When God Fails Us

It's been a week of reminiscing and remembering.

I shared a post on Facebook at the beginning of last week, commemorating ten years of life lived following the night I'd intended to die.

And I finally opened those storage bins in the garage that I'd mentioned a few months ago, sifting  through over a decade's worth of memories - some of the happiest, the heaviest, and the hardest to remember. Photographs, letters, gifts, and the like.

Walking past a scented plug-in in somebody's hallway took me back to my late grandma's house in Millington, Tennessee - a house that was almost entirely destroyed in a fire shortly after this picture was taken, then rebuilt on its remains, only to be ruined in the flood of 2010. I smelled that fragrance, and suddenly, I could hear my grandma whistling cheerily in the kitchen, as if no time had passed; and I began to remember details of that house and visits with Grandma that I'd long since forgotten.

I also stumbled across a draft of something I'd begun writing back in December of 2008 referencing a song, which led me to listen to some of the old tunes I enjoyed back in my college days. Music, perhaps more than anything else, has a way of bringing past moments back to life in vivid detail.

One particular song that does this for me is "Rescue" by Desperation Band. I only have to hear the first two lines (You are the source of life / I can't be left behind), and I'm instantly transported back to that night, standing in the back of a small Tallahassee church. I remember, this was the song they sang that night, and I don't believe I sang along; I don't think I could bring myself to utter the words. But I remember listening as they sang, "I need you, Jesus, to come to my rescue; where else can I go? There's no other name by which I am saved; capture me with grace. I will follow You," and hanging my head low, fighting back tears while internally screaming, "But You didn't come to my rescue, Jesus! You didn't come through for me at all!"

What I had forgotten in that moment was that the night was not over yet; and little did I know, then, but His rescue was already on the way - just not in my timing or in the way I'd expected it to come. I'm alive, today, because I cried out to a God who hears His children and who is a very present help in time of trouble (Ps. 46:1)... and He came through.

I've thought about this a lot, this past week - especially in light of another song that I've grown to love, "Do It Again" by Elevation Worship. This song has become an anthem of faith, for me, in my current season of life.

There are promises of God that I am choosing to believe right now, despite the fact that I have not seen them fulfilled in what seems, to me, to have been a reasonable time frame.

And there are desires of my heart which I believe to be from God; and yet, those desires have been starved. (Though as a good friend once told me, when David wrote in Psalm 37:4, "Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart," David wasn't suggesting that if we delight in the Lord, He will give us anything we want. Rather, he was saying that when we delight in God, He will put new desires in our heart; He will cause us to care about the things He cares about. I think that is an important distinction to make, because this is not a promise that we will ever see those desires fulfilled. We may certainly hope and ask, and God may be so gracious as to fulfill our desires; but too often, I think we mistakenly believe that we are entitled to see God grant us those desires, so long as we believe they are in alignment with His.)

There are also many things in my own life and the lives of those whom I love that I don't understand or can't explain - some of which seem exceedingly wrong or unfair, to me - some of which, upon first (and sometimes second, third, forth...) glance, seem to contradict the perfect character of the God I know. I wrestle with this, sometimes. I wonder if you do, too?

The chorus of "Do It Again" goes like this:

"Your promise still stands; great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness. I'm still in Your hands. This is my confidence: You've never failed me yet."

When I get to this part of the song, without fail, the enemy reminds me of all the promises that I'm still waiting for God to keep, and of all the unfulfilled desires of my heart. And he whispers to me, "Where is your God? Because He's failing you right now." And if I don't remember - if I don't choose to look back and see the faithfulness of God in my own life in years past and in the lives of those who've come before me, I just might believe him.

I remember what David wrote in Psalm 143 - specifically, verses 5-8, which read:

⁵ I remember the days of long ago;
    I meditate on all your works
    and consider what your hands have done.
⁶ I spread out my hands to you;
    I thirst for you like a parched land.
⁷ Answer me quickly, Lord;
    my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me
    or I will be like those who go down to the pit.
⁸ Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
    for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
    for to you I entrust my life.

And for myself, I look back at that one night I wrote about earlier, and that is enough to remind me that my God comes through. And so, as the song continues into the bridge, I sing along with confidence, "I've seen You move; You move the mountains! And I believe I'll see You do it again! You made a way where there was no way! And I believe I'll see You do it again!"

But still, there are others who have waited longer than I for the faithfulness of God to be proven to them - many who don't yet have such a significant personal experience as I do of a time when God came through for them. The words to this song do not ring true to them on a personal level, yet. And so, I can only imagine how hard it must be for them, when the enemy whispers that same lie ("Where is your God? Because He's failing you right now.") to continue declaring the faithfulness of God. Certainly, the stories of others - even my own - can encourage them and testify to the faithfulness of God in what seemed like impossible circumstances. But their faith must be grounded in something even greater; it must be grounded in the very character of the God in whom they trust, despite a lack of personal experiences and despite all evidence that seems to contradict His faithfulness in their own life. For God is love (1 John 4:7-21); and love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8). And as it says in 2 Timothy 2:13 (ESV), even "[i]f we are faithless, he remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself."

Our faith may be strengthened and supported by what we see and experience; but by it's very nature, it's grounded in the unseen. It has to start there, because faith contingent on proof is not faith at all. No, "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1, ESV). And so, despite our experiences (or lack thereof), we can confidently declare that our God has never failed us, and never will! And if He "fails" us, then we must submit ourselves to the sobering reality that we have believed Him for something He never promised or willed for us in the first place. Because if He is truly God, then doesn't it stand to reason that we are more likely to get it wrong than He is? And so, if we find ourselves in that situation, we must consider that are trust was never actually in Him, but rather in something we wanted from Him. 

God is faithful, even when we are not. And He never fails. If it seems that He has failed, then there are two things we should consider: 

(1) Perhaps we are attempting to subject Him to our will, promoting our own desires to the status of "promises of God"... in which case, it's time to submit to Him and His perfect will and plan. His character is perfect, and He sees what we cannot; and so we can trust that His ways are always best. 

Or (2) perhaps He's not done yet. Remember that His is timing is often not our own. So no matter how long He keeps us waiting, we can keep on declaring, with confidence, that He will finish whatever He has set out to do! Because, the truth is this: our God never fails us.