Doubt is a double-edged sword. It can act as either a deterrent or a stimulant. Doubt about whether it was possible to sail west across the Atlantic Ocean could have kept Christopher Columbus from discovering America. Instead, he doubted that the world was flat and that he would fall off the edge if he traveled too far. He used his doubt to spur him on to new endeavor. Doubt, may in fact, help us to recover our faith. Doubt which persists may prove to be of some value. This was the case of a man who gave us a case study of how belief and doubt could co-exist and produced a prayer that has echoed in the hearts of countless others since.

There is nothing worse than having to experience the suffering of your child. A father brought his son to the disciples in the hope that the boy would be healed, but they could not help him. This man is like so many parents today who helplessly watch their child suffering from some malignant disease, caught in the grip of some addiction, or going off the rails by living at the mercy of their peer group. Such parents don’t know where to turn for help. Sometimes all that they can do is to bring them to Jesus in their prayers. The disciples brought this boy to Jesus who, when asked by the father, “if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” Jesus replied by raising his eyebrows and challenging the father, “If I can? Everything is possible for him who believes.” What an extraordinary claim! It challenges us today: the extreme possibility of faith. Yet we know that the possibility of healing is not easy. We cannot say to others, “Just have faith.” This is why the boy’s father cries out in his desperation, “I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief!”

He has a faith that struggles with doubt. He is honest about the struggle he experiences. He pleads for help just as he is, a doubter. The father does not come to Jesus with a demand but with humility. He does not try to fake a faith he doesn’t possess. He pleads with Jesus to do what he can. Yet Jesus honors the man who would bring his son out of compassion to seek help. The prayer of the father is the prayer I can own for myself: “I believe, help my unbelief.”

Many of us struggle with doubt even though we have faith and want to believe. For many people pure faith is difficult because of the damage done them in childhood or in the trauma of life. Doubt may have its roots in our basic temperament, or our particular stage in life. Doubt and faith co-exist for many. Yet that may be more normal than you imagine. In fact, there may be a value in experiencing doubt – or unbelief.

Gary E. Parker has written about this in his book, The Gift of Doubt: From crisis to authentic faith. He claims that doubt can do us good, that doubt is not always evil, and that doubt can help us to have a stronger faith. “If we maintain an openness to new truth, …we might find that uncertainty can actually enliven and strengthen our faith. Dr. Clark Pinnock proposes, ‘There is also a good side to this sort of uncertainty… Doubt can spur deeper reflection and further discovery…. Doubting may lead to greater certainty.’”

Gary Parker suggests four ways doubt can be turned to good. First of all, doubt can test the truth of faith. Thomas Gutherie wrote, “Are not many damned just because they never doubt? They go on, satisfied with themselves; not doubting but that they are on the right course, when every step they take leads them further and further astray.”

An unexamined faith may be a false faith. Much of Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees centered on their dogmatic arrogance. They had their minds made up and were not open to other interpretations of the truth. Fanatical adherence to religious conviction is not necessarily a virtue. When the mind is closed to other truth, there is bred in the believer an intolerance and a cruelty that is incompatible with a God of love. Many Muslims and Communists suffer from the kind of fanaticism.

When you go on a long journey in your own vehicle, you don’t assume that the automobile is in good order. You have it checked and serviced for you don’t want it to break down on the journey and inconvenience you. Doubt serves as a testing ingredient of faith. It subjects our beliefs to trials to see if those beliefs have the power necessary to complete an arduous journey. A faith that is worthwhile is a faith that is checked for weakness. Doubt provides that check. To be never in doubt is to invite disaster.

Second, doubt destroys faith that doesn’t deserve our continued allegiance. A naïve trust in something or someone who doesn’t deserve it is destructive. People learn that too much faith in corrupt political leaders, or unfaithful spouses, or fair-weather friends leads to disappointment. Thinking the best of someone, who continually lets you down and doesn’t follow through on promises, is unhealthy. To continue to believe in something that has proved itself unworthy of our faith shows our credulity rather than our common sense.

By 1530, Copernicus had questioned the accepted belief of astronomy that the earth was the center of the known universe. He put forward the theory that the sun was actually at the center and that the earth and the other planets revolved around it. The church rejected his theory, but future discoveries proved him correct. We know what happened to Galileo. Their doubts about current beliefs destroyed faith in a system that did not deserve continued support, and established a new truth valuable to human life.

