Faith and doubt inhabit the same place in my heart. They are constantly at war with oneanother. It’s a steady and violent struggle. One moment I am in awe of creation and the creator and the next moment I am appalled and repulsed by the created. Is it the same for you?

I have faith. I can get fired up with the best of them. But I also have doubt. Sometimes my doubt runs deep. So far my faith runs deeper than my doubt. But sometimes my doubt eclipses my faith. It casts a dark shadow over all that I do and hides the Son. Is it the same for you?

John Ortberg, in his book Faith and Doubt, says “The main problem with doubt , when doubt gets toxic, is not what it does to us. It is what it keeps us from doing.” Peter got out of the boat. He walked on the water. He saw the waves and the wind and he began to doubt. Peter sank. He stopped walking and started treading water. Is it the same for you?

We stop giving to missions or to ministries because we doubt it will do any good. We stop talking to our spouse about a problem or to our kids about some concerns because we doubt we’ll make any difference. We doubt we’ll be heard. We doubt we’ll be missed. Is that why we don’t share the gospel as much as we should? Is that why we don’t care for the poor and the needy? Is that why the sick and imprisoned go unvisited?

I wish that I could tell you that I have the reassurance you need that will help you lay aside all doubt about your faith in Jesus and the hope for the planet. I wish I could but I can’t. But I can tell you this, if Jesus is not the answer and if those who believe in Him and follow Him do nothing to elevate the pain and the suffering that occurs on this planet on a minute by minute basis then the world is doomed and there is no hope.

Jesus has to be the answer. His provision for our sin and his constant compassion for our condition are the only hope we have. I cling to Him because I want to, I need to, I have no where else to run and neither does anyone else. I flee to him in desperation for lack of any other saviour. There is no other. His hope is the only hope. “No one else has the words of life.” Is it the same for you?

John Ortberg puts it better than I; “We all have this sense, not just that life is hard, not just that we suffer. We have this sense not just that things are bad, but that things are not the way they’re supposed to be. Children are not supposed to grow up with no one caring about them, no one providing for their education and health just because they’re the wrong color. Women are no supposed to be abused. Dads are not supposed to die of cancer when they are forty years old and their children are young. If the universe is a machine, a giant accident, a blind, pitiless indifference, where did we get the idea that there is a way that things are supposed to be?”

I know. “God has placed eternity in the heart of man.” Jesus is risen. He is risen in my heart. He is making a difference in me. He is making me different. As I change the world begins to change. The more I change the more I want change for all those around me. I believe that I am uniquely designed by an unspeakably creative God. I am made in his image, with a capacity to reason, choose, and love that sets me above all other life forms. I will not only survive death, but I was made to bear an eternal weight of glory I cannot now even fathom and I will one day know. I believe it’s the same with you.