Doubtful

Today at UpStreet (the kids' worship and teaching part of our church on Sunday mornings) we talked about Thomas. You know the guy. He's so famous he got another name permanently attached to him: Doubting Thomas.

All month long at UpStreet we're looking at friendship, which we've defined as spending time with someone you trust and enjoy. And we're using the events of Easter and the weeks following Easter to help kids understand what it means to be a true friend. That brought us to Thomas today, he of the doubting.

What we tried to help the kids understand is that Jesus didn't give up on Thomas because he had doubts. He didn't even walk away and say, "Too bad you missed me the first time, loser, because I'm not going to show up again. Deal with your doubts on your own, you big untruster-pants." (I secretly wish that Jesus talked that way. Perhaps that's exactly the way Jesus came across in Aramaic. I'm pretty sure everything in Aramaic sounds sarcastic)

No, instead, Jesus comes back and allows Thomas to see what he said he needed to see in order to believe...the nail scarred hands, the wounded side of Jesus. And what I hope the kids got is that Jesus is okay with our doubts, but that because He is an incredible friend, He wants to help us believe. He's patient with us. And that if we're going to be a good friend we'll help others believe as well, we'll encourage them, not give up on them. We'll walk along side them, not push them away because they believe differently or don't quite get why we care about Jesus so much.

I love Thomas because he encourages me. I have doubts about my faith at times. There's periods in my life where I question the goodness of God or His involvement in my life. There's also times when I don't struggle with any of that, when I know what's absolutely true.

Why Thomas encourages me is because I see that none of his doubts changed anything. Whether Thomas believed that Jesus was alive or believed that Jesus was dead and the other disciples were nuts didn't change what was true: Jesus was alive! And Thomas could have gone on doubting and wondering until he died, but it didn't change what happened. Jesus was dead, and then came back to life.

My times of doubt don't change anything either. God is not lessened by my questions, He is not shrunk by my limited grasp. No matter what I'm struggling with, He is unchanged. And if I continue to be honest with my questions, I will find answers, much as Thomas did. Certainly not in the same way, and probably not in the same amount of time. (Thomas only had to wait a matter of days to find the answers he was looking for. I've found that God often makes me wait a little longer than that.)

And as I struggle with my doubts, as I search for answers or seek to understand what, in the name of all that is holy, God could possibly be doing, He remains the same.

The bonus? While He is constant, I come away changed, and with a better grasp of just who this Jesus is that I serve. Being an untruster-pants does lead to new horizons.

But those new horizons are rarely as comfortable as the horizons I leave behind.