To The Woman Who Doesn’t Feel God’s Love

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"God Really Loves Us"

"Love Never Fails"

"Is God Really Good?"

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Dannah Gresh: Okay, imagine this scene with me for a moment. You’re visiting my farm in beautiful Pennsylvania. It’s still wintery here, but there are whispers of a thaw on the horizon. Birds are flying back into town and singing from the tippity top of the oak trees, and we’re walking beneath them. You can hear the goats in background and maybe a peacock or two as well.

We’re holding mugs of hot tea to warm our hands, and after a brief period of small talk, things get real. Valentine’s Day is tender for you after a painful loss you experienced last year, and you whisper the most honest thing you’ve shared in months: “I just don’t feel like God loves me.” 

I’m your host, Dannah Gresh. You’re listening to Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

Okay, I know we’re just imagining, but does any part of that scenario feel real to you? Maybe Valentine’s Day this weekend does stir up tender emotions, either of loss or unfulfilled longing. Maybe you’re suffering and questioning why a loving God would let you hurt so much. Or maybe nothing’s necessarily going wrong—but for some reason you don’t feel the deep, deep love of Jesus, even though you want to. 

Friend, consider today’s episode a heart-to-heart—a continuation of that little farm walk we imagined. Here are some of the things I’d tell you if you were walking next to me, tea in hand. 

First up, let’s hear a word on God’s love from my dear friend Erin Davis. She’s an Editor at Moody Publishers, wife to Jason, and mom to four boys she loves dearly. Erin has wrestled with those same doubts and fears we just talked about. In what you’re about to hear, she’s sharing from Psalm 92, a passage that has brought her lots of comfort. Let’s listen. 

Erin Davis: The Psalmist is saying, “The righteous can flourish, and here’s how: declare God’s steadfast love in the morning and His faithfulness at night.”

You can wake up every single morning of your life and, before your feet even hit the floor, before your eyes even pop open, before you have a chance to do anything for anybody, you can know: God loves me. He really loves me.”

Now, I’m a firstborn. I often say I’m not type A; I’m type double-A. I’m an achiever. And that means I have spent most of my life trying to earn the love of others. Even those who love me without me earning it, I’m trying to earn it, even though I already have it. Whew! It’s exhausting.

I’ve spent too many years of my Christian life trying to earn God’s love. But I have God’s love. He loves me.

And trying to live in that fervor, that position of trying to earn His love, it will keep you from flourishing. You’re going to be too exhausted to flourish.

Listen with fresh awe to Ephesians 1:4–5. This squashes any idea that we have to earn God’s love. 

Even as he [the he here is Jesus, even as he] chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love [circle it, underline it. In love] he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.

Don’t miss this. When did He choose you? “Before the foundation of the earth.” Before you had a chance to do a single good thing to impress God or a single bad thing to disappoint Him, He chose you.

And why did He choose you? He says it right there at the end of verse 4: “in love.” Did He choose you for His glory? Absolutely. But He chose you in love. He loves us! He really, really loves us!

This is so elementary, but somehow I got away from it for a long time, and it’s so important. God has always, always, always, since before there was time, loved you. And God will always, always, always love you.

We don’t ever outgrow that song, “Jesus Loves Me.” It never stops changing the reality of our lives.

God’s love for us is not a thermostat. It doesn’t go up a few degrees if we’re good and go down a few degrees when we’re bad. In fact, Scripture says that no one’s good. And yet, listen to the beauty of Jeremiah 31:3:

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.

Now, I know a day is coming when Judah will wonder, Do my mom and dad really love me? And it won’t be because of anything we did. We’re all broken by sin in our hearts. We just can’t be sure this can be true. We’re just not sure that we’re really loved.

But right now, that little boy has never had that thought. That has never occurred to him . . . and he’s flourishing.

As I parked in Psalm 92 this year, I’ve often woken up to this thought: “I have nothing to prove. I have nothing to lose. Nothing is on the line here today, because Jesus’ love for me will be no less than it is now.” That’ll make you flourish.

