Episode #158 When You Need Both Joy and Strength with LaTan Roland Murphy – Significant Stories

Hey friends, it's Jen. I'm really excited to introduce you to a friend that I've invited on as a guest for today's episode. LaTan Murphy and I met many years ago at a writer's conference and we have stayed in touch since then. She actually has a new book that just recently came out. It's called His Strength, Her Joy: Finding God-Powered Fulfillment. We're talking with her a little bit about that in today's episode.

So I'm going to pass it over her way and LaTan, would you kick us off by sharing a little bit about yourself?

About myself... I'm a writer, speaker, teacher of God's word. I love God's word like you do. I think that's where you and I connected from the start is our souls are so connected through our love for God's word and for teaching God's word.

I just recently wrote a book entitled His Strength, Her Joy. I was thinking about the Bible verse: the joy of the Lord is our strength, and how cliche that scripture verse has become.

It's almost like we say it so flippantly, the joy of the Lord is our strength. But I really remember being in my kitchen one night, and I was going through some really, really hard things. One of which was a best friend had metastatic breast cancer and she was in the process of going home to be with her Lord.

And I was trying to wrap my mind around losing another friend because I had just lost another best friend just a year prior to that. And that Bible verse began to ring in my ears: the joy of the Lord is my strength.

And then the Holy Spirit he whispered, my strength is your joy. It's my presence that is your joy.

It's who I am that becomes your ability to be strong in the moments that matter.

It's him as the North Star of our life. It's his strength that carries us through the loss of a husband, a broken vow, a major illness, a betrayal that we experience in friendship or marriage, church disappointment, struggles in finding friendships that are deep. In being able to communicate our hearts to others, to resolve conflict.

We cannot do any of these things in our own strength and maintain our joy. We can't do both. So it's his presence that embodies, it's more than just his strength is my joy. It's literally part of his nature and part of his character to give to us his strength as a gift. So that we can take that in the moments that matter in our lives.

To write about strength and joy, then I had to experience some joyless days, and I would have to experience a lot of moments where I felt my most weak, and most ill equipped, and most undone that I've ever been and be able to put onto page with transparency what that was for me and then look back to God's Word.

And in this case, it's about 10 women of the Bible who really embodied all of those things. Weakness, being completely undone in the middle of their life circumstances. In some cases really falling apart in the middle of it all, at least from our perspective in reading some of the stories. And yet through it all being able to grasp God's strength as her joy, if she chose well. There's a couple of stories that were women who didn't choose God's strength, a great example to you and I, to not try to go it alone. We think that we got this. We say that a lot, like; you got this girl, and then really we don't. We don't have it.

And so we try to go it alone and then realize we land in a place where we feel very joyless and empty, sometimes even empty of hope.

If the Savior of the world came and He died on the cross for my sins and He welcomed me into His, His kingdom, not just as somebody from a distance, but as a beloved daughter, who He treasures deeply and that there is no perfect people on the planet And he welcomes us all just as we are. That gave me a certain strength to want to pursue him more and to pursue more learning.

What is this strength that he's offering to me? What is the joy that he embodies as part of his nature that he says is mine?

To give us in times of doubt, in times of weakness, in times when we just feel so overwhelmed by the simple daily task of our lives.

It's, it's just so humbling, you know, he will not waste anything that you've been through. He won't waste anything that you're currently going through. And he really loves to use your story and his greater plan for the world to see a part of him that they couldn't see without your story being included in his equation.

Yeah. He includes us in, he definitely does. LaTan, as you know, we love to close out every episode here with a question that we can each now take to God and ask him in prayer. What question would you like to leave with the listeners today?

On the heels of what we just talked about, what comes to me is asking God:

How does my story fit within a bigger plan?

Friends, I hope you are as encouraged by that conversation as I am. LaTan and I had such a great time talking and there's so much more that you can explore in her book, his strength, her joy. So I'll have links in the show notes for where you can get your copy and where you can connect with LaTan.

And I just want to reiterate that question for you, God, how does my story fall within a bigger plan?

Maybe God wants to talk with you about offering you his strength, or giving you joy, or how he's using your testimony, or how he's redeeming circumstances or present with you in the midst of hardship. I don't know what that is, but I know that God knows. And I also know that we're going to be continuing this theme about stories in the upcoming episodes.

So be sure to subscribe and stay tuned for those. And as always, as you take this question to God, follow that conversation, wherever he leads.

I'll see you soon and have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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