The Mark of a Growing Faith: Why the Lows Don't Mean You're Falling Behind
"How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?" — Psalm 13:1 (ESV)
That's not a cry from someone losing their faith. That's a cry from someone whose faith is honest enough to bring the hardest questions directly to God.
The Psalms are full of this pattern. Raw lament sitting right next to confident praise — sometimes in the same breath. Psalm 13 opens in despair: "How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?" (v. 2). But by the end of the same psalm — just four verses later — the psalmist writes: "But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me" (vv. 5–6).
That's not an emotional roller coaster. That's a faith being refined.
We tend to see lows as evidence that something is wrong — that we're drifting, failing, or being punished. When the season is hard and God feels distant, the instinct is to assume we've done something to cause it. But the Psalms tell a different story. The psalmist didn't arrive at praise by skipping the pain. He arrived there by walking through it honestly before God. The lament wasn't a detour from faith — it was walking it out.
A faith that only knows the highs has never been tested. A faith that brings its grief, its doubt, and its "how long" questions to God — that's a faith being stretched, deepened, and matured. The lows aren't the opposite of growth. They're often the very ground on which growth happens — because it's in those seasons that we learn to trust God for who He is rather than for what He gives.
As Spurgeon put it, even when the wicked gather, the believer can find shelter — not in circumstances improving, but in God's unchanging character. The rock doesn't move when the storm hits. And neither does the One you're anchored to.
The highs and lows of your faith journey aren't signs that something is broken — they're signs that something is being built.
Big Idea
A faith that has never been tested has never been deepened. Keep bringing your honest questions to God. That's not weak faith — that's growing faith.
Questions to Ponder
When you hit a spiritual low, what's your first instinct — to press into God or to pull away? If your instinct is to pull away, why do you think that is? Do you see hard seasons as evidence that something is wrong, or as ground where your faith is being deepened? Can you look back on a past low and see how God used it to strengthen your trust in Him?
Application
If you're in a hard season right now — or the next time one comes — open Psalm 13 and read all six verses slowly. Notice the arc: the psalmist begins in raw lament and ends in confident praise. He doesn't skip the pain to reach the praise. He walks through it with God. This week, write an honest prayer to God about whatever is weighing on you. Don't filter it. Don't clean it up. Bring it to Him as the psalmist did — and then, even if the circumstances haven't changed, choose to declare what you know to be true about His character.
Before the Lord — a daily devotional by Blake S. Crawford. Read more and subscribe free at blakescrawford.com/before-the-lord.