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Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.
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Today I get to introduce you to Jonna Harkness. Jonna is both the women's ministry director and biblical counseling director for the church where her husband is the head pastor, Harvest Peoria. Jonna has been married to Tim for 24 years. She's the mother of two adult daughters and a new son-in-law, although, through all of this, she will share how her true identity is as a child of God.
Today we get to hear her story of spiritual growth through various seasons. We learn where to start praying scripture over our family, and she shares some incredible examples of powerful stories she and her husband taught their two daughters. I hope you enjoy this chat. [00:01:54]
Welcome to the Savvy Sauce, Jonna. Thanks for joining us today.
Jonna Harkness: Thanks for having me.
Laura Dugger: Well, for anybody who's listening and doesn't know you already, we'd all want to get to know you better. So can you just share what your life was like before becoming a Christian?
Jonna Harkness: Well, I actually became a Christian when I was seven years old, so my life was pretty tame, I would suppose. Although I did grow up in a kind of a difficult situation. So even though I became a Christian at a young age, the home that I grew up in with my mom and my stepfather, they didn't take me to church.
So I started by taking a bus to church. And then as I got older, I would go with friends. And so even though I became a Christian at a young age, it was kind of a weird situation because I wasn't living in a Christian home.
Laura Dugger: Okay, so you piqued my interest. You started taking a bus to church. How did you even find out about a church that was available?
Jonna Harkness: Well, actually, I think a friend of mine was taking the bus, so I took it also. [00:02:58] I think my sister... I actually recently asked my sister how she ended up becoming a Christian, and she did the same thing, but we didn't go together. I know that's kind of crazy.
My parents divorced when I was a year old. They met at Bible school. When they divorced, my mom was really kind of hurt by, felt like the church had let her down in a way, or Christianity had let her down. My dad continued going to church and stuff, but they were like a thousand miles apart.
I mean, literally, my dad lived in a state so far away from us. So I only saw him mostly during the summer. But when I was with him, he would take us to church. It was very evangelical. Southern Baptist, you know, so I heard the gospel from him and I saw the life that he had and it seemed like such a calm environment, which of course wasn't perfect. But you don't know that when you're a kid. [00:03:59]
But I thought, well, I want to know this Jesus, too. That's actually how I was interested in knowing Jesus as my Savior. And then went to the church, and it was a Baptist church, and they presented the gospel in Sunday school, and I said I wanted to receive Jesus as my Savior.
Laura Dugger: Wow, that's incredible. Seven years old. If you're looking back, how did your life change from that point forward?
Jonna Harkness: Well, I would love to say that my life was perfect from that point forward, but we had a rough situation. My mom married a man who had been to Vietnam and was not a believer and his father was an alcoholic. And so there was a lot of hard stuff that went on in our home. It was a very volatile situation.
They separated several times. The first time was when I was nine. Then when I was 15, they divorced. They remarried again when I was 16, and then when I was 17, they divorced again.
So on the one hand, I would say that my life... I don't know if I would have survived if I didn't have the Lord. But on the other hand, I made a lot of bad decisions. [00:05:16] I was hurting and felt like even the Lord didn't really want me and that my salvation was a mistake. That He was kind of like, well, you prayed the prayer, so I'll let you in, but don't bother me. That was kind of my view of God.
The amazing thing is that God never stopped loving me and proving that that wasn't true. My sophomore year of college, I had gone to visit my old youth pastor. So when they divorced the first time... I grew up in Florida, and they divorced the first time we moved to Illinois. I started going to church. When you grow up in a situation where you're not going to church with your family, you always feel a little bit like an outsider anyway. But there I felt welcomed.
But my sophomore year of college, I was visiting my youth pastor and he told me that if I had died when my mom and my step dad divorced the second time, that I would have gone to hell because I got angry with God when it happened. And I believed him, which was really dumb. [00:06:26] I tell people I believed a man over the Word of God.
God used those next several years to show me that it wasn't the case. Scripture does clearly say that when you receive Jesus as your Savior, you have the Holy Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing your inheritance with him, and there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and so many other scriptures.
