Addressing Doubt in the Brokenness

We have been looking at changing our attitude together for over a month now. We have combed through Scripture and memorized verses. We have done all the good Sunday school, Bible study things so far. What about the application part? What do you do when that's not enough? What do you do with doubt? What do you do when the world has tried to break you?
Here's the thing about living as a Christian in this world of brokenness, you don't just fight one battle and you're done. You will fight over and over and over..... Some days I feel like Johanna on the Hunger Games... "but now, you wanna kill me again!"

This perfectly sums it up, doesn't it?!  Even though we die to ourselves in Christ, the world still wants to kill us again and again (figuratively speaking...uh, sometimes). We represent everything evil hates. We wake up with a target on us and that is just life as a Christian (sorry this is not one of those cheery posts, at least not today 💜). If you were expecting something different than you obviously have not read any of your Bible because there is not a single person of faith that led a life that was trouble free, not one. Every one of them faced trouble and trial and loss. What we need to focus on is what choices they made when hardship came, especially between faith and doubt. Ever hear the saying it's not about what happens to us but how we respond to what happens to us? The same is true when it comes to faith. 

I have been fighting my battle against the darkness for weeks. Satan knows my weakness and it is a battle no one else sees. This weekend, I broke. I cannot describe it any other way than I broke inside. Every piece of me crumbled and fell to the floor where it lay between myself and God like a sea of shattered glass. So I retreated, and I kept asking God what happens now that I am broke? What happens when things are not okay? 

We circled around to doubt and trust. It was the very subjects He grew me in after my parents divorce and the first time we fostered. Do I doubt that He can pick me up with all my shattered pieces and put me back together, better than I was? Do I doubt that He knows what lay ahead? Do I doubt that He will be able to grasp my hand before I go under the very waves that threaten to drown me for good? Where is my faith in the shadow of the valley? If there is anyone who knows a thing or two about the loneliness of fighting the dark side it's David. Psalms 73:21-26

When my heart was grieved

    and my spirit embittered,

 I was senseless and ignorant;

    I was a brute beast before you.

 Yet I am always with you;

    you hold me by my right hand.

 You guide me with your counsel,

    and afterward you will take me into glory.

 Whom have I in heaven but you?

    And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

 My flesh and my heart may fail,

    but God is the strength of my heart

    and my portion forever.

Satan is like a hunting lion. He wants to separate us from the pack so that we are weaker when fighting him. It's a strategy used successfully too often. What we must remember in the darkest of nights is that there is ONE not even satan can separate us from and that is our God. Romans 8:38-39

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Maybe you don't fight the darkness the way I do. Maybe you don't walk in the shadows always defying the demons there. Maybe God has called you to something different. Good! Part of what God has called me to do in life means diving into messiness and inviting the darkness of the lives of others straight into my life. I am not a saint, I am not perfect, I am set apart for this purpose. I will be broken many more times before this life is over. And I will cry out as David did and He will hear me, in that I am confident. In these times I have a choice between doubt and faith; between giving up or pressing on.  Even the demons know, my life and my death will always be in Christ and so the battle will continue.

 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.Romans 8:31-37

Being broken is okay. Being not okay is okay. Just as long as the ONE you turn to for comfort and rebuilding is Christ. I am one of those who encourages you to explore your doubt IF you take that doubt straight to God. Allow Him to answer your doubt. Gideon doubted. Job questioned. Jonah ran. God had an answer every single time. And I will say it again, HE ALREADY KNOWS WHAT IS IN YOUR HEART. You're not getting anything past Him, so you might as well be honest with yourself and Him and work it out. Trying to "fake it and make it" has worked for zero amount of people. James 1:6 tells us we have to ask in faith, not in doubt. So you can't sit around praying to God for help the whole time doubting He's actually going to pull you through. So if you are struggling at the fork in the road between faith and doubt, you're not going anywhere until you work it out, so stop right here and address that issue IN CHRIST.  Only in Christ can you be restored and redeemed and rebuilt to be stronger than before. If you are broken right now, that may not even seem possible, but I can promise that it is possible. Read the Psalms. Read the epistles of Paul. Spend time alone with God and just listen. Let Him heal you. Let Him answer your doubts. Let Him put you back together. As always, if you need prayer, I am here for that too. My song of choice right now for anyone else who needs it is "Even If" by MercyMe

Have a blessed day.