Learning How To Press Through the Pain | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign.

Hello, everybody. It's Ron and Hope Unfiltered. And here, y'. All. You know, this is season five. Season five. We've been doing this five years.

What are you trying to say, man?

Time flies when you're having fun, doesn't it? Got a lot to talk about. Clearly. Doing this five years.

We've done this five years. And very, very rarely do we ever talk about the same thing. That's what's crazy. But we got a lot of years in our rearview mirror, too, now. Yeah, but you're a couple of years older than I am.

Yeah, Right.

So.

But I just finished my birthday celebrations, and it's February. My birthday is January 22nd. So I think they're all wrapped up. Are you happy?

Got up and told the church on the East Coast. Sunday was a Sunday morning was on the East Coast.

I was having my party Sunday night.

Party Sunday night because it was postponed

because we had Snowmageddon in January.

I just stopped and told all the ladies, I said, I really need y' all to come to this thing. Excuse me. I really need y' all to come to this birthday party because I need this to be over. I need the birthday party thing to stop so that we can move on to a new season and exit this and move on to the next. So my birthday's coming up next. We need to start entering that season.

That's July.

We do it like yours. It's a season. What do you want to talk about? Tell them what you want to talk about.

I want to talk about today.

What do you want to talk about? Pain.

Fighting the good fight of faith and learning how to press through pain. Why? Because we deal with so many people who, when they hit a rough spot, a bumpy patch, they lose their mind. Up in here. Up in here. So how can you go through tough times, rough spots, hard times in life, and not just completely derail and lose it?

I see you've actually come out with notes.

Yeah.

So before we get into all that, let me just say this. I'm going to be a philosopher. I'm going to be like your dad, Socrates.

We call my daddy Socrates. Because in any case, no matter what

it is, he knows more and he can fix it. He can fix the world in about five minutes.

Yeah, well, he feels like he's lived 82 years, so he has that right.

So I call him Socrates. Let me philosophy do it a moment. I think it is man's endeavor to make sense of pain. And I think for a Christian, it is a huge dilemma in the mind of still most Christians. I love God. Why am I hurting like this? And I think.

Or why would he allow me?

I think trying to reconcile, I think for the Christian, trying to reconcile the absolute unwavering goodness of God with the pain of life, I think is a never ending battle almost. And I know the world does it, but Christians do it too. We watched a walk to remember the other night and the girl said, don't you have any faith? And he said, no. And he said, there's too much suffering

in the world, pain in the world.

So I can't have faith and suffering because they somehow don't coexist. But yet the Bible's pretty clear.

I mean, that's why you have faith.

Yeah, the Bible's pretty clear that in this world you shall have tribulation. But fear not, for I've overcome of the world in James 1. Consider it pure joy when you go through trials of diverse kinds. Even though we have these things telling us, hey, nobody's exempt, right? It is. I mean, we've been there. Hope it is. When you're laying your head on your pillow and everything in you hurts, everything in you hurts. Life has dealt you something and you like, I didn't sow for this. I didn't see this coming. I have been hit upside the head and things are falling apart with no warning. And then you go to church, you make yourself go to church. And he's talking about the goodness of God. And there's a lot of people that cannot marry the two, right? They just can't marry the two because

they expect, because God's good, that your life is supposed to be good all the time. 24, 7, your washing machine's never gonna break. You're never gonna get in an argument, you know, your kids are never gonna act up. That's just not realistic. God's good, but life is hard.

Life is hard. Here's the bottom line. Reconciliation for Ron Carpenter. When I say bottom line, I start from here. This is my starting place. God gives me a whole lot of other things, like the sacrifice of praise. I can talk about all these things that need to be done when you are in a painful state of life. But foundationally, basically, I am born again by a true, truly good and truly loving God. But I exist in a carnal, corrupted, evil world. I'm in it, but I'm not of it. The Bible's clear about that. But I am in it and it is my function. And it does not function the way of the laws of God. It functions the Way of the tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so foundationally. When people tell me, I go back, I've talked about this many times during COVID the mayor in New York, you know, people were dying and he's looked right into camera. It was either Fox or cnn. He says, why has God done this to us? I just wanted to scream, God doesn't give people Covid. The fact is we live in a world that when the door of sin was opened, everything vile entered this world that is imaginable and that is the world that we live in. It is fallen.

