God’s Promises and Purposes in Your Discouragement

Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says that in times of discouragement, God’s purposes transcend ours.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I think we have to realize that God is not as concerned about solving our problems as we are. He's more concerned about changing us and using our problems to sanctify us than he is about fixing our world and making it work.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, coauthor of You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, for September 8, 2025. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy’s continuing in a series called "Defying Discouragement." In the same way we’re called to resist the devil, we can defy (or oppose) discouragement in our lives. It’s all under the purview of the Spirit’s enabling power, not our own strength. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy: I think one of the most common tools that the enemy uses to defeat God's children is the tool of discouragement. All of us have given in to it at one time or another. I confess that I often give in to discouragement. I've been looking to the Word of God in recent days. We've been looking together into the Word of God to discover how you deal with discouragement.

Let me just start by saying you can't avoid the circumstances that lead to discouragement. There will be seasons of life. There will be periods of our lives when we are in discouraging circumstances. The question is not, "How do we get out of those?" The question is, "How do we deal with life and with God in the midst of those circumstances?"

We've been looking into the life of David in the Old Testament and gaining insight about how to deal with discouragement. I don't know about you, but my own heart has been so encouraged as I've learned from this servant of the Lord.

We've been in 1 Samuel 30, if you've not been with us. By way of quick review, you know that David and his troop of six hundred men who were hiding out from King Saul have come back after being out on a military expedition.

They've come back to their city and found out that the Amalekites have burnt their city, have taken their wives and their children and all their possessions. Everything they have is lost. All hope is lost. Then David's men turn against him. There's mutiny in the camp. There's murmuring. They're weeping. This whole story is told in the first paragraph of 1 Samuel 30.

Then the Scripture tells us that David encouraged himself in the Lord. He was distressed. He was weeping. But he turned his eyes, though they were filled with tears, to the Lord. He encouraged himself in the Lord.

You need to learn how to encourage yourself in the Lord. I need to learn how to encourage myself in the Lord. We tend to think, "If there's no one else around to encourage me, then I guess I just have to be discouraged." Not true. There may be a season in your life when there is no one around to encourage you. David encouraged himself in the Lord.

Then David got direction from God as to what he should do. He inquired of the Lord. He used the means that God had provided for giving direction. Today we have the Word of God, and we have prayer. We have the Holy Spirit, who helps us understand what the Word of God is saying and how to apply it to our situation. We get direction from God.

Then we saw in our last session that David received from God an answer. That answer consisted of a command and a promise. The command was: "Pursue after these Amalekites who have taken your family members. Go after them." So David obeyed the command of God.

We said that we have commands in God's Word. We need to know what they are. We need to be doing what we know to do, even when everything in us is screaming "No! You can't! It's too hard!" There are times when all of us are thinking, I just can't obey God! I just can't love that husband! I just can't persevere under this attack! I just can't open my home to one more person! I just can't give to one more person in need! I just can't forgive this person!

Listen, ladies. That's a lie from the enemy. You'll stay discouraged if you let yourself believe that you can't obey God. The truth is that if you're a child of God, you can obey God. There is grace to obey God. God's grace gives you the desire and the power to obey Him. His grace is sufficient for you to obey God in that circumstance.

So David got a command from God, which he obeyed. Then he got something else, which the Scripture calls exceedingly precious and that was a promise from God. God said, "Pursue them." That's the command. The promise was, "You will overtake them and you will recover everything. You'll get back all the spoil and your families."

Now the outcome has not been seen yet, but God has promised what the outcome will be. So David steps out in faith, believing that what God has said is true—claiming the promise of God. That's what enables him to obey God. When he cannot see the answer, he trusts that God's Word is true.

So let me say that in our discouraging circumstances of life to look for the promises of God. Again, where do we get them? It's in this Book. Let me tell you: Listening to Revive Our Hearts or any other number of wonderful teaching programs is not enough to keep your heart from discouragement. God uses this ministry to encourage people, and I'm so thankful for that. But you need to get into the Word of God the same way I have to get into the Word of God and find those promises for yourself. If you're not living in the Scripture—finding the commands and the promises of God's Word—don't expect some radio teacher or TV preacher or author or pastor or somebody else to do your encouragement work for you. You get in the Word! Let God use His Word to encourage your heart with His promises to you, as He does so often for my own heart.

