From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: All of us experience changes in life. That's just part of life. And the longer you live, the more changes you're going to face. God shows us what we're supposed to do when changes come into our life, when problems come in and things flip life on its ear, and your life is turned upside down and you don't like the new normal. What do you do?

Larry Nobles: God never promised that life would be easy. In fact, He told us that life would be filled with trouble. Today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve, he begins a series called Life Goes On: How to Face a New Normal.

We're going to discover how to trust God with our sorrow and our pain, how to find His arms open wide in the hardest of times, and how we all can step out in faith into a new normal. In the first message from the series, we'll discover that even though the changes have been tough, there are blessings ahead.

If you miss any from this series this month, go to fromhisheart.org, click the listen link to catch up. Now though, let's get started with the first lesson in the five-message series, Life Goes On, with a lesson taken from Joshua chapter one. Here's Pastor Jeff to remind us what God says: "Now therefore arise."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: When I was 12 years old, we moved from Los Altos, California, which is close to San Jose, close to Stanford University. We moved from there to Houston, Texas. It's about 1,900 miles. I was 12 years old. I'd lived my whole life in California. I'd lived my whole school years, first through sixth, at the same school, Saint Nicholas School there in Los Altos. I didn't want to move, but I didn't really have a choice. My dad got transferred, and we were moving to Houston.

When we got off the plane in August in Houston, it was back in the days where you had to walk outside to get to the gate. I'd never experienced humidity before. We got off the plane and I was like, "What is wrong with this place?" It is stifling. It's hard to breathe. My brother said, "I think we must have landed the plane in God's armpit." It was just awful.

We went to Houston and everything was new in Houston. People in Houston, people in Texas, people in the South, they talk a little differently than other folks. I wasn't used to that. I wasn't used to the word "y'all," although it's a great word. I've adopted that word. I had to learn a new language and a new manner of speaking, new school, new surroundings, and new people to meet. I wasn't there very long in Houston before I was longing to go back to my friends in Los Altos. I didn't like the changes that were being thrust upon me.

We're starting a new series today, a series called Life Goes On: How to Face a New Normal. All of us experience changes in life. That's just part of life. The longer you live, the more changes you're going to face, and the more situations that will happen to you in life that cause you to have to experience and adapt to a new normal.

The loss of a loved one is a tremendous change that comes into your life, especially if that loved one is your spouse or your child and lives with you in the home. That changes everything. An unwanted divorce brings a new normal, brings a change that's dramatic and drastic and traumatic.

What do you do when the bottom drops out of your life? What do you do when things happen? What do you do when you have this job that you love but then you lose that job? Maybe the job goes away, the company shuts down, or maybe you get terminated in a downsizing. What do you do when your finances, they seemed to be so robust, but then investments start going south and your finances, you have unexpected expenses and your finances dwindle? There's a new normal because you have to sell your house, you have to move, you have to cut costs and cut expenses, and everything is different.

What the devil says do is what Job's wife said to Job: "Curse God and die." That's one option. When everything changes and you don't like the changes, you can curse God and die. You can get resentful. You can get bitter. You can blame other people. You can dig in your heels and say, "I'm holding onto the past. I'm holding onto the way it was."

My parents took me to Houston, Texas, but I don't want to be in Houston, Texas. So I'm just going to write all my friends, I'm just going to contact all my people that I'm familiar with back home in Los Altos, and I'm just going to live vicariously like I still live in Los Altos even though I'm 1,900 miles away in Houston because I don't want to embrace a new normal.

That's a possibility. Some people do that. That's not God's way. God shows us what we're supposed to do when changes come into our life, when problems come in and things flip life on its ear and your life is turned upside down and you don't like the new normal. What do you do? Joshua chapter one tells us. The Lord clearly tells us in His word what we're supposed to do.

If you know the Old Testament story, you know that God's people were slaves in Egypt for 400 years. God raised up a deliverer named Moses, called Moses in Exodus chapter three and Exodus chapter four in a famous passage of scripture at the burning bush. He says, "Moses, I have chosen you to deliver my people Israel."

