Delivered at Bethel United Methodist Church on April 19, 2009.
Thomas the Believer
Thomas the Believer
Scripture:
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in His hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in His side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in His name.
John 21:19-31
Do you ever doubt? Do you ever doubt yourself? Do you sometimes wonder if you are cut out to do what God has called you to do? Do you ever doubt your salvation? Do you wonder if your faith is strong enough? Or do you have trouble believing that all sins can be forgiven? Do you ever question the things you have been taught? Do you, for example, have trouble believing that Jesus was born of a virgin? Or do you wonder how Jesus could have possibly fed five thousand people with only a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish? Do you ever doubt God? Do you ever wonder if God will keep all the promises He made in the scriptures? Or do you ever just lie in bed awake at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering if there is actually anyone up there listening to your prayers? Whether or not we want to admit it, we all go through times of doubt.
It was Sunday evening, and the disciples were hunkered down in their meeting place with the door locked. They were going through a rough time, to say the least. Their Rabbi, whom they had been following for three years, was brutally executed two days earlier. That morning, two of them went to the tomb to find that His body was missing. After that, Mary Magdalene started claiming that she saw Jesus alive and well. On top of all this, the disciples were still afraid of the mob that had Jesus put to death.
Suddenly, Jesus appeared out of nowhere saying, “Peace be with you.” He showed the disciples his scars, and they rejoiced that their Lord was with them once again. He breathed on them the Holy Spirit and commissioned them to continue the work He started. Unfortunately, the disciple Thomas was not with the others that evening. The other ten told him that they saw Jesus, but Thomas had trouble believing that. He even went so far as to say, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in His hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in His side, I will not believe.”
St. Thomas is probably the most famous doubter in human history. We even use the term “Doubting Thomas” to deride a person for having doubts. We give Thomas a hard time for doubting, but we really cannot blame him. Think about it: if someone came up to you and said that he just saw Elvis, you probably would not believe him. Put yourself in Thomas’s shoes. You have been a disciple, shadowing a rabbi for three years. You were with Him when He was arrested by the Sanhedrin, and you witnessed His farce of a trial. You saw Him mocked, beaten, nailed to a cross, and hung up to die. If someone told you, a few days later, that this Man was alive and well, you would probably be a bit skeptical, as would I. Today, I thought it would be nice to give Thomas a break and to look at some of the other great doubters in the Bible.
GIDEON
Let’s go back to a time before Israel had kings to a time when the nation was still fighting for its place in the Promised Land. Israel had been under siege by the Midianites for seven years. God heard the cry of His people, so he called a young man named Gideon to liberate the nation from the Midianites. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Gideon rallied the people together to fight. Gideon had doubts about his mission, so he requested a sign from God. He said,
In order to see whether you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said, I am going to lay a fleece of wool on the threshing-floor; if there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said.
When he got up in the morning, the fleece was soaked but the ground was dry, just as he had requested; however, Gideon still had doubts. He asked God to be patient with him and requested another sign. He said, “Let me, please, make trial with the fleece just once more; let it be dry only on the fleece, and on all the ground let there be dew.” The next morning, he found the ground wet and the fleece dry.
The time came for the attack, but God only allowed Gideon to take three hundred men to attack the Midianites, whose forces are described as “countless as the sand on the seashore.” Once on the television show MacGyver, a man’s plantation was attacked by a swarm of killer ants. Everywhere one looked, as far as the eye could see, ants covered everything. I imagine that this is what the Midianite army looked like, and God expected Gideon to fight them with only three hundred men. Gideon was still having doubts, so God told him to sneak down to the enemy camp for another sign. When he got there he overheard a man talking about his dream. He then overheard another man interpret the dream as an omen that they would be defeated at the hands of Gideon. Gideon returned to his camp, ready to commence the attack.
ELIJAH
Now let’s go forward a few hundred years to the time when Israel was split into two nations. The Northern Kingdom of Israel was ruled by the corrupt King Ahab and the wicked Queen Jezebel both of whom promoted the worship of a false god named Ba’al. God called the prophet Elijah to speak out against Ahab and Jezebel and to combat their false religion.
Elijah had just won a major victory against the prophets of Ba’al. He presented the prophets with a challenge: both sides would prepare a sacrifice and call upon their respective gods to accept it. The prophets of Ba’al spent all day crying out their god trying to get him to accept their sacrifice, but it was to no avail. Elijah then built an altar, dug a trench around it, and drenched the sacrifice with so much water that the trench filled up. He called on God, and fire came down from Heaven and consumed the sacrifice, the altar, and the water in the trench. Elijah then proceeded to slaughter all four hundred fifty prophets of Ba’al.
When Queen Jezebel heard about this incident, she was hell-bent on seeing Elijah put to death. Elijah fled into the wilderness and, in a moment of doubt said, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my ancestors.” Angels brought him food, and he proceeded to Mount Horeb. When Elijah was resting in a cave, God told him that He was about to pass by. Then there was a strong wind, and then an earthquake, and then a wildfire. God was not in any of these but the silence afterward, and in a still small voice asked, “What are you doing here, Elijah.” 1 Elijah responded,
I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.
God responded to Elijah by assuring him that his mission would not fail and that he was not alone. He told Elijah to anoint Elisha to help him. God then told him that there were, in fact, seven thousand people in Israel that had remained faithful to the Lord. Elijah went down from the mountain, appointed Elisha as his disciple, and continued with his task.
PETER
Let’s move forward into the New Testament to the time of Jesus’ ministry in Judea. Jesus had just fed more than five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus went off by himself to pray, and the disciples, at His suggestion, got in a boat and headed over to the other side of the sea. The wind was strong, and the waves tossed the boat. The disciples looked out at and became afraid because they thought they saw a ghost on the water. In reality, it was Jesus, and He was actually walking on the water. He said to them, “Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.”
Peter, eager to follow in his Rabbi’s footsteps, called out, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 2 Jesus tells him to come to Him, and Peter began walking on the water too. Peter noticed the rough waves and starting doubting. When he doubted, he began to sink. He cried out to Jesus, “Lord, save me!” Jesus reached out and grabbed him and said, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When the two got into the boat, the wind died down, and the disciples worshiped Jesus, proclaiming Him the Son of God.
THOMAS REVISITED
Let’s look back at Thomas’s story. When the disciples told Thomas that they saw Jesus alive and well, Thomas made up his mind that he would not believe it unless he could see and touch Jesus’ scars. A week passed, and the eleven were back at their meeting place. Once again, Jesus appeared out of nowhere saying, “Peace be with you.” Directly addressing Thomas’s challenge, Jesus said, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas then proclaimed Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”
As Christians, it is easy for us to get discouraged when we feel doubt. After all, we are called to believe. We might feel like we are faithless. We might even feel like we have failed God because we have doubts. As Christians, we tend to believe that there are just some thoughts we are not supposed to think and that there are just some feelings we are not supposed to feel, and, for many of us, doubt falls right into such a category. So we try with all our might to push the doubts out of our minds and to convince ourselves to believe. The problem is that stuffing down our doubts does not help. No matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise, the doubt will still be there.
Today I want to ask you a question: are faith and doubt really exclusive of each other? Does doubt signify a lack of faith, or does faith exist in the midst of doubt? Is it possible that doubt and faith are more connected than we tend to think? Philip Yancey, in his book Reaching for the Invisible God, writes:
Doubt is the skeleton in the closet of faith, and I know no better way to treat a skeleton than to bring it into the open and expose it for what it is: not something to hide or fear, but a hard structure on which living tissue may grow.
So doubt is an object on which something living can grow. Can living faith actually grow on top of doubt?
What do you notice about these four stories? Though the Bible exhorts us not to doubt but to believe, these stories speak volumes about God’s patience and about the grace He bestows to those who are going through doubt. Notice that in each of these stories God neither condemns the doubter nor becomes angry with him. In fact, God used these moments of doubt to strengthen the person’s faith.
Gideon doubted his mission and asked God for signs twice. God gave him both of the signs he requested and even offered him a third one. God reassured him that his mission would be successful, and Gideon led the troops into battle confident that God would give them the victory. Gideon and his forces defeated the Midianite army, and, as a result, Israel enjoyed forty years of peace afterward.
Elijah lost hope in the wilderness, but God, in the silence on Mt. Horeb, reassured him that his mission would not fail and that he was not alone. Elijah found the resolve to keep going and continued to fight the good fight. He continued to prophesy and to speak out against the corruption of the royalty and against the worship of false gods until the day he was taken up to Heaven in the fiery chariot.
Peter doubted when he walked on water with Jesus, but Jesus caught him when he started to sink. Peter would once again become overwhelmed with the storms of life and would deny that that he even knew Jesus. Jesus never gave up on him, but trusted him with the feeding of His sheep. Eventually, Peter came to the realization that, with God’s help, he could follow in his Rabbi’s footsteps. Peter became a great leader in the early church. On the Day of Pentecost, he preached to a crowd, and three thousand people dedicated their lives to Christ.
Thomas missed Christ’s first appearance to the disciples and doubted the Resurrection, but Jesus came back just for him. 3 He showed Thomas His scars, and Thomas proclaimed Him “My Lord and my God.” For this reason he is known to many, not as “Doubting Thomas” but “Thomas the Believer.” Thomas went on to become a great missionary. He is believed to be the only apostle to take the Gospel outside of the Roman Empire, going as far as India and China. 4
Perhaps doubt is simply a part of the journey of faith. Just as we are invited to cast our anxiety on God, let us also cast our doubts on Him as well. Let’s take a lesson from these stories of doubt and give God the opportunity to turn our doubt into stronger faith. According to the minister Harry Emerson Fosdick:
Faith without doubt is no faith at all. Ask your questions and have your doubts. That's a great thing. Just include God in on the conversation. If you do that honestly, the day will dawn when you question your questions and doubt your doubts. 5
MY OWN STORY OF DOUBT
I want to give you one more story of doubt. This one is not from the Bible, and the doubter has not done anything nearly as great as the things done by the men in the other stories.
Most people would not suspect this of me, but sometimes I have trouble managing my anger. One time I became angry about something that I no longer remember, and I broke the mouse I was using with my computer. I drove over to Wal-Mart, and, twenty dollars later, I had a new one. On the way back to my house, I was feeling really disgusted with myself. I began to wonder if there was any hope for me at all. I have a bad habit of changing the radio station as I drive. I changed the radio station, incidentally to the Christian rock station, and this was the song I heard:
It has been said that “lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.” Jesus came into this world to fight for those that the world had given up on. I don’t believe that it was a coincidence that I heard that particular song at that moment. I believe that God was using that song to remind me that He was not going to give up on me, the lost little sheep that I am.
❑
Do not be discouraged when you feel doubt. Instead, give your doubts to God. He will not forsake you for doubting. He did not give up on Gideon or Elijah. He did not give up on Peter or Thomas. He has not given up on me, and he will not give up on you. May God rain down his grace upon you so that your seeds of doubt grow into great faith.
Notes:
1 - Rob Bell, “005 Noise”, Nooma
2 - Rob Bell, “008 Dust”, Nooma
3 - Dave Rhodes, “Flirt: Love Lockdown”, Wayfarer/Engage
4 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Apostle
5 - Chris Brooks, “Flirt: Cloudy Faith”, Wayfarer/Engage
6 - From "To Bring You Back" by Paul Alan
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in His hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in His side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in His name.
John 21:19-31
How long will my prayers seem unanswered?
Is there still faith in me to reach the end?
I'm feeling doubt I'm losing faith
But giving up would cost me everything
So I'll stand in the pain and the silence
And I'll speak to the dark night
I believe in the sun even when it's not shining
I believe in love even when I don't feel it
And I believe in God even when He is silent
Is there still faith in me to reach the end?
I'm feeling doubt I'm losing faith
But giving up would cost me everything
So I'll stand in the pain and the silence
And I'll speak to the dark night
I believe in the sun even when it's not shining
I believe in love even when I don't feel it
And I believe in God even when He is silent
From “I Believe in Love” by BarlowGirl
Do you ever doubt? Do you ever doubt yourself? Do you sometimes wonder if you are cut out to do what God has called you to do? Do you ever doubt your salvation? Do you wonder if your faith is strong enough? Or do you have trouble believing that all sins can be forgiven? Do you ever question the things you have been taught? Do you, for example, have trouble believing that Jesus was born of a virgin? Or do you wonder how Jesus could have possibly fed five thousand people with only a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish? Do you ever doubt God? Do you ever wonder if God will keep all the promises He made in the scriptures? Or do you ever just lie in bed awake at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering if there is actually anyone up there listening to your prayers? Whether or not we want to admit it, we all go through times of doubt.
It was Sunday evening, and the disciples were hunkered down in their meeting place with the door locked. They were going through a rough time, to say the least. Their Rabbi, whom they had been following for three years, was brutally executed two days earlier. That morning, two of them went to the tomb to find that His body was missing. After that, Mary Magdalene started claiming that she saw Jesus alive and well. On top of all this, the disciples were still afraid of the mob that had Jesus put to death.
Suddenly, Jesus appeared out of nowhere saying, “Peace be with you.” He showed the disciples his scars, and they rejoiced that their Lord was with them once again. He breathed on them the Holy Spirit and commissioned them to continue the work He started. Unfortunately, the disciple Thomas was not with the others that evening. The other ten told him that they saw Jesus, but Thomas had trouble believing that. He even went so far as to say, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in His hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in His side, I will not believe.”
St. Thomas is probably the most famous doubter in human history. We even use the term “Doubting Thomas” to deride a person for having doubts. We give Thomas a hard time for doubting, but we really cannot blame him. Think about it: if someone came up to you and said that he just saw Elvis, you probably would not believe him. Put yourself in Thomas’s shoes. You have been a disciple, shadowing a rabbi for three years. You were with Him when He was arrested by the Sanhedrin, and you witnessed His farce of a trial. You saw Him mocked, beaten, nailed to a cross, and hung up to die. If someone told you, a few days later, that this Man was alive and well, you would probably be a bit skeptical, as would I. Today, I thought it would be nice to give Thomas a break and to look at some of the other great doubters in the Bible.
GIDEON
Let’s go back to a time before Israel had kings to a time when the nation was still fighting for its place in the Promised Land. Israel had been under siege by the Midianites for seven years. God heard the cry of His people, so he called a young man named Gideon to liberate the nation from the Midianites. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Gideon rallied the people together to fight. Gideon had doubts about his mission, so he requested a sign from God. He said,
In order to see whether you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said, I am going to lay a fleece of wool on the threshing-floor; if there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said.
When he got up in the morning, the fleece was soaked but the ground was dry, just as he had requested; however, Gideon still had doubts. He asked God to be patient with him and requested another sign. He said, “Let me, please, make trial with the fleece just once more; let it be dry only on the fleece, and on all the ground let there be dew.” The next morning, he found the ground wet and the fleece dry.
The time came for the attack, but God only allowed Gideon to take three hundred men to attack the Midianites, whose forces are described as “countless as the sand on the seashore.” Once on the television show MacGyver, a man’s plantation was attacked by a swarm of killer ants. Everywhere one looked, as far as the eye could see, ants covered everything. I imagine that this is what the Midianite army looked like, and God expected Gideon to fight them with only three hundred men. Gideon was still having doubts, so God told him to sneak down to the enemy camp for another sign. When he got there he overheard a man talking about his dream. He then overheard another man interpret the dream as an omen that they would be defeated at the hands of Gideon. Gideon returned to his camp, ready to commence the attack.
