The well-known story of “Doubting Thomas” is recorded in John 20. After the resurrection of Jesus, he refused to believe unless he saw Jesus for himself, and when Jesus appeared to him and invited him to touch the crucifixion wounds, Thomas replied “My Lord and my God.”
It’s a great story to include in the gospels because who among us has not doubted God? Haven’t we all, at one point or another (perhaps even right now), found ourselves saying “If I could just see him… If I could just be sure… If he would just reveal himself….”
Doubt is normal but it darkens the soul. It is the shadow that makes it hard to see. It is the fog that diminishes our visibility and obscures our clarity.
Many of us quietly affirm “I’ll believe it when I see it.” But the biblical truth is just the opposite: “We will see it when we believe it.”
Our doubt is understandable. Pain, disappointment, suffering, and loss can all birth spiritual doubt within us. But sometimes our inability to believe subtly turns into a reluctance to believe. We may start out benignly saying that we can’t believe, but it becomes more malignant when we refuse to believe.
Importantly, doubt is not always something we can think our way out of, because it often emerges more from the heart than the head. “Where was God when…?” “Why did God let this happen?” “If God really cares, why didn’t he…?”
Ultimately, much of the doubt we harbor shifts its focus. We may start out doubting God’s capacity but, almost imperceptibly, we end up doubting his character. That’s deeper and more difficult to resolve.
As we return to the story of Thomas in John 20, there’s a crucial declaration at the end of that story. Jesus says to Thomas, “You have believed because you have seen me, but blessed are those who did not see and yet believed” (v.29). And then John tells us why he wrote his entire gospel and included this story; “…so that believing you may have life” (v.31).
I understand how pervasive and persistent doubt can be. It runs deep within us and it keeps coming up like weeds in the garden. We all have plenty of temporal and existential reasons to doubt God; not his existence, but his love, compassion, presence, goodness, and capacity. We think it would be easier to believe if we could just see. What might happen if we switched that around this week? What if we would believe first, so that we might see second?
Has doubt crept in or taken root in your heart? I can’t explain God to your satisfaction, but I can invite you to experience him for your transformation.
If we will plant the seed of belief, we are best positioned to become trees flourishing by the Water. Believing is seeing.
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