We all get lost sometimes!  There is no darker or heavier experience than the feeling of being disconnected from God, yet knowing God is there.  Having a visceral awareness of God while being emotionally disconnected.  This dynamic can not only cause a believer to doubt their salvation, but also take it very personally.  The Silence of God by Michael Card resonates with me deeply having walked this lonely path of feeling abandoned by God.  Because of the heaviness of this topic, I hope that this writing will be a source of encouragement.  This topic is really a theological discussion, yet, while theology is the last thing we want to talk about during these times, there are some theological truths that we must cling to in order to navigate our faith in the darkness.

You have taken away my companions and loved ones. Darkness is my closest friend. – Psalm 88:18 (NLT)

We are saved, we are being saved, we will be saved.  Somewhere along the line, you may have heard this in your Christian journey.  Some might call this a contradiction, but it’s not, others may call it a paradox, but I would say no to that as well.  I think it is best described as spiritual realities that are articulated as a bridge between time and eternity.  For example, in Ephesians 2:6 we see that He has seated us with Him in the heavenly realm.  There is a mystery to this truth, but somehow God has seated us with Him, though outside of time, so that in the future we can be used an example of God’s incredible grace and kindness.

There are many reason why a person of faith may doubt their salvation, but whatever the cause, this appears an important part of the faith journey.  In the midst of the peaks and valleys of faith, I have come to believe that every genuine believer will doubt their salvation at some point and experience tells me that this is a common experience of every genuine believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.  This seems so evident that I have also come to believe those who have never had the experience of doubting their salvation may possibly have never had a genuine born-again conversion.  That may seem counter-intuitive and harsh to many, yet it likely makes perfect sense to those who have felt like a cloud of darkness sits between them and God.  At the bottom of this writing, I have placed the first 26 verses of Lamentations 3, a place where I found comfort for the simple reason that it describes how I felt during these times.  The following conversation is encouraging to me because God used my experience to guide another in this time:

I arrived in Atlanta on a work trip and decided to text my old friend Bob to let him know that I was in town.  It turned out that his new office was literally in the same office park as the hotel my company booked for me, so I felt that God might be coordinating a divine appointment.  We met for lunch, then after catching up for a bit, he got a little serious.  “Can I read something to you?” while taking out his bible.  He read Romans 1:21-25 and then went back to verse 24 and asked me, do you think this verse is talking about me?  Do you think that God has given me over to my sin?  A cloud of darkness covered the area as I could sense the heaviness of this question weighing on him.  Here was a man who knew the Bible well, yet the weight of the question was real and it was pressing down on him.  It made me think of Psalm 38, “benumbed and badly crushed with the agitation of my heart!”  This was definitely a divine appointment as God was using me to help someone navigate a path I have traveled myself.

²¹ For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. ²² Professing to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. ²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. ²⁵ For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 

– Romans 1:21-25 

As I took a moment to hear the question, also listening for what the Holy Spirit might want me to say, I sat quiet for moment.  After a bit I replied that “I absolutely understand the weight of your question, and it is one I myself have asked.  Let me start by pointing out that someone who is not saved would never ask this question.  The unregenerate don’t worry about sin, and most feel worthy of going to heaven.”  There was a pause, but I could see that the words were sinking in.  I added that “the question itself if proof of your salvation.”  I knew we needed to unpack what led to this question, but first I felt that knowing some scripture would help combat these feelings in the future, so I shared Ephesians 2:1-10, Romans 8:7, Romans 3:11, John 16:8, and Psalm 139:16.

There is an axiom in Biblical theology which states “regeneration precedes faith.”  American Christianity is infected with this notion that man chooses God.  We like to say that God is in control and that God has a plan for your life, but then we tell people to “ask Jesus into their hearts”, something that I have yet to find in the Bible.  The truth is that God calls us, justifies us, and glorifies us (Romans 8:29).  This is important to know because it helps to properly frame the conversation about the assurance of salvation.

