Doubting God's goodness

What happens when we doubt God's goodness, when the trials of life strengthen our doubts to the point where trusting him seems like madness? It is then that self-trust appears entirely reasonable; it seems right but, in fact, leads to death (Prov. 14:12). We become convinced that we must make up for God's deficient involvement in our lives by taking care of a few things on our own.

Until we see Christ fully, we will in some measure try to preserve, protect, and develop that fragile thing we call the self, that sense of who we are that longs to enjoy love, respect, and meaning. Until our tendency to evaluate God by what we see exposed and weakened, we will continue looking for ourselves with all our heart and soul. The result is that we will never find God.

Instead of trying to solve the problems that plague our lives, we must undermine the fallen structure that supports our problems, a structure built on the arrogant assumption that it is reasonable and right to seek justice for ourselves because God is not good enough to be fully trusted.

I like what Larry Crabb says about this. He reminds us that sin is: "simply our effort to supplement what we think are deficiencies in God's goodness. It is trusting our self instead of God."