The POWER of DOUBT

As I stood in front of the wall mirror in the bathroom this morning, with a portable mirror in one hand and a double-bladed razor in the other… precariously attempting to contort my arms into strange angles so as to shave the back of my neck…  I couldn’t help but to smile as I vividly remembered the multitude of times that my wife Piper did the job for me, throughout our marriage… and even before!

Let me explain… you see… as a kid, I could count the number of times that I went to a professional barber on one hand.  My mom and occasionally my dad, always trimmed my brother’s and my hair.  So, when Piper and I went off to college at Chico State in the fall of 1973, I casually mentioned that fact to my girlfriend… who had since been promoted to my fiancé, and without a second thought she said, “I’ll do it!”  And she did… and then proceeded to do it, along with the in-between-haircuts shaving of my neck for the next 36 years… until the ravages of Alzheimer’s confused her thinking enough that she botched my last hair cut from her in the summer of 2009… and let’s just say that I wore a hat pretty regularly for a few weeks after that 

But as I managed once again to shave my neck without hurting myself, I got to thinking of the way in which she would squirt a bubble of shaving cream onto one of hands, dab a little on my neck and then shave the spot with the razor in her other hand.  Then with the water running in the sink, she would put the razor under the stream and gently wipe off the cream and hair from the blade with a thumb and finger while holding the razor with the other three fingers. 

She had a unique way of manipulating her tiny fingers that always amazed me.  Whether it was shaving my neck, playing the piano or cutting up vegetables for a family meal, the dexterity of her small hands always caught my attention!  Of course, it didn’t hurt that she was double jointed in her fingers!  I always figured that God made her that way on purpose due to the small size of her hands!  I remember when her Neurologist in San Francisco made a special point one day, to stop and take Piper’s hands in hers and then exclaim, “What small hands she has!”

So, what’s my point of that story… well, for me, it was the fact that I always trusted Piper and never DOUBTED her abilities to do anything that she set her mind and her heart to.  I never had a second thought as she sat me down in her dorm room, grabbed a comb and a pair of scissors and started trimming my hair!

Therefore, it caught my attention this morning as I was reading in the Biblical book of James, where the Pastor of the mother church in Jerusalem talked about the destructive power of DOUBT in our faith-life and declared,

“A person who has DOUBTS shouldn't expect to receive anything from the Lord.  A person who has DOUBTS is thinking about two different things at the same time and can't make up his mind about anything.” (God’s Word  

When I finished reading those verses, I immediately thought about a teaching that I had live streamed from the Southwest Believer’s Conference in Fort Worth, Texas yesterday afternoon.  The speaker was also talking about the negative influence of DOUBT in the life of a Believer and stated that,

“DOUBT multiples FEAR, it divides your ATTENTION, and it subtracts JOY!”*

And as I was absorbing the speaker’s declaration there in front of my laptop yesterday afternoon, I slipped back in my mind’s eye to what became the most confusing and frustrating time in my life, when Piper and I moved back to our hometown in California, following our 3 year stay for Bible School attendance in Oklahoma.  The central purpose of that return was to get a specific and detailed diagnosis concerning what was going on with Piper’s health 

We returned home with a strong, unified and faith-filled plan to attack whatever it was.  But what totally surprised us was the overwhelming amount of DOUBT that quickly surrounded us from some of the foundational parts of our life-long network of family and friends.

Looking back yesterday, I had an “Ah Ha!” moment when I realized how the speaker’s 3 points were spot-on with our experience!  I could clearly see how the FEAR that empowered different individual’s DOUBTS in what we were doing, have the potential of weakening our faith, had we given in to the pressures that they imparted upon us.

I also understood how their DOUBTS could have easily distracted our single-focused attention to God and the truth of His Word, if we paid any level of attention to any other views or pictures that contradicted His. 

And lastly, it seemed like the ones who repeatedly vocalized their DOUBTS to us and to others in our family, were also shrouded in a deep veil of DEPRESSION which threatened the JOY that we sought to keep flowing in abundance in the environment around my wife.  In Piper’s greatest time of need, it was imperative that I keep a clear head and have the physical, mental, spiritual and emotional strength to care for her increasing needs and dependence on me… and therefore I heavily depended on the JOY of the Lord to be my strength… 24/7!**

A part of the “Ah Ha!” moment that I experienced yesterday was the realization of the importance that the Father put on the negative influences that DOUBT could have had on our faith… through the lies of FEAR, DIVIDED ATTENIONS and DEPRESSION infiltrating our stand of faith for what was ahead for Piper and I.  And once again, with a quick raised fist and a smile of confirmation, I understood one of the reasons why the Lord, in His watchfulness and care for us, instructed us to move away and cross country to be near our oldest daughter in North Carolina.

Our five years there were a breath of fresh air and a time to reclaim our footing, as we were able to refocus our faith without unnecessary distractions… and make a very difficult time in our lives another adventure in faith!  Isn’t God Good!

So, hopefully, our example and necessary stand again the wiles of the enemy of our faith, as he endeavored to block our faith with DOUBT - through his trickery of FEAR, DIVIDED ATTENIONS and the SUBTRACTION of JOY in our lives, will hit home with you… and help you to be sharply aware and in tune to the atmosphere around you and how you can, through the power of God and His Word keep JOY, FAITH and PEACE - without DOUBT -  in the midst of everything you do in this life! 

Have a terrific weekend, and as you do… Keep EXPECTING God’s best in your life!

 

*Dr Jesse Duplantis, Southwest Believer’s Convention 8/5/22, 3:00 pm session.

**See: Nehemiah 8:10