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Day 152 reading assignment:
2 Samuel 18:1-19:10
John 20:1-31
Psalm 119:153-176
Proverbs 16:14-15
It's hard to know how to restart.  There is a lot of story between Deuteronomy and 2 Samuel as well as Luke, John, Proverbs and the Psalms.
There's been a lot of good reading between then and now but I think the best way forward is forward.  So I will start today with today's reading assignment and try to do a 'between posts recaps' of the last two months.  Otherwise I'm afraid I'll never catch up and I don't need one more thing to veer me off of this course........So for whatever it is worth, I'm back doing what I can to catch some glimpse of this message that I am forever seeking.

Like Thomas in John 20, I question if I will always struggle with my habitual weak faith.  I wonder if my hot, cold, tepid spiritual temperature is chronic.  At what point do I get membership in the solid, faithful, believers club?

This isn't as serious as an all out crisis of faith.  But more like that Judy Blume book, "Are You There God?  It's Me Margaret."  It helped a lot to read John 20 today. I've always known about Doubting Thomas, but just the Sunday school version.  I have never spent any time considering Thomas' affliction. If I spent any time forming an opinion of him I would think he was disloyal bordering on disrespectful.  This quick judgement is probably why we are always cautioned not to judge...never assume anything.  The bio on Thomas in my Bible says just the opposite.  In fact it says some of his strengths were loyalty and honesty.  And in his defense, I will try to stand in his sandals for just 5 minutes.  I imagine Thomas, gripped with the sorrow of Jesus' death.  Now all at once ten of his good friends are telling him of their encounter with Jesus- alive and well.  I see myself right there with him wondering incredulously why my friends would expect me to believe their insane story, and maybe feeling a little left out of this loop.

Sometimes life is just disappointing.  You try to keep an optimistic outlook, you think you are jumping through all the right hoops and still it dumps on you.  The what-ifs creep in quietly and work their voo-doo magic and the wavering begins and before you know it you realize you are really ticked off at God.  But really isn't anger at God a reinforcement of honest belief?  You can't be mad at something you don't believe in right?

What I really loved about today's reading was what the application had to say about doubt; 'We can doubt without having to live a doubting way of life.  Doubt encourages rethinking.  Its purpose is more to sharpen the mind than to change it.  Doubt can be used to pose the question, get an answer, and push for a decision.  But doubt was never meant to be a permanent condition.  Doubt is one foot lifted, poised to step forward or backward.  There is no motion til the foot comes down.  When I experience doubt (for a moment or even a season) I will take encouragement from Thomas.  He didn't stay in his doubt but allowed Jesus to bring him to belief.  Silent doubts rarely find answers.  I know I cannot settle into doubt but must move on from it to decision and belief.'  I will also take encouragement from the fact that countless other followers of Christ have struggled with doubts as well.....maybe even some from that solid, faithful, believers club I so badly want to join.

                              -Better to doubt out loud than to disbelieve in silence-