The Deep Dish Live: Endurance in the Faith (with Nancy Guthrie and Jen Wilkin)

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0:00:00 – (Melissa Kruger): The stories about failures are stickier content than the stories about faithfulness. And the stories about faithfulness abound.

0:00:20 – (Courtney Doctor): Welcome to a special live recording of the Deep Dish, a podcast from the Gospel Coalition where we love having deep conversations about deep truths. I’m Melissa Krueger and we are recording live at TGCW 26. I’m here with my co horse, my cohorse. She does love horses. So it’s true.

0:00:44 – (Melissa Kruger): She is a horse. Yeah, I am.

0:00:46 – (Courtney Doctor): I’m here with my CO Host, Courtney Dr. And we are thrilled to be joined today by our good friends Jen Wilkin and Nancy Guthrie.

0:00:59 – (Jen Wilkin): And today we are going to be talking about endurance in the faith, by which we simply mean believing God. Continuing to believe God from today until he calls you home. Persevering in the faith, enduring in the faith. So I wanna start by asking the

0:01:17 – (Melissa Kruger): three of you, before we start talking

0:01:19 – (Jen Wilkin): about endurance in the faith, I want to talk about some non spiritual areas that you have had to learn or have endurance.

0:01:29 – (Melissa Kruger): Some. No, I think Nancy should start because she probably has a lot of areas where she’s disciplined.

0:01:38 – (Jen Wilkin): She is the most disciplined of us all.

0:01:40 – (Nancy Guthrie): Yeah, well, honestly, the only thing I could think of is last year I sat down on this writing project. It was a big project and I started in January, working every day. I didn’t travel much, stayed home every day. And it was due October 1st and that deadline was always right there. And so yeah, to accomplish it meant just every day, 6:30, I’m hitting my desk and you know, but y’ all,

0:02:05 – (Jen Wilkin): next January be looking for it. Cause it’s coming out and it is going to be so good. It is going to be so good.

0:02:12 – (Melissa Kruger): What about you guys?

0:02:12 – (Courtney Doctor): See you later.

0:02:14 – (Melissa Kruger): Yeah, I don’t think I’m a very endurant. I’m not a very. Do you have one? I bet you do. I’m stalling some more.

0:02:20 – (Courtney Doctor): Okay.

0:02:21 – (Jen Wilkin): What about that marathon you ran, Jen?

0:02:23 – (Melissa Kruger): Remember that time I ran that marathon

0:02:25 – (Nancy Guthrie): that I thought I would. I don’t know about that.

0:02:27 – (Melissa Kruger): Yeah, I know.

0:02:28 – (Courtney Doctor): That was the only thing I could think of is I. Some girlfriends came to me and they were like, we’re going to Kiawah and we’re gonna run a half marathon. And there’s one extra spot. Do you wanna go? And so I said yes to Kiawah, not realizing that meant I had to run a half marathon. I was like, I need new friends that we just do this stuff for fun.

0:02:48 – (Nancy Guthrie): You found them right here.

0:02:49 – (Jen Wilkin): I promise you we will never ask you to run a marathon.

0:02:56 – (Courtney Doctor): And so when I realized it was a really good experience. Cause I realized, oh, you run a mile, and then the next day you run a little more, and then you finally get up to 13 and you actually do it.

0:03:07 – (Melissa Kruger): I will take your word for it.

0:03:08 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah. Yeah.

0:03:09 – (Nancy Guthrie): Yes.

0:03:10 – (Jen Wilkin): Yeah.

0:03:10 – (Melissa Kruger): Well, the closest I’ve come to running a marathon, really, was writing the Revelation study.

0:03:15 – (Jen Wilkin): Yeah.

0:03:16 – (Melissa Kruger): That’s my only personal marathon thing I can. And candidly, the only thing I have discipline around is writing Bible studies. So that’s why it took me so long to come up with an answer. And that’s the only answer I have. But that one was like, you start out at the beginning, and you’re like, gosh, not only do my learners not understand this book, I don’t understand this book. And then just fighting and fighting and fighting to get to enough clarity that you can take your little tiny bit of light and hand it to someone who maybe has less light than you do. But, yeah, I just remember when I actually. I think you guys were there on the last day of the recording, and I thought I was just gonna sit down on the floor and bawl. I mean, it was just that it finally was done. So that’s all.

0:03:57 – (Jen Wilkin): We are all glad that you endured in that.

0:03:59 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah.

0:03:59 – (Melissa Kruger): Well, it’s the only marathon I’ll ever run. I prom. I promise you that.

0:04:04 – (Courtney Doctor): I actually think it’s a really good reminder that sometimes we think, oh, well, Jen’s just good at that. I mean, you know, we can look at people who endure in things, and we think, well, they’re just naturally good at it. And I used to teach high school math, and I remember kids would be struggling, and they thought because it was hard, they just should quit.

0:04:21 – (Melissa Kruger): Oh, yeah.

0:04:22 – (Courtney Doctor): And so I think that’s just such a good example of, just because something’s hard doesn’t mean you quit. That’s actually exactly when you have to endure. And so. Okay, so let me ask you this, Jen, this is for you. You’re first. What are some things that get in the way of endurance in the faith? Why is that? I mean, so not just endurance and other things, but endurance in the faith. Why is it actually hard to endure?

