GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast

191. What's On Your Mind- Fierce Faith

• Jerry L. Martin, Scott Langdon

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What happens when your world is suddenly turned upside down, and the answers you seek seem elusive? 

In this episode of What’s On Your Mind, we share the latest reflections from Rachel, a mother who felt a divine hug as she waited hour by hour as her son fought for his life. Through the support of loved ones and the act of journaling Bible verses, Rachel found the peace and strength she needed, ultimately witnessing her son's recovery. Rachel's story is a testament to resilient faith and communal love inspiring "fierce faith" and trust in divine guidance. 

Jerry and Scott discuss the necessity of living intentionally, filled with gratitude, even amid life's curveballs. Drawing from personal experiences and literary works like Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Illich," the two highlight the universal nature of suffering and the comfort that comes from trusting a higher power.

You have a spiritual compass- are you following God's pull? Don't miss this enriching episode filled with heartfelt stories, practical advice, and spiritual wisdom. 


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Scott Langdon 00:17: This is God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. A dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin. He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him. Episode 187. Hello and welcome to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. I’m Scott Langdon, and I'm excited to return this week to talk with Jerry about an answer we received to our favorite question: what's on your mind? It's in this series that Jerry and I share emails we receive in response to our continuous invitation to all who hear to share your story of God with us. We believe in the power of story, here. We all have a story, even God and God's story, and our stories are interwoven, written as we go and continue to play out moment to moment as we create them together. If you'd like to share your story of God or ask a question, please email us at questions@godanautobiography.com. This week, we share an email from Rachel Barker, who sends us her personal story. It's very thoughtfully written and deeply felt, telling the story of a mother and son and how God is constantly at work, right there with us in every moment in so many ways. Here now is Rachel's story. I hope you enjoy the episode. 

A Letter from Rachel 02:37: Faith….From Fluffy to Fierce. It’s so normal to go through life just doing the motions. Right? Set the alarm, get ready for work, pack the kids up and do school drop off, work, dinner, homework, baths, bed…..repeat. Throw the occasional school activity, game and birthday event in, but overall….it all stays the same. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the “normal” and not think about other people or things. This WAS totally my life. I went to church (most) Sundays and prayed nightly. Usually, my prayers were thanking the Lord for the day and asking to guide me to be better for the next. I felt bad for other people when they went through things, but that’s where it ended. I didn’t tithe or serve or give selflessly on a consistent basis. I knew horrible, tragic things randomly happened to people. But that was never going to be me. To be honest, the thought never crossed my mind that it could happen. April 12, 2019 that forever changed. 

A Letter from Rachel 03:50: I drove my son to Cooks Childrens’ Hospital in Fort Worth thinking he needed an IV bag and a shot for nausea. I walked into the ER with him and the EMT at the front asked me when his lips had turned purple. My mother-in-law and I just stared at each other. After that, my son was pretty much ripped from my arms and ran into a room where an episode out of ER played out. Twenty medical personnel gowned and masked, asking me a million questions. So it turned out, he was barely alive. The most incomprehensible thing imaginable to me. Official diagnosis…..bacterial and viral pneumonia and sepsis infection in his blood. All caused from Type A Strep & the Rhino Virus (common cold) that was missed by his doctors. He was sent to the ICU where his life expectancy was hour by hour. I can’t explain to you the feeling when a doctor tells you... I mean, we were at the hospital. Why wasn’t he “fixable”? Let me go ahead and share this….he SURVIVED! It wasn’t easy, but he was placed in a medicated coma. The doctors and nurses worked tirelessly to treat his cardiovascular system, respiratory system and everything else. He woke up on Good Friday. How amazing is that? We were discharged May 1st. Here’s the good stuff I want to share. As I watched Hunter being worked on in the ICU by 20 plus people, my heart shattered. I immediately prayed but was dissatisfied with the results. Doesn’t God heal instantly? I found myself frustrated and scared. We were surrounded by other parents who prayed with us, Chaplains, family and friends and even strangers. It’s safe to say I was in shock. I text a group of friends begging them to pray for Hunter. The first night in ICU I held his hand and paced and prayed. I think I fell asleep for an hour or so. Sleep was the furthest thing from my mind when my son was fighting for his life. The next day I was given a journal. Initially I thought it was absurd to give me this when I just wanted to stare at my son. (Because surely that would fix him!) The second night I was anxious and stirring so I stared at the journal and thought….why not? I started writing down bible verses that were shared with me. I searched up specifically ones for healing, faith and strength. I attempted to collect my thoughts and get my feelings and thoughts down on paper. As I continued journaling, I was writing down my prayers to be more specific and re-read my thoughts. I focused not only on my son, but those who were helping us. I have social media, and tend to post the “picture perfect” moments. I hesitated putting our horrible situation out there, but I did. The feedback was incredible. hugging me. My arms had two warm spots where I felt the nonstop hug. Honestly, after 48 hours on only 2 hours of sleep I thought my body was just sore or something. It dawned on me that God was hugging me. A few moments later a friend reached out via email to share her experience of being held by God when her husband had suffered from a stroke. I just knew right then and there that He was with me and wouldn’t leave my side. I clung to that as my fear and anxiety crept in at the worst moments. 