I want to take several minutes today in this session just read to you some of the promises from God's Word that have strengthened and encouraged my heart. Last night as I was pulling these together, I was in the Scripture and feeling the weight and the pressure of recording sessions today and tomorrow and a number of things that are pressing into my life at this moment (book deadlines and speaking coming up and relational issues I'm dealing with and staffing issues) . . . There have been times this past week that life was all crowding in and seeming very overwhelming.

Last night as I read through these promises—reviewed promises that have become friends to me over the years—I found my heart was so strengthened. There's power in the Word of God. The Word of God is alive. It's powerful. It will minister grace to your heart as you find its promises and you make them your own.

What we're going to do, by the way, is post on our website, ReviveOurHearts.com, fifty of my favorite Bible promises. Now I hope you come up with your own list of fifty. But to get you started, we're going to post fifty of my favorite Bible promises.

Let me read some of them to you. As I do, think about the situation that you're in right now. Think about a health issue that you're facing. Think about a child that you're trying to rear for whom no textbook was ever written, and you're just really disheartened wondering if these teenagers will ever survive to adulthood.

Or a marriage that you've been in for years and it's so discouraging that your husband isn't seeking the Lord and there isn't the love and the oneness in your marriage that you have longed for, and you're discouraged.

Or your church is falling apart. There's a split brewing there. There's not oneness in the Body and your heart is discouraged over this. Think about your situation and then listen to some of these promises.

For example, there are promises that relate to the provision of God. You may need some of these, as maybe your husband has just lost his job or you've lost a job and you don't know where you're going to get your needs met.

Psalm 23:1 says, "The LORD is my shepherd; [I shall not lack.] I shall not want." I will have everything that I need.

Psalm 34:10 tells us, "The young lions lack and suffer hunger, but those who seek the LORD shall not lack any good thing." That's a promise.

Psalm 84:11: "For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly." It's a promise. Believe it.

Philippians 4:19: You're familiar with this one. "And my God will [meet] all your needs, according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." It's a promise. You can take that promise to the bank that God will, out of His infinite resources, meet your needs.

Think about your need for protection and for deliverance from some circumstance you may be facing. Isaiah 41:10 says: "So do not fear for I am with you. Do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand" (ESV).

Isaiah 50:7 says: "For the LORD GOD will help me; therefore, I will not be disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed." It's a promise you can claim.

Maybe it is strength you are needing. I went out at 6:30 the other morning to walk, and outside my front door were these flowers sitting in a cup of water with a little card. A friend left these at my front door. The card says, "Those that wait on the LORD will renew their strength." I almost started to cry. That promise was so precious to me at that moment. I was needing renewed strength. That promise went with me through that difficult day. It's a promise from God's Word, "Those that wait on the LORD will renew their strength, they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not be weary, they will walk and not faint" (Isa. 40:31).

Deuternomy 3 says: "As to your days, so shall your strength be." Whatever you have to face today; whatever I have to face today, God says there will be strength to face it.

Isaiah 43:2: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; when you pass through the rivers, they shall not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, the flames will not set you ablaze" (NIV).

There are so many promises about perseverance. Galatians 6:9: "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" (NIV). Don't give up! God's Word says, "Persevere."

Psalm 138: 8 says, "The Lord will perfect that which concerns me." It's a promise. Believe it. Act on it.

James 1:12:  "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him" (NIV).

Job 23:10: (another one of my favorites): "But He knows the way that I take; and when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold." God promises deliverance. He promises sanctification. He promises that we will be purified through these circumstances. I could go on and on. I've got pages of these here.

"Call upon Me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you and you will glorify Me" (Psalm 50:15).

"The Lord will not cast off His people," Psalm 94 says, "nor will He forsake His inheritance."

