How to Deal with Doubt as a Christian

TRANSCRIPT

The reality is for us, for us as modern people, we often flounder in something and we fall in something and we should never really flounder in it because we should understand it a lot more and that's this area of doubt. Doubt. This trips us out. I'm going to suggest to you that you need to bring your doubt out.

It needs to come out. If you look at the Bible, this thing here called the Bible, it's a big book. It's got two primarily covenants in it. One is for, is for ancient Israel. That's this half, Written for them, but to us so we understand what's going on. And then there's the Christian part of the Bible, which is this part, which is written for us to apply.

But if you read this thing, doesn't matter whether you're in the Jewish portion of the Bible or the Christian portion of the Bible, you will discover something very, very fast. And that's that all of the leaders in that that were working with God, they had no problem. They let their doubt hang all out.

And it's written in the pages, inspired there by the Holy Spirit, because God knows that we're going to struggle with this. So, getting doubt out, stops doubt acing you out. It's a really, really important topic and we need to know how to deal with this. But words are very powerful and so I wanted to have just a bit of a bit of fun thing going on here with words.

But I want, I want to say a word and this is going to be kind of a therapy session for me as well as we go through it. Okay, I'll say a word and I want you to just say the first word that comes into your mind because we are affected by words, they trigger us and they shape us. So I'll just yell out a word and you just guys in here, you yell out, you guys online just type something.

So. What's the first word that comes into mind when I say black? Day. This one's going to be harder. Fairy. Tail, yeah, that was good, that was my top one. You could have, I would have gone with garden or floss. What about this? Starsky.

You guys are all over this. Love. Why do we keep going to the, why do we keep going to the flip? Isn't it amazing? What about this one? Luke? Skywalker. Luke warm. I'll take that one too. Now this, what about this one, right? Brady.

This triggers me no end. This is where the therapy starts. It triggers me no end. When I was a kid growing up, I don't know about you, but I grew up with little kids and they're really cruel. Kids can be really cruel and they, and if they find a weakness, they like hone in. They're like an animal, like a ferocious dog and then they get it.

So anyway, I'm only about, I don't know, probably nine, something like that. And eventually the conversation gets to, How about everybody share their middle name? I'm dying a thousand deaths. I really am dying because everyone's throwing out their names and it's all so exciting. And then I have to quantify my middle name and I have to explain it, which causes, doesn't really help.

So they go, what's your middle name, Kevin? I go, well, it's actually a Dutch name for John. It's pronounced Yen, but it's spelt Jan. Oh, you've got a girl's middle name! You've got a girl, that is so funny! So, for the rest of the time in primary school, every time I walk around I hear someone, Here's a story of a lovely lady, Who was busy with three girls of his own.

Hey, Jan! Kids are cruel! Kids are cruel. But that sent me like, what? I was filled with doubt after that because it was like such a horrible time. Anyway, back to the words, Shrek, donkey, Gilligan's, heaven. Ooh, that was a bit more subtle. Hell. Now this one here, someone should get this in the room, but I don't know.

Cause the person that really relates to it, the Moses is not in the room. They're serving upstairs. Surfer. And that's Mike's song, did you play it? This is Mike and Lindsay's song.

Yeah, there you go. Okay, two more, two more. This is a, this is where it's going to really provoke you. I don't doubt very much anyone will get this. Taylor.

I was thinking of Taylor Thompson, who spoke last week. You guys gotta calm down. You need to calm down. One final word and I'll complete my therapy session. Doubting? Here's me. I've got a kid. I'm growing up with a girl's name in the middle. Cop and flack everywhere and when they finally come to Christ, I figure out that my identity is tied to Thomas.

That's the one that doubted Jesus. It's like, wow, this is just terrible. How did I ever survive? I have no idea. And it's the reason why, it's the reason why, Ruth spelled it out last week. I'm in a glasses half empty kind of guy. She says she's a glasses half full kind of girl. So I'm half empty. I bet there's others that are half empty.

