“I didn’t just survive a wreck. I wasn’t just blown up yesterday. I have been stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted, and burned.” —Phil Connors, Groundhog Day
Ah…my forays into the world of online forums. I always swear I will post once or twice and then leave but end up posting about five hundred responses in two days. Which brings us to the point of why I started blogging in the first place—to spare others my continual intrusions every time I process a thought.
One brave soul broached the topic of doubting God’s existence and whether anyone else ever doubts what they believe about Him. But of course! Why not? I had not thought about it in ages, and to be sure it is exceedingly difficult to share one’s doubts in a church setting, the very place you would think people go to find out about such matters. But we all have doubts at one time or another.
Except that I don’t have them. Not these days. Which made me wonder, Why not? What makes the difference? Do our doubts have roots in such things as our age, our experience, how old we were when we first believed God? I confess I don’t know. But I do know that everyone has them at some point—I just honestly haven’t had much doubt about God’s actual existence since about age 12 or so when I entertained the possibility of His non-existence for about five minutes.
And then there was the other week when I went for a walk and pretended that God didn’t exist. Wait! What am I saying? Pretended? That must sound absurd to an atheist who thinks we all pretend anyway. But here I must defend myself to the indignant crowd who would ask, “Why in the world would you pretend to be an atheist?” Okay, I confess. I was trying to understand their world. It just didn’t “take”. Something about pretending there is no God in all that open air beauty— I don’t know…my mind didn’t believe its own lie or something.
But the doubts about truth and doctrines… I can understand having them. It’s just that I haven’t seriously entertained them in a long, long time. And to tell the truth, I don’t have doubts much to speak of any more. Now how did that happen? I have to think back. Perhaps I made a mistake in answering too soon the poor fellow who asked in the first place. There is no way words can do justice to what our heart knows. Even if our words are true, how can another person experience the very sensibilities that brought us to this place of assurance? Words have done little good, I fear. The people back at the forum remain in their doubts, still puzzling over the seeming illogic of my explanations while yours truly does not feel the least bit of confusion. I feel somewhat guilty, as if I have just drunk a toast to drowning people. Then again, maybe I do not feel too guilty, as I feel I have paid my dues on this matter of faith and doubt. But on to true confessions…
Yes, there have been times when I doubted. If I did not doubt God’s existence, I certainly doubted certain doctrines off and on. I wondered if I had too little faith when I prayed. I remember how Sister Full-of-herself used to pray with uplifted hands and booming voice, “Lord, we AGREE with your word, as written here in this chapter and verse, that you are going to heal Bro. Joe and give him a job and make his debts disappear. Yes, Lord, we DO BELIEVE, not wavering, but we come BOLDLY before the Throne!” Such people seemed so sure…always so sure. I used to watch them for signs of weakness because I really wondered how they could believe so strongly. I never could believe with such dead assurance.
I had great difficulty, for instance, in believing for healing. I tried many times to “claim” healing and things of that sort—to no avail. For a long time I thought I was at the bottom of the barrel on that one. I believed in miracles, to be sure. I believed God could do anything—I just wasn’t so sure that He would. For one thing, I used to wonder if I had gotten off on some point of the doctrine and perhaps that’s why it wasn’t working right for me. Or perhaps I hadn’t tithed or prayed hard enough. Perhaps I had some sin lurking in my memory that was interfering with something. You would laugh to hear all the gymnastics I went through trying to get it right. I once repented of every sin I’d ever heard of whether I’d ever committed it or not, thinking that might move God’s hand.
How many times over the years did I have to be reminded that God’s yoke is easy and His burden is light? Those know-it-alls who used to say, “Sister, you just don’t have any faith,” didn’t do me any favors, either. I just wanted to smack them all! I’d crawl out of bondage one way and fall into it six times another way.
And this is the god’s honest truth….here is the down-home Texas girl talking now— The best thing God ever did for me is shoot the world out from under me. When nothing worked any more and I had no reason to believe anybody’s fix-it doctrine for anything, the real God appeared in the midst of it. Only the part that was worth believing remained. I don’t know how it happened, but I guess that was the last time I ever had major doubts.
Come to think of it—to this day I still don’t believe God will jump through my hoops. I don’t see that as a lack of faith, but as a recognition of His true character. When you believe in what is, everything works. When you believe in what ain’t, nothing works. The doubts about God’s love for us come when we try to make Him behave like somebody He’s not. Nothing you say will convince God to behave like the tooth fairy if He doesn’t feel like rolling out of bed and jumping into a tutu. He’s not in the business of entertainment or making you a “success in life”. He’s got a kingdom to get going. Unfortunately, He has to blow a few of us out of the water before He can commence to building it in our lives.
