It’s been a while since my last podcast. For me, the past two months have been a period of transition, adjustment, relationship-building, trials, and reflection. Thankfully, I redeployed safely back home from Afghanistan. It’s been a tremendous blessing to see my wife and children again and spend a lot of valuable time with them. They’re still adjusting to me. And I’m still adjusting to them. But it’s been great spending face to face time with them. And being their leader that they see on a day to day basis. Leadership. We’re going to talk about that in this podcast. And we’re also going to talk about suffering. Because, unfortunately, that’s also been a significant part of the last two months.
After returning home, I was excited to go to my wife’s ultrasound appointment. She was pregnant with twin girls. We were very excited and looking forward to having two, new baby little girls. Well, not everything in God’s plan is smooth sailing. A week after returning home, my wife discovered that one of the baby girls passed away around the 21st week. And now, for the rest of her pregnancy, my wife is considered high risk. Because as her body disposes of one baby, it’s also giving life to another. We’re praying that she makes it to 38 weeks, which is the second week of November. And we’re also praying for the health of both Stefani and our remaining little girl. While I believe that soul life begins when the baby takes its first breath, outside the womb, the loss of one of the babies is still a loss. A loss of potential human life. And the shattering of expectations that we’d built up in our heads. It’s instinctive to ask yourself, did I do something wrong? Is this my fault? Or what could I have done differently? We’ve had to slowly acknowledge that we’ll never have all the answers. Even when things just don’t make any sense, we still have to trust the Lord.
When the baby is born, we plan on naming her Lily Faith Reinold. Lily Faith comes from Matthew 6:25-34 which says, “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Well, in addition to not knowing for sure how my wife’s pregnancy will turn out, our family is also at a major crossroads. Based upon how I believe God’s guiding me, I’m transitioning out of a stable, secure, well-paying government job in order to devote more of my time to learning and teaching the Word of God and writing music for the Lord. It’s easy to become anxious. To worry about tomorrow and how God’s going to take care of things. But we’re learning to become comfortable being uncomfortable. To have strength of faith without knowing all the answers.
I know that Stefani and I aren’t alone. In fact, many people are facing adversities that are far greater than ours. And Stefani and I have been blessed in so many ways. So, for this reason, I decided to do a podcast entitled, “Reaching People Where They’re At.” In other words, how do we, as Christians, look past the day to day things in our lives? Past our own trials and difficulties? And how do we encourage others? How do we show grace to others? Because after all, that’s the example that the Lord Jesus Christ set.
Now, first, I said that influencing others is about meeting them where they’re at, not where we’re at. We’re going to talk a lot about leadership in this podcast. And there’s one Biblical story that really comes to my mind regarding this topic. It’s the story of Joseph. Now, I don’t have time in this podcast to provide you all with the full narrative from The Bible, but I’ll provide the important highlights for this message. We pick up the story of Joseph in chapter 37 of Genesis.
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