What To Do When You Wrestle With Doubt.

What do you do when you wrestle with doubt? What is doubt and how can you overcome it? Have you had moments where you struggle to wade doubt off of yourself? Maybe you are in such a place right now. Maybe God is asking you to do something that looks so big and you don’t know if you have what it takes. Or maybe God has given you a seed so small that you are wondering if it will ever grow. Has God given you a word for someone and you are wondering if they will even believe it was from God? Whatever the case may be, if you are wrestling with doubt, then join us as we talk about it and discover the tools needed to wrestle with it. But first, let’s define what doubt is. 

What is doubt? 

According to the Oxford dictionary, doubt is defined as a feeling of uncertainty and a lack of conviction. 

So, based on this definition, we can conclude that doubt stems from a place of distrust that something could work in our favor. And the root cause of doubt is the perception we have of ourselves and our beliefs in ourselves. Have you experienced this? Maybe you have always had the desire to start a business, but because of your background, you feel you don’t have what it takes to accomplish it. Do you doubt your capabilities because of your limitations? Do you lack the confidence of doing what you know deep down God has called you to do? Are you like Moses wrestling with doubt?

As we look at doubt further, let’s look at someone in the Bible who had to wrestle with doubt. And although almost everyone in the Bible had to wrestle with doubt at one point, let’s look at Moses. And the focus will be on Exodus 4.

Moses objected, “They won’t trust me. They won’t listen to a word I say. They’re going to say, ‘God? Appear to him? Hardly!’” So God said, “What’s that in your hand?” “A staff.” “Throw it on the ground.” He threw it. It became a snake; Moses jumped back—fast! God said to Moses, “Reach out and grab it by the tail.” He reached out and grabbed it—and he was holding his staff again. “That’s so they will trust that God appeared to you, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” God then said, “Put your hand inside your shirt.” He slipped his hand under his shirt, then took it out. His hand had turned leprous, like snow.

He said, “Put your hand back under your shirt.” He did it, then took it back out—as healthy as before. “So if they don’t trust you and aren’t convinced by the first sign, the second sign should do it. But if it doesn’t, if even after these two signs they don’t trust you and listen to your message, take some water out of the Nile and pour it out on the dry land; the Nile water that you pour out will turn to blood when it hits the ground.”

Moses raised another objection to God: “Master, please, I don’t talk well. I’ve never been good with words, neither before nor after you spoke to me. I stutter and stammer.” God said, “And who do you think made the human mouth? And who makes some mute, some deaf, some sighted, some blind? Isn’t it I, God? So, get going. I’ll be right there with you—with your mouth! I’ll be right there to teach you what to say.” He said, “Oh, Master, please! Send somebody else!” Exodus 4:1‭-‬13 MSG

Before we can look at this story, let’s first get a summary of who Moses was. 

Moses was born when the Jewish newborns were being killed and so Moses’ mother Jochebed did everything she could to protect him and he ended up in the palace as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Jochebed nursed him while in the palace under the guidance of the Pharaoh’s daughter until he was old enough. Then she let her go. So Moses had to say goodbye to his mother, who had taught him everything about the Jewish custom. That meant that now he was exposed to only the Egyptian custom, and he had to daily remember he was always a jew no matter where he was. He had to hold on to what his mother told him, despite how his environment contradicted that.

So here was Moses, a jew raised in Egypt according to Egyptian customs. Can you imagine the struggle he must have faced, knowing he was a jew but having to follow Egyptian custom? Seeing the bondage of his people were going through and him living in luxury? Anyway, fast forward to him running away after killing an Egyptian because he was trying to save one of his own. And the very people he was trying to save rejected him. Moses ran away and lived in Midian for 40 years and here in chapter 4 we see God find him again through the burning bush encounter and in chapter 4 God is giving him instructions on how to rescue his people.

 Something to note here is that God called Moses to do what He knew was his role, considering he killed the Egyptian to save his own. Moses knew his role but doubted it because of the rejection he faced from his own people. Has your past failure caused you to doubt the purpose God placed inside you? When God gives you a task or places a desire inside you, He knows you have what it takes to do it. He is your Creator after all. So even when the doubt rages and tries to convince you that you don’t have what it takes. I want to remind you that you do because God would never call you to do something He has not equipped you for. Not only that, He qualifies the unqualified.

