Doing Doubt

I was raised on "Bible drill." For those not familiar with Bible belt culture imagine a game show requiring military-like speed and accuracy where the purpose is to locate and read, as fast as humanly possible, a passage of scripture mentioned by a Sunday School teacher. All this to say, I was taught my Bible with a certain feverishness that, while at times could be stressful, has often reaped great rewards later in life. Of course, such tactics, however well-intended, can have unfortunate consequences and the main one from "Bible drill" is that it makes Scripture reading a pinpoint target where you focus on the bull's eye without seeing the bigger landscape behind it, so to speak, those verses surrounding the pericope - contextualizing it. This reality was made all the more real for me when I was caught off guard by one of those passages that I knew - memorized, believed, and attempted to walk - the Great Commission, Matt. 28:18-20. I knew the bull's eye but failed to notice the lay of the land and thus a critical context for this passage - the audience. "Wait a minute!" You're probably saying, "The audience is the disciples - everyone knows that!" (Okay, I'll drop the fictitious, rhetorical dialogue). The critical context for the Great Commission is supplied in the two verses prefacing it. I'll quote them in full: "Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, . . . " Here we find a worshiping community of the risen Lord who doubts. I find great comfort in doubt and worship coexisting together but that will have to be for another blog. What I find even more pertinent for us as a community is Jesus' response to the disciple's doubt and, I would suggest, for our doubt as well. What is that response? He give them/us something to do! What this suggests on the one hand is that doubt is normal even biblical. Those who walked with Jesus and encountered him risen from the grave were not immune to the doubts which remain part of discipleship - remember they had already encountered and worshiped him earlier (see vs. 9-10). What such a context also suggests is that when we doubt, Jesus isn't terribly interested in securing our faith through fancy arguments and incontestable proofs; no, he simply gives us something to do. You see it is in doing that doubt both matters and in critical ways dissipates. It is in doing Kingdom work that you will ultimately find God's presence and activity. It is in responding to doubt outside of yourself that you make such issues like the lordship of Jesus more than points of dogma but meaningful and critical facts for changing the lives of others and your own. Don't let doubt sideline you in the Christian life; rather, let it lead you into a richer life of service to others knowing that God has called you to participate in his work. For a final analogy (and given my bull's eye imagery earlier maybe a mixed metaphor) I simply point you to my youngest daughter who is learning to swim. She often doubts her ability to move through the water without sinking down and frets about swallowing water and sputtering and spewing chlorinated H2O. Nevertheless, you and I both know that the only way through this doubt is for her to swim - to do it. Otherwise, she would be fretting over something that didn't matter - why worry about swimming if you never swim? In the same way, if you struggle with doubt in your walk of discipleship remember its normal and then step up to the edge, point your hands above your head and dive. Otherwise, what's the point?