How to Grow Closer to God (When Life Is Loud): Laura Story

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How to Grow Closer to God (When Life is Loud)

Guests:Cheryl Shumake and Laura Story

From the series:Stand in Awe (Day 2 of 3)

Air date:September 17, 2026

Laura (00:04):

No matter what season you’re in, what you’re beholding is what you’re becoming.

Cheryl (00:09):

Yes.

Laura (00:10):

And the scriptures tell us beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord and being transformed into His image.

Cheryl:

Transformed into that same image.

Laura:

Yes. And it works with scripture, but it also works with other things. We’re all consuming something. We’re all beholding something. Whatever it is that we are beholding the most, that is what we’re being conformed to. That’s what’s transforming us.

Dave (00:39):

Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Dave Wilson.

Ann (00:45):

And I’m Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave:

So as we’ve shared before, we’re out this week, but our good friend Cheryl is currently sitting in and bringing great conversations that inspire you to act.

Ann:

That’s right, because we’re taking a little vacation.

Dave:

Yeah, I sort of did something a couple weeks ago. I don’t know if you want to see that, but I replaced both of my knees. I mean, the knees are healing. Yes. I’m starting to walk. I can’t wait to hear what Cheryl and Laura Story will be discussing today.

Laura (01:29):

I feel like sometimes we’ve lost the kind of awe in our worship, in our Sunday morning worship. And one of the things in the book that I talk about, I talk about four different ways that sometimes we’ve kind of gone off course. And I talk about if reverence is the road, then there’s four ditches we have to kind of be careful of. And one would be having a casual approach to God. Another would be a self-focused approach to God.

Cheryl (02:01):

After self-focus, we have?

Laura (02:03):

A shallow. Well, this is kind of a neat one because again—

Cheryl (02:08):

Okay, I had to adjust in my chair to get ready for that one. Yeah.

Laura (02:11):

Well, again, and I talk about this in the book, but there’s movements over the past 50 years of the church where basically some leaders saw what was working for their church youth groups and thought, “Hey, we should do this on an adult level.” Which again, it sounds like a wonderful idea. Except that it basically is what you, a friend of mine said it this way, what you win them with, you win them too. So as you’re winning them into the life of the church through a very shallow message, if it only stays there, we end it –

Cheryl:

You have a shallow faith.

Laura:

Yeah. You have to ask the question, okay, so why is it important that we go deep in our faith?

Cheryl (03:02):

Right.

Laura (03:02):

I said two reasons. First of all, the scriptures, they’re worth it.

Cheryl (03:07):

Yes.

Laura (03:08):

The Lord, when He saves us, He gives us this desire to ingest God’s Word. And He gives us minds. It’s like, why would we—Paul says, O how unsearchable is the knowledge of God? Why would we not want to grow in our knowledge of the Lord? But secondly, the problems we face in life will get harder where, as a kid learning Jesus loves me, I will always hold that close to my heart. But then when my husband’s diagnosed with a brain tumor, I need something more than just a Jesus loves me theology to understand why a good God would allow such a hard thing to happen to us.

Cheryl (03:50):

Right. Part of what I hear you saying, and I know we want to talk about the fourth ditch as well, but part of what I hear you saying is that what these ditches are saying to us or what we’re saying to God with these ditches is that You alone aren’t enough. Relationship with You is not enough that unless I am satisfied in the way that I deem satisfaction, then is it even worth it to reverence You, to worship You in the way that You say I should worship You? How does reverence for God, and I want to get to the fourth ditch in a moment, but how does reverence for God combat these ditches that you’re talking about? The self-focus, the casualness, the shallowness of our worship and lifestyle?

Laura (04:34):

Yeah. I think at the very most basic level, it’s saying that God—and this kind of leads us into the fourth one.

Cheryl (04:41):

Okay, great.

