Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Mistrust without a cause

Beach

Expounding on 1 Samuel 27:1 [1], CH Spurgeon wrote:
He [David] should have argued from what God had done for him, that God would be his defender still. But is it not the same way that we doubt God’s help? Is it not mistrust without a cause? Have we ever had the shadow of a reason to doubt our Father’s goodness? Have not his lovingkindnesses been marvelous? Has he once failed to justify our trust? Ah, no! Our God has not left us at any time. We have had dark nights, but the star of love has shown forth amid the blackness; we have been in stern conflicts, but over our head he has held aloft the shield of our defence.
While my coffee was brewing this morning I took on the mindset of a skeptic and squeezed my memory for episodes of God's failing me, as Spurgeon so challenged. I did my best. Was there, in fact, any instance, when God had left me on my own, when He had left me fend for myself, when He failed to be my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, just as He had promised? The answer is a resounding no. Never. Not once has He left me. Not one promise of His has failed to come to pass.

I read this passage together with the account in Matthew 4:35-ff, where Jesus calmed the storm.
And they [disciples] woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he woke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
In the thick of things I lose my vision and ask the same faithless questions. "Do you not care...?" But the witness of Scriptures, the narratives of my friends and family, even of people I don't personally know—and even my own—only reflect His love and care, all of it undeserved, all of it by the unmerited favor He has granted to sinners like myself.


[1]“And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul.”

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