The intern looked and looked and said, “I don’t know.”
“Right! Nothing!” the doctor replied. Why he seemed aggravated I am not sure, but he slammed the light off with his fist, turned on his heel, and walked out. I knew he had seen us praying over Landon and committing him to the Lord.
The Lord had miraculously healed Landon. Even I could see on the X ray that his two tiny lungs were filled with air, and everything was back in place. I thought of all the wonderful people from the Arlington Heights Evangelical Free Church, where I was on staff, who had been praying along with people all over the country.
The Lord just flat out healed him! No doubt about it.
Of course, he’s all boy now and thirteen years old, full of energy and vitality for the Lord. I know very well that the medical crisis could have gone in a lot of different directions. The stretching of our faith could have gone a different way. I could tell you other stories about when I trusted God just as much, but things didn’t turn out the way I thought they should. All that to say this: God places regular tests of faith in front of us.
In those critical moments, you make a crucial choice: Either you let your faith grow and flourish, or you choose doubt. Choose the first, and you’ll add another story to your file of the faithfulness and the goodness of God; choose the second, and your faith will shrivel up like a piece of leather in the wilderness sun. The circumstances of life either shrink or stretch your faith. Either you get better or you get bitter. The choice is yours. Think about the hardest thing that’s going on in your life right now. Ask yourself the question, “Is this circumstance shrinking or stretching my faith?”
PRINCIPLE THREE: DOUBT SEES THE OBSTACLES; FAITH SEES THE OPPORTUNITIES
Two people can look at the same situation and see the exact opposite. One heart filled with doubt focuses only on the obstacles. Another person, looking at the same situation, not filled with doubt but filled with faith, can only see the opportunity. Notice Numbers 13:25–26. The spies came back. “When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days [that must have been quite a wait], they proceeded to come to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel.” Imagine the anticipation as the people saw the spies approaching. They must have been so fired up—at least, the people who were filled with faith. They were like, “It’s time to move!”
Unfortunately, everybody wasn’t quite seeing it that way—not even the spies! The twelve “brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. Thus they told him, and said, ‘We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit’” (verses 26–27).
But then the majority spokesperson opened up his mouth and said this awful word, “Nevertheless” (verse 28). The word literally means except that. In other words, “We went into the land. It certainly does flow with milk and honey. Look at the size of these grapes. Nevertheless . . .”
And then, the picture suddenly changed. Their report got really negative. Doubt sees the obstacles; faith sees the opportunities. Notice verse 28. “‘Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there.’” Agh! I guess that was a scary thing to them. “‘Amalek is living in the land of the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites [and probably the termites, too] are living in the hill country, and the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan’” (verse 29).
The bottom line is that they listed all of these armies with reputations. But the problem never was the giants or the cities or the weapons; the problem was their attitude:
They had a lack of confidence that God would keep His promises.
But not everyone lacked confidence in God. Notice in verse 30, “Then Caleb [and Joshua, the two men filled with faith] quieted the people.” Why did he have to quiet the people down? They were murmuring. They were freaking out; they were saying, “What on earth!” So Caleb had to calm the people. “Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, ‘We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.’” Wow! Great faith! Then there was this doubting response: “But the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.’” Fait h sees the opportunity; doubt sees the obstacles. What you see is what you get!
I like this poem because it helps me think about the difference between faith and doubt. 1
Doubt sees the obstacles.
Faith sees the way.
Doubt sees the darkest night.
Faith sees the way.
Doubt dreads to take a step.
Faith soars on high.
Doubt questions, “Who believes?”
Faith answers, “I.”
GOSPEL BANNER
It’s just as simple as that.
“No, no,” I hear people say. “It can’t be that simple.”
Yes, it is. It’s a choice of attitudes. Doubt sees the obstacles; faith sees the opportunities. Doubt and faith are patterns of thinking formed over a long period of time.
Now doubt has many disguises. It doesn’t always come out like a doubt thing; it operates undercover. You have to pull back the disguise to see that the real problem is doubt. So, what does doubt use for a disguise? Here are five (but there are more):
-- Fear. “God won’t protect me.” Do you remember what doubt is? Doubt is a lack of confidence or assurance that God will keep His promises. So one of the disguises of doubt is fear.
-- Anxiety. “Oh! What’s up ahead? What’s going to happen to me? Will I be OK?” That anxiety is doubt—that’s what it is.
-- Frustration and anger.“God won’t solve this problem on my agenda in my time!” Right . . . You’re doubting God.
-- Withdrawal. That’s pulling back from others or putting up a wall. Not willing to draw close to the Lord. Pulling back spiritually. Why? A growing attitude of doubt.
-- Bitterness. “God won’t heal this hurt in me.” You’re so bitter and unforgiving. You’re doubting the goodness of God. You’ve taken that on yourself, and you’re keeping your heart all stirred up about it because you don’t believe that God can really heal that thing that was done to you. But He can. And He wants to. Just let Him.
