A Thought For The Week Of August 10, 2015

"He said to them, 'Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?'" (Luke 24:38) Fears and doubts. They seem inevitable to anyone who honestly tries to live a life of faith. Some would reject that. Some would say simply that Jesus has overcome both fear and doubt - but, in our most honest moments, I think we'd all be willing to acknowledge that sometimes fears and doubts still torment us and sometimes can even tempt us to turn away from Jesus and look to other things to find hope - or, more likely, to escape from whatever it is that troubles us. In the passage from which this verse is taken, Jesus' disciples found themselves in truly desperate circumstances. They had seen Jesus die - and they had seen him die a very ugly death. Now, they were lost and confused; leaderless and directionless. They were certainly not at peace - they were, instead, burdened with both fears and doubts. Had it all been for nothing? Had everything they had given up been an empty sacrifice? Had everything that Jesus had said and taught and done been pointless? They were surely thinking such thoughts. Jesus overcame fear and doubt by appearing to those disciples in the flesh. It would be nice if that would happen today, but circumstances are different. Jesus doesn't appear to us in the flesh, but we still have fears and doubts to overcome. And yet, as his disciples today, we still believe that Jesus is here, with us - "Emmanuel" - bringing us the peace of God that can overcome all our fears and doubts, whatever our circumstances may be at any given time. It's my belief that if we truly approach Jesus with a spirit and mind that is open to possibilities (and with God in the picture there are possibilities galore) rather than with a spirit and mind closed to anything that seems too wonderful to be true, then we'll experience the reality of Jesus' presence with us just as surely as those first disciples did. We can never allow fear or doubt to close us to more wonderful possibilities, because, after all, we believe in a God for whom all things are possible!