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July 23, 2025 46 mins

You've heard all your life that God loves you with an everlasting love. And while you can believe that in your head, your heart can say, "Wait, is that really true?" Author and speaker Glenna Marshall will take us to Psalm 139. She believes that passage can transform us if we'll let it sink deeply into our hearts. How to experience the affection of God—don't miss Chris Fabry Live.

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Known and Loved: Experiencing the Affection of God in Psalm 139 by Glenna Marshall

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Drive Through the Bible by Colin S. Smith

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Episode Transcript

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S1 (00:06):
God loves you. He cares for you. He loves you
with an everlasting love. You believe that? You ever heard
that before? Do you believe it? Down deep? A lot
of Christians believe that in their heads. Yeah. God loves me.
They believe it. Theologically. It's accurate. Yeah. He does. But
at the same time, many in their heart feel. But

(00:27):
I'm not sure if it's true. And I think it's
because we feel, well, God has to love people. It's
who he is. And the bigger question is, does God
like me? If he were given the choice, would he
want to spend time with me? Or would there be
a few billion others that he'd rather hang out with?
Is that you? You believe that God loves you, but

(00:47):
you're not 100% sure. Especially today, because of something you did.
Something you said. If that's you, I want you to
hear from Glenna marshall. She's going to take us to
Psalm 139. Because that's a passage she says can transform
us if we'll let it sink deeply into our hearts
as well as our heads. Thanks for joining us today

(01:09):
for another conversation at the radio backyard fence a new word.
I found a new word today and you're going to
hear about it. Find us online Chris fabry.org. Let me
thank our team. Ryan McConaughey's doing all things technical. Tricia
is our producer. Lisa will be answering your calls today. Uh,
Glenn and I are going to laser focus in on
one psalm, and this is a good thing to do

(01:30):
to look closely at one passage. And I think, I
really hope our prayer is that the light bulb is
going to come. Go on. For someone who has never
fully believed God really does love them, or is basing
their belief on God's love on whether they can perform
or not. You know, whether you live up to your
old standard or God's standard. And if you support this program,

(01:54):
you are part of that light bulb going on in
somebody's heart today. I hope it'll be you, but I
find a lot of people have a hard time seeing
the Bible as one story. From Genesis to Revelation, there's
a main theme. There's a main character, there's a main plot,
a main antagonist, and a big problem. But there are
times when you're reading in the Old Testament or the
new and you think, wait a minute, how does this

(02:15):
fit together? Pastor Colin Smith's little book packs a big wallop.
In 30 days, you will drive through the Bible to
get a sweeping view of God's grace and mercy and
provision for you his love. We only have about a
week left, though in this offer. Give a gift of
any size or you can become a back fence partner.
Give a gift each month and you'll not only encourage us,

(02:38):
help us to continue. You'll encourage yourself with this resource.
And then, as a byproduct, it'll spill onto others who
need the daily encouragement they hear. All right, here's how
you do it. 866958669532279. Give a gift of any. Check
me on that. 8669532279I think that's right. Uh, or just

(03:02):
go to chris.org. It's easier. It's easier to remember Chris fabbri.
Fabbri Chris fabbri Livorno. Scroll down. You'll see how to
be a friend or partner with us right there. We
only have a week left though. Hurry, but don't hurry,
you know. Don't. Don't rush. It's. We'll be okay. Before

(03:23):
I introduce her and tell you about something new, I
have a question for Glenna marshall. When last we talked,
she encouraged us to memorize scripture and we gave away
her book. Then a few months later, we gave away
memorizing scripture last year and what she did for me
with that book and with that conversation, the two of them,

(03:46):
she gave me a belief, and she gave me the
courage and the fortitude and the faith at my advanced
age to try to memorize a longer passage, Not just
a verse, but several verses. And with fear and trembling. Yea,
and verily I started, and within a few weeks I
had made some progress. And now, in the middle of

(04:06):
the night I wake up and think, okay, yeah, here
we go. And I get to Psalm 63 O God,
you are my God. Well, I can do the the
postscript or the script before it. A Psalm of David,
when he was in the wilderness of Judah. That's what
it says. Oh, God, you are my God. Earnestly I
seek you. But I have a problem. Fear has crept in.

(04:29):
I have those verses etched in my memory now. But
I'm afraid, Glenna, to move on and memorize another section
of scripture, because I think if I do that, I
might forget Psalm 63. And I don't want to forget
Psalm 63. So that's my I'm not even going to
introduce you. Help me. What do I do?

S2 (04:47):
Okay, so I love that you've done this though. This
is so encouraging to me. But I'm going to tell
you something that I hope will set you free. Okay.
You are a finite human being. You're going to forget
some of the things that you've memorized. It's just you're
not God, so you can't hold on to everything. But
there is encouragement in that because number one, you can review.

