Faithful Doubt

"He also said to him, 'I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take posession of it.' But Abraham said, 'O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?" -Genesis 15:8

In recent years, there has been a shift in some branches of American Christianity that has glorified doubt. Questioning orthodox doctrine and appearing countercultural have become hip and a way to gain social currency. Those who hold to traditional views are seen as closed-minded, narrow, and judgmental while questioning one's beliefs is open-minded and intellectual. We have moved from defining what we are for to defining what we are against. Deep down we know that our faith cannot be "cool" in this culture so we try to make it more palatable and come across as less sure of ourselves. Questioning and insecurity is the new humility.

On the other side of the coin, there are those in the church who are terrified of doubt. The slightest questioning of God or of Scripture is cause for panic or judgment. We believe these people are walking away from their faith and implore them to just read their Bible or pray more and they'll be just fine. Or we scold them and tell them that they do not truly believe or they would not be having these doubts. However, this can actually be crippling for a follower of Christ who is genuinely wrestling with hard things. Life is often much messier than we admit in the Church. Pat answers and trite advice don't get into the circumstance that a person is actually living in and dealing with. There is a difference between healthy and toxic doubt. How can we tell the difference?

In Genesis 15, we see God promise to Abraham that He will make him a great nation and bless him and that his offspring will be abundant. At this point, Abraham is an old man and his wife is well along in years as well. Abraham, understandably, does not understand how these promises could ever take place. He then takes these doubts to God and God patiently reveals the answers to Abraham. It says that Abraham believed God and that God credited this to Abraham as righteousness. However, even after this belief, Abraham has doubts and questions. He asks God how he can be sure of this, as if God's word alone is not good enough for him.

In the New Testament, the apostle Paul recounts this story in Romans 4 to show that salvation comes through faith alone. He says that Abraham is the father of all who believe in God's promise. He says, "...[Abraham] did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised." How can this be? Genesis 15 clearly shows that Abraham had doubts and questions, yet Paul says that he was unwavering in his belief. Why?

What we often forget in our dealings with our own doubts and our brothers' and sisters' doubts is that doubting and questioning are inevitable. If God is omniscient and omnipotent and we are finite and limited, doesn't it make sense that some of the things He does or tells us don't make sense? The pivotal piece to this is not whether or not we have doubts but what we do with them. The reason Abraham was credited as righteous was because at his core, he knew that he could trust God. Therefore, he took his doubts and questions to God directly. He did not glorify them or live them out. He brought them directly to God because he had the faith to do so. His faith, at his core, was unwavering. He did not know how God was going to do what He promised but he knew that he could find the answers from God Himself. Thus, Abraham's faith and doubt coexisted without being harmful to him in any way. God shows us through this passage that we, as His children, are safe with Him. It is safe to doubt. It is safe to question provided we are taking these doubts and questions to Him.

Compare this to Abraham's behavior in Genesis 12 when he lives out his doubts and lies to Pharaoh about his wife because he does not know how God will protect him in that situation. He does not bring his doubts to God and instead lives them out which has destructive results.

May we as the Church not glorify our doubts or live them out but be affected by the Truth that faith and doubt can reasonably coexist and that dealing with doubt in a healthy manner can be an incredibly fruitful time of growth in the Christian's life. May we say with the father of the demon possessed boy in Mark 9, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"

Obedient Compassion

At the time of this writing, our church is getting ready for our “Compassion Weekend” where we’ll be going into the surrounding community to minister to those around us through cleaning up parks, ministering to the homeless, etc. We have a desire to be the hands and feet of Christ in our city and to be a light without expecting anything in return.

The toughest part in all of this, in my opinion, is having the right motivation and heart attitude while doing ministry. It is against our human nature to minister to others without expecting something out of it for us. At the very least, whether we admit it or not, we expect to feel good about what we’re doing or for the people we serve to be grateful for what we’re doing. But our ministry needs to be motivated by something and Someone much greater than that. Is our desire to serve able to withstand receiving nothing out of it?

