The Seed Blog: Dealing With Doubt

We are going to talk about something today that many people long to discuss, but as Christians—and sometimes, even non-Christians—they are very often hesitant to talk about. And that is those moments in every believers life when, for various reasons, the haunting thought suddenly grips your heart: “What if it isn’t true?” “What if everything I have ever believed is all just a mistake?” “What if I am wasting my life on a lie?” Most wrestle with these moments in silence, for fear of being shamed or looking weak and unfaithful, or even sinful to God. Guilt joins with doubt to magnify the struggle. Our first endeavor today is to see the Biblical response towards honest moments of doubt, and also to help us all see the difference between sincere doubt, for various reasons in life and a choice to disbelieve—to reject Truth—in spite of evidence, knowledge, and revelation.

John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin, born of a Miracle from God. He grew up with Jesus (literally). He was appointed by God, in His Word, and in His Will to make the Way for the coming Messiah—His very Son. He gave his entire life as a Nazarite from birth: living a poor and meager life by choice; eating a special diet and following disciplined laws from childhood; every day and moment a reminder a constant choice for God. He preached repentance and faith in God. He was literally the one to proclaim Jesus as, “The Lamb of God”, and baptized Jesus with his own hands. He stood against religious leaders (even kings) to his own detriment, his own imprisonment and death, for his beliefs. But this man, in his darkest moments of stress and loss, sent a strange and very unexpected message to Jesus from prison. Listen to Jesus’ response: Luke 7:18-20. John the Baptist had a brief moment where he considered that all he had sacrificed for and believed was false. He basically asked, “Jesus, are you who You say you are or was I misled?” Here was Jesus’ response: Did He reprimand him? Ridicule him before others? Reject him? Absolutely not. Jesus knows our frailties and weaknesses: Luke 7:21-22. Jesus gave definitive proof to John, knowing his heart was pure, knowing his doubt was human, but that he was sincerely seeking God. Jesus reiterates to John and the crowd that blessings follow to those who will overcome their doubt, that they are not simply to remain there, but seek. Then Jesus addressed the crowd, concerning John’s doubt: Luke 7:24-22. Jesus saw John for his heart, love and obedience, not his moment of weakness which came by nature. What about Jesus’ own chosen disciple, Thomas (Didymus), who walked with Jesus, saw all of His Works, heard His teachings and prophecies about His own death, yet doubted Jesus and the word of all his companions: John 20:24-29. Again, Jesus did not reject or reprimand. He simply showed Himself to Thomas and challenged him to grow in his faith: John 20:27. Not long after praising John—even in his weaknesses and doubt—Jesus made this Statement to the masses: Matthew 12:20-21. “A smoking flax”  most scholars say clearly denotes someone who’s faith and hope are all but extinguished, and Jesus proclaims He will not abandon them. And Jude, Jesus’ own half-brother proclaims how to deal with “doubt” inside of the church: Jude 1:21-22. Some condemn doubt, embarrass those who dare to question. Others embrace and praise doubt, questioning everything perpetually. Biblically, it is clear that moments of doubt are natural, and will come for various reasons to the most faithful and loving disciples of Jesus. But it is also clear that doubt needs to be dealt with when it does come, or we cannot have true fellowship; we cannot please God in His love and work; we cannot proclaim Him to the world in love and confidence: Hebrews 11:6.