Some people will say, are you angry with him that he said that? And my answer is no, because I really believe that God used that moment to throw my life out of kilter so that I would stop living a roller coaster life. Over the next couple of years, I questioned God and wrote down all my questions and through a series of several things that happened, God proved to me who He was, which He had no responsibility to do that, no obligation, but He just loves us. I was not entitled to that, but He gave it anyway. [00:07:34]
The day before I graduated from college, I turned my heart back over to Him and I've pretty much never... I mean, I've messed up since, but I've never turned away from the Lord since. My life verse is from 2 Corinthians 5:14. It says, "The love of Christ controls us." And my prayer is that His love would... We haven't quite achieved that yet, but my prayer is that His love will be what motivates me in all that I do.
It goes on to say that we would no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who died and gave Himself for us. So my prayer is that I would live for Him, which means that He's going to be part of every aspect of my life.
Laura Dugger: That scripture is so powerful. If somebody's listening today and they want to find or identify their own life verse, could you share with them what your process looked like or any recommendations you would have?
Jonna Harkness: You know, I just have a love for God's word and I believe that that is one of the most important things we could possibly do with our lives is know his word. I don't know science great, I don't have good grammar and there's a lot I don't know, but I definitely want to be so knowledgeable of His word. [00:08:55]
For someone who's looking for a life verse, I would say we're really fortunate in this day and age to have Google. There are so many times I type in what does scripture say about dot, dot, dot. So, if there is something that you really want to focus on in your own walk with the Lord, Google scripture about that subject and you'll find tons of scripture that will line up with that.
When one really, really hits you and you feel like, wow, if I could have this be what defines me by the end of my life, that people could say this about me, then that would be the verse you would choose.
Laura Dugger: I love that. You gives us something so practical that we can all go home and do today. Let's just look through your spiritual walk. So you became a Christian when you were seven, walked us through a little bit of that, really turning your full heart over even in college. And then you got married. How did you grow spiritually as a newlywed? [00:09:57]
Jonna Harkness: Well, I think you really need the Lord as a newlywed. You know, I think one of the best-kept secrets is that the first year of marriage can be one of the hardest years. I think so many people, they don't want anybody to know that it's hard. And marriage is hard. You're two sinners living in the same home.
For Tim and me, my husband's name is Tim, we were both fighters. I came from a pretty rough background, he came from a very good home, where his dad was an elder in the church, his parents had been married for 55 years now. And he had been through difficult circumstances, but not from blow-ups in his home. But we were two sinners living in the same home, and still are after 24 years.
So it was probably that I needed to rely on the Lord in order to learn to love him well. And I'm still needing to do that. If he were sitting right here, he might say, yes, she has a little bit more work to do. But learning to get on my knees before the Lord, literally get on my knees before the Lord, and beg Him for help. [00:11:12]
Like I said, I really believed that God didn't want me. That carried through. I mean, I think today, when I get up, there are many times where I struggle with thinking that God's angry with me or disappointed in me, and it's something I have to lay before Him every day.
I am a runner, and I had big problems with my ankles where I had to wear braces on my ankles for about seven months. I obviously couldn't run during that time. And even though I'm not in braces anymore and I'm running again, I still wake up every day with tight ankles. I have to loosen them up so that I can walk around. And once I get them loosened, I'm fine. And I compare that to I wake up every day with a hard heart and it needs to be loosened up.
For me, and this may not be true for everybody, but for me, part of having a hard heart is waking up feeling that God isn't happy with me or doesn't love me or whatever. And so I immediately have to start speaking the truth of his word from the moment I get up. I have to hand that over to the Lord and start speaking the truth of His word over what my feelings are. And that softens my heart so that I can give Him the rest of the day. Throughout the day, I need to continue to speak truth. [00:12:36]
But that definitely affected my marriage early on, and probably continues even to today, although it's tons better than it was back then. But when my husband told me he loved me, I didn't hear it. I thought, for me, that it just didn't mean anything to me. And so learning to be able to receive his love and accept that when he says he loves me, He means it.
