I Don't Doubt It. Or Do I?

Have you ever had so much faith in something that to even think about doubting it made you feel queasy? It’s funny how that works. We grow to have faith in something – anything – and we tell ourselves that if doubt ever entered the picture, then we must not have had faith to begin with. Because if doubt is there, we reason, then our faith isn’t really that strong.

Right about now, you may be thinking of something you have faith in. It could be anything from Santa Claus to Jesus Christ. I don’t care what it is. We all have faith in something. And I would argue that the very thing we have faith in is the very thing we doubt from time to time. (Let that mess with your mind for a while!)

Here’s something else that will mess with you. This is a statement that my pastor preached years ago:

Doubt and faith run on parallel tracks.

In other words, doubt plays an irreplaceable and inevitable role in your faith. It seems like a contradictory statement, I know. But if you have faith in something, no matter what that thing is, there is an element of the unknown. That’s what faith is! It’s trusting in something that's bound to merge with doubt. Because the reality is that if there was no unknown, there would be no faith. There would only be certainty. And certainty requires no faith. It simply requires observation of facts.

But how boring would life be if it was all about certainty and not about faith? Faith is the thing that invokes excitement. Faith is driven by desire. Faith requires more than knowledge; it requires trust and an understanding that can withstand any logical argument. And trust, even in the face of doubt, is where life becomes more than simply survival. That’s when it becomes truly living.

Here’s the question. What do you have faith in? What do you believe so strongly that you are willing to doubt it, just to prove to yourself that your faith is real? Me? There’s a lot I have faith in. The biggest is that Jesus Christ is my savior. Does that mean I have no doubt? Of course not! But I don’t let that doubt stop me from trusting. Instead, I use that doubt to drive me forward into experiencing what it means to truly live!

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1