Moses is like, "I can't do that. Who am I to do that, Lord? I'm not a good speaker. I'm not able to do this." But God empowered him to do it. Moses finally said, "Yes, Lord, I'll do it." Moses was the deliverer. He brought by God's power through Moses, he brought about a series of 10 plagues that broke the back of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and he led them out of Egypt.

He had the tremendous victory when he drowned Pharaoh and his armies in the Red Sea. He parted the Red Sea so his people could pass then drowned Pharaoh and his armies in the Red Sea. Moses was the leader. Moses was the guy who spoke to God face to face. Bible says there was never a prophet like Moses whom God knew face to face. Such a great leader. He led his people, God's people, for 40 years.

He was supposed to lead them into the Promised Land, but they didn't go into the Promised Land because they said, "We can't go into the Promised Land. There are giants in the Promised Land. So we're going to have to go back to Egypt." God said, "Because they didn't trust me, Moses, we're just going to wander around in the wilderness for 40 years until all those people die." Only two people going into the Promised Land that are adults: Joshua and Caleb.

Moses was the pastor of this congregation for 40 years wandering around in the wilderness. It wasn't a lot of fun to be with those grumblers and gripers, but he was faithful to serve God. When he was 120 years old, God said, "Now it's time to come home, Moses." Moses died and God buried Moses.

The scripture says nobody knows where Moses is buried because the Lord buried Moses. No doubt if the people had known where Moses was buried, if they had buried him, they would have set up a shrine. They would have started worshipping the tomb of Moses, so God didn't let them do that.

In Joshua chapter one, the mantle is passed. The leadership is passed from Moses to Joshua. The scripture says this: "Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' servant, saying, 'Moses, my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel.'"

What do you do when life changes? Joshua's experiencing a huge change because his master, Moses, has died. God gives us three steps to take when unwanted, unwarranted, unplanned, unwelcome change comes into your life that's drastic, dramatic, and traumatic.

Number one, you mourn. You mourn when change comes in like that. You mourn the death of a loved one. You mourn the loss of a job. You mourn a divorce that you didn't want. You mourn that. That's normal and that's natural to do that. It says in Deuteronomy, just the book before the last chapter, Deuteronomy 34:8, "So the sons of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days."

They mourned for Moses. That was a huge loss to lose Moses. So they wept and they mourned and they cried. Some wept, mourned, and cried more than others because some were closer to Moses. No doubt his family especially. No doubt Joshua especially, because Joshua was good buddies with Moses. Moses was his servant.

Joshua's name is kind of interesting. His name was Hoshea. Hoshea means salvation. Moses changed his name to Joshua, which means Jehovah is salvation. Yahweh is salvation. They had a close relationship, and now his mentor was gone. So he mourned and the people mourned.

It is normal, it is natural, and it is necessary to grieve when you experience loss. You're going to foul yourself up if you try and short-circuit the grieving process. If you try and say, "Well, I'm just going to stuff this down. This hurt comes into my life. I'm just going to stuff it down and act like it's not there and act like it doesn't hurt."

But you know it's there, and you know it hurts. Stuffing it is not going to solve the problem. You have to let it out. You can't really move on until you mourn.

Larry Nobles: Pastor Jeff will elaborate a bit more on that on From His Heart in just a moment. Thanks for joining us this month for messages from two of Pastor Jeff Schreve's powerful series. Today, we started with the series, Life Goes On: How to Face a New Normal, and you'll be blessed by it, which we pray all our lessons do for you.

We're here each day because of the financial and prayerful support of our listeners. The reach of this ministry is truly incredible to ponder. Every day, men and women facing uncertainty and grief, hardship and such, are finding encouragement through From His Heart Ministries. Pastor Jeff receives zero income from this ministry. He's our chief volunteer.

All that is given goes to support the distribution of these messages recorded at his church in Texarkana, Texas. You help remind people that God's promises have not changed, and that's why we're asking for your prayers today to help more hurting people hear the hope and stability found in God's word.

To say thank you for your gift of support this month, we want you to have two powerful resources, especially if you have trouble in life. The first, called Life Goes On, is a series about how to face a new normal, and it also comes with a full-length companion book called Life Interrupted. Both for your gift of any amount.

