Our Doubt in Faith
Thirteen years ago, my father passed away. After he had gone, I found it very difficult to accept that he had died. I spent a lot of time in grief, regretting things that I had and had not done. Most difficult of all was the thought that I would never see him again. But, after a while, I suddenly realized how doubtful I had become. In my grief, I was very doubtful of my faith, the existence of kingdom of heaven and eternal life.
There has been a great deal said about the Kingdom of God. We are aware of it as part of our faith and an important part of our understanding of the church. Yet, there is so much that we do not fully understand which causes us to doubt. We live in a physical world and we seem to constantly rely on material things. So we are tempted into seeing everything in terms of our physical being. But, the Kingdom of God is different. It is a spiritual and does not come with observation of physical events.
In Matthew chapter 13, through the parable, Jesus proclaims the eternity in his word. He says that ‘the Kingdom of God may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field.’ And later, he explains it to his disciples that ‘the one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.’ Jesus is saying through this illustration that the Kingdom of God is in himself. The one who sowed the good seed is Jesus who put faith in our heart of field. He came from heaven and revealed the word of God, showed us the way to live, and saved us on the cross so that we may see him and believe. However, as the plants come up and grow and the weed pops out, in God’s grace, we see a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. We put our faith in him but we also doubt him time and again. So, the servants volunteered to pull up the weeds so that the wheat would grow stronger and well. But the master replies ‘No’, saying ‘for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.’
God let us have free will to worship Him and have faith in Him. God made us to love us and He longs for us to love him back. He gave us free choice in putting our faith in him. Freedom in our faith is at the heart of true spiritual development. What God wants most from us, is a relationship. He wants to have a lasting fellowship with us. He does not want to force us to believe him but wants to see how we love him. But we still doubt him again and again. So, it may seem to be a good idea to eliminate out doubts then we may love him always. But Jesus says NO to this. Taking away doubts from our hearts may cause more harm than good, despite them seeming useless and a hindrance to our faith. This is because our freedom to love God and eager to have relationship with him would not be our will anymore but a forced one. So, Jesus wanted to leave the wheat and the weeds growing together until the end of the age where the weeds are collected and burned up with fire. This is as our doubts will disappear completely when we see God face to face. God is faithful and slow to anger. He always waits patiently until our faith grows to be like Christ. If you look at The book of the Wisdom of Solomon, it says that ‘For God shows his strength when people doubt the completeness of his power … and he has filled his children with good hope, because he gives repentance for sins.’
The Kingdom of God is about God entering our lives and consequently our lives being changed by God, when we come under His rule. Our relationship to God on earth will therefore, determine our relationship to Him in eternity. It is the relationship that will last forever. If we learn to love and trust God’s Son, Jesus, we will be invited to spend the rest of eternity with him. We are not his servants any more but his children so we call God Father. Paul says in Romans, that ‘When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit of adoption bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.’
Death is not our end, but our transition into eternity, and so we are to understand that there are eternal consequences to everything we do on earth. Every act we do in Jesus’ name in our lives will echo in eternity. It is important that we realize there is far more to life than just here and now. Every Sunday, we confess the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus taught us; “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done…” The Kingdom of God will come as His will is done on earth. That is the challenge of the Kingdom. It is our responsibility to seek the Kingdom of God first and foremost and to conform to the will and purpose of God. Every time we doubt, we have to struggle to stand firmly in our faith. This is because, as Paul proclaims in Romans chapter 8, ‘our sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.’
In C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, he ends the series with a paragraph which seems to summarize the concept of eternity. He writes, ‘For us this is the end of all the stories. … But for them it was only the beginning of the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever and in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
Amen.
정태석선교사 (선교사님은 뉴몰든 St James Church를 섬기시는 귀한 그리스도의 종이십니다.)
