It Must Be How It Feels

Last night I shared with some youth a message that felt more like a mess. It was one of those times where while I was speaking inside my head were all kinds of thoughts of failure. I push through those moments trusting God like a pastor should, but some times those moments can be so discouraging. I remember thinking "you're loosing them", "better come up with something crafty quick" and "Just give up after tonight". Now, I realize that my thoughts aren't always my own even though they can sound just like me. Yet, in the midst of the storm who takes time to try and figure out where the storm came from?

Funny thing was I was sharing about having doubts in our faith. We talked about Peter walking on water and seeing the waves. Looking back now I see that I was experiencing what I was preaching on while I was preaching on it. Peter began to sink at the sight of the crashing waves, I began to sink at the thought of losing control (as if I had it in the first place!).

In most of today's Church culture it is taboo to say you have doubts when it comes to your faith (or use the word taboo!). For someone to admit doubt is to admit failure in faith. Yet, I'm not convinced that there is a single person who doesn't doubt at some point in their faith. Look at the early disciples; Peter sank and denied, Thomas doubted, all the disciples worried and yet Jesus continued to encourage them to stay focused on Him.

So, I don't know that an absence of doubt is an absolute truth in our faith. I believe doubt and faith meet face to face all the time. We choose to believe the doubt and in turn start to sink. Just when we are about chin deep we are finally ready to call out to Jesus and His hand is always there to pull us out of our failure. We need to remember... Peter got out of the boat! Period! What looked to be failure was an awesome display of the fact that even when we are doing what God has called us to do (get out of the boat) we still need Him.

Back to last night. Afterwards to young ladies approached another youth leader who shared the message with me and told him how it had spoken deeply to them. They mentioned how they were encouraged to examine themselves and their lifestyles to allow God to speak to them. I would have never known that impact was made if I focused on how I "felt" about last night. Sometimes, when it feels like failure, we have to trust God by faith that He is in control and when we do that... well there is no such thing as failure!