God’s Steadfast Love in Our Lives

Dannah Gresh: Melissa is learning to live life free of addiction! She’s experienced the transforming grace of the Lord in some fresh ways.

Melissa: Amazing things have happened, and God’s love is awesome. I’m grateful and thankful! It is all because His love endures forever! 

Dannah: Happy Thanksgiving, Nancy!

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Happy Thanksgiving to you, Dannah!

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude, for November 23, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

We’re so glad that you are choosing to spend a slice of your day with us here at Revive Our Hearts. For most of here in the United States, today might include other kinds of slices, too! Turkey, pie, fresh baked bread. This week and last week, Nancy, you’ve been serving up a feast for us—a banquet—from God’s Word.

Psalm 136 has been the focus, and if you’d like to catch up on any messages you missed, scroll back in your podcast feed or listen at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Nancy: We’re going to finish that series tomorrow, so you want to be sure and join us again, but today we’re going to hear some responses from women who were in the studio audience when we first recorded this series. They’re going to share some of the things from this teaching that were particularly meaningful to them.

Dannah, as I listen to these women, I think of that verse, Malachi 3:16: “Those who feared the Lord [and esteemed his name [spoke with one another].” And that’s exactly what happened that day in that recording session.

Dannah: We’re about to hear their sharing. Some of them will pray. And we’re going to intersperse some music, songs that have to do with the steadfast love of God, as our special way of marking Thanksgiving Day. As you listen, think about the ways you can thank the Lord for His steadfast love!

Nancy:

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good,
   for His steadfast love endures forever! 
Give thanks to the God of gods,
   for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
   for his steadfast love endures forever. (Psalm 136:1–3)

Music: 

Your love will last forever,
Your love will reach beyond this life;
Your love will last forever,
It never ends,
It reaches the end of time.¹ 

Nancy: I want you to think of something you can do to remind yourself to just take that verse 1 of Psalm 136—“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever”—and to get it engraved, emblazoned on your heart and in your mind. 

Take it with you; have it on cards; have it on your mirror in your bathroom where you get ready in the morning, on your nightstand, in your car, on your phone . . . whatever. Make a screensaver out of it, get it on your laptop. Find some way to remind you these next days and weeks to meditate on that until it becomes kind of a reflexive reaction to all of life.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever.” If you’ll do that, I’m going to say that in a month, two months, three months, a year, two years, three years from now you’re going to be seeing all of life differently!

Music:

Your love won’t ever let me go . . .²

Woman 1: Father, Your steadfast love endures forever, and we are so grateful! You don’t just tell us that you’re good, but You show it to us in everyday life. So, Lord, I pray that You would bring to remembrance the things that You have shown Your goodness to us through. 

Help us to speak them clearly and with great joy for who You are and what You’ve done. Thank You for Your Word and thank You for these friends that are here today. In Jesus’ name, amen. 

Music:

Your love is forever. Your love is forever.²

Woman 2: The first passage of Scripture that comes to my mind, and the first thing I say to the Lord in the morning, is: “[May] the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be [pleasing] in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:14) . . . because I have a little bit of “mouth problem!” 

So God planted that in me. But today, regardless of what comes my way, what comes out of my mouth, today I’m reminded that God is still good; He’s still in control because His love endures forever! So now my new verse out of my mouth will be from Psalm 136:1.

Nancy: Great, good! Yes, right! Two good verses to start your day with!

Music:

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
He is good, good!
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
He is good, good, good.

Your mercy endures forever and ever;
Your mercy endures.³

Nancy: You know what we do with our emotions? We believe the things we see around us, which often are chaotic and just really, really messy. And God is not saying, “Pretend like those things don’t exist.” He’s saying they do exist. We live in a broken, fallen world. There’s labor; there’s hardship; there’s toil; there’s turmoil in this world.

But, in the midst of it, if we will lift our eyes up to Him and give Him thanks and park on, camp on, fix our minds and hearts on His character, His goodness, and His steadfast love, everything else is going to look different! It’s not that it’s going away. It’s just going to look different! 

Sue: My name is Sue, and the first thing that the Lord shared with me was just that we approach His throne room with grace and thanksgiving. I just felt like every time we repeat the verse, it’s not only saying, “Be thankful for Him,” but Him saying, “Come to Me!” Because He is good, and you can feel safe in His presence!

Music: 

For He is good, for He is good.
You’re a good God.
Your mercy endures forever and ever.³

Woman 3: Father God, You are holy and You are good. You are a good, good Father! You direct our paths; You make a way where there seems like there is no way, Lord. You always watch over us, and You have a plan for us . . . a good plan! Lord God, please forgive us for the times we doubt Your goodness, when we doubt Your faithfulness.

