Week 5: Regardless of Our Situation, God is Good

But what would you say to the person that’s, it sounds good, but they’re in the midst of something where they don’t see anything happening? LT: Right? So, let’s back up to the chapter title, and then we’re going to get to the unseen. KS: Yes. Perfect. LT: So, I really wrestled with whether or not to be honest enough to write a chapter called Forgiving God. Now I want to clearly state, God has not sinned, he has not, you know, done something that would require my forgiveness.

Right? So the chapter title is not a nod to a theological teaching, but rather a very human feeling. When we don’t understand God, it’s easy for us to - or we don’t understand what God is allowing - it can be easy for us to kind of write a script in our head of what God is doing, and then determine that that’s very hurtful, and then have these feelings of, if we’re honest enough, almost resentment, like, how could God have allowed this to happen? KS: Right, and a good God, as we know Him to be.

LT: Right. Yeah. And so, and it can feel challenging, you know, to stand up and raise our hands and praise, you know, You’re a good, good Father, but then have these questions. But why aren’t You being good to me in this? And so, I wanted to acknowledge this tension. And so, part of the answer, it’s, again, not because God has done something wrong that I need to forgive Him for. But it’s more really trying to understand what we might be missing, that would cause these feelings of anxiety toward God.

And part of what we might be missing is that what we see does not add up to feeling like God has been good to us in this, because sometimes we start with our circumstances and try to get to the place where we say, is God good or not good? And based on circumstances, sometimes it can feel like, wow, these circumstances aren’t good, so and God must have allowed the circumstances, or He saw people that were causing the circumstances, and He didn’t change it.

So how do I make sense of this. So, what I want to do is sort of flipped, flip the, the way that we look at things and instead of starting with our circumstances, I want us to start with God. And I want us to go ahead and say, I know God is good, God is good to me. And God is good at being God. So therefore, through that lens, I want to look at my circumstances. And when I do that, I see that I’m probably not seeing the whole picture with my circumstances.

And one thing I know to be true about God is He does some of His best work in unseen places. And so, I, you know, I don’t, I don’t want to use old cliches, but I do think that this one is good. If you’ve ever put together a puzzle, you know, when you’re working on something, it can feel like you’re seeing the whole picture. But it’s not until the whole puzzle gets put together, that you understand, oh, that wasn’t actually part of the sky, these blue pieces- KS: Right.

LT: - and I kept trying to make it fit in part of the sky. This was actually part of the blue house over here, right. And it’s like, you know, trying to fit those puzzle pieces in and being so certain that they’re part of this, you know, sky, when really, they’re part of this blue house over here. It can cause a lot of frustration. And so, I don’t want to oversimplify it. Because I know people are going through really hard things. And I’m still going through some really, really hard things.

And so, I’m preaching this as much to myself as to anyone else. But I just have to keep reminding myself, the starting point is from the reality that God is good. Even if people don’t act in good ways sometimes. Even if circumstances don’t feel good. Even if I’m having this sinking feeling that things are not going to eventually be good. And you know, we’ve talked about in the book, sometimes the unchangeable can feel unforgivable. Sometimes things will never go back to the way that they were, but we still can repeat that script to ourselves.

God is good. God is good to me. And God is good at being God. And that’s the lens through which I’m going to look at these circumstances. And where there are gaps, I’m going to trust that God is working in the unseen places, just because I can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not true. KS: Right. It’s not true. And we had the opportunity to ask our Director of Theology a question, and if you studied 40 Days, studied 40 Days with us, this is not 60 Second Theology, this answer might take a little longer than 60 seconds.

But Lysa, we, you had a revelation about the word debts and what that means, in the Lord’s Prayer, forgive us our debts. And so, he gave us a little bit about the Greek and it’s kind of hard to pronounce, but what would you say what, when it correlates to the emotional hurt and what debts means? What was the revelation that you had? LT: Yeah, so when I was studying the Lord’s Prayer, I found it interesting that the way that the word is translated is, forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who you know, have transgressed against us or created debt in our life.

And that’s such a profound word. Because when someone hurts us, they do create an emotional debt in our life. And if someone creates the equivalent of a $5 debt, maybe they inconvenienced us, then that’s not going to take a long time to process and get over. But if someone does something to us, that’s the equivalent of a $5 million debt, it only makes sense that that is going to take a lot of time to process and get through, and to walk through, you know, we’ve talked before how forgiveness is a decision, but then it’s also a process and that healing process, it can’t be fast tracked.

You know, we and I don’t want people to think, Oh, I’m reading this book about forgiveness, that means I have to pretend like it didn’t matter, or it didn’t hurt, or it didn’t cost me something. Because for every wounding or every emotional debt that someone creates in your life, there’s the fact of what happened. And then there’s the impact of what this did to you, or what this caused in you, and cost you. And so, I want to give people permission to be able to walk through that healing process, and not feel like a forgiveness failure.