A Letter from Rachel 07:59: I found so much peace in journaling and writing down my prayers to God. Joining me in prayer were my friends and family, as well as our entire nation. Our local community as well as strangers from other states shared our posts and sent us messages. Random people visited us at the hospital and prayed. This fierce and consistent praying undoubtedly healed my son. I actually overheard a doctor say “We didn’t do anything special, just our jobs. A higher being did this miracle”.

A Letter from Rachel 08:41: So why share this? Because I want others to truly feel the change I felt. I want everyone to have a deeper relationship with the Lord. It took a huge drastic moment in my life where I literally had no hope other than in God. When asked how I made it through that time, it was because of my faith. When I found myself on the floor crying, friends, strangers, family would lift me up in prayer and strength. The Lord miraculously saved my son and through that he saved me. Join me in leaving behind “Fluffy Faith” and indulge yourself in getting to know the Lord better. Study his word. Memorize verses. Pray for others and give selflessly. Fierce Faith will save you in every way possible. I promise you will be forever changed!

Scott Langdon 09:54: And that was from Rachel Barker, Jerry that was one of the great emails we received I think.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin: I just found it riveting from beginning to end, and I read it and reread it, and I found it riveting every single time. This is such a story and is chock full of spiritual lessons and food for thought I guess you'd say. Things we really need to think about and take seriously and try to think of what does that mean in my own life? 

Scott Langdon 10:23: Yes, it's something that happened to her particularly, and yet it's something that we can all sort of grab onto emotionally and thoughtfully. We each have some kind of story that has many similarities to that where we don't think something is going to happen to us and something does, and where do we go and where is the guidance coming from? Are we just praying into a vacuum, or is there anybody there? A lot of these questions, it's a lot of times just, you know, it's the nature of suffering, and so when someone tells their story, like Rachel has done, it's such an uplifting thing for us to know, hey, we're not alone, and not only are other people going through similar things, but God is with me, just like God was with them all the time. You found it a very moving story and you wrote a response to her email, as you do with all of the emails that we receive. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 11:22: Yeah, because I appreciate them all so much. Yeah, I wrote at the time: Yours is a moving story, Rachel, full of wisdom for all of us. I'm struck that even in your quote normal life you pray just right, first expressing gratitude and then asking for guidance on how to be better. We usually ask for something for us, but the important thing daily is to be thankful for the life we have. You know, in normal times that's pretty good for many of us and then to ask for guidance. Okay, what should I do today? Not a big question. What should I do today? That's the kind of praying that I think she was doing even back in normal times. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 12:16: Emergencies knock the props out from under us and can remind us that we are not in control of our lives. God is the source of the vital energy that animates our lives. Often, God does not provide instant healing, as she had looked for, or any visible healing, but God is always present and always on our side. Sometimes we vividly feel that presence, as you did in receiving a divine embrace. Quite a lesson in fierce faith. Thank you and bless you. So I thought, I thank Rachel and I bless Rachel because she has helped all of us by sharing this, and one of the things that struck me more as I reread it than it had at first. Which was the very opening sentence, which you've really kind of alluded to this, Scott. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 13:20: It's just so normal to go through life just doing the motions, and that's what we do, and I often think it's important to live what I call live seriously, and what I mean by living seriously. You've got this life to live. That's your life, that it's in your hands, you might say, it's also in God's hands and other people's hands, but what you're going to do is in your hands. The actions you'll take, the attitudes you'll try to cultivate and form, the knowledge you'll take in and so forth is in your hands. And to live life seriously means well, I'm going to try to get it right, do the best job I can to become the best person, best parent, best neighbor, best friend, best at our occupation, best actor, best philosopher. I'm going to take that seriously, not just oh, it's time to do this and time to do that, and what the existentialists call living as das man, which in the German means just the one. What one does, you know? Rather think well, what am I going to do? It's in my hand, don't just, okay, this is what everybody does. Everybody packs a lunch. Everybody, you know, has coffee with a co-worker. Everybody does x, y, z. But okay, what should I be doing? And the best thing to do, as Rachel does, pray for guidance. See what comes to you. And that's just the beginning of the story. And she's quite right, as you've underscored, Scott, that we take normal life quote normal life for granted. 

