And Zechari’ah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God; and I was sent to speak to you, and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things come to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” Luke 1:18-20

Zechari’ah, a man who had walked blamelessly with God for his entire life, stood in the presence of the angel Gabriel and could not believe God’s good news. How could this be? How could such a faithful man doubt after years of committing his life to God? How could he refuse to believe even as he heard the promise of God’s blessing?

It would be all too easy to scorn Zechari’ah. Foolish man who looked a holy gift horse in the mouth! Weak of faith, ignorant of all he had formerly professed! What a loser! He is the stuff that parables are made of—the protagonist who blows it, a most pitiable type of character who professes to believe but ultimately collapses under the weight of his own doubt. Oh, Zechari’ah, we love to loathe the doubters! We delight in scapegoating them as we busily bury our own unbelief in the deepest pockets of our souls.

In the Tragic Sense of Life, Spanish author and philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno, writes:

Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.

Perhaps Zechari’ah, like many of us, believed more in the idea of God as he followed the Commandments and precepts of God. But he seemed to falter when the ideal became real. Gabriel was no idea but a living, breathing deliverer, a holy UPS man with a special delivery: a long awaited child.

As much as I would like to scoff at Zechari’ah’s unbelief, holding fast to the conviction that certainly I would respond differently, I am painfully aware of my own doubt. Just as I am sadly aware of the fact that I am often one who believes she believes in God. And yet even as I claim this sad awareness, I take solace in Unamuno’s claim that passion of heart, anguish of mind, uncertainty, doubt, and even despair are necessary and paradoxical elements of faith.

I think poet Rainer Maria Rilke would agree, for he contends that your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. Maybe the first step in training your doubt is claiming it. In Mark 9, Jesus comes to the aid of the disciples who have tried, but failed, to remove a demon from a young boy. Jesus addresses the boy’s father, saying, If you believe, all things are possible to him who believes. The father cries out, Lord I believe; help my unbelief! Here the father claims both his belief and unbelief, his desire to believe and his fear that he cannot. In response to his genuine admission, Jesus removes his son’s demon.

And after you’ve claimed your doubt? Then what? Pastor and counselor Eric Venable writes: Doubt is a catalyst for owning one’s faith and allowing the faith story to continue. Perhaps another step in training your doubt is including it as an authentic element of your faith, one that allows your faith story to continue. As we wrestle with unbelief, we may move through seasons of tumult and seasons of peace. These are the seasons of our faith stories. We winter in periods of doubt and summer in times of assurance. Just as surely as the seasons cycle, so, too, do the seasons of our faith stories.

Within months, Zechari’ah and Elizabeth’s long winter of doubt and suffering gave way to a summer of belief and joy. With the birth of their son, John, God’s promise was fulfilled in his time, and their faith stories continued.

Like many, I have longed to be delivered from my unbelief. Often in desperation, I have cried out, Lord, I believe; help my unbelief! But I am learning to look at unbelief differently, to begin a training regimen in which I find ways to consciously use it–rather than let it use me. In his novel Underdog, Markus Zusak writes:

I walked home, seeing all my doubt from the other side. Have you ever seen that? Like when you go on holiday. On the way back, everything is the same but it looks a little different than it did on the way. It’s because you’re seeing it backwards.

I hope that Zechari’ah could finally see his doubt from the other side, that he could look back upon a lifetime during which God had not forsaken him. For there is good news for all who occasionally (or frequently!) suffer from weak faith and unbelief. In his book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, Timothy Keller writes that it is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you. God delivers even those whose imperfect faith is often riddled with doubt.

As I think about the seasons of my own faith story, I can see my doubt from the other side of winter. In the smallest heralds of spring, I can see that my Deliverer is near–winter, spring, summer, and fall.

Deliverer

I will raise my cup of deliverance and invoke the Lord’s name.
Psalm 116:13

Outside, the world grays.
Bone-weary and lean,
trees reach with brittle fingers that break the sky.
The stalks of Black-eyed Susans bear heads like spiny sea urchins
and the white souls of pampas grass sing hoary carols
along every road.

Everything waits for deliverance from the bondage
of these days:
finches whose once-gold wings now tarnish the frozen air,
capless acorns which litter the timber floor,
clouds which collapse in thin, pale ribbons
upon the horizon.

Everything waits to be delivered—
for a shot of chlorophyll to the heart,
a familiar chorus of crocus
and thickets laced with light.

Yet even in our exile,
the lichens prostrate themselves
on the backs of sleeping stones.
And wakened with the green hope of fungi,
the stones cry out:
Behold, our Deliverer!