One of the things I am most looking forward to about heaven—and I am looking forward to heaven—is the final end to all striving. I’m not going to have to work my way into anything.

And yet, Jesus taught us to pray for things here to be like they are there. I think part of what He meant is for us to function knowing that we are already completely, irreversibly, undeservingly loved.

And the psalmist is saying, “Know that. Soak in it. Remind yourself of God’s love every morning, and it will lead to flourishing.”

Don’t you remember what you were like when you first fell in love with your man? I do! I was fifteen years young. And there’s just this glow that comes upon a woman who knows she’s loved. Jason Davis has loved me well for a very long time.

And that’s like a teeny tiny pale snapshot compared to the way that we can live and operate in the world when we do as the Psalmist said—we declare His steadfast love in the morning and His faithfulness by night.

You can wake up every morning and say, “God loves me today.” And then you can crawl into bed every single night and honestly say this, “God, You were faithful to me today.”

Whether God gives you a thousand days or ten days more, every day of your life you can wake up and say, “I am fully loved by God.” And every night of your life you can go to bed knowing, “He didn’t fail me today, and He won’t fail me tomorrow.”

Dannah: Erin Davis on believing God really, truly loves us. That was part of a message from The Deep Well podcast. If you’d like to listen to the entire thing, you’ll find a link in today’s transcript at ReviveOurHearts.com. 

Next up, we’re diving into an episode of True Girl. That’s my podcast for tween girls and their moms. In this episode, I tell a really special story about God’s unfailing love. You’ll hear from my sweet cohost, Staci, too. Let’s listen.

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Let’s go back in time to November of 2006 and cross the ocean to China. 

A beautiful thirteen-year-old girl named Zang Cho Yun was waiting for something. She was waiting to be loved. You see, when she was born, her mother left her on the steps of an orphanage. 

Abandoned for the first time.

But soon a young Chinese couple took her home as their own. But hard times fell on the family and Zang Cho Yun’s second mother just decided to leave. 

Abandoned for a second time.

Flash forward a few more years and her father died.

Abandoned a third time.

Now she was living again in the orphanage system of China. She had only eleven months left to be adopted internationally. On her fourteenth birthday, she would age out. That would mean she would no longer be taken care of by the orphanage system, and she wouldn’t be eligible to be adopted. She’d be placed on the streets with no family of her own.

She knew the streets well, and in fact, she walked them often with her friend. One day, she was exploring them when she saw a small group of people that didn’t look like they were from China. In fact, they were from Nashville, Tennessee.

She approached the group. Through a translator she bravely said, “I need a family.” 

It just so happened that this group was there in her little village in a remote location in China learning about international adoption.

They flew back to the United States with visions of this beautiful girl, Zhang Cho Yun in their heads . . . and a mission to find her a family. But remember, they only had a few months left to get her out of China before she would age out of the adoption process.

Well pretty soon, a family was identified, but there was just one great big obstacle standing in the way, $25,000. 

Now I don’t know what you think, but I think that's a lot of money. Pretty soon a friend offered to pay $12,000, but do the math with me, how much money did the family still need? 

Staci Rudolph: A lot.

Dannah: Yeah, $13,000, to be specific. 

The family began to pray. The deadline was getting closer, and they needed the money very soon. They didn't have any idea where it would come from, but they did know that God had called them to adopt Zhang Cho Yun. They believed He would provide somehow. 

That very week, they got a phone call.

Their new accountant, the guy who helped them with their money, noticed that they'd been paying the IRS or the United States government incorrectly for the past several years. It looked like they had a huge problem. 

“You don't understand,” said the accountant, “the IRS owes you money. In fact, they owe you $13,060.” 

Staci: No way!

Dannah: Yes way! And that was exactly what they needed to adopt their new daughter. Only God could use the IRS as a savings account!

There were lots of other miracles along the way. But in August of 2007, Zhang Cho Yun met her forever family. Even though everyone else failed her, God did not.

Staci: That’s wild! 

Dannah: God never fails my friend. You know how I know that story? It was my family that adopted Zang Cho Yun. Today, her name is Autumn Cho Yun. She is my daughter. 

Autumn didn't even know God when she wished for the one thing she wanted: a family, a mom and dad. And God didn't fail her—even though everyone else in her life had.

Against all odds He sent friends of ours to find her in the middle of China. 

And then He had the IRS saving the money to pay for her very expensive adoption. 

Staci: I love that story Dannah, and it gets me every time! Because God saw Autumn, and He provided exactly what she wanted most. 

Dannah: Yup. Even when other people fail us. God does not.

True girl, I want you to experience that kind of friendship with God. Unfailing love. 

Staci: And more than that, God wants you to experience friendship with Him. Jesus Himself said these words when He walked the earth, “I have called you friends.” He wants to be your friend. Yours!

You know, it takes time to grow a friendship. It takes time spent laughing and crying and playing and talking with each other. And slowly but surely as you spend more time creating a relationship with each other, you become closer and closer. Then before you know it, you are best friends. You know every little secret about each other, what they like and don’t like, things that they enjoy, or maybe things that make them upset.

It’s no different with God. You need to spend time with God to have a friendship! 

Dannah: Okay, I think we are ready for your True Challenge! I’m gonna participate in this one too because, well, it’s really a good one! 

Staci: Spit it out! 

Dannah: Okay, your True Girl Challenge is to get alone with God . . . and to make it special! Go to a place of solitude. 

For me, that would probably be outside. I always feel so close to God when I go for a long walk with my dog Moose or ride my horse Trigg through the corn fields.

Staci: For me it would be with my journal and cup of tea.

Dannah: We just want you to spend some time alone with the Friend who will never fail you: Jesus.

Staci: Now, you may be wondering, What am I even supposed to do? You could write a note to God in your prayer journal, or listen to worship songs and sing along. You might read the Bible or do a Bible study that you’ve been working on.

Whatever it is you chose to do, do it with the intention of getting to know the closest Friend you will ever have even better! 

Dannah: I hope this is the beginning of many great times that you spend with Jesus. I think you’re just going to love it. Whenever I spend time with Jesus, I always feel so refreshed and peaceful and . . . well . . . loved. Loved by an unfailing love!

Dannah: Okay, now you may not be a tween girl, but you are not too old for a True Girl challenge! If you aren’t feeling God’s love today, get alone with Him. Get to know Him as your friend. Get to know His unfailing love.

To wrap up today, let’s hear an encouraging word from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. Here’s a note she received from a listener:

Although I was a child of God, I had believed throughout my life that certain aspects of the truth applied to everyone except me. God loved them but not me. Others were of great worth to God but not me. I knew the facts that God is good, God loves me, and that I was of great worth to Him; but there was no connection in my mind between facts and how I felt. Surely if God loved me and I meant so much to Him, I would feel loved and valuable.

Wow, that’s honest. And maybe relatable, too. Nancy says one of our common problems is that we tend to believe what we feel rather than what we know is true. But it doesn’t have to be this way. To help you deal with the lie that you’re unloved by God, Here’s Nancy.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Now, it's no small matter to believe this lie that God doesn't love me. We're looking at lies women believe about God, and this particular one has enormous implications. It affects every other area of our lives and relationships. Those little seeds that we allow to come into our minds—"Maybe God doesn't really love me"—ultimately will take root and then grow up to produce this incredible harvest and produce great damage.

So how do we deal with that lie? As always, we counter the lie with the truth. The truth is that God does love me. God loves you. God loves us—whether or not we feel love and regardless of what we have done, where we have been, what our past is. God loves us with an infinite love.

That's one of the wonderful things, by the way, about the love of God. His love, unlike our natural human love, is not based on what we have done. It's not based on our worth; it's not based on our performance; it's not based on anything we could do to please Him or to gain His favor; it's not based on our worth. His love for us is based on the fact that He is a lover. He doesn't love us because we're lovable; He loves us because He is love. His love is something that we do not deserve; and we could never, ever earn, no matter how hard we try.

I have a friend named Melina who has faced a long, hard battle with breast cancer. Ultimately, she had to have a double mastectomy. She wrote a letter following that surgery that shared how God used that experience to bring her to a deeper comprehension of the incredible love of God. She said as she was with her husband, "We wept and trembled when he took my bandages off for the first time after that surgery. I was so ugly, scarred, and bald. I was in intense grief that I could never be a whole wife to him again.

Steve held me tightly and with tears in his eyes said, "Melina, I love you because that's who I am."

And then Melina said in her letter, "I instantly recognized Christ in my husband." As the bride of Christ, we are also eaten up with cancer—sin—and are scarred, mutilated, and ugly. But He loves us because that's Who He is. "No comeliness in us draws Christ's attention," she says. "It's only His essence that draws Him to us."

Someone sent me an email yesterday. I just have to read this passage to you. It's a wonderful passage from a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon on the love of Christ. He said,

Surely there cannot be a more delightful thought that can fill the soul of a mortal than this: The Son of God loves me. Did you never sit down for half an hour and try to digest this thought? That God should pity me, I can understand, being so far inferior to Himself and so full of misery. That He should be generous to me, I can comprehend from the liberality and bounty of His nature and from my great necessities. But that He should love me is wonderful!

I cannot see anything lovely in myself. There are many who see that there is much unloveliness about me. And I do not doubt that there is. But yet, He who knows me better than I know myself and is not unmindful of my infirmities and weaknesses, says He loves me.

He does not put me at arm's length and then feed me from His bounty. That would be gracious. But He opens wide His bosom and takes me into His heart. And to which of the angels did ever He say this: (I believe angels are the subjects of divine love in a certain sense, but I have never read of Christ saying to them) "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you." This is the special privilege of the sons of Adam who have fallen, which angels never have. How marvelous!

And is it not more than marvelous that God should have selected me out of the sons of Adam? Perhaps there is nothing in you which you can look upon as a reason why God should love you. Did I say perhaps? Why, there are 10,000 things about every one of us that might have won for us the Almighty's hatred. Instead of this, He says that He loves us.

As I was pondering through these last days the matter of the love of God, my heart kept going back to a hymn. You’re familiar with it:

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell.

Could we with ink the oceans fill
And were the skies of parchment made.
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the oceans dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky.

You see, we counter lies with the truth. Our hearts are washed with the water of the Word of God. We renew our minds. When we doubt in our emotions the love of God, when we feel unlovable as we are, we go back to the Word of God and our hearts are renewed. So let me just, as we close here, wash our hearts with the Word of God and what it has to say about the love of God.

The apostle Paul had come to experience for himself the love of God there on the road to Damascus, and he never got over the wonder of what the love of God meant in his life. He says in Romans chapter 5,

God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom. 5:5-8)

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:38)

Dannah: Amen. I hope you’re walking away from this episode richly encouraged and more deeply rooted in the love of God for you. 

Now, Ruth was a woman who experienced God’s love in beautiful ways. Her story is one of beauty from brokenness, joy from waiting, and blessing after loss. Redeeming love changed everything for her—and that same love is available to you.

When you make a donation of any amount this month, we’ll send you our six-week study called Ruth: Experiencing a Life Restored. Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com to give and request your copy. I hope it will be yet another reminder of how much God loves his daughters . . . and how much He loves you!

We’re not done with the love talk! Next week, we’re navigating how to love sisters who don’t exactly make it easy. It’s a hard but necessary conversation, and there’s so much wisdom for us in God’s Word! I hope you’ll join me for that chat. 

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

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

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.