In this episode, Gina continues her conversation with Mickey & Karen Stonier. They discuss their book Get Out of Control and the freedom that comes when we surrender and trust Jesus even in the hardest things. God is a relentless pursuer. He is a Redeemer. Whether we can see Him moving, or feel like He’s here or not, it doesn’t change the reality of his presence, it doesn’t change the truth of his word, it doesn’t change who He is. Even in the darkest places. He is there. He’s moving. He’s speaking. He’s redeeming. He’s pursuing.
Check out Mickey & Karen’s book Get Out of Control
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Surrendering Control
Gina:
Happy new year, 2021. We made it through 2020 and we’re facing a new year of Jesus only knows what, but we can face it with expectation and with hope because He is with us and He is for us. And what a great episode to start the year with, I’m finishing my conversation with Karen and Mickey Stoney, where we start talking about their book, Get Out of Control.
I tell you what, when we step into a year like we are now, coming off of a year like 2020, the first thing we really should do is surrender control so that we can receive the things that God has in front of us. We can, “lean not on our own understanding.”
We can cast our cares on Him and trust Him, but He is with us in all of it. He is present, moving, and redeeming. So I hope you enjoy this conversation that you’re encouraged. Sit back, relax, get outta journal and enjoy your time in the Sacred Space. Karen, tell me about, “Get Out Of Control.”
Karen:
So how it came about, is working with you for years in women’s ministry and individually with women, college girls, and high school girls, I often found and saw this struggle with people trying to be too controlling, whether it was with a family member, or a coworker, an elder woman who has a 30 year old child – trying to control that married child.
So I just ran across it constantly, and I had recognized some things in myself, but really didn’t think I had a problem with being controlling at all, because I was such a good helper. I like to help people, but as I began this journey, I wanted something small that people would read, and a lot of people don’t want a big book.
I had read several books, there’s a Dr. Parrot. He is a therapist and he wrote a book about himself being a control freak. So it was interesting to read several books. I wanted something simple that I could hand somebody and say, this might help you.
That’s what it was born from, a desire to help people recognize control in their own life, and then to allow God to work in those areas. As He pointed it out to me and started to show me those things, I just began to write from my own experience.
Through a divine appointment, there was a gentleman praying for us who’s prophetic, who really hears God. He was praying at the end of a class that we had taught, and he said, “I see a book for you too.” At that point, when he said that, I knew it was no longer something that I was supposed to do alone, but it was supposed to be joint so it could be for men and women and have the male perspective.
He brought in leadership aspects of micromanaging and controlling. So it was a joint effort then to write a little handbook on helping people, whether it’s at work at home relationships with the Lord to just let go.
Gina:
Let go! The root of control is fear.
Mickey:
From childhood, we need to be loved and safe. When that’s been violated, you go around to hide and can’t let people know who you really are. So we tell our stories, things we’ve struggled through, but ultimately to not be defined by these wounds of our past, to be free.
Ultimately safety and love come from God, through faith, believe that He meant what He said, “I’ll never forsake you. I’m with you always to the end of the world.” These are not just good thoughts, it’s reality.
We have so many miracles. I’ve personally seen people come back from the dead that were dead for 20 minutes at a hospital. I prayed, and then left, and then the family called me and the doctors all there say this is a miracle.
I was miraculous, because someone was totally gone, and then coming back, and having them tell me where they were, and what they saw. Then my wife had a ligament tear from her shoulder, she had surgery and was going to need a second surgery. She couldn’t up not being able to lift her arm.
Karen:
So I had a rotator cuff surgery and after six months of therapy, I could only lift my arm up to my chest level. So they said, we have to go in, and break up the scar tissue. We did all these procedures in order to get more movement out of it. We had a group over, who just listened to the Lord and prayed for each other.
And a gentleman young man came in and sat in my group of five. At the end of the evening, he spoke up and he said, “you know, I walked in this house, and my left shoulder hurt. I think I’m supposed to pray for somebody here that has a shoulder problem.” and I was like, “That’s me!”
I had scheduled the second surgery, so I could have use of my arm, but he just had a simple prayer, put his hand on my shoulder, prayed that God would break up this scar tissue and release the movement of it. I tried to lift it and nothing happened. He said, “Let me just pray again.”
And he just prayed again, “Father, we asked you to break that up, to bring movement to her arm.” He said, “Try to lift it again.” I lifted and it went all the way up! I was walking around the house, swinging my arm. I’m like,” I can move it!”
Mickey:
She went back to the physical therapist, and they were shocked and they had documentation and canceled the surgery. I was teaching at one of the local universities at night, and I got home at like 10 o’clock, and I opened the door and there she was in front of me.
She goes, “How do look?” She was waving her arms all over. God is faithful. And all the pastors of the church had prayed for her, including myself and nothing happened. He had to get me out of the room. But this young guy was the one God chose to use.
The Mystery of Being Healed
Karen:
And that’s the mystery of being healed. There were so many people who we have seen have the gift of healing, like the gift of teaching or evangelism. They pray for people, and so many people receive healing. I had gone to many people for prayer before this first surgery and after the surgery I was healed through prayer, and that’s the mystery of God that we won’t know. My mom died of cancer, and you might wonder how come some people are healed?
