Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Discontent With the Here and Now? | Dr. Lamar Hardwick | John 17

Episode Date: January 14, 2022

Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here to grow in your faith this year. Are you waiting on the next thing? Do you think you'll be happy if you could just get to _____ (fill in the blank)? Whether it's a promotion, graduation, marriage or heaven, life seems full of waiting for the next milestone. Dr. Lamar Hardwick, author and pastor, shares encouragement for seasons when you feel stuck in the here and now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast Passages: John 17

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. And I'm Patrick Miller. Hey, listeners, I'm excited to tell you about a new way to connect with 10-minute Bible talks in the new year. When you sign up for our brand-new 10-minute Bible Talks email newsletter, you're going to get a blessedly short email once a week. And it's going to have guides on spiritual disciplines, inspiring challenges for you to grow. It's going to give you more background on the passages.

we cover, and there'll even be quick studies of Hebrew and Greek words. It will be the one email that asks nothing from you but gives you something instead. Each week will be a little different, and you're going to love the variety. So stop what you're doing, click the link in the show notes, and join us in your inbox. Now, let's hop into today's episode. We have a special guest for you today, Dr. Lamar Hardwick. He's the lead pastor of Tri-Cities Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and he's also known as the autism pastor. diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at the age of 36.

Dr. Hardwick's a compelling advocate and teacher, and I think you're really going to enjoy his candid talk about prayer. There's a story of a lady who fell ill, and fortunately she ends up passing away. So when she gets to heaven, she sees Peter standing in front of the gate, and she's looking over his shoulder, and she's all her family and friends. They're excited to see her. They're waving her in, and she's so excited to be there that she steps up to Peter and ask him, hey, Peter, how do I get into this place? And Peter says, oh, it's simple. All you have to do is spell one little word. And she's really excited to see her family and friends there waiting on the other side of the gate. So she frantically tells Peter, what's the word that I need to spell in order to get in? And Peter says, oh, it's simple. Love. So she says, oh, that's easy. L-O-V-E. Peter shakes her hand and says, welcome to heaven. Enjoy eternity. We've been waiting on you. All your family and friends are here to greet you.

Well, a couple of years passed by and the lady's just walking around heaven enjoying herself. And she runs into Peter who looks frazzled. Peter grabs her and says, hey, look, the Lord really has me busy today. Can you help me out and watch the gate? She says, sure, no problem. And he says, now remember the word. If anyone shows up to the gate, just have them spell the word again. She says, no problem.

Well, as she's standing at the gate, her husband shows up at the gate. He peers over her shoulder, all his families. and friends are waving him in and they're so excited to see him. And she's also so excited to see him. And she runs up and gives him a hug and says, before I let you in, let me know what happened on earth after I died. I'm curious to know what happened. And her husband kind of hesitates for a second. And he says, well, you're probably not going to like to hear this.

But after you died, I missed you so much. And because your sister sort of looks like you about. six months after you died, I married your sister. And the lady just rubs her chin and nods her head and says, oh, really? But what else happened after I died? I'm curious to know what else happened. He says, oh, well, you're probably not going to like this either. But about six months after our marriage sister, we won the lottery and won $500 million. And the lady once again just rubs her chin and nods her head and says, oh, really? By this time, his family is waving him in. They're so excited to see him. And so he says, enough about me, enough about me. How do I get into this place?

And she says, oh, it's simple. All you have to do is spell one little word. And he says, well, what's the word? And she looks at him and says, Czechoslovakia. And that's a pretty funny story. But the reality is all of us are searching for how to get to that place that feels like heaven. I mean, certainly for those of us who follow Christ, we one day want to see heaven. But even here on earth, we are searching for those moments and those places where it feels like the ideal situation to be in. I mean, we want to avoid suffering and struggle and hardships. And so if not just literally, we also want to maybe even figuratively experience a little bit of heaven here on earth. If you think about it, heaven's kind of the ultimate.

milestone. I mean, it's the place that we want to get to that helps us to celebrate that we finally arrived there. And most of our lives are centered around milestones. I mean, when we were younger, we couldn't wait to be able to drive. We wanted to get there to that place where we're old enough to drive or maybe even old enough to vote. We wanted to get there to that age or maybe for those of us who went to college, we couldn't wait to get there to the age where we could be considering an adult and leave the home or maybe even we couldn't wait until we got to the place where we purchased our first home or maybe had our first child or got that promotion. There's always the there that we're trying to get to.

