I Doubt It

(cbn.com)

Sometimes I get a little pitiful. Just a few minutes ago, my phone rang. I heard it, but I couldn’t see it. I knew where it was supposed to be. I thought I’d plugged it in to charge, but it wasn’t there on the counter by the plug. I spun around in circles, listening for it, I didn’t get any closer to or further from the ringing. Times like this I get so frustrated with myself. How can I lose something while using it? Or having just used it? How can I not find my phone? It’s never that far from me! It makes me doubt my own sanity. I’ve been sitting here at my kitchen table, writing a letter and lost the pen I was writing with! How can this be? No. There are no roaming ghosts in my house. The only ghost here is the Holy Ghost. Sometimes I find my pen, sometimes I never do. But, my phone? I need my phone. I can always go to the drawer and grab another pen, but I only have one phone. Where was it, you ask? In my pocket. I hope you’re laughing at me, too, because I am.

I’ve also done ditzy things like apply a wet, hot washcloth to my face – without taking my glasses off first. Who does this?

No, I don’t have dementia. I’m not going crazy. But, it goes to show you how simple things can cause us to doubt ourselves. They can cause us to stop trusting our own judgement.

(faithdisrupted.com)

It’s just as easy to doubt God. Crazy, I know. But, true. We look at something simple in the flesh and we don’t make the spiritual connection and we begin to question whether God knows what He’s doing.

We often ask, why does God allow bad things to happen to good people. Wasn’t there a book with that title?

If I can’t find the phone in my own pocket, or the glasses on my own head, how can I seriously believe I understand every little thing about how God moves in our lives? How can I think I fully understand the Word of God when the pen I was just writing with has completely disappeared and I have no earthly explanation for where it’s gone?

Yet, there are many who toss aside their Bibles, muttering to themselves, “I’ve read this, it doesn’t help.” I have friends who have given up on the power of prayer because they’ve prayed and didn’t see their answers manifest according the instructions they’d given to God. Reading the Bible and knowing God are not the same thing.

(phillyvoice.com)

I’m not saying God is too complex to understand, but I don’t think I know anyone who will gather a complete understanding of Who He is before they leave this world. Our understanding is finite. God is infinite.

My neighbor and I were just talking about Peter walking on the water to Jesus. He did great, as long as he kept his eyes on Jesus. The minute he looked at the waves blowing up around him, he sunk into the water. Immediately, Jesus reached out and grabbed his hand. How far out did he walk? Watching the waves and paying attention to the wind caused him to doubt what Jesus had just said to him.

In that same way, when we listen to a diagnosis, or feel pain in our bodies, it’s just as easy to take our eyes off Jesus; to doubt what He’s promised us in His Word.

What are some examples of what you see around you that causes unbelief to stir up inside of you? What situations make it easy for doubt to raise its ugly head and sneer at you?

If we can doubt ourselves and each other, how can we not take into account that we doubt God? Yes, we’re the ones doing the doubting. God’s existence and love for us isn’t in question.

It’s not God that’s failing us. It’s us that fail to believe in God. It’s us who doubt. It’s us who turn away too quickly, who give up before we triumph, sometimes even turning to pity or bitterness.

We may insist we believe in God. But, in effect, most of us merely believe in a higher power, an anonymous, shapeless, unidentifiable, helpless entity, who does nothing at all for mankind. That’s not believing in God.

(crosswalk.com)

Is it easier to believe that God won’t help us than it is to believe He does?

I know that I know that I know that my God is intimately involved in every single aspect of my life, even the parts I don’t understand, myself.

My lack of understanding doesn’t negate the God of the universe.

When our lack of understanding rises to that level, we’ve made ourselves into our own god, and we’ve failed ourselves.

It’s time to get back to our first love. It’s time to get back to the basics of God’s Word, to nourish ourselves with the milk of the word, since we’ve begun to choke on the meat.

Repent. Do you now what it means? It simply means to turn around. When we recognize we’re messing up doubting or going the wrong way completely – it’s as simple as turning around.

Jesus said, “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.” – Mark 11:23

Not addressing what “this mountain” might be right now, just pondering how much we doubt…..

(luxecoliving.com)