Lies Women Believe About God, Part 1

Series: Lies Women Believe About God

Leslie Basham: Have you ever doubted God's goodness? If you have, you're not alone. This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Monday, October 29.

Life is full of challenges. An illness, a financial setback or a problem with a child can make us wonder if God really has our best interests at heart. Today we'll join Nancy Leigh DeMoss as she speaks to a small group of women about one of the most persuasive lies that Satan has ever devised: the lie that God is not good. Here's Nancy.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: A woman wrote and shared with me how she had four healthy children; and then God gave her a set of twins, one of whom had Down's Syndrome. And she said that this little girl is an incredible challenge. And then she said that she got pregnant again, and this time she had a child who was born with a lung problem. They had to get his lungs cleaned out in order for him to be able to breathe. And she said that he was now able to breathe; but because of the lack of oxygen, he ended up with cerebral palsy. She said,

He can't swallow; he does not smile when you play with him. My heart is so sad. It's like my son has died, and I must continue to do everything for him. [Then here's the real heart of why she wrote.] Is God really good? Doesn't He make any mistakes?

This week we want to look at some of the lies that women believe about God. Now, I'll tell you that it's not just women who believe these lies. But these are lies that women have shared with me that they have found themselves believing about God--and the kind of things I have wrestled with in my own experience. Nothing is more crucial than what you and I believe about God. In fact, what we believe about God is foundational to everything else about our lives.

If we believe things about God that aren't true, we are laying a faulty foundation for our lives that will sooner or later crack. If we have wrong thinking about God, we will have wrong thinking about everything else. Because you see, what we believe about God ultimately determines the way that we live.

I want us to look at one of those lies today. It's a lie that this woman referred to in her letter about her children. It's the lie that God is not really good. And if He were, He would have--fill in the blanks. Or if He really were good, he would not have--fill in the blanks.

Now, most of us don't consciously believe that God is not really good. And if we do feel it, we would never dare to say out loud--"God is not really good" because, you know, theologically we know better. We know in our heads that God is good. And I believe that deep in many of our hearts this week there is this lurking suspicion that: Yes, God may be good to everybody else, but God has not been good to me. This lie is at the core of much of our wrong thinking about God.

Let me send you back to Genesis chapter one. Look at what God made and then see the description. Everything God made was good. Of course it was because it was a reflection of a good God. But when Satan wanted to tempt the woman to rebel against God, he planted in her mind the seed of doubt about God's goodness.

And when turbulence comes into our lives: disappointment, pain, when we lose people we love, when things don't go as we had hoped or planned--Satan tempts us to wonder, Is God really good. If He were, how could He have let this happen? How could He have let my husband abandon me? How could he have let my parents treat me this way? How could he have let me lose my job? Or why would God have kept this good thing from me?

I hear from many unmarried women doubting in their hearts the goodness of God because God has not brought them the husband that they're longing for. It's not just true, by the way, on a personal level, it's true in our world. This is one of the things that people really challenge about God. When you look in this fallen world at the wars, famine, the natural disasters, these things are a reality. And Satan uses these realities to try to put God in a negative light. How could a truly good God let the Holocaust take place, or the famine in Ethiopia, or the massacre of students at Columbine?

Once we doubt the goodness of God, we're going to find it hard to trust God. You can't trust a God that's not good. Now, how do we counter that lie in our minds and in our hearts? If we have this lurking suspicion that maybe God really isn't good--maybe you're at a season in your life when it's tempting to think, God hasn't really been good to me. How do we counter that? Well, we always counter lies with the truth. We replace the lies, we displace the lies with the truth. The truth is that God is good, He is good.

I was looking over the weekend through the Psalms, and I found 13 references that said God is good. Over and over again in the songbook of Israel they affirm God is good. The Lord is good. It also says His name is good, His lovingkindness is good, His mercies are good, His judgments are good and His spirit is good. He is good whether or not His choices seem right to us, whether or not we feel it, whether or not it seems true, and whether or not He gives us everything that we want.

Dr. Larry Crabb has written a wonderful book called Finding God, and he talks about this matter of the goodness of God. He says, "We must call God good even when we suffer because He is. And when things are going well, we must call Him good for reasons that go beyond our immediate plans."

