Tag Archives: doubt

“You are trying to put on my armor.” Back in September, God directed me to the story of young David and King Saul. Saul hears a report of a young man asking what the reward will be for killing the uncircumcised Philistine who actually dares to defy Israel's army which David calls “the army of the Living God." When Saul hears there has been a nibble on his reward bait, he immediately reels in, calling for the inquirer to be brought to him. David comes and tells King Saul very boldly, “Don’t anyone lose heart; I, your servant, will go fight the Philistine.” Saul is not comforted. He tells David, “You’re a young man. He’s a warrior. You can’t do it.” David replies, “I’ve done it before. Lion, bear, … Goliath! They’re all the same to me. Goliath is not challenging the army of a man or of a human kingdom. He is challenging the army of the living God. That same God is the one who gave me victory over the lion and the bear. How is this different?” King Saul blesses him, saying, “May the Lord go with you.” Then he dresses David in his own armor. “You’re going to need all the help you can get. Let me help you, too.” David finds Saul’s help, the heavy armor, too cumbersome. Later, his arms will be strong enough to bend a bow of bronze. Now, he needs his arms and shoulders free to twirl a sling shot. He needs his load to be light so he can run. Saul’s armor only handicaps him.

Last year, I joined our church’s prayer team. Several times since we returned to Kenya, God told me to pray for an individual at church, and I did it. Later, I would find out that what God told me to pray was right on target, even though these prayer needs were ones I didn’t know on my own. After I told a friend about one of the times, she said, “If God ever tells you to pray for me, don’t hesitate. Pray right away.” That is another story for another time. However, those times were not regular, and I wondered whether I was somehow hindering God. I decided that since God was clearly calling me to pray, I should join the prayer ministry. Yet as I joined the team, I was fearful. What if I didn’t hear anything from God on how to pray? I have seen how much more effective my prayers are when I pray according to God's leading rather than my own thoughts, so what would I do if I heard nothing? What if nothing happened when I prayed? People come to the prayer team with their struggles, and if I pray and nothing changes, what kind of witness would that be of God?

Years ago, I had wondered what the difference is between doubt and unbelief. When I studied the Greek word for doubt, I was struck by the fact that one of the meanings is to judge a dispute. I saw that a person who doubts continues to sit in the judge's seat listening to the evidence on both sides without ever making a judgment. At some point, the case has to be closed. In a criminal case, the decision is guilty or not guilty. In a doubt case, the decision is belief or unbelief. This past week, I went back to the Greek word for doubt. This time I was struck by the fact that the word can also mean to make a distinction. When Peter is reporting about why he baptized the uncircumcised household of Cornelius, he tells the council that God made no distinction between them and the circumcised believers. The greek word translated distinction there is the same word used for doubt in other verses, such as the passage about the mountain casting itself into the sea. I find it helpful to consider why another culture would consider two ideas to be related enough to use the same word where we would use different words. So, what would it mean to say that to doubt is to make a distinction? When I look at the story of David, he was clearly not making a distinction between battling the lion and the bear and battling Goliath. When I joined the prayer team, I made a distinction between praying for people when God directed me and volunteering for the church’s prayer team. Somehow, because I volunteered for the team at church I saw myself as responsible in a way I wasn’t at home when I simply prayed when God told me what to pray. David didn’t see any distinction, and that was faith. I saw distinction, and that was doubt.

Like Saul, I thought I would need more armor for this fight than I had for previous fights. I tried to put responsibility on my shoulders. That was when God told me, “You are trying to put on my armor.” I knew God was talking about this situation. I felt clearly that He was saying, “Responsibility is my hauberk, my shoulder armor. When you wear it, I can’t, and neither of us can function as effectively.” It sounds odd to say that God couldn’t function as effectively because of me, but it echoes what the gospels said at times about Jesus -- he could not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. I knew that God was right about me trying to wear responsibility on my shoulders. What surprised me was Him telling me I wasn’t supposed to carry it. For as long as I can remember I have carried a heavy weight of responsibility, so I asked God, “Then what is my shoulder armor?” He replied, “Submission.” I had to think about it for a couple of days before that made sense. I looked up the Ephesians passage about our armor and studied it. I knew it didn’t mention a hauberk, but I wanted to consider how this new revelation related to the rest of the armor.

