God is running to you...a conversation with Keith Stonehart

In this episode of Balancing the Christian Life, we talk about God running after us. Welcome to Balancing the Christian Life. I'm Dr Kenny Ambrie. Join me as we discover how to be better Christians and people in the digital age. So what does it mean to be pursued by God? Specifically, what does it mean that God is coming after us? I don't think that's an ominous way to think about God, but I do think it is a way that God is interested in his children. He wants us. He doesn't need us. He wants us. It's a beautiful thought and there's a song that goes along with it and, not surprisingly, my music-loving friend, Keith Stoneheart, was the one who introduced it to us. I say us because he has been at my congregation doing a teen weekend and I thought he did a great job. So I took advantage of the fact that Keith was in town and sat down with him to have a conversation. I didn't write any questions ahead of time on this. I just wanted to talk to Keith about what it means to be pursued by God and how we can be better followers of him. That Sunday morning, Keith preached on God running after us. So, Keith, let's just start there. What does it mean that God is running after us.

I take that line from the song the Goodness of God. The first time I heard that song, in that particular part the bridge in that song, where it says His goodness is running after me I can think about all the times where I ran from God and he used someone to chase after me, whether it was literally, like physically, or it was just the idea of God that I could not run. There's 22 years of being a Christian to reflect on in that, and then there's the 28 years before that. I can look back on my life and see that every turn in my life God was good to me. Even in the worst of circumstances and some of the hardest times in my life, there was always a gleam of hope that reminded me oh, there he was, there he was.

You're starting to weave some of your own story into that. I recognize a lot of your story because I've heard it before and I gotta tell you I've talked to a lot of people. At this point, your story is one of those stories that just sticks with me and I think it's one of those reasons that I've always felt very close to you, keith, because I think you're somebody who boy. Your journey is not my journey, but it's one that I recognize and I admire a lot. Let me ask you this what do you think it means that God is running after us?

From the beginning, if we go back to Genesis even, that he would come to the garden to be with his creation. He wanted that communion with his creation to come and to walk in the cool of the day, as Genesis tells us. I don't think that's ever stopped. We sometimes read that Genesis account. We think, okay, this is when God left. He never left right, he's still here and what has happened is that sin has created a separation between us and him. We think things like Isaiah 55, 8 and 9, where we say his thoughts are higher than our thoughts and his ways are higher than our ways and he must be the God of the skies. He's the God of the heavens, the outer space. He's that far from me. Whenever I was in the throes of addiction and wanting to get sober and I can remember literally just nights before my brother-in-law came to talk to me I can remember being in my bathroom floor crying out maybe not necessarily to God, but I think I was looking for answers, for hope. So he's not just the God of the skies, he's the God of the bathroom floor. We sometimes think he's so far from us, but if we read the first seven verses of Isaiah 55, the first thing he says is come all who thirst and hunger, and I think that we miss that aspect of it. We get it in our minds that he's so far from us that he left the earth once Adam and Eve sinned never to return again. But we know that he came back in Christ and we know that he is with us always. Though we can't see him, we can see his goodness and we can feel it.

We have been so good at sinning for so long, you'd think God would get used to that, don't you? You'd think?

But I'm so thankful that he doesn't. Why? Because he doesn't give up on us. When I hear that song and you know, all my life you've been faithful, all my life you've been so, so good Just the way that song is worded, those aren't what this is going to sound terrible. So bear with me, those aren't churchy words. Those aren't churchy words. Those aren't phrases that we use sometimes. I think Christians have their own language, sometimes that we say things that only we can relate to, that the average person doesn't relate to. God, guard and direct us, if it be thy will, until the next appointed time, Be with the speaker of the hour. He may have a ready recollection, whatever that is, but I think that when you listen to those lyrics, it says all my life you've been faithful, all my life you've been so good. And I think it's because he won't give up. How many times do you let someone spit in your face? Because when we sin, that's what we do. And Jesus told Peter 70 times seven. Yeah, as much as it takes, until you see me, see my goodness.

