You Can Trust God to Write Your Story

How does your story fit in the big picture of God's providence? There are interludes in this book that take people back to the Word and help them see from this perspective now how these people dealt with what they didn't know but they trusted God for the future. God wants to tell the story of Jesus through our lives. God is writing a bigger story that we won't see until we can look back in retrospect. Happy New Year and welcome to our first broadcast of 2022 on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" .

We're going into the archives to begin this year. You'll hear from Robert and Nancy DeMoss Wagramuth, who joined us a couple of years ago to talk about the mystery of God's providence. You can trust God to write your story as our featured resource at FiveLoveLanguages.com.

Now since this broadcast first aired in October of 2019, Robert and Nancy have seen some more twists and turns in their lives, disregard any dated information. The main question is can you trust God when you're facing some of life's unexpected challenges and tragedies? We began the conversation with this observation by our host. Gary Chapman has seen how God has used the good and bad in his own life. Well that's certainly true, Chris. Going back to when I spent three years getting my PhD so I could teach on the mission field and then we applied to the mission board and Carolyn and I got turned down.

You know, basically because of her health, that was a tough time and we questioned God, you know, we questioned the mission board and Carolyn felt badly that she was keeping me from the mission field. You know, all of that. But look what's happened.

Now my books are all over the world. And that's an example of what we're going to talk about today. God's story was bigger than our story. And then the whole ordeal with Carolyn's cancer seven years ago and walking through that journey with her. And I saw how she allowed God's Word to resonate through her heart during that time and he brought her out of that and back to a normal life. And for both of us, we had a much deeper sense that life is fragile and we're here today. So let's use today.

Yeah, God works good things out of the things we don't always understand. So I'm looking forward to our conversation today. I am so excited to get to talk with the Walglamaths any time we have them on here. We've heard their story before they became Mr. and Mrs. in 2015. Nancy found it and leads Revive Our Hearts, Robert's co-founder of the literary agency, Walglamath and Associates. The full title of our featured resource today is You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, Embracing the Mysteries of Providence.

You can find out more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Well Nancy and Robert, welcome back to Building Relationships. Thank you, Gary. Thank you.

It's always good to talk to you. So how did this idea come about? There has to be a story behind the two of you writing this first book together. Everybody has a story. Just a few moments ago, you were telling the story about you and Carolyn. And what we've discovered is that everybody has a story.

If it's the driver of the shuttle to the rental car place, or the guy that's fixing your sprinklers in the lawn, or your spouse, or your friends, or your family, or loved ones like you and Chris, everybody has a story. And so the joy of writing this book was unpacking our own story and then the stories of many of our good friends. We're actually, we've both written a lot of books on our own, but this was the first time we came together to write. And Robert and I, as I'm sure is true with other husband-wife writing teams, we have different styles, different approaches to writing, and yet we really felt that it was time because this was something that was so in our heart. As we had seen God writing our individual stories and then bringing us together, speaking of Building Relationships, and the joy of saying, look, we see God's hand at work in our lives, in the lives of people we're close to, who've been through some really hard things.

And we see that this isn't about us ultimately. Ultimately, this is about a beautiful, amazing story that God is writing in our world and in and through our lives. So we came together with some fear and trembling. In fact, the night before we actually started writing. Are you sure you want to tell this story?

Well, the short version is I had a bit of a meltdown standing in the kitchen thinking there's no way we can do this. But, you know, you can trust God to write your story and you can trust God to help you write a book about it. And it turned out to be really a joy and something that we believe is already we're seeing God use it to bring comfort and encouragement and hope to people who feel like they're drowning in a story that's totally different than the one they would have expected for themselves. Well, God certainly brought you together on the book, and I think God is going to use it to help a lot of other couples.

It seems like the focus of the book is to see how my small story, that is story with a small s, fits in with the capital S, God's story in my life. Is that the picture? Yeah, it is. When we sign books and we have the joy of doing that, we write Romans 11, 33 to 36, and that includes how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable are his ways. That is the story. That is, we don't know, but we trust. That's a big part of this story. And ultimately, finding hope in our own story depends on our believing that God has a bigger, greater, grander story than anything we could imagine, and that the purpose of our lives ultimately is not for our story to turn out well, though it will, but ultimately we surrender ourselves and say, God, what's a story you're trying to write, and how can I be a part of that, which brings us joy and confidence even when we feel like people around us or circumstances that we can't control are really messing up our story. We realize it does fit into a bigger capital S story that God is writing, and his story is good.

