“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” (Prov. 3:5)
Doubting is not trusting, and although the Almighty understands that we are but dust and knows that at times we will indeed doubt His love and Sovereignty over our lives, if we remain in that doubt for an extended period of time, there may be consequences to ourselves from Him. A King finds no pleasure in those that doubt His ability to lead, to provide, to care for and sustain those who are His own.
“And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” (Mark 9:24) We are saved by grace through faith, works-based religious organizations deny this truth, and so thereby doubt the Word of God, those who believe this truth of grace through faith still feel an obligation at times to perform some deed, not to ensure their salvation, but to continue in what they would call the “good graces of God.”
“We love him, because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) Doubting that love comes when the circumstances of our lives become detrimental towards us, when the repetition, the expected day does not go as we planned, we begin to doubt His care over us. These my friends are called trials, and we will experience them up until our last breath. They serve two main purposes, to show us that the Most High can be trusted in every area of our lives, and to rely completely and totally upon Him, trusting fully in His will for us.
Without them we would simply wander through this life, seeking our own, and calling on Him only when the circumstances, at least in our estimation of them required it. It matters not if it is physical or emotional, trials are meant to draw us closer to the Lord and further away from any doubts we may have hidden within us of His eternal love for us.
An old saying fits well here, “The more you have, the more you have to lose.” Most Christians I have met over the years, including myself at times, live under the false assumption that if the Lord is pleased with you that you will remain relatively healthy, that you will acquire materialistic items in this world, that adverse conditions, as we like to call them will arise, but that the Lord will quickly rectify them so that we can remain in that healthy, well provided for state. The doubts for these individuals are hidden beneath the surface of their hearts, that God would never allow something terrible to happen to me, that He loves me too much to take away my loved ones, my things, my health. So, when those trials come, they begin to search within themselves, “Have I sinned, have I regarded iniquity in my heart?”
If you are not being chastised by the Lord, then you are not a child of God. “But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” (Heb. 12:8)
Growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord does not just mean studying your Bible, it does not just mean going to church, it means trials, tribulations, and even persecutions, it means the removal of all doubts. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) That alone should remove all doubt, every time the Lord says in His Word, “Fear not,” the promises He has given, the eternal presence of His joy and pleasures forevermore, the untold examples of the hundreds of millions who have come before us, all these and more should remove any doubt as to the love that is ours from the Almighty.
We all know how difficult this is, we all feel regret when those doubts appear, we all ask for not only forgiveness for them, but strength to endure them when they arrive again. His promises are true, there is no reason to doubt, only to endure, and always for His glory.
