A Different Perspective Official Podcast Podcast Por Berni Dymet arte de portada

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

De: Berni Dymet
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God has a habit of wanting to speak right into the circumstances that we're travelling through here and now; the very issues that we each face in our everyday lives. Everything from dealing with difficult people … to discovering how God speaks to us; from overcoming stress … to discovering your God-given gifts and walking in the calling that God has placed on your life And that's what these daily 10 minute A Different Perspective messages are all about.Christianityworks Cristianismo Espiritualidad Ministerio y Evangelismo
Episodios
  • Afraid of the Dark // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 1

    Afraid of the Dark // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 1
    Feb 23 2026
    When you're travelling through those dark patches in life – what you discover so often is that you're afraid of the dark. Fear is a big deal in hard times. And each one of us needs to know what to do about it. We're starting a new series of messages on the program this week, a series that I've called, "Dark Night, Bright Light". I wonder what the word dark or darkness means to you? Darkness has all sorts of connotations when we apply it to our own lives. I remember when I was a young boy, even probably well into my teenage years, I was truly afraid of the dark. At night after dinner in the dining room in the house where we lived it was what seemed like a long corridor to my bedroom, it was only 8 or 9 metres but when the corridor was dark, I tell you, it was a long scary way and I was afraid to walk from the light dining room into that dark corridor to my dark bedroom. Now we were blessed because there was a light switch at either end of the corridor, at the dining room end and at the end where my bedroom was and I always, always used that light switch. Now don't get me wrong, we lived in a safe part of town and the house was secure so there was no logical or rational reason to be afraid of the dark, I just was and it was a very real fear. It seems that darkness and fear often go together in life. Whether we're young or old the truth be known we actually need both, light and dark in this world. I love it when the sun goes down and it's time to go to sleep and again, when the sun comes up in the morning and it's time to get on with life. It's a pattern we live by, it's a cadence, a pattern of life but imagine if it were only ever dark how awful that would be. In some countries of course, far north and far south, there are many months of darkness in winter. In life, darkness and fear, well they seem to be such common bedfellows. I guess that's because in the dark we can't see what's coming at us. I remember once when I was in the army and we were on exercise in a rainforest and the canopy of this rainforest was so incredibly thick that it was pitch black at night, you couldn't even see your hand 6 inches in front of your face. And in that sort of darkness you can't see what's coming at you, you can't see where you're going so darkness is a scary place sometimes. Now let's take a look at our own lives. We can look back on the dark times, those periods that we'd rather forget, maybe a broken relationship or sickness or the death of a loved one, real financial difficulties. Maybe you've been through a war and you've seen people killed or you've been in prison. Perhaps you've seen everything you worked for so hard over so many years just go down the drain or someone's hurt you incredibly deeply, someone you trusted. Perhaps you've been through a time of depression or real loneliness or working so hard you just don't feel that you have a life. The list just goes on and on and on, life has its dark times doesn't it? Maybe you're going through one right now, maybe, who knows, there's one right around the next corner or next year or the year after that. Dark times, well they're like part of a fabric of our lives as much as we'd rather they weren't there and that's why we're kicking off this little series over the next couple of weeks called, "Dark Night, Bright Light" because light is the opposite of darkness and when we're travelling through those dark times, light is the very thing we need. The problem is it can be so hard to find, so hard to believe in or hope for. You might only experience in those dark times, those lonely times, those times where I felt betrayed, the times of deep distress, it's a fear that's debilitating. It's like you don't even have the strength to lift up your head and look towards God. And hope. Well, when we lose hope it's a devastating thing because there's no sense of there being a future. I once read a book about a holocaust survivor, Victor Frankel and he makes the point so powerfully when he recalls an experience from the concentration camp. Have a listen to what he writes: The prisoner who has lost faith in the future, his future was doomed. With his loss of belief in his future he also lost his spiritual hold. He let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. Usually this happened quite suddenly in the form of a crisis, the symptoms of which were familiar to the experienced camp inmate. We all feared this moment, not for ourselves which would have been pointless but for our friends. Usually it began with a prisoner refusing one morning to get dressed and wash and to go out on the parade ground. No entreaties, not blows, no threats had any affect; he just lay there hardly moving. If this crisis was brought about by an illness he refused to be taken to the sick bay or to do anything to help himself. He simply gave up, there he remained lying in his own excrement and nothing bothered him anymore. It's extreme but you recognise it, it happens to all of ...
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    10 m
  • Mixed Reactions // The Long Road Home, Part 5

