John 20:25 AMP “So the other disciples kept telling him, We have seen the Lord! But he said to them, Unless I see in His hands the marks made by the nails and put my finger into the nail prints, and put my hand into His side, I will never believe [it].”

We’ve been exploring the Scripture that teaches that born-again children of God hear God. We’ve also seen that those with a relativistic world view have trouble believing this. But I’ve got a proposal for you: why not doubt your doubt? Put it on trial and seek to build a case for it.

This morning I was reading from Timothy Keller’s book, “The Reason for God.” In it he makes the following proposal: “I commend two processes to my readers. I urge skeptics to wrestle with the unexamined ‘blind faith’ on which skepticism is based, and to see how hard it is to justify those beliefs to those who do not share them. I also urge believers to wrestle with their personal and culture’s objections to the faith. At the end of each process, even if you remain the skeptic or believer you have been, you will hold your own position with both greater clarity and greater humility. Then there will be an understanding, sympathy, and respect for the other side that did not exist before. Believers and nonbelievers will rise to the level of disagreement rather than simply denouncing one another. This happens when each side has learned to represent the other’s argument in its strongest and most positive form. Only then is it safe and fair to disagree with it. That achieves civility in a pluralistic society, which is no small thing.”

One such skeptic was a lady by the name of Simone Weil. Born Jewish, she was raised by her parents to be completely agnostic. As she grew old she identified herself with communism, marxism, anarchy, and anything leaning to the left politically. But then something profound happened: In 1938….I was suffering from splitting headaches; each sound hurt me like a blow… I discovered the poem “Love” [by George Herbert], I learned it by heart. Often, at the culminating point of a violent headache, I made myself say it over, concentrating all my attention upon it and clinging with all my soul to the tenderness it enshrines. I used to think I was merely reciting it as a beautiful poem, but without my knowing it the recitation had the virtue of a prayer. It was during one of these recitations that, as I told you, Christ himself came down and took possession of me. In my arguments about the insolubility of the problem of God I had never foreseen the possibility of that, of a real contact, person to person, here below, between a human being and God. – From Waiting for God and The Notebooks of Simone Weil

Thus my proposal to you today is have you ever taken a hard look at what you really believe and why? Wherever there is doubt there is a corresponding belief in quite the opposite. That belief is faith. So if your faith is in relativism, and not the mystical teachings of Scripture, then why is that? Have you delved the depths of it and explored the X-File Possibility? “The Truth is Out There!?” Have you given listening for God a try? Not in a passive, “If you’re really there prove it” approach. But in an exploratory, experimental, trial period. Let’s say for example, that for the next 40 days you are going to try and explore the possibility that God will speak in and through a consistent quiet time or prayer time. Or maybe you could take some time going away on a hike to listen for God. Or more realistically possibly for the next 40 days you could consistently read the Word of God inviting the Holy Spirit to come alongside of you and teach you what you are reading. The “laboratories” are endless but the challenge is the same: are you willing to doubt your doubt? The Bible says, seek Me and you will find Me. Is it true or not? If you are of a more mystical world view persuasion, when’s the last time you actively sought to encounter God? To go beyond the summit you’ve reached thus far. You doubt that there is anything beyond the summit? Doubt your doubt. Step up, step out and take a stand. Thomas did. Simone Weil did. There are millions of saints surrounding the throne of God that can attest to the same thing. Why not join the cloud of witnesses?