Faith Talks host: Hello, I’m Jana Faith.

And I’m Anna Faith.

And welcome to episode 7 of Faith Talks.

Faith Talks host: And continuing in our study of the fruit of the Spirit, today we will be discussing the fruit goodness.

Faith Talks host: and for this topic today we have with us Mrs.

Reed.

She grew up here at Falls and she’s a mom of three kids under the age of three.

So yes she has twin boys and then another little boy and you know if you look at Mrs.

Reed you might think wow she’s a godly wife, a mother, a discipler in the church.

I mean speaking of goodness I’m sure she’s like always been good but you know in her teen years there was areas she struggled in just just like you guys and today she’s actually going to share us a little bit of her story of how God brought her to the end of herself and taught her his

Faith Talks host: goodness.

So just looking at the word goodness, what does that word mean?

Well, the definitions

Faith Talks host: I looked up say that the actual word goodness means holy, pure, righteous.

I think a lot of times

Faith Talks host: goodness is used kind of as a general term for those who do good.

For example, if someone’s good, then maybe that is shown by their kindness, if they have virtue, or being honest, being generous.

Another thing I think of is the Children’s Book of Virtues.

Faith Talks host: Yes, I had one of those that was in my sister’s room on the ground, the Children’s Book of Virtues.

Do you remember?

Okay, there was this story in there about this boy who he was like playing baseball, and his baseball went into the window and smashed it open.

And the man who lived there, what was his name again?

Faith Talks host: I think it was Old Meanie McCrank.

Yes, it was Old Meanie McCrank.

I actually have a funny story about that.

So my oldest brother, when he was in nursery, I think two or three years old, one of the teachers was kind of reprimanding him, and I’m sure he deserved it.

But he looked at the teacher and said, you’re like old Meanie McCrank.

Oh, that’s terrible.

Faith Talks host: I’m sure she appreciated it.

Maybe she knew the story or maybe not.

I don’t know.

Well, as we look at goodness, it’s kind of like you mentioned. we realize we aren’t those qualities by ourselves.

Like none of us can be good in our own strength.

And goodness really has to be a work of God.

It’s not something we can work up or can form ourself into.

When I think of goodness too, something that helps me is the idea of sincerity.

Guest: So it’s having a sincere, pure heart that really desires to spend time with God, to make right choices, to genuinely be kind to people.

It’s a selfless heart, a heart that serves others.

And when you think about all that, it’s not naturally who we are.

Faith Talks host: You know, even looking at the Bible, the Bible actually says it’s the exact opposite of who we are.

Guest: Yes.

The Bible says that our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked, and in our flesh dwells no good thing.

Wow, that’s such a contrast to who God is.

It sure is.

God doesn’t even have to think about being good.

He is good all the time.

He’s our best model for goodness and really our only hope at being good ourselves.

Faith Talks host: So just bringing this close to home, Mrs.

Reed, what in your life has helped you to see this contrast of our wickedness versus God’s goodness?

Guest: Well, I got saved at a young age, and I was always encouraged by my parents to do right, to love God, to be a good kid, to not get in trouble.

And when I reached my upper elementary grades, I started hanging around some negative influences in my life.

And my mom especially cautioned me about this, but I just didn’t know how to pull away.

Wrong friends really can have a huge impact of corrupting that inner sincerity that we were just talking about.

And it did just that for me.

So when I reached my ninth grade year, there was a guy my age who was very obvious about his intentions to start up a relationship.

And I knew my parents and the Christian school that I was in would be against the relationship, so I did my best to hide it.

Absolutely nothing in my life during that time reflected God’s goodness or that inner sincerity.

I became very self-focused, always thinking about this relationship and how to continue it while still trying to keep it a secret.

And looking back, I can honestly say it was the most miserable time of my life.

Faith Talks host: You know, I think that’s interesting just how if we look at ourselves or other people for goodness, we’re just never going to find that.

It’s really, you’re just never going to see it if you look to yourself.

Faith Talks host: Another thing I’m thinking, just the verse, be sure your sin will find you out.

So I’m sure this was true in your case.

Like, how did it eventually end?

Guest: Well, it actually ended very abruptly.

So after about nine months of hiding the relationship, my school principal called me into his office and very sternly said, I know what’s going on and we’re going to have to expel you from the academy.

And this came as a huge blow to me because, like I said, I hardly ever got in trouble in school.

And now all of a sudden, I found myself one day home early from school and not able to ever go back.

And my poor parents, they didn’t really know what to do with me.

So they just sent me to my room just to think about everything that had happened, really almost the course of that whole school year.

So it was during this time of quietness that God started speaking to me.

And because all the other physical distractions with the relationship were gone now, I could actually hear God’s voice and listen to what he was telling me.