I see half empty, she sees half full. I'll come back to that just in a moment. So many questions. Is doubt positive or is doubt negative? Hands up if you think doubt is a positive thing. Oh, look at that. Zero. Oh, we got one. Who thinks that's a negative? Oh, I only got a few. Who's completely undecided about what it's to be?

I got no idea whatsoever. If you're in the undecided camp, guess what? You're right in the middle of doubt. You don't know the answer. So you've become indecisive on the thing. I used to be incredibly indecisive, extremely indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

I would put it to you that doubt can be positive, and I'll explain to you why. Because I feel like doubt disrupts the status quo. Let me ask you a question. Let's go back to this. So you're in Ruthie's camp? I have a half full glass of water. It's lovely. I'm very happy and I'm very content with this. Over here, us other ones, I see a half empty glass of water.

I'm not happy. I'm dissatisfied. We're going to change some things so I can fill this thing up. You see what's happening? Doubt is actually a catalyst for change. When we came down here at the beginning and our elders remember this, we did not know for the first four years whether we would survive. And we were filled with doubt as God saying, I need you to unhitch from this and I need you to do this and this and this and go, what?

We had no idea. But doubt became the catalyst for rethinking the current norms into something better, something that Jesus had. So, normally when doubt erupts, it's when you don't have clarity and you lack focus. And your mind begins a debate in your mind. Starts debating in your mind. That's indecision.

That can float down into pessimism and eventually into depression. That's it. If you don't catch it. So sometimes there can be a positive side to doubt, so you can't get rid of it entirely. But it's getting that focus. Paul spoke to the church in Rome and he was one of the key leaders. He came in late to the game, but he was one of the key leaders, wrote most of the New Testament.

And he wrote this to the guys in Rome. He said, a double minded person is unstable in all their ways. Double minded. What's he saying? Indecisive. Someone that's struggling with doubt. And he says, and if you have that and you sit in that position forever, it says, don't let that person think that they will actually receive anything.

So let's just fly through, fly through the books of the Bible, come up with a few people that doubted. Just to have a bit of a look. Moses, Exodus chapter 4, everybody knows. God says, you need to go to Pharaoh, tell him, let my people go. Great famous, you know, Charlton Heston, that let my people go. And anyway, he, God actually does three miracles for Moses.

And in the end, he says you know, I'm not a very good speaker. I'm not very eloquent. Could you send someone else? He was filled with doubt about what the mission was, but God used him anyway. Go a bit up into the book, into the book of Judges. You got Gideon. Now God has given the Israelites the law from Moses.

Big ten, don't have any false gods, don't worship idols. So of course, what did Israel do? Worship false gods. Anyway, the Midianites came down completely decimated them. And then God says to Gideon, I want you to hold a military battle. And we're going to take this back now because my people have repented, they're turning back to me.

And he goes, I'm the I'm from the weakest clan, and I'm the runt of the litter. I'm no good. But God used him anyway. Abraham. And Sarah, Genesis 17. God turns up when he's 75, she's 65. Says, you're going to have a son and you're going to be the father of all nations. They don't even have a kid. 20 more years go by.

And doubt begins to come up. And then what is doubt? Indecisive. Then they try and figure out their own plan to make this happen. A human plan. And the thing is a flippin disaster. So God lobs back at 99, Abraham's 99, sorry, Abraham's 100, she's 99. And says, no, no, in 12 months, you're going to have a baby.

Sarah laughs. I wonder why. I doubt it. But God used them anyway. Listen, all the disciples doubted when Jesus was nailed to the cross, when he died, and when he was laid in the tomb, everybody unfollowed. Nobody was expecting Jesus to rise from the dead. Nobody. They were filled with doubt. How bad? I'll tell you how bad it is.

Doubt got so bad that in the middle of the three days, Peter thought it was a good idea to go fishing. How desperate can you be to go fishing? You think that's the solution? Doubt, it causes us to do all sorts of things. If you look at Mark chapter six in the new covenant, in the Christian portion of the Bible, Jesus feeding, Jesus is talking to a bunch of people.