Nancy, why do you think we have such a problem seeing how our stories fit into God's big plan? Why is it a struggle to see that? Well, we are nearsighted. We can't see far.

Is that the right term there? And we are so preoccupied with ourselves, our world, our struggles, our problems, our issues, our concerns, and all we can see is this tiny little moment of time that we occupy. And we can't see what God sees. We don't know what he knows. This is why it's trusting God to write our story.

It's trusting God for something we can't see. We can't see the outcome. We don't know where this is going.

We don't know where it ends. We don't know what God is doing. And so if we're just going to focus on ourselves and our pain, which may be considerable, we're going to end up frustrated, disappointed, resenting God, resisting the story he's writing. And so that's why this resource is a call to step back and look up, even if our eyes are filled with tears, and say, Lord, I trust you to hold me, to keep me, to do something in and through these circumstances that I cannot imagine. But I know that you are God. I know that you are good.

And I trust you with a story that you're writing in my life. And sometimes that is just raw, naked faith. That's right. That's right. Gary, do you remember the old song, if we could see beyond today as God can see?

I bet Chris Fabry knows that. Oh, I remember that, Hale. Yeah, and it goes on, our present grief we would not fret, each sorrow we would soon forget. It's the whole idea of trusting what we cannot see into the hands of someone that we do trust.

Yeah. Well, the book is filled with stories of people who are trusting God for the outcome in the midst of difficult circumstances. What's one story that really inspired both of you?

Oh, there's so many. We have our own stories. Nancy talks about her dad, her dad dying the weekend of Nancy's 21st birthday. I talk about the story of my wife, Bobbie, dying after we were married almost 45 years. So, yes, but in putting the book together, maybe the most graphic one is sitting with a man who Nancy had worked with for decades.

His name is John Reiford. And that's the chapter when you're losing your health. You can trust God when you lose your health. And when you're facing death. And when you're facing death. Thank you.

Yes. So we were with John, and we described what that meeting was like in their living room. He knew he was dying of cancer. He knew he was dying.

And two weeks, three weeks later, we were at his funeral. So we were able to say, John, what does this feel like? Pretend that you're speaking to people who are reading this book.

What would you say to them? So that, they're all wonderful, the privilege of hearing these people's stories, but that was graphic. Well in the amazement of seeing a man who knows that he's at the very end of this earthly journey, saying, I'm not afraid.

I'm not looking forward to how or whatever these, I mean, he was in bad shape at that point. But to say, I know, I'm not afraid. I'm facing, I'm ready to see Christ. And to see amazing peace and grace, that was hugely encouraging as we contemplate what might the end of our lives look like.

And that's, John Riefer died in a way that I would hope to die. And that is trusting God to write his story. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. Our guests are Robert and Nancy DeMoss Wogomith, authors of You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, Embracing the Mysteries of Providence. Find out more at the website, FiveLoveLanguages.com. You know Nancy from her writing and teaching on the radio through Revive Our Hearts. Robert is a prolific author as well.

And again, you can discover more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Well there are stories of people in the Bible who saw God at work behind the scenes. And I wonder if, as you spoke with people, if you found someone whose life situation paralleled the biblical story. You know who comes to my mind is a couple that we spoke with, Leroy and Kimberly Wagner. He's been a pastor for many years.

She's been a longtime dear friend. And he was hit with, he was a strong, healthy, hardworking man. And suddenly, about three, four years ago, he got hit with a debilitating, excruciatingly painful illness that has never been able to be totally diagnosed.

And there is no relief and no end in sight to this day. And we talked with this couple about just dealing with chronic, unrelenting physical pain. And as I, as we listen to Leroy and as we've walked with him and his wife in this journey, I think of Job in the Old Testament. And we talk about him some in this book. Now Job had many other things happen to him as well. But when you deal with this horrific, physical, unexplainable physical pain, and to see Job in the Scripture and to see our friend Leroy as like a modern day example of this, lifting his eyes up with no answers and no hope. He's had to resign the pastorate.

