Beyond Believing Podcast
How God Carries Divorced Women in Scripture
The Greatest Love Story Ever Written | Who He Is to Her: THE SHEPHERD

For the woman who has been carrying this season alone and is ready to find out what God says about that, grab your free 7-day devotional, Roots.

After my divorce, I didn't go looking for a new church.

I went looking for God.

And what I found in the wilderness — in Luke 15, Ezekiel 34, and Psalm 23 — is that the Shepherd does not wait for you to find your way back.

He comes in. He finds you. He puts you on His shoulders. And He carries you home.

Nobody talks about this part of divorce.

You don't just lose a husband. In many cases, you lose your community. Your seat in the pew. The version of yourself that fit neatly inside a congregation built around couples, around families — around a story that no longer looks like yours.

Some of you are still going. Carrying something in your chest the people around you don't know how to hold.

Some of you stopped going. Not because your faith is gone — because you stopped belonging.

And some of you — like me — walked out of a religion entirely. Not out of rebellion. Out of hunger. Because the God being described in that building and the God you were desperately searching for were not the same Person.

This episode is for every part of your journey.

In this episode of The Greatest Love Story Ever Written series, we go deep into Ezekiel 34, Luke 15, and Psalm 23 to trace one of the most personal declarations God makes about Himself in all of Scripture: He does not wait at the door. He goes into the wilderness. He finds you. He lifts you. And He carries you — rejoicing.

What we cover:

— Ezekiel 34:11–16: God's personal declaration — "I, I myself will search for my sheep." Every gap the community left, He fills personally. The woman who was not sought will be sought. The woman who was not carried will be carried.

— Luke 15:4–7: The parable of the lost sheep — and the detail most people read past. He doesn't ask her to walk home. He puts her on his shoulders. And he comes home rejoicing. Scholar Joel B. Green writes that this parable is fundamentally about God — its entire aim is to reveal the nature of the divine response to the recovery of the lost.

— Psalm 23: The Shepherd does not promise to remove the valley. He promises to be present in it. And the table He prepares in verse five connects directly back to last week's episode on the Bridegroom — pointing to John 14:2–3 and the home He is going to prepare.

— The grammar shift in Psalm 23:4: In the valley, theology becomes prayer. David stops talking about God and starts talking to Him. Explanation gives way to presence.

— Psalm 23:6: The Hebrew word for "follow" carries the sense of pursuit — goodness and mercy are not waiting for you at the end of the valley. They are coming after you in the middle of it.

You are not being abandoned in this wilderness. You are being carried through it.

SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

— Ezekiel 34:4, 11, 16
— Luke 15:4–7
— Psalm 23 (full)
— John 14:2–3

THEOLOGICAL SOURCES

— Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1997) — on Luke 15 as a revelation of the divine nature of God's response to the lost
— Kenneth Bailey, The Good Shepherd: A Thousand-Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament (IVP Academic, 2014) — on the cultural significance of leaving the ninety-nine and the carrying of the lost sheep
— Kenneth Bailey, Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15 (Concordia, 1992) — on the Middle Eastern shepherd context and the cost of pursuit

Ready to go deeper?

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KEYWORDS

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HASHTAGS

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