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Touched By His Sovereign Touch
Episode #795
2/27/2022
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
This is a continuation of a series of podcasts started in Episode #793
Our lives and the things that happened to us in the course of our lives all point to one goal that we would know the One who created us.
Martha:
But your constant bringing me to that standard and that solution and that being of God made me endure. So, this book will cause you to endure the suffering that is necessary.
John:
And it can. It’s not saying, “Sit down and shut up and stop bitching.” That’s not what it’s about. I never give that impression but I do exalt the Lordship of God to be over all of life and His use of whatever He wants to use.
When you get to receiving and the accepting and the embracing of His sovereign choices of your life that is when you enter into from chaos into great peace and you have turmoil into joy. And you really can embrace the adventure and see such beauty in the situations.
No chastening is beautiful in the moment and pleasant in the moment but when see what He’s doing and when you know His character and that He is good, He actually is good and that He’s actually together these things, all things for His pleasure and for your good, then you realize, ok, I am being controlled, I am being influenced. I am being led and it’s in perfection; it really becomes perfection but there is such a work to get there.
I said, “But our God will always reap the greatest rewards from all events and circumstances no matter how we see them from our limited perspective.” And I had limited, hugely limited perspective of all this stuff. Then He just continually showed me, “Listen, you see just this pin prick of a moment. But I’ve got eternity in My hand and you are only seeing this ‘ouch’ right now. You are not seeing the whole and you are not seeing the benefit of the ‘ouch’ to bring the whole.” I needed to make peace with that God and I needed to see Him.
Page 95, Grappling with the Sovereign God. I had to grapple with Him and I did; I grappled with Him. And He was up for the task and I believe He gained incredible joy with my grappling…
Martha:
Yes.
John:
…because He loves a wrestling match. He did that with Jacob in the wilderness out there. Jesus and he were just wrestling it out. He did not let Jacob prevail and touched the socked of his strength and crippled him for the rest of his life. But that was such a beautiful thing. He was crippled, granted, but there was a beautiful thing that he wrestled with God and prevailed. He prevailed to get the blessing and he was blessed. And that same exact wrestling has blessed all of mankind ever since and will bless us throughout all eternity. David came out of that. Jesus came out of that….
“Our lives and the things that happened to us in the course of our lives all point to one goal that we would know the One who created us.” He has to be God; He has to be God over all or He’s not. And we can say it, we can say it all day long but it’s another things when we are face to face with a difficulty.
Martha:
What’s your favorite part of the book from your own life? Is it the finger?
John:
Yeah…the finger.
Martha:
The story of the finger cut off.
John:
When I juiced off my finger, He literally used something that was painful and took a lot of time and was traumatic and He decided that He was going to use that to bring about a transformation in my entire concept of worship. I lost the tip of my finger and from that loss I gained a totally wonderful perspective of worship. It changed everything in my life. Yes, that is one of my favorite parts.
Again, when He was Lord over my body and I was a little freaked out I’m sorry to say: I was freak out.
Martha:
The amazing thing is and we would have to give pictures to prove it but your hand was not only recovered, sewn back on, taken care of, it was a miracle.
John:
It was a miracle. I was talking to someone the other day and I said I realized that human life wants to live. By this whole process that I went through, I realized how much the body wants to live; it fights to live. You give everything that the body needs and the body with thrive.
Martha:
And just as everything was provided for you the little hospital that you went to, little mountain hospital, had the connection to one of the most skillful hand surgeons in the United States and he was there for you and he fixed it back as if it had never happened.
John:
Yes, I literally have to show you. People go, “Let me see, let me see!” And I will show them and I’m like, “You can’t even tell unless I put the two index fingers side by side.” And they go, “Oh my gosh, you lost that much of the finger.” My friend said, “But you didn’t lose the nail bed. And it rebuilt the nail bed.” I’m like, “Yeah, it did.” I didn’t kill the nail bed so it still built the nail so it doesn’t look different. And that was quite a journey.
Martha:
You wouldn’t expect ecstasy to be in such a radical place.
John:
No. Nor His taking over and getting me to the hospital and doing everything.
Martha:
You can say it was perfect.
John:
It was perfect. God showed Himself strong and I was grateful. I’m grateful and I can rejoice and give thanks for that whole entire process because of what I gained and gleaned out of that process.
Martha:
It was worth it.
John:
It was worth it all.
Martha:
It really was and was obvious on you.
John:
And that was a process. And even to accept this franken-finger was a process. I had to trust Him in how to receive it mentally because it was creepy to me. There was something about it that was like that’s not my finger; that’s gross.
Martha:
And he sewed it up in such a peculiar way that it looked like you would never have a hand workable.
John:
Right.
Martha:
And it appeared that the damage increased under that surgeon’s hand…
John:
Yes, absolutely.
Martha:
…because he did things that I won’t even say in cutting it like the pieces of a puzzle.
John:
He puzzled pieced my hand. Took other pieces and made pieces with the other pieces.
Martha:
It was incredible. It was no small miracle of God’s intervention, God’s provision, and God’s joy to keep you intact as He knew you would want.
John:
The guy said…
Martha:
That’s so compassionate of Him.
John:
…“We can just chop of the digit” and I’m like “Wait.”
Martha:
The doctor said?
John:
He did. He said, “We can do one of two things. We can either do this whole process. It’s going to take a couple of surgeries or we can just chop of the digit. I said, “It may be a digit to you but it’s not a digit to me. It’s my finger and I don’t have three teeth and work in the field. So, thank you very much I will have a digit, thank you.” (laughing)
Martha:
He knew you.
John:
God knew me. This guy said, “Yeah, who needs a finger!” I don’t think so!
Touched By His Sovereign Touch – Episode #795 – Shulamite Podcast
To receive, accept and embrace His sovereign choices is when you enter from chaos into great peace and you have turmoil into joy.