Thank You for bringing this psalm into our lives. We love that Your Word is forever life-changing, and it’s alive, and it’s true. These words are transforming, Lord. Thank You for taking us from unbelief or forgetfulness to a place of remembering just how amazing You are and how much You love us, Lord! We love you. 

Music: 

Your mercy endures, Your mercy endures.³

Terri: I was thinking about this as we began today, Nancy. The Lord has called our family, my husband and I, through a journey of miscarriages in our walk. We lost our first, we lost our last, and we’ve lost four in-between our children as well. At the beginning, especially because it was my first baby, I remember being really angry and shaking my fist at God, and saying, “Why would You give me a child just to take it away!?” 

Then the second time we were walking through this, I had a son that I’d been able to bring home, but then we lost our third pregnancy. I remember thinking, Okay, Lord, we’re here again. Why!? (You know, didn’t I learn a lot last time?)

But I always call my third miscarriage a gift, because it was the first time I could walk through it trusting and resting in His sovereignty—grieving, yes, pouring my heart out to Him in tears—but trusting and resting because I believed He was good.

As you were just sharing your heart here in these last few minutes, Nancy, I was remembering our fourth miscarriage. Three of our miscarriages were second-trimester miscarriages. From almost the moment I get pregnant, I look like I’m pregnant, so I was showing quite a bit for a couple of our losses, which made it harder for our children. 

If you’ve ever lost a baby when you have small children, the hardest part is going home to tell your children, I think. I remember my third miscarriage. My son was about seven, and just in our tears, sobbing, because of this loss we were walking through. That was the one that I called my gift. 

The Lord allowed us to be able to walk through that in His sovereignty, in believing that He was good. So when we lost our fourth baby—another second-trimester miscarriage—I was holding my seven-year-old daughter at the time, and my son was then nine. He was just quiet and introspective.

I looked at him and said, “Bud, what are you thinking?” 

And he took a deep breath, and he said, “That God is good, and that He will use this for His glory.” 

And I thought, Yes! If this is why God asks us to walk through hard times, that sometimes we don’t know the answers for, but if we can walk that learning to trust that He is good and that His steadfast love endures forever and we can pass it on to those He puts in our paths, whether it’s our children or others that He puts there—I’ve been able to use my journey in so many others’ lives to just be there for them, to encourage them, to point them back to Him—then there’s much fruit for His kingdom!

Nancy: Yes, so good! Thank you, Terri! 

Music:

You give and take away, You give and take away.
My heart will choose to say, ‘Lord, blessed be Your name!
Blessed be the Name of the Lord, blessed be Your glorious name.⁴

Jean: My name’s Jean Hynes, and I’m already crying from what Terri said, so this isn’t good! But anyway, I have thirteen babies. On my twelfth one, everything seemed fine, but then at six-weeks old, she had seizures, and then we realized that things weren’t fine.

Through a series of doctor visits and blood work and MRIs and all sorts of stuff, they weren’t able to figure out what the problem was. So we would go from one suggestion to another—hyperbaric oxygen treatment, B-12 shots, ketogenic diet. We just went everywhere, chiropractors. We tried everything, and still there was no change. We had therapists come in and so we just kept trying, “Well, maybe now . . .” I kept thinking, She’ll catch up. We’ll just keep working with her, and she’ll be able to catch up.” Well, she’s going to be sixteen on the twenty-fourth of February. She doesn’t sit up; she doesn’t talk; she doesn’t do anything. She never did catch up. She never did anything.

God’s grace is so amazing, because I would have been heartbroken to picture her sixteen years old and we’re feeding her with a feeding tube and changing her diapers, and yet, I didn’t know that then. The hope, then, the, “It will work out; it will be fine” and all the things that God taught all of our family along the way . . .

She’s a girl. I have eight other daughters, so they could help me with taking care of her, which has been a real blessing. When you said at the beginning here, Nancy, “Look at your hardest thing and put the blanket over it [maybe you just said cover it] with the knowledge that God is good.” 

I pictured . . . we’re always covering Janet up, turning her so she doesn’t get any sores. She does not do anything mindfully, everything is random, so we’re always having to turn her and arrange her, fix her. I thought of that blanket. I’m always laying a blanket on her. And the blanket of the truth that, “God is good!”

 

I’m grateful for her. I’m grateful for God’s plan that I totally don’t understand, but I completely accept and receive. It helps me trust Him in the trial right now, to know I have history with God. I know He is good . . . even in those really hard things. 

Music:

Blessed be Your name on the road marked with suffering,
Though there’s pain in the offering, blessed be Your name!
Every blessing You pour out I’ll turn back to praise;
When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say,
“Blessed the Name of the Lord, blessed be Your name.”⁴

Woman 4: Father, we thank You that Your Word is truth! We thank You for Your sovereignty and Your mercy and Your love that You pour out into us. We thank You that no matter what we are facing, what road You have asked us to travel, You are already there. You are ready to pour out Your grace into our lives!

