Dennis & Barbara's Top 25 All-Time Interviews

By: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
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  • The list of 25 are interviews done with some of the finest human beings we’ve ever met. Their stories are rich with spiritual nutrition that will enrich your soul. We bet that you can’t “listen” to JUST ONE!
    © Dennis and Barbara Rainey
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Christianity Relationships Social Sciences Spirituality
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Episodes
  • A Grace Disguised (Part 1) - Jerry Sittser

    A Grace Disguised (Part 1) - Jerry Sittser
    Jan 6 2020
    A Grace Disguised (Part 1) - Jerry SittserA Grace Disguised (Part 2) - Jerry SittserA Grace Disguised (Part 3) - Jerry SittserFamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Descending Into the Valley Guest: Jerry Sittser From the series: A Grace Disguised (Day 1 of 3) Bob: There are times in the midst of trials and traumas of life when we wonder to ourselves where is God? Why did He let this happen? For Jerry Sittser one of those events occurred in 1991 when he and his wife and their four children and Jerry’s mother were hit head on by a vehicle traveling at 85 miles per hour. The collision was fatal for Jerry’s wife and for his mom and for one of his four children. As Jerry reflects back on that event today he sees it as something that was ultimately faith affirming. Jerry Sittser: Through a long and often difficult journey I really did discover the Christian faith is true. Grace really is available to get us through these hard stretches of life. The ultimate message of Christianity is not self help it is God’s help. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday July 6th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. We’ll hear today how a tragic car accident can be a grace disguised. Welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. You and I were having a conversation not long ago with Dr. Al Moeller, the President of Southern Seminary and we asked him about questions he gets thrown by the secular media. We said the tough questions are the ones they ask you. What are the ones that put you on the spot? Without even thinking he said we always come back to the issue of the problem of evil and suffering. How can there be a good God when there is suffering in the world? Dennis: We don’t always know what God is up to. He is God and we are not. We have a guest with us today on FamilyLife Today that I think is going to minister to a lot of our listeners. Actually I was introduced to this guest by my wife Barbara, who joins us on FamilyLife Today as well. Welcome Sweetie. Barbara Rainey: Thanks. I’m glad to be here. Dennis: Jerry Sittser has written this book A Grace Disguised which is a story out of his own life and it occurred a number of years ago. Jerry lives in Spokane Washington up in the eastern section of that great state. He is a professor of theology at Whitworth University and has a Masters of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary and has his doctorate in history from the University of Chicago. This leaves me with only one question Jerry, White Sox or Cubs? (laughter)Bob: Or were you there long enough to even care? Dennis: Oh he had to be if he had his PHD. Jerry Sittser: Dodgers! (laughter) Dennis: Well, I do welcome you to the broadcast and I am grateful for you writing this book, A Grace Disguised. I want Barbara to share with our listeners to help put in context out of which she gave me Jerry’s book. Bob: Was this something somebody gave you as a gift? Barbara: It was a book that someone had recommended to me a number of years ago. I bought it and started reading it and it was in my library. But I didn’t finish the book until last summer after our granddaughter Molly was born and only lived seven days and then died. As we began to try to make sense of what God had done and what He was up to I pulled that book off the shelf. This time I had a real heart for it. I needed it. I read it all the way through and I was constantly underlining and reading portions of it to Dennis and saying “listen to what this says.” I bought several copies and gave one to a couple of my daughters. I gave one to Molly’s mother, Rebecca, and a couple of our other daughters, too. I said you need to have this in your library and if you don’t read it all the way through right now you will read it eventually. Dennis: It is really a love story of sorts that started when you met your wife Linda. How did you meet her, Jerry? Jerry Sittser: I was a student at Hope College and she was a student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. After I experienced a conversion between my sophomore and junior year we became very good friends. Really best friends. One day I was standing in a group of people and somebody got my attention from maybe 100 yards away and I turned and said something to them I’m sure. I was a little cocky back then. (laughter) Linda was in that circle and I turned back and our eyes met and that was it right there. I just fell in love on the spot. Dennis: You were smitten. Jerry Sittser: Oh, my goodness was I smitten. Bob: But you’d known her for months before this?Jerry Sittser: We were very good friends, yes. Bob: So what in that moment you don’t know? Jerry ...
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    26 mins
  • A Grace Disguised (Part 2) - Jerry Sittser

