Doubt Always Looks For a Place to Land

Doubt is always looking for a place to land.

I’ve been spending a bit of time with my dear friend, Obadiah Sedwick, and that truth is what I’ve learned. There are many things in your life which you believe are true, the things which you agree with. Then there are also many things which you believe are false, or things which you do not agree with. Some of these are grounded in actual truth. Some of them are mere opinions. The land in the middle is what Sedwick, called doubtings:

Doubtings properly stand between them both. They are not plainly the one, or plainly the other. If I may speak freely, I conceive them to have a [hint] of either; they are medium, a middle thing, as your mixed colors are which you cannot style directly white or directly black.

When Sedwick spoke of “doubtings” he was referring to four different types. One type of doubt is the one which truly believes but isn’t sure exactly how something is going to happen. It’s like when you watch a superhero movie. You know the hero isn’t going to die, you just aren’t sure how he’s going to get out of the pickle he’s in. Another type of doubting is where we trust the object but not necessarily ourselves. This is when you believe God is communicating something to you, you know He has the power to do it, but you aren’t quite sure you trust yourself to hear correctly. Sedwick also believes there is a type of doubting which is plainly evil. This is the type of doubt that actually questions the goodness and character of God. All those are properly doubt, but not the type of doubt I’m referring to today.

The fourth kind of doubt, the one I’m considering today, is the doubt where you are hanging in suspense. The one where you truly aren’t sure about something. You really do feel caught in the middle. It might be a question of conscience or it might be a question of character. This type of doubt is disturbing. It’s the kind of doubt that keeps you up at night.

Such doubt is always looking for a place to land.

I picture in my mind a plane which is running out of gas and looking for a place to safely land. Whatever field it finds the pilot is going to take it. We don’t like being up in the air in our doubts. Humanity cannot thrive with inquietude. As Sedwick would say, “it ever inclines towards a determinate object”.

This is why it is absolutely vital for us to be grounded in the Word and in the gospel. We’re responsible for the landscape of our minds. The more time we spend in God’s Word and meditating on the truth of God the more likely we’ll create a good landing space for our doubts. But if we’re consistently spending our time in arguments, foolish controversies, atheistic babblings, mind-numbing entertainment, shallow social media, and worldly musings then we cannot expect our doubts to find safe landing ground.

Don’t misunderstand me. God’s Word is powerful. His keeping power is unstoppable. And the gospel does win out over darkness. The gospel does free us up to be able to engage secular thought and such. However, it is Christ and His Word which give us the power to do this. If we slowly mute the gospel, spend more time in secular thought instead of God’s Word and expect to win the war it isn’t going to happen.

Doubts always look for a place to land.

And doubts are going to come. You cannot live in our culture and be faithful to the call of the gospel without putting yourself in the path of doubt. It’s going to happen. Questions will arise. The issue, though, is what type of landscape are we building for that plane to land on.

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