Concerning Doubt

In my personal Bible reading, I recently worked through the Book of Luke (fitting, since I started reading it right before Christmas; and with the first few chapters being the primary source for the Christmas story...). It struck me as interesting to read through some of the passages contained in Luke four—the sections of Jesus’ temptation in particular and of Peter’s calling in chapter five. Right after Jesus is baptised by his cousin John, he wanders around in the Jordanian wilderness for 6 weeks, at the end of which Satan comes to tempt Him. Take a good look at exactly what Jesus’ temptations involve in this passage (Luke 4:1-13). If we look past the immediate things—the bread, the lordship and the frivolous demonstration of God’s power—there seems to be something else going on. In all three instances, Satan questions and challenges Jesus’ divine nature. He attacks Jesus’ authority & Jesus’ origin. Take a look: Satan says, “If you are the Son of God;” “If you worship before me;” and again, “If you are the Son of God” in this part of Luke’s Gospel when he’s trying his hardest to overpower Jesus.

Why did Satan phrase the temptations to Jesus in these ways? How come the Accuser of the Saints was spending all of his energies & efforts on the Son of the Most High God by questioning and attacking Christ’s divinity? From what I know about temptation and how Satan’s accusations work, it’s certain that Satan is the father of all lies (John 8:43-44) and that he seeks to find those whom he can devour (1 Peter 5:8). What, then, is the easiest way to overcome an enemy or to overpower a victim? Does the attacker go head-on to the most fortified position, the most heavily-defended point; or will he survey the victim, assaying which things pose a potential weakness & then exploit those weaknesses in order to break through defences? If Satan is smart (and I figure that he is), he definitely would want to maximise the potential for successful attacks by focussing on the weakest areas of defence.

I’m fairly certain that that’s how Satan works in my life, and I’m pretty sure it’s universal: he finds the areas of our lives where we’re the least certain, where we’re weakest & he exploits those weaknesses to trip us up, to make us fall, to tear us down & to destroy us. Often times, our weakest points tend to be related to the deep-set desires within. Greed is a twisted desire for comfort. Rage is a twisted desire for control. Lust is a twisted desire for the marriage relationship. Envy is a twisted desire for equality or fairness. Jealousy and pride are twisted desires for recognition. So what’s going on with Satan’s method of approach to Jesus in the wilderness, then? Why does he spend almost all of his efforts on questioning and undermining Jesus’ Sonship?

Here’s a possible explanation as to why Satan challenged Jesus in this manner: maybe Satan wanted to make Jesus uncertain. Maybe he was trying to put doubts into the Christ’s identity. Now I know that it’s nothing that we can confirm (or deny, I suppose) this side of heaven, but it would be an interesting thing to ask Jesus when I get to see Him face to face. “How much did the ‘fully human’ part of you, Jesus, come into conflict with the fact that you are the Son of God? Did you have to believe in your divinity the same way that we do? Did you ever struggle with that dual nature—being fully God & fully human? Did you ever have doubts?” We know that there were some miraculous attestations to Christ’s Sonship at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry: there was the voice from heaven after His baptism (Luke 3:21-22) and the prophetic declaration by John the Baptist that Jesus indeed was the divine redeemer (John 1:29-34)—both of which happened immediately before Jesus roamed around in the wilderness... but you’d still have to believe that what John said was true, and you’d have to believe that the voice from heaven which you heard was actually a real voice (for sometimes, when “voice from heaven” proclaims things, only certain people understand it [Acts 22:6-9]). It’s pretty clear from the Scriptures that John was convinced that Jesus was God’s Son, and we know that Jesus was certain as a child... but how many of us were thoroughly convinced of something as a child only to start doubting it later on in our adult lives? How many of us have heard promises about the future, and in the delay of their fulfilment, start to doubt if they would ever come to pass? If your mother told you as a 3 year-old that an angel came to her before you were born & said that you were the Son of God who would be the Saviour of the people, you probably would believe her... but when you turned thirty & all you’ve done with your life for the past 27 years has been to work with wood in a provincial town, it’s plausible that—as a human—you might question whether the statement made by your mom all those years ago might have been little more than “just talk.”

