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
Escúchala gratis

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
  • A Simple Choice // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 3

    A Simple Choice // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 3
    Feb 25 2026
    When life is really tough and when you've lost hope and you're afraid – you can either lie there, completely immobilised – or you can take a really simple, obvious step. Question is – in which direction? We all have choices in life. Sometimes we make good choices, more often than not those good choices have good outcomes and we can all look back and see some of the bad choices we've made and the consequences of those choices but you know the hardest choices to make are the ones we make in the dark. You know, in those dark times, the difficult times, the times when we're hurting so bad that our sense of balance and right and wrong and up and down is all out of kilter. The whole thing about that sort of darkness is that we can't see forward, we can't see back and it's such a difficult place to be. Well today, today we're going to look at a choice that we can make in those dark times that is always the right choice. When everything else has failed, when we don't quite know which way to turn, when even the good choices we made before now don't seem to hold any promise, there's one choice that we can make that always, always pays off. To look at that choice we're going to spend some time over the coming days with a man who had more of those dark times than most of us and he wrote a lot about it. The one place we're going to go is to take a look at what he learned and he records that in Psalm 34. It's an interesting psalm, it comes out of King David's life and it's his praise for deliverance from a time of trouble. So it's a psalm written, if you like, with the benefit of hindsight. David's been in a tough dark place and his learned something, he's learned something about God in a dark time. Now we're not quite sure when that time was, the introduction to the psalm says: A psalm of David when he feigned madness before Abimelech so that he drove him out and he went away. Now we don't have any other historical information about that situation. Abimelech was a judge, a leader of Israel, Gideon's son. The fact that we don't have the exact historical details however doesn't really matter. The fact that David had to engage in this deception tells us that it was a fearful time, it was a scary time, it was a time when he needed to escape. Now let's have a listen to the first part of this psalm as David reflects on that dark time, it's Psalm 34, verses 1-8. This is what he writes: I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips, my soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me, He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look at Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him, He saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Taste and see, the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. See David is looking back on some hard times and he starts out by praising God for His faithfulness with the specific purpose of letting the rest of us know that God is faithful in the dark times. With a specific purpose, of us who are afflicted, being able to hear this and rejoice. This psalm was written for you and for me: My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. You see David's saying here, "You know why I'm writing this psalm? It's for you, if you're afflicted, if you're travelling through a dark and fearful time, you know what? Come and look at what God did for me." Glorify the Lord with me (says David) let us exalt His name together. In other words, so that you and I can rejoice together in our dark times we're getting the benefit of what David discovered in his darkness, in his fearful times and what he discovered is as profound as it is simple. Look at verse 4: I sought the Lord and He answered me, He delivered me from all my fears. Darkness and fear seem to immobilise us. Fear somehow stops us dead in our tracks, we just kind of sit there and we ache, and fear eats away at our hearts kind of like a quick spreading cancer and in that fear. Remember David was, as he had been many times before, in fear of his life. This was real fear, let me say it this way; deadly fear and in the midst of his deadly fear, he did the thing that he had learned to do over and over and over again all those times in his life when he'd been in danger. When he was on the run from King Saul for all those years he sought the Lord, he cried out to God, he said, "God, help!" The one thing we can forget to do when we're frozen by fear is to do exactly that, to seek God, to cry out to God and what a surprise; God answered him and delivered him from all his fears. I don't know about you but I can relate to that, in life and in ministry I come up against giants of opposition all the time and can I tell you, some days they scare me, seriously scare me and ...
    Más Menos
    10 m
  • God is in the Light Business // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 2

    God is in the Light Business // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 2
    Feb 24 2026
    When you're travelling through those dark patches in life – as we all do – the most important thing you need to know is that God is in the Light business – and He's right there in that dark place with you! You may hear me talk about the stars in the sky from time to time and that's because they just fascinate me. There are so many and they're so huge and so far away, the universe is utterly incredible. The scientists tell us they estimate that there are at least a trillion, trillion stars, well what does that mean? Lets just start with a billion, do you know how long it would take to count to a billion, once each second; one, two, three. Well a billion seconds is 31 years, 251 days, 7 hours and 48 minutes. That's a billion. Now a trillion is a thousand billion, that means that a trillion seconds is a thousand times as long. That makes a trillion seconds, 31,688 years, 32 days and few hours. Isn't that incredible? And that is just one trillion. Now a trillion times that 31,688 years and 32 days and a few hours which would make it a trillion, trillion, seconds is just an inconceivable length of time isn't it? And I'm just talking humble little ticks of a clock – seconds. But now look out at the universe and consider there are a trillion, trillion stars out there at least, massive balls of fire and they're just the ones we know about. You can tell I love astronomy and mathematics can't you, so why this dissertation on astro-physics? Well simply this; this week we're taking a look at the dark patches we can go through in life, the difficult times, the times of depression or fear or loss or loneliness or financial crisis or retrenchment or broken relationships or sickness. That list that is seemingly endless in life and when we go through those darkness's they are so dark aren't they? If God is God, where is He in those dark times, huh? Exactly where is He? This series of programs is called, "Dark Night, Bright Light" and today, today I just want to establish that no matter how dark the darkness gets, God is in the "light" business. I'm just going to read you the first 5 verses of the first book of the Bible, Genesis. It's the beginning; this is what it says: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light and God saw that the light was good and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day' and the darkness He called 'night' and there was evening and there was morning. That was the first day. Now I might hear you say, "Well Berni that's well and good; you're talking about physical light here, that's fine but what about God shining His light into the darkness in my life?" We're going to talk about that shortly, the point that I'm making is this; creation tells us something about the Creator. You and I create different things because we're different. You might be artistic, you might be able to draw or to paint and so given the opportunity to be creative, you'd produce this stunning picture. Ha, I can't draw for peanuts. You might be really good with your hands, maybe building things or maybe crafting things. Well I have ten thumbs when it comes to that. So what we create tells us something about who we are, it's the same deal with God. You look at what He creates and it tells you something about who He is. In fact it's interesting to look at the order in which He creates, this God, and the first thing He creates, the very first thing is light because it was dark. That tells us something about God but what a light. We just think of the sun but that sun, as I said in the beginning of the program, is just one of an estimated trillion, trillion stars. In the greatest understatement in the Bible Moses writes in Genesis chapter 1, verse 16: God made two great lights; the greater was to govern the day, the lesser was to govern the night. He also made the stars. Ha, also made the stars. God is seriously into light and it tells us something about who He is and when you look at Him shining light into our lives there are so many references throughout the Bible about Him wanting to do that. I'm just going to look at 3 very briefly right now. The first is Ezekiel chapter 10 in verse 4: Then the glory of the Lord rose up from above the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the temple and the cloud filled the temple and the court was full of the radiance of the glory of God. Isaiah, in chapter 60 verse 19 says: The sun will no more be your light by day nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you at night for the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory. And perhaps my favourite of all where Paul seems to bring it all together in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 6. He says: For its the very same God who said "Let light shine out of darkness" that made His light to ...
    Más Menos
    10 m
  • 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 ...
    Más Menos
    10 m
Todavía no hay opiniones