Ben Miller: You go to God, okay, how do I understand this scary thing? There’s an element which is, okay, what do I do about it? I don’t know what to do. It’s easy to say, “Lean on God.” It’s easy to say, “Live for today, let God worry about tomorrow.” It’s a whole lot harder to live that out. It’s really hard to live that out.
The Bible talks to us about how to see the world, how to live, how much grace we have to have for others.
Eden: Today on the podcast I’m going to introduce you to Ben Miller. Ben is a small business entrepreneur from the Seattle area. You’ll learn from listening to the podcast that Ben is not just intellectually gifted, but he’s thoughtful and considerate about every facet of life. He earned both his MBA and his JD from the University of Washington. He and his wife Anna have three kids. I know Ben because he’s my cousin! But we reconnected recently at a wedding, and I was so blessed by his conversation that I thought you ought to meet him too! So I hope you enjoy our episode today.
Thanks for being with me today. I’m excited to hear a little bit about your life, your work, and just what Jesus has been up to in your world. We start every podcast asking, “what are a couple things that bring you joy?”
Ben Miller: I think it’s a great question. It’s funny, this morning I had this moment with God where I was just so thankful, and it was because I got a really good night’s sleep. So I was like, man, why am I feeling so much joy right now? I fell asleep really early; I was tired. I just woke up and I thought, God, thank you so much for [that]. And so sometimes those little things are really big.
But I mean, really, my family is just a constant source of joy. I feel like there’s so many other things in life that I have had a lot of challenges—a lot of battles—[in], but when I go home, it’s its own world, and it’s full of joy. It’s just my kids, my wife—that’s by far my biggest source of joy.
Eden: I love that. And I love that you said the little things, because even those little things, like sleep, are gifts from God. And it’s good to acknowledge that. I listened to a podcast last week about how gratitude actually affects our brain and how God [has] designed it that way, because he wants to bring us joy. And so even taking the time to thank him for things only multiplies the joy he already gave us through his gifts.
But you know the next question coming. Is there a place in God’s Word that’s especially precious to you? And if so, how did that become a precious part of Scripture to you?
Ben Miller: Well, I think just in general, I go to the Psalms all the time, and I’ve been that way for a really long time. Sometimes on the YouVersion Bible App, I either go to the beginning or middle, and I just have it read aloud to me. Specifically, Psalm 150—which we just talked about giving thanks to God—but just, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150:6 ESV). I think exactly what you said: That’s the way God designed it. No matter what’s going on, it’s so much of a more spiritually grounding discussion with God to give him thanks than to dwell on the worries—the things that we’re always asking for, and he knows we need them. But it’s easy to obsess about just talking to him about the things that we need and the things we’re asking for, whether for ourselves or others. And so, for me, it’s always been a part of Scripture that gives me peace. And there’s a lot in the Psalms, but that verse specifically, praise the Lord, helps take me outside of just my own worries.
Eden: Yeah. I’m trying to remember Psalm 150, and I haven’t read it in forever. So that’s making me want to go back and open it, because I’ve been in the Psalms also. But I’m somewhere in the middle in the 70s, so it’s making me want to go open to that place. And it’s cool that praise is how the song book of the Bible ends—that that Psalm 150 closes the book with a shout of praise.
So for someone that doesn’t know you, what does life look like for you right now? Where are you working? We like to ask, what ministry are you a part of? And we believe that whatever Jesus has his followers doing is their ministry, because every one of us plays a role in God’s kingdom, whether that’s formally or informally. So what does your life look like right now? What does Jesus have you doing with most of your time?
Ben Miller: So I like what you said, because our lives can get really full just doing, okay, God, what do you want me to do today to get through the day? And there has to be purpose and ministry in that, because sometimes it’s things that are fairly mundane that are meeting our basic needs.
For work, I run a small business. My background has been in the business world for a long time. I worked in corporate finance, business administration, leadership. It’s a fairly small organization, but the stakes always feel important because you have customers, and what you do affects your customers. You have employees, and what you do affects your employees. And so, it’s nothing grandiose, but each interaction, each decision, [is] really thinking about, okay, gosh, what I do here is really going to impact other people. And there’s also another aspect to it, which is you [have] got a lot of eyeballs on you and how you’re handling situations and how you’re treating people—maybe more so than other jobs I’ve had in the past.