Isaiah 46:4: "Even to your old age and gray hairs." The grayer I get, the more I love this verse. "I am He," God says, "I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you. I will sustain you and I will rescue you."

Then Psalm 73:24: "You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward You will receive me to glory."

Listen, ladies. The Scripture is filled with exceedingly great and precious promises—not just for people who lived thousands of years ago in their circumstances, but for you and for me in our circumstances today.

David stepped out in faith. He acted on the promises of God. As you would know, God came through. First Samuel 30:18 tells us that "David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away. David rescued his two wives. Nothing of theirs was lacking. David recovered all."

 

Should that come as any surprise? God had said, "You will recover all." Ladies, God keeps His Word. He keeps His promises. I often tell myself when my heart is fainting and failing and weak and I'm prone to discouragement, I remind myself in walking with God and in decades and centuries and millennia of other people walking with God, I have never found Him to fail and no one else ever has, either. I remind myself, "He's not going to start now." He is faithful. He promised.

Dannah: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth isn’t finished. She’ll be back to keep pointing you to the Lord as the source of the encouragement you need. Before she comes, let me tell you about a booklet our team has created for you. Endure: Forty Days of Fortitude is a daily invitation to cling to Christ, grow in perseverance, and find joy in trusting Him. It will encourage you to depend upon Christ for everything, and to cultivate the confidence, clarity, community, and courage required to stand firm in the storms of life.

This month, we’d love to put a copy in your hands when you support Revive Our Hearts through a gift of any amount. To give, visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. When you do, be sure to ask for Endure: Forty Days of Fortitude.

If you’re discouraged today, our team would love to pray for you. You can submit a prayer request at ReviveOurHearts.com/prayer. When you do, you can be confident that a team member here at Revive Our Hearts will spend time bringing that request to the Lord. It’s an honor to come alongside you in this way. 

Let’s get back to Nancy’s series, "Defying Discouragement."

Nancy: As I read through many of the emails and letters that are sent to us at Revive Our Hearts, I find myself sometimes just carrying, with those who write, a sense of the load and the burden that they're under at the moment.

One in particular came not too long ago. It represents so many that we receive from women who are struggling in their marriages. They feel that there is just no hope. There is no way out of this situation. I have to tell you that sometimes as I read some of these myself, from a human perspective I think, I have no idea what to tell you! I have no idea what you should do or what I would do if I were in your circumstances! I can't imagine having to face what you're facing!

Here's one, for example. A woman says,

I'm struggling tremendously in my marriage. This is nothing new. It's just that as our seventeenth wedding anniversary approaches, our marriage continues to deteriorate as it has from day one. I feel as if I'm about ready to lose my mind.

My husband is a recovering alcoholic, a prescription drug abuser. The addictions have caused so much stress in the marriage and have left scars because of the self-absorbed behavior and his unavailability as a daddy and a husband. I parent the children by myself most of the time. He sleeps while I try to parent and keep house. I feel myself just wanting to give up.

This is a hard life with no end in sight. Often people who write or call our ministry and want counsel or input—they want biblical resources to help them—what they really wish someone could do—and we've all been there—we wish somebody could just tell us what to do. We wish somebody could just fix it for us, somebody could just change it for us.

Yet we all know that there are no magic formulas, that this marriage has taken seventeen years to develop this way. This husband has who-knows-what background that he brought into the marriage and she into the marriage. They didn't get to this place overnight. I don't have a formula to give this woman.

In a question and answer session, these types of questions will come up. Or following a conference and I'm sitting down with a woman for fifteen minutes and she pours out a story like this . . . There is no way in fifteen hours much less fifteen minutes or an email or letter response that you're going to solve this problem.

Let me say that, first of all, I think we have to realize that God is not as concerned about solving our problems as we are. He is more concerned about changing us and using our problems to sanctify us than He is about fixing our world and making it work.

You see, we're driven to have an easier life, less pain, less struggle, less heartache. That's in our humanness that we feel that way. But if we could step out of our own perspective and look at it from God's perspective, we would see that God has an agenda in mind that is far bigger and greater and more vast than just solving our problem.

