Lord of Love Lutheran Church ELCA – Omaha, NE

I wrote this article for The Concord, which is the Seminary journal.  It was published in the April 9, 2008 issue.  

I was immediately struck by the chorus of “what ifs” listed in the blurb for prospective writers in the last issue of the Concord. No doubt, these questions were listed to pique the attention of those who perhaps encounter some doubt and would want to speak to that. The result for me, however, was instant concern for my Concord staff. “These folks need a preacher,” I thought!

Well, at least a couple members of the Concord staff are dear friends of mine. They are students to whom I go when I need to hear the gospel preached. So I worried less but was still a bit puzzled that this is the topic they chose for an entire issue. It is true that we all face doubt, but I don’t think it’s true that we hardly ever talk about it, as the blurb suggested. We get caught up in the questions and start looking for the logical answers. We seek signs that give us evidence of God’s activity in and around us. But, in seeking to answer these questions within our minds or our feelings, we just end up with a laundry list of questions, each one having more at stake than the previous one until we are left in utter despair and a crisis of faith. Then we talk about this doubt with one another and walk away feeling perhaps justified that we’re not the only ones who feel this way.

Speculation is a dangerous game. Martin Luther refers to doubt and speculation as Satan’s work. “Our own powers and ideas are not sufficient to cope with such matters (as God and eternal salvation). Satan knows this very well. Therefore, he suggests such thoughts and makes them seem so important to us that we are unwilling to leave them or turn aside from them but wish to scrutinize them and think them through to the end.”

I am not going to pretend that I don’t have my own fair share of doubt. I, too, have wondered if what I believe is true. I, too, have speculated about how God is working in a particular situation or perhaps not working, waiting instead for a better time. But, thank God, I’ve had people who heard this doubt and spoke to me the truth instead. When I am caught up in speculation, even regarding events going on in my own life, I need someone who will speak to my doubt, not about it. When I hear others struggling with their own doubt and uncertainty, it is my call to talk to their doubt not about it.

God alone saves us only by a preached external word that gives only faith. I am not called to help seek out signs of faith or help direct in the way of wisdom. No, I am called to interrupt these very things with Jesus Christ and his cross. You are no longer in need of seeking out wisdom and wondering what God is up to. You have a God who has created you and has justified you in his Son. No more “what ifs.” It is already completed. You are no longer left to believe your own feelings or experiences but to believe what has been preached to you regarding Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, specifically that he was killed for your transgressions and raised for your justification.

I am aware that while we are wholly alive in Christ, our old, dead selves still cling to us. We are bound to start questioning the truth since it would seem at times to be so contrary to what we experience now. The very meaning behind the word doubt has to do with weighing out two ideas or to be double-minded. All these require inward looking to find what is most fitting. But ultimately we have to be pulled back out of ourselves to an external word. We cannot rely on the “inner” call but need also the external call. We cannot rely on the “inner feeling” for faith but rather the external word. What then do we do when we doubt? We go to our friends and our pastors. Not for commiseration but for proclamation.

Paula Lawhead
Seminarian