Red Letters/Black Letters: Day 131: Faith and Doubt

"Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:29b

When Jesus says those who have not seen and yet have believed does not reference any current believer. Mary Magdalene had seen and believed, the rest of the disciples had seen and believed, and now Thomas had seen and believed. Do you know who Jesus was talking about, all of us, all those who count themselves Christian down through the ages, because we have not seen, yet we believe.

I wish I could say something different, but faith is a difficult thing to have in something that you haven’t seen.  As children we have this, almost innate, belief in our parents, that they are the ultimate solvers, that a kiss could fix a boo-boo, that if we fell they would pick us back up, that no matter what, if they were around everything would be all right. But then, inevitably, something would happen and pain would survive a kiss, we would have to pick ourselves back up, and things weren't always great when they were around. As long as it continued to happen we believed that it would continue to happen, but then when it didn’t we could no longer believe in it.  And that was seeing.

We know that merely being with Jesus didn't give faith, how often do we see Jesus asking his disciples why they have no faith? And we also know that seeing him die wasn’t the automatic catalyst we often think it should have been, one thief praised the other mocked. So we can see that merely seeing isn't always believing. But in our case we have to do something even more difficult that seeing and believing we have to believe without having seen.

Maybe it is like what Billy Graham once said, “Can you see God, have you ever seen him? I've never seen the wind, I've seen the effects of the wind, but I've never seen the wind, there’s a mystery to it.” A mystery to it, I've never seen God, but I have prayed and felt more at peace. I've never felt God’s physical touch, but I've felt my heart moved. I've never literally heard God’s voice, but I know I've known what God has wanted occasionally. Have you been there? Knowing what to do when the way is unclear?

St. Thomas Aquinas said, “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” When I was in youth group we sang a lot in church, for Christmas, Easter, Mother’s and Father’s Day, and any random time my youth leader and senior pastor decided that we should. One day we were asked to write a song to perform in church. I went home and wrote the lyrics to a song titled I Am. In the song it talks about waiting for some simple sign that would turn my head and then later the realization that a miracle won’t make you believe. You see, we are such a people that even when we do see something we may not always see it the same way. What Aquinas and I mean is that if you already believe that God is working you will most likely see a miracle when something unnatural happens, and if you don’t believe God is working you will find some other reason that it happened all together.

Thomas doubted, but that was not the fullness of who he was, the same can be said for each of us, doubting doesn’t disqualify us, neither does it diminish us. We are still meant to be children of God, we are still important enough that God sent Jesus to live and die for us, still important enough that the Holy Spirit is still prodding us on to greater things. St. Augustine said that "faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe." We won’t visibly see God while we walk this world, but if we believe without seeing one day we will be able to walk with him and talk with him, and he will tell us that we are his own. Until then we must look with the eyes of our heart.

+ How do you overcome your moments of doubt?

+ When you read this account, have you ever thought of yourself as being blessed for believing without seeing?