They've had financial challenges that have come from that as Job did. And to see him saying, if he slays me, I'm going to trust him. It's unimaginable. Robert and I have not been in that exact place or anything quite like it. But again, we were inspired by, here's a man and his wife who's become now his caregiver saying, we don't understand this. We don't get it. But you just imagine as people like Job and people like Leroy Wagner lift their hearts up to the Lord in faith and say, I will praise him. You just imagine heaven applauding because it's like God's character is on trial. And here's somebody on earth saying, I don't understand, but I do trust. And they give God glory in the midst of that. It's breathtaking. It's so exciting when you see that in the life of a contemporary individual.

That's right. Because sometimes when you read the Bible, you can say, well, that was Job. That was another culture a long time ago and those types of things.

But in reality, the principles there are in effect right now. And there are people walking with God like that today. Well, as you know, Gary, Nancy is nothing if not a Bible teacher through and through.

So we decided in this book to have these interludes where we tell stories that are very familiar in the scripture with the emphasis on. So Ruth didn't know how the story was going to end. Mary, the mother of Jesus, did not know how the story was going to end. Joseph of the Old Testament and Joseph the New Testament. So these were people who trusted God to write the story. We now see it.

They didn't. And so there are interludes in this book that take people back to the word and help them see from this perspective now how these people dealt with what they didn't know, but they trusted God for the future. Yeah, it's so exciting to make that connection between the biblical story and the present day. But many people feel like they can't trust God because their lives haven't turned out the way they expected. You know, I ran into that recently with a mother who just lost a 19-year-old son. And she's struggling with the questions, you know, how can this be? I mean, I don't understand.

How could God allow this? What do we say to people in the midst of that kind of deep pain? Well, clearly, as you have, Gary, with this friend, we enter with them into their pain. We care. We weep with those who weep. But also we remind ourselves and each other that the story isn't finished.

This is not the end. And even things that turn out in ways, I mean, we've been walking with a precious friend through some horrific adult sex abuse issues, and it's inexplicable. I mean, there's anger. There's just feeling of helplessness even as you come alongside people. But to realize that in the end, not only can we trust God to write W-R-I-T-E our story, but we can also trust him to write R-I-G-H-T our story, even though in this moment it seems like there's no way that could possibly happen. Hmm.

Yeah. I think when we try to walk with people through that, I often sit there and think, I don't know how I would respond in this situation if I were going through this. And that's true. We don't know how we would respond. We hope we would practice what we say we believe, of course, that God is behind the scenes and he's working out his plans through our lives. Typically, we want simple, uncomplicated, trouble-free, pain-free stories. That's what we aspire to. But God usually doesn't give us that because we're part of a fallen world, for one thing.

Talk about why he doesn't always give us the things we think we should have and the reason behind that truth. Well, that's a wonderful question. In our research for the book, we spent some time with Stephen Kendrick, who is a storyteller.

He's a movie maker, he and his brother Alex. And so that's exactly what he said. You know, we want trouble-free, vanilla, boring lives for ourselves, but if we read a book or watch a movie, we want the drama, we want the helicopters. I want the helicopters.

Nancy doesn't like the helicopters. But that's right. But that's not what happens. We often use the metaphor of the windshield. You're driving through the country and you don't know what's around the corner, but you look in the rearview mirror and you say, ah, that's what the Lord had in mind.

That's what this was about. It isn't always in this life, as you've said, that we understand why we went through what we went through. It's trusting God's providence. Even, it's Hebrews 11, you know, the folks who died without seeing the promise. So that's the experience of trusting God for what we cannot see, but what we know is to be true. Well, the subtitle of the book is Embracing the Mysteries of Providence, and that's a deep theological idea there.

But help us understand a little of what it means to embrace that mystery. Well, you know, providence is an old-fashioned word. You don't hear it used so much anymore, and I think we need to bring it back because I don't know that there's any more comforting, reassuring word in the theological dictionary than God's providence, which simply means pro, before, video, to see. God sees before.

We do. And he goes before us into our life circumstances to make provision for us before we even get there. And so to trust that God knows what's coming, God is orchestrating the circumstances of this world, and he's got the whole world in his hands. And, by the way, if he's got the whole world in his hands, that means he's got us in his hands. And yet the providence of God is filled with mystery, because there's so much we can't see and that we don't know. So we have to be willing to say, that's okay. If I could see everything God sees and know everything God knows, I would be God. But I don't know, and I don't see, and that's why I have to be willing to live with mystery, to humble myself and say, Lord, it's enough for me that you see that you know, and I trust that when I get there, you will have already made provision for what I need before I even realize I need it.