It's getting late in the day. It's a big crowd, massive. And he says, you know, and the disciples basically say, it's well, it's time to send them home. Jesus. And he says, no, no, you feed them something. He goes, we got nothing. We've got nothing, Jesus. It would take a year's wages. We have got nothing to feed them with.

Jesus goes, Oh, you just go and tell them to sit down in groups of 50 and 100. I reckon that had gone away. I go, man, I think Jesus has lost it, man. You know, I'm not real bright. I'm not real bright, but I can tell you five loaves and two fish, about 15, 000 people, this is not going to work. You know, he's done some great miracles.

I think he's, I think he's, I doubt it's going to happen. And then they watch on as Jesus just lifts the bread and the fish to heaven and says, God, would you bless this? And the whole community eats and then there's 12 baskets at the end? But here's the deal, there was doubt, but God used them anyway. Used them anyway.

I love the account of Peter. Most people know Peter's account. After this feeding, they're told to row out over the lake and they get out there. A big school comes up. Jesus starts walking on water. And you know, I've, I have prayed so long. I have asked God so many times, if I could just walk on water once, just once, people would listen to me and they would apply.

I said, I don't understand. You did it for Jesus. Why can't I do it? He said, because the way society is, if you walk on water once, they'll worship you and they'll make an idol of you. So I stopped asking to walk on water, although I do think it would be a really neat trick if you could pull it off. Anyway, so come, so this is a portion of scripture out of Matthew.

Pete sees Jesus and then he says, Hey, tell me to come down out of the boat onto the water with you. So he sees Jesus on the water and Peter's impulse is to say, tell me to come out on the water. Okay, come on out Pete, no problem whatsoever. And he's walking on water, but then in the middle of it he's probably remembered a theology class or a physics class.

You know, I don't think we can walk on water. I don't think this is right. And he looks at the wind and he looks at the waves and looks at everything and then he sinks and he cries out to Jesus, save me, save me. . And what does Jesus say to him? You of little faith. Why did you doubt he doesn't beat him up about it?

See, in cir it is circumstances that cause us to doubt every time. It is circumstances that don't look right to us, don't feel right. We don't understand. Now, some of you would be right in the middle of a doubt storm right now. Maybe your marriage is not in a good place. Maybe you're actually working through a marriage breakdown.

Maybe you've lost your job. Maybe it's the finances. Maybe you received some bad news like Lane, man, suddenly he's going along and just goes for a normal checkup and whammo, man, you're doing triple bypass in a few days. Those kinds of things can rattle you if you don't stay focused on what's really important.

You might be wrestling with, Hey, Leo, I thought we'd have, I'd be married and we'd have kids by now, but it's just not happened. These things cause doubt. And that's why the advice that God says to us is set your gaze in the right place. Fix your eyes on Jesus and not on your circumstances. Now, I get it.

Seriously, I get it. If you guys are watching online, I, yeah. I get it why some people walk away from faith during times of doubt. And that's because sometimes we Christians in our well meaningness, Just muck it all up. We seriously muck it all up. It's like, you know, like someone walks into a group and they dunno who's there, and they're walking around about how awesome God is and how much he's blessed them, and he answers all my prayers.

And yesterday I lost my car keys to my Ferrari for an hour. And then God finally, after about an hour turmoil, I found them in the bottom of my bag alongside my big wallet full of money. Praise the Lord. So we share this kind of stuff out, so like, but the person that's listening on is going, man, I'm trying to figure out how do I stop my kid ending up back in jail again?

Or, man, I, I don't know what to do. How do I deal with this addiction? How do I get through in this thing? Or, or I'm just trying to figure out, I'm trying to figure out how to put food on the table. I'm praying, asking God about that. So pardon me if I'm not all excited about your prodigal car key for your Ferrari.

That's how it kind of comes across to them. And if we're not careful, we can actually take portions of scripture and say things that become very glib and very dismissive. I call them the hallmark cliches. Oh, your house burnt down. Oh, well, everything happens for a reason. There's a reason that my house burnt down?