God wants you to have a marriage that is pleasing to Him, but God may know that it's through the pressure and problems in your marriage over a period of years that you will become more like Jesus and that there will be the fruit of the life of Christ produced in you that will give you something to give to others.

We all have to be willing to let go of our own convenience, our own comfort, our own agendas and say, "Lord, if it pleases You for me to have to walk through this in order for me to become what You made me to be, in order for my life to bring You glory; if that pleases You, then I accept it. I embrace it."

We also have to realize that we live in a fallen world, and there are not quick, easy solutions to life's problems. Going back to Genesis 3, God said to Eve, "You will have pain in childbirth." And to Adam there will be thistles and toil and labor and by the sweat of your brow you will have to work." Redemption doesn't reverse all that—not until Jesus comes back and brings a new heaven and a new earth will we have a life where there is no pain, no sorrow, no crying, no dying. We cannot have now what we will only have then. It's mistaken of us to expect now what God has in store for us later.

Having said all that, you say, "What do you say to a woman like this?" What do you say to a woman when every part of her life feels like it's falling apart? She feels like she is hanging on by her toenails and doesn't know how she can keep going. Some of these very, very desperate crisis situations that people are living in today—they're complex. Sin does complicate lives. It may be your sin; it may be somebody else's sin. But it makes this life very complicated.

So what do we say to these people? We're saying, "I can't fix your problem." And God may not even be interested in fixing your problem as much as He is in making you like Jesus. So what can we say to give encouragement to people whose lives are in very discouraging circumstances?

I read something recently that I felt was very helpful. It was by Andrew Murray. He was a South African writer and preacher many years ago. I want to just read what he wrote and make some comments on it that I think help address all of us when we find ourselves in these hopelessly enmeshed and complicated circumstances of life.

Andrew Murray said, "When we're in discouraging circumstances, we need to remember four things." We'll put these on the website, by the way, because you won't be able to write them down quickly enough to get them as I share them. So you can go there and find these listed.

"Number one, remember that God brought me here. It is by His will that I am in this confined place. In that fact, I will rest."

Let me just put in a parenthesis here. If you are in the circumstances you are in because of your own disobedience, then don't blame God. I read a lot of emails from women who are in very messed up marriages. But as I read the circumstances I realize, they married a man they never should have married. They married outside the will of God. They didn't have their parent's blessing. They married a non-believer. They were sexually active before they got married. They had a previous marriage and were not free to remarry biblically.

So in marriage or any other situation in life, if you're in the mess because of the consequences of your own wrong choices, then there is one initial solution, and that is you must repent. You must agree with God that you've sinned against Him. Now in repenting, that doesn't mean that God is going to make all your problems go away. There may still be consequences, but there will be grace for you to walk through those problems.

Now having repented or if you're in that mess because of other people's sins, then remember what Andrew Murray says. "Number one, I am here by the will of God. In that fact, I will rest." God has brought me here, so I will not resist. I will not kick. I will not scream. I will not fight. I will accept the fact that God has put me in this place.

By the way, what you rest in there is in the sovereignty of God—that God is sovereign, that He is in control, that He knows what He is doing and that He doesn't make mistakes. Ladies, when your heart cannot find any other resting place, run to the sovereignty of God. God is God. He knows what He is doing. He is in control. He doesn't make mistakes. Rest in that fact.

Number two, Murray says, "When you're in a discouraging circumstance, remember that God will keep me here in His love and He will give me grace to behave as His child." Not after I get out of the circumstance, but when I'm in it. God will keep me here in His love and will give me grace to behave as His child.

You see, we tend to think, As long as I'm in this circumstance, I can't be godly. Yes, you can be. There is no circumstance in life:

• That makes it right for me to be shrill. 
• That makes it right for me to be a whiner. 
• That makes it right for me to be bitter. 
• That makes it right for me to be angry. 
• That makes it right for me to speak evil of other people.
• God will keep me here in His love and will give me grace in this circumstance to be godly, to act as His child.