You’ve been bringing me through this journey, this awareness of the meaning of Your grace and the meaning of what joy is. Joy is defined as “the awareness of Your grace.” Thank You that when we are aware of Your grace and Your mercy, we are bathed in Your love, and we can face whatever You ask us to face because it is for Your glory and our ultimate good. We thank You for the truth that carries us in those times. We love You, Lord, in Your name, amen.

Music:

Your steadfast loves endures forever.
Your steadfast love is our home.⁵

Dannah: We’re listening to comments and prayers that were shared by our studio audience as Nancy taught through Psalm 136. Here’s Seeds Family Worship, singing verse 4 through 6 of that psalm: 

Music:

To Him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever!
Who by His understanding made the heavens,
His love endures forever!
Who spread out the earth upon waters,
His love endures, His love endures, His love endures forever!⁶

Dannah: When Nancy taught on the great wonders in the heavens, she showed the studio audience a video that demonstrates the size of the earth compared to the other planets and our sun, and then, how small our sun is relative to many other stars in the universe! Well, that video made an impression on Mary Ellen.

Mary Ellen: The planets . . . and how tiny earth was with that red star. Very often I look out into outer space and try to picture how magnificent our Creator is and how little I am. But I have to confess to “Him who alone does great wonders,” I have spent way too much time trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do to fix my prodigal.

I know that He loves her (I love that you added that because). I have told myself that He loves her and my grandchildren more than I do, and He’s with them! He is all I can’t be. But it’s Him alone. So I guess I just want to thank you. I’ve had so many things go through my mind today, and so many examples of His love!

You have helped me remember all the times and the other hard things He has walked me through. He is faithful, and He has loved us, to endure. But I especially want to thank you for the planets video, because I am so small. It keeps reminding me of that, so thank you!

Nancy: We are so small, and yet He cares for us; He loves us! He knows where we are.

Mary Ellen: Yes. But recently I gave Him four suggestions. (laughter)

Nancy: To God?

Mary Ellen: Yes, on what would be a really good way to redeem the situation. By the fourth one I was driving my car, and I sat there thinking, You probably won’t use any of them, but just in case You’re wondering . . . (laughter) So, to Him alone, He’s the One who does great wonders, and I do believe He is doing exceedingly abundantly above more than I could even imagine, so I’m trying to stop the suggestions! 

Music:

I took my inheritance, I ran, I rebelled.
You came running after me, arms wide as you yelled,
"My love is always yours! My love endures!"
Your love will last forever! Your love will reach me.⁶

Melissa: Hi, my name is Melissa. I just want to say what a blessing today has been, all around! I’m a resident at the SPA for seven-and-a-half weeks now.

Nancy: Tell them what the SPA is, for those who don’t know.

Melissa: It stands for Spiritual and Personal Adjustments. I am there because of addiction, just bad choices pretty much most of my adult life. But amazing things have happened, and God’s love is awesome! I know that I’m supposed to be here, and I’m grateful and thankful. 

It is all because His love endures forever, and I feel like this season of my life is meant to be. Everything has led me to it, and I just can receive it fully. It’s just this feeling I can’t even explain, how awesome He is. I just thank you for today!

Nancy: Thank you, Melissa. We love these SPA women, the ministry in Elkhart, Indiana. If you’re not familiar with it, God’s really using it in a great way in these women’s lives. I love hearing them share out of very fresh encounters with the Lord!

Yes, Erin . . .

Erin: So recently, in our catechism class we had a question/answer dealing with forgiveness. It had a lot of background about how ugly and just how heart-wrenching it can be to go through the process of having to forgive somebody, and the emotions that it brings up.

I just felt that this is just a really good renewal that God is good, and His love will take you through that process, and it’s all just going to work out for the better in the end, even if you have a time of suffering. Because He doesn’t have us suffer just to suffer, He has us suffer to bring Him glory in the end of it.

Nancy: Wow! How old are you? 

Erin: I’m thirteen.

Nancy: Moms, praise the Lord just for the wisdom and how your mind and heart are getting grounded in God’s Word! I love having these younger women on the front row, too. They have just a heart for truth. Most of us weren’t there when we were that age!

And that’s alright; you start wherever you are. But thank God we have some moms and dads who are investing God’s truth in the lives of their daughters. I love seeing that. Thank you, Erin. That’s just such great wisdom for us. You taught us. Thank you.

Hayley . . .?

Hayley: A friend once told me when I was walking through a bout of depression (because I struggle with depression) . . . she would always ask me, “Are you singing?” I obviously didn’t feel like singing at that moment. But when I would sing the truth that God loved me and God cared for me and that God was in control, that would kind of get my heart to catch up with my mouth.

