When Your Faith Is Hanging by a Thread

Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

Psalm 73:1

This psalm begins with a statement of faith. It was like a creedal statement, the sort of thing you would recite every week at worship. It is rather like us confessing “Jesus is Lord” when we meet for worship. “Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.”

Asaph was saying, “This is what I’ve always believed. This is what I built my life on. But I have to tell you, ‘As for me, my feet had almost stumbled’” (73:2).

So, if Asaph were a New Testament believer, his story would have gone something like this: “Jesus is Lord! But you need to know—I almost lost it. My feet almost slipped. I nearly lost my faith. I almost gave up my ministry. I nearly lost my foothold. I was almost gone. And I want to tell you my story of how God turned me around.”

Every Sunday, as Christians confess faith in Christ together, there are some folks who are right where Asaph was. You don’t find it easy to sing. You struggle to focus on the Word. You hear the faith confessed, but your mind is pounding with questions—“Yes, but… and what about…?”

Your faith that was once strong now seems to hang by a slender thread. What is wonderfully real for other people seems strangely distant from you. You say to yourself, “You know, I could just walk away from all this.” If that’s where you are today, Asaph was right there too.

On a scale of 1 (I have no idea what this is like) to 10 (I’m right where he was), how do you relate to Asaph’s experience?