The Day God Fails

Crystal’s honesty deserves our compassion before it receives our correction

When headlines suggested he had abandoned his faith, Crystal told the Palisadian-Post that it was not abandonment but an evolving relationship with God: “I don’t trust Him right now. And I said ‘right now’” (Schneider, 2026). In “700 Sundays,” his arguments with God ended in a card game in which God folds. Today, he says, the uncertainty of this season has left him unable to trust. His new Broadway show, “860,” is named for the street number of the house he lost. The stage holds a replica of his old home office, and he invites the audience to ask where they stand themselves (Schneider, 2026).

Crystal’s honesty deserves our compassion before it receives our correction. Notice the word he chose. He did not say God was absent; he said he does not trust Him. Trust is the language of a wounded relationship, not one that never existed. And he is hardly the first to speak this way. The psalmist asked, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1). Jesus wept at the tomb of a friend, even knowing what He was about to do (John 11:35). Scripture does not rebuke honest lament; it preserves it. The danger is not in asking God hard questions, but in walking away before we hear His answer.

Crystal also looked beyond his own losses, pointing to floods, wildfires, and wars around the world, and asking what is going on (Schneider, 2026). That is the oldest question in the human story, and the Bible does not dodge it. It is not God who prompts people to wickedness or murder (James 1:13). Scripture describes the human heart as deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9), and left to ourselves we pursue self-interest at others’ expense (Genesis 6:5). Job, who knew suffering as few have, said that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward (Job 5:7). The earth itself groans under the weight of a fallen world (Romans 8:20-22). Yet nothing escapes God’s rule; what people meant for evil, God can mean for good (Genesis 50:20).

But we do ourselves no favors by assuming that a decent life entitles us to an easy one

None of this means that Crystal or the Reiners earned their pain. Jesus Himself refused that logic when He was asked about those killed when a tower fell, insisting they were no worse than anyone else (Luke 13:4-5). But we do ourselves no favors by assuming that a decent life entitles us to an easy one. God is not a convenience store operator, where we pull in to fill the tank and leave with candy for the journey. He is a loving Father, and also a just and righteous Judge (Hebrews 10:30). We are tempted to treat Him as “our Butler in heaven” (Laurie, 2005), and when He doesn’t deliver, we conclude that He has failed.

So before we say God has failed us, we must ask what He actually promised. He never promised us a home that would not burn or a friend who would never be taken. Jesus told His disciples plainly, “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). What He promised is far more durable: that He is near to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18), that His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23), and that nothing in all creation can separate us from His love (Romans 8:38-39). Much of what we call God’s failure is the collapse of a promise we wrote for Him.

Tim Challies has more reason than most to say what Crystal said. In November 2020, his only son Nick, twenty years old, collapsed while playing a game with his sister, his fiancée, and other students, and never regained consciousness. Challies wrote that the family had “no answers to the what or why questions” (Challies, 2020). Three years later, he wrote that despair becomes reasonable only on the day God fails in even one of His promises, and that day has not come (Challies, 2023). He wrote that not as a man untouched by loss, but as a father living in it. God binds Himself by His own word, and Joshua testified that not one of His good promises had failed (Joshua 21:45). In the card game of life, God has never folded on a promise.

Crystal says he doesn’t trust God right now. Pray that “right now” is a door left open

Nor must we have our questions settled before we can trust Him. Job lost his children, his wealth, and his health in a single season, and he did not hold back. He cried out, he questioned, he demanded answers. Yet at the end of the story, God says Job had spoken rightly of Him, unlike the friends with tidy explanations (Job 42:7). Honest wrestling with God is not the opposite of faith; walking away is. When many disciples turned back from Jesus, He asked the Twelve whether they would leave too. Peter did not claim to have the answers. He said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). When grief takes the ground out from under us, the question is not whether we have answers, but where else might we take the pain.

Billy Crystal has rebuilt his home office on a Broadway stage, a replica of a room that no longer exists. It is a deeply human thing to do. Grief makes us want to rebuild what was lost and to find someone to blame. But Jesus offers a different address. “In my Father’s house are many rooms,” He said, and He has gone to prepare a place for us (John 14:2). It is the one home no fire can reach.

Crystal says he doesn’t trust God right now. Pray that “right now” is a door left open. And if you are carrying your own loss and your own questions, bring them to Him as Job did and as the psalmists did. The day God fails has never come. Until it does, we have every reason to come home.

Sources

• Challies, T. (2020, November 4). My Son, My Dear Son, Has Gone to be With the Lord. Challies.com. 
• Challies, T. (2023, October 18). On the day when God fails in just one of His promises. Challies.com. .
• Laurie, G. (2005, December 7). Harvest daily devotionals with Greg Laurie. Crosswalk.com. .
• Nasir, L. (2026, October 14). Billy Crystal reveals personal tragedy shattered his faith in God. Daily Caller. .
• Schneider, T. (2026, October 18). Billy Crystal on loss, faith and his new Broadway show ‘860.’ Palisadian-Post. .