And so, I found it fascinating that the word debt was used, because we instantly know what that means, when someone creates a financial debt in a situation and so that that word debt is good to attach to our emotions and recognize that we’re walking through the healing process for the impact that this had on us. So, let’s see what Joel has to say. Anything interesting. KS: Well, first, let me just try to pronounce it. Just for fun, right. So, it’s spelled O, P, H, E, I, L, E, M, A.

So, Oh-fel-lima, I feel good about it. Too bad Joel can’t be here to correct us. But, Joel says, Jesus says that we are debtors to God. In other words, we are indebted to God. However, Jesus does not expect payment in terms of money, or land, or possessions to make whole what is owed, Jesus links our debt to a requirement of forgiveness. And then he goes on to say, I looked at this and there isn’t a direct correlation to the emotional hurt, but you draw a connection between the legal usage of the term.

Because debt, in its natural context, is used in legal terms where money or where money is owed, there would naturally be an emotional cost to the weight of such a payment as expected or required. LT: And that’s the emphasis that I want to put on this. So, it’s not the transaction, when you talk about debt, but the weight of debt. And the weight, like if you’ve ever had credit card debt, then or debt of any kind, the weight of that, how it sits on you emotionally, and how it interrupts your thoughts or how it can make you feel dread about the future that that weight is, is very heavy.

And so, when it comes to debt, where we’re talking about the debts, that the hurts that we’ve caused, like, if you have a conscience, then that is sitting on your conscience. Right? And so, forgiveness provides a pathway for that to be alleviated. But also, if someone’s hurt you, you know that that weight can sit on you and forgiveness provides a pathway by which that weight can be alleviated. So, I think that, that it’s that emotional weight, that wear and tear not just on our emotions, but also on our spiritual joy, our spiritual fervor for serving the Lord, our zeal, you know, that weight can drag us down.

And so, forgiveness provides a pathway through which that weight can be alleviated, and I just think it’s a tremendous gift. KS: And I’ll never say the Lord’s Prayer the same again, now that I know that there, it’s not just debt, there’s a whole deeper teaching to it. So, thanks, Lysa. And so, before we close today, I would love to know when you are in a season of pain or when you’re hurting, where is the place that you turn in your Bible? Or where do you go instantly? LT: Okay, so when I’m in a lot of emotional pain, I am usually not in the mindset where I want to have to then study something really deep and interpret it and, you know, really, like, have to engage too much of my brain because when I’m hurting a lot, my brain’s very tired.

And so, there’s just a couple of places that I really love to go. I love to go to the book of Hebrews. And I think it’s in Hebrews chapter two, where it talks about how Jesus is not a high priest, that that is far removed from emotional pain, that Jesus very much knew what it feels like to be human. And because He knows what it feels like to be human, He identifies as a high priest that is so empathetic with us with the pain that we’re walking through.

And that really, really helps me. I also like to turn in the Bible to one of the Gospels where Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane because the words and the processing of Jesus in His heaviest, most sorrow-filled hour, knowing what was about to happen with the cross. That helps me a lot. I mean, He asked God to change the plan. You know, take this cup from Me, you know, if possible, change the plan. Don’t make this the way that the story goes. But then He utters those nine, earth-shattering, hell-shaking, demon-quaking words, yet not My will, but Your will be done.

And so that’s very comforting. But in a moment of maybe just needing a verse that I can literally just open up a book of the Bible and pull out a verse, Proverbs. Proverbs is really good. And it helps remind me not to let my thinking stray too far from the truth. And Proverbs doesn’t require tons of explanation. It’s just there. They’re very succinct verses that just remind us, like wisdom, pursue wisdom, pursue wisdom, even when maybe, especially when, you’re hurting.

And then for comfort, I love to open up the Psalms. And if I’ve done something wrong, Psalm 51, where David is pouring out his heart to the Lord. And then if I’ve been wronged, of course, there’s so many Psalms, where David is crying out to the Lord, help me, lift me, turn, turn my perception around, like help comfort my heart, remind me that You’re for me, God. And so those are the different places that I like to turn when I’m hurting. And unfortunately, maybe you too, I have been in a long season of hurting and things kind of ebb and flow.

But there just always seems to be something else that I need to process and I, I don’t just because I’ve been hurt, I don’t want to live hurt. And so that’s my work is like, I want to be able to weather the hard circumstances that come without always feeling like this heaviness is sitting on me. And God’s word can lift my spirits just about better than anything else. And praise music too. KS: Yes, praise music for sure. And just like you said, God’s word can lift your spirits.

That’s why we hold so tightly to the whole point of know the truth and live the truth, because it really does change everything, no matter what you’re going through, what circumstance. God’s Word has something in there and it’s consistent when everything else is very inconsistent in the world. God’s word is consistent. So Lysa, thank you for joining us for another week. One more week to go after this and we look forward to seeing you so, bye, everyone.

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