The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our Correct Beliefs

by Peter Enns

  Walk into the Bible section of bookstores and you’ll find, alongside the normal unabridged version of the Bible, stand-alone copies of the New Testament with the book of Psalms tucked inside. It’s not hard to guess why—“The Lord is my shepherd,” “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” Things like that.

  The Psalms have a reputation for being uplifting, that practical part of the Old Testament that’s actually useful, leaving all those begats, laws, and endless stories of Israel’s kings for those with more time on their hands. Publishers know what Christians want to hear. Plus, the Psalms are great. Christians and Jews have gained much solace and encouragement from them over the centuries.

  But they aren’t all “Praise the Lord.” Some psalms are desperate and bracingly honest cries for help in the face of trouble and danger. And a few—the ones I want to talk about—are downright startling, even unsettling, in how they talk about God. We never seem to get around to reading those parts in church, but they have a lot to tell us about the life of faith—and why a preoccupation with correct thinking is off topic.

  The unsettling psalms, those that aren’t on their best Sunday behavior, have a lot to say about trusting God precisely because they go to those dark places of faith. These psalms deserve to be read a lot, not ignored or tamed to shield us from the pain of the faith crises we read about there.

  They might actually become close friends over time, the kind that just listen to you vent without judging you.

  The 150 Psalms we have in our Bible are basically of three types:

  1.Everything is fine. God is great. Stay the course.

  2.Things are terribly wrong, and I am at the end of my rope, but thank you Lord for coming to my rescue (alternate ending: I know you’ll come to my rescue soon/eventually).

  3.Things are terribly wrong, I am at the end of my rope, and to make things worse, Oh Lord, you’re nowhere to be found.

  The first two types of psalms are more common than the third, but those deep laments are still there in the Bible, staring at us, daring us to read them word for word. And these psalms don’t flinch.

  A barrier has arisen between these writers and God—and they get right in God’s face and hold God fully responsible, like a forgotten child waiting hours after school to be picked up by a distracted parent. They don’t hesitate to question God’s trustworthiness. Some wonder whether God is worth their time.

  One of my favorite in-your-face psalms is Psalm 88. Let me summarize:

  O Lord, I have been on my knees to you night after night. I am so troubled, and in so much agony, I feel like I have one foot in the grave, in deep and dark places. I am absolutely without hope, including in you. You really don’t seem to care.

  Actually, let me be blunt: you’ve abandoned me and so this is all your fault. You’re the one who makes me feel like this. You’re even the one responsible for my own friends looking at me like I’m some sort of freak show.

  Even so, all night and all day I’m on my knees praying, still calling to you for some relief—I’m desperate. But you keep on hiding. I’m in absolute pain and the only friend I have is darkness. Thanks for nothing.

  Feel free to call this a faith crisis.

  It’s hard to imagine talking like this in church. Letting your guard down and bearing your soul with this degree of raw honesty is risky. You might find yourself in the middle of a protect-you-from-atheism intervention prayer phone chain faster than you can say “Bill Maher.” Or you might be judged as a weak or uncommitted Christian and shunned.

  What’s this psalmist’s problem? Doesn’t he know he needs to be a rock-solid Israelite, a model of confidence for others, a super saint? At least doesn’t he know not to put problems in writing for everyone to see?

  Maybe this guy just doesn’t know his Bible well enough. Or maybe he needs to go to another Bible study or listen to some sermon tapes so he can learn he shouldn’t feel this way. What weak faith. Let’s keep him away from our children. In fact, let’s ask him to stay home until this unfortunate season of weak faith blows over, lest his negative attitude affect the rest of us happy and truly faithful people.

  Ugh.

  Ever wonder why the ancient Israelites not only wrote things like this but kept them . . . forever . . . in their sacred book?

  Are they preserved as examples of what not to think or say, perpetual reminders of how not to feel and think, cones and red flares along the smoothly paved highway of faith warning us of “danger ahead”?

  Nah.

  Feeling like God is far away, disinterested, or dead to you is part of our Bible and can’t be brushed aside. And that feeling—no matter how intense it may be, and even offensive as it may seem—is never judged, shamed, or criticized by God. Worshipping other gods or acting unjustly toward others gets criticized about every three sentences, but not this honest talk of feeling abandoned by God.

  And let’s not forget, the Gospels tell us that Jesus himself experienced God’s abandonment on the cross, and he uses a ready and waiting psalm to express his feelings: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34). We’re in good company.

  These expressions of abandonment aren’t godless moments, evidence that something is wrong and needing to be fixed. They relay the experiences of ancient men and women of faith, and were kept because those experiences were common—part of being an Israelite and therefore valued. For us they signal not only what can happen in the life of faith, but also what does happen—what we should expect to happen.

  I’m glad Psalm 88 doesn’t end on a good note. It just leaves you there: “You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are . . . darkness” (verse 18).* Don’t we all, at one point or another, feel our lives are a deep pit of blah, where we are completely alone, our best friends are grief and depression—and God is the reason why?

  Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggemann calls these parts of the Bible Israel’s “countertestimony.” They challenge the “main testimony,” those parts of the Bible where things are moving along more or less as scripted. We need this countertestimony, as did the Israelites, because no one lives in the scripted places of the Bible all the time, where God shows up as planned, tells us exactly what we need to do, and things work out.

  Most of us probably live much of our lives in Psalm 88—in that place where our spiritual scaffolding has crumbled, and we are no longer so sure about God or much else. What we thought we knew, what we could be certain of and count on, turns out not to be certain at all. And we are left shaking our fist at God.

  I feel that my spiritual leaders were motivated to shield me from those feelings, or look down on me for having them. I was never told to embrace the fact that faith looks like this sometimes. What a shame. People like me, and I imagine most of us, need to hear we are not alone. That’s why this psalm is my favorite, and I’m glad it’s in the Bible.

  God Is a Liar

  Wait, did I say Psalm 88 was my favorite? I’m sorry. I meant to say Psalm 89, the one where the writer sets up God as totally awesome and then calls God a liar.

  Here’s how the psalm begins:

  I will sing of your steadfast love, O LORD, forever;

  with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness

  to all generations.

  I declare that your steadfast love is established forever;

  your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.

  (89:1–2; emphasis added)

  Apparently, God is all about steadfast love and faithfulness toward Israel—which isn’t simply a description of God’s feelings but of God’s actions, which are unwavering, unfaltering, as “firm as the heavens”* themselves. This psalmist seems to be on top of the world, beside himself with praising God.

  What’s he so happy about, exactly? He takes the next thirty-five verses to lay it out, and it’s all about a solemn promise God had made to Israel hundreds of years earlier: an unbreakable promise (“covenant”) to King D
avid (2 Samuel 7:1–17). David’s reign would be glorious, and then, beginning with David’s son Solomon, God’s steadfast love would stay with David’s descendants “forever” (which in the Old Testament means not literally “never ending” but “so long into the future you don’t have to worry your little heads about it”).

  On top of that, as the psalmist goes on to tell us, this promise-making God also happens to be the Creator of the cosmos, the ruler of the earth, sea, and sky. None of the gods of the other nations can compare, and so with the Almighty Creator on Israel’s side making a solemn promise to David and his descendants, they can’t lose. Good times.

  The psalmist goes on like this, praising God for being the Creator, pausing now and then to remind everyone that this God, the Creator and ruler of the cosmos, is steadfast and faithful. God would see to it that David and his line would endure as long as the heavens endure—which seems rather permanent, for all practical purposes. The king and his people will never be without God’s protection, striking down their foes like flies. You can count on God. All those who worship this God are happy and secure.

  In fact, this promise places no obligation on any of David’s descendants to hold up their end of the bargain. Even if any were to disobey God’s laws and God would need to punish them, the promise remains guaranteed: “I will not remove from him my steadfast love, or be false to my faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant, or alter the word that went forth from my lips” (Psalm 89:33–34).

  The vibe I’m picking up—and that the psalmist wants us to pick up—is that the Almighty Creator made a promise with no expiration date. This God cannot renege on that promise because he is steadfast, and this God is able to remain true to the promise because this God is the Creator. If this God were to renege, he would be breaking the promise, and that would make God a liar—which is impossible, because if there’s anyone you can count on to keep his promises, it’s the steadfast, loving, Almighty Creator God.

  Unless you’re reading Psalm 89.

  Here’s the problem. When this psalm was written, Israel’s capital city, Jerusalem, had already been sacked by the mighty Babylonians (in 586 BCE, about five hundred years after David). They destroyed the Temple and took many of the residents of Jerusalem captive to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who led the attack, blinded King Zedekiah and took him, bound and chained, back to Babylon, but not before slaughtering every one of Zedekiah’s sons—the remaining descendants of David—replacing them with a non-Davidic puppet governor (2 Kings 25). It would be centuries before the Jews could even dream about restoring David’s line and having a rightful king.

  It looks like God—the Almighty Creator, who is steadfast and faithful—broke his promise about the never-ending line of David. Instead, despite the promise not to, God “spurned and rejected” (Psalm 89:38) David and his line by allowing the Babylonians to conquer Jerusalem. What happened to all the steadfastness of the promise-keeping Almighty Creator of the cosmos? Uh?

  Now we know why the psalmist was piling on the compliments. He’s backing God into a corner, accusing God with God’s own words, perhaps playing on God’s sense of honor that God is so quick to defend everywhere else. And with dripping sarcasm, the psalmist asks God, “How long, O LORD? Will you hide yourself forever?” (verse 46; emphasis added). Since God’s promises clearly don’t last forever, maybe his hiding will!

  Things aren’t as they should be, and God is at fault. God can’t be counted on because God is a promise breaker. And this is in the Bible. How’s that for spiritual guidance?

  Actually, I think this is great for spiritual guidance. I love this uncomfortably real psalm. People of faith actually feel this way about God more often than they might be able to admit to friends and pastors. Maybe some of God’s people today can relate to these words written about the same God 2,500 years ago.

  No matter how well we think we know what God’s next move has to be, things may not turn out that way. Remember that the writer of Psalm 89 had every reason to feel certain about what God’s plan was: the Bible told him (in 2 Samuel 7). And yet things turned out differently. We should not be surprised when we find ourselves in a similar spot, experiencing a God who is not beholden to our thinking, a God who doesn’t act according to our sense of certainty, even if we can find a Bible verse or two to back it up.