I studied the breastplate of righteousness, and I thought about how in the Old Testament, the high priest’s breastplate would be attached at the shoulders, so the two pieces of armor would be connected. As I thought about how the breastplate and the shoulder armor related to each other, it occurred to me that our righteousness comes from submission to God. I thought also about the protection that being able to “pass the buck” provides. Jesus lived a life of complete submission, only doing and saying what God did and said. We are to put on his righteousness. God carries the responsibility, and as long as we are in submission to his will, we are protected by his authority. That means that when God tells me to pray for someone, my task is to pray, not to make anything happen. I don’t even have to do anything to make God speak and direct me in how to pray. I am available, and I give what I have, what God gives me. Paul said, “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.” 1 Corinthians 3:6 (KJV). I listen, and I pray based on what I hear, but God gives the answer. For the first few months on the prayer team, I had to keep telling myself, “God cares about this person more than I. I pray; the answer is up to God.”

I also try to wear responsibility when God speaks to me. I feel as though I have to make myself fulfill what He is saying, and I get tangled up trying to make God’s message come true. Yet David refused to make God’s word come true in his own way. He didn’t feel that he had to make it happen at all. He would consult God about what he was to do at the moment and then do it. His eye wasn’t on fulfilling God's promise to Him but on following God’s direction in each moment. That brings me back to the campfire image. As long as my focus is exclusively on arriving at my destination, I am missing out on this moment with God. Years ago, I remember reading in the Psalms and having a sudden sense that God was telling me, “You’ve left where you were, and you haven’t arrived where you’re going, so you think you are nowhere. You’re not nowhere. You are exactly where I have you, on the journey.” I learned from that message that the journey is important, but I still thought that I was supposed to accomplish the journey at sprinters’ speeds. God wants to do it at journeyers’ speeds. It is not enough for me to submit to God’s plan for my life, I also need to submit to his pace.

Like David, heavy armor is too cumbersome for me. I am on a journey, and journeyers know that weight matters. The burden of responsibility is too heavy for me. For God it is an essential piece of His armor, protecting the shoulders and neck. The Bible says government is upon His shoulders, or as the NET states, "He shoulders responsibility." (Isaiah 9:6) If I am wearing God's hauberk, God can’t. I am stealing from Him, to my own detriment. Make us aware, Father, of when we are putting on your armor and work in us to be satisfied with our own armor.

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We recently had someone ask us about the many things from which we are depriving our children.  He suggested that when they are grown, they will be filled with resentment and anger towards us.  Though it was written in a hurtful way, I think it is a true issue, but one we're not good at addressing within the church.  Really, it is two issues.  One is the issue of deprivation, the other is hurt and resentment.  And right now, I am focusing on the first.

As I think about deprivation, I remember a time in college when I was invited somewhere.  I didn't respond to the invitation because I was hoping to be invited somewhere else.  I don't remember the outcome, I just remember seeing clearly that accepting the first invitation would mean having to turn down any other invitation.  And in that way, deprivation is going to happen in my children's life.  No matter what choices my husband and I make, those choices are going to eliminate other possibilities.  One of the things I have had to learn over the years is what I call hanging up my hat.  I have to make a decision fully.  I can't keep my hat on my head in case a better option comes along.   A few years ago, as I was reading the Bible, I began to notice that the Bible speaks of unbelief and of doubt as two separate things.  I had always considered them as synonyms, but I felt God asking me what doubt was.  I had never thought about it, but I looked up the greek word and its definition.  In the New Testament, to doubt means to sit in the judge's seat listening to both sides of a case.  To doubt is not bad in and of itself, but it has a purpose.  That purpose is the ruling, the decision.  There was a reason God asked me about those words at that time.  I was at a point of indecision, of refusing to make a ruling, in a couple of areas of life.  I kept asking for more evidence.  One of those areas was whether God was really speaking to me.  Was I just imagining it all?  Was I really talking to myself?  Was I insane?  I had a picture at that time of me standing in the doorway listening to God urging me to come out and follow Him, but I was afraid to shut the door behind me and follow.