Jerry L. Martin 15:07: And it made me think of the great Tolstoy short story, I guess it is, The Death of Ivan Illych. So Ivan llych dies, or finds he has something fatal, a fatal affliction. He's going to die, he's just a matter of time. And he said he always knew life was mortal. The man is mortal, but somehow he never thought it would happen to him. Just the suffering. We know there's suffering out there, but whoa, it upsets the apple carts totally when it comes your way. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 15:46: And I know recently Abigail had a health event that was very disturbing. And you know I'm always talking about God-centered prayer. In fact my prayers always end with thy will be done and I think that is the right way to pray. But what I got back when I prayed about Abigail's situation was God to Jerry, leave Abigail in my hands. Well, God may not intend to do with Abigail. God may be perfectly happy to move her to the next life, but I'm not happy with that and I kind of went a bit of a back and forth emotionally on that because it didn't seem to offer any promise that it was going to be what God would do in God's hands, be something that made her husband happy. But then of course I realized I kind of didn't want to let her go into God's hands. Well, there's not that much I can do for her, you know. So, okay, okay, got to step back and let God do what he's going to do with Abigail. God has his own plans with Abigail. Okay, God had His plans for me and may not have been what I would have wanted or somebody else would have wanted for me, because it interrupted a great career and so forth and my parents had to wonder over, you know what's happened to Jerry. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 17:23: But anyway, she shows amazing spiritual attunement right from the beginning, before she has this shocking experience that presses it to the wall, you might say that really puts her on life's hot seat, where the child who just seemed to not have that much wrong, the boy, she takes him to the emergency room thinking this is just going to be some quick fix kind of thing, and leave, and it ends up his life expectancy, she says, was hour by hour and there's no way to deal with that. Whammo, it's hour by hour? Go in with what looked like a cold or flu or something, and now life expectancy from one hour to the next. And then she tells the rest of her story from there. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 18:18: But what a situation we do have, those things where you think life is, life often feels as if, oh, it just rolls along on its own, you might say, and that'll go on forever. And then, whammo, something happens and you know, oh, no, I can't count on normal life simply going on and on and on and on. And what do you do then? And that's what faces, what Rachel is faced with. And what do you do then?
Scott Langdon 18:52: The idea that suffering is the law of growth in the universe was such an amazing quote from God to you, a statement from God to you and subsequently through our work, your voice being, you know, playing the voice of God and my presence being you got that from the work we do. I heard that and I felt that and I thought I'm going to wrestle with this for a little while. That's hard to know. The law of gravity is pretty easy. Walk outside and you're on the ground. And if you want to try to get off the ground, then that's the struggle to get away from the ground and stay up there. It's gravity, it's the law. And the deeper you or the deeper I have gone into the study of these other religions, the study of the way God has come to other groups and individuals, I've heard again not the same thing, but the different fingers pointing to the same thing, which is that the laws are the unfolding as we go. They unfold on one hand, when you sort of step back and see it, everything is unfolding just as it should be, just perfectly. On the other hand, you think there's got to be something I can do to this, to outcome that Abigail is sick. There's something I can do to heal her or get that thing. And God just says leave it, leave her to Me, leave her to Me. And that's hard to do because it's okay, God, You've given me assignment. Okay, you have your assignment, you have your role to play. We've talked about that. Here's what Abigail is going through. 