You can get the series on a USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or MP3 download. You pick. To get these impactful resources, go to fromhisheart.org or simply call 866-40-BIBLE. That's 866-40-BIBLE. Reach out to us and get these today, and thank you for your prayers for this media outreach to the world and to you personally. Now though, let's get back to continue the first lesson in the Life Goes On series, reminding us that God told Moses, "Now therefore arise."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: When I was a kid, we didn't have much by way of TV. Five stations total: ABC, NBC, CBS, and two UHF stations. Then if you were desperate upon desperation, you watched channel eight, which was public television, and that was horrible. You didn't have much. You could flip around on TV really fast, but you had to flip around like go to the TV and turn the thing because we didn't have remote control.

We didn't have video games. We didn't have cell phones. So what would you do? You'd go outside and play. That's kind of a novel idea for kids today. We'd go outside and play. We'd be gone all day. My parents didn't know where we were. We'd just come home for dinner, and they just trust that we were going to come home. Different world back then.

Often times going out to play, I would be climbing fences and doing things like that. I'd get a splinter. I remember getting a lot of splinters as a kid. You'd get a splinter and a splinter hurts. You don't want to get that little splinter of wood in your finger. If you couldn't easily get it out, you'd have to go to your mom and say, "I got this splinter."

She would pull out her sewing kit, and she would start getting needles and tweezers and she'd start working on that. Sometimes it was really deep in there. It's like, "This hurts!" She said, "Well, we've got to get it out because if I don't get it out, it's really going to hurt because it's not going to heal right."

That's the way it is when hurts come into your life, when they come into my life. If we don't properly mourn and grieve, it doesn't heal right. So they mourned for Moses. It's normal, natural, and necessary to grieve when you experience loss. It's normal to do that. It's natural to do that. It's necessary to do that.

Remember this: when you're mourning and when there are tears, tears are not a sign of weakness; they're a sign of love. Some people think that I'm showing weakness if I cry. I remember a mom told me one time about her oldest son. He had experienced lots of changes in his life, lots of unwanted, unwanted changes, changes that came into his life without his permission.

First of all, his parents started having marital problems and they divorced. Not what he wanted. Second of all, his mother fell in love with somebody else in a different city, and they had to move away from where they grew up. Not what he wanted. They had to move away from his biological dad. Not what he wanted. He experienced lots of changes in his life, lots of hurtful things in his life.

Then his mother sat down with him one day, and she had to tell him, "Son, Mom's got cancer, and she's facing serious surgery." This mom told me she said, "My son could feel the tears coming on, and he took his fingers and he pressed the corners of his eyes to hold back the tears because he didn't want to cry."

He thought that was going to show weakness. So he pushed back the tears. It's not good to do that. Tears are not a sign of weakness; they're a sign of love. If you try and stuff all the hurts and you don't let that out, and there's not a time of mourning and there's not a time of grieving and there's not a time of crying, you're not going to be healthy because it's normal and natural and necessary to grieve.

I've told you before about my principal that I had in middle school and high school, Mr. Brown, Lewis Brown. He was a basketball player for the University of Houston, and he was a guy I looked up to. He was tough as nails. Mr. Brown grew up old school. The way you dealt with any kind of conflict is you just went outside and fought. That's just how he was as a principal.

If he got upset with a teacher, it would be like, "Well, I'm taking off my coat. Let's go outside, you and me fight." The teacher would be like, "I'm not going to. You're my principal. I'm not going to fight you." But that's just how he was. He was tough. I loved Mr. Brown. After I got out of school and when God called me in the ministry, he was very interested in what I was doing because he always liked me.

He started listening to my sermons. His only son, Gary, got saved listening to a sermon series that I did years ago on the second coming of Christ. So I was close to his family. I remember Mr. Brown called me one day. His wife, Ida, had cancer, and he had been there for her every single day. They were watching us on television and talking about the sermons and things like that, and he was ministering to her for those years when she had cancer.

Then the day came that she died. I talked to him the next day because he was wanting me to have a part in that service. Mr. Brown, the guy that was strong as nails, he broke down and he was crying. I was trying to comfort him and I said over the phone, "Mr. Brown, Ida is with the Lord in heaven, and you're going to see her one day in the future." I'll never forget he said to me, "I wish it were tomorrow."