That has really come home recently. I’m in a church where we sing the old hymns, but we also sing psalms. When I heard that you were teaching on Psalm 136, I’ve had the tune going through my head all week! “His love endures forever!” It just keeps going over and over through my head.

When I’m walking through something that’s difficult, I’ll think of Psalm 70, you know, “Make haste, O God, to save me!” So those tunes, they just kind of follow me around. I’ll catch myself walking through the office just like humming those tunes to myself. 

It’s just a good reminder, even if I don’t have the psalm memorized, it’s kind of like it’s bringing the emotions and the truth of that psalm back to my mind. It kind of keeps me from just rote memorizing the words. It’s amazing, God has created music to just capture our hearts. 

Whether it’s those good old hymns or praise songs or psalms that span the range of all the emotions, from anger and frustration to joy and elation, just being able to use our mouths to express those emotions back to God, and then kind of almost invite Him into those, I think is a huge gift!

So this psalm, “God is good,” even when our hearts don’t feel it, we can still say, “God is good!” And it’s still true!

Nancy: I love that, Hayley, and you said it so beautifully! I do have to ask, as you walk through the office singing, “Make haste, O God, to save me!” do your colleagues wonder if you’re mad at them? (laughter)

Hayley: I don’t usually sing it out loud! Though I did hit the little button on Spotify this morning. I was like, “You guys have to listen to Psalm 136! This is how we sing it at my church!”

Nancy: Thank you, Hayley, that’s so good! I don’t think I’m the one you’re referring to, but I’m one of these people who have often asked people these two questions when they are struggling with depression or discouragement: “Are you singing?” and “Are you memorizing Scripture and saying it back to the Lord?”

These have been just such huge gifts and means of grace in my own life! I have one particular memory of sitting in my quiet time chair. I don’t remember what the issue was or why I was so in a puddle and in a muddle, but I can remember opening my hymnal to "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms," and I was sobbing!

So I’m singing through my tears; nobody probably who would have been listening would have even known what I was singing!. . .but singing through all stanzas of, “What have I to dread, what have I to fear, leaning on the everlasting arms?. . .” And you know, I’ve often said, “Sing until you can sing!”

I think it expresses faith, the reciting of Scripture, the saying it back to the Lord, saying it to our own hearts. What does David say in Psalm 42 when he’s depressed? He speaks to His own heart; he speaks to God, but He also speaks to His own heart [from verse 5]: “Why are you discouraged within me, downcast within me, O my soul? Trust in God, for you will yet find hope in Him!”

I’m not quoting it quite right, but we need to tell our hearts what’s truth, and I think often as we sing those truths, we find—in time—the cloud lifting. It doesn’t mean the circumstances are changing, but we do have a different perspective on it . . . because we’ve been clinging in raw, naked faith to truth and not letting our emotions drive our lives, but letting truth lead us in paths of righteousness. 

Music:

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.⁷

Dannah: Well, we don’t hear that style much any more, do we? That’s George Beverly Shea, singing “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” Before that, you heard Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and some friends in her studio audience sharing what Psalm 136 has meant to them. You’ve also been listening to songs that remind us of the truth of that passage, and prayers based on it.

I hope you can take some time this Thanksgiving Day to reflect on how God’s steadfast love—His forever love!—intersects with your life. And don’t just reflect, share it with someone! Take a moment, together, to thank Him for it! Tomorrow we’ll wrap up this series “His Love Is Forever.” I hope you’ll tune in!

Have a wonderful rest of your Thanksgiving Day as you lean on God’s everlasting arms, asking Him to revive our hearts! 

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is reminding you of the freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness we have in Christ.

¹ "Steadfast Love, Ghost Ship," To the End ℗ 2019 Ghost Ship, in partnership with Rainbow Records.

² "Your Love Is Forever," Grace Spencer, Where I Belong ℗ 2016 Grace Spencer.

³ "Psalm 136" (feat. Leslie Jordan). Your Mercy Endures. [Thomas Merton Mix], Greg LaFollette, Psalm 136 ℗ 2018 Late Model Leadfoot Music.

⁴ "Blessed Be Your Name," The Praise Baby Collection: My Father's World ℗ 2007 Big House Kids.

⁵ Brandon Auten. "Steadfast Love." Homeward ℗ 2012 Brandon Auten.

⁶ Seeds Family Worship. "His Love Endures" (Psalm 136:1–6, 26). Seeds of Praise ℗ 2005 Seeds Family Worship.

⁷ George Beverly Shea. "Leaning On the Everlasting Arms." The Ultimate Collection ℗ 2012 Word Entertainment LLC, A Curb Company.

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