There are only a few things I really believe about God consistently. Because they are so few, I don’t have to wrestle with doctrines about “50 ways to bend God’s arm”. Here is what I know:
1. God isn’t going to help me build my kingdom. He’s going to burn it to the ground and build His own. (“Not I, but Christ.”)
2. He leads the blind, not the sighted.
3. Prayer initiated by the Holy Spirit is God’s own idea and is always answered with an unqualified “yes”.
4. In time, what I don’t understand will come to light.
5. If I am destroyed, He will raise me up.
Simplistic, some would say. Ever since I turned stupid, I’ve seen God do more things in my behalf than I ever saw when I was smart. God works in so many ways He’s not “supposed” to work that I am forced to conclude that He must really love me. When one has been cornered by love, it seems ridiculous to doubt.
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November 25, 2007 at 12:30 pm
MikeF
Wonderful post – when you hit the nail, you really hit it square on the head!
“The best thing God ever did for me is shoot the world out from under me. When nothing worked any more… the real God appeared… Only the part that was worth believing remained. I don’t know how it happened, but I guess that was the last time I ever had major doubts.”
That is so precisely what happened to me – when the thing I was most afraid of actually came to pass, and everything I had helped build blew to smithereens, there was God. Really God. He IS, and his mercy is everlasting.
Your list of 5 things about prayer is darn nearly perfect – I’ve copied that to keep!
Do you know Ole Hallesby’s comment, describing a situation where a prayer for healing appeared not to be answered: “Now notice what we have missed! Did God not hear our prayer? Indeed he did, and proceeded at once to fulfil it. But he himself reserved the right to decide when and how the answer was to be given, and in his own time the answer came. We, however, did not experience it as an answer. We had long since forgotten that we had prayed for this particular thing; at least, we did not recognise it as an answer to the prayer we had prayed. We had planned for a very definite answer of our own; and when we did not receive the answer we had planned for, we thought we would receive no answer at all.”
November 25, 2007 at 6:18 pm
saltsister
Mike,
Years ago if someone else has written this I would have viewed it as a cowardly approach to faith. You mention something about healing and here I can share something.
I once suffered an illness that left me in a “condition” shall we say—not ill and yet dependent on a bit of medicine the rest of my life. I figured I was just lucky to be alive and didn’t argue with God about it. There was one person who prayed for my healing. I didn’t argue with that either. I figured “whatever”.
I forgot about it on a day-to-day basis and started to focus on God, come what may in life. Then about 10 years later after I got irritated at the way the medical system works in my town, I just forgot about renewing my prescription. A couple of times later I had blood tested and was surprised that everything was normal. Before, I was never quite normal even with medicine.
A nurse friend of mine declared it a miracle, as she had not seen or heard of anything like it in 35 years of nursing. Who knows what it actually means? But we may never know since doctors study illness, not healing.
Not all of us are specially gifted to pray for immediate and miraculous healing. Yet even so I have watched God come through for every need. I never know what He’ll do, but I know He will do something. I tend to believe that most miraculous prayer is for unbelievers. However, God continues to care for believers even if the care doesn’t always appear miraculous to us.
Thanks for sharing Ole Hallesby’s comment. No, I’d never heard that before. It’s very true that we often don’t notice when an answer to prayer has come.
November 26, 2007 at 3:40 am
patrick
Saltsister,
I can’t say that I’ve doubted God’s existense. I have doubted that he cared for me or that he would move on my behalf in a particular situation. That is more painful in my experience that actually thinking that He doesn’t exist. The reason being is that if He does exist and is not helping me or guiding me or healing me or whatever, then what’s wrong with me. I can’t deny his existence, my past has too many concrete evidences.
In that place of doubting God’s care for you dwells alot of religion. People come up with a million different explanations that may or may not be valid. It doesn’t matter though, because its not your answer. What matters is your answer from Him. So now I’m no longer content to listen to all the lovley religious platitudes that explain my unanswered requests. Now I go boldly before Him and say ” I don’t trust you that you care” This has been going on too long. What is it ? What do you want me to know. Please hear my prayers. Show me a sign for good.
