How To Overcome Doubt

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” – John 20:24-25

There is a difference between doubt and unbelief. Doubt asks questions while unbelief won’t even listen to answers. Over the next couple of days, we are going to learn from a man in the Bible who had such a problem with doubt he was even given the most famous nickname of any disciple. He is called “Doubting Thomas.”

I feel sorry for Thomas because I think he has gotten a little bit of a bad rap. He was a doubter, but he teaches us how to deal with doubt. He is able to starve his doubt and feed his faith and he shows us exactly how to do this. If you’re struggling with doubt today, I want to give you five steps you can take to begin to overcome your struggle. We’ll look at two of these steps today, and then we’ll look at the other three tomorrow.

The first step is to find the cause. The first thing to do is to honestly ask yourself, “Why am I doubting? What is causing me to doubt?” Doubt is merely a symptom of a deeper issue. And if we’re going to overcome our doubt, we must first figure out what’s causing us to experience doubt.

Once you identify the cause of your doubt, many times you will find either the reason is not a valid reason or it may be a good reason that really has a good answer. From that point, you can take the second step.

The second step is to specify the problem. If you are afraid of what people might think if you have doubts, don’t be. Too many believers have a “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” policy when it comes to the struggles they have with their faith. But the reality is that the church should be a place where doubts go to die.

You should have confidence that there’s no doubt that God cannot answer. So whatever problem you’re wrestling with, whatever doubt is weighing on you, specify it to God. That choice will lead you further down the path of victory of your doubt.

I pray you’ll come back tomorrow as we continue to dive into this strategy on how to overcome your struggle with doubt.

Dear Lord, thank you that no doubt is too big for you to address. And thank you for being a safe place for me to work through my doubts. Help me not to keep my doubts hidden, but to bring them into the light so that I can find the cause and specify the problem. In Jesus’ name, amen.