Abhorring doubt

Small children tend to believe everything they are told. Sadly, experience soon teaches them that this is not always so. I can remember the first few times that I realized even my best friends lied to me. For me, this was a deeply troubling offense and an insult. Certainly childlike believing was easier than trying to discern a lie, yet I also wanted to be trusted. Those lies created a barrier that became difficult to overcome.

When Christ came into my life, I knew that I had discovered Someone who did not lie. However, I also discovered something that troubles me far more than being lied to — my own sinful tendency to doubt God, the One who never lies. 

And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?” (Numbers 14:11)

Spurgeon calls unbelief a monster, a weed, worse than a weed. When it seeds itself in our hearts, we must aim at its root with zeal and perseverance, yet even when one weed is eliminated, more crop up to take its place. Doubt is faith’s great enemy.

Doubting the Lord hurts me, but what does it do to Jesus? I hate lies, but I also am personally wounded if someone does not believe me. How then must the one who said, “I am truth” respond when I do not believe what He says? Does doubt put a dagger deep into His loyal and faithful heart?

Sometimes I will tell someone a truth, the listener agrees with me, but then carries on as if I had never spoken. This too is hurtful and an insult. Yet I do it to Jesus. I agree with His wonderful words and write about them. I tell others what He says, loving His words and knowing they are true. But do I live according to what I know? Do I follow through with a changed life?

As Spurgeon says, Jesus has never given the slightest ground for my doubts. He is God the Son, sovereign and loving. He is the same today as yesterday and forever. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Nothing is too difficult for Him. He can meet any need, solve any problem.

Should I worry that my prayers will go unanswered? Or that He will not keep His promises? Or that I will be in need and He will turn His back? Spurgeon asks, “If Christ were only a cistern, we might soon exhaust his fulness, but who can drain a fountain?”

Another author, John Bunyan, says that unbelief has “as many lives as a cat.” It seems to me this is an understatement. In my sinful heart, doubt is more like dandelions. Even those that I think have been dug out to the root have a way of popping up again with even greater vigor, taking over the field of my heart.

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Lord, I so identify with the man who said, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” Doubt is a terrible insult to You and a traitor that habitually threatens my soul. Never do I want You to feel the insult that I feel when someone does not believe what I say, yet even as I write those words, I know that I am prone to doubt, prone to hearing the lies of Satan rather than remembering the truth that You always speak. I abhor the reality that my doubt insults You.  You are my Savior and from this sin I also need redemption. You have taught me to love truth. Keep teaching me to always recognize the source of my doubts and deal with this enemy until doubt can no longer find a place to grow in my life.

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