ELIJAH
Now let’s go forward a few hundred years to the time when Israel was split into two nations. The Northern Kingdom of Israel was ruled by the corrupt King Ahab and the wicked Queen Jezebel both of whom promoted the worship of a false god named Ba’al. God called the prophet Elijah to speak out against Ahab and Jezebel and to combat their false religion.
Elijah had just won a major victory against the prophets of Ba’al. He presented the prophets with a challenge: both sides would prepare a sacrifice and call upon their respective gods to accept it. The prophets of Ba’al spent all day crying out their god trying to get him to accept their sacrifice, but it was to no avail. Elijah then built an altar, dug a trench around it, and drenched the sacrifice with so much water that the trench filled up. He called on God, and fire came down from Heaven and consumed the sacrifice, the altar, and the water in the trench. Elijah then proceeded to slaughter all four hundred fifty prophets of Ba’al.
When Queen Jezebel heard about this incident, she was hell-bent on seeing Elijah put to death. Elijah fled into the wilderness and, in a moment of doubt said, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my ancestors.” Angels brought him food, and he proceeded to Mount Horeb. When Elijah was resting in a cave, God told him that He was about to pass by. Then there was a strong wind, and then an earthquake, and then a wildfire. God was not in any of these but the silence afterward, and in a still small voice asked, “What are you doing here, Elijah.” 1 Elijah responded,
I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.
God responded to Elijah by assuring him that his mission would not fail and that he was not alone. He told Elijah to anoint Elisha to help him. God then told him that there were, in fact, seven thousand people in Israel that had remained faithful to the Lord. Elijah went down from the mountain, appointed Elisha as his disciple, and continued with his task.
PETER
Let’s move forward into the New Testament to the time of Jesus’ ministry in Judea. Jesus had just fed more than five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus went off by himself to pray, and the disciples, at His suggestion, got in a boat and headed over to the other side of the sea. The wind was strong, and the waves tossed the boat. The disciples looked out at and became afraid because they thought they saw a ghost on the water. In reality, it was Jesus, and He was actually walking on the water. He said to them, “Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.”
Peter, eager to follow in his Rabbi’s footsteps, called out, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 2 Jesus tells him to come to Him, and Peter began walking on the water too. Peter noticed the rough waves and starting doubting. When he doubted, he began to sink. He cried out to Jesus, “Lord, save me!” Jesus reached out and grabbed him and said, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When the two got into the boat, the wind died down, and the disciples worshiped Jesus, proclaiming Him the Son of God.
THOMAS REVISITED
Let’s look back at Thomas’s story. When the disciples told Thomas that they saw Jesus alive and well, Thomas made up his mind that he would not believe it unless he could see and touch Jesus’ scars. A week passed, and the eleven were back at their meeting place. Once again, Jesus appeared out of nowhere saying, “Peace be with you.” Directly addressing Thomas’s challenge, Jesus said, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas then proclaimed Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”
❑
As Christians, it is easy for us to get discouraged when we feel doubt. After all, we are called to believe. We might feel like we are faithless. We might even feel like we have failed God because we have doubts. As Christians, we tend to believe that there are just some thoughts we are not supposed to think and that there are just some feelings we are not supposed to feel, and, for many of us, doubt falls right into such a category. So we try with all our might to push the doubts out of our minds and to convince ourselves to believe. The problem is that stuffing down our doubts does not help. No matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise, the doubt will still be there.
Today I want to ask you a question: are faith and doubt really exclusive of each other? Does doubt signify a lack of faith, or does faith exist in the midst of doubt? Is it possible that doubt and faith are more connected than we tend to think? Philip Yancey, in his book Reaching for the Invisible God, writes:
Doubt is the skeleton in the closet of faith, and I know no better way to treat a skeleton than to bring it into the open and expose it for what it is: not something to hide or fear, but a hard structure on which living tissue may grow.
So doubt is an object on which something living can grow. Can living faith actually grow on top of doubt?
