Unbelief is one of those topics that we Christians tend to
steer clear of like a sewer manhole without a cover. Wouldn’t admitting to
bouts and struggles with unbelief be tantamount to divorcing ourselves from our
very identity? We call ourselves “believers”
for crying out loud! Not at all. In fact, we even see in scripture (Mark 9:24)
the story of a man who said “I believe, help my unbelief”. We sometimes chuckle at his mid-sentence
realization that what he was saying didn’t match up with what he was actually experiencing. But I think if we look closer we find almost
a formula for how to deal with doubts.
He stated that he did believe, but recognized there were still pockets
of doubt lurking in his heart and mind and instead of only saying “I believe”
to look good in front of Jesus, he was honest with where he was and immediately
blurted out the confession, “help my unbelief”.
And this, my friends, is what I think Jesus was after all
along (and still is). He’s after a relationship
with us and he has already paid dearly to make that possible. But as anyone with even cursory social skills
knows, every true healthy relationship is built on honesty. We fall into our enemy’s trap when we think
that something we have thought or done needs to be hidden from God. Newsflash:
He already knows. Hiding from God when
we’ve screwed up is literally one of the oldest tricks in The Book and the
Enemy’s purpose of it is to create relational distance between us and the one
who created us.
Interestingly, I don’t think that the answer to unbelief is
to avoid every topic we run into that causes confusion or doubt, tossing them
back into the corner of our minds until they become an overwhelming avalanche
of questions we’ve convinced ourselves that God can’t answer before we’ve ever
even asked Him directly. While the word
is clear that we should not waste our time on a lot of pointless debates (2 Tim
2:23) with other people, I do believe that we are supposed to bring those
doubts to God; Immediately, if not sooner. (as my 5th grade teacher
used to say).
There was a time in my college years that I secretly began
to doubt if God was real or not. Given
that my entire identity, family, and friends were all rooted in the belief in Christ,
this was a very real crisis for me. In
some of those really hard moments, I would pray like this, “God if you are
real,…”. I now look back on this time as
me banging my fists against God’s chest while He held me in his arms. While I hope that you are not that far down into
the pit of despair, one thing I can tell you from experience. He can handle it. He is still God. His feelings won’t be hurt when you tell him
where you’re really at, He, in fact already knows and is waiting for you to
bring it to him rather than trying to fix it yourself by drumming up religious
feelings and listening to more Christian music.
So I guess my point is, whether you are doubting that He
promised you what you think he did, that He really meant what he said in the
Bible about (insert countercultural verse here), whether or not Christ is really
God, or if you even finding yourself questioning if there is a God at all, TAKE
IT TO GOD, regardless of what you believe at this second, He is the same
yesterday, today, and forever. He’s not
insecure. He can take it.
-Renee Moreland
Sea of Galilee, Israel Trip 2016
