Freedom in Doubt

Ever experience a paradigm shift in your thinking?  Yesterday my Pastor started a new series on Doubt, and it was an awakening of sorts for my soul!  I guesss, for me, I have always felt guilty for having doubts in my walk with the Lord.  There has always been a negative connotation asssociated with doubt in my estimations.  Some things have always raised questions for me, and for a period in my life, those questions caused me to make some choices that were not good for me and my family.

Yesterday the message that was preached from the pulpit was liberating!  Doubt is a gift!  Not the curse I have always believed it to be. I will attempt to do justice to what I learned yesterday in this post and I pray that the Holy Spirit will do the rest, so that you may experience this shift in thinking as well, if need be...

"Doubt is what brings many people out of their old beliefs and into faith in Jesus."   When my daughter was a year old she had an accident that shook my world and the outcome of that accident changed the course of my life and the lives of my family forever.  She got hold of a bottle of nail glue, somehow removed the top and it poured down her tiny little arm.  This glue was from a "bad batch" and within seconds of hitting her clothing the temperature of this catalyst rose to over 387 degrees burning through her clothing and through the layers of skin on her wrist.  She immediately went into shock and I into action.  I will spare you the gruesome details but suffice it to say that we went through a couple of surgeries, skin graphs and tremendous pain.  We were told at the time, by the doctors that she would never have use of her wrist because the tendons, nerves and muscles were burned and they could only do so much.

  As a mom, I was stricken with guilt and fear.  I was not a Believer at the time, but something inside me told me that someone needed to lay hands on her and pray for her.  I took my daughter and spent an entire day driving her from church to church looking for someone--some priest or minister or whatever--to pray for her.  It was mind boggling to me that no one I came into contact with that day would do what I requested!   Yes, they said they would pray, but the voice in me was saying "lay hands on her and pray"  it was very specific.  The Catholic priest said they didn't do that, and the other ministers looked at me like I had six heads!

I brought my daughter home in tears and I remember yelling out loud in the car, "Doesn't anyone believe in you God?".  These men were supposed to be servants of God, yet they did not believe that He could heal my child!  The voice inside me would not go away, and I became a women on a mission, trying to find someone to pray for her healing.   I was working at a salon at the time, and one of the women I worked with (who was a bit peculiur!) said to me that she would pray for my daughter.  She said she believed that as she layed her hands on my baby, the child  would be healed.  She went on to say, when I questioned her extensively, that as a child of the Living God, she had the right to call on the power of the Name of Jesus for every need that presented itself and that I could as well, if I believed on Him.   I did not understand, but I allowed her to lay hands on my girl and pray.  She drove to my home after work, and the prayer she prayed and the faith she had in the One she prayed to, altered our lives forever.  I knew, without a doubt, that my daughter was healed.  I also knew, that I needed what she had.

I went with her to church that Sunday, with my children,  and not only did I receive the gift of Salvation, but I dedicated my children to the Lord as well.  That was 18 years ago, and my daughter, in case you were wondering, is healed.

"Don't reject what you KNOW because of what you don't yet understand."   Having been raised in the Catholic Church and having gone to Catholic school my whole life, I knew that the Bible was full of stories of Jesus healing people when he touched them.  They were just stories to me then, but now they are Truth to me.  Some things have happened along the way that have caused me to doubt, not so much the facts of who God is or His power, but more of who I am, as His child.  The source of my doubt is usually found in my emotions and my choices, not the facts. 

Matthew 5:8 says, Blessed (happy, enviably fortunate and spiritually prosperpous--possessing the happiness produced by the experience of God's favor and especially conditioned by the revelation of His grace, regardless of their condition)  is the pure in heart, for they shall see God! (Amplified)  Obedience combined with right living and the disciplines of reading the Word of God and daily prayer, bring CLARITY.   

Without doubt, you can't really go deeper into faith.  So, that is my paradigm shift.  God is not afraid of my questions, as a matter of fact, He desires my questions, because He knows they will keep me seeking Him.

Father I thank you for the gift of doubt!  I thank you for your Holy Spirit, who leads me in all truth.  I thank you for counting me out of the crowd and making me one of Your children.  I thank you for the power of Your Name, which is  now at my disposal.  I love you Lord.  Keep me, keep us, ever questioning and ever seeking You.  Amen