Any doubt that destroys faith in any false god is good, and serves God’s purpose. When doubt upends a false faith, it serves as an asset to a true one. The faith that cannot survive the trials and tests of life probably didn’t deserve to live anyway.

Third, doubt enhances a faith that proves itself worthy of commitment. Doubt takes faith and exercises it so that it cannot help but grow stronger. If faith never encounters doubt, if truth never struggles with error, if good never battles with evil, how can faith know its own power? How can it enhance its power if it never exercises its perception? A faith that struggles with doubt becomes strong through that struggle.

Robert Schuller tells the story of a tornado that destroyed his family farm buildings. In half an hour nine freshly painted buildings were completely obliterated. Twenty-six years of hard labor had been wiped out. “Dad got out of the car, ordering us to wait, and walked with his cane around the clean-swept, tornado-vacuumed farmyard.” Doubts, I’m sure arose in his mind. “Why did God allow this to happen? Haven’t I served God faithfully? Doesn’t God care about me and my welfare? If God is real, why didn’t he stop this tornado?” As he picked through the trash, he found a piece of molded plaster that had hung on the kitchen wall. The motto said, “Keep looking to Jesus.” So, Schuller wrote, his Dad didn’t quit. With God on his side and, ‘looking to Jesus’, he could start over. And he did just that.

The faith of Schuller’s family stood a stern test that day and it survived. Without question, nothing could have tested their faith any stronger. Their faith gained strength because it had looked into the face of destruction and had not blinked.

Rufus Jones, the Quaker pastor and teacher in Maine once wrote, “A twice-born faith, a rebuilt faith, is superior to an inherited faith that has never stood the strain of a great testing storm. If you have not clung to a broken piece of your old ship in the dark night of the soul, your faith may not have the sustaining power to carry you through to the end of the journey.”

Fourth, doubt forces us to find reasons for our faith. Many deny that doubt has any value. Herbert Williams, in his book, No Room for Doubt, sums up this viewpoint. “Doubting can serve no useful purpose whatever, as it provides nothing we need in the challenging quest for answers. Doubt… is a negative attitude which cannot accomplish in the interest of positive inquiry into problems that are real, pressing, and ever-present.”

This kind of attitude flies in the face of the biblical approach where the apostles argued, debated, and discussed, with people of many faiths, in order to prove the validity of their claims. We cannot expect people to listen to our beliefs if we cannot explain the reasons for our faith. St. Peter wrote, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

Doubt forces us to express our belief in coherent and rational statements. Doubt makes us deal honestly with the troublesome issues of life. Faith does not require us to bury our heads in the sand lest we be disturbed. True faith will enable us to look difficulties in the eye, and respond with integrity to the truth we know. If you struggle with misgivings and uncertainties, do not be forced by a false sense of Christian piety to hide your doubts. Faithful men and women in history have struggled greatly with the fire of doubt burning within them.

“Like a fire that burns away the underbrush so new trees can reach new heights, our doubts can help us achieve a faith that grows stronger and reigns supreme in spite of the uncertainties we often face.” (Gary Parker)

I don’t believe everything people tell me. The world is filled with people trying to sell me something that will benefit them rather than me. I receive many phone calls and emails every day that are scams. A.I. creates much misinformation. Too many people are ripped off by con artists. If something is too good to be true it usually is. Doubt in these cases is very valuable. It may prevent you from losing your shirt. It is healthy to question the claims of others. Doubt can be very reasonable.

In the mean time, we return to the father who prayed, “I believe, help my unbelief.” His son was healed. What happened to his faith? What needs to happen to us that will bring us to seek help from Jesus? What is possible for us if we believe?

Perhaps you need to make this man’s prayer your own, and bring all your cares, concerns, fears and pains to him for healing. When you do so you will discover that “all things are possible to him who believes.” Prayer changes things. As Jesus said, “This kind [the evil spirit in the boy] can come out only by prayer.” We may try everything else in life, but prayer is our first and last resort. Our need, faith, and our doubt drives us to seek for help. When we do we discover that the Savior is there to heal.