Genesis 15:1-5. 1After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 5And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
Have you ever doubted God and his promises to you? Of course you have. We all have. The only thing more powerful than faith is doubt. Satan knows this. Doubt is one of his most powerful weapons used against us to make us question God’s word – “did God really say…”
The beginning of Genesis 15 reveals to us the man of great faith as the man full of doubts and questions. And honestly, any doubts Abraham has are reasonable. It’s been ten years since the day God first appeared to the already aging Abraham and declared the promise that Abraham would be a great nation. Of course, for that to happen, there needs to be an heir. Someone who can carry on Abraham’s name and legacy.
Abraham has selflessly married Sarah and adopted Lot in order to carry on the name of his brother, Haran. But Sarah is barren, leaving Lot as the only option God has left (right?). But now, twice, Lot has rejected Abraham. Lot left the Promised Land behind for the temptations of the world (Sodom). If Lot was Abraham’s plan A, then surely we need a plan B – Eliezer.
What makes Abraham’s doubting in Genesis 15 so incredible is that it is what we might call “faithful doubting.” Even Abraham’s questions and skepticism are an act of faith. How so? Because Abraham took his question to God directly. Unlike say Eve or Elijah, who failed to take their doubts to God, and unlike so many of us, Abraham prayed his doubts.
Faith, especially the Christian faith, invites doubt. The claims of Christianity are so extreme, so spectacular, so unworldly, and the God of Christianity is so transcendent, that if you claim to never have doubts, I question if you’ve ever really tried to understand this faith of yours. Christianity claims that the God-man, Jesus, literally changes everything, even the very nature of the universe, not to mention our own inner man, by his death on Roman cross at a single point in history. Oh, and then there’s the resurrection. It’s not so much that it happened (I know all the apologetic arguments for it too), but how does it have the power to transform the cosmos and my consciousness?
But the deeper question behind our doubts is not an intellectual one, it’s an emotional one. Is God good? Does God truly love me? Is he going to let me down? Will he break my heart? So when the promises of God seem unfulfilled it is not the intellectual arguments that break down, it’s the emotional ones. When illness, failure, tragedy, the bad behavior of the world or the church enter my life, it’s not the existence of God that I doubt first, it’s the goodness of God. Maybe God is good, just not to me. Once the emotional doubt enters, that’s when our plausibility structures begin to change. If God can’t be good, well then I’d rather he just not exist.
And can we be honest? God taking his time with everything sure doesn’t help ay of this. Ten years and counting. The hiddenness of God, his silence during your prayer time, his apparent inaction in crisis prevention, his slowness in your sanctification (why am I still sinning all. the. time?), it’s no wonder we’re all following Abraham’s lead and making suggestions to God regarding our own plan B’s. Our own personal Eliezer’s.
So how can we see our “doubting faith” (Lord, I believe, help my unbelief) be transformed into what James calls “faith with no doubting?”
Let’s return to Genesis 15. Abraham lays out his doubts, his questions, his skepticism before God. Do we? God knows all our thoughts anyway, so why hide them? Stuffing our doubts does nobody any good, especially us. Our failure to express our doubts to God will only cause us to numb our emotions and avoid facing the hard answers to our questions. Doom-scrolling, binging Netflix, porn watching, over eating, over drinking, staying “busy,” I’m pretty sure none of these actually help. Instead, try expressing your doubts to God honestly, confessing your plan B (which is actually a plan C, but who’s counting?) to him, and force yourself to sit in the pain, the silence, the waiting. Wait and then wait, and then wait some more. As Christ revealed to Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
And as we wait, let’s remember that the promise of blessing made to Abraham has already been fulfilled in Christ. In Christ, we are not just waiting for God’s promises to come to life, we are actively living within the living promise of God. We are living in the present blessing of life in Jesus. Christian, there is no more waiting for the filling of the Spirit, the adoption as sons, the love of God poured into our hearts. All this and more is ours in Christ, right now! There’s no doubt about it. All IS well. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are the proof. All our emotional doubting about the goodness of God has been put to rest by the cross. All our intellectual doubting must now follow.
You: Where are you actively doubting God’s promises? Are these emotional doubts or intellectual doubts?
You in Christ: What promises of God are already fulfilled in your life through your union with Christ?
Christ in you: How might you express your doubts to God today through faith in Christ (“faithful doubting”)?
Prayer: Father, I confess my doubts to you, my skepticism, and my fears. As I wait for all to be well, help me to see that all IS well with Christ in me. Amen.
To Live is Christ 