Yeah, it is. And then the Bible tells us, you have to fight the good fight. It's a good fight because you win. It's a good fight. It's rigged. But you still have to fight in faith. The good fight of faith. Faith is what looking at nothing and calling it what God says, looking at a bad situation, saying what the word says about will be a fight for you in this sin filled world. To go through what you got to go through, but still stay with joy, still stay positive, still stay faithful and

say in a way, say the right thing, do the right thing, be the right thing. In the midst of it is key.

Lou Holt said this. I love this quote by him. It's one of your favorite coaches too, right? Says, show me someone who has ever done anything worthwhile and I will show you someone who has overcome adversity.

Yep. Like we said, we said this last week on the podcast. John Maxwell. Anything worthwhile is uphill.

Uphill.

It's always uphill. And so those are people in the secular market. Even though they're both Christians, they're talking mostly in secular markets where when you get into church, though, ah, he's a good God. He's good. And everybody's hollering and then wham, you go home, just get hit with something. Marry the two for us. Marry the two for the Christian. How can this be such a painful season? And how can God love me so much at the same time?

I wrote a book about this not long ago, several years ago now, if you don't fight, I got on a sweatshirt today. If you don't fight, you don't win. And that's the thing. There will always be an uphill climb. Our faith is a fight. We are pressing toward the high call. The high call is not just a narrow level ground. It is a press. And it's a high call to be like Jesus. Darius Daniels wrote a book and I quoted this in my book, and he says this I love this quote. He says, you and I can easily catch sickness, but you don't catch health. Why? Because sickness is passive. Health is active, and it requires effort.

I could add that principle to a lot of things. Yes, you can easily catch poverty,

but you cannot catch.

Prosperity is active prosperity.

It's active.

It is active. I like that.

It requires you to change. It requires you to do. It requires you to change your thinking of maybe how you were raised or, you know, the way my family did it or what. I mean, me and you, Ron, are miracles. Just in the way we live, the way we operate, the way we think. We both were raised.

If we took everybody who is connected to us and showed them where we come from, but they don't believe me.

But I will say this. There's nothing wrong with the small town.

I ain't talking about small town. I'm just talking about the mindset.

And if that's how some people want to live, that's great. But we didn't. But to come out of that is a miracle. To come out of that and change and to do something different. We had to work really hard.

Very difficult for me in many times because what I had in me was very ingrained in me.

Right.

I had people that drove things deep in me. And when you find out that just because the people you love said it, it still might not necessarily be true. That is hard to shake off. So I did notice something you said right there. Be active. That's why the Bible says the kingdom suffers violence. A lot of times when we think violence, we bring in the demonic. I haven't said I need to go, I need to look that up. I need to look up that word violence. I don't know that I've ever studied that word out of all the word studies I've done. I love Bible word studies, but I haven't looked up violence. But I don't think it's talking about, you know, demons and angels slugging. The kingdom is God's way of living. Right. It is always an uphill battle in this world.

Yes.

And that's why it's about. There's always.

Because it's his kingdom. And this, the world has kingdom, the world kingdom. And then you're trying to bring the kingdom into the world's kingd. So there is a climax.

There's always a wind blowing in. There's always a violence. There's always a struggle with it. The kingdom of God does not advance passively. It does not advance easily. So if you want a kingdom marriage, go Watch on TV what everybody accept as a relationship, then look at what God accepts. It's an uphill swim. Not only is it that, you know, you want to prosper in abundance, the way God says versus the greed of the world. It is an uphill swim. You know, everybody's. And you want to be a giver, you want to be a peacemaker. It's an uphill swim. So the kingdom. When you say, I'm going to seek first the kingdom and live his kingdom life in this earth, the Bible says it's a conflict.

Yeah, it is.

It will suffer a conflict. You will not just get that thing pressed through easily. It will be a struggle to do so.

You have an adversary, number one. We all have an adversary, the devil, right? He's roaming around to and fro, seeking whom he may devour. He's looking. So what does looking for? Seeking whom he made. He's looking for holes. He's looking for open doors. He's looking for entrance. So to live the life of faith, it's always worked, too, to keep your mind right, to keep your life holy, to keep yourself pure.

