The picture I chose to accompany yesterday’s Catch on the difference between doubt and questions was of a skydiver jumping out of a plane. Let’s think about that person for a moment. Better yet, I’m going to think about my wife, son and daughter who all went on their first skydiving experience a couple years ago and lived to tell about it.
From listening to their stories, I could tell they had a lot of questions. Questions like: Can I do this? Do I really want to do this? Will the chute open? How hard will I hit the ground? Does the professional diver I’m attached to know what he’s doing? How many times has he done this? What about the plane? It looks a little old. Is this a reputable outfit? Did anybody do research on these guys?
We could probably come up with any number of questions and fears they had up to the point of jumping, and maybe even some afterward, as they are falling, but at the point of jumping, all doubts are off. Sorry. You can talk about doubting but that is no longer you. The doubter is still in the plane. The believer is falling. You have to believe at that point, because you jumped.
Faith is like that. Faith is jumping out of the plane. There’s no turning back. This either works or it doesn’t. You will either die trying, or land with one of the most exhilarating experiences of your life, but the issue of doubt and belief is over as soon as you leave the plane.
That’s what my friend was trying to tell me. He jumped out of the plane. He put his faith is God and His son, Jesus Christ. He’s no longer wondering about it, and even if he were, it wouldn’t make any difference, because he jumped. He’s in the air. He’s falling.
It’s almost as if there’s a difference in the questions. There are questions of doubt and questions of faith. But once you leave the plane, all doubts are off.
So there are tons of questions on either side of faith, but the real question is: “Have you jumped out of the plane?”
John Fischer The Catch 
Excellent clarification to yesterday’s post, John. You may well ask yourself, “What am I doing?” (a form of “doubt”) as you’re falling through the sky — but you did, indeed, jump. In that sense, you had no doubts. Thanks.
Not that I am a big follower or fan of Paul Tillich. I had to read him in college… But a section from his work “The Eternal Now” Chapter 8 “The Divine Name” seems appropriate:
There is another more basic cause for sublime embarrassment about using the divine name — the doubt about God Himself. Such doubt is universally human, and God would not be God if we could possess Him like any object of our familiar world, and verify His reality like any other reality under inquiry. Unless doubt is conquered, there is no faith. Faith must overcome something; it must leap over the ordinary processes that provide evidence, because its object lies above the whole realm where scientific verification is possible. Faith is the courage that conquers doubt, not by removing it, but by taking it as an element into itself. I am convinced that the element of doubt, conquered in faith, is never completely lacking in any serious affirmation of God. It is not always on the surface; but it always gnaws at the depth of our being. We may know people intimately who have a seemingly primitive unshaken faith, but it is not difficult to discover the underswell of doubt that in critical moments surges up to the surface. Religious leaders tell us both directly and indirectly of the struggle in their minds between faith and unfaith. From fanatics of faith we hear beneath their unquestioning affirmations of God the shrill sound of their repressed doubt. It is repressed, but not annihilated.
Hi Bill:
We must have gone to college together in different places and times. I had to read Paul Tillich, too. I had to read that paragraph a couple times, slowly, to unpack it; there is so much there. I think that’s one of the reasons I really like John: he writes so that I can understand what he’s saying. John brings it to my level (not “down” to my level.)
I’m not sure that I agree with the last two sentences. I have heard from people of great faith from whom there is no hint of repressed doubt. Jumping out of the plane erases doubts. (Been there, done it.)
One of my many favorite songs, written by another one of my favorite song writers (besides John), is called “Hold on to Jesus”, by Steven Curtis Chapman.
I have come to this ocean,
And the waves of fear are starting to grow.
The doubts and questions are rising with the tide,
So I’m clinging to the one sure thing I know.
[Chorus]
I will hold on to the hand of my Savior.
I will hold on with all my might.
I will hold loosely to things that are fleeting,
And hold on to Jesus,
I will hold on to Jesus for life.
I’ve tried to hold many treasures;
They just keep slipping through my fingers like sand.
But there’s one treasure that means more than breath itself,
So I’m clinging to it with everything I am.
Like a child holding on to a promise,
I will cling to His word and believe.
As I press on to take hold of that
For which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
[Chorus]
Hold on for life
Today’s Catch reminded me of a good saying I like to think about every now and than, especially when facing a sort of difficult decision, I heard it from one of my favorite motivational speakers, Les Brown: “Jump and the net will appear”
Seems like doubt is what got the human race in trouble and led to sin in the first place way back in the Garden, so it is not surprising that it is still around to plague us. Like all seeds, the seed of doubt once planted grows right along side the seed of faith. Having said that, doubt DOES serve a purpose – it pushes us to dig deeper to find the truth, and the more we learn, both experientially and from the Word, the stronger the faith plant gets, leaving less and less room for the doubt plant to grow. When we go thru dry spells, doubt may spring back up (like weeds tend to do), but then it is the depth of our roots in Christ that sustains us – Wow! Talk about Miracle Grow!
Just recently my life has taken a new tack, nothing is impossible with God. To live in obedience of that nature means to freefall like a skydiver who has jumped out of a plane in the dark. I am trying to get to the point where I fall and enjoy it. That is to obey something as peculiar as Abraham being told to sacrifice his son Isaac and yet believe that all will turn out ok because Abraham didn’t understand God in this circumstance but he trusted Him implicitly.
Like skydiving the first time is the hardest, it gets progressively easier to blindly follow God and live in what we humans refer to as impossible.