I have never written 2 blog posts in one day but I do want to share what I am learning in the hopes it can help others. So I’m going to share directly from the book The Art of Spiritual Listening, Responding to God’s Voice Amid the Noise of Life by Alice Fryling. Maybe in reading this excerpt, you will find you could be helped as well. The whole book is so worth reading…and the following excerpt questions spring from John 20:19-31.

{In the chapter Listening for God In Times of Doubt, she included this:

To believe without seeing is the challenge we face in the midst of doubt. In my own experience I have discovered that God does not call me to pull myself up and pretend I believe. The Spirit, rather, seems to invite me to wait with my doubt. My Bible dictionary says that one of the words meaning “hope” in the Old Testament can also be translated “wait”. As I wait with my doubt, I think I understand what Thomas might have felt during those days before Jesus appeared again to the disciples. I hope that what I have heard is true, but I have to wait for Jesus to come and speak to me. It is hard to wait.

The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke suggests we need to learn to “live the questions”. His words in Letters to a Young Poet seem to apply to my experiences with doubt: I would like to beg of you, dear friend, as well as I can, to have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. . . At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, even without noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

The author goes on: I am learning “to live the questions” and to wait with my doubt. But as I do this, I need companions who will be with me. Not everyone listens well to doubt. One of the least helpful things for someone to do for me in my times of doubt is to tell me why I don’t need to doubt. One of the most helpful things for a companion to do is to share with me the pain and loneliness that doubt brings and to affirm for me that it will not last forever. Together we wait upon the God who said, “I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow” (Jeremiah 31:13). And we look to the Spirit for the peace and joy that can only come from God.

I am glad Thomas expressed his doubts. And I am especially glad God allowed Thomas’s doubts to be recorded in Scripture. God never seems to hide or ignore the faith struggles of the people of God. Jesus welcomes us to come and see for ourselves how his Spirit will help us in the midst of our doubt. God comes into our lives, as Jesus did for Thomas, even if the doors are locked. The Spirit stands in the midst of our daily questions, whatever our experiences, and proclaims, “Peace be with you!”}

And then the author asks the question: How do you sense God inviting you to respond to times of doubt in your own life?

In sharing this excerpt from this book by this author, I hope I can share what enables me to grow closer to God. And the question she asked helped me to think about what the chapter was about…Wait. There is so much in our world that is troubling and causes great distress. Things that trouble you and things that trouble me. What does it all mean and why? What I can share of my journey with God- Father, Son, Spirit – is that in being still after I bring my worries and needs to Him in prayer, I experience Wait. Not Now. Not now but in His wisdom and timing and love. As I wait in silence with God, the world and all of its fears and problems continue to race on! I can pause in stillness and know the peace only God can bring. And in that peace born in stillness, I am learning trust.

Scripture is a wonderful way to begin our journey with God, but we need His help to understand. That’s why I love devotional books that aid me in asking questions I wouldn’t have thought to ask. That’s why I love authors who have spent their lives learning more about God. Spending time with our God is a form of waiting that is done with Him. The world will keep racing on. God never races.