I just thought it was an accident. Oh, no, it might be a reason. You know why? Because God's trying to teach you something. God's trying to teach me something because my house burnt down? What could He possibly be trying to teach me? What, how to live in poverty? How to lose everything I've ever owned? What the heck?

And then you go with, well, you just gotta have faith. You just gotta have faith. So I understand how people walk away from faith and walk away from church because it's dismissive. And it can become offensive because there's an unwillingness for certain people to accept that some things we don't understand.

Some things there are doubt, but it's messy. It's messy to lean into it and then they don't want to go down and have to face something that is really unresolvable. Where really all they had to say was something like, Man, I have no idea what you've gone through. I have absolutely no, I cannot imagine what you've gone through.

But all I know is our God is good. And somewhere in this pain and somewhere in this doubt and somewhere in this mess and this loss, you can look towards Him and He can encourage you. Because you know why? Because He understands loss. Do you see the different response? Rather than we throw out all the blessings that we've got, that doesn't make people that's really struggling feel better.

So you've got to help them to set their gaze in the right place, which of course is fixing your eyes on Jesus and not your circumstances. Taylor dealt with something last week which is very important and people do really get confused about this. Under Israel's old covenant, the Hebrew portion of the Bible, the front end, the way people knew that they were okay with God was due to circumstances.

That was the nature of the covenant. It was called a bilateral suzentery covenant. It was, it was a covenant between two non equals. The best way for you to think about it is curfew. It was like a curfew. And it was, if you do this, I will bless you. So the sign for them that God was with them is that they were financially blessed and they were prosperous.

If you don't do this, I will curse you. So then the whole thing turns to disaster. So if you had any kind of bad thing going on, the automatic assumption was God is against you. That's the tone. That's what Taylor was trying to help us understand. You can learn from that, but don't, don't apply this. Oh, because that's not the nature of our covenant in the new covenant.

Jesus says, it's all done. It's all finished. I am the one I will provide for you, eternal security and a relationship with your God in heaven. Something that the old covenant never promised. They never had a promise of security for eternal life. But Jesus says, I will give you that. But here's the kicker.

Here's the kicker on the back end. Circumstances are no longer going to be an indicator of whether I'm with you or whether I'm not. Because I'm with you always. And here's the other side of it. Is that you need to understand Jesus said, if you want to follow me, if you want to follow me and be my disciple, and you're going to walk in holiness, and you're going to apply and be conformed to the image of Christ.

There are some people that are not going to like you and you might face some persecution. In fact, Jesus said, you'll probably suffer. So that's the different thing. So Taylor was trying to help us understand that your circumstances has no bearing on whether God is with you or not with you because he's with you all the time.

If you've got faith in Christ, you just can't see it because doubt has come in. Confusion has come in. The storm has come and you're looking at the circumstances rather than looking at Jesus. Let's look at one more account and I'll try and float for this John the Baptist because this is very interesting.

So John the Baptist was the last prophet to Israel. He was the last one that was speaking and he was calling them back to repentance. Jesus referred to him, well he referred to himself as a voice calling in the wilderness. This feels like today, you know, like where it was, where's the voice of reason for God?

So he's, he's there and John and Jesus makes an interesting comment about John. It makes a very interesting comment. He says this, There is no one greater than John the Baptist. Remember, he's talking about the old covenant. So he said under the old covenant, John is the greatest. So John is actually the first goat, greatest of all time.

That's John. Okay. Now we're looking back, so that's what he was in that covenant. Us here, but then he goes on a little bit later and says, but the least in the kingdom, the new thing that I'm going to do is going to be greater than John. But he says we're talking about John. He is the greatest. He is the God.

John had dedicated his life to bringing about the place for the people to see the Messiah, this new coming, this new thing that was going to happen. Because he's a prophet, he had to speak into things. So there was a king there called King Herod Antipas, and he was the son of Herod the Great. Now when King divorced his wife to marry his brother's wife, John was not happy.

