doubt

I watched the movie 'Doubt' late last night and it kind of blew my mind. I mean, there I was, contently watching some boring movie, a little bit sleepy cause it was after 10pm, and then BOOM! I got hit smackdab in the face with a look inside my own soul. If you´ve never seen the movie, maybe you should give it a try, but not really late at night, unless you are a night owl. Then, by all means stay up late.

In the final scene there are two Catholic sisters sitting outside in the snow on a cold day. The older sister, the principal who seems to have a tight grasp on everything is just sitting there trying to keep it all together when the young sister prods deeply into her soul. Finally she cracks. She admits she has doubts too.

Here she is, older Catholic sister who has lived a great deal, seen a lot in the Catholic school where she has been principal for decades, and then she makes the great confession, that she too has doubts sometimes.

This hit me so hard cause I have doubts and so often I live and exist like I dont. You know, I am a missionary, guy who's been serving all his adult life in ministry. I am not supposed to have doubts, right? I have it all together. If you think that sit down with my son, daugther or wife. If you sit down and talk to my wife I have to be in the room, she has too much dirt on me.

We all have doubts right? We wonder about what we've been taught as a child when we go off to college and hear so many new and crazy ideas and philosophies. We question God in the middle of trials as we sit by a hospital bed or a grave. We wonder,'Does He care? Why doesn't God do something? Why doesn't He answer me?'

We have doubts when our spouse walks out the door after years of faithfulness. We have doubts when our son or daughter does the unthinkable or falls into such a deep pit of darkness we can only pray. Doubts....they are there whether we acknowledge them or not. Dark clouds that hang like a thick smoke in the small space of our minds. Hey, my mind is small, dont know about you.

Doubts, what do we do with them? How do we live today with them? How do we go to work with them? How do we love God in the midst of doubts, in the middle of questioning times?

I read a book once that said this about doubt, or faith,

'Sometimes faith is walking in darkness and simply refusing to quit. Sometimes faith is just hanging on. The character of the faith that allows us to be transformed by suffering and darkness is not doubt free certainty, rather it is tenacious obedience.' John Ortberg

Sometimes I talk heresy and say I am not very gifted or dont have many talents. In these times I tell my friends something cheesy like,'I'm not the most gifted guy around. There's a lot of things I don't know how to do, but I do know how to keep going. I just get going, step by step.' Maybe that's what tenacious obedience is. It works for me, cause I have my doubts, more than once in awhile. But I walk, sometimes very small steps, barely picking up my feet. Step by step by step.

Doubt is not the enemy. The enemy is the enemy. Doubt is a companion that can draw us nearer to the bosom of God the Father, if we allow it to do just that. When we question and wonder if we seek, something will happen.....what? That's up to the Father and His creation, you.