Laura (04:42):

Is that God is worthy of our attention. So reverence in the first setting, rather than approaching Him casually, we should approach Him in an awe-inspired way. I mean, as we see who He is, as we truly see how He’s revealed Himself in the Scriptures, our response also should be falling on our faces. Our response should be Psalm 95, “Come, let us worship and bow down.” It’s like, “I don’t know the last time you’ve seen someone bow down in a church service.” And not that that has to happen, but are our hearts bowed before Him? Or am I just kind of wandering in with my coffee whenever I happen to get there? Or maybe it’s a Sunday that I’m really tired and I’m going to do my little live stream, stay in my pajamas.

Cheryl (05:30):

But even bowing. I’m glad that you kind of clarified that it’s a heart position because in charismatic circles, there’s a lot of bowing.

Laura:

I love it.

Cheryl:

And worshiping and physical expression of honor towards God. But even sometimes that can become performative, right? So I think reverence also keeps us from the performance of worship. And really some heart posture to live bowed before the Lord.

Laura (05:59):

Well, and even the self-focus part of it, the reverence. As one of the people that helps with the music of my church, we do have the conversations every now and then. This will probably shock you. Not everyone loves the music all the time.

Cheryl:

Oh, you’re kidding me?

Laura:

That’s great. I know it’s a crazy thought.

Cheryl (06:17):

I know.

Laura (06:18):

But really this idea of reverence, believing that it’s all the different types of music, all the different. I talk about it as preference and deference. Sometimes we’re going to sing a song that’s your preference and you’re just going to sing it to the rooftop.

Cheryl:

And belt it out.

Laura:

And belt it out. And then the very next song, you’re going to be like, “Why are they doing this?” And I always talk to people, okay, even if it’s not your preference, it’s an opportunity for you to revere God by practicing deference. Basically, it’s like our older people, they’re like, “Why are we playing this young people music?” And I’m like, “Because the next generation, this is how they’re connecting with the Lord and you need to value that.” And the same thing with the young people. They’re like, “Why are we playing this old hymns?” But I kind of want to smack them and say, “You mean the one that the guy who built the building requested?”

(07:10):

But it’s good for our hearts. And really, it’s when we are practicing that deference, ultimately, it’s revering the Lord.

Cheryl (07:19):

It is. And it’s reminding us that we’re not the central ones to the story.

Laura (07:24):

Anything that reminds us that we are not the main character of our story, that is the good for our souls.

Cheryl (07:29):

Absolutely. Okay. So the fourth ditch.

Laura (07:31):

Is distraction. It’s probably the biggest one these days.

Cheryl (07:35):

Okay. Probably the biggest one these days, yes.

Laura (07:37):

And I use a few different words. I talk about distraction and I talk about the remedy of that being devotion. But I talk about a very important aspect of devotion being discipline.

Cheryl (07:49):

Okay. So when you say devotion, I automatically go to getting up at four or five o’clock in the morning, whatever time I get up, and sitting with my Bible, with some music, with some TV—

Laura (07:59):

Did you say four or five o’clock?

Cheryl (08:00):

Yeah. Yeah. But I’m also in bed—by 8:30, I’m shutting it down.

Laura (08:05):

I didn’t know that four happened twice. I thought it was just that one time in the afternoon.

Cheryl (08:08):

It does. It happens twice. And I am frustrated at four because I’m waiting for the world to wake up. I’m like, “Why aren’t you up? Let’s go. Here’s the day. Come on, let’s go.” But it really is, it’s an amazing time of peace for me because the world isn’t stirring and the phone isn’t ringing and all of those things. So that’s what I have in my mind when you say devotion. That’s the immediate thought, but I know you’re talking about something deeper than that.

Laura (08:33):

But that’s also a big part of it. I mean, we live in a world where the devices—I mean, that could be electronic devices or any other devices—the devices that are vying for our attention are doing so in a more ruthless way—

Cheryl (08:49):

Yes, they are.

Laura (08:49):

—than I think we have ever experienced.

Cheryl (08:52):

Yes, they are. Can I tell you something really funny?

Laura:

Yeah.

Cheryl:

So I was going to take Spanish via Duolingo, right?

Laura:

Oh yeah.