Yeah. And the verb there is embracing. Yesterday I was in a meeting and met a person whom I know very well who is desperately struggling with all kinds of pain and struggle, and I embraced this friend. And I didn't say anything.

You're a counselor. You understand this. Sometimes embracing just says, you know what, I can't figure this out.

I don't know what to say. I don't even have a Bible verse for you right now, but I'm going to tell you that I love you by embracing this. That's what we do with the truth of the mystery of God's providence.

We embrace it. There's another hymn that comes into play here. "'Tis mystery all.

The immortal dies. Who can explore His strange design from and can it be?" And I'm getting to the, before the foundation of the world, you know, the cross was not God's, ah, you know, that messed up and I should have done something. No, the plan A for salvation and glory to God was the cross of Christ. And in Jesus, you see Him submitting fully to the Father's grand design, but we look on that and it is a mystery. And I think that's part of what you're talking about. Nancy, talk about that, the providence of God and His intervention. He interposed His blood for us, right?

Yeah, those are more big, old-fashioned words that you kind of have to ponder and soak in. But here's the thing. When you think about the cross, what could be a more horrific story than the sinless, compassionate Son of God being falsely accused, maligned, maliciously treated, hung on a Roman cross to die for no sin of His own? I mean, talk about a story going from a human perspective, not making sense or going wrong. And we look at our own stories and we feel like that's not fair, that doesn't make sense. But God in His providence not only allowed the cross to happen, He made it happen so that the plan of redemption, this is the mystery, this is the amazing grace, so that we could be saved. And Peter talks about the sinless one, the godly one, dying for the ungodly, so that we might be brought to God, so that He was wounded for our transgressions, so that we might be healed.

This is missing mystery, but it's true. It's beautiful, amazing grace. And so we have to surrender and say at times, my story makes no sense.

It doesn't seem fair. It's not right in a human sense, but we have to trust that in the long run, God is using all of this as part of a great story of healing and redemption and restoration for us, for those we love. And only when we look back, if we could see what God sees and know what He knows now, and one day when we do see what He saw and know what He knew, we will look back and we will say, of course, God did it exactly right. We're not going to have second thoughts or second guessing or accusing God or saying, you did it wrong. We're going to bow and wonder and amazement and love and humility and say, oh Lord, you did it so right. And our only regret, I think, is going to be, why didn't I trust Him when I couldn't see?

Why didn't I trust Him more? You know, Robert, you mentioned counseling a moment ago. I think sometimes those of us who are counselors or pastors or maybe just a Christian friend, we sometimes try to give the person a different perspective by saying things like, well, maybe God did this because it saved him from something worse by taking him at a young age. And we're trying to come up with ideas on why this bad thing happened and what God might be doing.

But that's not our job, is it? Yeah, that's right. Actually, at Bobby's funeral, my late wife, on the screen as they were wheeling out the casket to ride the cemetery, the text, except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it remains a single seed, but if it dies, it produces many seeds. So you hold a seed in your hand, you can't see what's inside, but God can. But when you're talking to somebody who's in the middle of it, it's not helpful to give them all the theological underpinnings of what they're experiencing, but just to suffer with them and to say, I can't imagine what this must be like, but God is trustworthy. He's proven that down through the centuries. He is trustworthy. And so I'm going to stand with you until you have the opportunity to embrace that truth as well. You know, it's interesting, the old hymn, and this isn't as fun talking about old hymns, he plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. So what is characteristic about a footprint in the sea? Well, you can't see it.

As soon as he lifts his foot out, you no longer see it. But those are truths that we rest in, even when we don't feel like trusting it, even though we don't understand what's going on. So the choice is to trust him like that, or just feel like this is totally random, that nothing makes sense, nobody's in control.

I'd far rather trust a sovereign God who loves me, who made me, and who knows what's best for me. Happy New Year, and thanks for joining us for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . You're listening to a conversation with Robert and Nancy DeMoss-Wagamuth, who've written You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, Embracing the Mysteries of Providence. We thought it would be great to start the year out with this conversation.

