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TranscriptToday, we're going to talk about doubt: how to handle it when we have it and how to handle it if someone comes to us with their doubts.

Doubt is all around us. Many of us will have our own doubts and the majority of us will be close to someone who is doubting. Now, the question is, will they ever talk with us?

When we consider doubt, there are two major directions we can go. We can look at doubt like something that needs to be addressed, where it's not a good position to be doubting. Then there's this other tendency today, often not in conservative evangelical circles, where we actually talk about doubt like it's good. Like if you claim to have certainty in your religious life, that's bad. You're doing something wrong.

Clearly, this kind of attitude doesn't accord with what Scripture says where John writes his gospels so that people will know, and believe, and have life. Jesus says, "Believe in me," not “kind of be certain.” He doesn't say things like that, and Peter, proclaiming the gospel in Acts, tells everyone so that they may know.

This place of doubt is never looked upon positively in Scripture. We do not want to glorify the doubting state. Now, the flip side of this is we do not vilify the doubters. This is a reality of the church in a fallen and broken world — one where sin and even our own desires and thoughts are fallen — there will be doubter in the church. The question becomes how do we handle it?

Today, there are two types of people I want to address. The first person we'll talk about is the person who is experiencing doubt and the second person we'll talk about is the one who might have someone else come to them and share their doubts. These are similar but they're quite different concerns.

For the doubters

For the doubters, I understand where you're at. I've been there. I went to church from the day I was born, professed faith at the age of seven, and I listened to hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of hours - thousands of hours of sermons.

By about the time I got to be a freshman in college, I had amassed a lot of questions, weighty questions, and I had come to the conclusion that this whole Christianity thing didn't make much sense. I didn't think God existed and if He did exist, I didn't see how he could possibly be good.

For me, I didn't feel comfortable sharing that with other people. That's a reflection on me, not a reflection on the people in my life. I still played in the band. I still led a Bible study and yet, all along, I had these deep-seated doubts. I had no peace, practically speaking, in those areas.

In the context I grew up in, people didn't really share their doubts. If it was prayer request time in small group and you're going around the circle, it never seemed comfortable to say, “Pray for me. I'm doubting God exists." (We could question what such a prayer would even mean: “Pray to the God that I don't think exists to help me with the doubt about Him “).

My point is is I didn't share this. I didn't feel comfortable talking about it, but I understand where you're at if you're a doubter.

Realistically, we all will encounter doubts. Our toughest critic is probably not the atheist next to us at work or the Mormon at our college campus. Our toughest critic is probably ourself. The questions that will be most compelling to you are the ones that you find in your own mind.

Doubt your doubts

I do have some tips for how to address this if you are a doubter. The first thing, and I can't remember who coined this term, is doubt your doubts. Ask questions of your doubts. There are certainly things in Christianity and that the Bible teaches that we wouldn't know any other way. That we have to rely on Scripture to tell us and some things are counter-intuitive. For instance, the Trini…