Cheryl:

And I skipped one day and then I skipped two days. I have been getting emails. And I’m going to show you when we’re done here, I’m going to show you this little bot and passive aggressive. I said I’m going to take a PPO out on this thing because I am getting messages like, “Cheryl, I know you’re over it one day. Then the next day, please come back.” Oh my gracious. It’s so invasive in our lives. And it’s not even asking for permission any longer. It’s just coming at us.

Laura (09:28):

Yes. Well, and even you look at the statistics of how much people—I’m just going to pick the phone because that’s the one that probably is the worst—how much time they spend on their phones, but not even because they’re saying things like, “I think I’m going to spend an hour on my phone.” It’s not necessarily a choice that they’re making. They’re just not making a choice to not.

Cheryl:

Right. Right.

Laura:

And these devices are drawing our attention in. And the Lord, I don’t know. For me, I kind of wonder whether He’s sitting to the side and saying, “Hey, I’m not going to compete with this. I’m not going to get in your face. I know that you’re asking me to show up immediately, kind of the same way technology does. We get to hear from it immediately. We get to know things immediately.” The Lord’s like, “No, no, no.

(10:20):

I’m not an Amazon package that’s going to show up within 12 hours at your doorstep.” What the scriptures tells us tells us things about learning to wait on the Lord. And that’s where our souls need that. So yeah, I think that what you were talking about, about the time with the Lord in the morning, I think that’s a big part of it is having those believers far, far before us talked about the spiritual disciplines.

(10:49):

I think they’re just as helpful today, if not more helpful, because we live in a much more distracted world.

Cheryl:

Absolutely.

Laura:

And we need to show the discipline of really pouring ourselves into the things that we care about most. If you were to look and take an audit of my time, that would be so scary. But if you were to take an audit of my time and then for a week, you followed me around with a pad and paper, or whatever, and then showed me what I had spent my time on, I wonder if I would say, “Oh yeah, those are the things I care the most about.”

Ann (11:23):

I don’t know if this is true for you, but it’s super easy for us to let our schedules squeeze in everything except for the person I married.

Dave (11:32):

Oh yeah.

Ann (11:33):

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Dave (11:45):

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Ann (11:56):

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Dave (12:02):

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Ann (12:03):

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Cheryl (12:24):

But I think it’s important for moms like you are of young children to understand that we do live life in seasons. And so you might not be in a season where you can get up at four or five in the morning.

Laura (12:35):

Yes, that’s so good.

Cheryl (12:35):

But you can’t—maybe take five minutes in the bathroom and close the door and say, “Everybody leave Mommy alone.” Or either of you on a commute to work. When I was driving to work, that’s what I used to do. I would turn the radio off. I would turn the air on and raise the windows or the heat on, depending. It is Detroit. So the heat on as well. And just spend that time with the Lord in prayer, in worship, talking, listening, reciting, meditating on scripture. So the Lord does understand the rhythms of the life that He has placed us, that He has set us in, the family that He has set us in. And I think that we can—the part of worshiping Him and reverencing Him is going to Him with that and saying, “Okay, this is my life, Lord. Help me to carve out time.

(13:27):

Show me where we can meet. Because I know it’s important to you and it’s important to me and I want to prioritize You. So help me do that.”

Laura (13:36):

Well, and it’s going to look different in different seasons of life.

Cheryl:

Absolutely.

Laura:

I remember as a mom with littles, and I remember trying to do the same kind of Bible studies that I did in college when I was singing. And then it’d be this thing where you—

Cheryl (13:51):

You were not married and didn’t have children.

Laura (13:52):

Yeah. You had to fill out 57 blanks, and I always felt so embarrassed. I’m showing up to these Bible studies without my blanks filled in, that blank shame. The empty blank shame, that’s what I called it. But yeah, it’s finding something that works for you. But the truth is no matter what season you’re in, what you’re beholding is what you’re becoming.

Cheryl (14:13):

Yes.

Laura (14:13):

And the scriptures tell us beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord and being transformed into that same image. And it works with Scripture, but it also works with other things. I think of people who listen to news 24/7, and you find that they end up being the most anxious people.

Cheryl (14:35):

Anxious, bitter. I actually had to turn the news off. I don’t watch it much anymore.