Did you know...
Thomas Gets a Bum Rap!
“God won’t answer my questions.” Yes, He will. Just check in with Thomas (John 11:16; 14:5; 20:24–29). He’s called a doubter, but a little unfairly. Sure, he had doubts and questions, but his heart was willing to believe. God will go a long way in revealing Himself to a person who honestly wants answers. Do you really want answers? God has made some promises. Would you agree? And if we have confidence in God, we’re going to have Promised Land living. But if we’re filled with doubt, we’re going to live in the wilderness. In fact, those who choose doubting as their lifestyle will spend their lifetimes in the wilderness. God was getting ready to send a whole bunch of them into the wilderness back in Numbers, partly because of the doubt that they expressed by murmuring.
“Fine,” you say. “You nailed it—I have a lot of doubts. Fine, you blew their cover as fear, anger, and stuff. But if you were in my situation—if you could come this week and be with me where I live . . .”
Don’t Miss This . . .
Those who study human experience agree that life is really not about the difference between our circumstances. The details may vary, but we all live with highs and lows. Advice columnist Ann Landers gets this when she says, “Opportunities are often disguised as hard work. Most people fail to recognize them.” Those who study human experience agree almost universally that life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you choose to respond. Seminary president and author Charles Swindoll, one of the most gifted Bible teachers in our generation, wrote:
Words can never adequately convey the incredible impact of our attit
ude....I believe the single most important decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my attitude choice. It’s more important than my past. It’s more important than my education or my bankroll or my success or my failures. My attitude choice is more important than my fame or my pain or what others think or say about me or my position or my circumstances. Attitudes keep me going or cripple my progress. Attitude alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitude is right, there is no barrier too high nor valley too deep nor dream too extreme nor challenge too great for me. 2
Now that’s not some possibility, positive-thinking nonsense message. That’s the message of genuine biblical attitudes. You may say, “But I don’t want to doubt. I know I’m a doubter. But why do I doubt?” Consider principle four:
PRINCIPLE FOUR: WHEN SURROUNDED BY DOUBTERS , DOUBTING COMES EASILY
What a night of victory that could have been, after those spies came back from the land. The people should have been whooping it up. “We’re taking the land!” They should have been singing, “All things are possible! All things are possible!” They should have had the campfire going. They should have been rejoicing, “This is going to be the greatest thing in the world! We’re going to take the land God has promised! He has never let us down before! Do you remember the plagues? Remember the Red Sea? Remember Mount Sinai?”
They should have been going crazy with confidence in God because of all that they had seen. But they weren’t. You say, “Why?” When surrounded by doubters, doubting comes easily.
“Then all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night” (Numbers 14:1). Now that ought to make you cry. Then what? “All the sons of Israel grumbled . . .” (verse 2). Attitude problems spoke up. “All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, ‘Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!’” Notice that this wasn’t a few doubtful people. “All the congregation,” (verse 1) and “all the sons of Israel” (verse 2)—the whole congregation doubted in unison. When surrounded by doubters, doubting comes easily.
Doubt catches some people by surprise.
Christians are sometimes genuinely puzzled, asking, “Why do I find it so hard to trust God? God’s been faithful to me. God’s provided for me. He’s done a lot of good things in my life!” I find the reason usually is this: Instead of talking often about God’s grace and recalling His miracles and thinking about all that He has done, people choose to focus on the obstacles, and they welcome doubt. Once you get that wave going in a group, everybody rides it.
This doubting comes easily when all my best friends, my coworkers, and my neighbors are people who don’t love the Lord Jesus and are not filled with faith, or I’m continually surrounded by doubters.
This is true at every age, but it is especially critical in the junior high and high school years. One of the reasons Christian parents need to give special attention to their students spending time with other students in a biblically age-appropriate environment is that they spend so much time in school with people who will not encourage their faith. You’re kidding yourself if you’re thinking that your child is going to grow up to be a kingdom kid when he’s surrounded by people whose lives are filled with doubt and rebellin against God.
I don’t understand why parents who won’t let their kids choose their diets, their study habits, or what they’re going to watch on television, do let their children choose what music they listen to, who their friends are, and what their extracurricular activities are going to be. If he or she listens to the wrong music, has the wrong friends, and spends extracurricular time with doubters, you’ve got a world of hurt up ahead.
You think, “What difference does it really make to get my kid over to the church to have some fun with other Christian kids?” The clue phone is ringing! It’s all about the relationships—not just the biblical content! Those primary relationships with other believers are foundational to faith. Let’s wake up to the reality that our kids are hemorrhaging in the world, because we have not clued in to the influences that are stealing their hearts from God.
Why does doubt come so easily?