    A Grace Disguised (Part 2) - Jerry Sittser
    Jan 6 2020
    A Grace Disguised (Part 1) - Jerry SittserA Grace Disguised (Part 2) - Jerry SittserA Grace Disguised (Part 3) - Jerry SittserFamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Walking By Faith Through Irreversible Loss Guest: Jerry Sittser From the series: A Grace Disguised (Day 2 of 3) Bob: Jerry Sittser understands grief and loss in a profound way. He and three of his children escaped from a car accident that took the life of his wife, his mother and one of his four children. How long would it take for someone to recover from a loss like that? Here’s Jerry Sittser. Jerry Sittser: Through a long and often difficult journey I really did discover the Christian faith is true. Grace really is available to get us through these hard stretches of life. The ultimate message of Christianity is not self help. It is God’s help. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, July 7th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey and I’m Bob Lepine. Jerry Sittser says when the landscape of life has been permanently altered God’s grace is there to help you make some sense of the loss and to give you peace. Welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. We have been talking a lot not just this week but in recent weeks about the subject of loss. We’re trying to help listeners understand that your responses to the loss you will experience in life will help shape you and your family and your marriage and your whole life. Dennis: It will. In fact, our guest on today’s program is really the result of losses that Barbara and I have experienced in recent days. In fact I want to welcome Barbara to the broadcast again. Barbara Rainey: Thank you. Dennis: Thanks for joining us again Sweetheart and thanks for recommending Jerry Sittser’s book A Grace Disguised. Jerry I want to welcome you to our broadcast. Welcome back. Jerry Sittser: Thank you. It’s a privilege. Jerry is the professor of theology at Whitworth University in Spokane Washington. As we mentioned earlier Jerry’s book was used in our family as it was recommended to Barbara by a friend. She started reading it after our daughter Rebecca and her husband, Jake, lost their daughter Molly after only seven days. This book really helped Barbara and me as well as Jake and Rebecca process through how the soul processes grief. We mentioned earlier how you lost your wife, your mom and your daughter in a tragic car wreck in 1991. That really is the genesis of this book. I have to ask you a big picture question. If you could summarize what you think God is up to when He allows us to experience grief what would you say? You’ve experienced it on a profound level that few people will ever experience it. What do you think He’s up to in grief? Jerry Sittser: I am not sure I can answer that question in a word. That’s a very difficult question actually. I think over all I would say that God is in the business of reclaiming people who have turned away from Him. He created us in His image. He created us to be gloriously beautiful people who participate in the divine glory. The perfect relationship that exists between Father, Son and Holy Spirit and we’ve turned away from that. That divine image has been marred and made perverse. He wants not simply to save us. He wants to reclaim us and restore us and one of the ways that happens like it or not is through suffering. I honestly think suffering is necessary in the Christian faith. It happens in lots of different ways some we can choose like the suffering that comes when we deny our appetites and practice self discipline. John Calvin called it self denial. Sometimes that suffering is imposed upon us through some kind of loss or tragedy. Either way we need some kind of suffering not masochistically but honestly realistic to become the holy people God wants us to be and to draw us into a vital relationship with Him. Bob: Grief that we experience when we go through a loss to what extent are we in…I don’t want to use the word control but to what extent do we have power over that grief? And to what extent does the grief have power over us? Do you know what I’m asking here? Jerry Sittser: Well, I’ll start by saying this. I don’t think God causes these things as if He were some kind of divine manipulator who hovers above the ground and zaps us with cancer or divorce or job loss or loss of portfolio or loss of a loved one. I think that is a very poor mechanistic view of the sovereignty of God. I think God is in it. God’s sovereignty is in it. I don’t think God causes it in that kind of crude kind of way. I will say God uses it. God’s in it in that sense. Our choice is whether we’re going to respond to the work the ...
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    23 mins
  • A Grace Disguised (Part 3) - Jerry Sittser

