Take a Stab at Doubt

The Gospel writers all take a stab at doubt.

As they write about life, they put doubt to death. 

A policeman in my community once told me, “You know its Spring when the first stabbing of the year happens.” I would rather think about chicks and bunnies, but his point was that people who can no longer bear the North Dakota winter get restless right around mid-March. 

When people who can no longer bear death get restless, they take a stab at doubt.

It has antagonized and plagued them so long that they have come to know its dangers.

Matthew, the former tax collector, had probably worked through layers of his own doubt before he recorded Jesus’s famous words to Peter on the sea, “Oh, you of little faith. Why did you doubt?”

Doubt died a quick death in the face of Jesus’s ability to control the wind and the waves. 

Mark recorded Jesus saying, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.”

Faith in God’s power and ability silences every doubt.

Even knowing that, I still have doubts. Don’t you? The disciples did too…

Even when they were standing, looking at the resurrected Christ, some disciples doubted what their eyes saw. “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see,” Jesus tells them in Luke’s Gospel. 

He put doubt to rest by allowing them even more than just what they could see. He invited them to experience resurrection with Him. He offered to share His resurrection power. 

John records that it was specifically Thomas who struggled with doubt, and Jesus came to him with a personal invitation to inspect the facts. “Do not disbelieve, but believe.”

Lord, help my unbelief! 

Are your doubts anchored to fear? riches? pride? suffering? Cut the rope to those anchors! Like the Gospel writers, take a stab at doubt! 

James wrote, “for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.”

I have been caught in a wave in the sea. It isn’t a pleasant experience. I couldn’t get out of it, and I thought I would drown. It pushed and pulled, and I had no power to go the way I wanted (toward air!). Doubt rolls us like that wave rolled me, leaving us no power to go the way Jesus wants us to go.

The writer to the Hebrews had the antidote: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Jesus said, “Abide in me.” When we do, doubt doesn’t stand a chance.

In my new novel, The Winning of Lady Wisdom, the main character meets doubt in the flesh. He must decide whether to listen to the decpetive words of doubt or choose the decisive action of faith. Find out more at http://www.SarahDixonYoung.com/wisdom.