Trusting God When It Doesn't Make Sense

- Hi I'm fam, this is Ashley and I'm on the team here with Victorious Living. And so welcome to Inside Vio Magazine. And so all of you have received our Inside Your Facilities, the Victorious Living Magazine. And so here we're just going to a deeper dive. We're gonna hear from some of our authors and our writers and just how they share their story. They're gonna read it to you. They're gonna share some deeper in-depth thoughts about what was going on in their mind and how they felt a certain way. And I think what's really cool about that is that in all of our minds we have different thoughts that of course God knows but, and how we take choices whether good or bad. And so our authors, our true stories, of real people sharing with you kind of where they got to the point where they surrendered to God. And so we're excited for you to be with us on this journey and we hope it inspires you to also take a step closer to God. So in today's episode you're gonna hear from Sheridan and she's our host of Stepping Forward. So hopefully you've watched her or if not, you can. Today she's gonna tell us about choosing faith over fear and everyday life. So let's get ready. - Hey family, welcome to Inside Vio Mag.

And my name is Sheridan Korea. I am the Director of Healing and Restoration Initiatives with Victoria's Living. And I'm also a regular contributor for Victoria's Living magazine. And today what we're gonna be reviewing on Inside Vio Mag is a throwback. It is from issue one of this year, 2026. And this article, Trusting God Beyond Logic. I'm gonna read through this. I'm gonna share some deeper insights that 700 words doesn't give me the opportunity to do. And then talk about some questions that can help you go deeper or help you exercise and apply this lesson in here. And before I do that, I just wanna share with you more intimately what this article is about and who is involved in this article. So I want you to meet some people. This picture is, oh, let's see. Okay, so this picture is my family. And this is, I'm trying to get that glare off of it. This is me, of course. This is my husband. His name is Nick Korea. And this is Joseph and this is Zachary. These are my two boys. And Joe is 19. He is in the army and Zachary is 18 and working full-time and doing a great,

great in life. He actually lives with us now after he graduated high school this year. But at this time, or at this time of the picture, this was last year and he was graduating high school. And we got this beautiful opportunity to all take pictures together. And that in itself family is just such an incredible part about such an incredible part of, oh, of my restoration journey. I don't know if you all saw those fireworks. There were fireworks on the screen right there. Maybe you didn't see them. I'll play it back later and see if I just look crazy right now, probably. Okay, so this picture was taken last year and it was such a monumental, such a significant part of the restoration journey that I have experienced in the reunification and restoration with my children. And, you know, gosh, that's a whole nother episode and series of that that I have in my heart and that I've outlined to share with y'all because I know there are a lot of us every time I go into prison and do an event. How many daddies are here? How many are husbands? How many mamas? How many wives?

And there are just so many hands that get raised. And so I've walked out that journey. I am on the other side of it, but it's still a journey, right? There's still just so much. And so this is one of those checkpoints. This is one of those lines. So this is so, so meaningful to me. And I just want to share it with you. Trusting God beyond logic, I'm going to wear these bam because this is really challenging to do with the glasses and the microphone and everything. So OK, here we go. Obedience never comes naturally. Just look at a two-year-old child. They don't need to be taught to be defiant. It is instinctual. And for most of my life, I follow that instinct. That might be true of you, right? Rebelliousness is just part of our human nature and sin nature. And we have to learn how to not be that. We have to learn obedience and step into it and exercise it that does not come naturally for us. It took eight trips to jail and a lifetime of pain before I finally got on my knees and surrendered my life to God. And in that moment, I stepped down as the decision maker and asked God to be my commander and king. But obeying him required a level of trust

