faith and doubt

I just finished reading a book by the title of this blog: Faith & Doubt by John Ortberg. It was a good book. I definitely found myself drawn into it as I was reading. There were a number of things that really made me think as I was reading this book. But there is just one thing quote that I had to stop and read a few times that I want to share from it tonight.

Then Jesus gives the disciples what is called the Great Commission,
sends them out to be his agents in the world. Jesus looks at these worshipping
doubters and says: "You go! You doubters, go. You risk your lives for me. You
change the world for me. And as you will find as you go that it is your own
doubts that are healed. You doubters are included too."
Disciples are not people who never doubt. They doubt and worship. They
doubt and serve. They doubt and help each other with their doubts. They doubt
and practice faithfulness. They doubt and wait for their doubt to one day be
turned to knowing.
Waiting is really hard. Maybe you're not sure if you can wait for God
anymore. But if you do not believe Jesus, if you do not wait for the Father whom
Jesus himself believed in, then the question becomes, what will you wait for?
We're all waiting for something, whether we want to or not. We're all waiting -
in our own lives, in our sorry world. If it's not for God - for the Catcher -
then what is it for?
It seems ironic that every kid, at some point in his or her life wants
to run away and join the circus. The truth is that we are all born holding on to
a trapeze - a little trapeze we call our "life." We hold on to it tightly: our
security, our "okay-ness," our success, our importance, our worth, our stuff,
our bodies, our health, our influence.
Then Jesus comes along and say: "You can let go of all that. You can
let go of your life, because Someone is holding it. You can die to all the
things that would keep you from living in my kingdom, and you'll find out that
you haven't died to anything at all that matters. Let go.
"Let go of all the darkness.
"Let go of all the selfishness.
"Let go of all the fear.
"Just let go."
(Faith & Doubt, John Ortberg, Zondervan 2008, pages
176-177)

That's the way Ortberg finishes his book. The whole book is about choosing to have faith, even in the midst of doubt - how doubt can be good, as long as it does not take us so far that we walk away from faith.

As I read this book, I was challenged to begin to see how doubt can be a good thing. And, really, we see it all the time through-out Scripture. People struggled with doubt even when they could see Jesus face-to-face and they could see His miracles. We choose to have faith despite our doubts.

I was especially struck and spent time dwelling on one portion of the above quote, which I'll repeat here:

Disciples are not people who never doubt. They doubt and worship. They doubt
and serve. They doubt and help each other with their doubts. They doubt and
practice faithfulness. They doubt and wait for their doubt to one day be turned
to knowing.

The first time I read it, I kind of stopped and had to go back to reread because I wasn't sure I got it. But, as I reread, I realized that those few words contained a pretty good summary of what life as a disciple of Christ can be like. We may have doubts, but in the midst of them we continue to serve and worship and encourage, and over time discover those particular doubts go away - although are often just replaced with new ones. But, we still choose to have faith and to follow in the midst of those doubts.

reflections

Do you ever have those days where you think about where you are in life now and compare it to where you thought you would be? That's where I've been today. I guess with it being my birthday, I've been a little reflective today.

If you had asked me when I was in college still where I thought I'd be today, I would have told you something different than what my life looks like now. Not that I have any problem with where my life is. Quite honestly, it's a pretty good life. I have a good job - good roommates - a great family - I'm involved in things I like. I do like where I'm at and I'm happy with it. But, it definitely looks different from where I thought I would be at this time in my life. I think, though, that where I am now is where God wanted me to be no matter what plans I had for things.

I wonder how often that is the case. We get so caught up in the way we want things to be and so focused on making them happen that way, that we miss what God really wanted for us. God may still use the way we make things to turn out for His glory, but I sometimes wonder if we miss out on the absolute best that God has because of our stubborn insistence on doing things our own way. I could have insisted my life look the way I thought it would now, and probably made it happen, but when I think about what I would have missed along the way, I'm glad I didn't do that this time.

hands and feet

So, I doing some reading for this leadership development program I've been doing with a group from my church this year, and I came across this devotional-type thing that talked about the hand and feet of Jesus and how following Jesus involves using our hand and feet.

It started off just asking you to look at your hands and think about the stories they tell. Our hands can tell stories of where we have been and what we have done when we take the time to think about it. The author of this section then went on to talk about how Jesus' hands and feet told stories of where He had been and what He had done - including the scars from His death on the cross still being there on His resurrected body.

Jesus has now entrusted us with the responsibility of being His hands and feet on this earth, as we continue to bring the message of His Kingdom. We may not feel qualified to do so, but Jesus has sent us out to do so and entrusted us with the responsibility of doing it. Jesus set an example of how we should live through His life - His hands and feet told a story and our can tell the story of our lives in His as we serve Him and live out His calling on our lives. As we use our hands and feet to serve others, we are following Jesus' example of using His hands and feet to serve others.

I just want to close with a portion of what I read that really stuck with me:
So leadership is both simple and profound after all: your hands and feet, Jesus' hands and feet. Leadership is not primarily about you, your abilities, your position, your charisma, your passion, your skills, your cleverness, your wise insights, your capacities or your talents. It is primarily about Jesus showing up, calling you and blessing you. And if you get that, you can become an amazing disciple in the hands of Jesus. The disciples' leadership was not about their qualifications, but about their availability to God. No one was more surprised than the disciples were when God showed up and multiplied the works of their hands many times over. And so it will be with you - you'll be surprised as well, if you place your hands into His.
(VantagePoint3, 2006, pg. 65)