The thing about God running after us and it's a beautiful image. I really like that image. You made the allusion to the prodigal son, the father in the prodigal son story, which I think is the perfect allusion, I think, about the father who's running down the road when he sees his son. That is a great image. But the son had to come home before he had that kind of relationship and was able to reestablish that relationship. There was a standard that God was not willing to relax and I gotta tell you that's tough, isn't it? You know what I love about that story Tell me.

And it is tough. But when you look at that story, there's a moment where the son comes to himself. The scripture says right, that's repentance. Right. Then he is oh, this is horrible, I would be better off as a slave in my dad's house. I want to go home. Yeah, he wants to turn and go home, right. And now what we notice in the story is that when he left, the father didn't run after him. Right, the father stayed where he was. It's only when the son is coming home that the father runs out to meet him. And so when we say, god will meet you where you are, that's true, god will meet you where you are, but you first have to come. You first have to come. And then he comes. He stands there looking, as that passage talks about, looking afar off, right, right. But when he sees us, repentance has taken place and the forgiveness has already transpired, and so he runs out to greet his son and all that matters. I don't care where you've been, I don't care what you've done, you're home. There's been so many preacher arguments about the point of the prodigal son and, yeah, we can put all those parables together the lost coin and the lost sheep and the lost son, and you can make the greater picture and the point there. But, man, what really drives it home is that he just came home and that what it's about it is for me.

It is for me, too. One of the things that I would say, though, and I think you would agree with this God never comes someplace where he's not invited. That's right. So I think the important parts of that story is God didn't allow him to stay in the pig pen. That's right. Why not? Wouldn't it been easier if God just went to the pig pen and said you know what, I'm gonna take care of you here. I know you've made a mess of your life. I yeah, okay, I can see what you're doing. It's not right, but I'll make sure this gets cleaned up.

Yeah, wouldn't that be nice, Would it? I often get asked I talked a little bit about this in my lesson but how could a good God Let people Go to hell? Yeah, if you flip that question, how would a good God let bad people come to heaven? What kind of God would he be then? What so? What's? What sort of justice is there in that that there are no rules, there are no consequences, because then there would be no good Right for good to exist. For good to exist, bad has to be a possibility, yeah, and available. And for him to come and say hey, listen, there's no consequence here, you just come on back. I don't know. That's a just God.

I that sounds a lot like tough love to me, keith.

I think you're right. I think I think there's an aspect there in which tough love comes into play. Yeah, that that is something that I think. A note here that that tough love was first Brought to the public, I, so to speak, through a guy named Bill Millican. Bill wrote a book by the same title and Bill's whole approach was going to inner city kids To give them chances that they might not ordinarily get. And it was this tough love approach of just saying the hard things, yeah, to help get them on the right track, and we exercise that sometimes as brothers in Christ. If I was participating in something that Was not of a righteous nature, what kind of friend would you be to just let me and I think that sometimes we don't see it that way. We're like, hey, who are you to come talk to me? I'm someone who loves you, and sometimes the hard things need to be said and those hard concepts have to be put out and I don't have to understand it. I Think sometimes that's where we are as a culture now, where people really want to understand everything and there's just some things that we can't.

It's one thing when a perfect God with a perfect law Says that you have imperfectly followed his law, and of course you're, at the end of the day, you're gonna have to slap your forehead and say, boy, I've been an idiot. This is stupid. I cannot believe I've been such an idiot. My problem is when I, when I'm doing the same thing with my kids, I Can be an idiot by enforcing some house rules as well. Yeah, how do I know when it's truly tough Love and not just being a bullheaded idiot?

I don't know that I have a perfect answer for that because there's so many Aspects of nuance. Yeah with it. If you look at Proverbs 27, verse 6, it tells us that faithful are the wounds of a friend yes and deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. Faithful of a wounds are the wounds of a friend. The reason I wrestle with that and understanding that to be the beginning of tough love, is that it's going to hurt me To some degree to say these things to you, that I'm not saying these things with a smile on my face, and I think sometimes we underestimate how much love it requires to go to someone and say, hey, listen, I'm worried about you, mm-hmm, and this is why I'm worried about you. I'm worried about what you're doing, I'm worried about the consequences it's gonna have, and I don't want to see you in trouble Knowing that they very well may get upset with us. Yeah, they may reject what it is that they're saying. They may say they never want to talk to us again because they don't feel like we're being a good friend. But a good friend won't let you willingly make mistakes like that, and it requires an immense amount of courage. That courage is fueled by love, and so I think sometimes we underestimate just how much it takes for someone to come and correct us.