that didn't come easily. And let me-- I want to open that space just a little bit for you. This was my eighth of nine jail visits. I was a frequent flyer. And this was in Australia jail in Arizona. Shout out to all my Maricopa people. I know y'all watch all the time. And thank you for watching. I don't know if you knew that about me. But yeah, that's where it all went down in Arizona. And there was a ministry, a prison ministry, a lot like victorious living that came into visit. And you know, you just be putting your name on whatever, just to get out of that GP, just to get out of that pod. And so I sure did. And what I encountered was very radical and unexpected. And in that service, what I now know as the Holy Spirit, I encountered the Holy Spirit. And gave my life to the Lord in that service. And what happened after that, probably within 24 hours, all that parking would be kind of fuzzy for me, because I was still coming down on things and all the things. But it was a short amount of time. And I heard God speak to me. I heard God's voice speak to me in my head. And there was like a knowing and an assurance in my heart that I had never before experienced. But I hear God, I heard God's voice in my head.

And it said, in a language that I could understand, it said, girl, you suck at running the business of your life. I'm like, yes, I do. And it went on to say, you need to fire yourself as the CEO of your life. And you need to step down. And you need to hire me. And let me take control and follow me. And I willingly did that. I already did that the day before, hours before, whatever it was, I'd already surrendered and given my life to Christ and really took a knee. I didn't know what that meant. But in this space, it was like, absent lutely. You can have all of it because my best thinking and my best choices and my best everything, my best effort, I landed me in a place that I never thought I'd be and doing things that I never thought I would be doing. And the impacts of that and the consequences of that were great. And I had tried everything. But I heard the God of the universe speak to me personally. And the moment that I did that, I felt such relief. I felt such relief because it was like, for once in my life, I could stop pretending like I know what I'm doing. And for once in my life, I can literally give up control and just say, I don't know you, God, but I trust that you know better than I do and that I'll be able to follow you and live life your way. And I didn't know that intellectually yet because I hadn't developed this relationship with the Lord.

But there was such a radical-- explain. I had peace that passes understanding like immediately, like radically, immediately. The desire for drugs was immediately gone. I wanted to live and not try to end my life often. I wanted to live and I wanted to love and I knew that I knew that I knew that I was accepted by him because God found me at my absolute worst when I was in the pit and like, I had nothing going for me. If there was no worth of value in my life, it was then. It was that you don't want me, man. You don't want me. I'm trash. It was that kind of thing. But it was like I knew immediately, like those things were just downloaded and deposited into me as I became a new creation right then. And that's so significant. I share that with you because obedience comes from that. Obedience comes from knowing God and knowing who God is. That was the journey. That was the journey. When this happened, turn, I'll get to it in a second. There was already a trust relationship and a building of relationship and connection that I had with the Lord. It's really hard to trust somebody that you don't know. That was spoken to me early on in my journey. I would get in the Word of God and I started in the Gospels and I read and I read and I couldn't put it down because I'm just like, this is amazing. I heard about Jesus. I heard Jesus is like a historical figure and all that stuff, right? But no, we are literally talking about a real person in the living God who walked the earth. And so that just began to grow in me and I deepened my relationship with the Lord. And it was a constant exercising of, I can't God, but you can. And I'm going to let you. And it wasn't just surrender. There was a yielding to like whatever. And to the point of like, hey, okay, you're, you know, I'm, I'm at a transitional place coming from incarceration. And all right, go hug that girl that is now coming toward you in the crosswalk that you don't like very much. And I'm like, what? And I that's how I knew I was raised from death to life because I would hear those things. And my automatic response was any, any initial thought that I had, I would just kind of recycle, you know, because I'm like, no, no, I'm not, I'm not I'm trying to do that. And I would courageously move toward things and people and walk in obedience. And he was doing that inside of me early on so that I could build those muscles so that I had the training wheels on when I'm, you know, learning how to ride a bike and learning how to live my new life and walk it out. And I say that to say that, you know, guys, this is and ladies, this is an exercise program. Faith is faith and trust our muscles or spiritual muscles that we