However, Moses was filled with so much doubt that he gave God excuses. He tried to show God the reason he was unqualified. Can you imagine arguing with someone who knows what they are saying? God knew Moses was up for the task, but Moses doubted. Have you, like Moses, tried to talk yourself out of what God is asking of you? What excuses have you given to try and talk yourself out of what God is asking of you? How do you navigate through the doubt? What tools can you use to wrestle with doubt?

2 tools that you need to wrestle with doubt.

Know that it is in your hand.

When God was instructing Moses on the signs, he would give to prove that God sent him, He asked him what he had on his hand. This is significant because God will only use what you have. This is because to Him, what you have in your hand is enough to accomplish the task at hand. What skill can you use right now? What experiences, opportunities, and advantages do you have over others?

Moses had a rod because he was a shepherd and had to protect the flock he was herding. And not just that, the fact that he grew up in the palace and knew the Egyptian customs meant that he was equipped and skilled for the task. Can you identify the skills that you have drawn from the experiences that you have gone through and the environment you grew up in? When God calls you for a task, HE knows you can handle what will come with it. 

Realize that it is inside you (this is who you are)

Moses was a born leader, and this is evident because even before God called him to deliver the Israelites, he tried to do so by killing the Egyptian man. God says that He knew you before He formed you. This means that He already planned out who you would be. This goes to show that you don’t have to go through traumatic experiences for you to step into your purpose. God told Jeremiah that He called him when he was in his mother’s womb. God placed those desires before you were born.

The struggle will give birth to a purpose, but that’s only because it was there, to begin with. Everything you have had to go through revealed what God put inside you. But that doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t have stepped into your purpose if you never went through the struggle. You can never plant an apple seed and expect a mustard tree. The trauma unveiled it, but it did not birth it. Stop giving trauma and pain so much credit. You were qualified way before you went through that painful situation. It was already inside you. The situation revealed it. When you wrestle with doubt, I want you to remember that God created you for it. You are the solution the world is looking for.

What to note.

God will use everything in our lives to get us to our purpose because He is Sovereign. Don’t believe for a second that it was the trauma that gave birth to this purpose that you have. No! It was always there. God put it on you before you were born. And one thing I want to challenge you to do is to try to dig deep and find out who you were before the trauma. Can you see the seeds of your purpose before you went through the thing that broke you?

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
    before you were born I set you apart;
    I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5

If God called you to be a counselor, chances are other kids found it easier to confide in you growing up. If you are a speaker, you might have been a very vocal child. Whatever your purpose is, did not start with the trauma, it was only brought to light after the trauma. So don’t get stuck thinking that it was the trauma that gave you purpose. And also you don’t always have to go through pain for your purpose to be revealed. Today I want you to realize that God created you with that purpose inside you. Don’t wrestle with doubt. Remember that you have what it takes and you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. He is your strength when you are weak. Rely on Him and not on your own strength.

Conclusion.

Trauma only reveals what God placed inside you before you were born. He orchestrated your purpose before you were in your mother’s womb. So stop praising the trauma. God does not want you to go through pain, however, He will allow it if it means having you step into your purpose. 

God will use what you have because He has equipped you for it. He did not ask Moses to go look for a rod because He knew he had it. Similarly, Jesus asked the disciples to go find out what the crowd had, and through the 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread, a multitude was fed. Do not look down on what you have. God knows it has the potential to become a tree, although it is a seed now.

Every experience you have gone through is never wasted and God will use it all for His glory. It will all come full circle, so be patient and trust the process. It will all work out. Do not despise the small beginnings. 

The Holy Spirit wants to reveal to you the strength and power inside you. The key is for you to let Him introduce you to you. There are aspects of yourself you will not know until you cultivate your relationship with Him. And I believe that the presence of doubt is proof that God called and qualified you for what you are afraid of. That is why the enemy is trying to discourage you from becoming who God created you to be. The enemy knows the havoc you will create in his kingdom. So he will do everything in his power to hinder you from fully stepping into your destiny. Check out the discomfort of destiny to learn more about this. You can also check out how to discover your purpose.