(05:09):
And if you've really locked into this passage, a once
a month review is probably going to be okay to
keep that in your mind. But number two, there is
so much more scripture to feast on that you can
feel free to let it go and move on to
a new passage. And third, I would say that it is,
and I think you'll testify to this, that process of

(05:30):
hiding that portion of Psalm 63 in your heart is
where the Lord did a lot of work on you.
And so he will do that sanctifying work as you
endeavor to work on a new passage.

S1 (05:41):
That is very encouraging and very helpful, I will. I
will admit, though, I still have a fear because I
want to hang on to it. And maybe the problem
is the control. I want to be God, you know?
I want to remember everything. And I'm. And to. No, no.
You're not. It's okay that you're not. As a matter
of fact, you better, better figure that out now, right?

S2 (06:04):
That's right. But, you know, I do think you give
your brain a little more credit. I think a once
a month review, just reciting it, maybe even to someone
else once a month. Uh, we'll keep it in your brain.
Better than than you expect.

S1 (06:17):
Okay. All right. There you go. And if you have
not if you didn't get that book. Memorizing scripture is
a great one. And it's not only challenging and it'll,
you know, spur you on, but it's really encouraging, just
like she was just now. Okay. So Glenna marshall is
married to her pastor William. They've been at the same
church now for almost 20 years, right?

S2 (06:38):
Yeah, we just hit our 20 year mark last week. Wow.

S1 (06:42):
Mother of two sons. Uh, she's the author of the
Promise of His Presence Everyday faithfulness. I mentioned memorizing scripture
and now known and loved experiencing the affection of God
in Psalm 139. Do you identify with what I how
I set everything up that I like? I can understand
that God loves me because he's supposed to. And he

(07:03):
said that I don't know if he likes me very much.

S2 (07:07):
Yeah, I think that there's a part of this that
can accept that he loves us because God so loved
the world that he sent his only begotten son. You
know the verse we actually all did memorize John 316,
but we almost feel when it comes to us personally,
knowing ourselves the way we do, that, it's almost like
he's contractually obligated to love us. And so we worry that,

(07:28):
oh yeah, he loved me and he saved me. He's
probably sorry he did, you know, or he's disgruntled with
me all the time, or he's happy with me when
I read my Bible and unhappy with me when I don't.
And I mean, I have felt that way many times.
And I, being a pastor's wife, have gotten to watch
people walk with Christ for 20 years now. and I

(07:50):
think it's a common problem among believers. And we tend
to base our understanding of how God feels about us
based on maybe how we feel about ourselves or how
we have been loved by other people.

S1 (08:03):
Yes. And you know where I hear it? With having
conversations like this, I'll get people who will call here,
sometimes middle aged, sometimes younger, but many times older, who
feel like, uh, something that they did yesterday or 50
years ago that God is holding this over them. And
because he knows them so well, he is looking over

(08:27):
the portals of heaven with his arms crossed and his
brow furrowed, that I know what you did back there.
I'm going to get you, you know. And they're waiting
for God to bang them on the back of the head.
What do you say to that?

S2 (08:39):
Yeah. And, well, I think that's where we have to
do that thing, that age old thing of preaching the
gospel to ourselves. Because if we think that that God
has forgiven our sins through faith in Jesus, we have
been saved, but we think he's still standing there with
his arms crossed, ready to punish us and make us
feel terrible and really wants us to grovel. Then we're

(09:00):
actually saying that Jesus's blood didn't fully cover our sins,
and we still need to pay for it somehow. And
that is not the gospel. I mean, Romans eight therefore
there is now no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus because Jesus. I mean, to quote the hymn,
he paid it all. There's no more punishment left. Jesus

(09:21):
took it all at the cross. And so why would
God change his character? By being delighted to save you
and then angry to sanctify you? That's not who he is.
He does not change the way that we do. Yeah.

S1 (09:38):
This is, as I said, my my hope is that
somebody driving down the road right now, that the light
bulb is going to go on, that there's going to
be something that will happen, not just in your head.
Understanding more about who God is and who you are,
but something will happen in your heart. As a matter
of fact, Glennis says in the book, I want you

(09:58):
to be confident that you have all of God's love
in Christ. That you'll never lose it. That you will
never stand before. A disgruntled father who is unaccustomed to
opening his stores and sharing what he has. There is
not this this scarcity mindset that we have, that God
is stingy and he's he's going to treat us that way.

(10:22):
That's a construct of either the enemy or our own
heart about him. So I want you to hear what
Glenn has to say. If you go to Chris Fabry
Live.com and click through today's information, you'll see known and
loved experiencing the affection of God in Psalm 139. And

(10:42):
we're going to do something different today. You know, a
lot of times we'll talk about a passage of Scripture
or a whole chapter in God's Word. Today we're going
to read the entire Psalm, Psalm 139, and then jump
into this with both feet and immerse ourselves in the
love and the mercy in the in God's knowing, you

(11:04):
and me. I think it's going to be a helpful conversation.
Let's go to Chris Fabry live More with Glenna straight
ahead on Moody Radio.

