Recently, I received an email from a woman in the Northern Cape: “For the past decade, it feels like my life is falling apart like a house of cards. I’m a farmer’s daughter and now a farmer’s wife. I know drought. But drought can’t feel as parched as my withered heart.” She ends her email with: “I doubt. I have so many questions. Do you think there is still hope for me?”

I don’t know why I thought of Rachel Held Evans while reading her letter. Few modern writers have been as honest about doubt and turmoil as she was. For so many, she—just as her name suggests—offered a straw of hope. And then she died at 37 due to an allergic reaction to certain medication. Why? Couldn’t God have intervened? Yet, that is precisely what her books explore.

In one of her works, “Faith Unraveled,” she writes: “Asking questions is an important part of faith. Asking questions does not make you a bad Christian; it merely means you are thinking. Faith without doubt is like a ship without a sail; it may float, but it will never reach its destination.”

Few poets describe the reality of doubt in a believer’s life as poignantly as Psalm 77: “I remembered God, and I groaned; I meditated, and my spirit grew faint. You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak. I thought about the former days, the years of long ago; I remembered my songs in the night. My heart meditated and my spirit asked: ‘Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favour again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time?’” (v4-9)

Like Jacob of old, you can wrestle with God (Gen 32). God will not give up on you, as long as you don’t give up on Him.

PRAYER: I believe, Lord; help my unbelief.

MUSIC:

Let’s listen to the beautiful rendition of Psalm 77 by Seth Primm. Seth shares a lament born out of Psalm 77, reflecting on both his family’s failed adoption and a friend’s ongoing struggle in a successful adoption process.

Here are some of the lyrics:

I cry aloud to God
aloud to God and He will hear me
In the day of my troubled soul
I reach out and seek You, Lord
but I can’t feel You

In the night of my pain
darkness falls, questions rage
Have You forsaken?
O God, have You left me all alone?

You keep my eyes from sleep
so troubled I cannot speak a word
I consider the days of old
when I felt Your love and held Your hope
Where have they gone?

In the night of my pain
faith has fled, doubts remain
Have you forsaken?
O God, have You left me all alone?

Your ways, O God
Your ways, O God, are holy
Holy

Your ways, O God
Your ways, O God, are holy
You are holy