A surprising discovery about doubt and fear

A potent storm system is bringing a multi-day threat of tornadoes, damaging winds, and large hail to the Plains, Midwest, and the Ohio Valley. This after a tornado with maximum wind speeds up to 130 mph ripped through Michigan last week, leaving a trail of destruction in its path. The mayor of Three Rivers, Michigan, told FOX Weather that the storm damage is so extensive that she does not recognize parts of her city.

I can understand on a logical level the suffering that results from human sin: God honors the free will with which we are made in his image, so the consequences of our moral failures are not his fault but ours. I can even stretch this logic to include the suffering our sins cause others; if God removed all such consequences, we would not have moral agency.

But this is easy for me to say when I am not the innocent victim of such sin. I would be horrified if someone used this logic to explain the Holocaust to the Jewish people or the horrors of 9/11 to those still grieving those who died on that tragic day.

And it is even harder to understand suffering when it has no moral cause. I know that natural disasters and diseases are the result of the Fall (Romans 8:22); in the Garden of Eden, there were no tornadoes or cancers. But God often intervenes in the Bible and across history to prevent such disasters. When he does not, we can easily question his decision and even his character.

A maxim I have heard over the years advises us to “doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs.” That’s fine until our doubts truly threaten our beliefs.

What then?

“First world” problems

I have been dealing with a series of “first-world” problems lately.

I skipped walking outside this morning because of the rain our local meteorologists forecast that never fell. A repair person is coming by later today to replace our modem because our internet provider couldn’t get the existing one to work, through no fault of the existing modem. I am placing my third call to a repair person who keeps promising to fix our back gate but never shows up. Later today, I will place my third call to an insurance representative who keeps promising to look into a missing rebate but never calls us back.

The other day, my wife and I were talking with an older man on our walking trail who told us about the illness their daughter continues to face. He made a statement that has stayed with me: “Everyone has a million problems until they get sick.”

It’s then, in those crises where we most need God, that we sometimes feel that he is least present. This struggle is not sinful: if the sinless Son of God could cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), so can we.

“But they had no child”

Part of our problem is that our minds are finite and fallen and thus cannot possibly comprehend the character and ways of an infinite and perfect Being. As Elihu noted, God “does things that we cannot comprehend” (Job 37:5). If we could truly understand God, either we would be God, or he would not be.

Another part of our challenge is that we can experience reality only in this moment and thus are incapable of seeing the larger perspective within which God operates.

For example, I read this week that Zechariah and Elizabeth “were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years” (Luke 1:6–7). Then came the miracle by which Gabriel appeared to Zechariah, promising that he and his wife would have a son (vv. 8–23). We know him as John the Baptist.

They could not possibly have understood that God’s delay was so that Mary could become old enough to bear the Son of God, for whom their son would serve as a forerunner. We can seldom understand God’s timing at the time, but his omniscience is not limited by our limitations.

However, even acknowledging the finitude of my mind and temporality, I still want to understand why God permits such suffering in his creation. I would like to believe that such doubts are motivated solely by my mind and quest for rationality.

But a sermon I read this week has convinced me otherwise.

“In these times of doubt, look to your fears”

I subscribe to a daily devotional from the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston. These brief paragraphs are excerpts from longer sermons the brothers have preached over the years. A devotional I received earlier this week caught my eye, so I opened the sermon it came from.

It was preached by Br. Jack Crowley in January 2025. His message was based on the flight of the holy family to Egypt (Matthew 2:13–15), focusing on the doubts and stress that Joseph and Mary must have felt as they left all they knew for an unknown future as King Herod sought to murder their baby boy.

Br. Crowley noted that we all have similar “flights” and the fears they engender: “In our flight to Egypt there will be times of doubt. Times when we doubt if we have done the right things, times when we will doubt the quality of our own selves, times when we will doubt our ability to find God in any of it, and times when we will doubt humanity at large.”

Then he advised:

In these times of doubt, look to your fears. Ask yourself what fear is fueling your doubt? Do you fear that you are not good enough? Do you fear that you are not worthy of love? Do you fear that you have not done enough with your life?

These fears can drown us in doubt. These fears can make our lives impossible. These fears can paralyze our days. We need God’s help. We can admit it, we are not strong enough on our own, we need God’s help.

We need to bring to God our fears, our doubt, our stress and all the other things that keep us up at night. We need God’s help in our journey into Egypt. There is no shame in praying out of desperation and great need.

When we get to the other side of this thing we will be stronger, we will know ourselves better, and we will be closer to God. Our journey into Egypt may take a long time, but it is worth it. May God help us all.

“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

Br. Crowley is right: My doubts are sometimes birthed by my fears. What if God is not the loving Father I want him to be? What if his omnipotence or omniscience is limited? What if he doesn’t hear my prayers or care about my problems?

Then I realize these fears are less about him than they are about me. I fear that I am not worthy of his love and care. I fear that I am not able to pray effectively or to trust fully. I fear less that he is not enough than that I am not enough.

At such times, I need to remember the cross, where the Father considered my salvation worth the death of his Son. I need to remember all the sins he has forgiven, all the needs he has met, and to believe that he does not change (Malachi 3:6) and that all of God there is, is in this moment.

And then, if this is not enough, I can pray with the beleaguered father, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

And he will.

 

Denison Forum