00:00:00 John Murphy

This is the Rock House Center podcast and I'm.

00:00:02 Beth Murphy

BethJohn Murphy and I'm Beth Murphy and our podcast today is called Comfort in Crisis.

00:00:06 Beth Murphy

It's actually the second part of a two part series that we began last week entitled God is always just one thought away.

00:00:15 Beth Murphy

This all came about as a result of questions that came in from listeners when we invited questions or topics.

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Suggestions for podcasts?

00:00:23 Beth Murphy

It was a cluster of things that all fit into the same category where loved ones are experiencing worry, panic or fear.

00:00:31 Beth Murphy

And the person questioning us is looking at how do they comfort them?

00:00:36 Beth Murphy

How do they help them?

00:00:37 Beth Murphy

And so in one case it was parents and family members who live in a part of the world where they have earthquakes and they'd experienced one, and we're having the aftershocks of those earthquakes and we're having their own worry.

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Fear panic about that.

00:00:53 Beth Murphy

And then one with a spouse that was having panic attack and a child who had been in a car accident and was very fearful about ever getting back in a car and resistant to getting back in a car.

00:01:04 Beth Murphy

So each of those situations is where the person is in the role of trying to comfort someone else about their difficult life situation.

00:01:13 Beth Murphy

And the thing with their ex.

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Parenting in sort of a crisis.

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Panic mode.

00:01:17 John Murphy

Yes, and so the situation of course, is that we want to work on the condition of our own heart.

00:01:22 John Murphy

The person is trying to bring help obviously is going to be more effective at that to the extent that they have peace themselves, and that's really what we talk about in the God is just one thought away.

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Podcast is how do people bring God into the context of the moment and to have the peace that they need to have?

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We have panic then we are only going to be able to offer panic in our role as a comforter, so it's really critical that we deal with that.

00:01:45 John Murphy

Another common belief is that if we just share a common struggle that that's a way to help someone through.

00:01:52 John Murphy

A situation, and that's not a bad thing in having community and being able to have empathy for someone because you've been through the same thing is obviously positive, but the most powerful thing that we can bring is the additional piece of and I have a testimony of how God resolved it, so we always want to bring in God as the ultimate answer.

00:02:10 John Murphy

I think that a shared experience.

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Shows that we would have empathy in the in the person situation when that's possible, but the most critical piece is to be able to bring God as the ultimate answer, so having a testimony of how he is resolved at how he's redeemed a situation obviously puts us in a better position as well.

00:02:29 Beth Murphy

So the strength of testimony of the person in this role of trying to comfort is really important, so it starts with having their own peace about the situation, not being dragged into the worry, fear, panic that their loved ones are experiencing.

00:02:44 Beth Murphy

So if you look at this particular situation, each person is in a really pivotal.

00:02:49 Beth Murphy

On a roll, it's their parents and family members.

00:02:52 Beth Murphy

In the case of the earthquakes, it's their spouse who's having a panic attack.

00:02:57 Beth Murphy

And it's their child who's so worried about not getting back in a car because of a prior car accident, and so taking the child one particularly because children are so susceptible they're so responsive to a parent because of the role of a parent.

00:03:15 Beth Murphy

So when the parent is not dismissing their feelings.

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But addressing their feelings and part of the way they address their feelings, is the reassurance and comfort of seeing that mom or dad.

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Isn't themselves worried about getting in the car or having worry and fear about car accidents and then communicating that?

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The reason is that whatever happens in a car, that God is faithful, God is going to get us through this.

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He's going to take care of whatever situation comes, and that the the place of peace in life comes from.

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Relying on God and of course it's the same thing for spouse and parents, but it's most evident with the.

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Child and children again are most responsive and susceptible to whichever direction, whichever way a parent is living.

00:04:00 Beth Murphy

If the parent is living in panic, worry, or fear, than the child is going to as well, because it's been modeled to them that that's what their parent does.

00:04:08 Beth Murphy

So the God of their youth is resorting to panic or fear and the child.

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Going to do the same thing, but if their parent, the person representing God to them, is able to be peaceful and model peace and model that got us trustworthy, then the child just absorbs that and lives in that place.

00:04:27 Beth Murphy

And then spouse and parents are going to be also positively affected by our testimony of our piece, and so that's why we started out with God is always just one thought away.

00:04:38 Beth Murphy

Last week it's because the importance of the person in the role of where they're trying to.

