Leveraging Doubts
A few months ago I was thinking a lot about doubt because I was doubting a lot. It was hard for me to balance my doubts with my faith. I really had faith that God could do what he said he could do but from sick family members to broken relationships and all the trauma of living through a global pandemic, It was getting more and more challenging to have unwavering faith. I loved God and I believed in him but to keep in real- I had questions. However, I knew God. I’d had experienced his goodness so I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. I had to trust that the same God who loved me in the middle of my mess wouldn’t judge me because of my doubts. Pastor Eric Moore at Summit Worship defines trust in God this way: “No matter what happens you run to God instead of running away from Him”. When I ran to God, He did so much more than just take away my doubts. He showed me how to use those doubts to press deeper into his presence. God knows us so well. He understands the kind self-condemnation that can come from wanting to believe but finding yourself unable to see past your circumstances even though you know your savior. He gets it. God doesn’t expect us to be super human. He simply requires us to be spirit filled. Through prayer, scripture, and taking through my doubts with some close friends God taught me some lessons on doubt that need to be shared with His children. Doubt is real and if you don’t expect it or don’t know how to handle it, it can cripple your faith. I think this topic is so important and it really changed my relationship with God so you’ll have to excuse me because today’s blog is more of a bible study. Below is lesson I taught on leveraging your doubts and some of my teaching notes as well if you’d rather read. I hope it helps you if you’re currently doubting and prepares you if you are not. The doubts will come, it’s just up to us whether they pull us closer to God or push us further away.
Anchor Scripture: John 20:18-29
Doubt Can Become Divine Curiosity (God can handle your questions)
Think about it Thomas would have been the only one of the 12 disciples to never see Jesus if he hadn’t been willing to speak up and be real about his doubts. Imagine what the other disciples might have said. “What Tommy, you don’t believe us??” “there you go again making things complicated for yourself man. Can’t you just take our word for it??”
Maybe the reason we feel so alone in our doubts and afraid of our doubts is because it’s become taboo to ask the really hard questions. Not only do we being to question our Christianity when we face doubts, we don’t talk about it out of fear that others will question our faith as well. When doubts and dark thoughts come into our mind it can make us question our faith. But what would happen if we shifted perspectives? What if we saw our doubt as an opportunity to strengthen our faith instead of an attempt to destroy it.
One of the most detrimental things I believed when I was younger was that I couldn’t ask God questions. But when the bible says not to question God, it means that we shouldn’t question his will. He’s sovereign so he can do what he wants. He doesn’t owe us an explanation but he desires to be in relationship with us, therefore, he loves to answer our questions. What we must understand is that your doubts and questions don’t just sit there unfilled when you don’t get understanding from God. you might think it’s not a big deal but when your doubts aren’t met with Godly Truth, they will eventually meet with Satanic lies. Doubt never shows up alone. Unless we learn how to use our doubts they will appear with wrong and misplaced beliefs
I believe that this is just the way I am because I doubt that God can change me. I believe that that relationship can never be restored because I doubt that God’s love is bigger than my pain. I believe that some sexual sin is okay because I doubt that God would give me such strong desires that he doesn’t want me to act on. I believe what feels right must be right because I doubt that it’s really possible to have the self control necessary to stay pure.Until we start asking questions, we’ll never get to the beliefs behind our doubts and we will never be able to grow into a deeper level of belief in God
Doubt Can Give You A chance to Discover God (intimacy is built in the place of encounter)
I think a lot of times this passage is presented as an admonishment of Thomas. He even gets labeled doubting Thomas for all of history but I feel like Thomas gets a bad rap. Do we really know that Jesus was admonishing Thomas for wanting to see his risen savior? Everyone else saw Jesus. It wasn’t like Mary and the other disciples rejoiced and believed in the savior simply because they heard he had risen. They might have, but that's not what the scriptures tell us. The scripture let us know that Jesus appeared to them in such a way that there was no room to doubt that he was who he said he was.
Verse 21 says that they were filled with joy when they SAW the Lord. I’m not sure where poor Thomas was when Jesus was kicking it with his disciples fresh from the grave but he didn’t see what everyone else saw. He didn’t have the opportunity to experience Jesus the way everyone else did. He wanted to believe, but he needed to see his savior for himself. When the disciples told Thomas what happened, they didn’t say “Mary told us about the Lord” they didn’t say “we felt like this is what happened to the Lord” no they said “We SAW the Lord.” Can you blame Thomas for wanting to see him too?
Something interesting happens when you go through a period of doubt and come out of it on the other side with your faith still intact. The faith gets stronger!Name anything that doesn’t grow stronger which it faces resistance. Relationships. Muscles, Willpower, we can only grow stronger by dealing with tension. That’s why the strongest, most long lasting friendship are formed when people go through hard times together. 2 people can go into that semester from hell as friends and come out as sisters because we bond over shared hardships
The same is true for God. your doubts don’t have to signal the end of your faith. In fact they can signal the beginning of a really personal and intimate relationship with God. often what happens is that we go to God looking for answers and he shows us himself.we go to God doubting and we walk away with the way the truth and the lifeSo you see God doesn’t actually shy away from doubt, he welcomes it. He doesn’t want you to have untested, strengthened faith. He doesn’t want your belief to blow over and the slightest wind because it was so fragile. But fragile faith is what we get when we take what we hear for face value and never seek to know the God behind the word.
Once you begin to seek God for the answers to your doubts, you realize that the solution to doubt is not simply to know better, but it is to know God better. More that just mental information. Encountering God in the place of doubt creates a heart shift that delivers you from doubt. This is because when you have a personal encounter with Jesus, you realize that doubt is not a knowledge issue, it is a belief issue. Real belief doesn’t come from and encounter with an idea or a religion, it comes from an encounter with a person - Jesus Christ
Doubt Can Be Good For You if You have a Desire to believe
Ask yourself if you really want to believe God in that specific area or if it has simply become more comfortable for you to doubt. Doubt doesn’t require anything of you. It takes no effort. It is the most natural thing in the world. If you don’t desire to believe then you can just get cozy in the middle, never knowing for sure whether God really is who he says he is because you never made the effort to look for the answers
In the second part of verse 25 Thomas says “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.” Now you might read that and think dang Thomas was really doubting hard! Why did he need so much proof to accept that Jesus was risen? But put yourself into Thomas’s shoes for a second. The only reason he would seek proof that Jesus was alive rather than evidence that he was dead was because Thomas wanted to believe. Like the man who said “Lord I believe help my unbelief”, when what he heard sounded too good to be true he was looking for a reason to continue worshiping his savior.
Thomas didn’t ask for any evidence outside of what Jesus presented to the other 11 disciples 8 days earlier. He didn’t need Jesus to call down the heavens to prove his glory, he simply wanted to experience what he heard about. Jesus didn’t say ‘oh you of little faith” like he did on the story boat with the disciples, he didn’t even reach out and ask why didn’t you doubt like he did when Peter tried to walk on water. He simply said “peace be with you” and showed up.
When Thomas sought Jesus, Jesus showed himself to Thomas. He gave him the experience that he desired, the push that he needed to truly believe. Jesus was not in the business of hiding himself from those who genuinely sought him. In a moment when Thomas' grasp on faith was shaken to its core after he witnessed the death of the one who he once believed had come to save the world, he was looking for a reason to have hope, to keep the faith, to still believe. He didn’t have to chase after Jesus. Christ heard him and showed up for him. The Lord encouraged him not to lose faith.