Saturday, November 05, 2011

Today I doubt

Today I doubt.

Just one of those days, you know?

Don’t want to be at work. Don’t want to chase down these flies that make my office sound like an outhouse. Don’t want to cough up phlegm any more. Don’t want to be sick any more. Don’t want winter to come before I get the windows cleaned. Don’t want to complain.

Sometimes, like today, I doubt. I doubt that what I have prepared this week to talk with the people about tomorrow will be of any lasting value. I doubt that my class I’m teaching in the morning will be of any help to a gang of Jr. Highs. I doubt that the love I have won’t be enough.

Today is just a doubting day.

If I’m not careful, that can lead to despair. Why am I here. What do I think I’m doing. I miss my family. I’ve got old peoples diseases. What was God thinking.

Yeah, if I’m not careful it can go there.

I have to believe that this takes place occasionally to those of us in this line of work. I mean, this happens to thousands of people anywhere on any given day, heck it used to happen to me when I worked making pizzas for a living too. It’s just that with this it’s not just pizzas that suffer, it’s real people with real spirits and souls and relationships. I feel a great deal of responsibility for those I have been given to watch over and care for, spiritually speaking.

So maybe it’s ok to acknowledge that today I doubt, and maybe it’s alright to not let it move into despair. Maybe even in naming it there is a measure of deliverance and help.

Even as I continue to plod through a hard day there is comfort in prayer and a sliver of hope that tomorrow may be better. After all, haven’t I found it to be true that God has more room to move and act through me, when I am weak and doubtful?

Yes it is true. But today I doubt.


4 comments:

  1. Good words, Randall, simply for their rawness and truth. Thanks.

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  2. I wonder if my prayers for you and your people will open up some little space for God to move? I don't know but perhaps God will grace you with enough faith to make it through today and tomorrow.

    So, I will pray.

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  3. Hey if you can enlighten me as to embrace doubt without falling into the utter depths of despair, I would love it. I want doubt and uncertainty to be part of my faith and life, but I lack the skills to avoid the pit of despair and depression. I trust that Sunday happened as it was meant to for you and your people again.

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  4. Hi shattered, just about time for lunch again I think.

    Good question. I've been pondering it, waiting for lightening to strike and clarity to come.

    I think that for me, when I utterly loose my hope, that's when despair comes into the room. Proverbs says when hope fails it makes the heart sick. Sick to the point of death? Probably sometimes it does. After all there are different sicknesses and some may lead to death.

    What if doubt and uncertainty was tied to hope. Then you could go through those seasons or days or emotions and not be drawn into despair, because hope is the anchor that keeps you in place. Not an easy place all the time, but it keeps one stabilized, I think. 

    And it's a hope that is bigger than hope in our things or people, it's more of a transcendent hope, a hope based on a bigger presence or future than we can create here. It's hope in God, who does not fail, even when it looks like he is.

    (I'm thinking here of the three guys tossed into a fiery furnace because they wouldn't renounce God. And their response was that their God would save them, but even if He didn't they would still trust in him. Wow. Deep implications there.)

    That doesn't take into account any chemical deficiencies in the body, or depression based on some of those sorts of things. Then it can be really hard to find and hold onto any hope at all.

    Still, even if my life is in the balance, still I will trust Him with my life. Still I know that I know that I know that even if it doesn't feel like it, Or look like it, I am loved. That kind of hope.

    But I'm rambling now.
    I'm thinking those thoughts tonight as I think of you, and your story. I know not all people go through the levels of trial that you have faced in your life. But perhaps there is something there that you can hang on to.


    And yes, Sunday wasn't stellar, nor was it terrible, and go figure, I was still alive on Monday.

    :)

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