What do you notice about these four stories? Though the Bible exhorts us not to doubt but to believe, these stories speak volumes about God’s patience and about the grace He bestows to those who are going through doubt. Notice that in each of these stories God neither condemns the doubter nor becomes angry with him. In fact, God used these moments of doubt to strengthen the person’s faith.
Gideon doubted his mission and asked God for signs twice. God gave him both of the signs he requested and even offered him a third one. God reassured him that his mission would be successful, and Gideon led the troops into battle confident that God would give them the victory. Gideon and his forces defeated the Midianite army, and, as a result, Israel enjoyed forty years of peace afterward.
Elijah lost hope in the wilderness, but God, in the silence on Mt. Horeb, reassured him that his mission would not fail and that he was not alone. Elijah found the resolve to keep going and continued to fight the good fight. He continued to prophesy and to speak out against the corruption of the royalty and against the worship of false gods until the day he was taken up to Heaven in the fiery chariot.
Peter doubted when he walked on water with Jesus, but Jesus caught him when he started to sink. Peter would once again become overwhelmed with the storms of life and would deny that that he even knew Jesus. Jesus never gave up on him, but trusted him with the feeding of His sheep. Eventually, Peter came to the realization that, with God’s help, he could follow in his Rabbi’s footsteps. Peter became a great leader in the early church. On the Day of Pentecost, he preached to a crowd, and three thousand people dedicated their lives to Christ.
Thomas missed Christ’s first appearance to the disciples and doubted the Resurrection, but Jesus came back just for him. 3 He showed Thomas His scars, and Thomas proclaimed Him “My Lord and my God.” For this reason he is known to many, not as “Doubting Thomas” but “Thomas the Believer.” Thomas went on to become a great missionary. He is believed to be the only apostle to take the Gospel outside of the Roman Empire, going as far as India and China. 4
Perhaps doubt is simply a part of the journey of faith. Just as we are invited to cast our anxiety on God, let us also cast our doubts on Him as well. Let’s take a lesson from these stories of doubt and give God the opportunity to turn our doubt into stronger faith. According to the minister Harry Emerson Fosdick:
Faith without doubt is no faith at all. Ask your questions and have your doubts. That's a great thing. Just include God in on the conversation. If you do that honestly, the day will dawn when you question your questions and doubt your doubts. 5
MY OWN STORY OF DOUBT
I want to give you one more story of doubt. This one is not from the Bible, and the doubter has not done anything nearly as great as the things done by the men in the other stories.
Most people would not suspect this of me, but sometimes I have trouble managing my anger. One time I became angry about something that I no longer remember, and I broke the mouse I was using with my computer. I drove over to Wal-Mart, and, twenty dollars later, I had a new one. On the way back to my house, I was feeling really disgusted with myself. I began to wonder if there was any hope for me at all. I have a bad habit of changing the radio station as I drive. I changed the radio station, incidentally to the Christian rock station, and this was the song I heard:
I left the ninety-nine to find the one
And you’re the one
I walked a thousand miles in the desert sun
Only to bring you back 6
And you’re the one
I walked a thousand miles in the desert sun
Only to bring you back 6
It has been said that “lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.” Jesus came into this world to fight for those that the world had given up on. I don’t believe that it was a coincidence that I heard that particular song at that moment. I believe that God was using that song to remind me that He was not going to give up on me, the lost little sheep that I am.
❑
Do not be discouraged when you feel doubt. Instead, give your doubts to God. He will not forsake you for doubting. He did not give up on Gideon or Elijah. He did not give up on Peter or Thomas. He has not given up on me, and he will not give up on you. May God rain down his grace upon you so that your seeds of doubt grow into great faith.
Notes:
1 - Rob Bell, “005 Noise”, Nooma
2 - Rob Bell, “008 Dust”, Nooma
3 - Dave Rhodes, “Flirt: Love Lockdown”, Wayfarer/Engage
4 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Apostle
5 - Chris Brooks, “Flirt: Cloudy Faith”, Wayfarer/Engage
6 - From "To Bring You Back" by Paul Alan
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