00:04:42 Beth Murphy

Is to get their own comfort from God directly with him as our comforter, so that they have something to pass on to the person that they're trying to help.

00:04:53 John Murphy

And of course, we're in the situation with them.

00:04:55 John Murphy

If we want to be loving them through it, we want to stay present in the situation.

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Then we'd want to just make sure that we're always pointing to God as the answer.

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If ever we find ourselves trying to rescue them or be the white knight in this situation, then we're taking on really a role that they'd need God to have to take on, because God is really going to have the answer because a lot of these situations, particularly some of the ones we mentioned.

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Here these are bigger than we are.

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They're not bigger than God is, but they're definitely bigger than we are.

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We really don't have any way to solve these problems, and to the extent that we know that about ourselves and our own situations in life, then we can confidently communicate that the common thing of all suffering is that for really to have peace and to get to the other side of it.

00:05:38 John Murphy

That's going to come only from the degree that which we have relied on God.

00:05:42 John Murphy

So loving them through it staying present.

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Certainly resolving are being available to satisfy any needs they have.

00:05:49 John Murphy

I mean if they are, you know someone was around a crisis of hunger or crisis of shelter or crisis.

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Of drowning in a river.

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You know you can throw them the lifejacket.

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You're there.

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We're not saying we ignore that ability to respond and comfort and beat a safety net.

00:06:02 John Murphy

For people, but the ultimate sense of peace about it, and the ultimate resolution and the ultimate sense of that, there is comfort in the future that God is with them that can really only come from God, and we do have the opportunity to help people bring God into the context of whatever their suffering is.

00:06:19 Beth Murphy

One of the things that deepens the problem is the lie that we're experiencing these things all alone, and it's all up to me, really can lead to despair and helplessness.

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So there's a real positive aspect that the person is connecting with.

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You to get some help and not stay in isolation, so that's good, but we want to recognize that we don't want to cross the line because their real peace again is going to come from recognizing that God is going to ultimately resolve this and bring them the comfort and the peace that they need.

00:06:51 Beth Murphy

So we want to celebrate that they're not staying in isolation.

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And the importance of the relational component here.

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But knowing that our real role is to facilitate their connection to God, facilitate their trust in God.

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Bringing God into the the context of their distress, because that is ultimately where the true and lasting peace comes from.

00:07:12 John Murphy

Yeah, I think the big reminder is that God is on board and that's a perpetual declaration of God.

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He says that we are the permanent dwelling place, no matter how it may feel he is present within each of us through the Holy Spirit.

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Now we have through our control or through our fear or whatever.

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We have the ability to kind of push him out of our consciousness.

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And I think about him and I think he's available.

00:07:35 John Murphy

But one of the key things that we need to communicate if we're going to comfort somebody that no matter how it feels right now, God is on board.

00:07:42 John Murphy

God is one thought away.

00:07:44 John Murphy

He is available and if you need some more information about that or more of a sense of that, please do listen to the previous podcasts.

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If God is just one thought away 'cause we really dig into all of the biblical truth that established.

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Is that fact so the important?

00:07:57 Beth Murphy

Distinction here an aspect of what we're saying is that we want to recognize that we don't want to become an enabler for someone to not go to God.

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Right?

00:08:05 Beth Murphy

We don't want to put ourselves in the God.

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Role and then leave them with a dependency on us because at some point we're not going to be there.

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We're going to make a mistake.

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We're going to tell them the wrong thing.

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We're going to disappoint them, and ultimately, we're not God, no matter what.

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A good job we can do, and befriending them, helping them comforting them.

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We've not done them any favors.

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If we step between them and their ability to trust God, now we're just enabling them ultimately, to stay in a place of.

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Of fear, despair, helplessness when the next crisis comes along and the next challenge or trial comes along.

00:08:41 Beth Murphy

So we just want to recognize the importance of befriending them, loving them, directing and comforting them.

00:08:49 Beth Murphy

But knowing that the bottom line here is, we want to direct them to God through our own connection with God.

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And our own ability to tell.

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Testify to his faithfulness, his love, his comfort, and him ultimately being the answer.

00:09:02 John Murphy

I think the one thing that really helps there is just praying to roll the burden of the person situation onto God shoulders and to make sure that we leave it there.

00:09:11 John Murphy

That's just a really important piece as we want to come in and we want to help and we want that to be the answer we want to comfort this person that we obviously care tremendous amount about.

