It’s so easy to take the Word of God for granted and forget it is a vehicle for a beautiful intimate relationship. In this episode Gina has a conversation with Mickey & Karen Stonier about the power of God’s Word and critical role it plays in our relationship with God.
Mickey & Karen Stonier are authors, speakers and teachers based in San Diego, CA. Mickey is also a pastor at the Rock Church and chaplain for Fire and Police departments in San Diego.
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The Word of God Speaks
Gina:
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the sacred space podcast. My name is Gina Stockton and as usual, I am very excited that you are here with me. Today I have a special treat for you. Karen and Mickey Stoney are my guests, Karen and Mickey. I’ve known them for a crazy amount of years.
We were together at Horizon Christian fellowship in San Diego. Mickey is on staff at The Rock Church. He is a pastor chaplain for police and fire departments in San Diego. And the two of them are authors, speakers, teachers, counselors, and just amazing, amazing people who love Jesus and love his church.
We’ve known each other for a long time. I met you guys when I was a child. I started coming back to Horizon in the fall of 1987 when I was 18. I went on a mission trip to Scotland, and that’s where I met Chuck Butler. I came back from the mission trip, and from that point on I was in ministry leading worship, and Horizon became my family.
I was an orphan, and I found my home, and that’s where we met, as you guys were on staff. Mickey, you were on staff at Horizon for many, many years. Karen, you were doing women’s ministry. You and I did so many retreats and things together with Sandy. There’s a lot of history there.
I’m very honored that you’re here. You guys are significant people in my life and my journey with Jesus, and it’s just an honor that you are here. As far as I’m concerned, you are a mother and the father in the faith, and you have many, many spiritual children over the years.
Mickey:
No, come on. Be honest. We’re grandma and grandma in the faith.
Gina:
Yes! And I would love for you to start wherever you want to start, I would love to hear your story.
Mickey:
I’m a fifth generation Southern Californian, I came to San Diego to be an elementary school teacher. So many people hit rock bottom and they come to faith, but my testimony was a little different. I was happy with my life, I was loving life. I was a good student playing volleyball and surfing, but I had the sense of if there’s a God, there’s heaven and hell, and there’s accountability.
So I just started reading the Bible, and in the Gospel of Matthew, I came to faith in the reading of the gospel. But I didn’t know a lot of stuff, so I started looking for a church and asked around, and there was someone at San Diego State who invited me to this Monday night Bible study with a guy named Mike Mackintosh. Back in the day, it was probably a couple hundred college students.
Karen:
That was in the early seventies.
Mickey:
And there, I grew in my faith. And from then on, I got my teaching credential and wanted to work with kids. As I got involved in the church and a church started, I gravitated to take care of the kids and eventually became the children’s director, youth leader, family director, and eventually family pastor. I met Karen at a prayer meeting that I was leading in Mission Valley, and she had come to faith. Why don’t you share the same way as me?
Karen:
Well, interesting because I grew up in a large Catholic family and went to parochial school for years, but never read the Bible once. I believed I was going to heaven because I was Catholic and I knew Jesus died on the cross for my sins. It was good, but at about 21, I was in San Diego and I was engaged to be married to a much older man who was very wealthy.
I started talking to God and I said, God, I know you created all this, but where are you? And why did you just do this and leave us? I didn’t have a relationship with God, but I had the head knowledge that I knew He was there.
So one day it was sunny, and my brother had sent me a Bible, but I’d never read a Bible, and I decided to read something to go out and lay by the pool, and sure enough this Bible popped out. I started reading the gospel of John and I got saved.
Gina:
Wow.
Karen:
I realized that He cared about me. I came from a broken family, my parents divorced. I was on my own at 16 and I just never mattered to anybody. I didn’t belong anywhere. So I didn’t understand that relationship of a heavenly Father. As I read the gospel of John and I saw Jesus’ heart, I realized that He does care about me!
Gina:
I love that, and I didn’t know that about both of you. That’s so powerful for people to hear because the Bible and the Word of God is very much taken for granted right now. We don’t acknowledge or even recognize the transformative power of God’s Word.
You don’t need fancy programs and all of the trappings to make God’s Word appealing. The Bible, in and of itself, is powerful because it’s His Word. It’s so sweet and significant for you to have come to Christ through just reading His Word, and not because someone who’s super eloquent or really cool or whatever the case may be.
That’s really powerful. There’s a reason why in the underground church in China, one page at a time is treasured and they memorize it and they pass it from room to room. It’s because it is infallible.
The Word of God is a Blessing
Karen:
With that over the years, we committed to starting every day, reading the scriptures out loud together. The Spirit gives them life. It’s not just typed words on a page, but it is the power of God. Those words that you read are powerful to transform, to heal, to save, and to do all that one might need.
Because of my broken past there was a lot of stuff to deal with. I wasn’t addicted to anything, but I had a lot of issues, and nobody went to counselors or therapists and there weren’t all these resources like today.
It was through the constant coming to the Scriptures and talking to God about things and being honest with myself, that He began to bring healing and show me areas of my life that were shaped by the world and worldly perspectives.
Mickey:
I do want to tag on, that knowledge can puff up, but love will always build up. It’s so crucial for people to view the Scriptures as a relationship. The word of God is truth. It’s the absolute truth. It’s Jesus’ truth. We have a relationship with Jesus, the truth of God. When you realize it’s not principles just to know, but it’s a relationship that we can have with God.
He speaks through his Word. We are not led out of obligation, duty, or religion. I felt separated spiritually from her when we were married early on. We were as far the east is from the west. I grew up in Southern California, surfing and playing volleyball. My dad was a police chief, and I got good grades, and stayed out of trouble. I feared the wrath of my dad.
Then she was out of her house when she was 16, on her own, didn’t finish high school, and in the fast life with movie stars and horse races. She lived a totally different life, and you bring these two people together.There is such potential for different world views and experience, but we made a commitment to read the Bible together out loud, and not out of duty or obligation. I’ll just tell you, it’s been one of the greatest blessings.
To this day we read through the Bible every year, but there’s favor on His Word. We’ve seen favor in our lives, and we know it’s not because we do anything. It’s just, God has chosen to lavish us.
Karen:
With the promises of God.
Mickey:
With His love. People come into our home and say, “Wow, it just seems peaceful.” We realize that it’s the word of God. It’s not rigid, it’s not law. We’re saved by grace through faith. So the intimacy that we can have with God through his Holy Spirit, is so freeing to enjoy Him.
The Word of God Reveals Jesus
Karen:
It’s hard to come to the Scriptures with the right perspective and approach. A lot of us have these roadblocks in our minds where, when you’re sitting with your Bible, if you picture Jesus sitting there over the Scriptures, he says, “These are written that you will know me.” And to approach it in a really different way, knowing that Jesus is here with me, He’s speaking to me.
I want to speak to Him. I’m not just reading through the chapter, but how do I know you friend? Jesus said, “I call you my friend.” He wants a friendship with you. He wants to be a father. He wants to be your counselor.
So much of the guidance we want in relationships, and decisions in our life – it’s going to Him and asking for the leading in the Holy Spirit. As your Father, won’t He give you what you asked for, if He gave his son? Come with the understanding that “You are here with me now.”
Check out the rest of the conversation: Finding Our Identity
Check out the Dwell Meditations
