This is part of my year-long series exploring human-centered alternatives to the spiritual promises in Oswald Chambers’ classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest. Today’s entry, “God’s Promise”, claims that God’s personal guarantee to “never leave or forsake” believers eliminates fear and provides supernatural courage in the face of any dread or challenge, transforming weakness into strength as long as believers properly listen to God’s words.
Here’s a different approach:
When Keisha’s fifteen-year-old daughter Aisha started showing signs of severe depression—sleeping sixteen hours a day, refusing to eat, talking about wanting to disappear—Keisha felt a dread so deep it made her physically sick. Her pastor reminded her that God promised never to forsake her, that she should trust and not be afraid.
But Keisha’s dread wasn’t about divine abandonment—it was about losing her child. And platitudes about God’s promises felt useless when Aisha locked herself in the bathroom with a bottle of pills.
Instead of building on spiritual promises, Keisha built on practical knowledge. She called the crisis helpline and learned the warning signs to watch for. She researched therapists who specialized in adolescent depression and made appointments with three different ones so Aisha could choose. She removed potential means of self-harm from their home and arranged for someone to be with Aisha at all times.
The courage Keisha found didn’t come from believing God would protect them—it came from taking concrete action. She learned to ask Aisha direct questions about suicidal thoughts, even though the conversations terrified her. She attended family therapy sessions where she had to confront her own role in Aisha’s struggles. She joined a support group for parents of depressed teens.
When Aisha was hospitalized after a suicide attempt, Keisha didn’t sing hymns about God’s promises. She sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair for three days, advocating with doctors, coordinating with insurance, and learning about medication options. Her strength came not from divine assistance but from the fierce protective love that made her willing to do whatever it took to help her daughter survive.
Six months later, with proper medication and ongoing therapy, Aisha was laughing again. Keisha’s dread had lifted not because God had kept his promise, but because human expertise—psychiatrists, therapists, counselors—had provided effective treatment. The helpers who mattered most weren’t supernatural but trained professionals who understood mental illness.
Keisha’s courage hadn’t come from remembering God’s words but from refusing to let fear paralyze her into inaction when her daughter’s life was at stake.
Reflection Question: When have you found courage through taking practical action rather than relying on spiritual promises?
This story is part of my upcoming book “The Undevoted: Daily Departures from Divine Dependence,” which offers 365 human-centered alternatives to the spiritual certainties in Chambers’ devotional. Each day explores how reason, community, and human resilience can address life’s challenges without requiring divine intervention.
God or Delusion? 