Seasons of Doubt
From the Series—Transitions
November 8, 2002Some of the most important transitions in Scripture happen in the wilderness. Israel spends forty years in the wilderness. Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness. Paul spent three years in the wilderness. It seems like most of the major players in Scripture--Moses and David and Elijah--went through wilderness seasons.
Wilderness seasons are “in between” times--between jobs, between relationships, between stages, between places. We usually feel like we’re caught in “no man’s land,” but God uses those “in between” times to transition us.
For Israel it’s a geographical transition. God uses forty years in the wilderness to transition Israel from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promise Land. For Jesus it’s an occupational transition. God uses forty days in the desert to transition Jesus from carpentry to ministry. And for Paul’s it’s a spiritual transition. God uses three years in the Arabian outback to transition Paul from persecutor of the church to Apostle.
Parenthesis
On a Sunday morning in July of 2000 I had to quit preaching and I walked out of church doubled over in pain. The doctors discovered that my intestines had ruptured and I went into emergency surgery at two o’clock in the morning. I could tell from the look on the doctor’s face that I might not come out alive. I was on a respirator for two days. I spent eight days in the hospital. And I lost 30 pounds in the process. I had an ostomy for almost six months. And then I went back into the hospital for another week to reverse the ostomy. It was a good year before I really felt like myself again.
During my recovery process, I read Abandoned to God, Oswald Chamber’s biography. It was pretty sobering to read that he died from a ruptured appendix. One thought from that book made sense of this season in my life. Chambers said, “A parenthesis is a sentence inserted into an otherwise grammatically complete sentence, and if you want to understand the author, pay particular attention to the parenthesis. God puts a parenthesis in the middle flow of our life, life goes on before and after, but if you want to understand the life, read the parenthesis, if you can.” Here’s what I wrote in my journal, “I feel like this is a parenthesis in my life--life goes on before and after--but there is something God wants to do in me during this parenthesis in my life that can’t be done any other way.”
Israel’s parenthesis lasted forty years. Jesus’ parenthesis lasted forty days. And Paul’s parenthesis lasted three years. The “in between” times differ in length and intensity, but God uses them to do something new in us. Sometimes they are seasons of discipline or seasons of depression. Sometimes they are seasons of temptation or seasons of testing. This evotional focuses on seasons of doubt.
Seasons of Doubt
In I Kings 18, Elijah experiences the greatest victory of his prophetic career. He challenges the 450 prophets of Baal to a showdown. They climb Mount Carmel and Elijah says, “Get two bulls for us.” And each side sets up an altar. Then Elijah says, “You call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire--he is God.” The prophets of Baal start praying and Elijah starts talking smack. “At noon Elijah began to taunt them. ‘Shout louder!’ he said. ‘Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.’ Baal never answers.
Then it’s Elijah’s turn. And he doesn’t just call down fire. He says, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.” He does it three times! He makes sure the sacrifice is soaking wet. Then he calls down fire and God answers.
The odds are 450:1. And Elijah defeats the prophets of Baal. It is literally a “mountaintop experience.” Elijah is full of faith. But just one chapter later, Elijah is full of doubt. The reversal is amazing. I don’t know if Elijah is manic-depressive, but there is about as big a mood swing as you can have. Elijah stands toe-to-toe with the 450 prophets of Baal but when a woman named Jezebel makes a death-threat it says, “Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. He went a day’s journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. ‘I have had enough, Lord,’ he said. ‘Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors’.” And then twice, in verse 10 and verse 14 Elijah says, “I am the only one left.”
Is this the same guy that was pouring water on wood and calling down fire? What happened? The truth is that everyone is a mixture of doubt and faith. In Mark 9, a father brings his son to Jesus and says, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” Jesus says, “If you can? Everything is possible for him who believes.” And the man says, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief.”
I think this father speaks for all of us--"I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief.” Faith does not equal absence of doubt just as courage does not equal the absence of fear. All of us go through seasons of doubt.
I think one reason so many people love the Psalms is that David is full of faith and full of doubt. David is on the mountaintop one second and in the valley the next. He’s full of faith one day and full of doubt the next. Let me juxtapose some Psalms just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.
Psalm 9--"You, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.”
Psalm 22--"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Psalm 139-"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?”
Psalm 10--"Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?
Psalm 13--"How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?”
Psalm 115--"The Lord remembers us and will bless us.”
Psalm 10--"Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”
Psalm 46--"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble.”
