my unbelief.”
These words show that a struggle was going on in the man’s soul for certainty against the ever-present forces of doubt and unbelief. His cry is the cry of everyman confronted by the obstacle to belief. It is your cry.
I. First consider the words: “help my unbelief.” That is your problem, isn’t it? Facing doubts.
My first piece of advice is to do as this man did. Don’t pretend that you can believe everything, if you cannot. Don’t make believe that doubts aren’t there. That will have no better effect than pulling the bedclothes over your head when you hear a strange noise in the house at night. The fact is that you will go on listening for it even when it isn’t there. You will still keep wondering what it is, and your fear will become more intense, until in the end, you have to get up and investigate. It would have been far better to do this at the beginning. Remember, whatever doubts you may have had, others have experienced them before you and come through to a stronger faith. Christianity stands by the truth that makes us free and it is not a shame-faced impostor, who must hide his head in the corner. If it is the truth, then it can stand up to criticism.
Christianity calls for no pretense but for honesty. As the principal of Richmond College, Dr. E.S. Waterhouse says: “Our religion calls us to believe, but never to make-believe.” In this judgment he was following our Master who realized the sheer honesty of the confession of our text. How easily he, the father of the boy, could have pretended that he believed entirely; it would have been so convenient because then Jesus, he must have thought, would have cured the boy without hesitation. But no, honesty dictated a wiser policy.
The first thing, I say, is: Face up to your doubts. I think that doubts are not only a sign of honesty in our thinking, but they show that our faith is not a dead thing of tradition, but a rediscovered, vital experience. So much for honest doubt and our duty to face it.
But there are also the wrong kinds of doubts: Doubts are sinful if they are of these two kinds. First they are sinful if they are the result of mental laziness which prevents us from thinking things through as far as we can. To love God with your whole mind is not to exaggerate the evil in the world, but to admit the good in it as well. Secondly, the worst kinds of doubts are those which are a defense we have set up, to prevent the invasion of God into some parts of our lives. If we want to deal honestly with our doubts, we must ask ourselves unflinchingly: “Is this doubt that I have an excuse for not facing up to God? Is God making some demand on me which I will not stand up to? Is he requiring me to put something right that is wrong in my relationship to someone else? Is he asking me to undertake some sacrifice which I am not prepared to make? Or am I trying to avoid tackling a habit that I know ought to be dealt with? Intellectual doubts are often produced by moral failures. This is all part of the process of facing up to your doubts: “my unbelief.”
Doubts demand honesty. Doubts demand hard thinking. Doubts demand to be faced in the right attitude. The right way is to say: “We will hold to a thing until it is proved false; not, I will not believe a thing until it is proved true.”
I want to be as practical as I can and to suggest some thoughts that may help you to pray “lord, help my unbelief” with some sincerity.
Remember in the first place, even if you doubt some things, there are others you can be quite certain of. Some people say rather loosely that they don’t believe in anything any longer. I quote the words of the Reverend Leslie Tizard:
Something has gone up in smoke somewhere, and the pall is hanging over everything. So they assume that the whole structure of faith is going to pieces in the ruins, whereas, if they took the trouble to look into the matter, they would find that although a part of the building is in flames, the rest is sound enough, at the worst, a little blackened and salvable.
If doubt, that shadow, crosses the sunlight of your faith, it’s a very useful thing to sit down, take out pencil and paper; then write down all that you have to thank God for. Remember everything beautiful you have seen: in art galleries, out in the fields or by the sea, in books, in theatres or in picture houses. Put down also all the kindnesses, the unexpected favors you have received, all the examples of bravery and goodliness you have come across. You will find that by this time, you have exhausted all the spare paper in the house and burnt your cooking or missed a train. The moral of this is: there is so much to be thankful for. You had forgotten it before, because you were looking at the world with dark spectacles. Once you took them off and looked back down the vistas of your memory, you saw the truth in perspective. These things of beauty were real experiences and no amount of evil in the world can deny them.
If the problem of evil demands that you banish God from the world of your thought, the problem of good will just as easily demand that you bring him back in order to explain that.
Secondly our faith needs fellowship to sustain it. It is wise to remember that our faith is very much at the mercy of our moods; even the most muscular and robust Christians sometimes lose faith in God when they are passing through a sorrow that seems hard to bear. And when doubt bandages your eyes, it is wise to remember that there are others who can see the brightness. It is good to know that if the sun has gone out for us, there are still others who can see its resplendent radiance. And of course, we gather in church, not only to meet with others who have a radiant confidence in God, but we meet for fellowship with the ever-living son of God. That is the chief source of faith.
The father of the epileptic boy cried: “Lord, I believe,” of that much we are certain. He could trust Jesus. Consider all the shadows that crossed our Savior’s life: poverty, disappointment, loneliness (at one time even desertion by God), suffering, death. What a series of darknesses! But he could trust. Fellowship with him in the darkness will bring back our faith. Remember:
Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than he went through before;
He that into God’s kingdom comes
Must enter by this door.
My last word is: prove your faith in action: Whilst Jesus told his disciples to believe in him, his other word was “Follow me.” When we are in a mood that makes religion seem hopelessly unreal, it is very useful to do some quite simple act which takes us out of ourselves. What it is does not much matter: going to see someone who is lonely; taking a handful of flowers to someone who is ill; reading to an invalid; looking after the children while a harassed mother goes out shopping; digging a neighbor’s garden. Indeed, anyone of the thousand little acts of human kindness will do. If we go out determined that we shall not return until we have done something for somebody, the world and everything in it will look different when we return.
Let me just repeat the stages of the journey by which you can defeat doubt. First, face them honestly. Secondly, ask yourself whether your doubts are not a defense you are putting up to save the necessity of obeying God’s call. Thirdly, write down all the beautiful experiences you have been through and all the kindnesses you have received. Fourthly, when your eyes are bandaged, meet with others whose eyes are open and especially meditate on the Light of the Word and remember the shadows of life. Then, leave introspection and go out to prove the reality of goodness by your own sympathetic action.
And pray at all times: “Lord I believe.” Thank God for all you can believe; and pray humbly as one who wishes to receive further light: “Help my unbelief.”
a victorious faith: conquering skepticism
G.K. Chesterton once said: “An age chooses as its saint the man who contradicts it most.”
This was by way of arguing that the industrialists of the Victorian age who had covered England and America with their “dark Satanic mills”
