Is it okay to DOUBT?

Doubt is not a word commonly associated with religion; conventional wisdom will tell you that the backbone of any religion is its devout followers. Every religion seeks God, when was the last time anybody found anything without searching? Does searching not involved traveling on previously unknown paths? How could one travel an unfamiliar road without asking a question or two, without ever doubting the directions given? How could anyone be a Christian without wondering about at least some of the contradictions they are being asked to believe? And the contradictions are many: it talks about a God who is just but "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? says the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, but hated Esau" (Malachi 1:3), it speaks of a God who is Omnipotent but chose to die on a cross, it claims to be one true religion but both Judaism and Islam worship the same God. The list could go on and on, but I think you've got the idea. 

During a Thapas Retreat this past weekend in Baltimore, MD, I was told to give a talk about 'Faith' to a group of devout Christians (I consider this proof enough that God has a sense of humor). And I wasted no time in posing the question whether anybody had any question about their beliefs, the foundation of their faith; not surprisingly, not a single person had any, they even thought of it as not a wise thing to do. If "Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1), then should we not put the evidence to test from time to time, how else do we know that what we have is the actual evidence?

I used two specific instances from the Bible to prove my point that a true Christian should ask questions about his/her faith, both from the gospel of St. Luke. When angel Gabriel announced to Zechariah, "...because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall name him John" (Luke 1:13), he asked the angel, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years" (Luke1:18). Zechariah asked a question and God left him "speechless and unable to talk" (Luke 1:20). Six months later, angel Gabriel made another announcement, this time he was sent to Mary, a virgin betrothed to man named Joseph, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus." (Luke 1:30,31). Upon hearing this Mary too asked the angel a question, "How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?" (Luke 1:34). Instead of punishing Mary for daring to ask a question, she was given an answer, "The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). I asked my audience what they thought was the reason for Mary to be exempted from a fate similar to Zechariah, after all they both questioned "evidence of things not seen"? The best answer I received from the crowd was that God gave Mary a pass because she was about to bear His Son.

However, I found three things wrong with Zechariah's question:
1. The angel says, "your prayer has been heard", this means Zechariah had been praying to God for an offspring. By questioning an answered prayer, Zechariah proved himself to be a hypocrite.
2. As a Jewish priest, Zechariah must have heard about a man named Abraham, his wife Sara, and their son Isaac. This was not the first time that God gave a kid to a couple who were "advanced in years".
3. The pride in Zechariah made him to think that creation required the consent and physical ability of humans. Conception is God's gift and humans are mere instruments.

In short, God showed mercy to Zechariah by shutting his mouth, thus preventing him from uttering further fallacies.

In Mary's case, the question was a valid one; what she heard from the angel had never happened before except for a prophecy from Isaiah, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14). A prophecy is neither "realization" nor "evidence". Mary was given an answer because her question was sincere, and she responded to the answer from the angel by saying, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). 

This brings us to the two conditions for asking a question about faith: first, BE SINCERE, and second one is BELIEVE when the doubt is cleared. In other words, do not question faith just to question God, and do not walk away from it when God reveal the answer. Believe what you have already known about God, question what you don't understand about God. Everybody was created with a certain amount of faith, "For by the grace given to me I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than one ought to think, but to think soberly, each according to the measure of faith that God has apportioned" (Roma 12:3). So God has created everyone with a certain measure of faith. God did this because our salvation depends directly on our faith, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God" (Ephesian 2:8). Some were given a lot more faith than others, but that is besides the point because all of us have the ability to increase the amount of faith given to us initially through hearing the Word of God, "Thus faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ" (Roma 10:17). Coming back to the conditions, therefore do not question or lose the faith that God has already allocated to us at our creation, no matter how little it may be. If anybody wonder what that little bit faith might be, the answer is simple; if you are born into a Christian family, then God, at a bare minimum, has given you enough faith to believe in God the Father who is the Creator of the universe, in Jesus Christ who is His only Son and Redeemer, and in the Holy Spirit who is the Finger of God.

Faith without doubt is like salt without flavor. People who go through life without asking hard questions about why they believe what they believe will find themselves speechless while facing tragedies or when being probed by a skeptic. They are no different from those "...who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, it collapsed at once and was completely destroyed" (Luke 6:49). I firmly believe that it is time for us to lose the image of God as the punisher and dictator, somebody who watches every step we take and hands out punishments every time we falter, and somebody who doesn't like questions. Time has exceeded to replace Him with, "There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty" (Deuteronomy 33:26). He is the God of Jeshurun which means God of the darling, He is God the Lover, "...for God is Love" (1 John 4:8). If doubt is what keeping us away from that love, then shouldn't we at least say, "...help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24)? Shouldn't we at least allow God to reveal the answers to our doubts through the Holy Spirit, when dared to ask in the name of His only Son, Jesus Christ.

"Taste and see that the LORD is good;

  blessed is the stalwart one who takes refuge in him." (Psalm 34:9)