I'd say this as well sometimes the least loving thing you can do is let somebody do the thing they want to do, because they want to do it. Yeah and that's a it's an easier thing to do, that's for sure. Yeah. And there's also that sense in which and again, I didn't anticipate that that we'd just be going into the prodigal son all over yeah, but the father let's him make his mistakes yeah, because he understands his son is immature Apparently. There's some lessons he's going to have to learn firsthand by making those mistakes. That's right. I Think sometimes in my own house and I'll just talk about Fighting with Katie that sometimes when I fight with Katie, I'm fighting to win. Sometimes I'm just being an idiot and I just want to make her eat, grow, yeah, and I, I guess for me and see if this resonates with you at all. If I'm okay, being proved wrong, then maybe this is the right fight to have. Does that make sense? Makes total sense, okay. Do you ever do anything like that?

Only you, kenny, sorry, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it. Yeah, there are so many times where you know again, marriage is one of those nuanced things also that has its own dynamics and ups and downs and has a life of its own, and I think that it's. I know that, particularly in my marriage, kelly and I both get in a place sometimes where we just want to be the one who wins the argument, and so then we're fighting out of tenacity, we're fighting just to see who's got more determination in this particular thing. Sometimes I don't have the energy for it and I just let her win Right, even if I know I'm right. But most of the time when we're if it's a serious issue and we find ourselves there, I can see the love that she's trying to show me. I can see her trying to win me over to reasonable, logical thought as opposed to my emotional reaction to something, and I can see also how patient she's being in that, because her eyes say one thing but her mouth says another. Yeah, and it's usually in those moments that I'm won over, because she said something hard for me to hear, and I've heard it, not because of anything she said, but because of what she communicated through her eyes. You know that there is there is a lot of restraint, that she's not going to lash back out at me because I've heard her feelings in response, but she's she's long suffering with me. That's usually the times when it hits me and I'm happy to be wrong in those moments.

I understand that. Do you think God does that to us sometimes?

I would like to say no, but I can't. I think sometimes, like the prodigal son, god lets us go. When you look at Romans and it says that he gave them up to a debased mind, god let them have their way. He let them, as I like to refer to the hot stove, he let them touch the stove. He let them learn that lesson that way, because sometimes those lessons and the scars they leave us are the reminders that we need. The stove is hot, stupid, don't touch it. It would have been such an easier lesson to learn had I just listened. But I think sometimes and I think this goes for most human beings is that we need to touch it. And so God, in his wisdom, lets us go. Also in his wisdom, thankfully, in his grace, he lets us come back. That's right.

I worry sometimes that you've raised children as well. I have too and sometimes it's important that you let your kid try the ramp with the bicycle that you know is going to fall over and you know they're going to hurt themselves, you know they're going to skin their knee and you tell them that You're an idiot if you do that, and then you watch them go be an idiot and then you watch the consequence of it. The prodigal son says when that happens, wait for them to come home. In other words, that again seems like to be some tough love.

I know, as parents, our tendency would be to okay, I'm going to let you do this, but when you crash, I'm going to come running, I'm going to scoop you up and I'm going to bring you into safety. And that's not what happens in the prodigal son. He lets him skin himself up and stay there until he gets up and brings himself home.

When do you know you've got the right standard? When do you know that the standard is correct? And again, you're not just fighting to fight, but you're fighting because there's a principle at stake.

I don't know that this is true for everyone, but I know for me it's usually when I'm uncomfortable, you know, like my, my comfortability says this is the right thing to do. But what I'm, but what I'm doing is is is I'm? I'm trying to take away the tension of the moment. It's those, it's, it's that tension that makes us uncomfortable. Right, when I see my kid hurt, I want to stop the hurt. Yeah, what I'm able to see sometimes is that he needs to feel that, or she needs to feel that she needs this pain, or he needs this pain, or they won't learn the lesson. And so, as a father, it feels wrong. It feels wrong not to run out. But also as a spiritual leader in my home, I have to let them learn the lesson. Right, they need to feel the burn of that, so to speak.