0:04:46 – (Melissa Kruger): Well, I think one of the reasons that it’s hard to endure is because God is invisible. And so we would prefer he not be. And so I think when you get into a test of endurance, so, like, if you’re thinking in terms of, like a TR that you go through or something like that, one of the reasons that it’s so hard is because the trial is very visible. And God persists in being invisible. And yet we’re told that the people who are blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

0:05:17 – (Melissa Kruger): And so a lot of what I think trials that test our endurance do is put that to the test. You know, they’re like, do you believe in this God who is unseen? Because you actually have a lot of evidence that He. But we strain our eyes forward in those moments. We wanna know how it’s going to conclude. But really the impulse we should have to help us endure is to turn and look behind us at the faithfulness of God to all generations.

0:05:49 – (Melissa Kruger): He’s actually not invisible in the strictest sense because he has made known what he is like. Maybe not to you personally, but to the saints of old and probably to someone that you know as well. And I think that’s one of the things that, you know, I’m probably getting ahead. But that’s one of the things that we turn to in times where we need to endure is to someone who can say, I know you can get to the other side of this with your faith intact, because I’m bearing witness to it in my own life.

0:06:21 – (Jen Wilkin): Yeah, that is good lyncy. Twice in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says these words, the one who endures to the end will be saved. And then Luke records Jesus saying in 21:19, by your endurance you will gain your lives. So what is Jesus talking about? I mean, does this mean, like, it’s all up to me to endure and that I then gain this thing called life because I’ve. Because I’ve been so strong or because I’ve endured so well?

0:06:52 – (Nancy Guthrie): Well, one thing about that is it’s two statements of fact. The one was it, the one who endures to the end will be saved. And by your endurance, you will gain your lives. So I think when we hear that, the question then becomes, by what power will that happen? I think that’s what we’re getting at, right? And you ask the question, does it mean it’s up to me to endure? And so, yeah, we listen to look at this question, and when we say that the one who will endure the end will be saved, by what means will that happen?

0:07:34 – (Nancy Guthrie): And my answer to that would be, the means by which every one of us who is in Christ will endure is through the means of grace. And if you don’t know what I mean by that term, the means of grace. These are the means by which we experience the benefits of Christ. And one of the benefits of Christ is the fact that he’s promised to Keep you. Yeah, but how does his keeping happen? It happens through means.

0:08:09 – (Nancy Guthrie): And the means of grace would include sitting under teaching and preaching, taking in the Lord’s Supper and baptism prayer, and also the fellowship of believers. And so these are things we partake in, so we have a part of it. I think maybe one way we should think about perseverance is similar to how we think about sanctification, because we know the Holy Spirit sanctifies us. He sets us apart. But even when we hear that, we know that doesn’t mean that we have no part in that. Right? We’ve got a part in putting sin to death and putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, which we’re instructed to do.

0:08:54 – (Nancy Guthrie): I think a tricky thing about this question is basically we wanna take the tension out of this, which is we

0:09:00 – (Jen Wilkin): want it to be all or nothing.

0:09:01 – (Nancy Guthrie): We want it to be many things in the Scriptures, isn’t it? Right? We wanna say it’s got to either be that God’s gonna do it or that I’m going to do it. And like so many other truths of the Scripture, we accept what it says, which is, you know, the one we must endure to the end to be saved. Or we might also, I think, flip that around. To be saved, we must endure, but we also hold very tightly that we must. I’m teaching through one Peter at my church this summer.

0:09:39 – (Nancy Guthrie): And the main message of First Peter comes at the very end when he says, this is the true grace of God, stand firm. And so there’s a place for those that he’s talking to to stand firm. But that doesn’t mean it’s all up to them.

0:09:55 – (Jen Wilkin): Right? And I think sometimes it’s even perspective. Like while I’m going through it, I think I’m the one that I am barely holding on by a thread, and I am holding so tight and I am clinging and I am doing all. But, you know, I think when we get to the other end of it, we’re gonna look back and we’re gonna be like, oh, what are we saying? He will hold me fast. He held me fast the entire time. So I think there’s even not only agency in both, but there’s perspective that we’re going to gain one day that we don’t have now.

0:10:20 – (Courtney Doctor): I hope so. And I like when I don’t know the term means of grace. I always love thinking of it that way because it means the Creator who gives the grace made a way for the grace to come to us. So I like to think about it like my cell phone this Little magical thing. It can do all these things. It can give me directions. It can tell me where to get dinner. It can do all these things, but if I do not plug it in, the designer of this phone made a way for it to receive power.

0:10:52 – (Melissa Kruger): And it is a.

0:10:52 – (Nancy Guthrie): That’s very good.

0:10:53 – (Jen Wilkin): You know, she’s so good at illustrations. She’s so good at illustrations, but it won’t work.

0:11:00 – (Courtney Doctor): And so God said, yeah, I made. I saved you, and I’m gonna give you power. And here’s how you get it. And we’re like, oh, I don’t like that method.

0:11:07 – (Jen Wilkin): Right.

0:11:08 – (Nancy Guthrie): Well.

