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Doubting God's Goodness



            Why do people give up on God?  There are a variety of reasons.  He is real.  He is present.  He is good, but it is hard for us to see His goodness when we are faced with the evil that is in the world.  The evidence of evil shrieks from news on television or and from the microcosm of people we know.  Most of us use our own lives to determine if God is, whether he is good or that He cares.  We miss the fact that God is so real, generous and full of affection that He is in the midst of our fallen, broken world and reaches out with hope. His goodness is impossible to drive out of our world, and especially by our doubt of Him.
            Still the majority of people find His goodness hard to see, or they have simply stopped looking, believing His goodness or His existence to be irrelevant to their own.  Souls in doubt are souls that are at the precipice of faith.  God deals with people differently.  Some souls need doubt to grow.  Some of our rejection of God results in spiritual growth because we are actually doubting the God others told us about.  This makes us ready to receive the God Jesus showed us.
God deals inside each of us in a personal way.  People who are truly seeking God are going to be unsatisfied with what they have been told.  They need an individual, dynamic experience of God’s love.  Some accept the condemning, judgmental, if you don’t do it this way—you are going to hell, kind of God.  I need to accept that God is bigger than any denomination.  God alone knows who does and who doesn’t know God.  God is bigger and works in more mysterious ways than I can understand.
Jesus came to show us what human life is all about.  He lived a human life as an example for us to show us how to really live.  His life was full of God’s goodness.  His life was not immune from hatred, accusations, death threats, betrayal and suffering, just like our own lives.  God the Father is not easy to understand.  In fact, He is impossible for us to understand.  Some don’t even put in an effort to think of God.  Spiritually, it’s better to doubt God than ignore Him.
            Because God is holy and because God is someone my fallen, finite mind cannot understand, I have been given Jesus to unite me to God.  He helps me understand what is humanly able to understand about God.  He helps me understand what God wants me to do and demonstrates to be how to carry out the will of God while laying down my will.  He shows me how to live with others and treat every human being as the beloved child of God.
            Doubt is a pathway to asking better questions and coming to the end of yourself.  It leads to true worship.  I love how Thomas, known as the doubter, responded when He saw Jesus in His resurrected form.  Thomas didn’t even need to touch His wounds;  he knew that He was indeed Jesus, the one who showed him how to really know God. 
A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you! Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.  Thomas said to him, My Lord and my God! John 20:26-28
            Doubt until you believe.
Copyright © 2015.  Deborah R Newman  teatimeforyoursoul.com  All Rights Reserved.

PS: Check out my first ebook on Kindle
 The Forgetful Princess: the story of a Princess who didn't know who she was
Jan 21, 2015
by Dr. Deborah Newman
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