August 22, 2018

Doubt

August 22, 2018

DAILY READING

Mark 8:14-21
This weekend’s reading: Genesis 4:1-16

FIELD NOTES

This is one of my favorite types of stories in the New Testament.  Here you have the disciples, who have witnessed some of the greatest miracles in human history, and they STILL don’t get it.  They STILL struggle with doubt.  They STILL worry. 
 
They are in the physical presence of Jesus, and their faith is still wavering.  If that isn’t comforting, I don’t know what is.
 
I doubt. I fear.  I worry.  And I have never sat in the grass passing baskets and baskets of food brought forth miraculously by Jesus.  If they can still have these emotions and questions after all they’ve seen, then maybe I need to cut myself some slack when I have doubts, or fears.  Doubt and fear are normal reactions to the broken world in which we currently live. 
 
Of course, we must take those doubts and fears to Jesus.  We pray and seek guidance from the Holy Spirit.  We still go forward in faith that God is with us. 
 
But let us stop beating ourselves up for having doubts and fears in the first place.  It doesn’t mean you are any less a Christian.  It means you are fully human–just like the disciples who couldn’t shake those very same doubts and fears even in the physical presence of Jesus.
 

QUESTIONS FROM THE FIELD

  • What doubts and fears are currently plaguing you? 
  • Have you taken them to God?


FAMILY FIELD TALK

  • What do you do when you’re worried? 
  • How do you handle it?

PRAYER

Lord, we acknowledge we are human and fallible, living in a fallen world.  We pray that as we experience fears, doubts, and worries, you would strengthen our faith.  Help our unbelief.  In your name Jesus, Amen.