The Doubting Christian

'God, show me that you exist! Please ... just pop in here for a few seconds so that all my doubts and unbelief can be zapped forever!'

Who of you can truthfully say that they have never prayed a prayer along the lines of this one? Have we not all come to such moments, where, against our better judgment and everything we have been taught, some unbelief seems to get the better of us, causing us to demand God to show us some tangible evidence?

Well, perhaps there are some of you who have never had to struggle with such things, but I know that I certainly have had to. To one who has been raised in a Christian home, one who has been taught Christian values literally from his infancy up to now, such doubts can be very disturbing. It is in such times that we hear the tempter come to us, and tell us ,'think outside the box. You've been raised with your parent's beliefs, and now it's time for you to find some beliefs of your own.' Does this sound familiar to anyone?

I was raised in a Christian home, I've gone to church my whole life, I was saved and baptized in my church, and to cap it all off, I was (and am still) homeschooled by my Christian parents. I am now 16, and far more rational then I was in my childhood. It is natural for people, as they get older, to question the beliefs which they were raised with. Secular public schools, universities, and colleges readily recognize this as being particularly true of young Christians, and sadly, many young people who went through college/university have completely cast off the faith which they have been raised with.

Doubt is dangerous. But the world is forever making us question the Word of God. On every turn, we see things engineered to destroy our faith. Allow me therefore, to be of some assistance to those of you who struggle with unbelief.

First of all, we as Christians believe in absolute truth. Truth is not relative, but it is found in God's Word. Truth is unchanging from generation to generation.

But how do we know God's word is true? How do we know that God actually is who the Bible says He is? How to we know that we are worshiping the right God? Did Jesus actually rise from the dead? Questions like these haunt many young Christians, but I will not answer them here. I have no need to, as there are many very fine Christian apologetic websites that can present evidence to appease the rational mind. I would rather say this: we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). Furthermore, blessed are they who have not seen, and yet believed (John 20:29).

'But wait!', screams the tempter. 'Don't be so dogmatic! You can't rely on the Bible!' Oh yes I can.

1. The gospel of Jesus Christ is self-authenticating. Those who have been transformed by it will forever testify of its power. Sinners of the vilest sort have found forgiveness, peace, and liberty.

2. The Bible is self-authenticating in general. God promised that Christ would come, hundreds of years before He came. And when He came, He did what the prophets said He would do. God promised something in His word, and it came to pass. Christ has promised to return, and we wait expectantly for His promised return, even though the world thinks that we are ridiculous.

We are commanded to believe, even though it seems as if the odds are against us. God will prove Himself faithful, just as He always has.

When struggling with doubt, the first thing you need to do is pray – and pray hard. You can spend long periods of time looking through apologetic material, but we cannot completely rely on apologetics to help us – they are helpful, indeed, but we cannot base our faith merely on evidence.

Every so often there is a stir in the evangelical world about someone who supposedly 'went to heaven' and 'came back', often with lots of fanciful stories about the amazing things that happen there. While I would hesitate to dispute the authenticity of some of these experiences, there are undoubtedly quite a few frauds.

Why do these frauds gain so much momentum? It is because the perpetrators of these frauds realize they can make a lot of $$$ off faithless, naive Christians who are scrambling here and there to find some scrap of evidence to support their faith. How foolish of us! Did not Christ give us His Spirit, who can give us discernment between truth and error? Should we not use our heads a bit before completely buying into the idea that some dead person saw God and lived to tell about it?

We must learn to have faith in Christ alone. When someone's near death experience is proven a fraud and a lot of people leave the Church because the 'evidence' was brought to nothing, we know true faith is lacking.

Now I am not saying that we ought to completely shun evidence when struggling with doubts. Far from it! Evidence and reason are very helpful! However, we must remember, above all, to bring our doubts before God. And we must not make the error that some have made, in naively embracing frauds as concrete 'evidence'.

I realize nothing I have said thus far is very comforting to one struggling with doubt. This is why I will now turn to the scriptures, which will be of a lot more help than I could ever be.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. (Heb. 11:3)

The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence. (2 Samuel 22:3).

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. (Psalms 20:7)

There is confessedly a LOT I did not cover in this blog post. I covered the things that were on my heart, without caring to give you a comprehensive coverage of the subject.

Anyways, I hope you got something out of it anyways. I do most certainly welcome feedback - if there is anyone among you who has struggled with doubt and has overcome it and wishes to share some things that I missed, you are welcome to do so either in the comments or on my facebook page.

Thanks for reading. God bless!