So John got in his face and basically said this is offensive, it's socially not right, it's not right, that's against the Torah, all this kind of stuff. And then he spelled it out, it's not right for you to be marrying this girl. And the reason for that was that Herod's brother's wife Herodias was his sister's daughter.

So essentially this guy's marrying his niece. So John is saying this is not right and the reason why he's calling them back is you've got to remember when God was dealing with Israel, it was a covenant to the nation. So goes the leadership, so goes the nation. If the leaders were good, the nation got blessed.

If the leaders were bad, the nation got hammered. That was how it was. So he was understanding that so goes the king, so goes the people. So he's calling this king to repent, but of course he doesn't. So He doesn't and his wife is not real happy about this challenge. So Herodias desperately wants to kill John.

But Herod likes John. He recognizes there's something special about him. Holy man, he's very popular in Judea at this time. And so he'd like to listen to him because he's intriguing to hear what John had to say. Herodias on the hand, she just wanted him arrested. She wanted him dead. She actually wanted his head.

So this is where it gets a little bit interesting. John ends up being arrested. He panders to his wife, Herodias. He ends up in jail, but Herod puts him in a jail out in the desert. I think he put him out there because he knew if he kept him in here, Herodias would find a way to kill him. So therefore, put some distance in there.

Now this is where it gets very interesting from a doubt point of view, and it's kind of like, oh, wow. What do you think Jesus would do for the greatest of all time who's in this position? John is the goat. He is the greatest of all time. He was the one that elevated and introduced Jesus to the world. Do you think he would kind of like, well, couldn't he send an earthquake?

Send some angels to kind of like deal with that? Or, or, Send a scud missile and take out Herod and Herodias? I don't know. Or at least bake a cake with a file in it. I don't know. What do you think he would do? What do you think he would do? Hmm. Well it says when John, when Jesus heard John have been taken into custody, he withdrew to Galilee, leaving Nazareth and went and lived in Capernaum.

Now Capernaum's a beautiful place. It's about 200 miles or 320 kilometers. north of exactly where John is. So, Jesus is with his disciples in a nice lake village town doing ministry and John is sitting in jail. And he's there and he's sweating it out. Like, what the deal is going on here? Can you imagine what John is thinking?

And Matthew's writing this because he wants us to know this. It's important. When John was arrested and that path started, that was spelling the end of the Old Covenant of Israel and Jesus distanced himself. He went another direction. Why? Why? Because Matthew knew and what Jesus knew and what we're finding out now, and I believe.

This is put in place to really help us understand this thing of doubt. Of dealing with things when it doesn't go the way that you feel it should go. So John's stuck in a jail and Jesus is in a nice seaside village. Do you ever feel like God's a million miles away from you? Like you're going through a dark time.

What's going on? Where is God? What the heck's going on here? Was he at some seaside village? Well apparently he is. That's what he's, he likes that kind of thing. So we get the same thing. So you've got to understand that this doubt was rising. John never hears from Jesus for a year. Not even a year. And then it's another six months after that.

And then suddenly he gets a few messages come through. And the message is Man, you're not going to believe what Jesus is doing down at Capernaum. This is amazing. The centurion servant asked him to come, centurion soldier asked him to come and heal his servant. Jesus starts and then he just stops and then he heals him from like four blocks away.

Wow! Jesus is now working remotely. He doesn't even have to be on site. Can you imagine how that sounds to John? Oh, that's great. That's great. Happy Feast for you. What about me? I'm the goat. I'm the greatest of all time. What about setting the captives free? You know, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But John's purpose was to be there because it was bringing the closure to something.

You got to remember, Israel killed all the prophets and John was the last. So there's a bigger plan that's going on here. I mean, can you relate to that? Like, man, it's hard to be happy for people sometimes when you're kind of working through stuff and I bet John's going like, Oh, whatever's going on. So eventually out of prison,

John's in prison, he hears about the deeds and he sends his disciples to ask something. What do you think he sends his disciples to ask Jesus? This is amazing. I think I would have asked, Hey Jesus, you know what? I heard about the centurion thing. Any chance you could send one of those scud missile prayers and take out Herodias and Herod.