His heart was broken. He was tough, but he was broken and the tears flowed. Tears aren't a sign of weakness; they're a sign of love. When your life changes drastically, dramatically, traumatically, first step is you mourn. That's normal, natural, and good.

Second step: you stop mourning. You stop mourning. The sons of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab 30 days, then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end. There's a time for mourning, it says in Ecclesiastes chapter three. There's a time for tears. There's a time for mourning. There's a time for crying. But that's not unlimited time. That has a limit to it.

After that time, then you have to stop mourning. There's a time that you have to face the brutal facts. First fact: you have to face the fact that life has changed. "Moses," God says to Joshua, "Moses my servant is dead. He's not coming back to lead the people. He's dead."

Sometimes we use that phrase "he's dead and gone." Moses wasn't dead and gone. He was dead and he had gone to heaven, but he wasn't coming back to lead the people. Moses, my servant, is dead. You've got to face the brutal facts. Things have changed. The guy we've been looking to for 40 years, the guy who's been my mentor for 40 years, the guy who is head and shoulders above anybody else spiritually because God spoke to him face to face.

He was the guy that went into the tent of meeting with God, and God would speak to him and the glory of God would be on his face. When he'd walk outside of the tent, the skin of his face would shine. Moses is a living legend, but he's dead and he's not coming back. You have to face the fact that life has changed. You can't live in the past. You can't live in the land of "what if." You can't live in fantasy land. You've got to live in the land of reality. Life has changed.

That's a fact. Second fact: life must go on. You have to face that fact. Life must go on. I remember when Debbie's dad had a massive stroke. Debbie's mom was going to the hospital every single day to be there for Gerald, but Gerald was totally out of it. He was in a coma, and we didn't know if he was going to live or die.

I remember Doris told me she said, "I would be traveling on the road and you'd look out at these other cars and you'd see other people and they're going about their day and they're laughing and they're joking and they're doing whatever they're doing. They're going to the movies or whatever. I just feel like saying, just screaming, 'Don't you know that my life has totally changed? Don't you know that everything is different for me right now? How do you go along in life?'"

Life must go on. "Moses, my servant, is dead," verse two. "Now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel." There's more to do. Moses is dead, but I'm not dead, Joshua, and we need to arise and keep going.

Samuel was the prophet who anointed the first king of Israel. His name was Saul. Samuel had great hopes for Saul. "Saul is going to be a man of God. He's going to lead the people and he's going to do so great." Saul was a bust. Saul feared man more than he feared God, and so God said, "I can't use Saul. He doesn't do what I say."

First Samuel chapter 15, God says, "Saul, no more. I'm going to choose somebody else." Samuel is grieving the situation with Saul. The Lord says in First Samuel 16:1, "How long will you grieve over Saul since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have selected a king for myself among his sons." Saul's a bust. So how long are you going to sit there grieving for him? There's a time to mourn, there's a time to grieve, and then there's a time to stop mourning and start moving and get going with the Lord.

Larry Nobles: What a poignant and revealing lesson today called "Now Therefore Arise" from Pastor Jeff's series, Life Goes On: How to Face a New Normal. As we've been keenly reminded of today, life can turn on a dime. Unwanted troubles can descend like a tornado, leaving us devastated and debilitated.

Our normal happy life can be altered in just a second, never to be the same again. So how can you have joy and peace when faced with a new normal like that that you didn't want and surely didn't expect? To help you navigate your new normal, we'd like to send you an impactful and practical series from Pastor Jeff called Life Goes On: How to Face a New Normal. We're just starting that series now.

We'll also send you his full-length companion book called Life Interrupted. Both for your gift of any amount. Just call 866-40-BIBLE. That's 866-40-BIBLE or go to fromhisheart.org. Your generous support will help us to share the hope of Christ around the world on TV, radio, and online, so others can learn how to have peace and joy even when life is difficult. Thank you and God bless you.

I'm Larry Nobles, trusting you'll be with us all month for lessons that'll help you navigate through the unexpected new normal and encourage you to trust God completely in these times. Tomorrow, part two of "Now Therefore Arise." That's when Pastor Jeff Schreve will open up God's word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from God's heart here on From His Heart.