Keeping your mind right is an uphill battle. It is keeping your speech is an uphill battle.

He's looking for people who are slack in their devotion, people who are slack in their prayer life, people who, you know, maybe have open doors or living d lives. So he's looking, he's like, where can I get in and destroy you? And then I meet these people who say, well, why does nothing ever good happen for me? What are you listening to? What are you watching? Who are you hanging with? What are your open doors? Yeah, you've got. You've got an adversary who's wrong

of another topic. So, you know, you say, what are you. What are you allowing in? The Bible makes it clear that your heart is your garden. My heart is my soil. The heart of my life is the soil. When the word is sown is sown into the soil. Sown and not into my mind. It's sown into my heart. And guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it come the issues of life. The Bible makes it clear that what I put in, it's what I'm gonna get comes out. The Bible makes it clear God is not mocked. If I sow it, I can reap it. The Bible makes it clear that if I observe all these. He's commanded this day that all these blessings shall come. Okay, we have established that doing right and being right will always be the best course. Flip side of that is everything that is in my purpose. The enemy wants to stop everything. Number two, there is a world system that is the opposite of God's system.

Right.

And you're trying to function in it. And number three, we do live in a world where everything's not in your control because there's other people that can do things to you that you have to deal with that you had nothing to do with.

That's right.

So when you say if you don't fight, you don't win, what are you talking about? Fight? What are you talking about? I'm interviewing you. What are you talking about?

Keep pressing. I'm not talking about fight the devil.

She basically saying, I mean, if you

don't keep going on that other climb. Yes.

That's what you mean by fall. Keep going.

I'm anxious. Yeah. When you fall seven times, you got to get back up again. You can't just give up. And we see so many people, they're like, it's just too hard.

They burned their life down.

Yeah, I'm just going to give up or I can't do this anyway, so I might as well go on this path. No, you're going to get there if you keep going.

I think the victory is in the not quit.

Yes.

I don't think the victory is in an accomplishment. I think the victory is I didn't quit. So a lot of people, a lot of people don't know how me and you still here. And what do we do?

We didn't quit.

We got up one day.

Was it tough? Oh my God, absolutely.

But we got up one day at a time. I, I remember Mr. Niece telling me that I'm like, you know, cuz you, you don't feel like you're ever going to come out of it. It's, it's, it's dark and you don't feel like you ever going come out. And she says a day at a time.

One day.

And I remember, I remember. I remember. I remember Hope when we were going through the worst, most. Oh God, it was awful. We were going through. I remember I looked at each day as a victory.

I did too.

So if. What.

Because really that's all your promise?

Yes.

You only promised that day.

What I did was I got to the end of the day and I said this day was good. Okay. I didn't do any week planning. I didn't do any short, mid and long range goals, smart goals. I just. Okay, today was.

We made it today.

I'm gonna get up tomorrow. What do you do? You put One foot in front of the other one. What did you do? I made it today. And when you string a lot of those together, you made it a month. And when you string a lot of those together, you made it a year. So I agree with you. We didn't come on the podcast to give people a fight strategy. We came to tell people, keep going. Because if you keep going, I don't think you can be beat.

And remaining in him is the key. It's not just keep going. You could keep going, but go down the wrong direction. You could keep going, but living life, totally not in faith. You've got to remain in John 15.

That's what I meant when I was

saying, you remain in my love and if you keep my Commandments. That's John 15. It's two things he says, remain in my love and keep my commandments. You do these things, you will be complete in my. What joy. That's the thing people don't.

That your joy may be full.

Yes. Why would I just want to live this life when it's just so horrible and awful? You can go through tough times, but you can still remain in him and your joy.

Well, you done brought up John 15. There's more in there, too. Okay. I am the vine.

Yeah. Remain in me.

You are the branches. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, my father pruneth.

Yep.

Okay. Then he says, he prunes the one that bear no fruit. Then it says, and he prunes the ones that do bear fruit, that they may bear more fruit. Okay.

So you're pruned if you do and pruned if you don't.

And then he says, abide in me. So he sits there and talks like, my father's going to cut you. If there's something not bearing fruit, he's going to cut it. If there's something there and there's more in it, he's going to cut it. And then he says, abide in me. I preached years ago. I don't know how long it's been now.

