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Make the jump
The other night I went with a group of people to do a cliff jump into a bay of water. It wouldn’t have been my first jump, and when I got there I realised it wouldn’t be my highest.
But when I looked down I knew I couldn’t do it. Because in the dark of the night I could not make out where the cliff ended and the water began. Does the cliff stick out at the bottom? Are there rocks where the water first begins? Do I have to jump a certain distance to hit a safe zone in the water? What if I didn’t jump far enough?
And even though I saw people jump in one after another, I couldn’t reconcile my doubt in that dark edge. Maybe I have heard too many horror stories and watched too much Failarmy to justify the risk of the leap.
I don’t regret not jumping; I feel I made the safe decision. But what I do regret is not going into the water at the bottom, swimming into the edge where I could not see and exploring the dark myself. Maybe then, once I explored my doubt in the dark, I would have the confidence to jump from the top.
It made me wonder: do we explore doubt enough? As pastors, leaders and influencers of people: do we encourage others to explore their uncertainty? Not just give permission to doubt, but encourage it?
So often I think many believe doubt is the opposite of faith, that when we doubt we are somehow failing in our faith in God. That doubt means there is something we are lacking or that something is wrong with our character.
But the more I look into the Bible, the more I see our holy text is full of people who doubted. A third of the Psalms is unresolved doubt. Lamentations is an entire book devoted to the nation of Israel’s questioning God’s goodness in the midst of the darkness of injustice and suffering. Jesus’ closest friends doubted him, even after he rose from the dead! The Bible doesn’t just reveal who God is, but it lets us explore humanity and how regular people like you and me have tried and even struggled to understand our God.
If we are honest, we have all cried out to God, calling out for him to prove his existence or even questioning his goodness. And I think God wants us to know that this doubt we feel, the uncertainty we have in the dark, is incredibly human. I imagine some of us asking God to remove this doubt from our lives, when Jesus is really saying, ‘Head into that uncertainty … and there you will find me even more.’
A mature faith doesn’t ignore the doubt, but acknowledges its reality and steps into its uncertainty. It’s only when we go into the dark of our doubt ourselves and explore what is there that we have the courage and faith to make the jump.
by Alex Escobar (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 6 May 2017, pp3
You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.