00:09:21 John Murphy

But when we let go of the burden of doing the thing that only God can do, we'll have the clarity to be able to be led by God to do whatever our role is in the moment and to and to bring him in in whatever way that we can.

00:09:33 John Murphy

That's helpful to the person who is struggling at the time.

00:09:36 Beth Murphy

So a leading indicator for me if I've begun to take on someone else's burden is that I'm laying awake at night, processing through it, and I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to solve it for them or.

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Anything that goes on our own little worry treadmill kind of a thing or a sense of.

00:09:53 Beth Murphy

Responsibility here we can't possibly be responsible to resolve their situation or get them to a place of peace and without realizing it, we we kind of get into our own fix it mode our own control.

00:10:07 Beth Murphy

Whatever something some way in which we've slipped away from our own, relying on God and so.

00:10:13 Beth Murphy

Sure, those sorts of leading indicators are familiar to others as well, but what we want to do with that is set aside their situation and recognize weighment.

00:10:23 Beth Murphy

Wait, I'm I've done a thing here where I'm I've put myself in your role, Lord, I don't want to.

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Be there 'cause this feels like this feels too weighty to me, so I'm handing you this burden.

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I'm handing them too young and trusting them to you because you love them more than I could ever possibly imagine.

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You loved him before I was around.

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You are much more capable than I could ever be to redeem this situation and to do what you promised to do to use it.

00:10:50 Beth Murphy

For their good in your glory.

00:10:51 John Murphy

And of course, when we come in contact with someone that needs help and we're sort of on the scene that we're trying to do what the next step is, certainly it makes complete sense to be praying over them, and for them, absolutely.

00:11:04 John Murphy

The prayer that's going to be probably most helpful to them at the moment is going to be a prayer where you lead them through a prayer of bringing God into the context.

00:11:11 John Murphy

At the moment, and that's really one of the most effective things we're going to be able to do at the time is to.

00:11:16 John Murphy

Really, to show them the way to be able to access the peace that God has for them by leading them in a prayer so you could actually do a repeat after me prayer where you draw them into statements of declaring their absolute trust and commitment to God to roll the burden of whatever it is they're suffering on God.

00:11:32 John Murphy

And we'll have a prayer that will follow here in a minute and we'll give you some specifics.

00:11:36 John Murphy

Of how to actually say these things, but that's really where we're going to have the greatest impact is the degree to which we can help them draw God into the moment.

00:11:45 John Murphy

We also have situations where we may find that.

00:11:49 John Murphy

The person has some history of being resentful towards God, 'cause they've misread a situation.

00:11:53 John Murphy

They feel like God wasn't trustworthy and they have some resentment about that.

00:11:57 John Murphy

That's another thing that we can do is we can help them forgive any past offenses or things that may be holding against God and so therefore they've been unwilling to trust him or draw him in, and we certainly have situations where people that we've counseled have.

00:12:10 John Murphy

Had thoughts that God had not shown up when they thought he should have, and therefore they weren't willing to bring him into future struggles because they they felt like they didn't really know what was going to come of that and so they had some fear about it.

00:12:22 Beth Murphy

So that reminds me actually of a another past podcast that would be helpful in the context of.

00:12:27 Beth Murphy

This which is that God is not testing you because that we did that because of so many people who come to rockhaus Center for counseling with an epicenter of their suffering coming from wrong beliefs about God, where their trials came from, what was God's role in their suffering? There's so much to that that.

00:12:47 Beth Murphy

If if you are experiencing any of that or the person that you're trying to help and comfort, you recognize that they're doing that.

00:12:55 Beth Murphy

That that's also a really important one to listen to.

00:12:58 Beth Murphy

So the past two ones to listen to that relate to this is that God, not to.

00:13:01 Beth Murphy

Trusting you and that God is always just one thought away.

00:13:05 Beth Murphy

Those all build together into how you're going to be able to help yourself in crisis or someone else that you're trying to comfort in crisis.

00:13:12 John Murphy

Another aspect of this is asking God to cause our heart to trust God.

00:13:17 John Murphy

Sometimes it's very hard because of the situation from the horizon that we're looking at experiences we had that we have a hard time trusting God the way we need to to be able to have comfort.

00:13:26 John Murphy

So one of the things we can lead someone in is as part of that prayer is asking God for God to make.

