Karisa Moore www.lookwide.com/u/Karisa-Moore
Posts Tagged: doubt
Suicide doesn’t water down my faith with
flowery prose about God.
I take my doubts to the mat and wrestle
with who I believe Him to be.
Depression is the resistance between
my will and Yours being done.
Sacrifice, daily dripping with sweat,
works out belief on the gym floor of reality.
 Muscles cry out at the strain of discipline.
But still you coach me beyond what
I think I can reach. “Just one more breath!”
Shaping and toning my soul into your image.
Turning heads with a foxy endurance
that is not of this world!
When the canvas is brushed black,
And my vision can’t penetrate the opacity
of your masterpiece–shadows of sorrow thicken.
But, you keep painting over my doubts with sunrises.
James 1:…4And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 5But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.…
The world is filled with people who have spent much of their life trying and I am one of them. I try a little harder to be happier. I try to please others. I try to teach my children right from wrong. Even when I’m not trying, I’m trying to not try. Exhausted yet? I am.
Trying is irrevocably tied to results. Results, I am becoming convinced, already met on the cross through Jesus Christ. Even my faith, comes from the molding and shaping of my heavenly father. There is such freedom and relief in knowing that the transformation of the world is dependent upon God’s authorship, not mine. What is required of me is that I ask God for what I lack, have faith without doubting (not for God’s sake, but my own), being tossed at sea is no fun.
Lord, I praise you that nothing is too small for me to ask of you. You do not hold what I lack against me. So I ask you boldly for the discipline to glorify you as an author. Fill me with the ink of your passion and compassion for the world.
Be my muse and amusement in the written word. John says, “1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcomea it.” May my words become a lamp stand in the darkness. Amen and Amen!
Luke 7:20 And when the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’â€
Yesterday was a particularly rough day for Daniel at home and at school. As we began trying to dig past the bad behaviors to what was going on in his heart Daniel started blurting out a series of doubts and deep questions. The same questions and doubts I still struggle with. If Jesus took all our sins away why do we still sin? If I love Jesus why can’t I seem to do good? If you and the adults in my life love me, why do you punish me. If Jesus loved Jonathan, why did Jonathan die? He concluded, “It would be easier to obey, if Jesus was here and I could see him.”
John who had been preparing the way for Jesus to come asked “Are you the one, or should we expect someone else?” He’s sitting in prison, awaiting execution because the wife of Herod wants John dead. It would be a natural question for someone who has spent his entire life preparing for Jesus. At its core, if I obey God, why am I facing death?
Many of us have these very same questions. We wonder why do bad things continue to plague us, we wonder if God and those around us really love us. If you struggle with depression, you wonder why living is so hard. I struggle every day with why Jonathan took his own life. I see it as so preventable and sometimes I too am overwhelmed by my questions and doubts. So what hope is there when we have so many doubts and questions?
Luke21-3 In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. 22And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. 23And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.†John the Baptist, took that hope and did not give in to his doubts as he faced death. Even if that path leads through dark places like Jonathan’s death, I still see him laying a foundation for me to offer healing and hope to others who are grieving. Am I going to be offended by who Jesus is? He is patient with my questions and doubts. Do not lose heart Daniel, do not lose heart dear reader!
National Suicide Hotline
If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call the National Suicide Lifeline at 988 or go to the website at https://988lifeline.org/