Scott Langdon 20:50: Abigail is in Abigail's story and you are a prime player for sure. You're not some, you know, background player. You are a, you know, almost a co-star, you should say, in Abigail's story. But it's still Abigail’s story. And that's difficult because it's hard to discern when you know everything is just unfolding as it's going to unfold, and yet do I have any input at all? Do I have any say? Do I have? And there are plenty, and on all of the religious traditions, plenty of places where God is persuaded by people saying I thought you were this way and you said this, and now it seems like you're going against what you said and God changes God's mind. I mean, these are stories that are told as well. So sometimes it gets confusing about what to release. We've talked about the surrender, what to surrender and what to fight for or what to grapple with. It's hard to know what to do sometimes in those situations. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 21:56: Yeah, well here, what, Rachel did, you know what can she do? The kid is being treated by the doctors. A whole team jumps too as soon as they notice oh my gosh, we've got someone on the edge of death here. And she starts praying, as she says, more fiercely. The heading of the whole thing was from fluffy to fierce, and here's where fierce comes up. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 22:22: She starts praying fiercely, she hesitates to place this burden on others but rightly overcomes that hesitation. We all feel that. I certainly feel it. I know when I had a heart episode, I was in the hospital. I dreaded calling my parents and kids. I didn't feel up to talking to them. I was surprised since I'm a deep introvert anyway, surprised how much better I felt after talking to them. What could they do? They're distant, they weren't even in the same city and so forth. That helped. And in her case, what she did was get them to pray for her. That's probably what she asked for. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 23:10: I generally don't pray for results, that's just my style. I've been told in prayer that that's an okay thing to do. You should always let God know how it is with you and what you would like to see happen. That's praying honestly. You always need to pray honestly. But so she asked them to help, presumably. Well, they come to help and pray and they spread the word, you know, around the nation. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 23:33: She says, because people are in these networks these days, right, and so they let everybody they know pray for this kid. I think she may have said the name, but I've forgotten now, Hunter, yeah, pray for Hunter, and they do. And there are people even show up at the hospital she doesn't even know, but they come to pray. Well, she was saying doesn't God heal instantly? No, God doesn't heal instantly. It isn't a Zappo thing. Who knows how it works. You might say the medical technology of divine intervention and the physics of it. But somehow it works. And the doctor tells her at the end that we didn't do anything special. It was a higher power that created this miracle. 

Scott Langdon 25:09: Divining rods have always been so interesting to me and I really don't know much about them except, you know, in movies and things right. But the idea that you would be out in the desert somewhere and you could put this, these sticks or whatever, together in such a way that this energy would move you toward where water would be below, and then you just dig and then you get water, and I guess I'm fascinated by it because of the intention and the supposed energy that you're being guided by. And a few things about that that came to my mind are that first of all, you have to get the equipment together. You know you have to be thoughtful about what kind of sticks or whatever and putting them in a situation where they are ripe for, I don't know, receiving the energy or guiding you toward the energy. You know you have to, you have to pick up these sticks and get intentional about finding the water. 

Scott Langdon 26:13: And then you know, from what it looks like in the movies or whatever, you just sort of let go then, not of the sticks per se, but just sort of– I don't force it, you just, you just allow yourself to let go and be guided by this movement. And it seems very you know, woohoo and you know. But there's something to this idea that I think is really undeniable in our lives, when we really sit and think about it for a minute, that the pull of one way to move versus another way to move is a real thing. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 26:48: Talking about the divining rod, I sometimes say we have to pay attention to what is true north. And if you think of how the compass works, there's a magnetic pull to true north. There's a magnetic pull to true north and I often feel in our lives there's a divine magnetic pull and what you have to do is align yourself with that as best you can discern it, because it doesn't work, we don't have a nifty compass. Nevertheless, we do kind of have a spiritual compass inside. We can sort of tell. Even a moral compass. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 27:26: You know, this is what I need to do. I need to step up, I need to help this person, I need to stand for something in this situation, or it's time for me to step back out of the way. Both happen, and we can orient our lives by a sensitive and paying attention to that magnetic pull. And that magnetic pull may well be as well as a way of orienting us. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 27:58: You know what draws our spirit into fulfillment and guides our life in the right direction. It may well be a healing power too, a kind of energy or something that is helping the world align itself properly, down to these particular occasions, of one child in the ER, where everything that happens in the world is particular and often people think, well, God doesn't deal with any of these little particular things. But no, everything is a little particular thing if you look at it, you know in isolated fashion. But the whole world works this way and there's no place the divine is absent, and so that divine energy, let's call it, you have to not get too literal, because we don't know if this divine energy works the way physics energy works, or electricity works or something like that, but it may be a bit like magnetism that just pulls things in the right direction. 