And learning to be able to pray for him, and to pray scripture for him, and to give our relationship to the Lord. I do have a scripture that I pray for us. I pray lots of scripture for us, but there's one particular passage that I pray that our... I guess if you could choose the life verse for our marriage, the hope and prayer that I have for our marriage, it's Romans 15:5-6, and it says, "May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." That's my prayer for our marriage. So that's kind of where I've headed. [00:13:47]
I know a lot of people, a lot of women think, well, if we're not praying together at every moment and we're not studying scripture together all the time, then we can't have a spiritually strong home. To some people's displeasure, I've pointed out the fact that the Bible doesn't require us to pray together as a husband and wife.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't. We absolutely should. And I believe very strongly in that. But if your husband is not praying with you, it does not mean that God can't be glorified. A lot of women also feel like, well, their relationship with God can't be strong unless their husband's relationship with God is strong. But we are individuals. My relationship with God is not dependent on my husband's relationship with God.
So it's really important for us, I believe, to not put the responsibility of our relationship with God on our husbands, though they are responsible. They stand before God and answer for it. But that's their issue, not ours as women. I just think it's really important for us to recognize that our relationship with God is something that we can pursue no matter what our husband's relationship with God looks like. [00:15:05]
Laura Dugger: That makes sense and frees us up to pursue Him wherever we're at.
Jonna Harkness: Absolutely.
Laura Dugger: So then a little bit of a follow-up to that. Do you feel like you and Tim were instantly growing the same way together?
Jonna Harkness: No, not at all. I would say it was different. Tim has always had a huge passion for God's Word. He was an engineer for a total of 17 years. So probably about 13 of that was our marriage, and then he became a pastor.
I would say early on, though he taught in the church and we were very faithful to go to church, it was a little bit more mechanical or more head knowledge for him. He'll tell you he grew up in a more of a legalistic environment in his church and so it was you just know the Bible and you do the right thing. Somewhere along the way his passion for the Lord grew to where he understood that it's about worship.
His first phrase that he said as the senior pastor of our church was, it's not about my comfort, it's about my King. And that was the first time I had ever heard anything like that. And that was 10 years ago. It was like the Holy Spirit just jumped inside of me. It was like, yes, that's exactly right. It's not about my comfort. It's about my King. [00:16:28]
So where he was always much more solid in integrity and just knew the right thing to do, but maybe didn't have that passion for the Lord early on. I had an extreme passion for the Lord, but I did really dumb things all the time and said dumb things, and put my foot in my mouth constantly. Sometimes I've gone back to him and said, now, why did you marry me? So he said, because I always knew that you had a desire to follow the Lord, so I knew that He was going to work all that stuff out in you. He's still working it out, but it's gotten a lot better than it was.
Laura Dugger: And you're not giving yourself any credit. For everybody who knows Jonna, she's so loving and just presents this peace and calm and so many wonderful things we see.
Jonna Harkness: Thank you.
Laura Dugger: What are some tips then, for somebody who is listening, maybe they're a newlywed and they're not on the same page right now? So do you have any suggestions or best practices that you've learned to help them move in that direction? [00:17:31]
Jonna Harkness: Yeah. The first thing is I would say pursue your own relationship with the Lord and pray for your husband and pray scripture for your husband. With biblical counseling, I talk to a lot of women who they get angry with their husbands for not being the man they expect them to be. And I'll ask them, are you praying for him? And they'll say, no, or I don't want to, or I'm praying things that I probably shouldn't pray or, you know, whatever. But they're not dealing with their own heart, they're just judging their husband's heart.
I would say, make sure you're seeking the Lord, you're pursuing that relationship with the Lord first. Then praying scripture for your husband. A great scripture you can pray for your husband is 1 Corinthians 16:13-14. And it says, "Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let everything you do be done in love." That is a scripture that I pray for my husband. I pray for my daughter's husband. I've been praying that for my other daughter's husband that we don't know who he is yet. But I'm praying that that's who God is making him to be right now. [00:18:43]
It just covers everything, that they would do it in love, that they'll act like a man of God, that they'll be strong, that they'll be watchful so they don't fall into temptation, standing firm in their faith so they're men of integrity. That's something that we can pray for our husbands. We don't have to sit there and judge them if that's not who they are right now, but entrust him to the Lord and let God lead him.
