Flights of Doubt Covered by Grace

All throughout Scripture, we're told that all we need is to have faith in Christ (Ephesians 2:8; Luke 7:50; 1 John 5:4...).  It is so relieving to know that no matter the sin I have committed in my life if I just have faith, the Father looks on me with loving eyes that see His Son's past instead of mine.  I am covered by His blood.  And all I have to do is believe.  Grace is a pretty awesome (and undeserved) gift.

But sometimes, it's a little difficult to have faith.  And so I ask why?  Why is it hard for me to just put my trust in the Lord?  He is constantly pouring out His grace, love, and forgiveness onto me and constantly holding onto me when I stray.  He restores my life each morning and has saved my life.  He asks one small task of me:  that I have faith and just believe that He has everything under control.  Why is this hard?

Sometimes when I pray about Him changing the hearts of my family and friends, in the back of my mind I'm doubting whether or not He could actually be that powerful. (Which, I may add, is extremely naive because He changed my heart, and I was one of those "Sauls/Pauls.")  Sometimes when I worry about my future, I wonder if I will miss the opportunities God places in my path to do His will.  I doubt the fact that He has my life under control and a firm grip on me.

This week is the first week of classes for the semester and because I'm in the lovely psychology and biology departments, I'm constantly hearing from professors during this time of year that "God doesn't exist" because "He disrupts the law of nature."  Today that happened in two of my psychology classes.  And I sit there, watching everyone else around me nod in agreement when the professors say things like "we don't have souls" and "religion isn't related to science" (to that one I say, please read recent books such as Evidence for God by Michael Licona) and "Christian psychology doesn't exist."  While I watch their eager-to-soak-up-science faces and listen to the professors rant, I can't help but once every few lectures wonder, "Maybe we are just a bunch of electrochemical signals..."  Of course I then realize how ridiculous my thought process was and ask Jesus to forgive my sudden millisecond of doubt.  It's the biggest downside about being a science major (and minor).

Even if we don't all admit it, we are all guilty of not putting our trust and faith in solely the Lord 100% of the time.  James 1:6 says, "But let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed."  That's why our lives are constantly being tossed by the winds of the world-- the winds of sin.  If we were always confident in our faith, then there would be no room for us to mess up.  Even when we sin it's because we think we know more than the Lord what we want for ourselves.  We don't trust that He knows us better than we know ourselves.

So I feel awful when I have a flight of doubt.  Jesus asks one thing of me and even then I repeatedly fall short.  But today while I was reading Matthew I came across something that made me feel a little more at ease.  In Matthew 16, Peter tells Jesus (without any prompting) that he believes Jesus is the Son of God.  But then in Matthew 17, God speaks to Peter, James, and John and tells them that Jesus is His Son.  Right after they hear from God, the three of them question Jesus about this.  They refer to the book of Malachi when they ask Him how He could be the Son of God if it was prophesied that Elijah was going to come before the Son.  Jesus explains that Elijah did already come (in a metaphor as John the Baptist) and the three disciples understand and believe the words God spoke.

The point is... Peter believed Jesus was the Son of God and then not long after, doubted it again (even after receiving more evidence from God the Father!!!).  Jesus constantly gives us more evidence that He is working in our lives by answering prayer.  God is slowly showing His existence through new developments in science (though some of my professors disregard that...).  But when we get into a freak-out doubting mode, we tend to forget that and ask Him one more time, "Wait, You're sure You got this, right?"

Peter, one of Jesus' disciples, was confused and doubting.  God doesn't expect us to understand it all the time either.  And our faith won't be perfected until we reach Heaven anyway.  So until that day, the learning and the believing needs to be in constant progress.  And every time a prayer or question is answered, we're pushed into a closer relationship with Christ.  Awesome, right?