00:13:32 John Murphy

Their heart trust.

00:13:34 John Murphy

That's another legitimate prayer.

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I've prayed that prayer many times.

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I think it's very helpful 'cause God will do that if we open a heart up to him and ask him to invade our heart and change our thinking and to cause us to trust him more.

00:13:45 John Murphy

That is a very legitimate prayer.

00:13:48 John Murphy

An aspect of this that I think is definitely worthwhile that some people might think is a little bit silly is asking God to give you your piece just outright just requesting peace.

00:13:57 John Murphy

I can remember a situation where I had a lot of anxiety about a certain kind of thing that was going on to have peace in the past, but this one moment I just suddenly had a lot of anxiety about something I'd had pieced about.

00:14:07 John Murphy

Four and I recognized that I had stopped trusting God about this situation, and the anxiety was really building in me.

00:14:15 John Murphy

So I prayed a prayer of asking God to forgive me for whatever it is that I had done to take back control or to not trust him.

00:14:23 John Murphy

I asked him to lift me up and put me back on the truth of what the scripture says about.

00:14:27 John Murphy

His character and how trustworthy he is.

00:14:30 John Murphy

And then after I did those two things, I just simply said God, would you please give me my piece back and you know it was forthcoming.

00:14:36 John Murphy

I don't think it's illegitimate at all to ask him for, but the thing that you want from him it's what he wants to.

00:14:42 John Murphy

Give you anyway.

00:14:43 Beth Murphy

Well, when you're praying along with what God has promised and what we know to be his will, you're in the safety zone.

00:14:50 Beth Murphy

It makes total sense to ask him what he's already promised to give you and wants to give you and is.

00:14:56 Beth Murphy

Declared to give you.

00:14:57 John Murphy

You're praying it consistent with his will, obviously.

00:14:59 Beth Murphy

So back in the context of these three questions that were raised, we're looking at the family members who are in the middle of a natural disaster, had one fearing another earthquake would come along, and so when you look at what the the person in that situation would commonly be experiencing, they probably feel alone and feel like they're.

00:15:19 Beth Murphy

Unknowns around the corner and they're looking to their own, strengthen their own resources.

00:15:25 Beth Murphy

To somehow prepare for that and to handle it.

00:15:28 Beth Murphy

That whole feeling of you know that I've got to somehow anticipate what are all the bad things that might happen and then get myself totally ready for it.

00:15:36 Beth Murphy

Will absolutely ZAP you of your strength and your emotional and spiritual energy because it can't be done.

00:15:43 John Murphy

And it breeds fear and anxiety 'cause The thing is bigger than you are, and so you need something that is bigger than it is.

00:15:49 John Murphy

If we're going to have peace, but otherwise we're not going to get there.

00:15:51 Beth Murphy

Right, and so you know, we've had situations where you really can look at the contrast and all right.

00:15:57 Beth Murphy

So you could just even take this hypothetical thing.

00:15:59 Beth Murphy

So two people that live next door to each other and both of them say.

00:16:04 Beth Murphy

They're in Kansas, and they have a tornado and both of their houses are blown down the way they experience something of that magnitude really depends completely on where they are with God.

00:16:15 Beth Murphy

If they feel like God is doing something to them or has.

00:16:19 Beth Murphy

Left them and they're despairing.

00:16:21 Beth Murphy

Then it's a terrible experience.

00:16:22 Beth Murphy

If they're trusting God, minute by minute, for where we're going to go from one step to the next to the next, then their experience of of that situation, which is pretty extreme.

00:16:33 Beth Murphy

Become something that ultimately can actually be a spiritual promotion that can actually end up being closer to God as a result of that really extreme situation that was totally unknown.

00:16:46 Beth Murphy

Didn't see it coming.

00:16:47 Beth Murphy

Hadn't planned on it, wasn't what they were going to script in their life, but it's all about getting to a place.

00:16:53 Beth Murphy

Being able to trust God.

00:16:55 John Murphy

And that's totally consistent with this promise is that he is going to redeem those things which were meant for evil.

00:17:00 John Murphy

He's going to redeem those things, so yes, it couldn't turn into a very significant spiritual promotion as the product or the fruit of the redemption is usually going to be a much closer connection.

00:17:10 John Murphy

We got in a greater sense of resiliency in all aspects of life.

00:17:13 John Murphy

So in the situation here, if there's this person who has someone who is in a natural disaster, the first thing they need to do is release that to the Lord.