S3 (11:23):
Her name is Glenna marshall.

S1 (11:24):
We're going to Psalm 139 today. There is a word
that I found in her book that I've never seen before,
and you're going to hear it on Facebook. I asked
the question, how do you experience the affection of God?
And I want you to think about that as we
go through this Psalm. Have you experienced the affection of

(11:46):
God and what does that mean? The affection of God.
Because I think we could throw this around. Uh. God's love.
God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
And God. Love, love, love, love. And everybody has a
different view of what that means in their head about love.
Have you experienced the friendship, the the drawing close to him,

(12:10):
knowing you and loving you, his affection in your life? Uh,
and if you have an answer to that, or you
have a question as we go along, the number, as always,
is (877) 548-3675. Before we before I ask you a bunch
of questions, I'd like for us to just stop and

(12:30):
and this is a great thing to be able to
do because we don't have traffic and weather and everything
that we have to do here this afternoon. Glenna. We
can just read God's Word together. So there's 24 verses
in Psalm 139. Nine. It's written to the choirmaster. A
psalm of David. So why don't you do the first
12 and I'll do the last 12? Okay.

S2 (12:50):
Okay. Sounds good. O Lord, you have searched me and
known me. You know when I sit down and when
I rise up, you discern my thoughts from afar. You
search out my path and my lying down. And are
acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is
on my tongue. Behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in behind and before, and lay your

(13:12):
hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.
It is high. I cannot attain it. Where shall I
go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from
your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there.
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell
in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your
right hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall

(13:33):
hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night. Even the darkness
is not dark to you, and the night is bright
as the day. For darkness is as light with you.

S1 (13:45):
For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together
in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am
fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul
knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from
you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven

(14:06):
in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my
unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them.
The days that were formed for me, when as yet
there was none of them. How precious to me are
your thoughts. Oh, God, how vast is the sum of them?
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.

(14:28):
I awake, and I am still with you. Oh, that
you would slay the wicked, O God, O men of blood,
depart from me! They speak against you with malicious intent.
Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not
hate those who hate you, O Lord. And do I
not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate

(14:48):
them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. Search me,
O God, and know my heart. Try me and know
my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way
in me. And lead me in the way everlasting. That's

(15:09):
Psalm 139. And you know what strikes me? And I
gave myself the second half so I could do the
imprecatory part, because that's I said that I memorized Psalm 63.
I only memorized the first eight verses because nine, ten,
and 11 had this, you know, go get em, God
and everything. It's like, I want to stay positive here.
But that imprecatory part there, you know, the wicked, the hatred,

(15:32):
the taking, the name in vain, and I hate. Well,
we're not supposed to. That doesn't sound like God. Doesn't
sound very nice to hate people. What do you say
about that?

S2 (15:42):
Oh, this portion of the psalm is such a surprise,
because the whole psalm is so beautiful and uplifting, and
it just extols God's omniscience and his love and his
delight in how he's created his people. And then you
get to the Imprecatory section and you're like, oh, David,
you really messed up this beautiful Psalm. And it sounds
so weird to our ears to hear a section of cursing,

(16:05):
which is basically what David is doing. Um, and yet
it does make sense when you dig into this psalm,
because he has praised this God who has made him
and known him and loved him, and communicated such care
to David. Therefore, if you're an enemy of God, David
feels like you're his enemy too. He is aligning himself

(16:28):
with loyalty to God. And at this point, you know
you need a little historical context. David is the anointed
king of Israel. And because Israel was God's chosen people
under the Old covenant. If you were an enemy of
Israel and an enemy of the King of Israel, you
were an enemy of God at this point in history.
And so it does make a little bit more sense.

(16:49):
But basically, um, David is aligning himself with loyalty. I'm
going to love what God loves. I'm going to hate
what God hates. And when you notice the things that
he the way he describes these people that he's calling
a curse down upon, they are shedding innocent blood. Well, now,
David has just talked about the intrinsic value of human life.

(17:12):
And so he is not okay with people who treat
human life like this. And he knows that God loves justice.
And so he is aligning himself with what God loves.
And he's being loyal, and he doesn't want to be
an enemy of God. I think as people, uh, you know,
Christians who are sitting on this side of the gospel story,
yet we have to align this passage and all of

(17:33):
Scripture is is about Jesus. We know that from John five.
So how do we look at something like this when
we know that we're also supposed to love our enemies
and pray for those who persecute us? I think it's
it's what we do is we pray for justice and mercy,
because when we see injustices like the way children are treated,
or maybe a mass genocide or ethnic cleansing in some
part of the world, and we see the way that

(17:56):
people are oppressing other people. We want it to end.
We ask for the Lord to end this. You know,
we pray like the psalmist, cut off the arm of
the wicked. And what we're praying is, Lord, end their deeds.
Cut off their power either by ending them or saving them.
Because we have to remember we were all enemies of God.