    Mixed Reactions // The Long Road Home, Part 5
    Feb 20 2026
    It's kind of embarrassing to have to admit sometimes that we've made a mistake. And even when it's the right thing to do – we still sometimes get mixed reactions. Have you ever been dreading something, a trip to the doctor's or the dentist, or maybe a confrontation at work or a reunion after a broken relationship? You know that sick feeling you get in the pit of your stomach, the sleeplessness the night before, the sweaty palms and cold fingers. But then when the time arrives it turns out so much better than we could ever have hoped. We look back on the event and think, "I just don't know what I was so worried about." But before hand, the apprehension is so real, that's because we don't know how it's going to turn out, and in our not knowing state somehow we imagine six different terrible outcomes as though they're all going to happen at the same time. I wonder for someone wandering around in a spiritual wilderness, I wonder whether it isn't the same for them, when they look at God. Whoever we are, wherever our journeys in life have taken us, we've all felt a sense of spiritual yearning. We may look at the glossy ads and the seductive images of success and prosperity and all those things. But it's empty, wandering out there yearning, like we're being called home. Something we can't explain but we look at God, we look at Jesus with a sense of apprehension because when we look at where we are, what we've done and admit our rebellion it's really hard to take a step on to that long road home. Jesus knew that and we've been looking this week at a story that He told, the story about the prodigal son. I'm going to read it again for one last time today because it's a beautiful powerful story, and today when I read it we're going to include the ending because the ending is awesome. Here's how it goes: A man had a two sons, the younger of them said to his father, 'Dad give me my share of the estate that I have coming to me.' So the father distributed the assets to them. Not many days later the younger son gathered everything he owned together and he traveled to a distant country where he squandered his estate in foolish living. After he had spent everything a severe famine struck that country and he had nothing. Then he went to work for one of the citizens of the country who sent him out into the fields to feed the pigs. When he came to his senses he said. "How many of my father's servants have more than enough food and here I am dying of hunger. I'll get up and I'll go to my father and I'll say to him – 'Dad I've sinned against you and in your sight, I'm not worthy to be called your son anymore, but make me like one of your servants'." So he got up and he went to his father but while the son was still a long way off his father saw him and was filled with compassion. Dad ran and threw his arms around the sons neck and kissed him and the son said to him, 'Father I've sinned against heaven and against you, I'm not worthy to be called your son anymore.' But the father told the slaves, 'Quick bring out the best robe and put it on him, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, then bring the fattened calf and slaughter it and we'll celebrate with a feast. Because this son of mine who was dead is alive again, he was lost and he's found.' So they began to celebrate. It was a cycle that began with rebellion, that the notion that we all have that sometimes life should just be fun. I want to go out and let it all hang out and do it when it feels good and of course, reality set in, there was an impact. Ultimately the son of this wealthy farmer found himself starving working as a laborer feeding pigs in a foreign land. And when he finally came to his senses, when he made the decision to say, "Look at my rebellion, look at the impact that it's had on me and in my best interests it's time to journey home again." But while he was still along way off, Dad was out there waiting and watching and straining and stretching his neck to see further, to see if his son was there, and when he was a long way off he sees his son and his heart is filled with compassion. He comes running out to meet him. Do you think that's what the son was expecting when he was back there feeding Porky the pig on the pig farm starving? Do you think in his wildest dreams and imagination the son would have thought, "Dad will be out there watching and waiting for me. And when I come over the hill he'll race out and hug me and put a robe on me." Would you think he was expecting that? We know he wasn't. We know he was going back with an expectation of maybe getting a job as one of the servants just for food. The robe is a symbol of honour, the ring is a symbol of the family signet - you belong to us. And the party with a spit roast was a barbecue; it was a celebration! Because "this son of mine who was dead is alive again. The one that was lost is found again." Not a word of condemnation, no scalding, total acceptance for no other reason than this ...
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    10 m
  • The Long Road Home // The Long Road Home, Part 4