Oh, wait, so you saying we're going to have opposition from the devil? We're going to have opposition because you got two kingdoms colliding. Then you got a father who loves you so much that he chases you.

Well, I got a theological twister right here. I think God uses the devil.

Oh, I know. I think God uses everything.

I think God uses the enemy. I think the enemy is a tool. And he likes to think he's got a great plan. I think he's nothing but a pawn. Sometime and the hand of God. Because God will use your enemies to shape you. God. Many times when he wanted Israel to get somewhere, he used their enemy to get them there. So I believe a lot of time the attack again. Listen, had they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. What was it? Satan. If I can just kill him, this will be over with. And when he killed him, he multiplied him. And now we're all sons of God. So you got to understand what happened. The enemy's ploy was used as a part of God's plan to bring multiplication of many sons all over the earth. Boy, that's good preaching, Ron. That's good stuff. So I believe many times the attack of the enemy is a posturing mechanism by God because even he is subject to God. Job called Satan into accountability. Where have you been? I've been walking to and fro in the earth. Walking to and fro means gathering information. Seeking whom I met, I'm gathering information. And then he said, have you considered my servant Job? God wanted to get Job double.

So he used.

So he used Satan's trouble.

Yeah, to give him double.

To give him double. Could it be that all God is trying to do is bring you more of his goodness and it's the trouble of the enemy that he uses to multiply you?

I have a whole chapter in my book and the title is called Trouble Pressure. It's called Pressure will produce if you let it. Pressure is designed to produce something in you. It's just like lifting weights. You put that pressure on you and it breaks your muscle down.

It strikes me like that during the podcast. Strikes me like that.

But it produces something. But it's the same way with Trouble in our life.

You cannot get the wine without the crushing of the grape. You cannot get the oil without the crushing of the olive, the diamond. So there is. You cannot get the diamond without the pressure. So it's the crushing and the pressure which brings out the greatness of the thing. And I told you, I was laughing in the room a minute ago. I saw a CEO this morning, put a thing on there. He said, you know, everybody wants to interview you when you have a billion dollar company. And he's, you know, and everybody, I can do this. No, they can't. Everybody can't do it. And so they ask him, how was your life? Did you stay up all night? Did you sleep? And he said, I slept like a baby when I started my company. And then he waited a minute and said, I was up every two hours crying. I Just chuckled. I thought that was hilarious.

That's what babies do.

Whenever you try to birth anything, you even. He's not even in the Kingdom, I don't guess. But he was just talking about the struggle, the uphill battle. Anything worth having is always uphill. So when Jesus said, I'm going to prune the branches that don't bear fruit, he said, my father is the vine dresser. My father prunes the one that doesn't bear fruit. And then he says, the ones that do, my father prunes as well. Joyce Meyer said that long ago, you pruned if you do, pruned if you don't. But the next verse, he says, abide in me. I thought that was weird.

I'm gonna cut you.

But God's gonna cut. Yeah, but stay with me while I cut on you. Don't leave me knowing that it's gonna produce. In other words, this is not just pain. It's pain with purpose and hope right there. People in the kingdom try to reconcile pain. And I think that would be, you know, I'm not gonna give you my word strategy, my praise strategy, my prayer and fasting. I'm not gonna. You know, I'm giving you the strategy of. With God, there is no random. With God, there is no coincidence. With God, there is no luck or bad luck. With God, it's all a plan. But in the earth, a part of God's plan to move you, shape you, design you, is the struggle. If the struggle be people, if the struggle be Satan, it doesn't matter what the struggle. God uses the struggle to. To bring about what is really on the inside of you.

Right? And if you don't pass the test,

you have to take the class over.

You got to do it again. That's why it takes people so long to progress, because they don't use the struggle properly. They don't let it make them and shape them and make them better. They become bitter and angry and entitled. And so then you gotta go through the class again, and it takes longer. So, you know, embrace the pain. Say, I'm gonna stay with you, God. I'm gonna remain in you. I trust my life with you. Even in this painful point, this painful place, whether it's my health or my marriage or my finances, whatever it is, Lord, show me. I wanna learn, I wanna grow. Let this pressure, let this pain produce a God result in me. I want to pass the test.

