Using Doubt in a Positive Way

          This past week our students started a new series, Doubt.  This series examines the fact that we can allow our questions about our faith to actually drive us closer to God rather than farther away.  Having doubts and questions are a normal part of faith formation and this series encourages our students to wrestle with those questions as they seek to make their faith their own.  Each week includes a discussion question/point that our parents and their students are encouraged to wrestle through together.  The first week’s discussion question reads as follows, “Do you ever have doubts about God?  If so, what are they?  What do you do with them-vocalize them or keep them to yourself?

Doubt is a powerful thing that can direct us down one or two different paths.  We can choose to allow the doubt in our faith, God, the church, etc. to deter us from following Jesus or we can allow it to direct us closer to God’s heart.  For me, doubt was something that I wrestled with for a long time in my own life.  I struggled with different pieces of Christianity, the Bible, the Church, and what I was supposed to believe.  However, for the longest time I always felt that I was not allowed to ask questions about God because that would demonstrate my lack of faith.  However, the summer before my freshman year of college my thought process was drastically altered. 

On the second day of taking summer classes for college, before my freshman year (only because of a scholarship not because I wanted to be an overachiever), I received a phone call that my dad had been diagnosed with cancer.  I remember the toll this took on my faith as here I was a Christian, at college, studying to enter the ministry, and struggling with doubts about God.  I found myself asking the following questions, “Does God really love me?”  “Why would God allow this to happen?”  “Why do bad things happen to good people (like my dad)?”  These were all questions that I found myself wrestling with and unfortunately I still don’t have all of the answers.  These questions started the moment I received the phone call, however I found them becoming far more pressing a few days when my dad had surgery to attempt to get the cancer out of his body.  I found myself, clinging to the promises that God would heal him and things would be alright, but when the doctor entered the room, I knew something was wrong.  The doctor informed us that they hadn’t been able to get everything and they would have to do another surgery later in the month to try to remedy the problem.  Despite the hope that was still present, I found myself doubting God all the more because he hadn’t healed my dad.  My doubts were consuming every thought and I found myself wanting to run away from my faith and ignore God completely. 

 

Then something interesting happened, through several of my new friends at college.  As I returned to campus I was met with their hugs, tears, and prayers for my dad.  I started having conversations with them about why would God allow this to happen to my dad and what ensued was a wonderful few months that forever altered my faith.  I found myself talking openly about my doubts to my new friends and listening to their doubts about God.  We found ourselves searching through the Scriptures (as a community of faith), praying together, and talking to wise counsel (our professors and administrators of the school) about our doubts.  We found ourselves consumed with making our faith our own rather than simply riding on the coattails of our parents or pastors back home.  We found ourselves falling more in love with God and seeing His love starting to transform our doubts into a pursuit for a deeper relationship with Jesus.  We saw our doubts directing us to a deeper love of God rather than deterring us from following Him.  Through these few months, I discovered that doubt could be a positive thing.  Doubt can direct us closer to God if we allow it to.  Doubt can encourage our hearts as we seek to grow closer to God in the midst of our questions. 

 

So as parents, do you encourage your children to have doubts about God, faith, the church, etc.?  Do you seek to discuss with them the personal relationship that Jesus desires for them to have with Him?  Do you challenge your children to ask questions about the difficult things in life, knowing that you may not have the answers?  My challenge to you is to encourage doubt and questions in the lives of your children.  Use their questions as a time to study God’s Word together and grow closer together, both as a family and as Christians.