  God can’t be proof-texted. God will not be backed into a corner.

  Yet even Psalm 89 ends (amazingly), “Blessed be the LORD forever. Amen and Amen” (verse 52). That line is actually the closing comment for Psalms 73–89, the third of five sections (or “books”) of the Psalter. But perhaps, deep down, even now, the psalmist still trusts God enough to get in his face and call him a liar.

  Even if we would never talk like this in church, I’m glad the Bible does. We need to hear it. At least I know I do.

  The World Makes Perfect Sense Without God

  Another of my favorite God-is-not-coming-through-as-he-promised psalms is Psalm 73. If you’ve ever felt like you just don’t see the point of all this believing in God business, this psalm is for you.

  The psalm begins (verses 1–2):

  Truly God is good to the upright,

  to those who are pure in heart.

  But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled;

  my steps had nearly slipped.

  The psalmist knows how things are supposed to work—“Truly” he says, which can also be translated, “No doubt.” And this is what he knows: God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked. So as long as you’re righteous, God’s blessings will be headed your way.

  So what is this guy’s problem? What made him almost stumble and slip? The theory, as good as it sounds, doesn’t work because (once again) God doesn’t follow through. In fact, the reverse happens: the wicked actually prosper while the righteous suffer.

  For I was envious of the arrogant;

  I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

  For they have no pain;

  their bodies are sound and sleek.

  They are not in trouble as others are;

  They are not plagued like other people.

  (verses 3–5)

  The psalmist is on a roll here, and he goes on for a few more verses, saying that the wicked not only prosper, but they also oppress the poor—and one of the very things Israel’s God is supposed to be known for is protecting the down and out. And the wicked are even arrogant enough to “set their mouths against heaven” (verse 9). Yet God does nothing about it. Meanwhile, the righteous ones, like the psalmist, are sucking wind trying to make it through the day and can’t catch a break; he is “plagued” and “punished every morning” (verse 14).

  The issue for the psalmist isn’t the mere fact that the wicked prosper. What sends him into crisis mode is that God is letting the wicked prosper when God had clearly laid down the law that the righteous will prosper and the wicked will be punished.

  The psalmist didn’t get this idea out of thin air. The book of Psalms opens up (Psalm 1) with a nice short let’s-get-off-on-the-right-foot psalm about how the “righteous” ones (those who meditate on the Law of Moses and follow God’s ways) are like “trees planted by streams of water” that never wither, but the “wicked” are “like chaff that the wind drives away” (verses 3–4). It’s right there in writing.

  This psalmist doesn’t exactly call God a liar, as Psalm 89 does, but he is reminding God of his own words, wondering out loud, “If we have to obey what you say, why don’t you?”

  So why bother with you, God? The world makes just as good sense without you—maybe better, because without you hovering over my consciousness, I don’t have to deal with the injustice of you not coming through on the plan you yourself put into action.

  The thought of God not coming through, of God not being worthy of our trust, is so distressing that the psalmist is about to explode.

  If I had said, “I will talk on in this way,”

  I would have been untrue to the circle of your childr
en.

  But when I thought how to understand this,

  it seemed to me a wearisome task.

  (Psalm. 73:15–16)

  He can’t talk out loud about what he sees. If he did, he would have ruined other people’s faith—sort of like pastors who have a crisis of faith but can’t tell anyone about it. So they keep it inside, but that becomes a “wearisome task”—like carrying around a dead weight in their stomachs.

  The world isn’t working the way God said it does. “Good things happen to good people” is a nice idea to have in the Bible, but the real world tends to get in the way of our thinking that we are certain what God will do.

  Parents know this by the time their child is two years old. You can read the right books and have a really good plan of attack for raising them to turn out “right,” but then life happens: their own DNA comes to the surface, they interact with their environment, make friends, eventually go to day care and then school. Soon they start thinking and acting for themselves, and comparing your original ideal version with the actual offspring in front of you can be shocking.

  Like parenting, faith in God doesn’t follow a script—even if, as Psalm 73 shows us, that script is the Bible. The disconnect between how the psalmist thinks things should work and how his life actually turns out produces a crisis of faith. What he thought he knew, what he was so certain of, turned out not to work.

  How does the psalmist’s crisis play out at the end? He realizes that brooding isn’t doing him any good, and so he enters “the sanctuary of God” (verse 17; to worship, maybe offer a sacrifice). There he sees that God can still be trusted because, one day, God will eventually come through and punish the wicked. After all, God only said the wicked will be punished. God never said when. Trusting God calls for patience. In the meantime, I’m sure the psalmist is clearing out his schedule so he can make regular visits to the Temple to ask God how much longer this is going to take.

  What keeps the psalmist going here is the knowledge that one day the wicked will get what’s coming to them. The psalmist sees God as retributive, paying back the bad guys (who might even be fellow Israelites!) fairly and swiftly, in this life (not in the afterlife), through some physical punishment (like death, plague, war, hunger, exile).