One of the greatest thoughts that just plagued me was, why am I not sorry for my sin?

You see, intellectually, I knew my sin was wrong, but I just didn’t care.

There was no remorse there, and that really alarmed me.

So I grabbed my Bible that day and prayed the most simple, but yet one of the most powerful prayers I’ve ever prayed.

And I simply said, God, I just don’t get it.

Can you please show me the wickedness of my sin?

Faith Talks host: You know, I really, I like that prayer because it wasn’t something that was super spiritual, but it was just a simple cry for help.

So how did God answer this?

Did it take time or was it right then?

Guest: Well, it was right then.

So I started flipping through my Bible and I came to Isaiah chapter 59.

And the first few verses talk about God’s character.

And then it says, But your iniquities have separated you between you and your God.

Wow, that was my answer.

God showed me that my sin was wicked because it totally separated me from him.

He was a God who loved me, who wanted to have a relationship with me.

He wanted to pour his blessings on me, to show me his goodness.

Yet my sin hindered all of that from happening.

It seems so simple to say now, but I never saw it like that before.

And God really opened my eyes that day to that concept and broke me over my sin.

So I got on my knees and started crying, really for the first time ever, about my sin and just confessing it all to God.

Yes, the relationship, but there were so many other things that God was showing me. that I needed to confess.

So that was all good, but it didn’t just stop there.

When I was still on my knees, I began to think about the general direction of my life.

You know, living my life how I wanted to and just pleasing myself was so empty and unfulfilling.

So after confessing all my sin that day, I then surrendered my life to God, telling him that I was done living my life for myself and that I wanted to live my life now to please him and to obey him.

That’s a really

Faith Talks host: dramatic turnaround.

Like it seems like that day, I mean, besides salvation and the day you got married, that’s a really important day.

Now, did you struggle after that or did you continue taking

Guest: steps of victory?

Well, the difference in my life after that really was amazing.

Instead of in the morning, immediately thinking on this secret fantasy, that relationship that I had created, I instead woke up in the mornings grabbing my Bible and wanting to meet with Jesus.

And that changed me.

Spending time with God allowed me to get to know him and to see his love for me and to see his heart for me.

The heart that had always loved me and was so loving to bring me back to himself.

Faith Talks host: That reminds me of that verse.

I think it’s in Psalms.

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.

Guest: Exactly.

I couldn’t see the goodness of God until I really saw the wickedness of my sin.

And when you taste that of God’s goodness and his mercy and not giving you what you really deserve, it changes you.

It purifies your heart so that you can’t help but being touched and passing God’s goodness on to others.

Faith Talks host: You know, that reminds me, this week we were in Indiana with the War of Special Forces of Special Forces.

And I thought it was really interesting.

A lot of the different girls that came back for counseling were somewhat bitter with God for different things that he brought into their lives.

And even just explaining God’s goodness, explaining who God was, they just didn’t quite get it.

And I started to see it was because they had those sin issues in their lives that were blocking them from the goodness of God.

And it was just sweet to see as they got right with God, whether it was about sin they needed to get right with their parents or with the school or different stuff, just to see them get clean and then to just meet God and see who God really was.

And it was really sweet.

On Friday, we had a prayer meeting, and a lot of the girls were crying and just crying out to the Lord and just really meeting with him.

I remember one girl came to me last night, and she said, I always wondered what revival felt like.

And I felt it, just that spirit of honesty.

And another one just saying, God is so good.

And they just all really saw God’s goodness because they were willing to deal with that sin that was clogging the channel from seeing God’s goodness.

So when you got that sin out of your life and unblocked that channel, do you have an example of a good choice after that that you made?

Guest: Sure.

Well, after I surrendered my life to the Lord and really started getting to know God personally, I began to think about my future and especially just about the area of marriage.

When I was in high school, I told the Lord that I wanted to totally trust Him with this aspect of my life and just to wait on Him to lead me to that perfect man for me.

I knew what it was like to humanly put together a relationship, and I didn’t want anything like that for my future.

So I told God that when I get to the marriage altar, I wanted his fingerprints all over my courtship story and none of my own.

It’s so easy to act on our feelings in this area and to take matters into our own hands.

But faith waits on God and lets him lead you.

Faith Talks host: So how did God lead you to your husband then?

Guest: Well, my mom encouraged me during this time just to make a list of character qualities that I desired in a husband and just to have that be my prayer list as I prayed and waited for God to work.

And it also helped just to get busy serving the Lord right where he had me.

I went to Bible college and was very active in the ministry there.

And after college, I still wasn’t married.

And about a year after I graduated, I started working for the college that I had attended.