We believe that Jesus was fully human while He walked around on earth with us a couple of millennia ago. I wonder if Satan was trying to capitalise on the fact that humans are prone to weakness of faith in light of delay. I wonder if Satan was trying to trip Jesus up—trying to make Him doubt that He was the Son of God. I wonder if Satan’s challenges in the desert made any impact on the human part of Jesus. My Old Testament instructor back in Bible school almost a decade ago commented on this passage in the desert as being a perfect example of how & when humans give into temptation. His acronym to describe the scenario was HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired. The theory he proposed was that people will more often than not give into temptation when one or more of these conditions are present in the situation. In the desert, Jesus had been wandering around for forty days by himself. No doubt he was lonely & tried... and what do we see that Satan tempts Christ with first? The devil enticed Jesus to make food by challenging the authenticity of Christ’s divinity: “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3). The style of this temptation is two-fold: if Jesus gave in, Satan would have caught Jesus in the trap of subservience, for if Jesus did what Satan told Him to do, Satan could cite that instance as being in higher authority than Jesus. If Jesus resisted the temptation, Satan could cite Jesus’ resistance to being a cover-up for not really being the Son of God. The more that Jesus resisted the devil, the more “ammo” Satan potentially had in trying to make Jesus doubt His own divinity.

The chapter in the book of Luke following Jesus’ temptation recounts for us the story of when Peter, James and John were called to be Jesus’ disciples. Luke relays the story, telling us that Peter had just spent a futile night trying to catch fish. Jesus comes along and tells Peter to go out one more time and drop his nets. Now Peter is a professional fisherman. He’s been fishing probably for his entire working life—maybe even longer. Jesus is the son of a carpenter. What does he know about fishing? Why in the world would the fish be out in broad daylight, when birds & other predators were at their most active? If they had no luck catching fish under the shroud of darkness when the fishing was its most fruitful, what made this wood-cutter’s son think that fish could be caught now? I wouldn’t be surprised if such thoughts were racing through Peter’s head when Jesus asked him to go out this last time. Even the tone of Peter’s reply in this Gospel betrays the fact that he had his doubts about the attempt: “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets” (Luke 5:5). Despite his doubts, Peter obeyed as he went out & cast his nets in the lake one more time.

Sandwiched between the stories of Jesus’ temptation & Peter’s miraculous catch, Luke tells the story of Jesus speaking to the citizens of his hometown. It, again, is a story of doubt and uncertainty. The people, after hearing Jesus claim ownership of some Messianic prophecies in the book of Isaiah, start murmuring amongst themselves, discussing with scepticism the credulity of whether this local carpenter’s son actually was the Christ. Motivated by their doubt, they challenged Jesus to prove to them that He really was the Saviour, and Jesus, in response, rebukes them for their lack of faith. Furious that this self-assuming wood-worker had enough nerve to think He knew more about the Bible than the leaders of the local synagogue, they decided to go throw Him off a cliff. They were convinced because of Jesus’ remarks and attitude that He was disrespecting and blaspheming God. No miracles were performed in Nazareth that day for the people, except—of course—that Jesus walked away from the murderous plot.

The people of Nazareth doubted Jesus’ claims and acted on these doubts so as to not believe a word He said. The result? Nothing: their doubts were neither dispelled nor confirmed. Instead, everything stayed the same as it always was. Peter, however, despite his doubts concerning Jesus’ skills at fishing nevertheless followed and obeyed. The result? A catch of fish so large that it began to sink two fishing vessels. Jesus, despite the fact that Satan tried to make the Lord doubt His own calling, obeyed the Father—even to the point of death by public execution. The result? Resurrection and eternal life for all of Mankind.

So what’s the point about all these stories? It seems to be that everybody will, at one time or another, be confronted by doubts concerning the things they believe. The question & the concern isn’t so much that we doubt—it’s more about what we do in response to those doubts. Do we trust & obey despite our doubts; or do we conform our actions to the “reasonable outcome” of what our doubts predict? Do we, like Peter, act on our faith in what God tells us even though our doubts tell us otherwise and as a result, witness the miraculous; or do we act like the people of Nazareth & respond to our doubts only to witness the results that our doubts would expect? I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather witness the miraculous than the mundane.

We all will have doubts. It’s unavoidable. Our response to these doubts, however, is the important part. Everyone chooses what they want believe, whether it’s true or manufactured—and it’s nearly impossible this side of heaven to confirm whether our beliefs are based on truth or not. Even scientifically proven beliefs are subject to uncertainty. Our beliefs undoubtedly will be challenged and will be subjected to doubts. We must, nevertheless, choose which position will guide our actions: our faith in what we believe or our faith in our doubts. A wise man once told me a proverb a long time ago that has helped me retain a good perspective on this struggle in life, and it goes like this: “It is alright to doubt your beliefs; just don’t believe your doubts.” A choice to place faith in our beliefs or in our doubts must be made. Which, then, will you choose?

On Relationships, God and Relationships with God… Jack Deere instalment 4

An excerpt from Jack Deer in his book, Surprised by the Voice of God :

“

Availability

If you study the life of Jesus, who heard the voice of the Father better than anyone else, one of the first things that will impress you is his “unreserved availability for God.” I had been a Christian for only about a year when I first noticed this characteristic of Jesus’ life. I was reading the first chapter of Mark, where Jesus stayed up late into the night healing the sick and the demon possessed (vv. 32-34). After staying up half the night ministering to people, Mark tells us that “very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (v. 35). If anyone ever had an excuse for sleeping in, Jesus certainly had one that morning. But instead he followed his daily habit of seeking solitude with God (see also Luke 4:42; 5:16).