have to exercise often. And we have to feed those muscles well. And we have to stretch them out. And we have to do all the things that we do in the gym in the natural world. The spiritual world is not very different at all. It's just not easy to see sometimes. So there's all that background. Okay. Now, so God came into my life, boom, boom, obeying him required a level of trust that didn't come easily. I had to exercise that out and work that out and become strong in that trusting God for who he says he is. And what that means for my life. So it was about, I was about two years into my face, graduated from the Phoenix rescue mission in Phoenix, Arizona and reentered society. And that's when I heard the Holy Spirit say, Sheridan, you are a woman of responsibility and integrity. It's time to go clean up that child support that you owe. Now, when I first heard this, I was like, And this is a consequence of my addiction and my mental illness, even at that time. And that was the right decision at the time I did not, I would have not, I did not think so, but I came to learn very quickly when I got into my right mind and walking with the Lord that that was a really, that was a good decision. Because I wasn't healthy and was doing really making really bad choices that, you know, put the well being of my children and myself, even at risk. So he was awarded full time custody and then I had to pay child support and in my anger and resentment, fullness and bitterness. I was like, I mean, you know, child support, you know how we do guys and girls, family, you know how we do. I'm paying you child support. And, and the reply back to me was actually, yeah, I don't, I don't even, I don't expect you to pay and I don't need you to pay. I was like, sweet, I just got off on that, right? I just, I just got a pass on that. But so in, in a justification, I absolutely could have said back to the Holy Spirit. Yeah, no, I don't have to. I was absolved of that. Like I was clear to that the person who I owed it to said I didn't even owe it to them. But the Lord was doing something in me. The Lord was forming me into a woman and a child of God that he wanted me to become, despite what the world or somebody else was saying. And that I got a pass on. The Lord didn't care about that. The Lord was telling me to do something because he wanted to teach me something. This was part of my formation. And I quickly understood that after, you know, having, after calculating and kind of plinko, I always think of plinko in my head. Y'all remember prices right in that game, Plinko, where they stand at the top and they drop the thing and that goes through the pegs. Until it like settles in. That's what happens in my brain. And, and I plinkoed my way down and it settled and it was like, okay. So that's that's some deep background, fam. When when I heard that from the Holy Spirit, I make it back to reading my stomach dropped because I was barely making ends meet, despite working two jobs. I was on Medicaid. I was still eating from food banks and was paying off probation fees. I didn't have a dollar to spare much less to pay the extra commitment of $500 a month that I now was ordered to pay. But God wasn't concerned about my current circumstances. He cared more about developing my care character. So others could trust me and so that I could learn to trust God and the faithfulness of God and the provision of God. When when I finally was like, all right, Lord, I will do this. And all it doesn't make sense because I was literally making $900 a month. And that that list of, you know, what I had going on is was completely accurate. I had nothing. I had nothing. I was blessed with what I had and I did not complain. I thought it was amazing. I was making $900 a month and doing it sober and like really living victoriously and all the things and and I didn't want more than that. I didn't because it was whatever God was going to do. And so when he when he said, go pay that, go pay that and clean that up. I'm like, yeah, that don't make no sense. Mathematically, that don't make no sense, Lord. So you tell me how this is going to happen. And so I went and I got the modification paperwork and I tried to get it reduced down to like I could do 50 and 50 was a stretch. Can I come down for 500 to 50?