Just go to fivelovelanguages.com to find out more, fivelovelanguages.com. Well, Robert, let's talk further about some of the men and women in the Bible, because I know you use many biblical illustrations in this book, and their stories, and how they didn't see, and maybe never saw in this life, and then some parallels on how that works today. Not everybody in the Bible had the Joseph in Genesis 50 perspective, right? But when he was living it, when he was in the pit, when he was on his way with the Midianites to Egypt, he had no idea. But he was able to look back and say, all you guys meant this for evil, but God meant it for good. One of our favorite things to do, and I know you and Chris and Nancy joins me in this, is taking the old, old story of Jesus and his love, his word, and lifting up these individuals who trusted God, not knowing the outcome, and saying, what is it about their story that I need to understand? I want to empathize with what this must have felt like in that pit or standing on the auction block in Egypt, and know what Joseph was saying with his brothers right there in Genesis 50. You guys meant this for evil.

You had no desire for my good when you were selling me, but God used all this for his good. So it's that story. One of Nancy's favorite stories in the Scripture is the story of Ruth, and Naomi, and Boaz. In fact, sometimes she'll refer to me in a text as her Boaz.

She loves it that much. So those stories, these people suffered. There's no doubt about that. These people wondered. These people doubted. These people didn't at times even trust God. But now we read their stories in black and white, and we feel such a great sense of relief knowing that God was there. He was listening.

He was answering, even though at the time they couldn't see it. And what they couldn't see that we can see now is that God was writing a bigger story that was leading to a Redeemer, to a Savior, to the Messiah, to Jesus. And so all of these stories were part of the fabric that God was weaving to bring a Messiah who would rescue us all from the story, from the pit, the story that Satan wanted to write for our lives. And that perspective, I think, is helpful to us as we realize that our stories today are not just about us, but that God is writing. Of course, Jesus has come, but God wants to tell the story of Jesus through our lives, through our stories, through others who watch and marvel that even though we can't see answers, even though we...

I'm watching Randy and Nancy Alcorn who are going through Nancy's cancer, and this has been a very public thing, and he's such a loved author, and watching the updates from Randy and Nancy and how they trust God in the middle of not good reports, even just in the last several days. And humanly speaking, it doesn't look good, but their goal in life is not to have, ultimately, to have health. They want that. They're asking God for healing and health. But more than that, what they want is for Jesus to be seen and loved and magnified and treasured for people to know that he can be trusted. So they're living their story, but God is writing a bigger story that we won't see till we can look back in retrospect.

Darrell Bock Yeah. Nancy, remind us of the Ruth and Naomi story that Robert just referred to. Nancy Alcorn Well, it's fascinating, because of course, these were mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and both of them deprived and lost their mates, and Naomi lost her two sons, and Ruth, a foreigner coming to Israel, and just so many strikes against them.

And a lot of listeners will be familiar with pieces of that story. But the thing that strikes me is the different ways that these two women responded to their struggle. You have Naomi, who repeatedly is basically saying, and understandably from a human perspective, saying, God has afflicted me. God has forsaken me. God's hand has gone out against me. God Almighty has not lived up to his name in my life.

So you sense tinges of resentment or just not sure God's doing it right. Then you see Ruth, who has as much reason to doubt God. But Boaz says of her, the God under whose wings you have come to trust. She saw a God she could not see as being trustworthy. And ultimately, God not only provided for her a husband to end up in that.

This isn't just a romance. This is actually a means of survival, someone to meet her needs and rescue her and her mother-in-law from destitution. So you see God writing that story in a beautiful ending, giving her offspring that led up to the coming of Jesus the Messiah. But you also see God changing her mother-in-law into a woman who knew that God could be trusted.

And I just wonder, we don't imagine in the moment all it is that God may want to do through our willingness to trust a God whose hand we cannot see or understand in the moment. You know, honey, in that text, and it happened, you see that over and over again. That is like if you were coming in from left field, you wouldn't really realize that that is God writing that story. But it didn't just happen.

It wasn't happenstance or chance. So all these details, and we can see that because we're looking back, but they couldn't see it in the moment. I like the reality you mentioned that even beyond taking care of them physically, it was a picture of Christ to come, our Redeemer.

And of course, they wouldn't necessarily have seen that. You know, we see it looking back. You know, I don't know this song.

It's a contemporary song, but there's a little phrase in there that says, when you can't see God's hand, trust his heart. And that's really what we're talking about in the heart of all of you. Trust in God's heart.