But do you know what John asks? And this, this really reveals the doubt. Are you the one who is to come or should we expect someone else?

John is having some confusion. He's having, he's in a dark place. John is the one that first said, Here comes the Lamb of God, behold, takes away the sins of the world. He baptizes Jesus. He sees the Spirit come down upon Jesus. But now he's in a jail, wondering when his life's going to end. And where is Jesus?

He's in a fishing village. Wow. The question is, did Jesus love John? He said he was the greatest. He loved John. Just like he loved Lazarus. But I think just like he allowed Lazarus to die, and then eventually four days later rose him from the dead, to teach that he is the resurrection and the life. He left John in prison.

To teach us. Just because I'm not doing what you think should be done, does not mean it's part of the plan. And it must have eventually dawned on John, the words that he had spoken about himself. He said on one occasion, when Jesus popularity was growing, he said, I must decrease that he may increase. He just didn't realize it would end in a jail cell.

Wow. Oh wow. Are you the one or should we expect someone else? Jesus says to them, you go back and report this to John. I bet they're thinking, I'm not taking anything back to John, man. He's depressed already. He doesn't need any more of this. But he goes, go back and tell John this. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised.

He's going, go tell John what's going on here. But then he adds something on the end, which is for all of us. And it was for John, but it was for all of us. He goes on and says, What a weird thing to say. What a weird thing to say. On the end of your, this is what I'm doing. But what is he saying? It sent a signal to John.

Blessed is the person who does not get tripped up when I don't act the way you think I should act. Blessed is the person that keeps following when others attempted to walk away because things don't look like going the way that you feel like they should go. Bless is the person that can stand under any circumstance or whatever's going on.

I was so amazed last weekend. We've got to pray for Jaden Adams. He's in the Navy and he was up here for a little while. And he came to us and he said, could you pray for me? I've read, it says in the scriptures, you know, that God can heal, get the elders to anoint you with oil. And I said, yeah, we'll do that.

I said, is there anything else you want to say, Jed? He said, yeah, there is. He said, I want you to know I've got this thing going on in my throat and it's really kind of hindering my performance and the things that are going on. He said, I would really like God to heal this. But he said, here's the deal, and I'm telling you guys, I'm making no demands of God.

I am not making a command, I'm not demanding any of God. I would like Him to heal me, but I also want Him to know if He chooses not to, I will still continue to worship just the same. Man, there's a young man that is focusing in the right space. It's amazing. So Jesus is anticipating our confusion and his non response can trip us up.

We don't, he doesn't do things the way that we think, Oh, I'm going to take my bat and ball and I'm going to go away. But he says, that's not a good thing because he knows if you feel like you're not getting your own way, you take your bat and ball and go, and then you reject faith. And then it gets worse because you adopt something.

instead of him in that place. And the whole thing gets worse. I think Philip Yancey was the author that wrote this. He said, the only thing worse than disappointment with God is trying to navigate disappointment without God. Because without God, it's just, it's hopeless. It goes nowhere. There's no answers.

And it goes down from doubt, indecision, pessimism, depression.

He understands that unanswered prayers are going to rattle us. But he says, you know, happy is the one who does not confuse my silence with my absence. Doesn't mean that at all. So he sends, he sends these guys back, just deliver that back to John. Well you go deliver that and then he says to the guys again, I say to you among those born of women there's none greater than John the Baptist.

He's reiterating his love for John, but he's also saying, I love him, but I'm not going to rescue him. It's all part of the plan and John is the last prophet and he will suffer the same fate that the others did as the ultimate final rejection and the fulfillment of Israel's old covenant so that the new thing can come.

John didn't get it when he first said, I must decrease that he may increase. He thought it was just going to be popularity, not prison.