You read the Psalms and there are wild swings of the pendulum between hope and hopelessness, faith and faithlessness. It’s almost schizophrenic. But I think that’s one reason why the Psalms resonate with so many people. Philip Yancey says, “The seesaw cycle of intimacy and abandonment is, in fact, what most people experience in their relationship with God.” Its three steps forward two steps back. That’s the way life is. We go through different spiritual seasons. Sometimes we’re full of faith. And sometimes we’re full of doubt.
Second-Guessing
“In between” times are full of doubt--you second-guess just about everything in your life. You second-guess your career choice. You second-guess your relationships. And you often second-guess God.
Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner have written a great book titled The Quarterlife Crisis. The book interviews twentysomethings and they talk about the transitions they’re going through. One of the things they talk about is how a “multitude of doubts” hit twentysomethings all at once. One interviewee says, “How am I going to get a new job, a new apartment, and, how am I going to find someone to spend my life with? I had doubts about all of these things, plus I’m a teacher which isn’t always a respectable position in terms of money and status, so I have doubts about that.” He says, “You doubt yourself over and over again.”
Another interviewee said, “I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do right out of college. I was clueless.”
Someone else said, “I just felt so helpless. Here I was sobbing every other day, frantic with worry about how I was going to make this transition that I wasn’t ready for, withdrawing from the world, doubting myself into a frenzy.”
I think there is a whole lot of self-doubt and second-guessing during a quarterlife crisis. Am I dating the right person? Did I choose the right major? Should I stay here or move there? Should I do this or do that? And then we revisit those same questions in a slightly different way during a midlife crisis. Did I marry the right person? Did I choose the right career? Should I have moved here or stayed there? Should I have done this or done that? And if there is a big gap between what we wanted our life to become and what our life really is, we second-guess ourselves and we second-guess God.
Elijah does lots of second-guessing in I Kings 19. He feels lonely--"I am the only one left.” He feels like his life is over--"I’ve had enough.” He feels like a failure--"I am no better than my ancestors.” But God’s not through with him yet.
The Prescription
It’s natural to feel deserted in the desert. Elijah feels like God is a million miles away, but God is present even when he feels absent. Even when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, the Lord was like a Father watching his children from the shadows. Deuteronomy 2:7 says, “The Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast desert. These forty years, the Lord your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything.”
One key to making it through seasons of doubt is spending time in the Lord’s presence. The Lord invites Elijah into his presence in I Kings 19:11. He says, “Go out and stand in the mountain in the presence of the Lord.” When we go through a wilderness season, spending time in the presence of the Lord is essential to our spiritual survival. We need to bring “the sacrifice of praise.”
Far-Side Faith
When we experience doubt or depression part of us wants to run in the opposite direction. What we need to do is walk through it, we need to wrestle with it. Our faith will be deeper and stronger because of it. God says to Elijah, “Go back the way you came” in I Kings 19:15.
During my freshman year at the University of Chicago I went through a season of doubt. I was raised in a great home and a great church. I knew what I believed. But I didn’t know why I believed what I believed. And there is a big difference. My faith came under attack. A lot of my professors planted seeds of doubt. But it was good for me because it forced me to ask the tough questions and figure out why I believed what I believed.
Oliver Wendel Holmes said there are two kinds of simplicity--simplicity on the near-side of complexity and simplicity on the far-side of complexity. In the same sense, I think there are two kinds of faith. There is faith on the near-side of doubt and there is faith on the far-side of doubt.
Happy Days
A few years ago I was drinking a Nantucket Nectar and they always have some sort of saying on bottle cap. I’m not sure why but I’ve never forgotten this particular bottle cap. It said, “If everyday was a good day there would be no good days.” That’s pretty profound for a bottle cap. If every day was a good day there would be no good days because there wouldn’t be any bad days with which to compare the good days. Let me put that bottle cap into my own words: it’s the bad days that help us appreciate the good days!
I’m not sure that’s what we want to hear when we’re going through a tough transition. But here’s what I know from personal experience. Sickness helps us appreciate health. Failure helps us appreciate success. Debt helps us appreciate wealth. And the tough times help us appreciate the good times. That’s just the way life is. But let me take it a step further. Not only do the bad days help us appreciate the good days. I think sometimes our worst days turn out to be our best days.
At the time it happened, I’d say that ruptured intestines was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I never want to go through something like that again. But I’d also have to say it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Walter Kaufman said, “It makes for a better life if one has a rendezvous with death.”