"And when they saw him they worshiped, but some doubted."
Matthew 28:17 ESV
My whole life I have struggled with doubt. Doubts about my abilities. Doubts about the way I look. Doubts about how other perceive me. But one of the largest doubts that I have carried around my whole life: the doubt about my relationship with God.
Before I proceed, I want to make this evidently clear to any and all that read this, I make no negative assertions about the Church of the Nazarene or its members. They are some of the kindest and most giving people you will ever meet. What I am going to talk about are my own personal issues...
To understand why I have these issues with my faith you first must understand where it is I come from. I was raised for most of my life in the Church of the Nazarene and for a time I was educated at one of their universities. I was raised to believe that Christ's atoning death was for the entire human race. Everyone who repents and believes in Christ is "justified and regenerated and saved from the dominion of sin." However, I was taught that anyone may fall from grace and be "hopelessly and eternally lost" unless they repent of their sins. And to most of my friends and even some of my family, this is a foreign concept. But as I got older, I stepped out away from the Nazarene church and began to attend other churches, partially because the areas I was living didn't have a Nazarene church in my community or sometimes it was my need for more information and desperately seeking a way to remove this "doubt" that had lodged itself deep inside my heart and mind.
Being raised a Nazarene kid, I have always had a sense of impending "doom" or "dread" when it comes to losing my salvation. As I grew, I have often had the thought, "what do I do with my free will?" If I am a man of my own mind, can I not simply walk away from the faith and do as I please or am I covered since I said a prayer when I was 14?
Think about the verse that I referenced above. The men that were with Jesus when he ascended into heaven were most of the same men that were with him from the beginning. They had seen all the miracles, the water turned into wine, the girl raised from the dead, Lazarus walking out of the tomb three days dead, and they had been in the Upper Room when Christ revealed his risen body to them. They had seen it all. And as it is recorded in Matthew 28:17 "some doubted." I mean here Jesus is, floating and rising in the air, no jet pack or hidden wires, and they are still undecided about who Christ was. Why?
Because like me, the things that they had seen (I've read) seem impossible to my mind. Why would he only be working to heal the sick and fix the world for three years then suddenly have to go? That is like playing all season to make it to the National Championship and only truly competing for one quarter, then just laying down and letting the other team win the game. Showing up because it was expected not because its what you really wanted to do. (Yeah, thats a slight dig to my Alabama fan friends and relatives) These men had walked the aisle just like I did when I was 14 and committed themselves to living a life apart from the world. A life separate and holy unto God. But still they doubted.
I have been through some "stuff."Enough stuff that I have had others tell me they don't know how I made it through it all without just quitting and giving up. And through all these things, I have toughed it out and tried to desperately lean into God but still there has always been this lingering doubt in my mind. Charles Spurgeon once said, "Doubt is a foot poised to go forward or backward in faith." For me it has always been one step forward and two steps back. I know that God puts me in situations when I can "stretch" my faith so that it will grow and through all these things it has caused me to raise a foot. I wish I could say I have taken more steps forwards than backwards.
Doubt in my life seems to happen when the superficial parts of my faith meet the realities the world throws at me. I inherited my faith from a loving pair of parents and grandparents. But as I have learned God doesn't want me to give Him their faith. He hates secondhand gifts. Just like when I was a kid and I would get hand me down clothes from one of my cousins. While the label may have been popular it wasn't "new" to me. How many times have I treated my faith that way? How many times do I lift a foot and allow doubt to make me take a step back when God is sitting on the edge of his throne waiting for me to take two steps forward in faith? I have to learn to trust God on my own and at some point I have to choose to get out the gun and put down the bear that is doubt in my life. I can't piggyback on my grandpa's shoulders and ride my grandmothers accomplishments into life everlasting.
It is only when I seriously examine my view of the world that I realize my doubts do nothing but shrink God down to what I can picture Him to be. I don't think that doubt in and of itself is a bad thing. It is when I allow the enemy to use those doubts to stunt my growth or push me off the path that Christ has laid for me then it becomes a serious problem. These doubts that come to mind can help me see where I have put expectations on Christ based on what I think rather than what He said He will do in my life.
I will stop for now and leave you with this quote from a book I have been reading by JD Greear.
"When God opens out eyes to see the beauty of Jesus, his glory bursts through the cloud of our questions. When we truly behold his glory, we won't need to be compelled to trust or love God; we just will. In the depths of our hearts, we will be convinced that he's a God worth living and dying for. Others will see in our demeanor a confidence that goes far beyond personality, charisma, or dogma. They will sense in our hearts a burning passion fueled by a genuine encounter with a glorious and living God."
That is the kind of encounter that doubt can't survive in...
Comments
Post a Comment