For many years, I felt afraid of doubts. In my world, to doubt just was to waver in faith or to become one of the dreaded backslidden. Yet, it was doubts, or maybe better stated, tough questions, that helped me mature in faith. I believe if we let the doubts and questions do their work, they can help us all mature into the disciple makers we’re supposed to be.
James says that one should ask for wisdom without doubting. He wrote in James 1:5-8, “Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, being double-minded and unstable in all his ways.” Faith and doubt are opposite ends of the spectrum, so it seems.
Perhaps a better translation, or at least a more literal one, of James’ use of “doubt” would be “double-minded.” James’ focus here is on believers who trust God but pray to Him as if He will not answer, care, engage, show mercy, or grant wisdom. The doubter in James’ mind is one who is going through the motions of faith while actually not having any faith. It is the person who says they believe in God but prays without trusting that God is real and able to actively respond.
This is not generally how we use the term doubt. For me and most people I engage with, our doubts are of the sort that something does not fit. Our questions are not of the sort that doubt God’s existence, rather we doubt whether the God we were taught, the God of tradition is the true God. We doubt whether their experience of the world sufficiently meshes with the God we’ve been given.
The doubts that I’m talking about are doubts that arise precisely because we do know that God exists, that God is the maximally perfect being, that He is slow to anger abounding in steadfast love. The doubts I have in mind are the same sort of doubts that many in the Bible struggle with. We would be wise to follow their lead, trusting in the God they proclaim to grant us wisdom.
Habakkuk is my favorite example of healthy doubt. The opening of the book of Habakkuk powerful, “How long, Lord, must I call for help and you do not listen or cry out to you about violence and you do not save? Why do you force me to look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?” God answers. Habakkuk responds and waits. God answers again. Habakkuk cries out about the glory of God, ending with, “The Lord my Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like those of a deer and enables me to walk on mountain heights!” In this, we see Habakkuk move from doubt to confidence.
His problem was that he knew who God was. Habakkuk’s God was one of faithfulness, love, mercy, and justice. Surely such a God could not look in the face of evil forever and abide it; surely such a God must intervene?! So, Habakkuk cries out. His doubts did not concern God’s existence or whether he could trust God, rather his problem was that his experience of the world did not match the God he knew.
Because Habakkuk knew his God was one of justice, he could not imagine why God had not intervened to stop the evil in his midst, and, even more shockingly, that God might use pagan foreign nations to judge His beloved Israel. Something didn’t fit. God did not condemn Habakkuk, nor did He judge him, rather God leveraged Habakkuk’s doubts to turn him into a prophet to the nations.
John the Baptist is also an interesting example of a doubter. He was the one who prepared the way for Jesus by baptizing in water for repentance. He baptized Jesus himself and testified that Jesus was the lamb of God who was sent to take away the sins of the world. Yet, when John was imprisoned and faced the prospect of his imminent death, while the Day of the Lord had still not arrived, he began to doubt. He did not doubt that God existed or that Jesus was special, rather his understanding from the Old Testament about Messiah and the Day of the Lord was not matching his current experience in prison and continued rule of the wicked Herod. So, he sends his disciples to inquire of Jesus whether He truly is Messiah or if He was foreshadowing another.
Jesus’ response wasn’t one of rebuke and judgment. Indeed, Jesus understood John’s doubts and assured Him that the kingdom of God was at hand and that He was, in fact, Messiah. As John’s disciples left to assure John by relaying Jesus’ message, Jesus goes a step further and says that John the Baptist was the greatest person to ever live! Wow, the greatest ever and still had doubts. John didn’t lack total faith, there was just a piece that didn’t fit and an understanding that he didn’t have yet. He asked in faith to attack his doubt and Jesus responded graciously and overwhelmingly.
Don’t feel guilty about doubts and don’t hide from them. The sovereign, omniscient God of the universe can handle your questions- plus, He already knows you’re thinking them! Don’t hide from your church and friends, either. Instead, model Habakkuk and John the Baptist by doing what James said, ask God in faith about the things you doubt. All of my doubts have led to deeper, truer faith. But that doesn’t mean all my doubts have been fully answered. Some of them linger, but in my prayers about them, exploration into them with ancient and contemporary thinkers, and dialogue with faithful believers about them, I come to learn so many new things about God that the doubts carry so much less weight. They lose their power to stifle my joy. Learning about God is inexhaustible and every doubt leading to new truths opens up a myriad of more insights in the God who chooses to love us.
So, let the doubts do their work. Let them lead you to truth by crying out to God about them, asking for wisdom. Don’t do this alone. Find a group or friends or trusted Christian thinkers to walk with you. You are not alone: the people in the Bible had doubts like you, we in the church today have doubts like you, and, most importantly, God is with you, always.