In Ephesians 2:1-10, we see that the entire work of redemption and salvation is a work of God.  We were dead (v.1), But God being rich in mercy (v.4) while we were still dead, He made us alive (v.5), raise us up (born-again) and seated us with Him in heavenly places (assurance of salvation) in Christ Jesus (v.6) so that in the ages to come He would show the riches of His grace (God’s plan, v.7), for by grace you HAVE BEEN SAVED (past tense) through faith as a gift of God (v.8), nothing was done by us, but by God (v.9) and we are the work of His hands with work He prepared for us to do (God’s purpose, v. 10).

Back to Romans 3:11, “there are none who seek God” because in our natural state we are enemies of God who do not walk with God and “we are not even able to do so.” (Romans 8:7).  In addition, we see in Romans 2:4 that it is the kindness of God the leads us to repentance, which 100% the work of the Holy Spirit (John 16:8).  So as Bob and I discussed these critical points, there was some comfort in his mind to embrace these truths of His position in Christ as not abandoned, but justified and sanctified.  Now he could redirect his heart and mind to seeking what God is doing.  The barrier may be sin that needs purging, the barrier could be to grant forgiveness, or accept forgiveness, the barrier could be idolatry in which a gift of God has become God, perhaps a root of bitterness, or it could simple be a time of preparation in which God is allowing you to step into the wilderness of isolation in order to help someone down the road who has been abandoned.  Whether the reason is because of something we have done, something that was done to us, or a deep work of God, we can be assured that God has not abandoned us.

We must always remember that the physical reality of how we feel does not always reflect the spiritual reality that we have been granted.  We can also look at scripture and know that God is sustaining us in ways that we do not know, largely because we are not paying attention, but once we realize He has been looking out for us, it becomes a watershed moment in our faith.  For me, Deuteronomy 8 and Psalm 78 were two passages that revealed God’s sustaining grace to me at a time that I was so focused on licking my wounds that I failed to realize that He was covering me.  I wrote about my experience in “Grace in the Wilderness,” a verse from Jeremiah 31.  If you take a look at The Journey in the Topics menu on this page, you will see 29 other articles that I have written relevant to this topic.

The goal of this writing is to provide some affirmation that our faith is genuine for salvation.   Every true believer will face this struggle at some point, and possibly more than once.  If you don’t believe me, ask Billy Graham!  I know he is dead, but I listened to an old sermon recently in which Billy shared some doubts about his faith that he had wrestled with.  He shared that his doubt arose from not having the emotional response that so many around him were experiencing.  Through studying scripture, he came to realize that his faith was genuine, so as he sought God’s leading his faith began to grow.  Two things I recall testified to his salvation, 1) his hunger for the Word of God and 2) the way his heart was stirred when seeing someone get baptized.  So I offer that as a word of encouragement – the greatest evangelist in history since the Apostle Paul, also struggled with the assurance of his salvation in the process of God making him.  Take heart and stay the course, God is doing deep work in you!

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I am the man who has seen affliction
Because of the rod of His wrath.
² He has driven me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
³ Surely against me He has turned His hand
Repeatedly all the day.
⁴ He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away,
He has broken my bones.
⁵ He has besieged and encompassed me with bitterness and hardship.
⁶ In dark places He has made me dwell,
Like those who have long been dead.
⁷ He has walled me in so that I cannot go out;
He has made my chain heavy.
⁸ Even when I cry out and call for help,
He shuts out my prayer.
⁹ He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
¹⁰ He is to me like a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in secret places.
¹¹ He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces;
He has made me desolate.
¹² He bent His bow
And set me as a target for the arrow.
¹³ He made the arrows of His quiver
To enter into my inward parts.
¹⁴ I have become a laughingstock to all my people,
Their mocking song all the day.
¹⁵ He has filled me with bitterness,
He has made me drunk with wormwood.
¹⁶ He has broken my teeth with gravel;
He has made me cower in the dust.
¹⁷ My soul has been rejected from peace;
I have forgotten happiness.
¹⁸ So I say, “My strength has perished,
And so has my hope from the Lord.”

19 Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.
²⁰ Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me.
²¹ This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
²² The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
²³ They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
²⁵ The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
²⁶ It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the Lord.

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Prayer: Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and you have fed us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood.  Send us now into the world in peace and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart, through Christ our Lord. Amen!