What Do I Do With My Doubt?
Descartes’ method: When in doubt,
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. —Proverbs 9:10
1 .
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. —Deuteronomy 29:29
Mystery is not the
“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. —Genesis 3:5–6
What is concealed belongs to God, what is
It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. —Proverbs 25:2
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” —Romans 11:33–34
2 .
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. —Isaiah 55:8–9
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. —Psalm 131:1–2
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. —Proverbs 3:5–7
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. —Hebrews 3:12–13
Giving and Receiving Scriptural
3 .
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. —2 Timothy 3:16–17
There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. —2 Peter 3:16
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. —Matthew 7:24
4 .
O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? —Mark 9:19
…“But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” —Mark 9:22–24
“I believe;
This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. —Mark 9:29
Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you. —Matthew 17:20
What’s your next step?
• Acknowledge God’s Inscrutability
• Admit My Fallibility
• Accept Scripture’s Infallibility
• Ask According To God’s Ability