(18:17):
Until through faith in Jesus, he made us his friend.
And so no one is too far gone. So when
we see injustices, we pray for God to right the
wrongs in the way that he deems best. And so
I think we pray for our enemies. We love them
praying that they'll come to salvation, but we also pray
for an end to injustice as well.

S1 (18:35):
I saw a clip of John MacArthur when he was
on Larry King's program, and they had multiple guests there,
and and Larry was picking on MacArthur because he was saying,
you know, that this exclusivity thing, you know, if I
don't believe like you do, you know, if I don't
believe in Jesus, then I'm going. I'm going someplace I
don't want to go. And and Larry King said something

(18:58):
like that that didn't sound like very, very just. That's
not justice. And and MacArthur immediately came back and said, oh, Larry,
you don't want justice. You don't want justice. Why? Why what? Going. No.
If justice means that we all go to hell because
we are all sinners. We are all deserve that eternal
separation from God. But because of God's grace, because of

(19:22):
his mercy. And he goes, he did it a lot
better than I just did. But I see that in
this passage as well. It's like, here's the wonderful news
about the way that God has created us and knows us.
And then here comes injustice. And that we have to
wait for the love of God and the. You can't
separate the justice of God and the love of God. Um,

(19:45):
you can't separate those two things. They go together. Right?

S2 (19:49):
Mhm. Yeah. And the thing that's hard for us to
wrap our minds around is that he's not just to
the diminishing of his love, he's not loving to the
diminishing of his justice. He is all of his attributes perfectly.
And that that's hard for us with our finite minds
to really grasp that because we see character traits in

(20:09):
one another. Well, he's got more mercy than she does,
or he's got more of a justice, you know, a
desire for justice than he does compassion. But that's not
how God is. He is perfectly all of his attributes
without denigrating any of them.

S1 (20:23):
You know, the other thing that I love is how
it starts. Oh, Lord, you have searched me and known me.
That's very the very first verse. And then in 23
search me, O God, and know my heart. So he's
he's doing this. It's almost an antiphonal thing. He's he's
bookending that psalm with the same thought. Right.

S2 (20:44):
He is. And in the beginning, he's using past tense
like the Lord. You have already searched and known me.
You already know everything. You already. And really, you knew
all this before I was ever born. Before I was conceived.
When he get to verses 15 and 16. But then
he ends it with a desire for God to continue
to know him, which I think is a desire for

(21:05):
God to continue to to keep him, to sanctify him,
because he's like, search my heart. He doesn't want to
be guilty of the things that God's enemies are guilty of.
I think it's it's a prayer for God to keep
him and sustain him and keep him close to him
for the rest of his life.

S1 (21:21):
One of the other things, as you were reading, you
hem me in behind and before and lay your hand
upon me. So there's it's almost like I can see
the five love languages throughout this. There's this physical touch here.
There's the presence, there's quality time. You know, there's there's
somebody who spends the time to know. And and why

(21:44):
wouldn't God know everything about us? Well, a lot of
people say, I don't I don't think he cares that much.
You know, he doesn't he doesn't show up the way
that I want him to. So he must not know
me very well. And that's a hurdle that a lot
of people have to get over, isn't it?

S2 (22:02):
It is. And I think that comes from looking at
God's character through the lens of your circumstances, when actually
we should look at our circumstances through the lens of
God's character. And that is going to come from, uh,
putting your face in your Bible, reading it, memorizing it,
meditating on it, and letting him tell you who he is.

(22:23):
Because you can look at your life and you can see, well,
God hasn't done this and God hasn't done this, so
therefore he must not love me. But that means we're
attaching his love to certain outcomes that he maybe hasn't
promised us, but rather, what we need to do is
go to Scripture and look at his delight and his care.
The word no in this psalm is not just general knowledge. Like, oh,

(22:47):
I know of her. I know that she's a pastor's wife.
I know that she's a writer and she's a mom.
But now his knowledge, the word know here communicates love
and investment. It doesn't quite come across in English the
way it would in Hebrew, but it communicates a deeper,
deeper kind of knowledge that is just tangled up with
affection and you really can't undo them. And so his

(23:10):
knowledge does communicate care. And I think when we get
into the scriptures and let them tell us who he is,
then you can kind of flip the script and you
look at your life, oh, well, he hasn't done this,
he hasn't done this, but I know that he loves me. Therefore,
I'm going to look at my life through the lens
of his love. And that changed everything for me when
I learned to do that.