Laura (14:39):

And so just remembering that whatever. We’re all consuming something. We’re all beholding something. Just remember whatever it is that we are beholding the most, that is what we’re being conformed to. That’s what’s transforming us.

Cheryl (14:53):

This goes to something that you wrote in your book that I jotted down. You wrote, “We are finite beings who are subject to limitations. When we are tired, we need to sleep. When we are hungry, we need food. When we feel lonely, we need time with others as we accept and submit to the natural confines of our bodies.” And I would stretch that to our lives. We realize that God gives us limitations not to suppress us, but for our good. Refusing to submit to how He designed us to live will run us into the ground. Some of these things, especially the distraction part, I think is a refusal to submit to how He designed us. He designed us for rest. He designed us for time with him. He designed us to not live distracted, to not live self-focused. When we can’t see past the end of our noses, we miss so much of life and so much of other people.

(15:42):

He designed us to not live shallowly, but to live deeply so that we can live satisfied. He designed us in these ways to avoid these ditches. What are some practical things that we can do to kind of circumvent the things that you talked about?

Laura (15:58):

We talked about Sunday. I’ll kind of circle back to Sunday because I’m always thinking about Sunday.

Cheryl (16:05):

Sunday and it’s like, okay, now it’s time to think about Sunday again.

Laura (16:10):

I think part of what you were saying about the habit of spending time in God’s Word, and there’s nothing special about the morning hours. For me, it’s morning also. It’s not as early as you get up. But something about the morning in the same way that I probably wouldn’t walk out the door without ever looking in the mirror at myself in the morning. I hate whenever I have to walk out the door without kind of taking a look at my spiritual self as well. And when we go to God’s Word, I think specifically in the mornings, but it really could be any time. But for me in the mornings, I’m reminded of who I am.

(16:53):

Meaning that I don’t walk into my first meeting of the day starved for attention and identity from the things I’m about to achieve or not achieve. I’m reminded who I am. I’m reminded who God is. And the fact that He is both worthy of my best work, as well as the fact that Jesus has achieved my security and significance upon the cross. God, because of what Christ has done, God looks at me and says, “This is my beloved child in whom I’m well pleased.” I can walk out the door, and I just face life differently. I’m reminded of the world that He’s called me to be salt and light to. I’m reminded of the children that I am called to love, not strangle. Okay. Yeah. So one way to revere God really is just that time in His Word. There’s so many other things I can say.

(17:55):

I’ll talk a little bit about Sunday. It’s choosing churches that seek to grow us in reverence. If you’re walking into a church and they are making you the focal point of your spiritual life, that is probably not a good thing for you or for the church.

Cheryl (18:13):

Okay. That came out of your mouth so easily. But can I tell you, as somebody that is looking for a new church home right now, that is not easy to do. How do you even begin to ascertain? You can’t do that on one’s service. And you go back and back and back and you’re like, okay, there seems to be a theme here and the theme isn’t Jesus. So now I got to go find another. How do you even begin to do something like that?

Laura (18:43):

I’ll tell you about a friend of mine, my friend Jeanie. So she and I were working together at the church when her husband, Mark, was diagnosed with cancer. And

(18:54):

Mark ended up going on about a year later, went on to be with the Lord. And it was sweet to see her love him so well during that. And I remember going to her at some point and saying, “We want to know what we can do. What can we do? Can we bring meals? Can we help with kids’ rides? What can we do?” And what she said to me was, she said, “Laura, you’re already doing it.” She said, “You are choosing songs week after week that talk about God’s goodness in the midst of suffering, that point our eyes to God’s kingdom, which is longer lasting than what we have here on this earth.” And several other things that she said. But to take that a little bit further, we’re not the kind of church that says, “Oh, we’re not going to sing this person.” We get songs from wherever, but we really want it to be our songs to be consistent with the teachings of the scripture.

(19:50):

And even in the amount, in the proportions that the scriptures speak about different things. For instance—

Cheryl (20:02):

So we’re not going to always talk about suffering and we’re not always, yeah.

Laura (20:04):

Exactly. But I think about, because we do believe that God is a miracle worker.

