Have you ever had thoughts that keep rolling around in your head? Or words you keep hearing? Stories you keep hearing with a similar theme to them? Sometimes it is throughout the day or maybe week, even occasionally over the course of months or years. But when you come across them you either you take note of them or brush them off, especially at first. When they keep popping up though what do you do?
I often will just push it off to the side, figuring it is a one and done sort of thing. But when it keeps popping back up, scattered throughout the weeks I begin to take notice. Yet, I have to admit, often it isn’t until it practically hits me in the face that I begin to try to connect the dots.
Recently doubt and faith keep showing up around me, from youngest to oldest. Most often when I’ve been hearing it or seeing it, I’ve noticed it is one or the other and that they don’t go together. Like how can you have doubt if you have faith? Or, how can you have faith if you have doubt?
It wasn’t until I heard a different perspective on the two and how they actually go together and it can even create a bigger, stronger faith. I hadn’t really thought about it in that light before and I had always kept them separate.
Our church has been doing a sermon series, “Asking for a Friend” and recently the question was can doubt and faith work together. At first glance we would say no, but once digging in a little you can begin to see how they work together.
We all have doubts, but not all have faith. I’ve been seeing it in my own kids, kids I work with, friends and family. Having faith helps us through our doubts and doubts can grow our faith. It is okay to have doubts, but in those moments who or where or what do you turn to?
Though it may seem like it, doubt and faith are not opposites. Doubt gets us asking questions, makes us curious, causes us to seek the answers along with the truth. Yet it still comes down to, who or what or where do you turn to? If you have faith, do you turn to God? If you don’t have faith, what do you do? Or, what about if you have faith, yet you still turn to something else?
Even though I follow Jesus, I know I don’t always turn to Him first when doubt begins to settle in. I have learned over the years I can sometimes lean towards being controlling, even in situations that I can’t do anything about. I’m a planner by nature, and at times that can get me into a pickle. For me faith and doubt didn’t co-exist. Either I had doubt or I had faith, or just kind of hung out in the in-between. In all truth, I hadn’t connected the two until recently and realized how we need to keep them together to do their work.
Doubt isn’t necessarily a lack of faith. We can use our faith to help us work through the doubt, to answer the questions we have. We all have doubts at times, even the disciples did, as did Jesus. In the times of their doubt, where did they turn? They turned to asking Jesus questions, Jesus asking and praying to God. This continued to build up their faith and strengthen it. Sure, sometimes we don’t get the answers to our questions right away or maybe in the way we thought, but our faith is what can carry us through and bring a better understanding. It can carry us, even when we doubt.
So, when you have doubt, do you have faith walking alongside it? What is it that is causing doubt right now for you?
You can truly have hope, even when you have doubt and you have a way through that doubt.
I hope and pray you let your light shine and that you can overcome your unbelief. May you have faith, even amidst your doubt.
Until next time,
~ Liz
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