This morning a friend posts something that Paul David Tripp says about what to do when confronted with a trial. It’s simply this: “Don’t forsake your good habits of faith. Don’t question God’s goodness. Look at your trials and see grace. Behind those difficulties is an ever-present Redeemer who is completing his work.”
I think about how much of my day is about keeping “good habits of faith” in place whether or not I feel any connection to God, to grace, to joy, or to peace. I open my Bible anyway because I know that God is working whether I perceive it or not. I write in my prayer journal anyway because, after all this time, I know I cannot trust my emotions or my experience of Jesus. Emotions are clearly not the right measuring tool. The truth of God’s love has not changed even if I have a sleepless night, a bad attitude, and discouraging fears. So I keep the good habit in place because I know that I need it. It’s like food I need even if I feel no hunger. I die without it.
Sure enough, I turn to Psalm 55:22 even though I do not want to be in this rocking chair with this Bible and this distant God that seems so far away from my heart, but I read the promise here: “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.”
I keep the good habit in place and know God is listening.