Droplets of Doubt

Lately I have been thinking about something. I am going to try and put it into words, but if I fail, I apologize. CAUTION: Potential Rambling Ahead.

Lately, I catch myself like Peter walking on the water. I am "walking" and then in the middle of some action, doubt sneaks in like a horde of gnats. Small, yet still annoying. Just for example. As most of you know, I am currently studying Chinese. I have been in Taiwan for almost 9 years, but I haven't had a chance to officially start studying Chinese until last November. (By the by, THANK YOU so much ED Asia supporters for making it possible!) I have one teacher that has a lot of faith in my ability to understand Chinese. We have great conversations. Our class is two hours long and somewhere around one hour, I will have a moment where doubt sneaks in. She will be talking and I will be understanding everything, then my brain will suddenly say, "Hey! Wait, is she speaking Chinese? You can't understand this much Chinese! Hold on!" And in that moment, I will FORGET EVERY CHINESE WORD I KNOW!!!! I have to literally give myself a pep talk and say, "You can do this. You can understand her just fine. Pull yourself together." Now, while this is annoying, I have just been figuring that my brain was on overload and not really thinking to much about these little episodes. Until Sunday.

We had an incredible service Sunday night. If you missed it, poor, poor you. I mean, it would have been worth the flight from the States for just that service. During a time of deep prayer and God was doing awesome things in every ones lives, I was talking with God. I know God's voice. I know how He speaks to me. But right in the middle of our conversation, that same voice of doubt popped up and said, "Are you really sure that you are talking to God? Maybe you have just been talking to yourself for all these years." WHOA! Hold on a minute. I can accept that my brain is on overload with Chinese, but on overload with God? Not happening. And in that moment, I realized that voice of doubt was my enemy. An enemy that would not like to see me succeed in learning Chinese, would not like to see me succeed in my ministry and certainly would not like to see me succeed in hearing the voice of God. Something I had been writing off was trying to plant seeds in my mind that I do not want there.

As Christians, I think we can never take our eyes off of the ultimate goal. Heaven, people, that is the ultimate goal. Don't forget it.