Walking Through a Crisis of Faith – Psalm 73
March 20, 2016Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Speaker: Jerry Cisar
What is a crisis of faith? It is that experience in which you feel like you are in danger of giving up on your faith; as if your faith is slipping. It is that experience when you feel like it would almost be easier to walk the other way, as if it is useless to keep believing. It may be accompanied by a sense of resentment for the sacrifices you have made in serving the Lord. Yet there is something, just something, that keeps you from taking that next step.
In Psalm 73, Asaph, the psalmist writes, “ (2) my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold… (13)Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence…. (21) my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered.” Have you ever felt like your faith was slipping …like feet slipping off the side of a mountain? What are you to do if you feel as if your faith is slipping? How do you recover?
The psalmist, in Psalm 73, walks us through his own crisis of faith. It is recorded for our benefit. He spares us none of the rancid thoughts he was having, but shares them all. The Psalmist faces his crisis of faith and it becomes an avenue through which his faith grows stronger in the end. All of us have or will experience faith battles, if we live by faith. The psalmist teaches us how to get through them by modeling. Join us as we follow the psalmist through a crisis of faith to a place of strength again.