And I remember just being a little discouraged that I wasn’t married yet at that point, but was still just very committed to waiting on God and to let him lead me in this area.

At one point, I remember telling the Lord that there was no one I knew that I would even consider for a husband at that point.

But it wasn’t too long after that that the Lord just started opening my eyes to his will for my life.

And there’s a guy from Maine in the school who was just entering his senior year.

I knew about him, but I just didn’t really think much about him at all his first three years of college.

But for some reason, his senior year, I found myself in a few conversations with him that I totally wasn’t even trying to make happen.

And after every conversation, I remember thinking, huh, I never noticed that before, but he told me exhibited a certain quality that was on my list, whether it was humility or meekness or that he feared the Lord or that he had a certain standard in his life that was important to me.

I just kept noticing these things about him.

And at first when I realized this, I kept saying to the Lord, God, are you doing something here?

This is Zach Reed we’re talking about, and I’m not interested in him.

What are you doing?

And that kept happening all semester.

God was just opening my eyes and leading me one step at a time to his perfect will Zach and I love the verse in Genesis 24 where it says I’ve been in the way the Lord led me and that perfectly describes how God led us together neither of us were asking or looking for a relationship with each other yet God led us in his perfect way so fast forward but eight years after I told God that I wanted him to do it and I wasn’t going to try to humanly figure it out or manipulate anything to happen God did it.

And it just wasn’t somehow, but it really was triumphant.

He led us personally.

He led us through the leadership of spiritual leaders in our lives.

And we officially began courting in December of that year.

We were engaged in February and then married in July.

And after our wedding, we had so many people tell us that our story was such a powerful testimony of God’s hand at work.

And you know what?

I’m so glad I let God do it.

I never would have picked Zachary Reed for a husband, but God knew he was exactly what I needed.

And almost every day I see things in Zach and I think, wow, God, you are so good to give me this man for my husband.

I’m so undeserving.

I made mistakes in my past and why would a godly man like him ever even consider me?

And I didn’t even have two saved parents to help me in the courtship process, but that’s all God’s goodness.

I like to think of God’s goodness as a big circle.

When we come to him, we realize that we are nothing and we need him to intervene in our lives, he gives us strength to make good choices, to make choices of faith.

And then he always rewards that by just showering more goodness on us, which just humbles us and brings us right back to realizing how desperately we need him even more.

Faith Talks host: You know, and that reminds me, just even thinking of salvation and what God’s done for us.

And you have to come, you know, when you get saved, you have to come to that point where you realize that there’s nothing good inside of you, but that it’s all from God.

It’s Jesus.

He’s the one that is goodness in your life.

So I think that’s just amazing how once you realize that, okay, I’m not good, but Jesus is good, and then you accept Jesus, then that goodness just starts to flow out of you, which it’s not you.

Of course, it’s Jesus.

And just even how your story, once you chose to realize that there was nothing good inside of you, but Jesus was where the goodness came from and you spent time with him, then that was when actually God gave you back things and he was good to you, you know.

And I think that’s just neat how, like you said, it’s a circle of God’s love really to each one of us.

That reminds me of Romans 8, 28,

Faith Talks host: just how God can work everything together for good.

And even your past, you might have thought, oh, this is a big mistake, but God took that and he worked it together for good.

That’s neat.

Guest: Yeah, you know, we will never truly know goodness outside of Jesus.

And we’re here talking about goodness today.

And I wish I could give you a whole list of ideas of ways to be good.

Do this, do this, do this, do this for your parents.

Have these kinds of friends.

Do this for your neighbor.

But that’s really not what it’s all about.

And if you truly want to be a good person today, go and spend time with Jesus.

Tell him every morning that you know that your heart is desperately wicked and that you need him today to fill you with his goodness to allow you to make good choices all throughout the day.

So you don’t have to say these super fancy prayers to God.

I sure didn’t.

Just come to Jesus every morning like you are, and he will meet you right there when you take that first step of drawing close to him.

Faith Talks host: Well, thank you so much, Mrs.

Reed, for coming in today and sharing this with us.

And I think that was really good what you said just there at the end.

It’s not really about becoming goodness or transforming yourself into a good person, but it’s truly just about spending time and taking time to just know, get to know that one who is good.

And it’s really, it’s easy to kind of want to be good and do good because those are very much things you can see.

And I liked what you said before, how it’s easy to act on your feelings in different areas and just taking matters into your own hands.

But goodness is really an act of faith.

And what you said about faith waits on God letting him lead you.

And that’s the true test, coming to Jesus as you are and trusting him to transform you, which is a decision of faith.

Faith Talks host: And just remember, even in these next weeks ahead, that in order to be good, you have to have faith to trust God that his way is best.

So just remember, girls, faith doesn’t just talk.

Faith walks.