    A Grace Disguised (Part 3) - Jerry Sittser
    Jan 6 2020
    A Grace Disguised (Part 1) - Jerry SittserA Grace Disguised (Part 2) - Jerry SittserA Grace Disguised (Part 3) - Jerry SittserFamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Forgiveness Guest: Jerry SittserFrom the series: A Grace Disguised (Day 3 of 3) Bob: Proverbs 25:11 says, “A Word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” When someone has experienced loss we need to be careful that our words are fitly spoken. Here’s Jerry Sittser… Jerry: Sometimes words can actually exacerbate the problem rather than help the problem. I mean, Job’s three friends did their best work when they just shut their mouths for a week and sat with Job on that heap of ashes. The cue is, when they’re ready to talk, then you’re ready to listen. When they really feel like they are ready to receive a word, then you give it, but never before that. And what you don’t want to do is use words to try to somehow push the loss and its significance away. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, July 8th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey and I’m Bob Lepine. We’ll here today how God shows up in the midst of loss. And about how we can show up, too. And welcome to FamilyLife Today and thanks for joining us. Just as I was walking in here, I got an email from our mutual friend, Dr. Michael Easley, who is the pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Franklin, TN, and Michael sent me a prayer that he had written to send to a couple who had experienced the loss of a child a year ago today. The child had lived two months and unexpectedly died. And Michael wrote this prayer for them. He said, I pray for you today that your memories will be sweet, that your hearts will be calmed, that you will find a non-anxious presence. That you will choose to trust and see good when there is nothing for sure, that you will grieve, but not as those who have no hope, that you will find comfort and mercy in places others may never know. That your “why” questions will be replaced with a confidence in knowing that, He knows, and that’s enough. We love you and ask Him to pour mercy, kindness and hope into your hearts. He does indeed know you and love you no matter what your experience may try to tell you. Dennis: Bob, you know as I listen to those words, I think, how many people listening to this broadcast right now have experienced loss, some kind of major loss in their lives, in the past 5 to 10 years. As I said earlier, if you live long enough, you will experience loss. In fact, life is really made up of a lot of losses as we lose our childhood, and move into adulthood. Some of those losses look good at the time but some of the losses aren’t easily figured out, in fact, some are never figured out on this side of heaven. We’ve had a guest with us, Dr. Jerry Sittser who has helped us better understand the process of grieving through his book, A Grace Disguised. Welcome back. Jerry: Thank you, it’s good to be here. Dennis: I mentioned earlier, that Barbara had recommended this book to me after our daughter, Rebecca and her husband Jake, experienced the loss of their daughter after seven days of life. And Barbara joins us on the broadcast as well. Sweetie, welcome. Barbara: Thank you, glad to be here. Dennis: In fact, I hadn’t asked you this question, sweetheart. As you read this book, what was it about Jerry’s book that most ministered to you, and why have you recommended it to so many people? Barbara: Well, I wish I had my copy in front of me, I tried to find it this morning, and I can’t find where I set that thing. But at any rate it’s all underlined and marked, and page corners turned back. And one of the things I remember most vividly is early in the first few chapters, Jerry, you talk about how loss is loss and that it doesn’t do any good to compare losses, and to say that this loss is worse than that loss. Because loss brings grief and it brings pain and that grief and that pain is real and it needs to be experienced. It is what it is. To try to explain it or measure it and say it’s not really that bad or it’s worse than this, doesn’t really make any difference in the long run. I think we are so prone to wanting to measure and figure these things out. The other piece I remember real vividly is a later chapter in the book, it talks about how our identity is changed by grief and loss and how so much of who we are is wrapped up in our identity with that thing or that person or that ability we have lost. Whether it’s a divorce or a death, or whether it’s losing the ability through physical illness and how that personal identity is transformed through the process of loss and grief. I thought that was really helpful and profound. Jerry: I call ...
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    28 mins

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