Interestingly, what God was calling me to was a life of less deprivation, of less self-sacrifice.  That was scary to me because the Bible talks so much about taking up your cross.  How could it be right to let God delight my heart?  Should I allow God to make me comfortable?  Surely that would negate the taking up of my cross.  Yet, I realized that though Christ took up His cross, he also rose.  He did not remain on the cross.  The Apostle Paul said he had learned to be content in all circumstances, in both need and abundance.  I was afraid of abundance, or even comfort.  Yet God did not want me to stay forever in a place of deprivation and sacrifice of everything that would give me comfort.  I could hear God calling me out of that place of deprivation, and I was scared to follow.  I am thankful I did, though.  Ecclesiastes says there is a time for everything.  I learned that there is a time for the cross, for dying to self, but there is also a time for resurrection, for life, and that in abundance.  Kenya has become home to me.  To be honest with you, I don't miss America.  I enjoy many things while I am there, but when I am here, there is so much blessing and so many friendships that I can't miss America.  There are hardships here, but there are hardships there as well.  And what I've gained from my interactions with my Kenyan friends is invaluable.  Those in the marketing or advertising business talk about branding.  Branding has to do with the image a company or organization presents to the world.  When people from the West see Africa, we tend to think of deprivation.  That is a branding issue, and it is a false image, because it isn't a full image.  It is as false as picturing America as inner-city life or as an ivy league college or as an ocean playground.  Kenya is made up of people, and they are as varied and intelligent and beautiful as people everywhere in the world.  Kenya is a place for living, for abundance — especially in relationships.

When I was struggling with whether to believe God, He said something to me.  He told me that Christ had completed the work of incarnation.  He told me that I don't have to become Maasai to be able to work with the Maasai.  I don't have to change my culture to work in Kenya.  He told me He had created me, and I was to give myself to others, as I am.  I recently taught a Sunday School class for 8-9 year-olds.  The lesson was about "You are the light of the world, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden."  The curriculum focused the message on all the things we need to do in order to be the light of the world, but it occurred to me that the passage isn't saying we need to do anything.  It just says that is who we are.  I started thinking and realized that a light doesn't light itself, and a city doesn't build itself.  The message of that passage isn't that we need to do anything; rather, it is that the one who lit us, the one who built us, thinks we are so incredible He doesn't want to hide us but put us on display!  Wow!  A few years ago, I asked my friend Wamzy, who is an amazing artist, to show me some of the jewelry she makes.  She was happy to show me.  As she did, she put one on me and asked me what I thought.  I was struggling to figure out a way to say it was beautiful but that I couldn't wear it, when another good friend, Nyamatha, said, “No, that's not our Ruth.”  She took it off me, putting it on herself instead, and it fit herself beautifully.  The Bible talks about Mary treasuring things in her heart; well, that has become one of the most precious treasures in my heart.  My friend saw me for who I am, and even though I am different, she valued me without any desire to change me.  In fact, she claimed me, with all my differences, as “ours.”  That is rare.  Even when I am in America, the expectation is that I should change myself and become like those around me.  It is a unique and special thing to valued for who you are.

As I nurture my children, I want them to see the incredible beauty of the earth and the people God has created.  I want them to focus on the things God wants to display.  I point out to them their own and others’ uniquenesses, even though seeing others’ uniquenesses means seeing something you lack.  I want them to be able to enjoy the gifts and opportunities others have been given, without regretting that they themselves have been given different gifts and opportunities.  Once, when I was asking God’s direction about a decision where I felt tradition would dictate certain things, God replied, “I don’t want all the flowers in my garden to look alike.”  Then He told me that He had created me with different desires than others and asked me what I wanted.  I was shocked.  Frankly, I hadn’t a clue what I wanted.  I had spent all my life trying to live up to others’ expectations, and here was God setting me free.  To be honest, the freedom was scary.  Couldn’t I just stay in the cage, painful and constricting as it was?  I told God I would rather Him just tell me what to do.  Though I still struggle, I am starting to enjoy the freedom, and that is what I want for my children.  I don’t want them live in a cage or even long for a cage, and I’m not saying American life would be a cage.  I am saying a deprivation view is a cage, a thought that we have to be like everyone else is a cage.  I want them to live the light of the world, the city on a hill that cannot be hidden, the incredible and unique person set on display by our awesome Creator.

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Over the years since I began conversing with God, I have had many doubts.  Are these conversations real?  Is God really talking with me?  Am I crazy?  One thought which could not take hold was that I was talking with evil spirits.  The voice I was hearing was a voice of love, and my heart responded to that love.  My love language is communication.  A God who both listens and talks with me won my heart.