Let’s take a look at some of the biggest reasons for these moments of doubts, and find some answers to help us along the way. One of the first and most common reasons for doubt in many is simply the lack of firm, solid facts about Our Jesus. We live in a world which stifles, hides, and twists whatever it does not want to accept. We live in a world that has now grown up with little to no real understanding of Who Jesus really is, or any of the facts surrounding His Life, Death and Resurrection. We live in a world that spins overwhelming evidence for a Creator to look like an unexplainable fairytale of evolution—a view which takes more faith, more separation from true reasoning—than the fact of Our Amazing Creator ever could require. Most young people go away to college, or watch documentaries and videos presenting evidences against asking questions about their faith; questions not addressed by most churches as they should be—and that is sad because we have the evidence solidly on our side. As a church, we try to address this abundance of proof on a regular basis here because the evidences of science, fulfilled prophecies, history, and archeology are overly abundant and powerfully foundational to build our faith upon. God does not want our faith to be blind and without root. If we just look open-mindedly, proof is everywhere we can possibly look: Romans 1:19-20. If you find yourself in doubt because of evidence for the proof of God, if you find yourself looking towards another possible explanation, I simply and sincerely ask to honestly give the same criteria of testing to your pondered ideas. Give equal doubts to your doubts, but be certain you are asking these questions: Are you truly studying and seeking for real Truth? Are you tearing into Scriptures to see their validity? Are you investigating the Truths that are questioned for yourself? Or taking another’s word blindly? Are you seeing the validity of the hundreds of fulfilled prophecies?
Giving unmistakable declaration hundreds, thousands of years before Jesus arrived? (Parents, place, birth, death, Temple, dispersion?) Are you clearly seeing the perfect unity of the Books of the Bible? Written by different people, spanning different times & places, describing the same Person and events perfectly? The unbelievable number of early manuscripts keeping its integrity, validated by those who read them firsthand? (25,000 copies) The chosen death and suffering of those who knew Him best, and had everything to lose by following Him? Are you seeing the newest wonders of irreducible complexity in purposefully created life to the simplest cell? With clear Design? The answers to this kind of doubt comes so very easily, for those sincerely willing to look for His Fingerprints. But so many will disbelieve, doubt without ever once truly exploring the evidence for themselves. Are you an informed doubter? Or an ignorant doubter?
A second, very powerful reason for many to doubt God is the presence of evil and the tragedy of our sin nature, in the world. They have had a terrible tragedy or loss in life, or they have seen the suffering and evils of the world which is so unlike anything God is supposed to be. Or they are drawn by lusts and ways contrary to God and wonder how they could feel this way if God is real? And they doubt that the Loving, All-Powerful God of the Bible could really exist. We cannot go into details about all the question of evil today because we could take a couple of sermons on this alone. But understand this: the fact that we can see these evils as evils and be hurt, offended that we can say they are not fair or just rather than see them as neutral and non-moral in nature, shows that His divine nature is within us and Creation was made with moral purpose and not chaos. It is not God’s desire to see one single moment of suffering, it affects Him much deeper than we could ever experience. Yes, He knew that suffering would come; He knew the world we would create in our rebellion with our free will to choose real love or selfish evil. He loves us so very much that He would not allow us to ever experience one thing that even our own sins brought to this world; that He would not share with us to the last dregs. Those pains, experiences, abuse, along with our fallen nature can envelope us even into natural desires against His ultimate will in our fallen and damaged state. He hates our pain so powerfully—hates our misled and broken state so passionately—that He literally Died horrifically to save us from that pain. When Job questioned God in His deepest pain, when John the Baptist questioned Jesus in his imprisonment, God did not try to explain Himself or justify His actions—His Ways are so much higher, His Love and Plans beyond us—He simply said, ‘Here is proof that I Am Who I Say I am. Trust my love and follow Me; I will walk through it with you.’ There is no suffering that He hasn’t walked through with us. That is a perfectly just God whose love is perfectly selfless. And we will soon see how He has used every evil this world brings for the greater purpose for us all. Until then, just like Jesus, these moments are our greatest chance to prove our love and trust in our faithful God in a dark world.