If he is a guy who's pursuing the Lord, then celebrate that and thank him and encourage him in those things and appreciate that in him. Look for the ways that you can be building him up rather than tearing him down.
There are a lot of times that we have expectations of what it should be, and so we live with resentment because they haven't met an expectation. But if you look in scripture, the only expectation that we can have is that the Lord will fulfill His promises. [00:19:44]
But when we're looking at other people, we can't expect things of them. And even with the expectation that the Lord will fulfill His promises, it's in the way He chooses to do, not the way we expect Him to do. The other thing with that, this might be where I sound a little bit old-fashioned, but I think it is the husband's role to lead in that. And if he's not leading in that, our job is not to stay quiet, but to share our hearts and then entrust it to the Lord.
Laura Dugger: Could you give examples or stories to illustrate what that would look like? Kind of what you're saying it is and what it isn't.
Jonna Harkness: Yeah. So I'll have to give somebody else's story. There's a woman that I'm friends with. She's married to a man who's not a believer. She became a Christian just in the last couple of years. It's been amazing to watch her just embrace God's word.
She realized that she was angry with her husband, that she was always criticizing him. She went to him and she apologized for that, and she started just loving him. [00:20:55] She asked him to come to church with her. At first, she kind of pushed him and said, "You have to come to church. I'm getting baptized. You have to come." He was really put off by that and said, "Don't shove your stuff down my throat," so she realized that she needed to back off.
One time she went to him and she said to him, "I want you to know that I love you and this is truly what I believe about the Bible and I want you to be in heaven with me. My prayer is that you're going to believe this to be true, but now I'm just going to pray for you."
He ended up coming to church with her soon after that. He's come a couple times, still not there, still praying for his salvation. But we continue to pray and see what the Lord's going to do in his life. But I know that he's a lot closer with her showing him love than he was with her badgering him.
1 Peter 3, right after it says about not reviling and not threatening but entrusting to the Lord, in chapter 3 it says, "Likewise wives, submit to your husbands so that even if they don't obey the word, they can be one without a word when they see your pure and respectful conduct." [00:22:19]
So truly, as much as we think it's our words that are going to make the difference, we think we're in control, if we can say enough words, then we can impact and make the difference. And it's really us stepping back and saying, Lord, I'm leaving you to work on his heart, and I'm going to treat him with love and respect. And I'm going to pray for him.
When the moments arise, I'm going to pray for opportunities to maybe share what God's teaching me or to say, "Hey, would you like to come to church with me this Sunday? This is a special day because of whatever." And then if he says no, then you let it go. And if he says yes, then you don't pounce on him with excitement. And it's hard. It is so hard.
I mean, it's even hard for a marriage when your husband is a believer and he goes to church, but he's not really walking closely with the Lord. So even more so when you have this passion for the Lord and he knows nothing about it. So it's understandable that it's hard.
Also to have other women that you can go to that are going to pray for you and pray for him that aren't going to say, "You're right, he's a jerk, he should (whatever)," but are going to say, "let's look at what the Bible says, let's pray about this, let's see how we can honor God in this, and are going to call you to higher ground." [00:23:40]
Laura Dugger: You've also mentioned, not only are you married, you're also a mom. So going back a little bit, how did your life change spiritually, maybe some of the new challenges and joys that came along once you had daughters?
Jonna Harkness: Okay, well, I was scared to death that I was going to be a terrible mom. It was really interesting because I had a big temper and I got angry when they were little. I started just begging the Lord. to change my heart. I really don't believe we can change ourselves.