Cheryl (20:11):

Yes, He is.

Laura (20:11):

And we believe that He can—think about our story. He can heal my husband’s brain injury with the snap of a finger. He has not done that yet. And so I love singing songs about the miracle that I am believing God for. But if that’s the only thing we’re singing, am I truly reverencing God in a way that leaves that decision up to him? Because that really is what faith is.

Cheryl (20:40):

That really is, isn’t it? I think you need to say that louder for the people in the back. It is not believing God for what you want.

Laura (20:46):

Exactly.

Cheryl (20:47):

It is believing God. Point blank and period.

Laura (20:49):

Yeah. Yeah. Or one thing that we do at our church, every opening song is about the Lord, who He is and what He’s done. And I know that sounds like, well, that’s pretty obvious. But I’ve gone into a church before and our opening song was, I’m going to sing, I’m going to praise, I’m going to da, da, da. Which is again, nothing wrong with that.

Cheryl:

Fine, fine. Right.

Laura:

But it’s a response. And it’s like, no, no, no. We need to begin with what God has done. And then we can respond as His people.

Cheryl (21:20):

That’s good.

Laura (21:20):

As His people who will praise Him either way.

Cheryl (21:23):

That’s good.

Laura (21:24):

Whether He parts the Red Sea for me today or not, I’m going to praise Him either way.

Cheryl (21:28):

What I hear you saying that some of the workaround or the reroute to avoid these ditches is really just saying to God that you’re good.

(21:41):

I believe it. And no matter what happens in my life, that has to remain sacrosanct. I always say like this in my mind, that God is exceedingly holy and He’s infinitely good and that doesn’t change.

Laura:

Amen.

Cheryl:

It doesn’t change, period. And if I can begin from that standpoint, then we can go from there. I had a doctor’s appointment a few, I want to say, I think it was like two months ago or something. And my doctor and I, we had a come to Jesus moment. And she’s like, “Okay girl, this is what you’re going to have to do because you have all of these things and you want to be healthy for those. So these are the things that you have to do.” So I took out a Sharpie and a sticky note and I wrote on there, “What would a healthy woman do?” And I put it on my mirror in the bathroom.

(22:26):

So every day as I’m walking out, when you talked about the scripture, it’s like, “Oh, okay, what am I going to do today as a healthy woman?” I think something very practical that people can do is what would a reverent person do? What would a worshiping person do?

Laura:

Oh, I like that.

Cheryl:

What would someone who wants to honor God today do? And just stick it on your bathroom mirror. And that’s the last thing you see when you walk out of your bathroom and it’s a reminder that you are living as a forgiven, a grace empowered, beloved, chosen, holy child of God, of a Father who is holy, worthy of praise, worthy of attention, worthy of devotion, worthy of all of those things. I think that is one very practical thing that someone could do.

Laura (23:10):

Oh, I love that. I’m going to do that.

Cheryl (23:12):

Please. Yeah. Take that. Well, as you were talking, I was like, “Oh yeah, I can do this. This is one thing that I can do.” Yeah. So you mentioned a couple of times your family story. How does reverencing God inform the way you love and support and just be a wife to your husband through his circumstances?

Laura (23:37):

When I meet with women or men who are walking through something hard that it doesn’t seem like God is going to fix this side of heaven. And people ask me all the time, “So do you not pray for Martin’s healing anymore?” And I’m like, “Absolutely, I pray for his healing. I just trust that God knows better than I do.” And I think that’s a big part of reverence is saying the prayer of Jesus in the garden. If you can let this cup pass from me, let’s do it. Let’s do it.

Cheryl:

Let’s do that.

Laura (24:10):

But nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Those seven words really sum up reverence. Not my will, but yours be done.

Dave (24:23):

Boy, what a great discussion. And this is just the beginning.

Ann (24:28):

And I can’t wait for tomorrow because Cheryl’s going to have a discussion with Laura Story, and we’ll continue on this topic.

Dave (24:34):

In the meantime, check out the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com for links to all the resources discussed in today’s episode.

Ann (24:45):

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