Gordon Atkinson offers guidance to believers on what to do with doubt.  His best advice is to continue on with your religious practices even in times of doubting.  It’s like when a man asked the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins how to have more faith, and Hopkins told him, “Give alms.”  Actions nurture beliefs, or undermine them.  Gordon also warns against being too proud of your doubts, bragging about them and trying to create doubts in others.

I have seen two opposite errors with doubt.  One group elevates doubt to the level of a sacrament.  Skepticism is a bright silver badge on their lapel.  The other side tries to stamp out any doubt in the life of the believer, but this is simply unrealistic.  If we are human, we are going to go through times of doubt and struggle in life.  It is inevitable.

There is a well-worn passage in the Bible that says,

“You must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed about by the wind.  Those who doubt should not think they will receive anything from the Lord; they are double-minded and unstable in all they do.” (James 1:6-8 TNIV)

Taken alone, this text condemns doubt in any form and makes it an obstacle to faith.  But when you put this admonition from James in the context of the rest of scripture, a more complex picture emerges.  Look at the book of Psalms, for example.  On one page of the Psalms there might be joyous expressions of trust and praise, and on the next page admissions of doubt, despair and desolation.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (22:1)  These are words Jesus Himself uttered from the cross as He was dying.  So for us in our times of pain and confusion, we doubt that God is still present with us.

The key for us in those times is to take those doubts to God and lay them at His feet, as Jesus Himself models for us.  He doesn’t simply cry out that God has forsaken Him, He phrases the plea in the form of a question that He addresses to God.  In other words, even in His most extreme moment, He refuses to give up His lifelong habit of praying.  Which is exactly what Gordon Atkinson suggests.  When in doubt, keep up your practice of prayer.

Doubt is like fire.  It is useful to us in small, controlled doses, like when it helps us cook a meal.  Walking through times of doubt can actually strengthen faith.  But be careful the fire doesn’t grow out of control because it may threaten to burn the house down.  How to keep it under control?  Perhaps one method is to channel doubt into our prayers rather than let it drive us away from God.