2 Corinthians 3 clearly says, in verses 16 through 18, that it's the Holy Spirit who transforms us and that we can't transform ourselves. So I started going to the Lord and saying, Lord, I want to love my girls. I started praying also... I love scripture. I started praying Zephaniah 3:17 for them. It says, "The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He delights in you greatly. He quiets you with His love. He rejoices over you with singing."
And I said, "Lord, if that's who you are with me, will you help me to be that with my daughters?" [00:24:51] So I started praying that I would delight in them rather than getting angry with them, that I would quiet them with my love and not my anger, and I would rejoice over them with singing. And God began to work in my heart.
When they were a little bit older, we ended up homeschooling them and I kind of say, "You know, God uses marriage to make you holy, then He gives you children, and then you're going to be really holy." And then if He has you homeschool, which I am not the typical homeschooling mom at all, so I was like, "This is crazy." But I really believed that God was leading us there. When we started homeschooling, you're with them 24 hours a day, and you have a responsibility to get your heart right with God.
So I started wearing scripture around my neck that when I was starting to lose it, I would lift it up and I would read it, and my kids would laugh at me. I'd say, "You can laugh, but this is saving your life." I just really handed it over to the Lord. [00:25:52]
I mean, you have a responsibility to cooperate with the Lord and when He's leading you to follow. But it was really interesting because it was after we moved here. My oldest was 12, my youngest was 9 when we moved here. And we were driving down the road somewhere, and I think it was maybe a year after we moved here, and I started talking to my girls about what God had done in our lives, and I started to cry.
And I said, "I'm so sorry for how angry I would get with you." My oldest daughter said, "Mom, I don't remember that." I just wanted to bawl and praise the Lord, because I really thought that my kids would grow up and resent me for the anger that I had had. Because taking them to the grocery store when they're little, I think you should get extra jewels in your crown if you can make it through without getting frustrated. And the Lord worked in my heart and helped me to overcome the anger. So I was just so grateful for what He had done. [00:27:01]
He definitely has used my kids every step of the way. Even now that we're kind of empty nesters, we still have one in college and she's home during the summers or breaks, but we're pretty much empty nesters. Even now, learning to rely on Him as a parent because everything has changed.
My daughter got married a week ago and I have to learn to let her have her new life with her husband. She has to leave and cleave to him. And I can't speak in the way I did five years ago. I had to start learning that even before they went away to college. We called it the release plan, that we had to prepare our kids so that when they did go away, they weren't all of a sudden like, "Oh, now I have all this freedom."
So we had to move towards that freedom by giving them a little bit as time went on and helping build trust, hoping to instill a love for the Lord in them and help them to learn to transfer their dependence on us to a dependence on the Lord. That was our goal — not to teach them to be independent, but to depend on the Lord rather than depending on us. [00:28:15]
It sounds great, but learning to now not speak in when I see something, or not be... my daughter just got home from her honeymoon and she's sick, and not run over there and say, "What can I do to help?" And recognize that I have to let them work it out. So every step of the way I have to lean on the Lord and trust Him and ask Him to give me direction.
The scripture that I took to heart when we started homeschooling is one that I continue every step of the way. It's Isaiah 42:16. It says, "I will lead the blind in ways they have not known; in paths they have not known, I will guide them. I will make the darkness as light before them and the rough places smooth. These are the things that I do and I do not forsake them." Obviously, that's God speaking.
I have felt blind as a mother every step of the way, and so I need Him to lead me. I need to recognize that my identity is not in being a mom or being a women's ministry director or being a pastor's wife. My identity is being a child of God. And that's the only thing that's never going to change. [00:29:28]
Laura Dugger: Wow. I think so many of us will relate to feeling blind in whatever phase we're in right now. I relate to the mom.
Jonna Harkness: Yeah. I always used to say you dream of being a mom and then you become one and you feel like a failure pretty much the rest of your life.
Laura Dugger: And now a brief message from our sponsor.
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Laura Dugger: That's even encouraging in an odd way that you're still learning even as your children have left the nest. Looking back to the times that they were with you, does anything stand out, or maybe a lesson that you taught your daughters you could share with us?