But that just does not seem like it's using grace at all. It sounds like what you're doing is you're making grace conditional.

And that's what I thought for a long time.

Yeah.

Until I've really come around on my thoughts on grace, that there's nothing that I do to earn grace? No, nothing. And I think that we thought that for a long time. I think that we always talk about this balance between grace and works. There's no such thing, no, nor do I want there to be. I don't want there to be some sort of scale where if I do enough good, then God will give me grace. I'm getting that somehow. There is creational grace, and what I mean by that is that the fact that we live and breathe is the grace of God, and that's for every human being, not just for Christians. And so there's an aspect of grace that's just exist. It just exists because of who God is and his goodness. But then there's the grace that we access by faith, which does require me to do something Right. To receive the grace of God as a baptized believer, I have to first be baptized. To come to God in repentance and receive the grace that will cover me for my sins, I have to repent, and so there are qualifications for it. The grace is ever present, it never leaves. It just doesn't. I don't receive it arbitrarily. God just doesn't dole out salvation grace. So if there's creational grace, there also is a salvation grace, right, and that is a different aspect of it. It's a big topic, right, and I think that sometimes we see it through a linear lens. And it's so much bigger than that that every human being has grace because they live and breathe, but those of the household of God receive salvation, which is grace.

Unpack that. What does it mean to be in the household of God?

We know that God made provision for us before the garden right. George Peter 1, 20 tells us that before the foundations of the world this plan was ultimately in place and that Jesus was made manifest in these last days. I'm paraphrasing but and so from the beginning of time, there was a conversation somewhere in eternity based on that passage and another passage in Matthew that talks about it. But there was a conversation between the three that make God that said okay, what happens if we create them and they leave or they sin? What are we going to do about that? And in that conversation there's a decision that's made where the son of that Godhead said I'll go and die. And I don't understand it. I get it, I get the nuance of it, but I don't mean I can't get my head around the fact that he was willing to do this before we were ever created. So before there was ever a center, there was a savior. And so when I think about grace in that aspect, in the fact that there's a salvational grace, I'm trying to think of the right way to word this. But how could we, how else could we access it if not by condition?

I think it has to be, if you agree with this, because the way I've always thought about it is this God plays favorites, and the one that he plays favorites with is people that are in his family. Just like I play favorites, if you're in my family, I'm going to my sons and daughters get preferential treatment and you expect that God has told us that he is going to play favorites and that there is a special grace for those who are a part of his family, and it's actually really easy to get into his family. The ability to get into the family is open to anybody who wants to, and this is something that Josh Creel turned me on to, which is the difference between perfection and devotion, that we are not perfect, but we can be devoted you see that difference Makes perfect sense. Yeah, he's not waiting for us to be perfect lawkeepers, because he knows we're not, but he is looking for people that, whenever we stumble, we keep on running back to him because we're devoted to him.

Does that make sense? Makes total sense, and I think that there's an aspect like you set up a great analogy there with my family gets preferential treatment. But if you knock on my door and you need help, I'm going to invite you in, and if you come in, guess what? You're part of the family, you're in my household, right, and the thing we can be thankful for is that God's table is never going to run out of room.

That's right.

Right, there's room at the table for everyone. Right, and it's up to us to knock that. He's there. He's there, the invitation is open. It's up to us to knock. Right, he's never going to force us. God is never going to twist our arm behind our backs and say you better love me. He just says I love you.

You're welcome here. That's one of the points you made in the lesson this morning, which was God's grace does not isn't contingent on our goodness. It's contingent on God's goodness. It's his, yeah. Why Explain that? Unpack that.