And then, outside of work, we go to a fairly small church. But for the most part, home life is very busy. I [have] got kids that are pre-teen and getting really busy with sports and schooling. And then my youngest, Luke, he’s in a wheelchair, and he’s got a lot of different challenges. And so, we’re pretty busy just with keeping up with our church and job and taking care of kids.
Eden: Yeah. And the best work in life is people. And all work, I think, at the end of the day, comes down to people. Even if we’re doing something that’s manual labor, in the end, it’s ultimately to serve others. And I like what you said about how your decisions impact someone, whether it’s a customer or a coworker. I think that’s so helpful, even as I think about my own work. Every day, we’re interacting with other people, and the decisions we make have an impact.
Earlier on, you said that you’ve weathered some challenges, some various sets of challenges, and your family is what really ultimately brings you the most joy. Would you be willing to share with us some of those challenges and how you saw Jesus present with you in those things?
We are a website that’s designed for people that didn’t grow up in a Christian home or Christian community, and we believe that those are people that are curious about Jesus and wondering what life with him looks like. And we know that life with Jesus from the Bible does not mean life necessarily gets easier. And so, I think it’s helpful to hear people’s stories of how they’ve experienced the presence of Jesus in their pain. So if you would be willing to share one or several of some of those challenges you mentioned and how the Lord has walked with you through them.
Ben Miller: Well, yeah, I can share a couple big things in my life. I think that what I resonate with, probably a lot of people [do], is sometimes just each day has challenges that can seem really big. And so, for people who maybe don’t have some huge thing they can point to, they might still just be [in a challenge]—whatever it is, whatever’s going inside their head or relationship that they have that may just be a challenge. It’s not always big events or big things.
But for me, [which is] almost not even that impactful of a topic anymore, my parents got divorced when I was in elementary school. And it’s kind of a funny thing, because I think so many things in our society [are] like that. It’s so common, it’s so prevalent, that it’s almost not relevant to talk about as a big thing in your life, because the world around us [teaches] that’s just part of life that happens. But for me, it was very impactful. In my relationship with God, starting at a very young age, I was a kid, and I had a really strong relationship with Jesus. But in that context, then this big thing happened.
And so where that took me in my relationship with God was it became the topic I talked to him the most about. It became something that I most focused on for my own future: how to understand relationships in the in the right way, how to understand the decisions that impact relationships, how to grow spiritually in the areas that are relevant to successful relationships, and also just a lot of prayer for my own future, with family, with marriage, with kids, to try to not have that happen to me as an adult. And so, that was just a really big thing in my life that I spent a lot of my walk with God through middle school, through high school, just around that issue, because it was so important to me. How does this affect my life? How does this affect my future? How do I understand God through this? How do I learn from this?
And then the other really big thing I mentioned [is] my son Luke. I don’t want to go too in the weeds: My wife can articulate every little specific situation we went through in his medical condition. But in short, he was born three months early. He was born two pounds, six ounces. And just spontaneously [with] no real explanation, about 24 hours after he was born, he had very severe bleeding. They kind of rate brain bleeds on a scale, and he had the highest level of severity on both sides of his brain of just spontaneous bleeding in the brain. Well, then your brain is damaged at that point. And so he has cerebral palsy, but he has quadriplegic cerebral palsy, where he has really no effective control over his legs or arms. And then he also has epilepsy from that. So he has a seizure condition.
And so that also kind of changes the trajectory of your life. I had a job at the time and I thought, okay, well, now I need to think about a job that’s compatible logistically with the care that is going to be needed for him. There’s a financial impact. There’s an impact on how you’re raising your other kids. There’s an impact on my wife and her schedule and her routine. So it’s affected every facet of what we do and how we approach it. There’s an element of it, like any other challenge in life, where it’s scary, and you go to God, okay, how do I understand this scary thing? There’s an element, which is, okay, what do I do about it? I don’t know what to do.
It’s not like in your regular peer group people are [saying], “Oh, yeah, I’ve dealt with that. Here’s how you handle it.” It’s a lot of unknown, a lot of uncertainty. There’s a loss aspect to it, I think. So those are the common themes with any big challenge in life. How do I handle this?
But I think I think the two biggest things [that help me] as a Christian and in my relationship with Jesus are, number one, I think a lot about the Israelites in the desert. [They were] just thinking, well, we’ll get some manna this morning, and who knows what tomorrow will bring, because there really isn’t much to it. They don’t have a game plan that they know. They don’t know what the future holds. They don’t really have control over their situation. And it’s easy to say, “Lean on God.” It’s easy to say, “Live for today. Let God worry about tomorrow.” It’s a whole lot harder to live that out. It’s really hard to live that out.