S1 (23:32):
It changes everything. When you capture a vision of, uh,
the question, am I going to believe in the God
that I want? You know, and I'll hear this all
the time on on media. Oh, my God, would never.
And then fill in the blank. Am I going to
believe in the God that I can conceive of, who

(23:53):
acts the way that I want him or her or it,
or however you would term it? Am I going to
believe in that? Or am I going to allow, quote unquote,
allow God to be who God is and find out
who he is and who he reveals that he is,
so that I can worship who he is, rather than

(24:15):
who I've conjured up in my own heart and mind.

S2 (24:19):
That's so true. And like, you know, when we read
the Old Testament, we read of Israel bowing down to
little golden statues. And it's and its idolatry. I don't
think we equate it with what we actually do, which
is still idolatry, which is building. Well, basically, we're making
God in our own image by saying things like, My
God would never do this, and my God would never.
You're just making him up. He has told us who

(24:43):
he is, and we have to worship the God who
has revealed himself through Scripture and through Jesus Christ.

S1 (24:49):
Glenn Marshall is with us today. I'm going to your
phone calls, I promise. I got Lisa, you hang on
because I really want to hear your story. (877) 548-3675. Is
a light bulb going on in your heart as you've
listened to us? Read Psalm 139 and get into it.
(877) 548-3675 Glenn Marshall has written, known, and loved experiencing the

(25:14):
affection of God. In Psalm 139, she asks, Is God's
love personal? Did he just barely allow me into the kingdom?
Is God perpetually disgruntled toward me. Is he begrudging in
his affection? Did I escape judgment by the skin of
my teeth? Does God keep me at arm's length to
remind me of my wretchedness? Does he stay mad at

(25:37):
me to keep me in place? Are you experiencing shame,
doubt and fear? She says you can have comfort, joy
and peace. We'll talk more about that straight ahead. This
is Chris Fabry live online. Chris Fabry. Is joining us today.

(26:06):
Known and loved is our featured resource. Just click through
today's information at. Chris Fabry lives. She's a pastor's wife.
William is the pastor of Grace Bible Fellowship in Missouri,
and they've been there for 20 years now. So they
have a lot there's a lot water under the bridge
and ministry done. And so she's written this book and I,

(26:28):
I really connect with it because I feel like I
am right in the target area. This I have these
kinds of feelings a lot about the affection of God.
I feel like if I'm I'm going to be at
the the marriage supper, I'm going to be at the banquet,
but I'm going to have a seat way back in
the corner somewhere. It's like back in the cheap seats,

(26:49):
you know, uh, like if you go to a baseball game,
you sit way up high where you really can't tell
if there are ants down there or baseball players. It's like, no, no,
God wants you. He wants you to have a place
at his table because he is the one who has
provided it. He's provided the robe for you to wear.
He's provided the righteousness that you have to get in.

(27:10):
It's not on you. So this really hits a nerve
with me, and I think it's hit a nerve with
Lisa as well. Lisa, tell me why you called today.

S4 (27:19):
Oh, thank you so much for taking my call today.
Chris and Glenna. Um, I just want to tell anyone
who's listening that God will meet you right where you're at.
And where I was at when I really experienced the
love of God was, um. I grew up in a
home without a dad, and I had a mom who

(27:40):
put me on the church bus to go to a
good church every Sunday. So I went by myself and
found a wonderful, wonderful family of believers there. And, um,
so I learned God's Word and believed all these scriptures
about God. I was just like, yes, I want God. Yes,
I want God, yes, Jesus, come into my heart. But

(28:02):
I found later in life, um, when I got around
some friends of mine who had a beautiful relationship with
their earthly dad, it began to stir something in my heart,
a need like I had never known before. It was
like I wanted that. And it wasn't just jealousy, it
was a need I had inside to feel a father's love,

(28:25):
and I had never really known it. And so what
I knew to do was just talk to the Lord
about it. So I did, and I was like, honest
with him, father. I don't know what it feels like
to have a father love me like that. I know
you love me, but I just don't feel it. I mean,

(28:46):
I know it in my head, but I don't feel it.
Please help me. And I prayed this way fervently. I mean,
a lot. It just. And I would cry sometimes. And
just time went on and I kept asking. And the
the urge grew. And one Sunday morning in in worship service,
worship time, we were all worshiping. And I just felt

(29:11):
him whisper to my heart. It felt the Lord's words
lay on my heart. Look up. And so I did. And.
But I kept my eyes closed for some reason. I
just looked up with my eyes closed, with my hands raised,
and I saw a giant drop and I was like,
what is this? And he said. He whispered these words

(29:33):
to my heart. I didn't hear it audibly, but it
was straight to my heart. It's my love. Just receive it.
And I just started crying and I just started saying, yes, yes,
I receive it by faith, Lord, I receive it. Well,
I went home and didn't feel any different. I honestly
didn't feel different for a couple of months, but I

(29:54):
knew I received it by faith. Just like I take
communion and just like I ask for things in prayer,
I received his love by faith. And a couple of
months went by and I noticed one day, oh my gosh,
I felt and knew that I knew that I knew
I have a father who loves me and it's so real.