And and nope, that didn't happen. That didn't happen. I was ordered to pay the full amount and then I plus I And so at that time when I started this process, I think it was in the mid 20,000s that I had owed plus the current monthly child support on top of that. And I'm like, I literally had a panic attack. Had a panic attack. I got in my car after the hearing with the judge and the lawyer and everything and just cried and cried and cried. And I think I'm getting ahead of myself. I think I'm getting ahead of myself here. So let me get back to this. Because I do think I forgot that I do mention that. God was not concerned about my current circumstances. He cared more about developing my character. He cared more about the formation inside of me, the transformation that he's inviting us into all of us into often, even especially in the radical and hard things that don't make any sense. Seven years earlier in my divorce, the court had given custody of my children, their father, and I was ordered to pay full child support. Their father had told me he didn't expect me to pay, so I didn't. And honestly, my bitter soul didn't intend to give him a dime. But God didn't care that my ex-husband had let me off the hook. God wanted obedience. And I knew it was my only option if I wanted all that he had in store for me. So with fear and trembling, I said, yes, sir, and I started a legal process. I was given the option to relinquish my parent parental rights and walk away from the debt. No one believed I could pay back the amount I owed. In fact, they were sure I would end up back in jail for missed payments. And trust me, I was a little bit skeptical too, because I'm like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? And if you miss the payment, you know, you're right back into it. I was also ordered to go to accountability court for a year, where, you know, there's a lot like drug court, which I've been there. But the accountability was making payments. You have to show up once a month, making sure that you're making payments and just checking in on your progress. And if you miss one, they will snatch you up. And I think there's a lot of us watching that may know something about that. According to the math, the skeptics were right. It would take three decades to meet the terms of agreement. It would take me, they said, if you even pay the lowest, like what you're ordered, you'll be paying till you're 60. And I was like, I don't know what else to do. I'm okay with that, but I am, I said this in court, I, the Lord has asked me to do something and I'm going to do it. And if it's still I'm mid 60s and they're still receiving a payment, then so be it. I think that's wonderful actually. Oh, it was so hard. It was so hard, fam. It would take three decades to meet the terms of the agreement. And if, and that's if I did have the money, but at that I went to court,

I didn't have the money. I had nothing. I could not pay it. God kept urging me to trust him. In court, the judge told me to grow up and get a real job. They said, you're 30. At that time, I think I was 39. You were 39 years old. You need to get a real job. And at that time, I was in ministry and God had called me into ministry when I was at the Phoenix rescue mission. And so I was, that's where I was. That's where God had placed me. And I told the judge, I said, I agree with you. But the Lord called me into ministry. And this is where I will be found faithful. And that's what that's what I believed. And that's what I trusted. And we know that just ministry pays us little. And that's okay. But I've replied with the only thing I could say, God has called me into ministry, and I will be found faithful. I couldn't leave the ministry where God had called me to serve, to do what he was asking now of me to do. He hadn't released me from that place. So I stood my ground and just signed on the line. And when I got in the car, I had a major meltdown. Lord, this hurts. I screamed, feeling so humiliated. I don't know how you're going to provide, but I trust you. And at that time, I remember doing a video thing with my siblings, with some of my siblings. And I just, plane and just say, Lord, this is going to be amazing to watch because it is not it's just not adding up. I'm in the red. And I don't know what's going to happen. And it was almost like, okay, God, I I'm so excited to see what you're going to do with this. And even invited him and kind of challenged him in that place also. And he wasted no time being faithful. Two months later. This has two days, but I actually listen, I actually got out to my journal. This was yesterday, actually. And I was reading, I was trying to find something else in my journal. And I found this and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I I wrote that wrong. It was two months after that experience, one and a half months. The ministry that I've been working for offered me a full time and salaried position with enough money to pay all my bills and cover my probation fees, purchase food and not have to go to food banks anymore to save money to quit my other part time job. And I and I saved enough money to put myself back into school that I started the next year, I believe, like that's amazing. That's amazing to me and and begin starting to pay off every time that I owed. Won't he do it? Yes, he will. Yes, he will. Our Lord can do anything. It says in the word of God that everything, anything is possible with God with God. It is all possible. Is God asking you to do something impossible? I know obedience is difficult. God's instructions seldom come with a map or an explanation of how it all will work out, but it's okay. Take that step of faith anyway. And as you trust the heart of the