And I think Luke, my son, and everything that’s gone on with him, it has really forced Anna—my wife—and I to live that way, because it’s beyond us. It’s beyond what we can forecast. It’s beyond what we can get our heads around. And in a way that is a blessing, because the Bible tells us to live that way. And it’s really hard for us to do it. And so, there’s a blessing consequence of this disability that Luke has, which is it has more forced us to live that way. And that can be freeing. It can [also] be scary, because you have those moments where you go, oh, I don’t really know how we’re going to handle that. But the more you get grounded in: I can’t worry about that. . .I’m not going to worry about that; I can’t figure that out—how that’s going to come together. . .I’m not going to worry about that, the more you actually have a little bit more peace.
And the other big aspect of it is that I think similarly, the Bible talks to us about how to see the world, how to live, but it’s hard to do, is just how much value we place [on] and how wrapped up we get [in] things that are a little more superficial. We get wrapped up in strength, beauty, prestige. We love to look at the best athlete, the best talker, the best politician, the best whatever. When you have a son, who you love deeply, who just doesn’t have abilities. . .he doesn’t have abilities. He can smile, which is a huge blessing; he can relate—there’s some nonverbal communication—but there really isn’t a whole lot else. Even eye contact is not standard. You get it sometimes. Then again, it assists you, in a way, in seeing things a little bit more the way God wants us to see him, because I don’t love him any less. I don’t value him any less. And yet it has nothing to do with what he’s able to do, what he can accomplish, what he can become. [It] has nothing to do with that.
And so, I think that that can be a really powerful message to people who don’t know God, if they can connect with it. Because as much as we, as Christians, have a hard time getting outside of ourselves and outside of superficial things, man, just think how much harder it is, if you don’t believe in God, to put a value on that kind of stuff. And so, I think in those couple ways, we’ve seen a lot of blessing come from that situation. And again, it’s not in superficial things. It’s not in wealth. It’s not in anything like that, but it’s just in our perspectives on what’s important.
Eden: Yeah, I love that answer. And to circle back to what you said initially about divorce. Something I appreciated about what you shared is that you said it was the thing that you primarily talked to the Lord about, and that it took up most of your conversations with him and just absorbed your whole world. And I think even in that, I heard a blessing, just that that implicitly tells us that in all of our struggles and sorrows, we are invited, as believers in Jesus, to bear our hearts to him, to pour out our thoughts and process with him. And his promise is not just that he saves us from the punishment due to our sins and an eternity apart from him. He also saves us to himself and gives us this relationship with him that lasts forever. And I thought of just how precious it is that you’re in deep pain as a young man, and yet you’re pouring out your heart to God about those things and asking for him to help you process. And that’s an encouragement to whatever struggle we’re going through, that the Lord is there for those that have trusted in him, and he’s ready to hear the things that cause us pain. And he’s not distant from us in our pain. The Psalms say that the Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and he saves the crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18). And so I thought that was just a beautiful testimony from you.
And then it was really neat to hear you talk about Luke and say that you don’t love him based on his abilities or what he is able to do or accomplish or achieve. That’s such a great reflection of the heart of God that he shares with us in Scripture. Like, that’s what’s true about his own heart, that he doesn’t look at us and love us because of what we’re able to do or what we’re able to achieve. But he just loves us, because we belong to him. And I thought your reflections on your love for Luke were such a sweet reflection of God’s own love for us. And as you said, the hard things in life sometimes give us a window into truth that maybe we couldn’t perceive without those hard things.
You shared a little bit about how Jesus has been present with you in those challenges and what he has shown you. Would you say that there’s anything that you’ve learned in your own relationship with the Lord, over the past several years of being a dad and a husband and a working man? In this age and stage of your life, are there any things that you feel like the Lord has particularly been teaching you?
Ben Miller: Definitely. I think one of the things I mentioned in my discussion of Luke is just how hard it is to live for what’s in front of you, for what God’s given you this day, and not worry about tomorrow. And I mentioned that generically, but relative to the way God made me and my innate personality, that’s particularly not natural for me. I’m someone who thinks ahead. I like to plan things. I like to be prepared. I anticipate things that I’m going to need to do to prepare for something or to avoid a problem. It’s very much in my personality. That has been a really big thing for me is just having something in life like this.