Jonna Harkness: Yeah. My oldest daughter, Megan, was the type that if you say, this is the line, don't cross the line, she would go as close to the line as possible and kind of look at you like, This line? My other daughter was like, Oh, if that's the line, I'm five feet the other direction. I'm not going anywhere near that line. [00:31:38] But Megan was a little bit of a challenge.
So, I remember I was riding my bike one day and I was praying about it and I was saying, "Lord, she just isn't listening to me. I don't know what to do." I don't hear God audibly, but I just heard, I guess in my heart, the Lord say, "Well, why should you expect her to listen to you when you don't listen to me?" And I was like, "But it's so hard. I can't do it without your help."
Then immediately the scripture came to my mind from John 15 that says, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me, apart from me, you can do nothing." And I was like, "Yeah, I can't do it." So how is it that I've been expecting her to do it without the Lord's strength? I haven't taught her to ask the Lord for help. I've just disciplined her and expected behavior modification, which without heart change, that means nothing. It's like a Nerf ball that you squeeze. But as soon as they're away from you, the Nerf ball opens up and they're just going to be who they were. [00:32:38] So we have to go after heart change, even with our kids.
I got back from the bike ride and my daughter was sitting with my husband up in our bed. She had just woken up and climbed into bed with him. And I said, "Megan, I need to apologize to you. I have been expecting you to behave me just in your own strength, but I can't even do that in my own strength." I showed her the verse in John 15:5, and we had a plant, a philodendron in our room, and I said, "Okay, we're going to pull one of these leaves off of this plant, and we're going to set it right next to it and we're going to see if it turns green or stays green or turns black or what happens.
So every day we would go and look and it's not part of the branch. It's separated from the branch, but it's still sitting next to it. And we would look and it wasn't changing. It was staying green. It was about two weeks later... Now, I kill plants so easily. I couldn't believe it took so long.
About two weeks after that, there was just this little dot in the plant, or in the leaf. We looked at it, and then still kept coming back, and it took about two months before that leaf turned completely black. And I said, you know what, Megan, this is an even bigger lesson for me, because we can think that we're doing just fine because we still look good on the outside, but we're not getting any better, and our heart will turn black eventually. So it's really, really important that we stay close to the Lord, no matter how it looks right now. [00:34:20] And she's never forgotten that.
And honestly, one other thing that happened. This wasn't me. This was my husband. It was Easter. She was five years old and she had just kind of been in a yucky mood all morning. We had gone to church and we came back and she was still being naughty. We didn't spank a lot, but this was one time where He said, "Megan, I want you to go up to your room and I'm going to be up there in a little bit." And she said, "Am I going to get spanking?" And he said, "We're going to talk about it."
So he waited a little bit and he went up there and he said, "you know what, Megan, this is Easter. This is the day that we celebrate that Jesus rose again because He gave Himself for us. So I'm not going to spank you today. I want you to spank me." And she started to cry. And she's like, "Daddy, I can't spank you." And he said, "Honey, you need to see what Jesus did for you."
And he said, "I want you to spank me as hard as you can." She finally, after some coaxing, she spanked him, but it wasn't hard. And he said, "It didn't hurt, Megan. You need to spank me hard." So she just broke down crying and she spanked him really hard and then she fell in his arms and he held her and he said, "This is what Jesus did for us." [00:35:42]
She was completely a different person the rest of the day. But even today, if you were to ask her about that, she's 21 years old and she remembers that and what a huge impact it had on her to know that God took her punishment.
Laura Dugger: And you can't see, now I'm tearing up just hearing that. It's so powerful.
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So Jonna, now as a parent of adults who are, like you said, pretty much out of the house, one who still comes back in the summers, how are you growing spiritually in this season? [00:36:51]
Jonna Harkness: I guess I'm gonna sound like a broken record. I spend time with the Lord every day. I really work to not compartmentalize Him so that this is my time with you Lord and now I'll let you know if I need you again. But He's the center.