You know, when you have a sick child and your child gets well, it's like God is so good. He healed my child. Well, that's true. God is good. And he did heal your child. But can you still look up into the eyes of God when your eyes are filled with tears and your child doesn't get healed and say, "God is still good?" Our perspective is so that we cannot see and know what God sees and God knows.

Dr. Crabb in his book encourages us to take a look at things from God's perspective and he envisions God saying,

If you look for evidence of my goodness in what you see around you and inside you, you will reach a terribly wrong conclusion. You will conclude that sometimes I am good, and sometimes I am not. But if you look for evidence of my goodness in the way things will be one day, if you are willing to believe that I am at work now to prepare for that day and if you ponder the meaning of my death-- then you will realize that all the badness in the world can no more conquer my goodness than a child can out-wrestle a man.

One of the most exhilarating experiences of my Christian life in recent years was making a visit to the Brooklyn Tabernacle on one of their Tuesday evening prayer meetings. Some of you are familiar with this church that has really been built on prayer. I'll never forget, I was standing on the front row of the auditorium during the praise and worship time. And the church began to sing a song that was new to me but obviously familiar to them. It's about the goodness of God.

He is good,
He is good,
His mercy endures forever,
He is good.

They were singing this song over and over again, and then at one point Pastor Cymbala interrupted the singing to ask for anyone in that congregation that was just hanging from the rafters. I mean, the place was just really full of people for their prayer meeting night. He said, "I want anyone who doesn't have a job and needs a job to come forward and we want to pray for you."

Well, at that moment, it was like a stampede. There were scores, I would say, of men and women who came to the front. I was on the front row and just about got run over by all the people (who were filling that area in front of the platform) who were out of work and needed a job. Then Pastor Cymbala said, "Now we're going to sing that song again.

He is good,
He is good,
His mercy endures forever,
He is good.

And at one point, I looked around as they were singing that song. And I just saw people with their faces lifted up toward the Lord, their hands in front of them lifted up in praise to the Lord, a hundred or more people, I would say, in front of me who were out of work singing at the top of their lungs, He is good, He is good. At one point, Pastor Cymbala looked down to a woman in that group and she said, "You're looking downcast. How can you sing God is Good and keep your face down? Lift your face up because God is good."

One of the most powerful encounters for me of the goodness of God came more than twenty years ago. (It was) As I received the news, having just been with my family and then having flown back to my place of work; I landed in Virginia (where I was working at the time) and received a phone call that my dad had had a heart attack and was instantly in the presence of the Lord. God did something very gracious for me in that moment.

My dad and I were very close. And in the days that followed, there were lots of tears and an enormous sense of loss that I feel sometimes even to this day. But in that very first moment before there were any other thoughts, God brought to mind a verse that I had read (I think it was just a week or so earlier). It's from Psalm 119, verse 68. Paraphrased it reads, "God is good, and everything He does is good."

Now, my dad had spent the first twenty-some years of my life teaching me that God is good, and everything He does is good. But in that moment, theology that I had in my head became doxology in my heart. And I knew that whatever we had to face in the days ahead, God was good. God laid in that understanding, that reminder of His good character--a foundation that became a resting place for my heart, a steadying place for my emotions and allowed us to walk the days and the months and the years that followed confident in the goodness of God. 

Leslie Basham: If you've been challenged today to develop a more biblical view of God and His goodness, why don't you get a copy of Nancy's book Lies Women Believe And The Truth That Sets Them Free? One of the chapters is called "Lies Women Believe about God" and it will give you a new understanding of His character and goodness.

You can get a copy of Lies Women Believe for a suggested donation of $17 when you call us at 1-800-569-5959.  And when you call, you can also order a cassette copy of today's program for a suggested donation of $5. You can also order from our Web site ReviveOurHearts.com or by mail.

If you grew up in church, you probably learned the song "Jesus Loves Me," but do you truly believe deep in your heart that you're loved by Him? We'll hear about the love of God tomorrow. I hope you can be with us. Now, to lead us in prayer, here's Nancy.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Father, we acknowledge that many times our hearts question, are you really good ? But the truth with which we must counsel our hearts is that we know you are good. Grant us, oh God, faith and confidence in this truth. May we counter the lies of the enemy with the truth that you are good, and everything you do is good? I pray in Jesus' name, amen.  

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss is a ministry partnership of Life Action Ministries.

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