When In Doubt

Papers lie scattered across the table.  A stack of books lean precariously on the edge of the dining room table, tottering so that one sudden movement would send them tumbling to the floor.  The table resembles my daughter's disorganized, lack of attention to school today.  I grab The Story of the World:  Middle Ages, which serves as A's history book, her favorite subject, and prepare to read today's lesson, hoping to draw her attention back to learning.  Our reading is on Muhammad and the founding of the Islamic religion.  I make an attempt to explain how Islam differs from Christianity when A suddenly says, "Mommy?" then turns her head away shyly.

I pause and respond, "Yes?"

"Never mind," is her quiet reply.  She rests her head onto her folded arms, turned away so that I cannot clearly see her face.  I notice a small tear slip off her elbow and puddle onto the table.

"What is it, Pumpkin?  You know you can tell Mommy anything."  She shakes her head "no" and continues to stare in the opposite direction.  I pull her into my lap and give her a moment.  "

Are you sure you don't want to tell me what's on your mind?"

She begins then hesitates.  I smile encouragingly and wait for her to continue.  "Sometimes I don't believe Jesus is real."  My heart changes its rhythm, and I feel a heavy thump that resonates almost audibly in my ears.  Her tears slowly morph from a trickle to a stream.  Lord, I'm going to need help with this one, I silently pray.

Here is where the old me would have panicked.  The old me would have said in an uncomfortable voice about five octaves too high, "What do you mean you don't always believe Jesus is real?  How could you not believe?  Haven't we taught you all you need to know, given you all the evidence? Of course, He is real.  You have to believe in Jesus to go to heaven"  Inside, I would have been shouting in my head, "WHAT??  My baby girl is bound for eternal damnation.  What did I do wrong?  ARRRGH!!!"  I would have proceeded to worry incessantly about the soul of my child.  Ahh, the old me was so much fun.

The old me would have, in that moment, shut down any meaningful dialogue that could have occurred between my daughter and me about doubts, questions, faith, and the immense love of a magnanimous, wonderful God.  But, because in the past fifteen years, I have wrestled with my own questions and struggled through my own doubts, I understand that God is big enough to handle these moments.  Actually, it's through the desert seasons, the seasons where it seems that He is anywhere but near where I have drawn closer to Him and emerged with a faith stronger than when I felt I had all the answers to the questions.

The old me would have demonstrated to my daughter what a faithless walk resembles.  A faith that panics rather than trusts, a faith that is unable to acknowledge that the same God who loves and created me holds my own children safely in His hands and who desires them to know Him and come to an authentic, meaningful faith in Him, not a shallow, shaky faith that seeks only to trust enough to receive a "get out of hell free" card.  The deep sort of faith is often built on withstanding the storms, wrestling with the questions, and seeking to discover the truth for oneself, not merely riding in on the coattails of a parent's faith.  That isn't the kind of genuine faith that is going to transform the hearts and minds of my children.  While my daughter has prayed, of her own asking, to repent and to receive Christ, her transformation will not take place overnight, and while I do see evidence of Jesus working in her heart, she will still have moments where she questions, sometimes even the veracity of her own beliefs.

I think as Christians we so desperately long for our children to come to faith in Christ that we panic anytime they express doubts or ask tough questions.  We seem to believe that we have an all-or-nothing- one-shot chance at bringing our kids to salvation, and if we miss that chance, all hope is lost, so we rush our kids to make commitments and say prayers they may not be ready to pray.  Faith is a lifelong journey not a moment, and on that journey, our children will express doubts.  That's part of the growing process.  I cannot ask my daughter to accept my faith blindly and to not ask questions or to not find Jesus in her own way.  That moment isn't entirely up to me.  It is my job to prepare the soil and plant the seeds, but it is the Holy Spirit's job to convict and draw her into a true relationship.

I'm reminded of the man who came to Jesus seeking help for his son and Jesus said, "Everything is possible to the one who believes."  Immediately the man cries out, "I do believe!" Yet, in the next breath exclaims, "Lord, help my unbelief."  He longs to believe but realizes that he needs Jesus's help to do that.  Jesus doesn't scold him but rather heals the man's son, an act that would surely help the man overcome his doubts.  I also think of John the Baptist, Jesus's cousin, the one whose life mission was to prepare the way, who is in prison and asks of Jesus, "Are you the one or shall we look for another?"  Does Jesus condemn John for his doubts?  No, he gently reassures John's faith, "Tell John what you have seen; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them."   I imagine that if John had doubts, we, too, can expect to have moments of questioning.  I think we can trust Jesus to reassure the faith of our own children, as well.  When the prodigal son goes through a crisis of faith, the Father allows him to struggle, to even hit rock bottom, but when the son arrives at his moment of clarity, the Father welcomes him home with open arms.  Great men and women of faith have struggled with doubt and faith and were given a safe place in which to wrestle through their unbelief.  I believe the same grace offered to them allows me to offer that same safe place to my own children.

So the new me, the me who has been running this race for a long time, sometimes beaten up and bruised from the pace and from the terrain, pulls my daughter closer.  "You know, Pumpkin, Mommy wouldn't ask you to believe something that I don't believe with my whole heart.  You know what else?  I've had doubts before, too."

"Really?" she asks.  I can see visible evidence of her relief at knowing that she isn't the only person to ever question faith in Jesus.  We spend the next few moments discussing the evidence for Christ's birth, death, resurrection, all the people who witnessed His time on earth after the resurrection, and those who witnessed the Ascension.  A and I even have an opportunity to talk about all the disciples and martyrs who risked their lives or even lost their lives to preach the Gospel.  I assure her that I can't imagine they would stake their lives on something that wasn't true.  We, on her level, talk about why the penalty of sin is death, and I get to remind her again of the beauty of the Gospel, that Jesus paid her debt in full.  I use the example of her walking into a store and not having the money to buy an item and a kind stranger pays for the item, refusing to be paid back.   She asks me if I know about the book Heaven Is for Real, which opens up a discussion about what it must be like to look into Jesus's incredible eyes of love.

After a few moments, we resume school, but before we do, we bow our heads, and I pray over my daughter, that Jesus would reveal himself to her and strengthen her faith and reassure her.  And I believe He will because I believe that the most amazing thing about God's grace is that, once we believe, He doesn't offer us the amazing gift of eternal life, somewhere in the future, then leave us where we are.  No, He gives us the Holy Spirit to transform us into new people who receive eyes of mercy, love, and grace and then allows us to go transform the world with His story.  So rather than fill my child's heart with fear, I hope I gave her a sense of the grace that Jesus offers us, the grace to safely question, wrestle, and eventually, come to a place of authentic belief and faith, the kind of faith that radically transforms her heart then the world.