In our last few minutes, we got about five left. Can I issue a warning, a trap, not to get called in?

Yeah.

How is it I said it. I preached so long, I can remember, I get in these talks and I can remember things I've said in messages and I'm like, how did I say it? If God is the grand designer, if he is the puppet master in the good, the bad, the painful, the wonderful, all of it, he has the grand design. Sometime, baby, when we are in the pain and when we are in the struggle, you can't let the struggle get in you.

Yeah, that's right.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Though I walk through it. Though I walk through it. That's why in the wilderness, God didn't let them build houses. He told them to build tents. This is not your final resting place. It's something you walk through.

It's part of the journey.

I think the trap is when something that you're going through gets in you and then you start talking it. I have seen there's some people you prolong a season that God already wanted you to exit. But your mouth, well, by then, if

it's coming out of your mouth, then it's got in you.

It's in your heart, right? It got in you.

It got in you. And then you start speaking it. And then it comes to pass and the season lasts longer.

You didn't go through the divorce. Divorce got in you. And now you're killing every next relationship by something that stayed in you and is on your mouth. Because in your mouth is the power of life and death. You are keeping a season alive. That was supposed to be a season.

That's why I think we need to delve into this and do a bigger study about the one day thing. When Denise told us, said just take the 24 hours you have and let that be your goal. Yeah, there's got to be goals, there's got to be plans for your family. But I'm talking about not when you're in trauma though, but that day. And then the word says, then don't let the sun go down on your wrath. There's something about that 24 hour period. If you really give that day all you have, 110%, and then you examine your heart at the end of the day and don't let the sun go down on the issues that have that, that you have met that day. I really believe that's a key to victory.

I believe the sun going down in the 24 hour time span there lets the seed plant.

It does you go to sleep on it.

If you say something, If I walk away and say, man, she just that hurt me. That cut me, what she just said. And I let that thing stand there a whole 24 hour period. Like you said something that you could have gone, if you see a sprout coming out, you just go take two fingers and spread it. But something you let stay in there for years, you gotta have a bulldozer. You gotta have a bulldozer to pull it over and something that could have been eliminated if you just went immediately right there. And so you go back and if I come back and say, baby doll, that was unlike you. That really bothered me, what you said. And you look at me, it's like I've had an extremely stressful day and you are catching it. And I did not mean to say that. You just take that thing right out and it don't have time to plant. The 24 hour thing, I think is when a seed can become a system. And then you've got a whole nother set, you've got a whole nother challenge on you right then. Any final admonishments right here. Because we done been on a half hour.

Number one, we're all going to go through issues.

It's a part of the plan.

Seasons of life.

It's a part of the.

Part of the plan you're fighting you sometimes you're fighting the enemy sometimes. And sometimes the pressure is others. Sometimes it's God allowing because he's pruning. He knows what you need, but you gotta remain in him. You gotta keep pressing toward the upward call, knowing that your pain, whatever area it's coming from, is gonna produce in your life. If you don't fight, you don't win.

And I do believe it is something to just keep moving. Though I walk through the valley. Keep moving. Yeah, keep moving. You know we're in the wilderness. Don't build a house, build a tent. Just keep moving. There is some level of victory in the fact you didn't stop and you didn't.

You didn't throw your hands up.

You got up again, you took your shower, you got ready, you put one foot in the other and you just kept moving. And so hopefully we've inspired you to go on. Somebody said, man, y' all on these heavy subjects. When y' all gonna get back making fun of each other, trying to.

And if you hadn't read the book, go to any place books are sold, Amazon, go to Redemption, wherever, in order. If you don't fight, you don't win. Or you can join the inner circle and you can get the book for free. So go to hopesinnercircle.com, i'd love to have you. It's my monthly mentorship program. We meet twice a month. We have people from all over the world, three countries, 32 states love to have you. If you're needing something to anchor you, to ground you, to hold you accountable, I would love for you to be a part of the inner circle. And right now, this whole year, we're studying proverbs. We're going on a deep dive study on wisdom. So come join us.

Until next time, it's Ron and Hope.

Unfiltered, real, raw and relevant.

See you soon.