0:11:08 – (Jen Wilkin): And you know what? I thought, even while Nancy was naming the means of grace, two of them are happening here this week. We’re hearing teaching, and we’re having the Fellowship of the Saints. And so even, like, here together, we’re enduring. Together, we’re cultivating endurance in each other. And I love that.

0:11:22 – (Courtney Doctor): Well, so, Courtney, speaking of which, you’ve been walking with the Lord for 35 years. She became a Christian at 2.

0:11:28 – (Jen Wilkin): Because I’m 36 at 2. 2 years and 2 years old. That’s when it happen.

0:11:34 – (Melissa Kruger): That’s why she’s a Presbyterian. You’re not why you went Presbyterian. Okay, Those denominational jokes always play.

0:11:47 – (Jen Wilkin): I know. Hey, my mom’s in here, and she gonna come after you on that one.

0:11:53 – (Courtney Doctor): Okay. Well, as you look back, what has helped you persevere? Like, as you look back on life and you say, huh? You know, these things. When I look back in my life, this really helped me persevere. You’ve been walking for 35 years with the Lord.

0:12:08 – (Jen Wilkin): Praise God. Praise God. I wanna answer that. But then I also wanna say to anybody here who’s feeling like right now, you’re not enduring and you’re not persevering and you are barely holding on by a thread, I want to say that this idea of endurance to the end, that verdict doesn’t come until the end. Your doubts and your fears and your waverings and your questions and your struggles, they don’t mean you’re not going to.

0:12:38 – (Jen Wilkin): So I just wanna hold that out there. But then, as we have means of grace and as we have things that help us endure, I think one of the greatest things that has cultivated endurance with me, and I’m not just saying this, but gospel friends like the idea that because the women up here right now, I mean, they will call me out, you know, it’s not just like, oh, hey, you look so cute today. I like your shoes.

0:13:02 – (Jen Wilkin): You know, there will be a Rebuke. If there needs to be a rebuke,

0:13:05 – (Melissa Kruger): there will be a crunch. What would you do for a haircut? This would be more like, yeah, we need to get in for a little root touch up

0:13:14 – (Jen Wilkin): if I needed it, but I don’t.

0:13:21 – (Melissa Kruger): Where were we?

0:13:22 – (Nancy Guthrie): I know.

0:13:22 – (Courtney Doctor): We digress.

0:13:23 – (Jen Wilkin): This is how we endure. We laugh. We laugh for sure. But friends, gospel friends. I mean, friends who pray for you, friends who pray with you, friends that offer you gospel counsel, who point you back to the Lord and to the word. Friends who help you do the hard thing and then cheer you on when you do. Yeah. So, Jen, what about you? When you’re walking through a trial, how have other believers helped you? Like, specifically helped you endure?

0:13:51 – (Melissa Kruger): Well, the people sitting up here have helped me, so I can certainly testify to the truth of what you just said. But I was thinking that Melissa and I were talking last night about how we both have recently been through seasons. You know, how, like, you’ll know you’ll have a friend, and you’re like, her life is always chaos. Like, there’s always some new bad news coming out of her. I think I’m just gonna do this the next time I see her. I feel like that was me last year, and a little into this year, too. Like, I’m like, are we done yet?

0:14:19 – (Melissa Kruger): Am I done being the headliner in the tragedy department? And I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see how 2026 treats us. But Jeff and I seriously got to the end of last year and we thought, well, this is one of those years where we will know a good year when it comes. And I don’t mean to. And I would say that relative to many of you in this room, we have had a low degree of adversity in our lives. But it’s kind of like it all showed up at once.

0:14:45 – (Melissa Kruger): Last year we had. His mom was diagnosed with cancer in April, and it took a long time. It was colon cancer. It took a long time to get her surgery scheduled, to kind of figure out what’s going on. She had just turned 81. The healthiest, most fit 81 year old you would ever meet. And of all of the aging parents, the last one we thought would have a health issue. She was also the primary caregiver for his father, who was in late stage dementia.

0:15:17 – (Melissa Kruger): So we were just like, okay, what are we gonna do? How are we going to. And she had given this man such exceptional care that he could have lived to be 95. I mean, he was so well cared for, had A very weak heart. So basically she scheduled. We got the surgery scheduled for July 15. I remember the date she went into the hospital. She wrote on Pop’s little note board, I’ll be home. You know, we didn’t know how long an 81 year old would need to recover from surgery to remove part of her colon.

0:15:49 – (Melissa Kruger): So we were kind of buckled down for two weeks or so before she might be home and spent the night with Pop at the house. That night Jeff did, and I was in and out. He called me in the middle of the night and asked me to come over. And the next morning, while she was in the hospital recovering from surgery, he died. She hadn’t been away from him in three years, you know, and so we had to call my sister in law and ask her to go into the hospital room and tell my mother in law that she was a widow.

0:16:19 – (Melissa Kruger): We could not believe it. I mean, we just. Why, you know, and, and then she came home 48 hours later to an empty house and had to go through chemo and all of that in the midst of her grief. And then there were other things, you know, my son and daughter in law found out as they had just given. They had just had their third child be born September 23rd. This is a happy story, by the way. Sorry, I should have set you up for that a little better.