This past summer, I stopped hearing God.  I do not say God stopped speaking, but I stopped hearing.  It was devastating.  Just as a tree grows in response to light, I had grown amazingly in response to God's love and His giving of Himself to me in communication.  Though I wasn't hearing His voice, I had the understanding that God was allowing my fears to grow so I could see them for the lies they were and reject them.  I knew I had been holding onto both faith and doubt.  I had to make a decision.  The picture I had was of a garden with small weeds continuing to steal nutrition from the true vegetables.  With God's help, I was plucking up the weeds before they could grow big, but they always snapped off and left the roots behind.  God wanted to remove the roots.

A few years back, God asked me what doubt is.  I didn't know.  Was doubt the same as unbelief?  With the help of my husband and BibleWorks software, I hunted for the answer.  I learned something interesting.  The Greek word for doubt basically means to sit in judgment listening to the evidence on both sides of an argument.  It means you haven't decided yet which is true.  You're considering.  The writer George MacDonald considered doubt an important part of our Spiritual development.  Without the process of doubt, we could never reach the truth.  Jesus brought doubt with Him.  Can the law really save you?  You say you keep the law, but if you break it in your heart, you are breaking the law.  If you break just one bit of the law you are breaking the whole of the law.  Can the law really save you?  If no one had doubted and considered Jesus' questions, no one could have come to faith in Him.

Doubt is important to our Spiritual development, but the purpose of doubt must be accomplished.  We must make a decision.  What do we believe?  We cannot keep endlessly listening to arguments.  We must make a decision, a firm decision.  God told me, we have to shut the door behind us and begin to walk down the path we've chosen.  He assured me, even if I made the wrong decision, He could lead me to a turn around place.  I thought about how often when driving we have to go the wrong direction for a time in order to get to the right place.  God told me to start walking, and He would go with me.  So I decided to walk down the path with God and talk with Him.  While we walked, He invited me to ask Him any questions and tell Him why I continued to doubt.

We walked and talked together for two years.  God more than answered every objection I had for Him.  Then He rested His case.  It was time for me to make a decision.  I had to choose whether I would believe what He said or what I had always understood in the past.  I knew what I wanted to chose.  God's words and His presence are beautiful.  What I couldn't figure out was what to do with the doubt I still had.  I tried to wrestle with it and make it go away.  It wouldn't go.  I agonized.  I waited.  I accused God of not helping me.

Finally I asked God one more question.  What do I do with the doubt?  Instantly, I was standing in front of my Grandfather's barn.  A vision like this was a new experience for me, but I knew it was God.  Um, why am I here?  "Climb up into the hayloft."  I climbed into the hayloft.  It was filled with golden light and hay and haydust.  I waited a minute; then um, what do I do here?  "Lay down and rest."  I lay down.  I waited a minute; then um, why am I in the hayloft?  I don't get it.  Instantly, I was in front of the barn again.  I saw the barn -- hayloft above, barn floor below.  The hayloft was dusty, but clean.  The barn floor was nasty.  You really want galoshes/gum boots to walk there.  As I looked, I heard, "You stay in the hayloft.  I will deal with the barn floor."  I realized that I had been mucking about on the barn floor of my doubts.  I was trying to rid myself of the filth of my doubts and was only getting more mired.  My place is to dwell on my faith and to nurture it by resting in God's light, in His life-giving presence.  The only decision I need to make is to continue to listen to and to respond to His voice, to continue to walk in His presence, to focus on what is true rather than on all the doubts the world would throw at me.

Over the years as I have conversed with God, I have many times had others say they longed for that kind of communication with God.  I have said that God loves to communicate with His children including them.  Several times, I have been asked, But what if you don't believe He communicates with you?  I haven't known what to answer.  These are people whom I love.  I want them to have what I have.  I'm a woman.  I love community gab sessions.  My conversations tend to be heavily spiked with God talk rather than gossip, but that's because gossip is boring and old hand.  It may be a new person, but the news is old.  The things I'm hearing are NEWS.  I love talking them over with others.  I have longed to answer their question but haven't known how.  The answer is that the question is wrong.  Instead of looking at ourselves and at the sin and unbelief at work within us, we need to look at God, the Good Father, who is love.  Love communicates.  All we can do is think on these things.  If we long to communicate with God, then that longing is something we inherited from Him.  He promised that His sheep hear His voice.  Our longing for Him tells us we are His sheep.  Don't be afraid to listen to the voice of love that is already speaking to you.