Devotion 5 - Faith Despite Doubt

Can we have doubt yet continue to walk in faith?

Mk.9:23-25 – “Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

If we would all be honest, all of us can identify with this man, every believer occasionally has this internal struggle with doubt. “I believe; help my unbelief” is a perfect summary of the internal struggle that every Christian experiences. Faith is not something we have or do not have, it is more like a process, which we are either progressing toward or regressing into. It involves ups and downs, victories and setbacks, triumphs and disappointments. The key point of this passage is this: It is not necessary for us to have 100% faith for Jesus to give us a miracle.

We will continue to grow and mature in our walk of faith as we step out in obedience to act on our convictions of His Word. We all need to learn to wrestle with doubt, fear, failure, inconsistency, and hypocrisy. All we need is to be a good steward of the mustard seed faith that was given to us.

“Faith is also spelled R-I-S-K”. Trusting in the Lord with all our hearts will sometimes mean going out on a limb for God.

Faith & Doubt

Many Christians think that the opposite of faith is doubt. Hence, their goal is to eliminate doubt. However, doubt is often a sign that our faith is authentic and alive, even while they appear to be on two extreme ends of a spectrum which just do not mix. Yet at the same time, almost every Christian experiences some kind of doubt at some point in their faith journey. Below are some of the characters in the Bible who doubted:

• Abraham and Sarah doubted God’s promise of a child
• Job doubted God’s goodness
• Moses doubted God could use him to lead Israel out of Egypt
• Gideon doubted God could use him to turn the tide against Israel’s oppressors
• Thomas, Jesus’s disciple, doubted Jesus rose from the dead, etc, etc

The book of Psalm is filled also with doubts from the Psalmist. The real issue is not the presence of doubt, rather it is what we do with our doubt. Doubt can keep us from following God, or it can increase our faith if we have the courage to act in faith despite our doubt.

God does not condemn us when we question Him. One of the best examples is John the Baptist. He is the guy who pointed at Jesus and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” and even saw the heavens open up and heard the voice of God say, “This is My Son in whom I’m well pleased.”

However, when He was arrested and in jail, he began to doubt and thus, he sent two of his friends to go ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah? Are You the one we have been waiting for to rescue the world? Or should we look elsewhere?”

Does Jesus criticize him, does He disqualify him from any role in the kingdom of God? No! The Bible says, “And Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard. The blind receive sight. The lame walk. The lepers are cleansed. The deaf hear. The dead are raised up. And the poor have the gospel preached to them’.” (Luke 7:19-22)

In other words, Jesus is saying, “Go back and tell John about these evidences you have seen with your own eyes that authenticate My claim as the Son of God, so that it will renew his confidence and strengthen his faith.”

Jesus also did not condemn Thomas for wanting to see the print nails in His hands and wanting to put his hand into Jesus’ side to verify that it was really Jesus. Abraham and Sarah still received God’s promise despite laughing in doubt. God is interested in our hearts, authentic faith, not some hyped-up relationship. Sometimes what is going on inside of us is truly doubt and we cannot hide it from God. He does not want us to hide our doubts, and we should instead bring our doubts to God. He will not condemn us for our lack of faith.

We can have a strong faith and still have some doubts. We can be heaven bound and still have some uncertainty about some theological issues. Struggling with God over the issues of life does not show a lack of faith. We all wrestle with doubt to some degree. If we seriously contemplate our faith in Jesus Christ, then it is almost inevitable that we will have some issues, some questions, some hesitations, some uncertainties, or some doubts over one thing or another. Doubts can produce some positive side effects if we take steps toward resolving them, we can emerge stronger than ever in our faith.

“Faith and doubt, both are needed – not as antagonists but working side by side to take us around the unknown curve”. – Lillian Smith