0:16:57 – (Melissa Kruger): And when baby Teddy was born, Olivia was two and a half and Jeffrey was one and a half. They’re 11 months apart, the first two Jeffrey’s adopted. And as we’re meeting baby Teddy in the hospital, my son’s phone rings and there is a full biological sibling due immediately. She was born December 14th. So they found themselves with four children under the age of three. So guys, they needed help. So we have been, and this is to say nothing of the other set of aging parents who. And all of these are such rich privileges.

0:17:40 – (Melissa Kruger): And I don’t say that like in a shiny, Pollyanna, Christiany way. I truly feel so grateful to be able to spend my time in these caregiving roles at this stage of life. But I will tell you that’s two things. There were three or four. I’ll just stop right there. And people brought us meals and people stepped in. It’s not just us helping with those babies. People surrounded my mother in law with care. It was all church driven. Like, I’m like, what do people do who aren’t believers, you know, when these things happen?

0:18:18 – (Melissa Kruger): So there was that and then there was just that where you’re standing there on a Sunday, you talk about Means of grace. We kept going to church, which sounds like a small thing, but you’re standing there on Sunday morning and you’re singing, Christ is my firm foundation, the rock on which I stand when everything around me is shaken. And then it says, he’s never let me down and he won’t fail me now. And can I tell you, not everyone who hears that song sung is feeling it.

0:18:51 – (Melissa Kruger): I’ve stood next to the person who’s sobbing through that song, and I know why she can’t sing the lyrics, and she needs me to sing them for her. And that’s what we saw, too, was just we had to take a step to go be around everyone else. And then we sung each other toward this hope. Right. That not all of us could articulate in the moment. So that’s what I got.

0:19:11 – (Courtney Doctor): That’s so good.

0:19:12 – (Nancy Guthrie): That’s beautifully said. So it’s one thing to endure through difficulty, and maybe that’s what we think most of. Cause we know that difficulty can generate doubt and fear, disappointment with God. But don’t you think there’s also something to enduring in the faith when everything’s great, when the bank account is going up and opportunities are coming, or just through really good, easy times or success?

0:19:48 – (Nancy Guthrie): Melissa, what do you think about that?

0:19:50 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah, I think it’s the time that’s so dangerous that we don’t even know it. I think we can be a lot like Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel. And we start sitting back and we say, well, look at all I’ve done. Look at my kingdom. You know, I was really smart in that business investment. And that’s why we have what we have. You must not have been like, we start seeing the fruit as being born because we did something.

0:20:21 – (Courtney Doctor): And, you know, and I think we’ve all had this, right? Like, sometimes you have to endure things not going well. And what you trust in is, okay, I brought it to you, Lord, and if you don’t make it grow, it can’t grow. We say that to each other or whatever. But it also means that if he did make something grow, we should always be so thankful for him that God did this. And I think one of the hardest disciplines when we are in plenty, is to continue the act of thankfulness.

0:20:50 – (Courtney Doctor): Just to say, oh, I’m in this season. Well, how can I turn my eyes and see my sister who is part of my very body? That’s how we’re described. We are being built into a temple. I mean, the language that describes us, that is then my opportunity to take my Season of prosperity, so to speak, and say, who can I look around and serve? You know? But we have Nebuchadnezzar saying, look at what my hand. You know, what happened? Two seconds later, he’s like, eating grass, like, you know, like a cattle. And then, and I want to say this, that’s God’s grace.

0:21:26 – (Courtney Doctor): Because when he comes out of it, what does he say? God is king. I am not. And so I think the thing we have to be really careful about in prosperity is thinking, I am king of my life and I made all this happen. And that’s dangerous. Suffering is, I actually think, much less dangerous than that. I don’t know. That’s my thought. Any other thoughts on that one? Prosperity.

0:21:54 – (Nancy Guthrie): I would just say also, when things are good, we can easily become less dependent. Which I think about the line in the Lord’s Prayer that he wants us to come to him every day, give me this daily bread. And he’s teaching us how to pray. Because, I mean, we’re spoken to as women. Like, we’re supposed to be so strong in independence. And God values dependence. It goes against everything in our culture to be dependent.

0:22:27 – (Nancy Guthrie): And it’s yet what God values. And so when things are going strong, I mean, the truth is, I pray less.

0:22:33 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah, yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

0:22:35 – (Nancy Guthrie): And so which demonstrates less dependence, which is part of persevering, is actually remaining very dependent.

0:22:43 – (Courtney Doctor): That’s right. That’s right. Well, one thing that can be, I think, really discouraging to all of our faith is when we see Christian leaders, Christian heroes, not endure. And, I mean, we’ve seen this a lot in the church today.

0:22:58 – (Melissa Kruger): What are you talking about?

0:22:59 – (Courtney Doctor): Oh, oh, okay. There’s this thing called Twitter. Do you want me to introduce you to it? You can find out all the things about it. But I think what it can do to us is we can say, if they couldn’t endure, how on earth am I supposed to endure? So what hope can we take? And, Jen, I’ll direct it to you. When we see Christian leaders fail, how do we still endure? Like, how do we say, no, you know, the Lord has me in this?

