The Gift of Doubt

Early last week, at about 6pm Arizona time, and 2am Nigerian time, my kid sister Alice called me on the phone and she sounded very nervous. I thought my mom was having a health crisis. My mom has a high blood pressure condition. But it was not about my mom. It was about my kid brother who has been battling with alcohol and drug addiction. He came to Makurdi to celebrate Christmas with the rest of the family. So we asked him to stay in Makurdi for some time while we plan on helping him get some treatment for his addiction. But that night, he came back drunk and was very violent. It scared me to death. But thank goodness he calmed down and went to bed.

Some time ago, I saw a movie that really made a big impression on me. The part that interest me so much is about the character Sofia. Sofia is an 18 years old kid. She is a daughter of a single mom. She had little or no religious background. But when her mom moved to a new town, she fell in love with the Christian faith, and got baptized. Unfortunately Sofia had a health crisis. She went through surgery but ended up losing her uterus. That made her so angry at God that she decided to have nothing to do with God or religion. That broke my heart.

Many of us here today like Job in our first reading and Sofia in our story are having a faith crisis- because of the pandemic, politics, injustice, personal struggles, sickness, death of a loved one, the failings of religious leaders and institutions. Like Job and Sofia, we doubt if there is God, if He really cares. You are not alone in this experience. I still have a crisis of faith every time I perform a funeral for a child or see a mom who struggles with her child with chronic terminal illness. I must confess that I feel really helpless at those moments.

I am not here today to provide answers to your questions and doubts but to speak about the place of doubt in the life of faith. Doubts is viewed by many Christians as a liability to faith. A threat. Something that believers should eradicate. But the truth is we couldn’t just dismiss doubt or solve it like a math-equation. We like Job have to sit with it, wrestle with it, dance with it, let it live alongside our faith. People don’t abandoned their faith because they have doubts: people abandoned their faith because they think they are not allowed to have doubts. We must help people doubt faithfully. The Bible says in Jude 1:22, “We should be merciful to those who doubt.” Doubt is not a disability. Doubt is a doorknob that opens a portal to divine presence. Doubt is an invitation to a more honest faith- a faith that’s not in control, but that trusts more fully in its Lord.

I like to propose three ways to address spiritual doubts and move toward deeper faith.

ACKNOWLEDGE DOUBT: One thing we should always do with our doubts is to be honest about the fact that we have them. It’s tempting to sweep doubt under the rug. After all, whether you are a longtime Christian or relatively new to faith, doubt feels embarrassing and wrong. You might tell yourself that “real Christians don’t have questions, or that “real believers” never waver in their faith. That’s wrong. Faith is not the absence of doubt but the ability to recognize doubt, live with it, and still take the risk of commitment.

LIVE WITH MYSTERY: It is a known fact that life and the world we live in is filed with mystery. There are certain things and some experiences we can’t just explain or understand. And it is not just believers who have unanswered questions and unresolved doubts. Non-believers do too. They struggle to understand the universe and human existence yet they go on living their lives trying to make it meaningful, purposeful and impactful. So it will do us a lot of good if we accept our human limitations and live with mystery. In fact in the spiritual life mystery is what creates the hunger in us to pursue God. It is a lifeblood of intimacy. Whoever wrote the Serenity Prayer understands the need to embrace mystery. You remember the prayer right? “God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

KEEP SHOWING LOVE: When we struggle with spiritual doubt, the temptation is to give in to despair. But we can avoid it or overcome it if we remain determined in spite of our doubt to be people whose purpose in life is to give and receive love. Jesus gave us an example to imitate as we heard in today’s gospel. St. Mark says that He went about healing many who were sick with various diseases, and He drove out many demons. St. Paul also did the same thing. He says in today’s second reading, “I have become all things to all people, to save at least some.” So when in the agony of doubting, my counsel is to stop sitting around, wishing and hoping and thinking and praying for more faith, rise up, and go love somebody. You will discover faith is something you often find indirectly through love. After all, faith is not the absence of doubt, but the presence of love.