A few days ago Jenn and I went on our weekly grocery store run. When we pulled into the parking lot we saw a man standing on the median holding a cardboard sign that said, “Homeless. Anything will help.” We decided that we would bring the man a sports drink after we went shopping. As we exited the parking lot we pulled up and handed him the drink. He said thank you, the light turned green, and we drove off.

As we pulled onto the highway to head back to our apartment, I felt a tugging on my heart to do more for the man so I asked Jenn if I could drop her off at the apartment and head back to take the man out for pizza. After bringing Jenn home, I turned around and headed back to the store where I found the man, still standing there with his sign. I walked up to him and asked what his name was and where he was staying. He told me that his name was Dave and that he and his girlfriend were living in a tent in the woods behind the store. I then asked if I could take him to get a pizza. He said he didn’t want to leave his girlfriend who was sleeping in the tent because he didn’t have a cell phone. I then offered to go grab one for him and asked if he needed anything else. He said that he wasn’t picky and that he didn’t need anything else.

I called in the order to Pizza Hut and then headed over. On my way I stopped and bought Dave and his girlfriend some basic necessities like deodorant, water, etc. I then went to Pizza Hut, picked up the pizza, and returned to the grocery store. But when I arrived, Dave was not on the median where I left him. I went behind the store to see if I could see his tent but I couldn’t. I then went inside to look for him but he wasn’t there. After driving around the parking lot a couple more times, I decided to leave.

Thoroughly discouraged and frustrated, I got back on the highway and headed home with many questions running through my head. Why did God allow me to go through all that trouble just to have the man leave without receiving what I was going to give him? Weren’t my intentions pure enough for God to honor them? What was the point of God giving me a desire to help someone if the person wasn’t going to be there when I returned?

As I continued to reflect on the situation, I realized how truly self-focused my questions were. God can provide for Dave’s needs without any of my help and He wasn’t surprised that Dave wasn’t there when I returned. In this moment, God was teaching me that He calls His people to obedience, not good feelings or even success. God, through His Scripture, tells us to be obedient to His command to care for those in need. He doesn’t promise that we’ll feel good about what we’re doing or even that what we’re doing will be effective. He just calls us to obey, to honor His commands because we love Him. Pleasing Him should be our only desire. We can’t do this on our own but He has given us the Holy Spirit to mold us and change us so that we are more like Christ in His compassion.

Do we have faith to fail? Does our motivation to serve others come from a desire to be obedient to God’s calling or to get something out of it for ourselves like being able to pat ourselves on the back for helping someone else? Do we measure success by effectiveness or by faithfulness to His call regardless of the outcome? May we be a people that are marked by a desire to be obedient to God’s call, who have a heart for the down and out and the needy, and who have a faith that is completely Christ-aware instead of self-aware.

Repentance

We in the Church love a good testimony. You know, the kind where someone was trapped in a life of addiction, gave their life to Christ, and was pulled out of it and now everything is great. But what about the person that gives their life to Christ then slips back into that sin? What of the Christian who confesses and agonizes over their sin only to return to it the very same day? Have they not truly repented? Are they not sufficiently contrite?

Repentance is often put forth (whether purposely or not) as an event, rather than a process. In some circumstances it truly is a one-time event in someone's life where they cease a certain sin immediately. But more often, it is not. We are sometimes told that if we do not stop falling into a certain sin then we are not repenting. This leads to overwhelming guilt and shame, even in a loving Christian community.

But the repentance that we see Jesus call for is not characterized by an immediate, perfect cessation of sin but of a hate of our sin and a process of change, called sanctification, by the Holy Spirit. Paul, in Romans 4, declares that we are made righteous before God because of the blood of Christ shed for us on the cross. The moment we receive salvation, we are justified before God. This is a one-time, once for all moment. Sanctification, on the other hand, is loving, molding process that the Holy Spirit undertakes to make us more like Christ. When we are justified, we do not stop sinning. However, our lives are no longer characterized by sin. Repentance finds sanctification as its context. The Holy Spirit works in our lives to make us more like Christ but it is a lifelong process. We are not made perfectly holy the moment we receive salvation.

