Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Doing doubt

Sunday, March 30, 2008

John 20:22-31
Jesus breathed on the disciples and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."

Thomas was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to 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 into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."

Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you."

Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe." Thomas answered and said to him, "My Lord and my God!"

Jesus said to him, "Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."

Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

Thomas believed Jesus and spent the rest of his life traveling and sharing the Gospel as far away as India. In all those later years of days and nights, did he ever doubt his memory, or ever doubt the Lord again?

Garrison Keillor writes of attending his church on Easter this year:

There I was, a skeptic in the henhouse, thinking weaselish thoughts. This often happens around Easter. God, in his humorous way, sometimes schedules high holy days for a time when your faith is at low tide ... and while everyone else is all joyful and shiny among the lilies and praising up a storm, there you are, snarfling and grumbling. Which happened to me this year. God knows all about it so I may as well tell you.

Keillor's pulls me in by his frank admission of imperfection. Not failure, now, but not right either. Thomas of Yesteryear and David of Now both can relate. The Bible I read every day, which often is illuminated for me (and you) by the Holy Spirit, is sometimes a closed book, and when that happens I wonder if it's God's words after all. Keillor too:

I read about how the early church cobbled the Scriptures together, which has to raise doubts in anyone\'s mind. The Jews got stone tablets and the Mormons arranged for an angel to bring them their holy text, but ours was hammered out through a long contentious political process, sort of like the tax code, and that's something you don't care to know more about.

How much thinking do I want to do about this anyway? On the dark days, the less thinking I do the better. But even then, I don't believe it hurts me. God loves me far too much to let my thoughts affect our relationship. He's there for me, and that's that.

But my brothers and sisters don't always see it that way. There's something scary that happens when one of us starts to question the foundations. Keillor kind of lost it later in the service:

So I sat and felt miserable. And then we had to chant the Psalm, which went, "I am in trouble, my life is wasted with grief and my years with sighing." Oh boy. David really gets into the blues, he is the Howlin' Wolf of the chosen, and when he sings, "I have become a reproach even to my neighbors, a dismay to those of my acquaintance, when they see me in the street they avoid me," I know that feeling. The leper. The unbeliever.

On the sunny morning of the new day none of this seems to matter. God is alive and magic is afoot. But not all days feel like that. I'm grateful for the fact, unchangeable, of God's love. And I'm grateful he has taught me think, and when I think critically or skeptically, I know he will make something good of it. Keillor closes his thoughts:

Skepticism is a stimulant, not to be repressed. It is an antidote to smugness and the great glow of satisfaction one gains from being right. You know the self-righteous--I've been one myself--the little extra topspin they put on the truth, their ostentatious modesty, the pleasure they take in being beautifully modulated and cool and correct when others are falling apart. Jesus was rougher on those people than he was on the adulterers and prostitutes. So I will sit in the doubter's chair for a while and see what is to be learned back there.

Your thoughts are higher than my thoughts, Lord, and for that I am always thankful. Give me this day, my daily bread.

Devotions Archive

Doing doubt

Sunday, March 30, 2008