I think one of the biggest things is I have to recognize that my identity is in Him and in nothing else and no one else. For a long time I was a homeschooling mom, and now I'm not a homeschooling mom. Right now I'm a pastor's wife, but there's going to be a day where he's not going to be pastor anymore. So I have to learn to lean on Him.
One thing that God has done over the years that's just kind of amazing. When I was pregnant with my oldest, Megan, I found out that my liver and kidneys weren't working properly and I almost died with her. I was in the hospital, which she was five weeks early, she was fine, everything worked out great. [00:37:54]
But I was in the hospital and the pastor that married Tim and I, who was from his home church came to visit me in the hospital and he said, "You know, it's just like the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They said, "We will serve the Lord no matter what, even if He doesn't save us, we're going to serve Him and worship him." And I was like, "Leave my room." I wanted to throw something at him. I want my baby to be okay and I want to live. But I didn't say a word to him. I just looked at him, but I'm like, where's the closest object that I can throw at him?
Then when I got pregnant with my second daughter, they said that most likely I wouldn't have the same thing happen, but it did, but it wasn't as severe. The week that I found out, actually the day that I found out that I had the same problem with her, I was in a Bible study and we were studying the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And I was like, Okay, it's gonna be okay. [00:38:53]
Fast forward to five years ago, my husband was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor that was affecting his hormones, and he was like a 95-year-old man. All of his hormones were collapsing, and he was starting to go blind because it was pushing up against his optic chiasm. And he got up in front of the church to tell them that he was going to have to have surgery. He found out on his birthday that he had the tumor, and two weeks later he was having surgery to have it removed.
He got up in front of the church and he said, it's the same words that Matt Chandler said about his brain tumor, "My God can, my God will, and even if He doesn't, I will worship Him," which is the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego story. And I was like, "But Lord, I'm not ready to say 'and even if he doesn't'." And I was like, "Lord, just my God can and my God will. Let's go with that."
He did get through the surgery and he was fine and they thought they had gotten at least most of it. But about a year later, we found out or I guess two years later, we found out that it had grown back and it was almost to the size that it was the first time. So it had to be taken out pretty quickly. [00:40:11] He got up in front of the church and he said, "My God can, my God will, and even if He doesn't, I will worship Him."
At that point, I was able to say, "Yes, that's where I am." In December, almost three years after, we found out that the tumor is growing back and he will be having surgery again in April to have it removed. And we are still in a place where we can gladly say, "My God can, my God will, and even if He doesn't, we will worship Him."
So, I think God's taken us through enough that I realize that He's not going to leave our side when things are hard. He's going to let us go through some hard times, and we don't understand that because He has the power to stop it, but He also will walk through every step of the way with us.
And when I look at what He's done in my life, to mention what He's done in my girls lives and in my husband's life, but just for my life teaching me that my God can and He will. And even if He doesn't I can worship Him because He is still my strength and He is still my Salvation and He is still gonna walk through every step of the way with me and be my peace. [00:41:35]
Laura Dugger: Wow. That transparency is just beautiful and I think something that each of us can do today, no matter where we're at listening to this podcast or where it finds us. God works outside of time and we can all be praying and lifting up you and Tim in this process.
Jonna Harkness: Oh, thank you.
Laura Dugger: Thank you for sharing. Looking back, what do you wish that you would have done in all of these seasons?
Jonna Harkness: I wish I would have laid down pride, truly. If there's anything that I could get rid of in my life, it would be pride. I think that my pride got me into trouble because when you are proud, you push people away. I would defend myself rather than looking necessarily at what's true. But when you're proud, you think that it is true.
So God has used all of the experiences that I've been through over the years to continue to humble me, and he's still working on that in me. I'm thankful that I'm not as prideful and proud as I was 20 years ago, but He still has some work to do. [00:42:46] But if I could remove that, I think it would have saved me and others a lot of heartache.
Laura Dugger: That's such an insidious sin that we maybe aren't aware of in ourselves. I definitely relate.