And the there that we're trying to get to is appealing because it seems like the ideal place to be. So our entire lives are spent trying to reach milestones. Except I learned a few years ago that milestones can actually be a little bit misleading. Don't get me wrong from birthdays and anniversaries and Mother's Day and Christmas and all of those great milestones. They're important to celebrate and they're important to reflect on how God has been gracious and how he's blessed us. But sometimes milestones can actually give us the feeling that there's something out there that's better than here. That's sort of the nature of a milestone.

It's appeal is that I need to get there because I don't want to be here. And the reality is many times the reason why we want to be there is because here can be hard. It's hard because sometimes here is imperfect. Here, oftentimes is far from heaven. Here can be inconvenient. It can be inconsistent. And here sometimes can be completely uncomfortable. So we want to be there.

We'd much rather be there where it's more ideal because here is hard. I discovered two things usually happen when we find ourselves in a here. Those moments in our life where we wake up and we don't know how we're, we got here, sometimes by our own choices and other times by choices that were made for us, it lands us in a here. And two things usually happen when we wake up and discover we're in a here. The first thing is that we pray for it not to be true. God, I don't know how I got here and it feels like a bad dream and I'm praying for it not to be true. And then the second thing is when the reality sets in that it's probably true, we pray God. If it is true, don't let it take long.

When you find yourself in one of those hears, it's hard and we don't want to be here. We want to be there because there seems like the ideal. A few months ago, I found myself in a personal here. in October of 2020 after having a procedure following some troubling symptoms that I was having. I woke up from anesthesia with my wife on my left hand side and the doctor performed the procedure on my right hand side. And as I was shaking off the anesthesia and coming back to consciousness, I heard three little words that placed me in the most difficult here that I've ever experienced. She looked at me and said, this is cancer. So now I'm here.

And like many of you, I prayed, God, don't let this be true. And if it's true, don't let it take long. Now, spoiler alert, I am happy to report that after nearly a year of treatment, I am cancer-free. But I got to be honest, in that moment, it was a here that I didn't want to be in. It was a here that was hard. It was difficult. it was uncomfortable, it was inconvenient, and I'd much rather be there. I'd much rather be in a place that's ideal. Well, I discovered that sometimes a prayer that we have trying to get there because we

don't want to be here is actually the opposite of what Jesus is praying for us. The gospel writer, John records in John 17, one of Jesus's last prayers before he is crucified and resurrected and sends back to heaven. And in that prayer, Jesus prays for God to leave his followers here. Jesus is an intimate conversation with the Father, and he tells the Father that we're actually not any more made for this world than he is, but then Jesus has the audacity to pray that, Father, I'm ready to go there, but I want you to leave them here. I don't know about you, but that was kind of troubling to hear because I thought the whole point of following Jesus was for him to get me the heck out of here. I mean, here is hard.

It's uncomfortable. It's inconsistent. It is inconvenient. And I much rather be in heaven because heaven is the ideal. I don't want to be here. I want to be there. Except Jesus prays for us to stay right here. So the question is, if I have to stay here, how do I handle it?

Well, I think it's found in the very same prayer because Jesus praised the God. And in his prayer, he says that all those that you have given to me belong to me. And there it is. Sometimes it's difficult and hard and inconvenient and uncomfortable as here is we still have hope. And we're still able to handle our here because even though Jesus is praying for us to stay here, in his words, we're still his. So I want to encourage you. Even though we might have to stay in it here when we'd much rather be there, continue to have hope, because even though here is hard, we're still his.

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