Gina:
I’m glad that you brought that up because I would love to talk about that. We actually had a conversation a little over a year ago up at Hume lake. We ran into each other. We were at two different events. So it’s like, “What are you doing here about the whole thing about healing?
Early in the Jesus movement days, that was a supernatural move of God. A lot of what was happening or manifesting in terms of the Holy Spirit, was these miraculous healings. And there’s several moves of God like this in history where this supernatural stuff happens, and then there’s long periods where you don’t see the miracles, you don’t see stuff happening.
So then you have an entire generation that maybe lives with stories or whatever, and they’re very skeptical, and then the church can be very divided on signs and wonders. On one side they say, there has to be a miracle in order to prove that God’s here. And then there’s some on the other side that are like, “Nope, that died with the early church, miracles don’t happen.”
Now the reality is, first of all, God is God. He doesn’t need to explain Himself to anybody. He wants to heal. He’s going to heal. But you and I, myself and a lot of friends, we’ve witnessed miraculous healings, from people being raised from the dead.
It is interesting that some of those grander miracles, especially in other countries, like people are getting raised from the dead all the time, and constantly the blind see. You guys are on staff at a giant church in San Diego, The Rock Church, and you’ve had to navigate all the opinions as church leadership.
So as we shepherd and lead people, how do we lead them to have a great expectation of Biblical-normal, but in that accept the grand mystery of God. So I interviewed a beautiful woman in season two, who was in stage four of pancreatic cancer, which was a miracle. She was alive when I interviewed her and was so confident about her healing, and she’s with Jesus right now.
I would argue that she’s healed, and she believed that too. Last week I interviewed a friend of hers who had glioblastoma, which is always stage four. She was told she would live 15 months, and she’s been 42 months. She is cancer free, and she’s a miracle. Even talking to her about her faith and knowing that she was saved, but then also survivor’s guilt.
And you know, they were in a group together praying for one another, and believing for miracles together. So there’s that great juxtaposition in the middle of this walk of faith. Redemption is messy. I would love for you guys to speak to that with your life experience.
Mickey:
The Bible testifies of healing, the power of God, the gifts of the Spirit. And we have to go with what God says. Yeah. What God says is if we believe and trust and ask and knock, then we will receive. The Bible doesn’t say, “If not.” He doesn’t cover that subject.
So our emphasis is that I believe everything in the Bible is true and I believe everything the Bible says happened and can still happen because God doesn’t change. So we believe, we trust, but God is God. So I don’t have to say, “God heals, but if not He will use your doctor.”
If He doesn’t, I just keep believing, keep trusting, and if He ultimately doesn’t and someone goes to heaven, God is God. I don’t have to explain Him. I don’t have to justify or try to defend God. All I know is what is revealed and what God says, and that’s what we go with. It’s not based on how great my faith is.
Karen:
That’s what I was gonna say.
Mickey:
Because it’s based on who God is. I just live and there are many mysteries of why things don’t happen. You know, I wrote a book several years ago, “God is now here.” It’s the why question. Ultimately God is God, and we have to trust and believe that His ways are way beyond ours, and don’t have to explain or defend. I don’t have to justify. I just believe what the Bible says, and we live, and God is glorious.
Karen:
But again, that comes back to like the two friends that one made survive cancer and one died is, the relationship that we have with God and who He is, that whether He takes somebody or heals someone, how we navigate that painful time, goes back to our relationship with Him, because faith is the substance of things.
And so where is my faith when my friend died? Faith isn’t based on what I know, or what I do, or what I think, but it’s on who He is. And if I know who He is, His promise from the Scriptures and His promises that He loves us, and He cares about us. I don’t understand this situation, why she was taken and why I wasn’t, but He loves us. So what I do know, I go back to what I do know, not what I don’t know.
Gina:
We always think we know what we need. God’s love for us goes beyond our awareness of what’s in our best interest. Healing can mean a lot of things. What we define as healing, and what Jesus defines as healing and what He’s accomplishing, and what He’s accomplishing can be very different.
And again, that goes back to getting out of control, and letting go and actually trusting Him. And being honest when we don’t, because I think that’s the other thing too, is, is God is a safe place, and He knows our fallibility. He knows our weakness.
You look at Saul and David, the difference between the two of them is David understood that pre-cross, under the law, which blows my mind. He understood the character and the love of God, and that He was a safe place.
He understood that He could do the most vile things, but if he humbled himself and repented, that gift was an invitation of restoration and Saul just didn’t understand that. But the nobility or the integrity of each man wasn’t, there was not a whole lot of difference. The difference was that David was seeing and trusting and believing in who His God was.
Karen:
Also, I have to say, because God wrote this story for us, and we look at people like David, we look at people who went through these things that they went through, like Moses and Joseph. That seems so unfair. He gave these to us, so that we can help navigate our lives and see, “look how faithful God was.” Even to Joseph through the betrayal of family. and yet he was steadfast and trusting in God, even when life didn’t make sense. and when it wasn’t fair.
Check out the rest of the conversation: All Things For Good
Check out the Dwell Meditations
