Without a Doubt

Ever hear the saying, "Doubt and go without"?

I think that Jesus originated that saying. You might recognize it better in context. He said in Mark's Gospel, chapter 11, after cursing the fig tree. "Have faith in God!"

Then:
"I can guarantee this truth: This is what will be done for someone who doesn’t doubt but believes what he says will happen: He can say to this mountain, ‘Be uprooted and thrown into the sea,’ and it will be done for him. That’s why I tell you to have faith that you have already received whatever you pray for, and it will be yours."

A promise that even mountains will obey my words -- wow! That sounds too good to be true. There must be a catch.

There isn't a catch, but for many years, the part of Jesus' words that tripped me up was what He said about doubt. Anytime I tried to believe God's promises and then later experienced thoughts of doubt and fear in my mind, I thought I had lost my faith and gave up on my request. It was discouraging because it seemed I couldn't keep those doubtful thoughts from coming, so I always had to keep starting over in my petitions to God. 

But that is not what Jesus is saying. Another passage about doubt in the book of James (chapter 1) is helpful. James defines doubt as wavering back and forth between two decisions instead of staying fixed on one direction. If you started down a path toward your destination, and then halfway along decided to stop or turn around and go back the way you came, you would never get to where you're supposed to be going.

That's what happens when we start out believing God and then allow doubt to derail us.

The opposite of wavering, then, is to be focused on your goal with determination. Faith means to stay the course, no matter what it looks like, seems like or feels like. It's up to us whether we decide to keep going forward or not.

When it comes to impossibilities happening in our lives, that resolute path means we keep going in the same direction as what we first affirmed, both with our words and our actions. The way we talk and the way we act should be aligned with what we say we believe. Our emotions may be screaming, "It's not working! God didn't hear you!" Our will may want to give up the fight. Our minds may be full of questions. It doesn't matter. We can say, like the Apostle Paul, "None of these things move me." We can focus instead on what God has promised, knowing that He cannot lie, and continue to move in the direction we started without giving up or letting go. 

Faith and doubt, then, are not so much uncontrollable feelings as they are attitudes inside us that determine if we will keep going or if we will draw back.

If we stay on the path of our belief in God's goodness and His promises, eventually those things that we continue to say will come into existence. Our words will be fulfilled.

It cannot be otherwise. Jesus promised.