Has God Ever Let Me Down?

And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land. 1 Kings 17:6-7

The church which I attend frequently sings about God never letting us down. Often, either before or after the song, one of the worship leaders will express his or her personal experience and faith that God has never and will never fail him or her. This always makes me wonder what those worship leader’s lives have been like. Have they never been through any trials or do they not blame God for the trials they’ve experienced? The Bible repeats this promise quite often: He will not leave you or forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:8). Whenever I read it though, I wonder about the parameters of such a promise. I think of the woman who’s experienced a sexual assault, the child who’s been abused, or the parent who’s lost a child, and I wonder if they feel if God has failed them.

Today’s passage sheds some light on this question. In the story, Elijah was sent to confront King Ahab about his idolatrous ways. With Elijah’s life now in danger, God told him to go hide by a certain brook where God provided food from the ravens and water from the brook. God protected, cared for, and fed Elijah . . . until the brook dried up. From Elijah’s perspective, I’ve got to wonder if it appeared that God let him down. God, after all, had provided, but then one day, the water just stopped flowing. The water stopped because of the drought God had caused in response to Israel’s idolatry, so there was a bigger picture, but to Elijah, it must have felt personal. Why did you let the water stop? I was drinking that.

In Hebrews, we’re promised that God will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). The temptation then, is to then think that God will keep me from all trials. Jesus himself though, promised that our lives wouldn’t be easy – In the world you will have tribulation (John 16:33). And in that Hebrews passage I just mentioned, the author goes on to say this – The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me (Hebrews 13:6)? Man, it turns out, can do a lot of terrible things to us. So, what does it mean when God says he will never leave us or forsake us?

I’m struggling to finish today’s blog because it’s a tough question and I’m not sure I love the answer. I think it’s clear that I can’t interpret God’s promise to mean that he’ll protect me from every terrible trial. Perhaps Paul explains it better – For  this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).

I do believe God will never leave me. He will, however, allow me to experience trials. In a relationship with him (that he will never leave) though, I can experience life, joy, and peace despite those trials. Like Paul, I can choose to keep my eyes on God, taking an eternal perspective. In clinging to God and his promise never to leave me, I am anchored to the one constant thing in the universe. And in life’s trials, that will be enough.