one calling you out and move with him, you will witness his faithfulness, his provision, his miraculous signs and wonders. And your obedience is the starting point of that. It is the next faithful step. It's been six years since I signed that agreement. And I am well on my way to paying off that massive balance. God has provided for my knees through my job, my husband, who he gifted me with and who has been when we got married, or even before we got married, he knew of this balance and this responsibility that I owed. And God gave me such a gracious gift in my husband to to partner with me and come alongside with me in that responsibility and and help pay it off, which was just a tremendous gift. I can't I can't say that enough that he would be self selflessly willing to do that. That's just that's that blows my mind. And even through the other parents, God provided for my needs and this balance, this financial responsibility through the other parents. And that's that's a whole nother story. But in their grace and their forgiveness and their mercy, they have they have worked with us. They have they've just been so amazing as they have watched God really transform my life and come to know me and trust me and and now we're we're friends and co-parent together and all that all those beautiful things. God used them as part of his provision package. And I'm so grateful for that. That was something I never saw coming ever ever ever. Today, I see how doing the hard and right thing opened the doors of two restoration of relationships and the reclaiming of my motherhood. And that was worth every single sacrifice. That was worth that was that was worth all the fear and the panic at the disco. And that was worth all the putting away my the rebellion and just saying, Yes, Lord, and I can't wait to see how you're going to write this story. Trust and obey God, even if he's asking. I'm gonna get this up. I thought I had actually spelled it out in here, but it says to lean not on your Trust in the Lord and With all your heart trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own on your ways submit to him And he will straight we he will make your paths straight. I love that scripture That is a scripture that that I clung to and a promise that I That I clung to at the when he initially told me to go do that because my understanding is faulty and it's minimal and I don't see the whole picture and He does and and so it's my job to not to not trust up. What's up?

And to lean not on what I can see, right? We walk by faith and not by sight and And to submit to him in all the ways that he is inviting us into because doing life God's way is just the best way It just is, you know Jeremiah 29 11 says that he has a hope and a future for us and when we call to him He's gonna listen and when we seek him he will be found by us and all the all that beautiful language And that is a reality family that is a reality. So when it's not looking like it's gonna be good and it there's a lot of uncertainty and there's a lot of Even confusion and how are you gonna do this God and did it at a right release? Let go of the control jump off that cliff Jump off that cliff that God is inviting you to jump off of because guess what you got a parachute You got a parachute and I just want to report today. This is so exciting Today I calculated this before I came on we made our last payment of The child support last month and it was a very large substantial payment and to this day family It has taken me six years six years to this month to pay off that child support and all the arrearages plus the interest My kids are 18, right? They're done. They don't have the current child support, but it is a total of over $70,000 $70,000 that's a lot of money But our God owns all the cattle on the hills, right? He owns the bank Christie has taught me that he owns the bank. He is the god of all the zeros and he can make a way for His purposes and his plans to happen and there's it's just incredible. It's absolutely incredible What God has done in my life. He is Ephesians 320 Immeasurably above and beyond anything I could think for hope or imagine I thought I would be paying this off in my mid 60s. It was fine with that. There was nothing wrong with that But God has Accelerated that he has elevated that he has written the story differently because so he can show off himself

Let that be a miraculous sign and wonder of the God that we know and you might not know But the God but but the God that I know the God that I know and that's my testimony to when it doesn't make sense when it When you don't have it all figured out When you don't know exactly what's gonna happen and God is inviting you into Into something with him inviting you into the story step in Step in even when it's even when you're scared, right? That's not a sin to be to be fearful. That's not a sin That fear Causes us or invites us gives us an opportunity to step forward Even with our fear and into our faith and really grow that and so I pray that that is an encouragement to you I'm gonna ask you three questions This this issue didn't have the beautiful consider questions So I came up with three on my own three reflection questions here. We go first one trusting God when life doesn't make sense That's our first Checkpoint that's our that's our first thing that we That we learn in this article is there an area of your life where God may be asking you to trust him Even though you can't see how things will work out and Stop and pause. We're winding that right it down. Comment in the section here. Love to read your comments. Write it in, write in all your answers to this if you would like to. I love and we love to hear your hearts and answers and where God, excuse me, is working and moving and teaching you in your life. That gives me the greatest encouragement. So I'm gonna read it again. Is there an area of your life where God may be asking you to trust Him,

