Gifts for Moms, Dads, and Grads
Gifts for Dads
God Changes Us—but Not Always Our Circumstances
How God Changed Naomi
We want God to take away whatever is hard for us and give us what we desire. But God usually has a more important change he wants to bring: a change inside us. And more often than not, he changes us before he changes our circumstances (if he ever does, which he doesn’t always).
Naomi is a perfect example. As her story unfolds, we see her acting in faith, even when she still has her doubts—a clear sign that God is turning her cynical doubt to sweet belief. Naomi trusted God enough to go back home to Bethlehem, and back to the people of God. Too often, when people have their doubts, the first thing they do is stop going to church. What we ought to do is exactly the opposite: go back to worship with the people of God, as Naomi did. There we will find people who can empathize with our doubts and will walk with us as we work through them, as Naomi also did.
I Have My Doubts
Philip Graham Ryken
This book examines 10 Bible stories that address faith and doubt, reassuring readers that doubt is normal for Christians and that God can use times of uncertainty to renew their faith.
Shortly after the two women arrived in Bethlehem, Ruth found a field where she could gather some grain. Naomi saw this for what it was: a sign of God’s generous grace. In response, she pronounced a benediction on Boaz, the man who owned the field. “Blessed be the man who took notice of you,” she said to Ruth. “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” (Ruth 2:19–20). Through her struggle with doubt, Naomi could see that in his loving-kindness, God was beginning to work. Her heart was starting to soften. She believed in his goodness at least enough to pray for his blessing in the lives of her loved ones. God has a change he wants to work in us as well, especially when we have trouble believing in his abundant generosity. He wants our faith to grow. One way for us to experience this change is simply to start noticing all the ways that God has been good to us. Gratitude is good soil for growing our faith. Rather than focusing on the things he hasn’t done, start listing the things he has done. The well-known words of an old hymn may seem trite, but they also happen to be helpful:
Count your blessings,
name them one by one;
Count your many blessings,
see what God hath done.1
When Naomi started to count her blessings, she discovered how many reasons she had to give God praise: a safe return home, a family member who cared for her, more than enough food to eat, and the hope of a redeemer. Naomi’s blessings give us a head start on our own lists: a place to live, food to eat, people who love us, and most of all the redemption we have in Jesus—forgiveness through his blood, with the certain hope of eternal life, by the power of the empty tomb. As we count our blessings—literally enumerating the things that God has done for us—we get a better, truer perspective on life. We stop focusing exclusively on our problems and start thinking about how to bless other people, as Naomi did.
Even when we are doubtful, we can still ask God to help us, praying with as much faith as we can muster.
There is something else we can do when we are struggling to see that God is good, and that is to persist in prayer. Even when we are doubtful, we can still ask God to help us, praying with as much faith as we can muster.
The apostle James assures us that whenever we need anything, we should ask for it, because God “gives generously to all without reproach” (James 1:5). James also says that we should “ask in faith, with no doubting” (James 1:6). His point is not that having our doubts somehow cancels the efficacy of our prayers. His point rather is that we should not let our doubts get in the way of persisting in prayer. Keith Johnson clarifies the apostle’s meaning in ways that underscore God’s goodness:
James’s primary purpose in this passage is to point to God’s generosity. He is saying that because God does not hold back from helping his people, no one should hold themselves back from God. A person in need should ask God for help with confidence that they will receive this help. A doubter in this instance is someone who does not ask God for help because they assume God will not give it.2
We should never hold back from asking God for what we truly need. He is a generous giver. The more we ask, and then wait patiently for God to answer, the more we will see how good he is.
Notes:
- Johnson Oatman, “Count Your Blessings” (1897), https://hymnary.org/.
- Keith Johnson, “Doubt,” in Life Questions Every Student Asks: Faithful Responses to Common Issues, ed. Gary M. Burge and David Lauber (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020), 135.
This article is adapted from I Have My Doubts: How God Can Use Your Uncertainty to Reawaken Your Faith by Philip Graham Ryken.
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