00:17:21 John Murphy

That would be step one and then they may or may not actually be able to get to these people.

00:17:25 John Murphy

If they're in the natural disaster to lead them through a prayer, but certainly the prayer is, what do we do?

00:17:30 John Murphy

The prayer is is to ask the Lord to invade their thinking and.

00:17:33 John Murphy

To comfort them and to have them be stirred to call out and to trust him in the midst of it.

00:17:39 John Murphy

And then if actually have the opportunity to gain communication with them, is that you can lead them through a prayer.

00:17:44 John Murphy

Is it Lord?

00:17:44 John Murphy

I don't know what's coming with these shockwaves.

00:17:46 John Murphy

I don't know what's going to have.

00:17:47 John Murphy

The next, but I trust you with it.

00:17:49 John Murphy

I committed to you, I ask you to make my heart agree with your will so I know what it is that I'm supposed to be doing in this situation.

00:17:56 John Murphy

So that's an example of how it might play out and how you might provide some comfort to someone in a difficult situation.

00:18:01 John Murphy

Like that?

00:18:02 Beth Murphy

If you think about then a spouse with panic attacks, well, there can be all sorts of reasons for it, but underlying it all, there's probably going to be a fear of losing control.

00:18:11 Beth Murphy

Whole panic usually has to do with the sense of I've got to control this.

00:18:15 Beth Murphy

I don't know how to trust God, so it's up to me and I can see this looming threat where a certain thing might happen, or it might not go my way, or it might not play out the way that I think would be the best outcome.

00:18:28 Beth Murphy

And if I'm not trusting God that.

00:18:31 Beth Murphy

Can well up into something that is literally terrifying.

00:18:34 Beth Murphy

This fear of losing control and what life will be like if I lose my grip on trying to make things work out the way I think they've got to work out.

00:18:42 John Murphy

So that's a great example of someone who can be comforted and ministered to.

00:18:47 John Murphy

By leading them through a prayer of rolling whatever it is that they are afraid of, whatever it is they're processing about and rolling that burden upon the Lord, and ask the Lord to cause his heart to be agreed with his well, which it would be for him to trust God completely in the situation, and to have supernatural, resilient peace, no matter what it is.

00:19:05 John Murphy

But there is no way.

00:19:07 John Murphy

To stay in a place of control and try to operate in control and be free of anxiety and fear, we have to help people move down this pathway towards more and more trusting God in these cities.

00:19:18 John Murphy

And that's really the answer, and I can comfort them and I can bring them pillows and I can fix some hot tea.

00:19:23 John Murphy

And I can say whatever I want to say, but foundationally, there's nothing that I'm going to be able to say that's going to overcome or fix the problem that foundationally we need to get God into the context and cause them to engage in a deeper trust.

00:19:35 John Murphy

We've got.

00:19:36 John Murphy

That's how the real answer.

00:19:37 John Murphy

Is going to come forward.

00:19:39 Beth Murphy

So in the case of a child who's experienced a car accident and now is very fearful of getting into a car, there's.

00:19:47 Beth Murphy

A similar kind of thing going on, and that this sense of this feels out of control that felt bad to me.

00:19:53 Beth Murphy

I didn't see it coming and suddenly we were brought.

00:19:56 Beth Murphy

I did or rear ended whatever it was and.

00:20:00 Beth Murphy

Felt bad and that isn't fear inducing and so the child most of all needs to 1st see that their parents are not fearing a car accident.

00:20:12 Beth Murphy

They're not fearing life.

00:20:13 Beth Murphy

They're not walking around in anxiety or panic because they are demonstrating that they they believe and they know God.

00:20:21 Beth Murphy

Be trust, worry.

00:20:22 Beth Murphy

And really, the truth is, we're talking about trustworthy, even if there is another car accident 'cause we don't have any guarantees that someone else won't rear end us or whatever might happen.

00:20:32 Beth Murphy

That will cause a car accident. That's not the guarantee. The guarantee is that God's always just one thought away that he's always there, providing more of himself and.

00:20:42 Beth Murphy

More love protection, comfort using the circumstances.

00:20:45 Beth Murphy

Ultimately for our good and his glory, so simple affirmations to a child.

00:20:52 Beth Murphy

Of seeing the parent trust God and the parent verbally communicating that God's trustworthy no matter what is what's going to be the most foundationally important things for that child to have peace.

00:21:03 John Murphy

Yes, I mean basically there's so much fear here that this is what happens when people move into a place of dysfunction.

00:21:09 John Murphy

I mean, you can have so much fear you can't get in a car, then you have so much fear you can't get out of the house.

00:21:13 John Murphy

You have so much fear you can't get out of your bed, so obviously what you have is a tremendous amount of inability to function because we have to have faith and trust.

00:21:22 John Murphy

Additionally available to us.

00:21:24 John Murphy

Be functional and so in this situation you have a child who might be afraid of injury and maybe the pain of it might be afraid of death.

00:21:32 John Murphy

Might be afraid because they've been watching some movie that has shown you know some horrible outcome of someone having a car accident and that's what's lodged in their mind.

00:21:40 John Murphy

The foundational piece of this is going to be, as Beth was saying.

00:21:44 John Murphy

Number one the parents can demonstrate that they function and they trust, and they can see that the gods of their youth are trusting these things, and it's not all about one event that that doesn't determine the trustworthiness of just the functional thing.

00:21:56 John Murphy

Things in life, but there is obviously a much deeper piece here, which is that this child needs to know on a deeper and deeper level.

00:22:04 John Murphy

How much God loves them?

00:22:06 John Murphy

How trustworthy is that?

00:22:08 John Murphy

The child has been born into eternity and God is with him for eternity and there's nothing he can do to run God off.

00:22:13 John Murphy

If you know one of the reasons the child might be afraid of the car accidents because.

00:22:17 John Murphy

They are afraid of death.

00:22:18 John Murphy

They don't really understand that God is going to be there.

00:22:20 John Murphy

There's an answer for that.

00:22:22 John Murphy

There's so much around building a strong relationship in a child to be able to manage some of the kinds of fears of these things, which can become very.

00:22:30 John Murphy

Functional building this on understanding and a knowledge of who God is, his eternity, his commitments and promises.

00:22:37 John Murphy

To him the fact that everything that we encounter in this world can be rolled over and given to God, and that he will hold us together.

00:22:43 John Murphy

He will cause us to be resilient.

00:22:45 John Murphy

He'll cause us to be peaceful in the midst of it that foundational knowledge is going to be really critical.

00:22:50 John Murphy

For the child to get past any of these kinds of fears, which to us as adults, seem kind of irrational.

00:22:57 Beth Murphy

An important aspect of this, that particularly is true with a child, but really with anyone.

00:23:02 Beth Murphy

Especially with the child, though, is a lot of the comfort that goes on sort of off the topic, not when we're talking about the specific thing they have a fear, and in this case a car accident, but just living life and recognizing there are countless ways that their parents are trusting God.

00:23:20 Beth Murphy

And there are all kinds of things that are unknown.

00:23:22 Beth Murphy

There's a whole lot more than just what happens when you get in a car that's unknown.

00:23:25 Beth Murphy

I mean, we're trusting all kinds of things, really, irrationally.

00:23:29 Beth Murphy

You know we we trust when we go to the grocery store, there's going to be food there and same thing at the gas station or that the lights are going to come on when we flip the switch.

00:23:38 Beth Murphy

And we're not really processing about those things we want.

00:23:41 Beth Murphy

To communicate to a child and anyone else.

00:23:45 Beth Murphy

But it's certainly a child that God is trustworthy.

00:23:49 Beth Murphy

And he's even more trustworthy than all those mundane things in life that I just listed, and that we believe that to be true in every aspect of our life.

00:23:58 Beth Murphy

So there are opportunities just in expressing gratitude to God.

00:24:02 Beth Murphy

faith in God.

00:24:04 Beth Murphy

Things that are true about his character, his love, his nurture, examples from the past that come to mind to give him the glory for the things that he's done, the things that are building the faith muscle, the trust muscle in us and our child.

00:24:20 Beth Murphy

All of that affects the particular thing they happen to have.

00:24:24 Beth Murphy

Worry about and the opposite of course is true that if they're seeing ways in which their parents aren't trusting God or they're worrying and fearful on things other than the the car thing.

00:24:37 Beth Murphy

One way or another, we're communicating what we believe to be true about God and whether or not we think he is trustworthy by how we lead our lives in the small, day-to-day things.

00:24:47 Beth Murphy

And that's what the child and everybody else is absorbing about us.