Early in my Christian life I used to use this passage to say that Jesus always found time for God. I don’t see it that way at all now. When I look for the life of Jesus, I never really see him “finding time for God.” Rather, I see a Son whose time belongs completely to the Father. Jesus was never in a hurry. He never needed more time. This is because he looked on his time as his Father’s time. Also, he was completely available for his Father’s desires. He only did what he saw his Father doing (John 5:19). And he was always in the right place at the right time in order to fulfill the desires of his heavenly father.

I am continually amazed at the spontaneity and informality of the ministry of the Lord. Whether he was speaking to an unexpected crowd of over five thousand, as in the Sermon on the Mount, or to just one lost woman at the well in Samaria, he was always prepared and did just the right thing. He was never frantic, like the modern pastor who continually frets about how busy he is and then has to stay up late Saturday night putting together a “message” for Sunday morning. It is comical to imagine Jesus staying up the night before the Sermon on the Mount wondering what he was going to say to all those people. Yes, it is comical to imagine Jesus ever struggling for a sermon. His life is the sermon, and he ministered out of the daily overflow of his communion with his heavenly Father. He was able to do this because he was completely available to God.

Please don’t think I am speaking about having a regular “quiet time.” I am speaking about much more than this. I have known people who never missed their 5:30 A.M. quiet time of Bible study, and yet were meaner than junkyard dogs. It is possible to have a quiet time every morning and never be available to God. Unlike people who “find time” for God, who get their quiet time out of the way in the morning so they can go on with their real lives and forget God the rest of the day, people who are truly available to God see God as owning their day. He is free to reorder it at any time he chooses. They are not content simply to have a quiet time and get their “God stuff” out of the way early in the morning. Their satisfaction comes from experiencing his presence throughout the day and knowing they are pleasing to him.

Years ago I was in the process of developing a close friendship with a person who eventually became one of my closest friends. I was going through a difficult time and needed his help. As I was saying good-bye after lunch one day, I asked him how late I could call him that night. He said I could call him as late as I wanted to. I told him I didn’t want to wake him up, so I needed to know what time he planned to go to sleep. Then he said to me, “It doesn’t make any difference what time I go to sleep tonight. For you, I am a twenty-four-hour friend, seven days a week. Call me whenever you want. I’ll be there.” You see, availability is one of the primary characteristics of friendship. Friends are available to their friends.

Differing levels of friendship call for varying degrees of availability. There are a number of people to whom we will not give our phone number, but we will smile and speak to them if we meet them in a public setting. There are others who have only our office phone number. Then there are people who have our private home number. Of the people who have our private home number, only a few of them would feel free to use it any time of the day or night. These are our closest friends, the ones who can come in our back door without an appointment and be genuinely welcomed by us. Our closest friends are the ones who can interrupt our plans without causing any irritation. The deeper the friendship, the greater the availability.

This is what God really wants with us: a friendship (John 15:15). Many of us try to satisfy God by meeting religious duties and obligations, but in our closest friendships, we go far beyond the sense of duty. We are available to our closest friends because we love them and want to be with them. In true friendship, availability is not a burden or an obligation. Instead, it is a joy and a privilege.

In a real friendship, availability is reciprocal. The people who have unrestricted access to me also give me unrestricted access to them. It works the same way with our heavenly Father. He is most available to those who are most available to him. To many Christians this idea won’t sound fair. It may even sound like a “works” version of Christianity. They like to picture God as being equally available to all Christians at all times. It is almost as if the conceive of God as a cosmic bellboy who exists to meet their needs and can be dismissed when they have no conscious need of him. But this is both a misunderstanding of grace and of the nature of personal relationships. God doesn’t throw pearls before swine. The ones who find him are those who seek him with all their heart (Deut. 4:29).

If we want a deep friendship with God, it is important to cultivate a state of mind where we view all of our time as God’s time, a state of mind where we are totally available to him. … Availability to God is the first priority in ministry and the first requirement for hearing his voice.

There are both passive and active aspects to availability. There are times when we are simply to wait in the Lord (Jer. 42:1-7; Isa. 40:31 NASB). On the other hand, people who are available to God actively seek him (Matt. 6:33). How long should one seek the Lord? Thirty minutes every morning, an hour after lunch, two hours in the evening? Remember what I said earlier. We are to seek him until he comes (Hos. 1:12). … If we make ourselves available to God, he will make himself available to us (James 4:8).

(pp. 309-314)