0:23:35 – (Courtney Doctor): Or what do we even do when we see them fail? What kind of warning is it for us, too?

0:23:40 – (Melissa Kruger): Well, I do wanna say, I think that, you know, this will not surprise anyone. We live in a cynical age, and cynicism is the favorite flavor for most of us in terms of. Even if you. We’re starting to see it shift. If you think about the popularity of the office, a lot of People loved the Office. It’s a very cynical show. And now you’re seeing things come out that are just sort of wholehearted. Like if you saw Project Hail Mary, that’s an example of like, where he’s just a good guy.

0:24:12 – (Melissa Kruger): He’s not a completely uncomplicated character, but he’s just a good guy. And so our appetite for cynicism has felt like it has known no bounds. And cynicism can, for one thing, can become a self fulfilling prophecy. A culture of low expectations often produces people who meet low expectations, but on top of that, it feeds confirmation bias. And what I mean by that is when the cynical thing happened, the thing that causes cynicism happens, then we go, ugh.

0:24:44 – (Melissa Kruger): See, this is how it always goes. And it’s kind of like when all you read are the headlines about murder statistics, but you don’t realize that in your own town those statistics are really low.

0:24:58 – (Jen Wilkin): Right?

0:24:59 – (Melissa Kruger): You start to perceive the world to be a dangerous place, whether it really is or not, based on what you’re taking in. And I think that we see in Christian subculture, the stories about failures are stickier content than the stories about faithfulness. And the stories about faithfulness abound, and they’re not told. And so one of the things that I think we should do is tell more of the faithful stories. In fact, it comes to mind, Nancy’s gonna hate this, but I don’t know if you guys saw the article that Sarah put up about Nancy, because guess what? Faithful ministry across over 30 years.

0:25:42 – (Melissa Kruger): And yet what do we typically focus on? You know, the most recent whatever the Watch bloggers got ahold of. And those stories I truly believe, because when I read the Kingdom parables, this is what they’re telling me. Those stories are the minority Report. And if we allow them to feel like the majority report in our heads, then we’re believing something that’s not true and we’re subscribing to the flavor of the day, which is cynicism. And cynicism ought not to be found among the children of God.

0:26:13 – (Jen Wilkin): And can I just add on that, as I’m even thinking, like this whole endurance in the faith and kind of what you even started with, and you know, we read, you know, you have to go to Hebrews 12, this idea of, you know, therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance in the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the Pioneer and perfecter of our faith. And then, you know, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame. And he sat down at the right hand.

0:26:43 – (Jen Wilkin): And we think about this, and we think about all the faithful people who have gone before us. That’s kind of what you were talking about. But here’s the reality. If you’re here today or you’re listening to this podcast at some future date and you’re thinking, you know what? Just forget it. I’m just gonna walk away. In the same way that your sanctification helps the people around you, your sanctification strengthens your church, your sanctification strengthens your friends, your sanctification strengthens your family.

0:27:12 – (Jen Wilkin): Well, in the same way, your endurance, you are going to be the faithful cloud of witnesses for others. Your story matters, and your endurance matters. And so I’m just even thinking, like, as we’re looking for, and how the good examples need to be told, because there are so many who have faithfully endured, and they do. I mean, when you do read biographies, it just instills so much confidence. And, like, I’m like, yeah, we can do this. When you read some of these and things that people have gone through, and, you know, I know how long ago we published that 12 faithful women and 12 faithful men.

0:27:49 – (Jen Wilkin): I mean, that is if you just want some summer reading or you want your kids or your group to read, I mean, 12 stories of faithful men or faithful women that will cultivate endurance in you. Because one day, we are going to be the cloud of witnesses. And may it be so of every one of us in this room that we laid aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us and that we run with endurance.

0:28:15 – (Melissa Kruger): Well, Ann, we’ve been in this weird moment, like, with social media and platforms and everything, where we projected onto people who had platforms, omnicompetence and sort of, like, imperviousness to. We’ve made them superhuman. And that’s not your fault. I mean, that’s what the platforms do. But I think we’re having a reckoning with how we think about people in any place of attention, right? People who receive more attention than average.

0:28:46 – (Melissa Kruger): So there’s been a learning curve around that, that you guys are trying to survive right now. And so when I say we shouldn’t feel cynical, I want to just confess my own cynicism has come up at many points, but to carry around a lot of chagrin about a person with a platform who you don’t know at Some point becomes a waste of your time. Who in your local church is serving faithfully? Who do you know that you know that you know? Now? I also know there are people in this room who’ve had people like that who let them down.

0:29:23 – (Melissa Kruger): And that’s when I think I’m gonna teach on the story of David where it’s like, we want him to be something that he wasn’t, but what he was was enough. And I don’t mean like he earned his salvation, but you know what I’m saying? His whole story counted toward the verdict of what he contributed to the kingdom. And the thing with these online crash and burns is we never hear the rest of the story. And that’s okay. We actually probably shouldn’t have heard the first part of the story, but we’re in a weird, weird time.