Yeah. That's true in human relationships. You know, marriage, this is going to be a surprise to you, Gary, so fasten your seatbelt.

Marriage can be hard work. And part of it is learning to trust each other. You know, why did you say it that way?

What did you mean to say when you said that? And you step back and you say, boy, forgive me for my response, but I trust your heart. I know you. I know you love me. I know you want the best for me and for our marriage. So trustworthiness is something that has contemporary implications all the time.

Yeah, yeah. I like you bringing in that little marriage part there. Because this is a marriage program among other things. Here's a hypothetical question. If you could go back and change any of your story, Nancy, would you do it?

And this doesn't count like the first year of marriage. Come on, sweetheart. This is radio. This isn't like therapy with Dr. Chapman here. Yeah, right.

Go for it. You know, I'm going to answer it this way. In the moment, there were many moments when I would say, when I would have said, I wish this story looked different.

The weekend of my 21st birthday when I got the call that my dad had had a heart attack and was dead before he hit the ground. Would I want to have rewritten that in the moment? Of course. But I will tell you that looking back with the little bit of hindsight I have now, not with the vision I'll have one day when I'm with the Lord, I would honestly say the only thing I would write differently is that I would trust him more. I wish I had worried less, stressed less, fretted less, and trusted more. I don't see yet all the reasons for everything he has done, but I've seen enough to convince me. And I know him now after 55 plus years of walking with Jesus, I trust him. He's got a track record. And I just know that he is good and he does good. And so, no, there's not anything I would...

I don't see the outcome of all of it yet, but I trust that he knows what he's doing. And the one thing I would want to change is just that I would owe for grace to trust him more since we're quoting old songs. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. How about you, Robert, as you look back, is there anything you would change?

Well, the quick answer is I can't. And a lot of people ruin their lives by groveling in what cannot be changed. And I would totally resonate with Nancy. And honestly, back to the scripture that was on the screen at the end of Bobby's funeral, except the kernel wheat fall into the ground and die, it remains a single seed.

But if it dies, it produces many seeds. I was caught up in what I think a lot of men are caught up in. Bobby was an aggressively eager student of the Bible. And so she was an early riser. I was an early riser. So often I would wake up, and she's in the Word already. And I got lazy. I kind of let her be my Bible reference friend. And when Bobby stepped into heaven, the Lord really spoke to me and said, Now the baton's in your hand. You cannot be lazy anymore.

It's time for you to go for it. So Nancy and I have had this conversation, and I regret not being serious enough about time in the Word every morning. This was Nancy's dad every morning for an hour in the Word for no other reason than just to soak in it and to learn and to listen and to trust God. It wasn't preparation for a talk or a sermon. It was just for the purpose of knowing God and His Word. Thanks for joining us today for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" .

Robert and Nancy DeMoss-Wagometh are joining us. Their love story is told partly in the pages of You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, Embracing the Mysteries of Providence. That's our featured resource today at fivelovelanguages.com. So Robert, we're talking about this concept, of course, and the whole book is about this, that many times the story we're living out doesn't always make sense to us. We don't always even feel like it's fair. And yet, if we can look beyond that, that God's story is bigger than what we're going through and that God wants to use even what we're going through in a positive way for His kingdom. But how do we take that leap to act on the belief that our story is a part of God's bigger story that He's writing?

I think it's pretty simple, Gary. You make a decision. Every life change begins with a decision, sometimes a single decision. I'm going to move to Memphis.

I'm going to marry this lady. I'm going to trust God. And you don't do it because you feel like it necessarily. You do it because you believe this is what God has called you to do.

There are so many things. Philippians 2.13, God is at work within you. This is the old living translation, living paraphrase. God is at work within you, helping you want to obey Him and then helping you do what He wants. So you trust Him to help direct your desires.

So you say, all right, you talk to a college guy and you say, well, tell me about your love life. Well, there's this young lady and I'm really in love with her and I'd like to marry her. And I say, well, have you prayed about this? And he says, well, yeah, of course I've prayed about this. My parents prayed about this when I was a little boy.

You say, okay, so you've prayed about this. Yes. Do you love her? Yes, I do. Do you think she's fantastic? Yes.

