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"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Do all these evildoers know nothing? They devour my people as though eating bread; they never call on the Lord. You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, but the Lord is their refuge\u201d (Psalm 14:1,4,6)

There are various reasons why lament rises from the heart of the godly. In Psalm 14, it is \u2018the fool\u2019 who causes the dirge. Biblically, the fool is not someone who lacks street smarts or survival skills, rather, it is the person who lives as if God does not exist. Since people without God need to survive by their own skills and power, they will often crush the poor and the righteous in their pursuit to collect resources. Thus, the psalmist moans, \u201cThey devour my people as though eating bread\u2026you evil doers frustrate the plans of the poor\u2026\u201d (4, 6).

Still, we are reminded that God is the refuge and the restorer of fortunes for both the poor and the righteous (6-7). In the end, evil doers will get their due. This invites us to reflect on our trust in God, His sovereign reign over this earth and over our lives. Do we truly believe that God is with us?

We do need to be careful how we phrase this. It is not that God is on our side, in the sense that we get to decide how God should act. Rather, he has promised that evil will not go unpunished and that He will care for those who seek Him. Can we wait for Him rather than seeking vengeance on those who wrong us?

"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Here lies a truth we need to reckon with, namely, that what comes out of our mouths has come from our hearts. The heart is the centre of the human being. It is our core, the wellspring of our attitudes, feelings, and beliefs. It is the great internal processor through which all that we receive by way of our senses gets sorted and interpreted.

We are not merely emotional, nor merely intellectual, but a combination of both and more. How our heart processes things is important. The wise father of Proverbs advises his child, "Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life" (4:23).

Psalm 14 might be used to generate a diatribe against atheists outside the church. But that would be largely fruitless. It seems wiser to recognize that there are generally two very different kinds of atheists.

There are atheists who vocalize their atheism for all to hear. But there are also many who say they believe in God with their mouths but live as if he does not exist. They say that God is Lord of creation, but rarely live by that confession. Such atheists do populate the church.

Alcoholics Anonymous believes that the most important hurdle an addicted person must surmount is to acknowledge, deep in the soul, not being God. No mastery of manipulation and control, at which addicts excel, can overcome the root problem. To some extent, we are all addicts. We must quit playing God, and then allow God himself to play God in our lives, which involves daily, even moment by moment surrender.

As the psalmist laments, heart-atheism becomes social oppression. If the self makes its own rules and satisfies its own compulsions, the social result is that people around me become food\u2014material that I can use to fulfill my needs. I no longer look on them as persons but as stuff that I can use to make life satisfactory.

One of the great myths of our age is that what I believe is nobody\u2019s business but my own; what I do in the secrecy of my own heart is of no account to anyone else. This is bad psychology. What I believe is everybody\u2019s business because what goes on in my heart very soon shapes the way I act in society.

Heart-atheism is the belief system of self-righteousness. It establishes me at the centre and arranges things, people, events, and God around me in such ways that no matter what happens I am right. \u2018The voice of the \u201cI\u201d becomes the voice of God.\u2019 Everything is viewed and interpreted in relation to the sovereign me. We can often manage this with an extraordinary degree of success. Because of this the Psalmist warns, \u201cThe Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God\u201d (Psalm 14:2).

We are invited to examine our hearts. How much atheism lives within us?

As we learn to trust God, the Spirit nourishes spiritual fruit within us. We have the space to love others; joy and peace, rather than anxiety, are kindled deep within us. When we seek God's Kingdom, the Spirit's fruit grows. We seek this Kingdom when we trust God.