0:29:58 – (Melissa Kruger): So anytime you start to feel yourself potentially turning loose of your faith because of someone you know at a distance, the best antidote for that is to get in closer contact with the people who you know up close and to walk faithfully with other believers and to encourage one another in your local setting. Because they’re the people who will be there for you when you’re walking through the hard thing and who you can be there for and you can share courage.

0:30:30 – (Melissa Kruger): I think all the time about how courage needs companions, and that’s what the church does for us.

0:30:37 – (Courtney Doctor): And when you were just saying that, I think sometimes we feel really foolish.

0:30:41 – (Melissa Kruger): Yes.

0:30:41 – (Courtney Doctor): Like, why didn’t I see it? And I always go back to Judas. Just remember, you know, I mean, when they’re all sitting around at that dinner and Jesus is like, one of you is gonna betray me. And everybody’s not being like, it’s Jen.

0:30:58 – (Melissa Kruger): It’s Jen.

0:30:59 – (Courtney Doctor): Like, do you know what I’m saying?

0:31:00 – (Melissa Kruger): They all think it’s them.

0:31:01 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah, Every one of them says this. And I think this is actually a sign of endurance. You say, is it I, Lord?

0:31:09 – (Melissa Kruger): Self examination should be me.

0:31:10 – (Courtney Doctor): Because we’re actually examining ourselves.

0:31:13 – (Nancy Guthrie): Examine yourself to see if you are in the faith.

0:31:16 – (Courtney Doctor): But by the grace of God, you know, we would do it. But I do think he had this outward association with Jesus that they were all fooled by. I mean, I think about it all the time. He went out with the 72. When they go out two by two and they’re doing all these things. He was at every sermon, he was always there, and they didn’t know. So I think we’re tempted to feel like, how did I miss this? It’s really easy to project faithfulness and not have it. And I think it’s actually a good warning for us. Do we have an outer association with Jesus or do we have inward affection for him? And so it is a good warning, I think, as we think about it.

0:31:53 – (Jen Wilkin): Was it Tim Keller that said, don’t confuse spiritual maturity with spiritual giftedness? And I think so often we do that. Right? Like, that’s what we kind of, to your point, like, we’re looking for that spiritual giftedness. And it’s like, don’t assume that the spiritual maturity has matched that, but may it always outpace. May all of our spiritual maturity outpace any of our spiritual giftedness. I had something else I was gonna say, and no, I’ve completely forgotten what it was. But, Nancy, I’m gonna ask you a question about prayer and enduring in prayer. Because that can be one of the hardest places to endure when we have something, especially when it’s something good and we just keep asking for it. You know, we just are knocking on the door.

0:32:42 – (Jen Wilkin): And when do we know? Like, how do we know? Is it okay to keep praying for something for a long, long, long, long time? Or is it okay to just give up on it?

0:32:52 – (Nancy Guthrie): Like, what.

0:32:53 – (Jen Wilkin): What do we do when we’re enduring in prayer? And the Lord has just, you know, I always say he answers. Sometimes the answer is no, and sometimes the answer is not yet. So it’s not that he’s not answering, but it’s not the yes that we want. It’s not the answer that we want.

0:33:09 – (Nancy Guthrie): Well, you say, knock, knock, knock. And so we immediately have to think about Jesus. You know, several times, like, he talked about the widow coming and, you know, encourages her to keep coming, or the house guests that comes in the middle of the night and knocks. And he uses both of those to prompt us to assume the best about God, I think is part of what he’s saying and to persevere. I think both of those are persevering.

0:33:41 – (Nancy Guthrie): But it’s interesting, as, you know, you talk about, we use this language maybe, of pray for something. And just. Even that language, I think, suggests that the way we quite often approach prayer is we’ve decided what here’s gonna be the. My preferred outcome.

0:34:01 – (Melissa Kruger): There is a way that seems right unto Jen.

0:34:04 – (Jen Wilkin): Yes, exactly.

0:34:05 – (Nancy Guthrie): So we have this preferred outcome. And so then we vigorously pour ourselves into praying that. And maybe we become a broken record. So I’d kind of like to alter the whole paradigm of that to think. To think about prayer more in terms of I wanna pray on something, I wanna pray about something, I wanna Pray into something rather than for something. Because that sounds like I’ve decided what it should be, right? And so to think about prayer being more here is this need, this desire.

0:34:43 – (Nancy Guthrie): And so what I’m going to do and keep doing is keep talking to you about it, keep bring, believing that you hear me and that you’re at work in me, even in the waiting. And that kind of goes back to what I said about dependence, right? So the persevering in prayer shows dependence over the long haul. And that I’m asking you to work and that so that praying through it and praying, setting it before him, I think that delights the heart of God. Because what it, what it demonstrates is I’m not gonna run away with this and just work out my own answer to this, right? And I’m not gonna turn to all of the. I mean, my tendency can be strategizing about how to fix things. That’s just kind of my natural things.

0:35:39 – (Nancy Guthrie): But as I continue to pray about it, what am I demonstrating? I’m demonstrating, God, you are the only one who can bring about what really needs to happen. And I continue to be fully dependent on you and also dependent on your timing because I’m going to continue to come to you. But you know, another thing you said, you know, it is that just giving up. If you just, you’ve prayed about something for a while, I would say those things are to stop praying about something.

0:36:13 – (Nancy Guthrie): I would not equite, equate with giving up. And specifically, I think about two people in the Bible. How about Jesus in the garden, right? He prays, prays, he prays again, he prays again. And it seems, and the same thing with Paul. Three times I begged the Lord that he would take it away. And so I think, and in both of those, I don’t, I wouldn’t say they gave up, right. But I think what happened was that petitioning in prayer through prayer became submitting in prayer, that sense in which, okay, I’ve presented it. I think I have his answer.

0:37:09 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah.

0:37:10 – (Nancy Guthrie): And so I think now my prayer becomes, you know, give me the grace to live out of what you’re clearly choosing to do or not do.

0:37:20 – (Jen Wilkin): Actively teaching me, right?

0:37:21 – (Nancy Guthrie): That’s really the point of prayer, isn’t it? Like, the point of prayer is not to get what we want. The point of prayer is to submit to what he wants and welcome what he wants and invite him to work in us as we wait for him to work out his plans for us and for the whole world. And so, yeah, you might decide, I’M gonna stop asking for this because I sense he’s calling me to submit that I have my answer, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up.

0:37:51 – (Jen Wilkin): That’s so good.

0:37:52 – (Melissa Kruger): Yeah, that’s really good.

0:37:53 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah.

0:37:54 – (Melissa Kruger): Okay. I have a question that I feel safe asking you guys because I know that you’re gonna know the context for how you’re gonna respond to this question.

0:38:01 – (Nancy Guthrie): But I’m afraid, I’m afraid right now.

0:38:04 – (Melissa Kruger): Is there a verse or passage that you go to that is particularly helpful to you that ministers to you when you are striving to endure?

0:38:19 – (Nancy Guthrie): Absolutely.

0:38:19 – (Courtney Doctor): Oh, really? Okay. Well, you are enthusiastic. So let’s start with Nancy.

0:38:23 – (Melissa Kruger): Nancy can go first.

0:38:25 – (Nancy Guthrie): Absolutely. Sometimes, like, I kind of don’t want to look at anybody in the audience right now because I’m about to say something and they’re gonna think, yeah, she did that to me. Okay, she did that to me. And that is. What I mean is so often when I’m interacting with someone who has a deep need, I go to the same passage over and over again, and I’ve even just mentioned it. And it was Jesus’s response to Paul when three times he begged to have the thorn, whatever it is, taken away.

0:38:57 – (Nancy Guthrie): And the answer he gets is Jesus speaking to him, not saying, yeah, I’m gonna take care of that for you. I mean, I tend to think Paul didn’t really appreciate the answer necessarily, because I don’t think. And maybe the reason I think that is cause I think it’s not always the answer that I’m really hoping for, which is Jesus’s answer is, my grace is sufficient. My power is made perfect in weakness. And so Jesus is saying to him, I am going to be.

0:39:30 – (Nancy Guthrie): I’m going to supply everything you need to endure the pain that I’m not going to take away. And so I think for a long time in my life, when I would look at this verse, I would always think, at first it sounds a little bit like Jesus is patting him on the head, like he’s just saying some kind of religiousy talk. My grace is sufficient. But I think, not until you’ve been in just the lowest place and you’ve begged him to work.

0:40:00 – (Nancy Guthrie): And then you hear him say, you know what? I’m gonna be enough for you in this. I’m gonna get everything you need to endure this. And I’m going to give it to you in the form and in the timing and in the quantity in which you need it. It just likes. It becomes so significant, so big. So that’s my go To.

0:40:24 – (Courtney Doctor): And you can come with that to me at any point, even 10 years old. I think I would say the thing that just popped to mind. It’s Isaiah. I think it’s Isaiah 58, 11. It’s the Lord will guide you continually and he will satisfy your desire in scorched places. And you will be like a well watered garden whose springs do not fail. Wow. And the fact that he will guide me, so there’s the promise. But then he will satisfy your desire in this scorched place.

0:41:05 – (Courtney Doctor): You think your desire is in the land of plenty. And he says, I’m actually gonna take this scorched place and I’m going to satisfy your desire there. And you in this scorched place, this barren land, you’re gonna be a well watered garden and you’re not gonna fail.

0:41:25 – (Melissa Kruger): That’s good.

0:41:26 – (Courtney Doctor): And you just hold it and you say that has to come true. Cause God said it. I mean, like that’s the option anyway. So that one. And I hope I gave the right one. I think it’s Isaiah 58, 11.

0:41:41 – (Jen Wilkin): We’ll put it in the show notes, we’ll look it up.

0:41:44 – (Melissa Kruger): Need to be like the New Testament. Be like as the prophet.

0:41:47 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah, exactly.

0:41:49 – (Jen Wilkin): That’s what I did on my Bible content.

0:41:50 – (Courtney Doctor): How about that?

0:41:51 – (Nancy Guthrie): It says somewhere

0:41:54 – (Melissa Kruger): now we preach, thus

0:41:55 – (Jen Wilkin): says the Lord, a day is coming. That’s how I passed my Bible content exam. I just kind of made it up. I sounded kind of.

0:42:03 – (Melissa Kruger): There’s nothing in the Bible against that.