He was the final one. So, just in landing this thing, Jesus may not rescue you. He may not rescue you out of this. Or He may do it differently to the way you think. It might not be the way that you think. That does not mean He does not love you. It just means there's something bigger going on that we don't understand.

Some things that are going on eternally that are above our pay grade and you might struggle. with doubt. All the disciples struggled with doubt. They all unfollowed at that point in time. I don't know what the heck happened with Thomas. I really don't. The women saw an angel, came back, told him no one would believe.

They had a meeting. Thomas wasn't in the meeting. Jesus turns up in the room. They all start following. They have to have, Jesus has to come another time because Thomas didn't turn up for whatever. I don't know what he was doing. But then Thomas finally gets there and then he says, I'm not going to do this unless I see this.

This is, I'm not going to be fooled again. And then Jesus turns up and it's like, my Lord, I get it. I get it. Amazing.

When nobody

turned up into a somebody, everybody started to follow again. Nobody expect Jesus to do anything other than stay dead. No one was down there waiting on the clock, waiting for him to return. No one was thinking that. So when they discovered nobody, that was confusing. But when nobody turned up in a room to everybody, everybody started following again.

And they realised it's important that we set our gaze and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. So let me just close this off with a story that I'd heard about a lady. She was 86 years of age, and She had a difficult life. Her name was Mary Ann Jones. And she left home early and she got married to her husband Tom and they had three kids and then anyway her 21 year old, her youngest girl, was killed by a drunk driver and she was so angry with the God and she struggled and then through it all she eventually she regained her faith.

Her pastor saw the struggle that was going on in her and so he decided I'm going to bring in a Theologian, a lecturer that's going to talk about why bad things happen to good people. So he comes in, he does this great 45, one hour minute presentation, this whole thing. At the end of it, he makes a fatal mistake.

He asked, does anybody have any questions? Well, on that topic, everybody's got questions anyway. And Marianne puts up her hand and she says, Oh, okay. Then, well why do good things happen to bad people? So he explained again exactly what he'd said. So she stood up again and said, Why do good things happen to bad people?

So he explained it again slower.

She got up the third time to say, Why do good things happen to bad people? The pastor was so frustrated. He said, I don't know why. And she smiled and said, That's right. That's right. We don't know why. Not long after that, her eldest daughter was diagnosed with cancer, passed away after six months. They got invited to what she was termed as a rock and roll church, so she went along, and her and her husband were there, and then he passed away in COVID, and they had to celebrate his life in the garage.

And she now serves as what she calls herself as a rescue mentor, helping people. Understand you don't have to explain the unexplainable and you don't have to find reason in the random. Doubt is part of the journey of faith and we need to bring our doubts out. You must be able to speak about them. Cause if they stay internalized, they will move into indecision.

It will move into pessimism and it will move into depression. That's the way that it goes. But if all these guys in this book were not immune to doubt and they let it all hang out, why are we so insistent about not articulating our doubts? And we need to learn to be gracious with each other. Because getting doubt out.

stops doubt acing us out. And it's all about where you set your gaze. You set your gaze on Jesus in the midst of the storm. Let's pray together. Father, I just thank you the way that you have taken us through this series. It's been amazing and under the circumstances and trying to articulate and figure out to help us understand like when we feel like you are not holding onto us, what do we do with that?

Through this journey, we're beginning to realize that there's a much bigger picture, and faith is much broader than what we think. And our circumstances are not any bearing on your love for us, or being with us, or our security. Would you help us to be like Peter, that, you know, like, could keep our eyes focused?

And when the interruption comes, as sometimes does, and we've, and doubt comes, that then we don't crumble, but we cry out to you, because we need to see you in the midst of it. And we accept that we're not God. We're not God, and we don't have to know everything, and you have a bigger plan going on, but we'll continue to love you in it.

Knowing that you have our best interests at mind, and you're more concerned about our eternal security than the comfort of just our circumstances, and you will continue to do what's right for us and what's best for us. And we ask for your grace and we ask for your mercy. And we thank you in Jesus name.

Amen.