General News
8 March, 2026
In good faith
Read Psalm 121 What evidence do you see around you for the non-existence of God?
That might be an odd question for a Lutheran pastor to ask, but bear with me: if we understand what those who do not believe in God think, we will be better prepared to address their concerns, even while we don’t agree with them.
Think of the words of Psalm 121:
‘(The Lord) will not let your foot slip—
He who watches over you will not slumber’ (Ps. 121:3, 4).
One of the arguments raised is that his is patently untrue, on the basis of our experiences.
Who of us has never slipped over at any point? I’ve visited several members of my congregation who have slipped and fallen and injured themselves quite severely.
If you think of it this way, only in terms of our experiences, then Psalm 121 becomes absurd.
But this is just the thing! We must remember that when it comes to God, there is more to consider than our own feelings or experiences.
St. Paul wrote ‘The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit’ (I Cor. 2:14).
Our ability to grasp the world around us is very great, but how can a cup, moulded in clay, have any conception of the mind of the potter who made it?
But still, we don’t always feel the Lord there, do we? The Psalmist says: ‘the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and for evermore’ (Ps. 121:8).
Does He say anywhere, ‘I am with you only when you feel like it?’ No. Never. And why? Because the Lord’s presence with us, His keeping of us, does not depend on our feelings, but on His promise and His word! The Lord has said he is our keeper, the shade at our right hand, our friend – that He watches over us and preserves us: therefore, it is so! God’s Word may not be enough for the modern atheists, but it is enough for us! The Holy Spirit, given and bestowed through the Gospel, has shown us that it is so – as Jesus said ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away’ (Matt. 24:35).
When you are assaulted by the doubts about God, remember the words of this Psalm:
‘The Lord will keep you from all harm -
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and for evermore’ (Ps. 121:7, 8).
And one of the best things is we don’t have to feel it to be true!
We know it is true, because it rests not on experience, intuition, reason, or any other skill we might have – but on God’s promises, made real for us death and resurrection of Christ on the cross, delivered to us in the means of grace, and taking root in our hearts by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel.