Doubt, Disappointment and the Flowing River

"I have always loved the story of Peter walking on the water ... or trying to. It's such a spot on picture of our spiritual lives. We are called out of our comfort and asked to believe the impossible. And with all the evidence in front of us, somehow we still have our doubts and we begin to sink. I wanted to capture that moment before our doubts take hold and pull us down into the darkness of fear and worry. It is in that weakness though that Christ reaches us." — Luke Flowers (artist)





I am reading Philip Yancey's book, Disappointment With God. I have read it a number of years ago, so it is a refreshing look at doubt and struggle with God. In telling the story of a man who turned from his faith, Yancey points out the three very large questions often asked, though usually not out loud.

Is God fair? Is God silent? Is God hidden?

As soon as I begin reading I am reassured because I realize that it is makes a good deal of sense to ask these questions of God. This is not apologetics, but more an emotional series of questions that I can say are really a combination of self examination (I am not the person I would really like to be) and frustration with wanting more of my experiences in understanding and knowing God. I don't think I am alone in that need or desire at all. A blog I found by Jason Boyett in which he discusses doubt made some great points including:

"Are those thoughts the first cracks in a process that'll send our faith crumbling? Relax. Everyone has doubts, and God is not surprised by them. Jesus didn't rebuke Thomas when the disciple needed to touch His wounds. Instead, He stretched out His hand and let Thomas figure things out himself. I'm comforted by Jude 22, which says, "Be merciful to those who doubt." I need to show that mercy to myself."

I also remembered an interesting way of describing how faith works from a sermon by Tim Keller.



Finally, I was thinking of another Sting song, All This Time, which I read is about a man who lost his father. Sting also lost his father and the songs on that album are mostly concerning his struggle to deal with that loss, perhaps asking these questions himself.

Is God fair? Is God silent? Is God hidden?


In the song, All This Time, part of the lyrics are:

And all this time the river flowed
Endlessly, like a silent tear
And all this time the river flowed
Father, if Jesus exists,
Then how come he never lived here

Sting is singing about a man who lost his father, a shipyard worker, echoing Sting's own loss, having grown up near shipyards. He seems to question traditional religion and expresses his doubts in the face of grief.

Is God fair? Is God silent? Is God hidden?

I am often taken by the thought of the endless rolling of waves, the ceaseless nature of God moving things towards His purposes and endings and beginnings that will take place. Even when days are good, the river flows...when days are bad...the river flows. It doesn't flow for even a moment according to my will. It flows whether I trust it to flow or not. The blog by Jason Boyett ends this way:

"As Christians, what we need to remember is this: Salvation doesn't come from our ability to erase every doubt from our minds. It doesn't come from how strong our faith is or by how much certainty we can muster up about God. Salvation comes not from anything we do, but from the work of Jesus on the cross. Jesus saves us — not the absence of doubt. That frees me up to stop worrying about my doubts. It frees me up to trust. It allows me to pray, in all seriousness, the desperate request of the father who asks Jesus to heal his ailing son: "Lord, I believe! Help me overcome my unbelief."

I try to tell myself often that even though we don't know the reasons for the events in our lives, we know the reasons they are not. Because of the cross, because of God's very personal intervention and rescue on our behalf, we know that whatever the reasons for things, they cannot be because He doesn't care or is not involved. He became intimately involved and His rescue was from the ultimate tragedy, the only real tragedy that would destroy us. The river flows daily, but not aimlessly, and not without destination...I keep telling myself.