Well, because I think of it like when with my kids, when our kids are born, they're babies and this, this won't sit well with a lot of women, but it's true, our babies aren't born loving us, right. Right, they don't know anything, right, they're a blank slate. And the truth is we love them from the moment we know that they're coming. From the moment you get the news that you're going to have a baby, love is there. Love is present in that, in the preparation, right, you have their room, you buy stuff for their room, you buy a crib, you buy a changing table, you buy diapers and all the things that you're going to need. You make preparation and you make plans. You have plans and then they arrive, and so you've already shown all this love upfront and then they're here and then it begins and eventually what happens is they love you back. But that's taught. That's taught through the provision and the care and the planning and all those things. They learn love from us because we show it first. And that's exactly what John tells us in 1 John 4 that we love because God first loved us. So the same, I think, is with grace, that we the and I'll say this the older I get, the more I understand it. The longer I'm a parent, the more I understand. There's nothing that my son could do that could ever make me love him less ever.

You mentioned that 1 John passage. Right in there it also John says, not that we loved him, but that he loved us. Why is that a big deal? Why is that a big differentiation?

Because, again, I think we learn to love right. He is love, that's right. And so what it is that we learn his attributes. The longer we're alive we see it, more we recognize the things that maybe we didn't recognize before. My son, when he was 10 years old, he just thought that groceries magically appeared, that he would come to the refrigerator and there's drinks and there's snacks and there's all these things, and it wasn't until he had to go buy some of his own Right that he's like oh, this is how that happens. And so the same thing with us. The older we get, the more we realize oh God did that, god provided that. And we just don't see things. When we're younger and maybe it's limited sight, maybe it's we're in a different place where we're wrapped up in our own things. But I want to say, the older we get, the wider our eyes get and we begin to see the working of God that we it's always been there, but we just never saw it. Until we look in the review and I think, whether it's love or grace or any of those aspects of his goodness, it's always been there. It's always been there. I think that's why it's a big deal.

I completely agree with that I also think about our understanding of love, just like you were talking about, is so based on perspective, and until you grow up a little bit, you don't really understand what love is. You understand the benefits of love, you understand it. Christmas you get some really nice gifts but you don't understand generosity at Christmas yet. But when you're a parent, you understand generosity. God understands love perfectly and we keep on having to figure out what love is by looking to him again. Does that make sense? 100%, yeah, okay, I want to say it again. You did an excellent job this morning, thank you. What do we do this week that we haven't been doing? Put some verbs and sentences. What should we change about our lives? What should make us? How should we be different this week?

In the lesson I talked about a couple of different aspects of his goodness. That God's goodness is not always pleasant, it's not equal, it's not contingent upon us and in those aspects there are some calls to action already. But I think this week undoubtedly what's going to happen, and maybe not you or maybe not this week or whatever, but somebody at some point is going to experience difficulty. Look for the good Right. You and I have we've done several podcasts together and you always ask me what is good, that's right, and it's very easy to say God is good, especially after today's lesson. But I think find the good. There's good in everything and even in the worst situations that I can think of that I've experienced. There was good, I think, one of the lessons that I didn't. I changed a few of my lessons for the teens this weekend as I got to know the group a little bit better. I said you know what that might be too heavy of a lesson, but one of the lessons I was going to give was about a young man that I worked with when I first moved to Birmingham who was dealing with heroin addiction and he died. He overdosed and I struggled, man. I struggled to see God in that because what Will wanted to do was he wanted to help his friends who had also fallen into addiction and to help them find what he had found. So there, to help them find what he found and to get back on track. And unfortunately he relapsed and he overdosed and he didn't get to do that then but he did because he had seven friends and four out of those seven are now faithful Christians again and sober. And I saw his mom I guess it was a couple of years after his death and I saw her at a Panera bread and we sat down and Kelly and I and we were talking with her and she said I used to pray all the time that Will could find peace and I used to pray all the time that when he was ready, god would just take him and she goes and you know what? That's what happened. She said, when he repented that night with you and I there and he went on to bed, I didn't know he was gonna die, she said. But I know that he found peace because whatever you and I think peace is, it pales in comparison to what Will found when he opened his eyes, because he repented right and she goes. I have no doubt where Will is. But more than that, his life affected and produced change in others. Maybe his whole life was about those other people, and it's hard to see that in the moment because you're thinking, man, I just got robbed. He just got robbed of having this impact that he wanted to have, but he still had it, and so there was goodness in that. It's hard to say that there was goodness in the death of anybody, but there was goodness that was produced by his passing, and so sometimes we don't see it through the windshield, we see it in a preview, but nonetheless you can see goodness. So I think that's one thing we can do. We can find goodness in situations and we can also understand that with that waiting, there will be goodness that we produce. I spoke a little bit about my wife's situation with breast cancer. There was goodness produced in that. I found out that I really did have faith. Faith is something we say we have until you find yourself in a situation like that and then you're not sure. I know. Now I know, and so if I can see the good in a tragedy and I can also see the good in my own situations, I think that those are things we can put into action right away. Obviously a long game that comes with bearing with others and being patient with others and seeing goodness in long-term situations. But I think, if we're just talking about starting tomorrow, look for the good, look for the good in all of it. It's there.