even though you cannot see what the outcome is and how it'll all work out. What makes that difficult? Number two, obedience in difficult circumstances. Oh, that's so hard, so hard. Sometimes doing what is right comes with the cost. Can you recall a time when you chose to do the right thing even when it was difficult? And how did that work out? What did that experience teach you? You know what, this one taught me especially, especially when I went to the hearing. And man, I felt rejected. I felt beat up. I felt all kinds of things. And had a really, really hard time with that. I got my car, shut my door, I'm like, just started crying like, oh my gosh, I mean, they don't feel rejected or blah, blah, blah. And that's okay, that's okay. Not everyone's gonna understand. Not everyone's gonna understand, but obedience can come with a cost. And at that point, it was like, it cost me my pride. (laughs) It cost me my pride. And it cost me to, I probably look super ridiculous and it's probably in the court notes that I am a ridiculous person who still isn't making good choices

from the outside looking in. But that's not how the story ended. Number three, taking the next step of faith. What is one step of obedience? You believe God is calling you to take right now. It could be something small, small is not insignificant. It could be something simple. It could be something as simple as you go tell someone about Jesus. It could be forgiveness. It could be resting. It could be receiving love. It could be, there's just so many things that it could be. But what would it look like to trust Him and move forward in taking that one step? Not the next 10 steps. We don't need to be overwhelming ourselves like that because we're already really good at that. Let's be honest. What is the one next faithful step that God is inviting you into? Just one, just one, not 10, not two, not three, just one. And I pray this was an encouragement to you. Again, would love to hear from you and would love to hear your answers and read your answers. If you wanna comment in the section provided in Pando or write them in, whatever you wanna do. But, fam, I love you so much. And this journey is hard. It's challenging, but there is nothing.

There is nothing that is worthwhile that isn't hard and challenging. Think of how you grow muscle in the natural world. We gotta stress it out. We got to stretch it out. We have to create some pressure sometimes so that we can have those breakthroughs and those moments of growth spurts and be very, very courageous in that. So I just wanna encourage you with that. If you're wrestling with, you know, something that the Lord has asked you to do and you're confused about it and you're having a hard time right into us, please, answer, you know, right in the comment section so we can read over those so we can pray about those for you and with you so that we can even speak to them. You know, I can do a whole episode on some of these comments and speak to them. I would love to do that. And just continue, continue, continue. Don't give up if you need to take a little break. That's okay. Take a little break and a rest and a breathe. A breather and get back in the game as well. as Jesus that you watch over that you watch over those watching this today that you speak to their hearts, that you give them a a message or an a spiritual understanding of what it means to trust and to be obedient. Although we don't see the whole picture and trust requires blindness. Sometimes

it requires the ability to not be able to see everything. Father, and I just I come against the control that seems to him. It even causes self-sabotage in our lives sometimes. Father, I I come against I pray against that Jesus. And I pray for just an increase of faith and trust and a spiritual understanding and perspective, a discernment and a wisdom that invites and draws us to take that take that next step. Father, only you can do it. Only you can do it. You are the one who turns the impossible things into the possible things. And so we thank you that we don't have we don't have to do life alone. Apart from you anymore, because that is truly the meaning of terror. And just disorder. And so Father, I thank you. I thank you for these people watching and just would you bless them? Give them favor, protect and provide for their families and their loved ones who are who are not with them at this time. And God, we just love you so much. Thank you for loving us first in Jesus name. Amen. Bye bye. Thank you for watching our broadcast. Are you an incarcerated brother or sister who needs encouragement? Write to us at Victoria's Living Correspondence P.O. Box 2751 Greenville, North Carolina, 27836. To view Victoria's Living magazine in its entirety, please have your chat when contact us at 352-478-2098 or email us through our website at vlmag.org. We are happy to provide our Victoria's Living magazine free of charge in bulk with or or without staples. [MUSIC PLAYING]