When I think about the ancient patriarch Abraham, the episode in which he ‘negotiates’ with God regarding Sodom and Gomorrah inevitably comes to mind. From Genesis 18:20-23:
Consequently Jehovah said: “The cry of complaint about Sodom and Gomorrah, yes, it is loud, and their sin, yes, it is very heavy. I am quite determined to go down that I may see whether they act altogether according to the outcry over it that has come to me, and, if not, I can get to know it.”
At this point the men turned from there and got on their way to Sodom; but as for Jehovah, he was still standing before Abraham. Then Abraham approached and began to say: “Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
After this, a sort of bargaining takes place. As a result of this bargaining, Jehovah promises not to destroy the city if he can find 10 righteous men within it. We know how the story ends, of course, with Lot and his family escaping the city (and his wife turning to a pillar of salt when she looked back).
When I think on my own doubts and questionings, some really important lessons for me come out of this story.
Abraham ponders the righteousness of his perception of God’s will. Jehovah never actually says he would destroy the righteous inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah along with the wicked, but Abraham evidently understands that. He misunderstands, of course, but rather than react inappropriately due to his frustration, he talks to God as His friend. Abraham does this out of faith and loyalty and a genuinely sincere concern for justice, not out of a misguided belief in his own moral superiority or personal righteousness. So Jehovah humbles himself to listen to Abraham’s entreaties, even though in reality a simple man had questioned His own righteousness.
This points up different types of doubts, distinguished by their motives: sincerity versus cynicism. As God’s friend, Abraham questions Jehovah because he wants to understand. He knows the Lord he had come to serve, and he simply can’t understand how destroying the entire city matches with what he has already learned. At the same time, he doesn’t quite have the whole picture, thus he doesn’t know that Jehovah has arranged to bring out Lot’s (equally confused) family.
When we look at it this way, Abraham doesn’t bargain with Jehovah as much as he begs for clarity. Rather than simply tell him the plan, though, God addresses his immediate concern while knowing that He will show his servant the answer to the question Abraham doesn’t quite know how to ask.
Then we can read a little more about this nephew of Abraham. Lot feels internal torment at seeing the lack of righteousness around him in Sodom. Later, when he delays and remains too long in that condemned society, Jehovah’s angels literally take him by the hand and bring him to safety. God doesn’t just leave him there or punish him because of that mistake of misunderstanding the urgency of the situation. Lot’s heart clearly loves what was good, although his wife doesn’t truly hate what was bad. Both of these men walked with God, and He has preserved them in His memory along with a “great cloud of witnesses”.
When we experience our own crises of faith, questioning ourselves and what we believe, Jehovah will stick with us if our hearts show us to be the sort of people He teaches us to be. If we doubt something, not because we have let ourselves become cynical, but because we don’t fully recognize the contours of our own imperfect understanding, Abraham’s example teaches us that we still take refuge in Jehovah.
Let Jehovah judge through Christ while we focus on showing love and mercy. We can trust the Lord, just like Lot and Abraham did.
Struggles of faith
2010-01-02
Faith and doubt have an inseparable bond: each one has meaning specifically related to the other. If faith is the “assured expectation of reality though not beheld,” then that means the person feeling that assurance must have overcome their doubts.
Doubt, like trust, though, doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I can doubt what you say and believe it at the same time. Maybe you’ve always proven yourself as a reliable observer, but your recent report seems, well, unbelievable. That’s not to say I think you’re a liar or just wrong, but it takes time for me to process and integrate that data with what I already know. My mental model might require substantial change.
So faith and doubt don’t mean opposites. They can just describe different phases or states in the same process.
Don’t let your doubts sweep you away. Stick with it, work through the doubt, and let that process deepen your faith in the end.