The other thing that you said, and you almost quoted my line. You said that God and the character of God is good. God is good and that should cause you to go out and do good. What kind of good could we do?

It's the small things. Right, because when you think about good it's so big. Right, if you think about it, good is so big. But what can I do? What can I do tonight when I go to the airport to go home, I could be courteous to the security officers. They have a hard job. No doubt it's frustrating and people are frustrated with them, but you could be. You could just smile at someone, you could extend a kind word to someone, you could listen. Sometimes you get on the plane and, what's funny? People don't usually talk on planes anymore. It's like they get on a plane and they're just in their own world and they've got their earbuds in and they're listening to a podcast or something. But if someone talks to you, instead of blowing them off, respond listen. Maybe they just need to get something off their chest and you're an anonymous person that could hear this thing and give them some sort of comfort. I don't know. There's so many things that we could do, just small things, little things, but that all point towards a greater good.

Well, you've kind of stolen my last question. But that said, how do you do good?

You're gonna make me cry, kenny, not trying to keep, I know, but it's the thing is, it becomes something that you're either hyper aware of or completely oblivious to. Yeah, but there's a conscious choice every day To see the good in others and to be the good that you want to see in others. Mm-hmm, it's hard. We live in a hard world. We live in a time where when kindness is conditional and it's hard To not respond with the same thing that you get, and so the way that I try to do good is To grit my teeth and do the thing that makes me the most uncomfortable and I'm sharing. Maybe I'm over sharing here, but I choose happiness. Yeah, I, despite appearances, I'm not a naturally happy person. I Wake up with a monkey on my back every day. It stays there. Yeah, I think often about the days of addiction, the hurt that I produced, the heartache that I caused, and I know that I've been forgiven. I talked about that. Yeah, I know that, yeah, yeah but man, he's there and To be happy is Not a natural is not a natural thing that I do. I choose it. There are days that I don't want to and I fight that battle. I fight it and Most of the time I win. Sometimes I don't, and I have to remember, to give myself grace, that I'm human and that I'm gonna have bad days and I'm allowed to. But man, the most good that I can do is choose happiness, choose kindness and then let that infect others. I ought to be the most infectious person In any room that I'm in yeah and sometimes I just want to be the less Seen person in any room that I'm in. I just don't. I want to be small and invisible. But I know that if I do that I'm robbing myself of the purpose that God gave me, and that's to go make disciples.

That's right, keith, I love you. Thank you so much for doing this man.

I love you too, brother. Thank you so much for letting me. It's always a joy. I love talking to you, whether the microphones are on or not. I know that I love these conversations so much and I'm just grateful we were recording this one today. Me too.

Thanks, man.

Thank you, brother I.

Always enjoyed talking to Keith. He's somebody that I identify with, even though our stories are completely different. I admire who he is and I admire what he does. We had a great time and I'm glad that he was able to come down to Tampa and speak for our teens and also for all of us. Keith is one of those guys that make me better because I know him. So thanks, keith, I appreciate that. As for the good thing I'm thinking about, I'm grateful for people who support me, especially in times of need. There's been a few friends that have really helped me out a lot in the past few weeks, especially my wife. It's easy to take these people for granted or not to thank them, but they need to be thanked. I Think it's important that we both give gratitude, but also learn how to accept gratitude as well. I'm gonna give my gratitude to my wife, keith, to a lot of people that have been very dear to me. So until next time, let's be good and do good.