00:24:52 Beth Murphy

That's what's coming to them as the message we're communicating.

00:24:55 Beth Murphy

So we want to look at.

00:24:57 Beth Murphy

Big picture, what are we believing and where are we living in our own peace?

00:25:00 Beth Murphy

And what are we communicating by what we say and do and how we express ourselves and what we?

00:25:06 Beth Murphy

Model to be what we believe to be.

00:25:08 Beth Murphy

True about God.

00:25:09 John Murphy

Yes, and also how we model what we do to seek comfort.

00:25:13 John Murphy

Those kinds of things that we go to.

00:25:15 John Murphy

And if I'm feeling a certain way, I go watch a movie or if I feel a certain way I go have a cookie.

00:25:21 John Murphy

If I feel in terms if I lose my peace if I'm if I'm needing to be comforted because of a bad situation, where am I going for a solution?

00:25:29 John Murphy

To the degree that parents can demonstrate that they go to God for comfort, then that is to ingrains within them that God is the answer to for comfort and it begins to build that expectation.

00:25:39 John Murphy

So just an interesting aspect of parenting and why it's so important for us are really as a model or as a testimony.

00:25:48 John Murphy

Any other person it's back to what we said earlier.

00:25:51 John Murphy

The degree to which we have peace in God and we see comfort in God and we demonstrate that.

00:25:54 John Murphy

And that's a part of our life.

00:25:56 John Murphy

Then that's going to be very powerful testimony to those people and help them gain their peace by going to God as well.

00:26:02 John Murphy

It's probably a good idea to move into a prayer we have put together a prayer here, which will allow folks who need to comfort others a prayer to walk someone through, and this doesn't have to be very specific.

00:26:13 John Murphy

There's no perfect way of doing this, but this just kind of hits the main concepts and the way in which we put this together.

00:26:19 John Murphy

And so if you have someone right now that comes to mind.

00:26:22 John Murphy

That needs comfort.

00:26:23 John Murphy

This is a prayer that you can pray to set yourself up for being able to help them, and then you can do a version of this to lead them through as well.

00:26:32 John Murphy

If you have the opportunity to actually lead someone through a prayer.

00:26:35 John Murphy

So let me just kind of get started here and just think of who it is that you are thinking about a burden that you are under and you're suffering because of the suffering and that person that you care very much for.

00:26:46 John Murphy

And you can just kind of fill their name in as we go through this prayer.

00:26:50 John Murphy

So Heavenly Father, I roll the burden of put their name in their their situation onto your shoulders.

00:26:57 John Murphy

I declare that it is your assurance and love they need above all things.

00:27:03 John Murphy

To have peace in the midst of their suffering.

00:27:06 John Murphy

Father, I also roll the responsibility of bringing peace.

00:27:12 John Murphy

To this person.

00:27:14 John Murphy

Upon your shoulders, I trust and commit them to you.

00:27:19 John Murphy

I ask that you make my heart.

00:27:21 John Murphy

Agreeable with your will.

00:27:24 John Murphy

So that I know how to encourage.

00:27:27 John Murphy

Them to trust you.

00:27:30 John Murphy

And you alone.

00:27:31 John Murphy

For peace in their situation.

00:27:34 John Murphy

Lord, please lead me.

00:27:37 John Murphy

In whatever way.

00:27:40 John Murphy

I need to bring them the reality of your love and your commitment.

00:27:46 John Murphy

Father, please reveal to me if there is any way.

00:27:50 John Murphy

In which I am trying to rescue them in my own strength.

00:27:54 John Murphy

So that I can fully release them to you.

00:27:58 John Murphy

I submit to your plan and your purpose.

00:28:02 John Murphy

To restore peace and redeem their suffering.

00:28:06 John Murphy

With supernatural, peace and more of your presence in their lives.

00:28:12 John Murphy

I pray these things.

00:28:13 John Murphy

The name of your son Jesus Amen.

00:28:17 Beth Murphy

That's our podcast for today.

00:28:18 Beth Murphy

Comfort in crisis.

00:28:19 Beth Murphy

Thank you for joining us.

00:28:21 Beth Murphy

Please do send in your ideas or questions topics that you would like covered in a podcast and know that we're always here at Rockhaus Center.

00:28:30 Beth Murphy

If you decide that you would like some counseling help or you have someone that you think could benefit.

00:28:34 John Murphy

Thanks so much for joining us today, goodbye.