Is she beautiful? Absolutely. So how does God change our minds? He changes our minds according to His will by changing our desires. God is at work within you, helping you want to obey Him.

What a great way to live. God's will directs my desires, directs my passions, directs my heart. That may sound like an answer to the question you didn't ask like a politician does, but that's the way you know God's will. And I think you grow to trust Him as you saturate your mind and your heart in His character. If you're not in His Word, you're not going to know Him. And if you don't know Him, you're not going to trust Him. To know Him is to trust Him. And that's why it's so important that before we come to these crisis points in our lives, that we're getting to know Him in His Word. And I find that every time as I go back to the Scripture, it takes the chaos of my circumstances and clears the fog and shows me the simple, stabilizing truth that keeps me sane in an insane world. I asked a group of thousands of women the other day how many of you would say, honestly, you do not have a consistent time in God's Word. And almost all the women in that room raised their hand.

These are women who paid to come to a Christian conference. And I'm going, no wonder we have a hard time trusting God because we don't know Him. So to know Him is to trust Him.

And that's why I say, get to know Him while things are going well. And then when the bottom falls out, you're going to know where to look and where to turn. It's like the country boy who said, you pack your lunch before you're hungry. You got it in your backpack.

You got a sandwich there. You're not hungry yet, but you're going to be. And that's a great confirmation that God really is caring about your future.

And it's a great discipline to pack that lunch, to be ready for whatever comes, good, bad, or indifferent, because you've trusted in His Word. You've soaked in it, as Nancy said. That's become part of the fabric of your life.

That reminds me of my wife Carolyn's experience when she had cancer seven years ago. She said, you know, there were times in which I was so weak that I couldn't even pray. But the verses that I memorized through the years just floated through my heart and through my mind. And they were the source of my comfort, you know, just those verses floating, floating through my mind and my heart.

And so she's been on a campaign since then. Make sure the children learn to memorize the Bible. Oh, that's so good.

That's so good. Yeah, memorizing verses and these old hymns, you know, come every soul by sin oppressed, there's mercy with the Lord. Only trust Him now is the way that verse ends. He will save you. He will save you now.

Yeah. The truth of God planted in our hearts by memorizing in daily time in the Word is so important for us to experience what we're talking about today when we're in those hard places. Well, I have an idea there's someone listening today who has had a diagnosis, or their spouse walked out on them, or they've been out of work for a year or more, and they're listening to us talk, and maybe they're saying in their hearts, yeah, but you don't know where I am. What do we say to those individuals who are listening today who can't figure it out why God's allowing this to be a part of their lives?

Well, what they said is true. We can't understand, and we also can't figure out why God does what He does. If we could, we would be God. There's a statement I heard John Piper say years ago that has really stuck with me, and I've shared it with many people over the years because it's encouraged me so greatly in difficult times. But he said, in every circumstance of your life, God is always doing a thousand different things that you cannot see and you do not know. And we may be able to say, oh yeah, I can see one or two things God might be doing through this, but he said God is doing a thousand different things that you cannot see and you do not know. So you trust Him for what He knows and what He sees, but also you lean in, you cast yourself on Him and you say, Lord, I cannot handle this. But you have said that your grace is sufficient for me, so by faith I'm going to trust that you have, for this moment, the grace that I need. God's not going to give me grace. God's not going to give that person whose circumstance you described grace for what's coming next week or next month or next year, but He does give grace for today. And at the end of the day, that's all I need, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been a delightful hour and I really appreciate you all spending it with us. And I really do believe that our listeners, I hope they sense how important and how helpful this book is because it's Scripture, yes, it's Scripture stories, but it's stories from people today who are experiencing the reality of God as they walk through difficult places. So thanks for being with us today. Thank you, Gary.

That's Robert Walgamuth, and he and Nancy DeMoss Walgamuth have joined us today. What a great way to frame this new year that's ahead by looking at our lives as stories God is writing. If you'd like to see the featured resource, go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. You can trust God to write your story is the title Embracing the Mysteries of Providence.

Again, go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. Next week, you have to hear Allie's story. On the outside, she looked successful.

On the inside, she struggled with deep issues of worth. You'll hear her story, which will be an encouragement to every young woman or the mom or dad who wants to encourage their daughter. That's coming up in one week. Thanks for spending this new year's day with us. Thanks to Steve Wick and Janice Todd. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Happy New Year.