I don’t want to doubt.
Since I started following Jesus thirty-four years ago, God has consistently spoken to me through the written word, creation, and the faint whispers of the Spirit. Our relationship is thankfully not one way. On most days, there’s a stream of thoughts and words flowing in God’s direction. I’ve never doubted that He listens or hears me, but in the past few years, I have begun to doubt the efficacy of my prayer.
Perhaps it’s a problem I’ve created since I tend to go big when I pray. I’m not simply asking God to open up a parking spot. I’m praying for the eradication of the Ebola virus in West Africa, for an overhaul of the criminal justice system, for the church to choose holiness, and for my friend’s cancer to go away. None of these situations seem to be moving in the hoped for direction. That lack of circumstantial change can sometimes deflate my faith.
When doubt is having its way in me, I hear words like whatever come out of my mouth. I justify not praying because apparently, the frequency and fierceness of my intercession is directly connected to the level of doubt coursing through my system. Doubt is the siren which beckons me to shipwreck my faith. I fear it because I am well aware of just how far I would drift if I cut the cords which bind me to Christ.
According to theologians such as Paul Tillich, such fear is misguided. He wrote, “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.” The notion that doubt could be anything other than negative is new to me. I’ve always read Jesus’s words and assumed that if I doubted, He would spit me out of his mouth like cold coffee.
In the 2008 movie Doubt, starring Meryl Streep and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, Streep plays the role of an unflinching nun who appears to live free from doubt. Her certainty compels her to make decisions which result in personal and corporate loss. Throughout the movie, she never wavers—until the final scene. There, in the presence of a tender sister, she admits between sobs, “I have such doubt.” I admired her character before, but in that moment, my dispassionate admiration transitioned to tears and affection. Radical thought—is it possible that God feels that same way toward me when I doubt?
If I could wrap my hermeneutic around the reality that God loves me and is for me even when doubt threatens to swallow me whole, it would change everything. The doubt I feel when my prayers are seemingly not answered can be like an enormous anchor that drags along the bottom, holding back the ship’s forward movement. To know that God is not displeased with me when I doubt would be like having that anchor winched up onto the deck. While the anchor would still be there, it would no longer hold the ship back.
Of late, I’ve stepped up my prayer because what more can I do when the world seems to be descending into chaos? If that descent continues, I risk having to double back thorough the deep quicksand of disappointment and doubt. But because the only real option seems to be apathy—which is not where I want to land—I continue to pray, hoping that like the father in Mark 9, the Lord will “help me overcome my unbelief.”
This post first appeared on Jen Pollock Michel’s fabulous site.