If you don’t believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God, I challenge you to ask God to help you believe. If you don’t believe ALL of it, then none of it is true. We can’t pick and choose.

I will be first to admit many parts of the Bible are hard to understand and it’s easy to misinterpret passages. That’s why Bible study is so important. But for our purposes, I am going to assume we do believe the Bible and use it as our standard.

When we discover a belief we hold doesn’t match with what the Bible says, we must learn to replace that false belief with truth. So how exactly do we do that? Let’s use my previous false belief that God was not really good as an example. Most Bibles have concordances located in the back. (If yours doesn’t, you could find one online.) This is an alphabetical list of commonly occurring words in the Bible. I would look up the word “good” in the concordance and find a short list (usually not a comprehensive list) of verses which contain that word. Then I would look up each verse and see what it says. Personally, I would choose two or three verses that resonated with me and write them on notecards. I might try to memorize them or at least read them several times during the day.  Psalm 86:5 says, “You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you.” Psalm 100:5 says, “For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” If I found myself thinking thoughts that indicated God is not good, I would stop and tell myself, “No, the Bible says God is good,” and then say my chosen verses. And I would repeat this process until I began to find I no longer think God isn’t good.

I must warn you here: this can be a long process. You will not change your thinking overnight. You may think you have finished this for one particular false belief and then several months later discover you have reverted back to your old thinking. Habits do indeed die hard. But, hang in there and don’t give up. Eventually, the new belief will take over.

Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (NIV) I believe our process of replacing lies with truth is this “renewing of your mind.”

But what happens when our circumstances overwhelm us and point to a logical conclusion that God isn’t good? How could a good God let all this bad stuff happen? If He was truly good, then He would stop all the evil, right?

I cannot answer these questions fully. I’m not nearly that smart. And I don’t pretend to know why God intervenes sometimes and why He doesn’t at others. But, I do know that He has promised to work all things for good for those who love Him. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (NIV) Things are not always as they seem. He can see the whole picture whereas we can only see a snapshot in time.

We can see this demonstrated in the life of Joseph in Genesis chapters 37, 39-50. The shortened version is Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery and he is taken down to Egypt. While there he is falsely accused of rape and thrown into prison. I can only imagine what Joseph must have been thinking. How could God allow him to be taken away from his family and then sit in jail for years? If anyone had a circumstantial case for God not being good, it would be Joseph. But fast forward several years and Joseph becomes the second highest ranking official in Egypt and saves the world from starvation. Joseph trusted God through the bad and the good. He tells his brothers in Genesis 50:20, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

We may find ourselves in horrible circumstances that make us doubt God’s goodness but we must remember we don’t know the whole story. Even if we never see the purpose on earth, one day we will understand. In the meantime we must choose how we are going to react. Are we going to believe God or our circumstances?

I hope you find this information helpful. It can be life changing if we apply it diligently and keep working at it. I’d love to hear your personal stories of how you have or are in the process of replacing lies with truth.

Blessings to you,

Judy