But it’s not just Luke. It’s also just being a dad, being a leader. There’s less and less that I have the sense of, I can really make this happen on my own, and more and more a feeling of just needing to trust God, because I’m dependent on more and more things that I know I can’t control or figure out on my own—so just living for today, living by faith. We’re never done learning those things. That has been a major trend as I’ve gotten older. [It’s just] been something that I’ve been forced to really keep learning, keep developing, keep progressing in that.
The other the other thing [I’ve been learning in this particular season] is just understanding God’s grace and his forgiveness. I think that I’m always understanding it on a deeper and deeper level, continuing to learn just how much grace we have to have for others. Oh, I need to have even more grace there. Oh, even more, even more, and for ourselves. And then, because God loves us, he forgives us. And I think when you’re growing up, it’s easy to get that conceptually. And we feel that in our hearts. But I think the more that I get older—the more I understand myself—the more intimately you understand just how much grace God is giving you and that you need. And I think the same thing for [my] kids. My world is my friends, my family, my coworkers and employees, and myself, and on all fronts, every year that goes by, I understand God’s grace a little bit more. I accept it a little bit more. I’m able to give it a little bit more. That and living by faith are the two things that I feel like are horizons that are constantly needing to move forward. I feel like you’re never going to quite arrive at the top of the mountain on that. But yeah, it just keeps progressing.
Eden: One of my friends talked about how life with Jesus is actually all about receiving. And I thought that was really helpful. And as you talk about grace, that came to mind again, just that grace is kindness that we don’t deserve. And we are receiving kindnesses from the Lord on every front all the time: a good night’s sleep is a grace from God; a loving family; a good meal; not to mention the big things—really big things, like salvation; or even, as you said, family members, like a loving spouse and the kids God has given you. And on a daily basis, as you said, we’re totally dependent on God for the things that we need, even things like peace in our heart or joy. And so, on the one hand, like you said, the Christian life is about faith and trusting God for what we need. But it’s also about receiving those things from God as they come and then, based on what we’ve received, giving that back out. But I love how you paired grace and faith together, because I think that is really the sum of our Christian life.
I tend to like to end asking for a couple of book recommendations for someone’s shelf. And we’re looking for books that have been personally transformative in your own walk with Jesus. So are there one to two books that you might recommend to someone that you’re like, hey, this was really, really impactful in my walk with Jesus.
Ben Miller: There’s one book, [and] I don’t know if I’m giving the perfect right answer here. I’ll tell you how it affected my walk with Jesus. I read it years ago for the first time, and it’s called Man’s Search for Meaning. It’s by Viktor Frankl. It’s a very famous book. But a lot of people still don’t know about it. I think I might have read it in school along the way. I don’t know if it’s still something people read in school, because it’s 80 years old now.
Living in an area that’s very secular, this book was an easy thing to talk about with people who are not Christians, but who are looking for meaning in life or [are] open to talking about deeper things. It’s not a Christian book, per se. For those who don’t know anything about it, Viktor Frankl was a Holocaust survivor, and this is a book about his experiences in a concentration camp. But it walks you through the depths of human depravity, which is what the Nazis created in this environment. And then he writes a philosophical book: Going to those depths, then how do you find meaning? And I think so often the people that we know [who] are trying to find meaning and that are not Christians are trying to find meaning in life. And yet, they got in the arena of the superficial. They’re in a much better situation than being in a concentration camp. And so, it becomes something that I’ve recommended a lot. I’ve gotten it for people before. And I’m kind of a philosophical thinker. And so, it’s an easy way to talk about, how do you go from just being in the worst situation to finding meaning. and if you can find meaning in that, you can find meaning in any context. That is a book that I just think of a lot.
Eden: Yes. That reminds me, one of my friends was just talking about how there are certain books that might not directly relay the truths of the Bible, but they awaken in us a desire for truth, like Man’s Search for Meaning. It kind of awakens you to [think] wow, there’s got to be something more. And it stirs up that part of our hearts that longs for God and that longs for the answers that only Scripture could give.
Ben, thank you for taking the time to share about your life and your walk with the Lord and what he’s been doing in your life. It’s so edifying for me to hear and I’m sure will be edifying for others. So thank you for being our guest.
Ben Miller: Well. Thank you. This was good.
Eden: Thank you so much for listening to our podcast today. If you enjoyed our conversation, I would encourage you to like or subscribe to our podcast so that you can hear the next conversation. And if something that you heard today spoke to your heart or got you thinking, I would encourage you to not let the day go by without talking to God about what’s on your mind. We believe that he loves you and that he’s pursuing you today out of that love.