didn't tell everybody this, he told his closest friends this. Stay here and keep watch with me. My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me. He went on a little farther and bowed his face to the ground, praying, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me, yet I want your will to be done, not mine. Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, Couldn't you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation, for the spirit is willing, but the body is weak. Then Jesus left them a second time and prayed, My Father, if this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done. Then he left and went and prayed a second time and said, My father, if this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done. When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn't keep their eyes open. And Luke says something that none of the other gospel writers say in this moment. He says, He says, This. He says, I'm gonna open to it. At last he stood up again and returned to the disciples, only to find them asleep, exhausted from grief.
SPEAKER_01Jesus has been teaching them all night that he's going away.
SPEAKER_02That he's gonna return to the Father, and that they'll be stricken with grief, but when they come through the other side, it'll be like a woman who has gone through the pains of childbirth, and there'll be so much joy on the other side of this that you won't remember the pain that you had to go through to get there. He even he goes further and says, It's better for you that I go, because if I go, the Father will send the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01But right now, these men are exhausted from grief.
SPEAKER_02And Yeshua is in the press modeling for us perfectly what David wrote about in Psalms twenty-three.
SPEAKER_01You are with me.
SPEAKER_02One of the challenges that we run into, and I'm gonna be done here in a second, I'm not gonna belabor the point. One of the challenges that we run into is that if God is good, why did this happen? If God is kind, why this? If God is good, why this? And we don't have an acceptable answer most of the time for why did this happen to me, and in not having an acceptable answer for why did this go on, how could this go on, why me? Why is this the thing that I have to deal with? And we each have our own individual things that have that leave shadows, it leaves residue, it leaves pieces, it leaves questions. And the challenge is if he's good, why? He's good, why? And Jesus is wrestling with if he's good, why Jesus is facing anxiety, he's facing fear, he's asking the Father. This is listen, this is the irony of the whole thing. Jesus is doing the thing he came to do. This is why he came. This is why he came. This is why, to be handed over to men and to be crucified, to reconcile all of creation, to take the keys of death, hell, and the grave, to take captivity captive, to give gifts to men, to be mystically joined to you and I through his death, burial, and resurrection, to go up on high, his seating and us his seating in session, be seated at the right hand of the Father to apply his blood to the mercy seat in heaven. He's doing all of these things. This is why he came, and yet he's here.
SPEAKER_01Why? If he's good, why?
SPEAKER_02Why do I have to do this? Why are we going through this? And what he's doing is he's wrestling with Adam's delusion of separation. Will you leave me in the middle of my suffering? Will you leave me in the middle of the thing that I'm about to have to walk through? Will you leave me? Will you be absent?
SPEAKER_01Will you be absent in this or will you go with me?
SPEAKER_02Will you be absent or will you go with me? And Yeshua found a way in the garden to remain joined. And in finding a way to remain joined, he paved a path for our hearts to be made whole.
SPEAKER_01Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.
SPEAKER_02He returns to Simon, Peter, couldn't you watch with me one hour? Keep watching, pray, so that you not give in to temptation, for the spirit is willing, but the body is weak. Jesus leaves them a sec leaves them a second time and prayed, Father, if this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done. When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn't keep their eyes open. So he went to pray a third time, saying the exact same thing. Then he came to his disciples and said, Go ahead and sleep, have your rest. But look, the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hand of sinners. Up, let's be going. Look, my betrayer is here. The moment we become
Stop Papering Over The Cracks
SPEAKER_02something that we are not, when I'm saying the moment we become something that we are not, what we get taught to do with these areas of our hearts is to paper over them. I'm really okay. I'm really okay. I'm fine. I'm making it. It's alright. And what happens is those areas of our hearts that need healing most remain untouched by the Father because we're pretending we're something we're not.
SPEAKER_01We're pretending we're something we're not.
SPEAKER_02We're pretending we're whole while we still live in fear. We're pretending we're whole while we still battle deeply with anxiety in areas of our hearts. We're pretending we're whole while we deal with roots of rejection. We're pretending we're whole while we're dealing with fill in the blank. And our statements of faith and religious exercise get us no closer to being whole than the man in the moon.
SPEAKER_01And we wonder, we wonder why our interior worlds remain fractured.
SPEAKER_02And I wrote this the moment we become something that we are not, we make our hearts inaccessible to our Father. As a result, the places that need healing in the deepest ways often remain untouched despite our confessions of faith and religious exercise, because we are papering over spaces that don't trust deeply enough to be honest with him. And most often those places we feel like we and most often those are places we feel like we have been dropped by him. Yeshua in the press refused to allow the shadow of death to separate him from the Father, and in remaining joined, he made a way for our hearts to be made whole. The love of God is moving, and we'll experience the love of God. We'll get really full, we'll get really filled up with the love of God. But a day or two later we find ourselves leeching of a leak. Our hearts have a leak in them, and we're not able to, we're not able to retain the thing that he's designed for us to retain. I was talking to Logan and I was referencing an old movie, The Shawshank Redemption, and in this movie a man tunnels out of his his prison cell through his wall. And he just puts a poster up over his hole that he makes. The most simple plan ever. Puts a poster up over the hole that he makes and he escapes prison. And the warden is wondering, how in the world did he get out of here? What in the world has happened? And in doing that, he throws a rock at this poster and pops a hole through it. Puts his looks at oh my god, there was a hole. And what'll happen is the love of God will come, the power of God will come, the glory of the Lord will be made manifest, and we get really, really full and we find ourselves leaching. We have no idea how that happened. What is happening? What's going on? What's going on? And we've got these papered over areas in our hearts. The can't contain the thing we were designed to be full of. The moment we pretend that we're something that we're not now listened. I'm not talking about confessing that I'm broken and I'll always be broken. I'm not talking about saying I'll always be this way. I'm not even talking about dwelling on something longer than is necessary for the Lord to kill it. What I'm saying is there comes a moment where the Lord confronts our broken spaces with kindness. And says, I was not absent in this. I was not absent in this. You have believed a lie. Cause you to maintain anger that you have no desire to maintain. Cause you to be short-tempered when you have no desire to be short-tempered. Cause you be stuck in cycles you have no desire to remain stuck in, but you can't seem to get out of these cycles, and you've
Let God Meet You Low
SPEAKER_02got broken spaces papered over, and the shadow is still speaking to you that the father was absent in this, and he has no desire to meet you here. If he was absent when that happened, why would he want to meet you here now? And this is significantly different than the way that I normally minister. But here's what I felt like the Lord wanted to do. And it may just be for one of us, it may just be one. But I feel like the Lord is here in kindness to meet you. Meet you in your lowest place. Anthony Bloom would go on to write in chapter one that often when we pray to the Father, what we do is we try to remain strong. And in trying to remain strong, we make it impossible for him to be strong through us. Strength is made perfect in our weaknesses. Some of the lies he's dealing with in the garden. He's sweating great drops as a blood because this man has never known a moment apart from his father. And in this moment of resounding triumph and horrific death. This is terrible juxtaposition. It's a terrible death, and it's resounding triumph all at once. He's going to the very bottom of academic thinking. He's going to the very bottom of what Adam taught humanity to believe about the father. And in going to the very bottom of it, he finds this core lie. You will be alone. He will abandon you and you will be alone. He stared down.