Here are four reasons doubts come so easily:
1. Doubting is contagious. It’s easier to catch than the common cold.
2. Doubting is passive. Faith requires action; doubting does not. Nobody ever wakes up in the morning and says, “I bet today’s going to be a great day for doubting. I’m going to doubt God all day today.” Doubting is what takes over when you do nothing. Faith requires doing something; doubting is doing nothing, and it takes you nowhere good. If you aren’t busy and involved, you are doubting. You have to get focused and active to be filled with faith.
3. Doubting satisfies our tendency towards self-protection. Nobody likes to be wrong. “What if we go all the way up into the land and we trust God for great victories and we don’t get it? We’re going to look really dumb. Aren’t we? There’s going to be egg on our faces. We’re going to end up in the cemetery outside Jericho. It’s just easier not to trust God. I’ll just lower my expectations. Then I won’t be disappointed.” But you are disappointed. Aren’t you? Because of your doubt.
4. Doubters are easier to find than friends of faith. How many real, genuine friends of faith do you have—I mean people who speak the Word of God into your life and fire you up spiritually? That’s why I’m so grieved for our students who are trying to build a foundation for their life spiritually, but they don’t have any friends of faith. It’s absolutely critical that we cherish those people in our lives and develop those relationships, because friends of faith are absolutely critical.
PRINCIPLE FIVE: IT’S A SHORT JOURNEY FROM DOUBT TO DESPAIR
Doubt never stands still. It’s always sliding somewhere worse. It’s a short journey from doubt to despair. It’s not weeks, nor months; it’s just a matter of a few days. A crisis can make the trip very short. In the case of the children of Israel, who were really good at doubting, reaching despair was a matter of only a few hours. Notice what started to come forth from their lips, “The whole congregation said to them, ‘Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!’” (Numbers 14:2). They’re going to get their wish on that pretty soon. Then they said these tragic words:
“‘Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?’ So they said to one another, ‘Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt’” (verses 3–4).
They’re saying in effect here, “We’re going back to Egypt! God will not give us victory. He will allow us to be killed in battle. He will allow our wives and children to be brutalized. We would be better off as slaves in Egypt, and mutiny against Moses is a good first step in that direction.” That was just like spit in the face of God and all of the faithfulness that He had provided for them.
Is that thinking messed up or what? Talk about a bad plan! Here’s why:
First, it was totally contrary to their amazing experiences. They had forgotten God’s provision: a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night, dividing the Red Sea, daily manna, and on and on. Had God not provided for them every step of the way?
Second, if they did turn around and go back to Egypt, would God continue to provide manna for them on the way back across the Sinai? I think not.
Third, what if by some chance they did get back to Egypt? They had drowned all of Pharoah’s army in the Red Sea. Now would they walk back into Egypt saying, “Sorry about all of that. We want to make up now”? Yeah—sure!
But here’s the main reason it was a bad plan. It rose from desperation. Write in the margin of your Bible there beside verses 3 and 4 the word “desperate.” Desperate plans come from despairing hearts. I’ve heard some pretty desperate plans from some people in my time. “You’re going to do what?” It’s a short journey from doubt to despair, wh
ere the future is not bright like the promises of God. They made desperate plans because, like a tumor growing out of control, their doubt had ballooned into despair.
UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
I have never, ever trusted God and regretted it. Sometimes the challenges have been huge, like Landon’s birth. Others have been momentary choices when I’ve decided to trust God and keep on going. I have never trusted God and regretted it. But I can think of many times when I have chosen doubt and missed incredible opportunities to prove the faithfulness of God. Today I need faith more than ever. I have a church of more than four thousand people to care for, two daughter churches, and radio and writing ministries that place many demands for leadership, material, and financial support. I have a wife, and three children at or approaching the teen years. Like you, I have my own issues of faith and discipline and self-control. All that is to say that I have much today about which I need to be on my knees and trusting God for. I know you could come up with a similar list. I’m guessing that as you read this chapter you have seen the danger of doubt not only in the children of Israel but also in your own life.
LET’S TALK SOLUTION
Time again for some soul-searching questions. We need to determine the extent of this wilderness attitude in our lives.
1. Am I a doubting person? This is where the Word of God needs to intersect an honest heart. That’s how change happens. Am I a doubting person? Maybe the answer is yes. Maybe the answer is sometimes. Maybe the answer is too often. In spiritual matters, doubting is death.
2. Am I reaping the consequences in my relationship with God? You say, “Well I’m not a faith person. I’m a ‘see it to believe it’ person. I’ve always been that way. I am a realist. You can have your church thing, but I only believe what I see.” You’re not going to see very much then. Jesus said in John 11:40, “If you believe, you will see the glory of God.” In spiritual matters, it’s not I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it, it’s I’ll-see-it-when-I-believe-it. That’s how we came to Christ. We didn’t have all the promises in the bank when we trusted Christ. It was a step of faith. Every step with God has that same pattern.
Lord, Change My Attitude: Before It's Too Late Page 16