(30:18):
It's as if I have a father right here with
skin on. And it got stronger and stronger and stronger
over the next period of months. And that was like
12 to 15 years ago. It never left me. It's
with me all the time. I know it's him. And
so I can honestly tell people now he met me

(30:38):
where I was at. I just had to ask and
continue to pursue and wait for him to reveal it
to me. And he has just filled me with his love.
So I want to give that hope to someone else
out there who's never known their earthly father, or never
known their Heavenly Father's love. It's there for you too.

S1 (30:58):
You did it. You did that today, Lisa. You were
faithful with that wound and that pain and that struggle.
And you've you've spoken into somebody's life. I mentioned the
light bulb going on there. There's somebody who needed to
hear that. And I want you to stay right where
you are. We're going to get have Tricia get your information,
because I want to send you a copy of Known
and loved by Glenna. Glenna, respond to that drop story.

S2 (31:22):
Oh, I just appreciate the courage it takes to share
something so personal like that. But I also think she
raises such a good point. If you were raised without
a father, and there's going to be so many listeners
who understand that Fatherlessness is just such a such a epidemic,
you know, and, and has and leaves deep wounds, I think.
And so I think, or even for people who are

(31:43):
had an earthly father who was not kind to them
or did not love them very well, it is so
tempting to look at God through the lens of flawed fatherhood,
and to imbue his character with those traits that we
have experienced, or that we have longed to experience and
never did. And and yet what Lisa has done is
believed that God loved her anyway, that he was a

(32:05):
good father anyway, because that's who he says he is
in his word. And as she chose to believe that,
to kind of have faith over over what she felt,
it became as real and true to her as anything,
and it has changed her. You can hear it in
her voice and I just love that so much. Lisa.

S1 (32:22):
I do too, and I like the aspect this, um,
the day by day, the step by step nature of
the belief. Uh, and I've heard stories of people who,
you know, come to Christ and immediately they have, you know,
huge things happen to them or addictions are broken. And
I believe in those things. Miraculous things happen. But I

(32:42):
think for most of us, it is a day by day,
sometimes hour by hour choice to believe. Am I going
to believe that God really is there, and that he
is the one who is holding me, that I'm not
holding on to him. I am holding on to him.
But he's the one who holds me fast. I'm not
doing this in my own strength and that continual belief today. God,

(33:05):
I don't feel saved today. God, I don't feel like
I'm you know that. Your smile is. You're smiling at me.
I don't feel the light of your smile on my
life today, but I choose to believe it's there instead
of going on my own emotions. And you do that
long enough. And it's not just positive thinking that's going on,
it's allowing the spirit to change your attitude. Right.

S2 (33:30):
Mhm. Yeah. It reminds me of Second Corinthians three where
Paul says and we all with unveiled face, beholding the
glory of the Lord, are being transformed. So that's, you know,
ongoing into the same image from one degree of glory
to another. So bit by bit, for this comes from
the Lord, who is the spirit. It's exactly what you're saying.
It is day by day, beholding the glory of the

(33:51):
Lord and being changed bit by bit. And that is
the work of the Holy Spirit.

S1 (33:56):
Yeah. And then and then in chapter four, I think
it is I think I mentioned this yesterday two different places,
he says, so we don't give up. And then he
says it again so we don't give up. And it's like, there,
I'm going to believe this and I'm going to keep
believing it. No matter what happens when I'm not going
to give up with the with the praying, because that's

(34:16):
why I think a lot of people don't pray. They
really don't believe that God hears them or that God
will answer them. Or they've had a dad who was stingy,
or a parent who was stingy with them and even
tell a story, a funny story about a TV character
who was, you know, it feels like his wallet is
creaking open when his son asks him for something. We

(34:37):
put that on God, don't we?

S2 (34:39):
We do. We we we take our experiences of stingy,
disgruntled love or love that needs to be earned by
performance or good grades or a good, you know, good
job doing your chores. And we put that on God,
and that is not how he loves us. His love,
I mean, he's the source of it. He is the

(34:59):
definition of it. His love is perfect. It is not
flawed by selfishness or stinginess or impatience. He doesn't blow
up at us when we screw up. He doesn't pull
back his love when we don't read our Bibles. He.
We have all of his love and approval in Christ
and will never lose it. It is guaranteed. It was
something that he gave to us as a free gift

(35:22):
and we can't earn it. Therefore we can't lose it.
And that should just give us so much comfort.

