My name is Stacy and I am a “Doubting Thomas”!
When Jesus rose from the dead He revealed Himself to all of the disciples….all of the disciples except one. For whatever reason, Thomas was not in the room when Jesus first appeared to the other disciples. You can imagine the excitement in the room when Thomas finally got there! Jesus was no longer there but can you imagine the scene Thomas walked into? Everyone talking at once, hugging, shaking, laughing, crying even. Thomas must have been so confused. His Lord had been killed just a few days earlier and here all of His friends were having a party. Can you imagine what went through his mind when, finally, amidst all of the confusion, someone is able to tell him “We have seen the Lord!!” Thomas’s reaction is one that got him labeled “Doubting Thomas” for all of eternity…..“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.”
Have you ever felt like Thomas? I know I have. That feeling like everyone else has just been a part of something special and you just missed out. I felt like this most of my life when it came to my walk with God. I wanted to believe Jesus was the son of God so badly. I felt like other people must be more special than I was because they seemed to have received this amazing gift of faith. This blind devotion and acceptance that Jesus was who He said He was. I did everything I could to believe….I must have said the “Sinner’s Prayer” a thousand times…hoping this time it would stick. But the truth was, like Thomas, I was a doubter….I was Doubting Stacy.
I was so ashamed of myself. “Why can’t I believe like everyone else?” “Why do I have all of these doubts and how do I get rid of them?” “How can God ever accept me if I can’t just blindly accept Him?” “Why can’t I have a burning bush, a talking donkey, water turned into wine!!?? Then I would believe for sure!!” “C’mon….how did all of those animals get in that ark anyway!!??” If you can doubt it…I doubted it. But yet at the core of who I was, I wanted desperately to know the truth, to believe. And that is what I have in common with Thomas as well…..He wanted to believe, he wanted to know the truth and see it for himself.
The age we live in has almost vilified Thomas. We even have that name for people who doubt something “C’mon…stop being such a Doubting Thomas!!” But is what he said and felt so bad? I don’t think so and the reason I don’t think so is because Jesus didn’t think so either. Jesus finally did appear to Thomas and he didn’t scold Thomas or hide His scars from Thomas. He went to Thomas and offered His hands to him to see and hold and touch. He offered up the evidence that Thomas so desperately needed to believe Jesus had been risen from the dead. Jesus loved Thomas. Thomas had been a devoted follower of Jesus and Jesus longed for Thomas to believe, so He gently met Thomas where he was at and offered him the proof he had asked for. And what was Thomas’s reaction? “My Lord and my God.” Thomas believed…every doubt was gone at the hands of Jesus.
Not unlike Thomas, I finally cried out to Jesus, when I was 35, and asked for help. I had been studying the Bible and the evidence from the Old Testament that pointed to Jesus being exactly who He said He was became too much for me. I cried out to Jesus and told Him “I don’t know why I have all of these doubts, I beg you to take them away, to show me who you are….but until then you will just have to accept me the way I am….doubts and all.” For those who seek the truth, who desperately want to know and accept what is real when it comes to God…..God wants you to know the truth as well. And He will open you heart and mind to it if you just ask. If we offer ourselves up just the way we are, doubts, fears, longings and admit we don’t have the answers but we long for them….the rest is up to Him. The day I cried out to Jesus and asked for His help is the day I chose to believe…and it is the day that God honored that choice by revealing Himself through His word and through His spirit to me in such a way that I no longer had doubts. It was indeed supernatural…They were simply gone .I had no power to remove my doubts, I had tried for 35 years and nothing worked. But God had the power to remove them and when He did, like Thomas my response was immediate “My Lord and my God!”
God longs for us to know Him. Don’t let this world tell you that you should be ashamed for doubting, instead take your doubts straight to Him and let Him place your hands in His, let Him erase the doubts.
John 20:24-28
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 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.”
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
His grace is enough for me! 