Jonna Harkness: I remember Beth Moore had this poem that she wrote about pride where it's all these things. I will damage you in all of these different ways. And at the very end, she said, but don't worry, if you stick with me, you'll never know. Because the person who's proud, they think it's everybody else. So learning to recognize that I need to deal with my own crud and not just point the finger at others.
Laura Dugger: Turning it on a positive side as you look back at all these seasons, what are you so glad that you did then that you're reaping the benefits of now?
Jonna Harkness: I am so glad that I never turned away from the Lord. That truly is what I can be thankful for. I'm so glad I had a husband who never gave up on me, that never walked away from our marriage. [00:43:56] He's always stuck in there. When we would get into fights, which we are pretty good fighters, which I don't recommend, he would never let it go like going days without talking or anything. We're gonna get it resolved. And I'm so grateful for that.
But what I'm most grateful is that God gave me the strength to keep going back to Him no matter what I didn't believe, no matter how much I struggled, I believed that if I wasn't following Him exactly as His Word said, it was because my heart was wrong and not because His Word was wrong. So I continued to pursue, and gratefully, He continued to draw near to me.
Laura Dugger: Love it.
Jonna Harkness: The truth and the scripture you've shared, it's just been a treasure today. We're going to end on a fun note, as we always do. We're called Savvy for a reason because "savvy" means practical knowledge or discernment. So, Jonna, as our final question today, what is your savvy sauce? [00:45:07]
Jonna Harkness: Okay, well, my first thought is what's the one thing that you want to go after? Pick one small thing to do rather than trying to make some drastic change in your life as an overall statement. But because I have such a love for the word And I believe that God reveals so much to us, in Psalm 19 it says that His word enlightens us, and it brings joy to our heart, and it makes us wise, and just this huge list of things that God does through His word.
So I would say, start to memorize scripture. There is an app that you can get on your phone. There are many apps, I'm sure, but there's one called Versus. And every morning while I'm making my tea, I have a list of verses that I'm memorizing. While I'm making my tea, I'm not a coffee drinker, but if you make coffee, you could do that too, I just go through. It takes about five minutes, and I just go through scripture on this Versus app that I'm learning to memorize.
It starts by having you first tap to reveal the verses, the words, and then listen to it, and then fill in blanks. It's called Word Bank, to where you fill in blanks for words, and it's for each level, it takes more words out. And then you type it out, the beginning of each word, just type the first letter and it puts the word in. [00:46:33] I've memorized quite a bit of scripture doing that.
Then every once in a while I'll go back and go over scriptures that I've memorized. But what amazes me as I'm memorizing scripture is verses that I think I know, that I've had memorized, I'll realize a facet of the scripture that I hadn't caught by just reading it. Even if I knew it really well, even if I had it memorized going over it... There something sticks out at me that the Lord wants to reveal to me that it's not like taking it out of context or anything. But the principles of scripture are true no matter what but the application to our lives changes based on what we're going through.
So when I'm going through different scriptures, I just see facets of them that I hadn't caught before. So I would say, pick an app from your phone. We're so fortunate to have apps that we can put on and technology today that will help us with some of these things. And so I would say, get that Versus app and start memorizing scripture one little bit at a time.
Laura Dugger: Awesome. That's amazing. Great idea. Something we can download right now. This time has just been so helpful to me and I hope to everybody listening. So thank you for your time and thanks for coming today.
Jonna Harkness: Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. [00:47:56]
Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners and God is perfect and holy, so He cannot be in the presence of sin. Therefore, we're separated from Him.
This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute.
This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. [00:49:01]
We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
So would you pray with me now? Heavenly, Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change their lives now for eternity. In Jesus name, we pray, amen.
If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him, you get the opportunity to live your life for Him. [00:49:55]
At this podcast, we are called Savvy for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you're ready to get started?
First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision my parents took me to Barnes and Noble to get the Quest NIV Bible and I love it. Start by reading the book of John.
Get connected locally, which basically means just tell someone who is part of the church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.
We want to celebrate with you too. So feel free to leave a comment for us if you made a decision for Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process.
Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. [00:51:01]
If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.
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