Jesus was notorious among the Pharisees for spending time with "sinners." One of his most poignant and revealing statements to them (and us) comes in Mark 2:17 when He says, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Thus, the Church is intended to be a hospital for the sick. It is a group of people who don't have it all together. A group of people who consistently fall into the same sin over and over again but who hate their sin and genuinely want to move past it for the glory of God.

(As a side note, the analogy of the Church as a hospital for the sick also entails diagnosing sin in all its forms and calling it what it is according to Scripture. Christ did not gloss over people's sins or say they were not that big of a deal. He had to die for them. Our sin is serious. Hospitals do not amass a large amount of sick people and have them just fester in their illnesses. The goal of a hospital, and the Church by the power of the Holy Spirit, is to treat these diseases with the aim of the sick getting better.)

If you've ever been involved in an accountability group with other believers, you know it is a very frustrating thing to be involved in. The same struggles and sins continue to pop up. A follower of Christ may do really well with something they are wrestling with one week only to fall back into it the next. I've seen discouragement and have been very discouraged myself. When we view repentance as a one time deal and any relapse as a mighty failure, discouragement and crushing guilt are often the result. But this is not how Christ intended it. Repentance is the acknowledgement, confession, and renouncing of sin and the determination to turn from it with the help of the Holy Spirit. It is a process and a journey, one that takes time but yields change if we yield to Christ and do not rely on our own strength.

Loving God For Who He Is, Not What He Gives

A paraphrase of an illustration by Tim Keller:
Imagine that you have some family money and someone comes along and asks you to marry him or her. But after the wedding and some time into the marriage, that person comes to realize that he or she can't get his or her hands on that family money and they leave you. How do you feel? Violated? Used? Just a means to an end? An object? Do you feel like you weren't loved for who you were in yourself? Do you realize that almost all of us relate to God like that? How do you think He feels? We've all met people who have said something like, "Oh I used to believe in God and I used to go to church and try to serve God but He didn't come through for me. I asked Him for things and He let me down and my life didn't go the way I thought it would. In other words, God has this incredible blessing bank account somewhere and I know it's there but He would never let me get my hands on it and I didn't actually want God, I just wanted His blessings. And when I didn't get the blessings, I was out of there." Do you see? You married God for His money. 

What are we basing our faith and love of God on? Do we trust and love God because our circumstances are going according to plan and our lives are the way we would have them be? If so, at the first sign of turmoil, tribulation, and confusion, our first response will be to accuse God or worse, abandon our belief in Him.


Do we trust and love God because we have positive experiences when we worship and we love the emotional high that sometimes comes from being close to Him? If so, the inevitable dry times in our walk with Him when we do not hear from Him may cause us to believe that He has abandoned us or even that He does not exist.

Do we trust God because we have solid intellectual reasons for His existence and involvement in our lives? If so, a carefully constructed attack that seems to contradict those reasons might leave us feeling helpless and shaken.

Do we trust and love God because He gives us what we ask for and blesses us with peace and joy? If so, when those blessings are taken from us, we may blame God and walk away from Him.

There is a very real temptation to build our faith in God on the blessings that He gives. This faith is weak and easily accosted. How it must pain God when our love for Him is a response to the things we get from Him, rather than loving Him for Who He is.  It is easy to love the gifts rather than the Giver. But a mature and unshakable faith is built on the solid rock, Who is Jesus Christ Himself. Our love for Him is the simple, humble response to His unfathomable, self-giving love for us. True faith is not built on blessings and circumstances but on the immovable foundation of Jesus Christ. May we love Him for Who He Is, not what He gives us.