I Doubt It

If there is anything I wrestle with, doubt is one of the more constant battles. I doubt what I hear God saying, I doubt what He asks me to do and sometimes I doubt myself, whether I can truly do the things God calls me to. This week, I found myself sitting in my cozy chair asking God to increase my faith. A few days after that prayer, I was making dinner in my kitchen and God gave me a word of knowledge for someone. Instantly, I thought to myself, that cannot be true, and finished draining the noodles for spaghetti pie. Just a few hours later, I found out what God had told me was ACTUALLY true and confirmed. I sunk back into my same cozy chair where I had prayed for faith, only to meet it with my doubt….again.

The beauty of wrestling with something is that complacency in the struggle is not an option. Wrestling with something means we are willing to fight for better. We see the first seed of doubt planted in the ears of Eve in the Garden of Eden. “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? ”(Genesis 3:1). Doubt is a weapon of the enemy, for the Bible describes Satan as the father of lies (John 8:44). We, however, have the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of us, and the authority to not listen or act upon the whispers of doubt that run through our minds. I remember talking to a dear friend who was questioning everything about her faith. She told me what helped her in that season was a reminder to trust the gift of the Holy Spirit that lives inside her and allow the fruits of the spirit to be active in her life. When we allow the Spirit of the Living God to work in and flow through our lives, we get to experience His power displayed from a relationship built on trust and experience His faithfulness flow like living waters. 

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” (John 7:37-38)

As we believe in Him, His authority, His goodness, His faithfulness, His plans, His timing, His higher ways, and His great love for us, living waters will flow in and through us. As I picture these rivers of living water, God showed me what they look like when we entertain the spirit of doubt. I saw clear, beautiful rivers like we see in warm Montana summers, but every few miles were beaver dams with mud, twigs, leaves, and brush, blocking the flow. When we build dams of doubt, the living waters trickle, and not flow freely, as we miss out on the free-flow of God’s Spirit. We know God’s goodness; we even sing about it. We know His ways are higher, as we read about, and we know that He loves us with a deep love that we cannot even fathom, yet, like a beaver, we take our mud, sticks and twigs, one at a time, and block the flow of His Spirit in our questioning and doubt. Some of us need to remove our muck of doubt and hesitancy and let the waters flow. 

Instead of building dams of doubt, let us build foundations of trust with the One who lives in and through us. Where have you been building dams of doubt? I believe as we go about this new week, God wants us to press into Him, and trust Him with EVERYTHING we have and all that we are. Let us remove the doubt, one stick at a time, and let His living waters flow from within.