0:42:05 – (Jen Wilkin): So that’s not. No, there is nothing in the Bible against that. Hey, they thought the answers sounded okay. My go to is Romans 8, 32, that he who gave his own son, how will he not also graciously with him, give us all things? And so just to wrestle with that and to sit with that, when it doesn’t seem like he’s giving me all things, it doesn’t seem like he’s giving me that thing that I want, you know, that thing that I’m praying for.

0:42:32 – (Jen Wilkin): But to wrestle with what that really means is he’s going to give me all things that I need, all things that he sees that are good for me. And so if he’s withholding something that I think I want, then I have to be able to trust that I don’t need it or I don’t need it yet. Because he is not going to withhold any good thing. The argument in Romans 8:32 is from the greater to the lesser. It’s like he’s already done this thing. He’s given you, his own son.

0:43:00 – (Jen Wilkin): Why. Why would he withhold and then back to that song. He won’t.

0:43:04 – (Courtney Doctor): He won’t.

0:43:05 – (Jen Wilkin): He won’t. You know, he won’t. So we can sing that. But that’s what I think of when I sing that song is like, he won’t. He won’t fail me. He won’t. Because of Romans 8:32, we have this

0:43:14 – (Melissa Kruger): joke about that song. We’re like, he won’t.

0:43:16 – (Nancy Guthrie): He can’t.

0:43:16 – (Melissa Kruger): He don’t. We walk around. We walk around the kitchen going, he don’t.

0:43:22 – (Jen Wilkin): Don’t take it from me, Jen. I like that song.

0:43:24 – (Melissa Kruger): Mine is.

0:43:25 – (Nancy Guthrie): Yeah, really?

0:43:27 – (Melissa Kruger): Mine is Jeremiah 29:11. I’m kidding.

0:43:30 – (Jen Wilkin): He’s like, what is happening here right now?

0:43:35 – (Melissa Kruger): It’s okay if that’s yours. I don’t want to mock anyone for him. I just. And no one said it. It was just hanging out right there. No, I. Now mine is a little. Maybe a little wonky, but when I think you were talking about the scorched places, and I’ve been teaching through Mark, and we just did the temptation of Jesus, which is a scorched place in which the Lord shows himself faithful in the time of trial. And the time of trial is also the place of temptation.

0:44:04 – (Melissa Kruger): So this is where I’m headed with this, right? God doesn’t tempt us, but when we’re tested, we will be tempted to deny him to, you know, to say he’s not who he said he was. And so, ironically, or maybe tangentially, the verse that I think about the most with regard to endurance is 1 Corinthians 10:13. That he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. But with the temptation, he will provide a way out.

0:44:33 – (Melissa Kruger): And I think what we tell ourselves is there is no way out of this. This temptation is too much. This temptation. Why shouldn’t I lose my faith over this? And it’s then that I need to be reminded by the people around me and by that passage, nope, there is a way out. And sometimes that way out is often that way out is fellowship with other people and prayer before the Lord.

0:44:59 – (Courtney Doctor): So humbling. I always find that verse the most humbling because it’s like you didn’t look for it. And there’s no temptation. That’s not common to man.

0:45:07 – (Melissa Kruger): I know. It’s a yawner. I know. I’m special. Kind of Big deal.

0:45:11 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah.

0:45:13 – (Melissa Kruger): I’m very, very, like, complex.

0:45:16 – (Jen Wilkin): Very complex.

0:45:19 – (Courtney Doctor): Okay, well, our time. Our time is. Is up. We’re over.

0:45:26 – (Melissa Kruger): You have endured to the end. Yes,

0:45:30 – (Courtney Doctor): you have. Oh, and they’re leaving. Okay.

0:45:33 – (Jen Wilkin): Golly. These are all the non enduring.

0:45:34 – (Melissa Kruger): They’re non enduring. Yeah, exactly. It’s dinner time, guys.

0:45:38 – (Courtney Doctor): Tell me really quickly how many TGC women’s conference or are we gonna do yeah, how many TGC women’s conferences have you been to, Nancy?

0:45:45 – (Nancy Guthrie): Eight.

0:45:46 – (Courtney Doctor): Six.

0:45:46 – (Melissa Kruger): What was 2014 you’ve been at eight.

0:45:49 – (Nancy Guthrie): You were at the first one.

0:45:51 – (Jen Wilkin): Yeah. Eight.

0:45:52 – (Courtney Doctor): Eight. You came to 12, right?

0:45:54 – (Jen Wilkin): Yeah. You came at 12.

0:45:55 – (Nancy Guthrie): You came to 12 and we met at 14.

0:45:57 – (Courtney Doctor): Her room.

0:45:57 – (Jen Wilkin): No, I think. Oh, okay.

0:45:59 – (Melissa Kruger): Yeah, I don’t think that’s right.

0:46:00 – (Courtney Doctor): Why did we didn’t realize that was so complicated. So we. We hope friends. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t bring it back. Thankfully we can edit. Friends, we hope you’ve been encouraged by this episode episode of the Deep Dish from the Gospel coalition. Come to TGC27 for another live episode of the Deep Dish. Because we’re gonna be there. Thanks, friends.