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Help! I Have Doubts · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Track 1: both of them were full of questions about God and the
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  Bible that they were terrified to admit to others. They'd
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  gotten the message that good Christians don't ask those
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  things, so they didn't, and the hiding wore on them. The truth
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  was, they couldn't keep it up. One day, Holly stopped
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  pretending and said it out loud. We'll come back to what happened
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  when she did, but
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  first, welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm
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  Bart Leger. I tend to have an initial reaction when somebody
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  brings me a doubt. My first reaction is sometimes to wonder
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  how they could doubt a thing that seems so obvious to me, and
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  then I catch myself. It's over pretty quickly because I
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  remember something. What looks obvious to me now, some things
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  took years to work out, and I didn't get there in an afternoon.
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  and what I take for granted today, I was once wrestling with.
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  So, when somebody tells me they're doubting, I want them to
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  tell me. That's the only way anybody deals with a doubt. You
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  can't work on a thing that's being hidden. And here's what
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  I'd say to any church. A person who admits a doubt usually wants
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  to work through it. They go ahead and ask, which is more
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  than the ones who just stopped coming ever do. Treating them
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  like something is wrong with them is how you lose them. Some
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  Christians have been in the same pew for years with a question
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  they've never said to another living person. You smile through
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  the sermon, you handle the small talk in the lobby, and the whole
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  time there's something you've been turning over, that you're
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  afraid to say to anybody who might think less of you for it.
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  And you could probably point to the person you're afraid of.
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  Somebody two rows up who would look at you differently
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  afterward. There's a song in the Bible written by a man in that
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  position. Psalm 42, 3. Day and night. I have only tears for
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  food. While my enemies continually taunt me, saying,
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  Where is this God of yours? Now, start with where the man is.
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  Verse 4 says his heart is breaking as he remembers how it
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  used to be when he walked among the crowds of worshipers and led
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  a procession to the house of God. He's writing from outside the
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  building, remembering the middle of a crowd he isn't standing in
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  anymore. Then look at the taunt itself. Where is this God of
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  yours? Those are other people's words aimed at him. Verse 10
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  says, They come back around and break his bones. The pressure on
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  him is coming from voices. And voices like that are how a
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  person learns to keep their mouth shut. Now go to verse 9.
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  He says it anyway. O God, my rock, I cry. Why have you
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  forgotten me? Look at what he does. He calls God his rock and
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  accuses God of forgetting him. The tension was unresolved when
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  he opened his mouth and he brought both halves of it to God
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  anyway. Asaph did the same thing in Psalm 73 and he tells you
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  exactly what he's afraid of. He had been thinking that keeping
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  his heart pure had gotten him nothing. Then comes verse 15. If
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  I had really said that, I would have been a traitor to your
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  people. The people he was afraid of were God's own people. Now
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  here's the part that ought to settle it. Look at the heading
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  over Psalm 42 for the choir director.
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  Asaph was David's chief musician. So Psalm 73 went the same route.
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  God's people put their doubts to music and sang them together on
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  purpose. So whoever taught you that good Christians don't ask
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  those questions was working against that hymn book. So find
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  one person. One picked on purpose. Pick somebody who has
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  been a Christian long enough to have had a few questions of
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  their own and who has never once made you feel less than. Then
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  tell that one person and keep it between the two of you for now.
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  It didn't go smoothly at first. When Holly finally voiced her
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  questions to the group, some people pulled back and a few
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  made her feel like a heretic for asking. For a while, she even
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  wondered if something was wrong with her. By getting it out of
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  the open, it started something. Holly and Zach came out of
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  hiding for good. They found other believers who loved Jesus
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  and weren't scared of the big questions. And they started
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  meeting with another couple, working through the same things.
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  They'll tell you their faith didn't collapse when they
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  stopped pretending. Instead, it grew. They ended up closer to
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  Jesus than they were back when they had, they thought, all the
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  right answers and none of the honesty. Now, what she had to
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  live through to get there. Some pulled back and a few handled
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  her badly. She still came out with a faith that had grown,
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  which tells you that the asking was worth what it cost her.
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  Here's today's challenge. Write the question down in your own
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  words, the way it sounds in your head when nobody else is
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  listening. Then pick your one person and go and let them know
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  this week. Tell them. Say it while it's still unresolved,
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  because that's the only version you've got right now. the one
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  somebody comes to, remember where you started. Whatever is
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  obvious to you right now took you a while. Father, you let a
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  man write down that his tears were his food and that people
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  kept asking him who you were, and then you had it set to music
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  and sung in public. Thank you that you never asked anybody to
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  clean up their questions before bringing them to you. For
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  everybody listening who has been in the same pew for years with
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  something they've never said, give them one safe person this
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  week and the nerve to use them. Keep our churches the kind of
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  place where a question gets a safe hearing. In Jesus' name,
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  amen. If this episode encouraged you today, would you share it
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  with someone who might need to hear it? Just go to
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  DailyDevotionsForBusyLives.com slash 364 and copy the link. It
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  only takes a second, and it might make a difference in
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  someone's day. Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions
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  for Busy Lives. Remember, Psalm 42 was handed to the choir
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  director, which means Israel sang its doubts out loud
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  together. Pick your one person this week. Come back next time
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  for more encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth.
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  Until then, God bless and have a great day. Thank you.