Scott Langdon 29:10: On reflection, I can see in my life or at least I'm, you know, making this story and making the meaning out of it in this way. When I look back on things, I really do feel like I can recall that when I made a, you know, a choice that was a bad decision, caused suffering for me and those close to me, I can pretty much pinpoint, if not the exact moment, then certainly you know all the lead up to it, of knowing that this isn't, this isn't what you want, bro. You know, like this is not what you want to do, and doing it anyway, second-guessing it maybe, and maybe not even so much out of defiance could be. I mean, God says your ego, and the ego is defiant of My will, you know, and calls the ego out. It can be. 

Scott Langdon 29:59: Yeah sure, you know I know, I mean I need that thing. I cause the ego out. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 30:03: You need some healthy ego. Yeah, sure, there's the unhealthy ego. 

Scott Langdon 30:08: Yeah, sure, yeah, it's the escape hatch, sometimes the parachute, you know you need that. 

Scott Langdon 30:14: But I think I can feel this notion and I was thinking about it this morning when I was driving and I had my GPS on and I thought there are times when I get to a place and the GPS isn't quite sure yet if I should go left or right, and because it's just not quite locked in wherever I happen to be at this corner and I'm like I don't, should I go left or should I go right? I'm not quite sure, and sometimes I go left and then the GPS will figure out oh nope, you went the wrong way, so you're going to have to turn around and come all the way back. And now, if I go up, okay, I'm going to turn back and turn around as quickly as I can. I've noticed it didn't mean to go this way, but this is where I took the chance and I did it. But I saw that I needed correction and I went back. That's something different than going oh man, I went the wrong way and it's telling me to go back. 

Scott Langdon 31:08: But forget that. I'm going my own way. I'm going to go south and it's telling me to go to north. I'm going to go south. Well, I mean you can do that, right, but like why? But like why, why would you want to? And you could have another adventure that way, see what South looks like. But if you're heading a certain direction, if you'd like to go a certain way and you feel pulled a certain way, if you realize that you're not going that way, you can turn around. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 31:34: Yeah, yeah, and that's very important to correct that- willingness to correct course is very, very important, and that requires- it's so natural for us to get locked into a certain mindset, and people do this religiously too. Oh well, this religion has lost conviction for me in this way or that way. I really can't accept this or that. But I'm going to block that out. I'm not even going to let me think that I'm going to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 32:08: I'm not listening to myself even no, you got to listen. That may not mean abandoning that religious orientation, but it's better to live it honestly and explore why you're uncomfortable. Maybe you'll learn more by that exploration and maybe even if you share it with others, they'll learn from that exploration. 

Scott Langdon 32:34: Well, thank you, Rachel, for telling your story, sending it into us, and, Jerry, it's been great talking to you about it and I'm glad we got to share it today yeah, it was 

Scott Langdon: Thank you for listening to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. Subscribe for free today wherever you listen to your podcasts and hear a new episode every week. You can hear the complete dramatic adaptation of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin by beginning with episode one of our podcast and listening through its conclusion with Episode 44. You can read the original true story in the book from which this podcast is adapted, God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher, available now at amazon.com, and always at godanautobiography.com. Pick up your own copy today. If you have any questions about this or any other episode, please email us at questions@godanautobiography.com, and experience the world from God's perspective as it was told to a philosopher. This is Scott Langdon. I'll see you next time.