Number three, Murray says, "Remember that God will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends for me to learn and working in me the grace He means to bestow." This is a teaching experience. This is a classroom. This is a laboratory of life. God is sanctifying me. He is teaching me lessons. As I learn those lessons, the trial will become in God's way and in God's time a blessing.

Isn't that what James 1 says? "When you fall into various kinds of trials, count it all joy because you know this: that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But let endurance have its perfect work, so that you may be complete and mature, lacking nothing" (vv. 2–4 paraphrased). Rejoice because you know that the trial will turn to blessing in God's time.

There is a sanctifying power in suffering. That's how God purifies. That's how the dross is removed. That's how the gold and the silver are purified. It's in heat. It's under intense pressure through prolonged periods of testing that our faith is purified. So remember that God will make the trial a blessing, if you will learn in it all that God intended for you in that trial.

Then number four, "In God's good time, He can bring me out again—when and how He knows." In God's good time, He can bring me out again. When He does it and how He does it are up to Him.

Job 23:10. Job said in the midst of his extreme suffering and anguish, "God knows the way that I take. And when He has tried me, I will come forth . . ." I love that promise! There will be life after this. "I will come forth, and I will come forth as gold." God will deliver me in His way and in His time.

Murray summarizes these four points with four simple phrases.

• Number one, I am here by God's appointment.
• Number two, in His keeping.
• Number three, under His training.
• Number four, for His time.

I am here by God's appointment, in His keeping, under His training and for His time. The joy and the strength come when I accept that. I say, "Lord, I make Your will my will."

Thank You, Father, for the richness of Your promises and the assurance we have that the circumstances we are in at this moment have been designed by You for Your glory and for our good—that we are here by Your appointing. This circumstance did not catch You off guard. You didn't have to call any emergency meetings in heaven to determine what to do. You know what You're doing.

We live under sovereignty. We are here in Your keeping and under Your training and for Your time. As long as You ordain that we should be in this circumstance, it is right.

I wonder how many of you are facing in your life right now some circumstance that has been coming to mind about dealing with discouragement. There's something you're dealing with that is just too big for you to handle. Would you just make this very personal?

Say, "Lord, I agree with You in this circumstance by Your appointment, under Your sovereignty. Therefore, I will not resent or resist. I won't run from this trial. I will embrace it as a friend. Through my tears I will trust that You have put me here. I know that I am in Your keeping; that You will give me grace in this circumstance to act in a way that is becoming to Your children. I know that You are here to train me. You've put me in this circumstance so You can sanctify and conform me to the image of Christ. I accept that, Lord. And I accept that You know how long this trial will endure. I receive Your will as it relates to the timing. I will not manipulate to get myself out of this before Your time is finished."

As we counsel our hearts, as you counsel your heart according to the ways of God, you will find that in the midst of that trial, God will give you strength. He will encourage your heart. He will give you hope. He will keep your mind quiet and at rest as you trust in Him.

Your marriage may not change. Your health may not change. Your finances may not change. But you will change, and God will be glorified.

We give You thanks, Lord, for the greatness and the beauty and the wonder of Your ways, and we embrace Your will and make it ours. In Jesus' name, amen.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. If today’s program has been impactful for you, would you write and tell us?

You can always contact us through our website, ReviveOurHearts.com, but here’s our “snail mail” address. It’s P.O. Box 2000, Niles, Michigan 49120. It’s always a joy to hear from listeners. When you tell us how you’ve been encouraged by this ministry, you encourage us!

Also, you’ll find more teaching like this to encourage you in times of discouragement and times of joy at ReviveOurHearts.com. Search our podcast archives or read the Revive Our Hearts blog to find the biblical help you need, whatever your circumstances. 

Now tomorrow, we’re taking a break from 1 Samuel 30, because Nancy’s found an exciting pattern in the Old Testament related to discouragement. She’s gonna share that with us when we come back. I hope you’ll join us!

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan. Calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the NKJV unless otherwise noted.

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