Is it wrong to have doubts?

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. This series in particular has been enjoyable to me because I think that the church culture of the last two to three decades has implemented a little bit of an idea or an attitude that if you question God in any way, you're a heretic. You're not allowed to do that. Or if you want to be a part of a church, there's some sort of spiritual preparation, some spiritual priming that you have to do beforehand. You have to get your ducks in a row. You can't just show up. It's becoming difficult to come to church as we are. But the gospel is entirely opposite of that. God takes us as we are, thanks to Jesus, and transforms us from the inside out, which includes all of those deep, dark, kind of dirty parts of our lives, parts of our hearts that we don't like to talk about. A lot of those times, those bring shame. But those parts of us in the right timing are definitely things that come as a testament to God's power in our lives. We've been successful in creating an expectation that we understand that each of us are broken and imperfect, but we don't talk about it. We know that everybody has a struggle, but many times we're afraid that if we share ours, that we'll be looked down upon. And if we're not afraid, many times we just don't want to welcome people who have baggage in their lives because that would require us to have hard conversations and carry some of that burden, and we're really just comfortable where we're at without having to carry the weight of somebody else's issues. Now, in this backwards culture we've found ourselves in, we have almost entirely alienated people who are other than us. We don't really want to bring people alongside. We just want them to follow at a safe distance until they get to our level. But until then, we put on a happy face for Jesus and pretend that we've never had a question for God because we don't want to have our own faith questioned. But little do we know, when we're willing to bear one another's burdens, and also willing to share that we don't have it right all the time, we see that we're not as alone as we thought. So the thing that I love about this series is that we've been okay with stirring the pot and tackling some of these questions head on. And if any of you know me, I'm definitely an instigator. I love to stir the pot. That's one of my favorite things, make people uncomfortable. So we've kind of tackled some of these questions head on, right? We did, why do bad things happen? Why does God seem to hide? How do we know if we're making the correct decision that God wants me to? And finally, in this week, is it wrong to have doubts about God? Short answer, no. Now some of you are thinking like, awesome, got my answer, I can get out of here. But I did promise John that I would talk for at least 25 minutes. So we're stuck here for a little bit, but we'll still try to get out early. So, doubt. I had actually written a sermon on doubt before for some middle schoolers, but I didn't think that would really translate super well. But for the reason of the sermon illustration that I had used, I came up with some ridiculous story about how I got hit by a train, and my legs got run over, and so I had a full hip-to-toe leg transplant. And of course, the illustration was trying to create doubt in their minds. And it worked for some of them. About half of them didn't buy it. But the other half, they were looking at me like, what? I've known Hunter for months, he never told me this. And naturally, when I tell them that I just made it up, those same ones whose brains are like melting out of their ears are like, pfft. I knew he was just kidding, I knew that didn't actually happen. Acting all tough. So I didn't think that that tactic would translate very well for actual adults. But I was thinking about doubt in my own life, and it's almost always a negative thing. Today, however, we're going to be looking at doubt as a positive thing, and operating on the premise that doubt makes room for faith. But before we get there, let's kind of talk through some of those negative doubts that we experience. So Brooke and I were talking, and we were trying to come up with examples. And the first one she said was when she was a cheerleader in high school, so she would cheerlead and tumble and do gymnastics. I listened to her, I promise. So she said, if she was going to throw a stunt, if she hesitated or if she second-guessed herself, her doubt became her reality, and she'd fall on her face. And so almost immediately, I realized I've definitely experienced the same thing. I know that I'm big into wakeboarding and surfing and skateboarding. And in my summers, I often work part-time at a wakeboard park in North Fort Myers as an instructor and wakeboard park operator. So at the park, we have a little saying that goes, hesitation leads to devastation, which essentiall...