    The Long Road Home // The Long Road Home, Part 4
    Feb 19 2026
    Sometimes, we come to the conclusion that decisions and choices we've made – just aren't working. But turning them around, well, it can be a long road. For years, and years, and years, I wandered around in a spiritual desert. Now the crazy thing was that I'd been a Christian in my teenage years. But when I grew up, I rebelled and I came to the point where I kind of knew that there was a God but after all the things I'd done, after the years of wandering out there, I just didn't know whether He'd really want me back, and at what cost? What would I have to give up of the lifestyle that I was accustomed to, in order to have a relationship with him again? For me, as it is for so many people, the road home seemed like such a long one. And what would His reaction be when I turned up on His doorstep again anyway? I remember as a child, I did something wrong after school, I can't remember what it was, but my Mother said to me, "You wait until your father comes home." And I can still remember, I must have only been about six or seven, or eight years old. I can still remember vividly the sense of dread, of waiting at home for the consequences when my Dad came home again. Do you remember that? I'm sure we've all had that experience. This week on A Different Perspective we're doing a small group of messages that I've called The Long Road Home because so many people are wandering in a spiritual desert and the thing that often keeps us from turning around, and going to God in the middle of that. The one person that we're looking for, you know the one thing that can satisfy that longing that we have, the thing that so often stops us, is that sense of dread. That sense of wondering well how is He going to react? Is it going to be like Dad punishing me when I was a kid? Jesus knew that, Jesus knows that. That's why he told a story, it's the story of the prodigal son, the lost son. We've been looking at it over this week on A Different Perspective. It began with a son's rebellion. Let's have a read of it again. A man had a two sons, the younger of them said to his father, "Dad give me the share of the estate that I have coming to me." so the father distributed the assets to them. Not many days later the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country where he squandered his estate on foolish living. After he had spent everything a severe famine struck the country and he had nothing. And then he went to work for one of the citizens of that land who sent him out into the field to feed the pigs. This son longed to eat his fill from the carob pods that the pigs were eating but no one gave him anything. When he finally came to his senses he said, 'How many of my father's servants have more than enough food and here I am dying of hunger. I'll get up and I'll go to my father and say to him, 'father I've sinned against Heaven and against you, I'm not worthy to be called you son anymore, just make me one of your servants'." And so he got up and he went to his father. It's a cycle that began with a desire to do it my way, with a desire to rebel, with a desire for partying and excitement, and all the stuff I guess that we look for as young people, and probably as we get older as well. But I wonder how much of this cycle parallels our lives. Whether you've never met Jesus before, you just have a sense of spiritual longing, or maybe, maybe once you walked with him, somewhere along the road either you wandered off, or he somehow seemed to disappear, or maybe you're trying to walk with him but in a certain area of your life, well there's something you're holding back. Wherever we're coming from, the same symptoms of spiritual hunger, of emptiness, of something missing, of something not working is what so often people feel. And what happened here for this young man, is when he finally came to his senses, what he did was this. He linked his pain with the initial cause, which was his rebellion. So often we don't do that, so often we're suffering and yet we go on deluding ourselves that our choices are fine and everything's fine. Of course I can have an affair, of course I can live like this, of course I can reject God's view on A, B, C and D. And yet, if we're really honest with ourselves, if we really look at our predicament in our situation in this spiritual wilderness that so many people are walking through. If we're really honest, we can see that the pain and the symptoms come back to a rebellion. I don't know what that rebellion looks like in your life, we all rebel in different ways but it's not rocket science to figure it out. And then this young man-made a pragmatic decision, a selfish decision, not some altruistic decision to say I'm going to go back to my father because my father is a wonderful man. It was a decision that was driven by the hunger in his stomach looking at these pigs day and night. And he made a decision in his best interests to start on that long road home. We're not told in this ...
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    10 m
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