April 5: Psalm 77:7-15; What to Do When You Doubt God

            What causes you to doubt God? Is it the circumstances of the country, your family, your work? Maybe it is just your feelings of depression, doom, and gloom. What do you do when you doubt God? Do you panic and think about how bad of person you are for doubting him? Do you lose faith and decide to abandon him altogether? Do you redouble your efforts to please him hoping that somehow, he will then love you more? You aren’t alone, and the Psalms have the answers for most of these questions. Asaph was asking some of the same questions.

Ps 77:7-9

Will the Lord spurn forever,

and never again be favorable?

Has his steadfast love forever ceased?

Are his promises at an end for all time?

Has God forgotten to be gracious?

 Has he in anger shut up his compassion?

           

            His way to resolve these doubts about God is revealed when he explained, “I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old” (Ps 77:11). When we have doubts about God or question about his goodness, we need to turn back to the Bible and see what he has done in the past. We need to read about what he has said about himself. For Asaph, the issue was to remember how God had rescued Israel from Egypt and led them through the water of the Red Sea. For us, we look to the cross and see the way Jesus came to us in the flesh and died for our sins while we were still sinners and his enemies (Rom 5:8). We need to remember that he loved us while we had not done anything to make him love us (John 3:16). His continued love is a guarantee to us regardless of our feeling. He has said he will never leave us or forsake us (Heb 13:5). Since he poured out his love into us by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5), we can’t make him love us anymore. He is perfect and his love is perfect.

            We know that God has done all of this for us and if recalling that isn’t enough then we also need to look at when we first came to know Christ. I often think of the things that convinced me that the Bible is true and that Jesus is who he said he is, the eternal Son of God, God in the flesh, my Savior and my Lord. I also remember discovering that what I thought was my finding God was really God fulfilling what he promised long before I was ever born – that he would adopt me as his child (Eph 1:5).

            Taking some time in the Bible and in meditation about what God has done will do wonders for alleviating doubt about him.