S1 (35:28):
There is a word that you use in the book
that I I've never seen before, I don't think I have,
and I want you to talk about that. Let me
take Deborah's call before we take a break, though. Deborah,
go right ahead.

S5 (35:39):
Hi, there. Hey. I just resonate with so much. Everything
you're saying. The father thing. But the reason I called
was because, um, in the last part. Well, definitely. God
showing me his love and my love language that he
gave me of acts of service. It's like God does
acts of service for me. And that's what really touched me.
And then in, um, I'm working on memorizing Psalm 139,

(36:03):
and then this comes on today. And what I noticed, um,
in my early part of, um, studying the psalm was
that after I rant and rave, which I can tend
to do about the wicked and how much I hate
the evil, then he then it says, search me, O God,
and know my heart and know my thoughts, my anxiety.
And if there's any offensive or grievous way in me,

(36:25):
it's like, okay, so I leave the evil people in
your hands instead of, you know, being upset about it
and how it was a repeat. Like you said of
verse one of you have searched me and known me.

S1 (36:37):
And releasing them, not having to get revenge like justice.
It's justice is up to me. I got to take
care of this. No, it's like I can release this
to the mercy and the grace, as well as the
justice of God, so that it's not weighing me down, Glenn,
to talk about that.

S2 (36:56):
Yeah. I mean, we're told multiple times in Scripture that
vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. And the reason for
that is, if we seek vengeance for the wicked and, um,
then it's going to be tainted by our sin, by
our desire for power or control or whatever it is.
Even if we have good motives, we just have this
sin issue that makes it problematic. But as we've said,

(37:17):
God is perfect and holy and perfect love and perfectly just,
and he will mete out justice in the exact right way.
We can trust him with that. And so I love
her heart. Her heart is so soft. I could so
tell that, you know, just she's praying for God to
to search her and know her heart in the wake
of that. And I think that is that's so, so beautiful,

(37:40):
the way that David has penned this Psalm in that way.
It protects us from from thinking that we have to
take control of these very big, problematic things. We can
trust the Lord with it.

S1 (37:52):
Don't you love it that she's memorizing Psalm 139 two?

S2 (37:55):
I just smiled so big when she said that.

S1 (37:58):
That's your love language. Okay, so Deborah, you hang on. Deborah,
we're going to send you a copy of Known and
Loved Experiencing the Affection of God in Psalm 139. She
used that word resonance. This is resonating with me. Like, uh,
if you hear this, this sound, this tone, and then
everything starts to resonate with that tone, that there's something

(38:19):
going on here at the back fence today. And there's
more straight ahead on Moody Radio. Tomorrow at the radio
backyard fence doctor Joe Stoll is going to be with us,
my pal from Moody Bible Institute. And he's done a

(38:40):
lot of things through the years and have a good
conversation here. And then on Friday, Ben Fuller stops by
the studio with some music that I want you to
hear from his heart. Oh, you got to hear that. Um,
today we're talking about being fearfully and wonderfully made. From
Psalm 139. Glenna marshall has written, known and loved. If

(39:04):
this is touching your heart in some way. If you
have wanted to feel the affection of God, you believe
that he loves you, but you don't experience his affection. Uh,
and it's more than just a feeling that we're talking
about here. There's there's something deeper than that. I recommend
this to you. Known and loved. Our featured resource. Click

(39:26):
through today's information right there Chris Fabry live. But I
mentioned this, the whole program now as a word that
I've never seen before. And it's spelled s o n
d e r like wonder with an s. Is it sonder?
Is that how you say it?

S2 (39:44):
Yes. Sonder.

S1 (39:45):
Okay. What does Sonder mean?

S2 (39:48):
Okay. So I'm going to give you the dictionary definition
and then I'll, I'll explain it a little. So the
definition is sonder is the feeling one has on realizing
that every other individual one sees has a life as
full and real as one's own, in which they are
the central character, and others, including oneself, have secondary or
insignificant roles. So basically we all kind of view our

(40:10):
lives as we are the main character of our story.
That's just how we how we are kind of programmed
to think. Saunder is the sudden realization that you have
when you realize when you see someone like, you can
have experience Sonder, when you're in a crowd, like maybe
an airport or a concert or something, and you're looking
around at all these people and it kind of washes
over you, you'll know it when you feel it. This

(40:31):
overwhelming realization that this person that you do not know,
that you see across the room is the main character
of their story. And they have a whole life and
loves and jobs and idiosyncrasies and things that you will
never know anything about. And I know this sounds very strange.
We should all realize that. But Sonder is a sudden realization,

(40:52):
and it happens in kind of the way that deja
vu happens, like just washes over you randomly and you
know it when you feel it. It happened to me
as a child multiple times. And then when I stumbled
upon the word sonder, I realized, oh, this is an
actual thing that everybody experiences.

