MINISTRY / My feet almost slipped

Scripture –Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. Psalm 73:1

A tough day

Brother Qiang walked home from work that afternoon carrying a dismissal note. Four years of faithful service abruptly ended. His supervisors had called it "failure to demonstrate team alignment." What they meant was simpler: someone had seen a Bible in his apartment. Someone had written down his name. For weeks they had pressured him — adjust this report, overlook that discrepancy. He had refused each time. Now he paid for it.

On that walk home, a quiet thought pushed through: Others compromise and their families eat well. Others look away and keep their jobs. Is God's goodness real — or only for other people? His feet had nearly slipped.

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.  Psalm 73:2

As for me

Asaph, the author of Hebrew songs, knew this place. He didn't dress it up. As for me… Here are three of the most honest words in all the Psalms. Not "as for the church," but as for me, in my struggle, with my particular losses, I almost went down.

Confessional Lutheranism gives us permission to say that. We are not asked to manage our doubts with better thinking or to pretend that the cost of faithfulness will ever be small. We are invited to bring our wavering honestly before the God/man who himself cried from the cross, "My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

The goodness declared in verse 1 is not a greeting-card sentiment. It is a conclusion Asaph fought his way toward, through the valley of verse 2. The statement of near collapse is not the opposite of faith. It is the reality of it.

Lord, keep my heart pure

Bro Qiang lost his income. He kept his integrity.

He did not know how, but as he walked home that evening, he prayed that the Lord who went to Calvary without surrendering true righteousness would not abandon a servant who had simply tried to be faithful. God's goodness is not proved by comfortable circumstances. It is proved by the turmoil of the cross where Jesus bore the full weight of a stumbling world without letting go.

Qiang may not see his vindication this side of eternity. Many of God’s best servants have not. But he stands on the same ground where Asaph stood (see vs.14-15), ground that holds because God rescues those whose hearts belong to him.