Another big reason many turn from Jesus is the terrible actions and the hypocrisy of those who proclaim Him. Yes, many bad things have been done in history in His Name. The Church is full of fake, mean, judgmental people. But, these have nothing to do with the True Character and Love, of the One represented in this Book, your Creator and Savior. And it is no more logical to reject Christ because of these people, than to reject life-saving surgery, because there are crooked doctors. Or to leave higher education because there are bad or ignorant teachers. Or stop using the internet because there are so many wrong and deceptive uses in the media. Or stop using electricity in your home because it has been used to kill people in the electric chair. People are damaged, broken, and often fake: 2 Corinthians 11:14-15. This has nothing to do with whether Jesus is real, loving and precious. Those broken people are the very reason He came and died—to show Love, even when not deserved or understood, even when abused for His Sacrifice. If we love Him, those people are even more reasons to follow Him with conviction, so that the world can see the truth of Who He Is; so that we can help these misled people see His real love; so that we can serve Him right before a world that does see these fake things rather than use others as an excuse to deny Him: John 13:34-35.
Lastly, the one most devastating and dangerous doubt of all. Be honest with yourself if you are in a struggle with your faith right now. This is someone who sees clearly the proof of His Presence and has His very Word in their minds and hearts, but they have someone or something in their lives which should not be there according to our God—and they absolutely refuse to let go, refuse to accept, or refuse to leave—because it is more important to them than the God Who Loved and Died for them, because they feel they are smarter or more righteous than even their Creator. Some will purposefully refute, ignore or twist what they, in their hearts, know if God, in order to justify and satisfy their own wants and desires. Or in God’s eyes, sometimes even worse, they will still try to live for Him, proclaim Him as their Truth simply for the sake of feeling secure. And yet continue to live the life they are choosing over Him any way just in case they are wrong in their beliefs. That way, they haven’t “missed out” on their life, if God is not real or thinking He’ll just look the other way. If I was not 100% sure my spouse was who I wanted to be with for my whole life, just to be sure that I wasn’t missing out on something better rather than leaving them just in case they were the one. I decided to sleep with other people, do anything I wanted as though my spouse wasn’t there rather than be faithful to my married life, but still come back to them and try to maintain a great relationship with them too, just in case. Would that relationship have any chance at all? Would it be fair to your spouse? Would you ever have the chance to cultivate and experience all of the real love that relationship could have given you? That is an exact picture of the life many proclaiming Christians live today. When this kind of doubt arises, a choice to turn from Truth because we are afraid of missing something better, because we refuse to let go of something we love or want more. It is no longer a “doubting” problem, it is a “heart condition” of choice. A choice to “forever question God” on purpose, as an escape—a justification to live their own lives without Him. And God has a heartbreaking, but clear response to this attitude: Romans 1:18-22; 1 Timothy 4:1-2; 2 Thessalonians 2:10-11. These passages clearly state that we will eventually talk ourselves into believing a lie in order to comfort ourselves in our choice to reject Him. If this is the basis for your doubt, be honest with yourself and choose right now Who is worthy to give your whole life to serve. And then, just do it with all you have to give at any cost (either way), or you will live just as the unsatisfied spouse in their double-life, hurting everyone and unhappy.
This needs to be our Biblical understanding of how to handle doubts in our lives. Know that doubts will arise even in the strongest of Christians (John). Bring that doubt to Him openly, knowing that God does not frown on us, resist us, or become angry, but that He wants to comfort and prove Himself. He does not want us to remain there because it hinders our relationship, joy and purpose. There is too much at stake to simply leave doubt unaddressed. Study and know for yourself every proof that God has given to us—all around us in nature, in our hearts, in science, in history, in prophecy, in experience. Doubt your doubts. Test your competing thoughts. God’s Truth is powerful and clear. Then, when you see that He is present, He is loving—surrender truly, totally, openly. Surrender anything you do not agree with or understand, knowing He is bigger, better, more loving than anything you have to give up or turn from. He will bring a better way than anything this world offers. And then, just like John the Baptist, ask Him from a sincere heart given to Him to show Himself to you more. And I promise you, if your heart sincerely just wants Him and nothing else, He will gladly reveal Himself to you: Jeremiah 29:13-14; Proverbs 8:17; Psalms 63:1; Deuteronomy 4:29; Matthew 11:28-30.