iDoubt

“Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or   should we keep looking for someone else?”  Matthew 11:3 (NLT)

As I stated in my post, “It’s In There,” 2013 was the year of meh. And if I can be completely honest with you, that feeling of meh tried to rear its ugly head in 2014. I prayed that God would help me renew my mind on how I viewed my current circumstances. I was determined to kill that meh demon once and for all. I wanted to have God’s mind on my circumstances. In other words, I no longer wanted to focus on my circumstances. I wanted my focus to be on God and God alone.

There were some things I had been praying for explicitly, especially since God had spoken to me about them last year. As days, weeks, and months went by I found that keeping faith in God keeping his word became a wrestling match. The longer I waited it seemed harder to hold on to what God said. I suddenly found myself at a loss for words to pray concerning the situation. One day I became so frustrated while praying that I asked God, “Is this really your will for me or should I be looking for something else?”

I’m not the only one who struggled with keeping faith in God’s promises in the midst of adversity. Matthew 11 shows us that John the Baptist also found himself questioning whether Jesus was the Messiah, or if he needed to keep looking for someone else.

Let’s think about the life of John the Baptist for a moment. He was born for a specific purpose to “prepare the way of the Lord.” He never strayed from his purpose. He lived a peculiar lifestyle and preached a peculiar message. If we could draw a timeline of the beginning of John’s ministry it would look something like this:

Jesus enters. –> John proclaims Jesus is the Messiah. –> John Baptizes. –> John challenges Herod. –> John is put in prison.

John the Baptist found himself imprisoned for staying faithful to the call.

John begins to wrestle with doubt.

*Insert  pause here.*

Staying faithful to the call will mean enduring hardship and trials. It will bring isolation. It will bring pain. Staying faithful to the call will most likely cause you to experience everything Jesus experienced during his time on earth. It just comes with the territory. Don’t allow these hard times to cause you to give up or return to your old way of thinking, old habits, or to an old lifestyle.

*Now back to John the Baptist.*

What I love about this passage is Jesus’ response to John’s question. He doesn’t get upset with John for asking the question. Jesus sends John’s disciples to provide John with an overview of things they had seen and heard:

The blind see.

The deaf hear.

The dead are raised to life and the Good News is being preached to the poor.

Jesus basically proved that Luke 4:18-19 was happening.

Jesus ended his response by saying, ” God blesses those who do not turn away because of me.”

*Insert another pause here.*

We cannot allow life’s circumstances to cause us to forget or ignore God’s activity in the midst of them. Just because things may not be turning out the way you hoped doesn’t mean God is not at work. It doesn’t make him less powerful or less concerned about where you are. Stay focused on God. It will be hard. Psalm 27:13 says, “I would have fainted, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Strain your eyes to stay focused on what he said. Squint if you have to. Determine not to allow discouragement and doubt to pull you away from the only One that can help you.

*Back to Jesus and John.*

Another thing I love about this passage is Jesus never disowned John for his disbelief. On the contrary, Jesus used the moment to teach the crowd and publicly commended John in the process. This helps us to see what type of God we really love and serve.

Jesus didn’t disown John the Baptist for his moment of doubt and he won’t disown you either.

When you find yourself wrestling with doubt, tap out and run to the God that will “never leave you or forsake you.”

“If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.” II Timothy 2:13 (NIV).