I think sometimes we forget that Jesus cried out to the Father with loud cries. He was distraught at times, he was turned inside out at the death of his friend. We wasn’t just cruisen.
anyway too many words. Thats my story and I’m stickin to it.
patrick
November 26, 2007 at 8:12 am
saltsister
And a good story it is, Patrick. Thanks for sharing that one. It’s all too true.
November 28, 2007 at 12:56 am
Sue
Love the Groundhog Day quote at the start! Haha!
I don’t doubt as much anymore either. I think mine were imbedded in where I was at on the journey, on that “working out your salvation with fear and trembling” thang. I doubted more on the parts of my journey where I was still trying to work out whether God really is the big bad bastard I was worried he was, or whether he was a Papa I could trust. But having said that, there are still giant pockts the size of some small African countries that have doubt in me. I don’t imagine there will ever not be.
I love how you were walking around pretending to be an atheist. You’re such a writer
And gee, I just love what you say here. Wonderful stuff.
I’ll be baaaack
November 28, 2007 at 1:57 am
saltsister
Oh, who is a writer now: “…there are still giant pockets the size of some small African countries that have doubt in me.” Oh, this is fabulous! Yes, do come back.
May 30, 2009 at 12:32 pm
saltsister
Turns out the last comment here was from a spammer (I thought it looked suspicious.) This one had the gall to say that one of my contacts here on SS had just experienced a tragedy in his family. I emailed the other party to get the facts and both of his daughters are alive and well. I’ve booted the spammer.
March 21, 2011 at 2:46 pm
Brittney Jane
For the past three years I have had this doubt that has really consumed me about whether or not God was real. I know that there are plenty of instances where “It could’ve only be by the Grace of God.” However, I can say it over and over in my mind that God is real, but my stomach seems to have this sick feeling where my EMOTIONS and mind mind are not in-sink, I want to understand his grace and how so many people can just FEEL it deep down in their bones that he is real. Has anyone ever felt this?
March 23, 2011 at 9:22 pm
saltsister
This is quite common. It’s quite easy to sense the reality of God one moment, then next moment it’s as if He has disappeared. If I had to guess the most likely reason, I’d say that you in your natural, soulish self are sensing the separateness of the Natural Man from God. We live most of the time in our flesh and soul since the Fall, so it’s no wonder.
God is not sensed by the Natural Man. He is sensed by the Spiritual Man. This requires some explanation, though, which Christianity generally has forgotten. Paul spoke of this natural man:
“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.” I Cor. 2:14
Paul speaks in numerous places about dying daily as well as sharing in the Lord’s suffering and in His resurrection. It’s not a one time experience even though it has been accomplished once for all in the realm of eternity. It must also be experienced through a real-time process here on earth. I believe this suffering of the natural man is what Paul is describing as the Lord strips away the power of the self-life so that we may enter more fully into the resurrection of the spiritual life through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
All people are natural at birth. After our heart receives Christ, our spiritual awareness of God is often punctuates our conscious life like notes played in staccato–audible one moment and completely gone the next. Doubts about God can come upon a believer at any time. We can experience a profound touch and then wonder if we dreamed it all up two months later. It usually requires a slow and deep process for God to work His way into our every fiber.
I believe this is one reason the Lord often operates more visibly at first in the life of new believers than in the lives of mature believers. They need more encouragement that He is really there. And then it seems as if He disappears, but actually the Lord is weaning His own off of His “things” and causing them to cry out to Himself for more of Him. As soon as the Lord answers one need, we have another need so that we are always going to Him to get needs fixed. But no matter how many times we are healed, no matter how many times He miraculously delivers us in some way, we are still going to come to the end of our life. It is usually in the worst possible time of our life that we realize we need Him more than we need His performance on behalf of some temporal issue.
When the Lord meets us at such a crisis, the awareness of Him generally becomes more profound. As we are open to His dealings thereafter, our eyes and ears become more open to Him. He touches us in ways that stay with us far longer. He may seem to disappear again for a time, but we will not be fooled by the feelings of the natural man after that. We will then know that He is still there even if we do not feel His presence. He’ll prove the hope of our patience when He shows again. This is how we learn to walk by faith.
Just stay open to His dealings and know that you do not have to strive to know Him and to feel Him near you. If you are seeking, He will find you. In the meantime, rest assured that the God of the Universe is no less God in Christ Jesus within your heart when you are weak than when you are strong. It’s not about your feelings. It’s about Who He is.