S1 (41:08):
Yes. Tell me about when you were a kid. What?
What happened?

S2 (41:11):
Yeah. So I remember I was in a car with
my family sitting in the back seat. I'm like 8
or 9 years old. We're driving through town and we're
stopped at a stoplight, and I look over in the
car next to me, and there's a woman driving and just,
you know, this this was back in the 80s, so
we didn't have iPads in the car. We looked out
the window as our entertainment. And so I see this
woman and I notice, oh, look at her haircut and

(41:32):
look at what she's wearing. I wonder where she's going.
And then I had this, like, huge wash of realization.
She's a whole person with a whole life and a
whole story. I'm not connected to her at all. And
that just astounded me, because then I realized how many
millions and billions of people are there in the world,
and then you match that feeling with the truth that

(41:55):
God knows them all and not just knows them, but
made them all. It's it's overwhelming.

S1 (42:02):
Well, and the hairs of your head are numbered. You know,
it's like I can believe that God has the ability
mathematically to know everybody and to know how many hairs,
you know, because he knows it's. But it's almost like
he's trivia. He's the god of trivia. It's like, no,
he knows why I do certain things in my life

(42:25):
when I can't figure out why in the world do
I keep doing that? You know what? What is going
on here? He knows that. And he wants me to
understand that if I will take enough time to draw
closer to him and let him point it out. Right.

S2 (42:41):
That's right. And so he knows, you know, all the
hairs on your head, every freckle you have. He knows
about all your internal systems that you can't even see.
You're just trusting that your lungs are going to work.
But he actually made your lungs and designed them. And
so then multiply everything he knows about you and and
multiply that by how many people have lived in time

(43:02):
and will live. I mean it. This is why David
says in the Psalm, um, in verse six, such knowledge
is too wonderful for me, wonderful for me. It is high.
I cannot attain it. He's like, this is way out
of my depths. I can't even wrap my head around
what God knows. Yes.

S1 (43:18):
And this the verses 13 through 16 are used, uh,
for people who believe in pro-life, and I do. For
you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in
my mother's womb. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. But you
and I both know that we live in a world
where there are people who are born with disabilities and
who have chronic diseases, and even now, listening right now,

(43:41):
terminal illnesses. So how do you square that with what
we see around us?

S2 (43:49):
Yeah. I mean, this is a such a legitimate question
because I've heard these verses my whole life. These are
maybe the most popular verses from this psalm, and yet
I am one of those people with a chronic pain disease,
there is no cure. I will have it the rest
of my life. So how do I reconcile the fact
that my body is broken with the fact that it
is also fearfully and wonderfully made? And I think we

(44:11):
have to go back to the creation narrative in Genesis
and look at the fact that we were made in
the image of God. And he says it was very good.
It was his best creation. He was it was his
best work because we are mirroring him in our just
our existence. And so that alone gives our lives intrinsic value.

(44:32):
Because we are created in the image of God, every human,
it sets us above all other parts of the created world.
And and I think that speaking to the pro-life, we
should be pro-life. Whole life ethic from womb to tomb,
because every human life has intrinsic worth and value, because
every human life image has got. So you have to
start with that as your premise, but then you also

(44:54):
have to understand that sin has broken everything. thing. There
is no part of this world that has not been
touched by sin, and the fact that we suffer diseases
is because we are groaning for the return of Christ.
And what gives me hope as someone with a disease
is that this is not all there is. Resurrection day
is coming where we will be raised imperishable, those of

(45:15):
us in Christ, to a body that will never hurt
and never experience suffering or pain or sorrow or disease again.
And man, that gives me so much joy. Resurrection day
is coming.

S1 (45:27):
And delight you. You've used the word delight even here
today and throughout the book. It's like, can you feel
the delight that God has as he looks at your life,
as he draws you close to himself? And I love
the quotes throughout the book. Here's one from Doctor Tim Keller.
To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial.

(45:49):
To be known and not loved is our greatest fear.
But to be fully known and truly loved is, well,
a lot like being loved by God. It is what
we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense,
humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for
any difficulty life can throw at us. Glenn, you've done

(46:12):
a really good job of, uh, of Psalm 139 and
putting that in our hearts, letting it resonate and sit there.
Thanks for being with us today, friend.

S2 (46:22):
Thanks so much, Chris.

S6 (46:24):
If you go to Chris.

S1 (46:25):
Org, you'll see that featured resource. Highly recommend it to you.
Maybe for a small group study as well. Known and
loved experiencing the affection of God in Psalm 139.

S6 (46:38):
Just go to Chris Fabry live.

S1 (46:40):
Doctor Joseph Stohl's going to be with us tomorrow here
on Chris Fabry live production of Moody Radio, a ministry
of Moody Bible Institute.
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