Listen to these entries in David Heller’s delightful little book, Dear God: Children’s Letters to God.
Dear God, What do you do with families that don’t have much faith? There’s a family on the next block like that. I don’t want to get them in trouble, so I can’t say who. See you in church. Alexis (age 10)
Dear God, I have doubts about you sometimes. Sometimes I really believe. Like when I was four and I hurt my arm and you healed it up fast. But my question is - if you could do this why don’t you stop all the bad in the world? Like war. Like diseases. Like famine. Like drugs. And there are problems in
other people’s neighborhoods too. I’ll try to believe more. Ian (age 10)
Ever feel like Ian? Or Thomas? If we were honest, we would ALL admit to having doubts about our faith at one time or another. Not doubts about
whether God exists or not. More than 90% of Canadians believe that there is a God. But we have doubts about God’s justice, we doubt whether God is really in charge, whether all things are truly possible with God. With good reason, I might add.
This week, our church family has been deeply saddened by the deaths of Mary Wakelam and Gerry Sureau. Earlier this week I conducted a memorial
service for Sheila Greer, who suffered her first and fatal heart attack. She was 60. Mary was 67, Gerry 72–all relatively young by today’s standards. They were all supposed to enjoy the golden years, but death got in the way. We cannot help but ask the question: “Why did God allow these fine people to die at this stage of their lives?”
If you read the newspaper, watch news shows, or browse the news pages on the Internet, you can find even more reasons to doubt the existence of a good, powerful, just and fair God. Those who have never consumed a drop of alcohol die at the hands of drunk drivers, earthquakes and other natural calamities wipe out entire neighbourhoods and towns with no advance
warning, innocent people are murdered, babies arrive with debilitating birth defects...get the picture? It ain’t pretty, is it?
It is normal to have doubts. It is OK to have doubts. But what matters is what you and I do with our doubts. Sometimes doubts can be “ants in the
pants of faith” that keep us alert, and keep our faith fresh and active. Or as someone else described it, they can be the fleas of faith. Just as a dog has to
swat the fleas away, so do we have to brush away doubts, which keep us from falling asleep on our faith journey.
However, there are times when doubts can stop us cold in our tracks and bring our faith journey to a complete halt, or at least force us to drop out,
either for a short spell, or on a permanent basis. It is as though we’ve hit a wall.
An analogy that helps us understand this phenomenon is the marathon.
Rather than hear a second-hand version from me, you are fortunate this morning to hear from one who has some experience in participating in
marathons, Rosemont’s own Wes Labrash.
When did you start running?
I started running in the summer of 1999. After losing a lot of weight I set a personal goal to run the Boston Marathon. To my knowledge this is the only Marathon outside of the Olympics that one has to qualify for. It is also the longest continually running marathon in the world.
For those of us who are not familiar with the marathon, how long is it?
Every marathon is the same length-26.2 miles which equals 42.195 kilometres. The world record time was 2 hours 5 minutes and 57 seconds. It was set in Chicago last fall. The winner had to run almost 13 miles per hour for 26.2 miles. Most runners complete it around 4 hours. My qualifying time for Boston is 3 hours and 10 minutes. There are two marathons in
Saskatchewan-Saskatoon and now Regina-and there are more marathons all the time since the sport is growing in popularity.
Do you ever have doubt during the race?
Yes. When I start to feel the pain, I wonder whether I missed something in training or whether I calculated my speed incorrectly and I am running to fast and wearing myself out. All those second thoughts go racing through my mind and I think “Oh no, maybe I have been careless and I messed
something up. What if I don’t finish?” But as quickly as those thoughts come, I am able to get positive again to think my way through it. This is why the winners of the marathons are usually in their late 30s and early 40s. They have more experience and they have the mental discipline to convince their
legs to keep moving. The younger guys, myself included, run out hard because we have the physical fitness and the strength and then around mile 20 to 23 we “bonk.”
“Bonk?” Is this the same as “hitting the wall?”
Yes. That is absolutely correct. “Hitting the wall” “Bonking”, and “Crashing” are all terms that runners use to describe that feeling when they get dizzy, get stomach cramps, their legs start to quiver and they get an overwhelming feeling of doubt. There are always about 10% of runners that drop out of the race and most of them drop out after mile 20. In the Victoria marathon, 328 people dropped out of 2700 that started. That is 12%. Some say the physiological conditions of dizziness and stomach cramps are
grounded in mental doubt. Your mind convinces your body that you are too sick to continue and the cramps prove it, so you stop. I have read articles and listened to motivational tapes that describe how to overcome that doubt and avoid the physical maladies that occur as a result of it. Eventually every
successful marathon runner practices the power of positive thinking so that he or she can reach deep in side and have his/her mind convince the body it is
still feeling fresh and strong.
It seems kind of ironic, but it takes science and evidence to get me into the race in the first place, but when I hit mile 20, none of the science does a thing for me. When the chips are down and I am in a crisis situation (albeit self-induced), it is mental focus that gets me through.
Is that like faith?
Yes. It is faith in myself that I can pull it off no matter what the evidence says. And the evidence is all usually very negative at this point. The legs shake, the chest hurts, I may get a bit dizzy. These are all signs that I can’t complete the race, but I know that I can. It helps a lot to have the sincere encouragement of someone I trust, because sometimes my own faith is a little weak. My judgement may be a little clouded due to physical exertion,
dehydration or lack of oxygen to the brain because the blood is all going to the legs. At those times I need another trusting voice beside me saying “You can do this. I know you can. I believe in you. I have seen you do this before.” When I was in Calgary last July I hit the wall really hard. I had trouble walking straight, my eyes couldn’t focus and I was feeling really dizzy. When I saw Laureen and her parents sitting in the van beside the marathon route, my only thought was, “I need to rest. I need to sleep. Oh
no. I think I’m done.” I went to the van, sat down, drank a lot of water and ate a couple of cookies. I believe I even drifted to sleep for a couple of
minutes (maybe ten). Laureen and her parents could see that I was pretty much finished, but they knew that I had to finish the race and they encouraged me to continue. Their encouragement got me back on course and I started shuffling my feet in the direction of the finish line another 7 kilometres away. My two friends caught up to me by this time and gave me some encouragement as well. I picked up my pace from a shuffle to a run and ran with my friends for the next kilometre until I felt the doubt again.
Once you stop the first time, it feels so good compared to running that it is hard to start again and keep running. For the next 6 kilometres I had to stop and walk at least a dozen times. Each time I stopped I got a little rest and I reached deep inside myself for a little more faith, I convinced myself to get running again. When the finish line was in sight I put on some speed and ran harder than at any point in the race and finished in style.
Now all the pain is gone, and I have a hard time remembering the doubt and the pain during the race. I guess that is what is meant by the “healing of time.” As a result all my marathon memories are good ones and I take great satisfaction out of knowing that I didn’t quit in any of the 5 marathons I ran. I didn’t get to Boston, but I came within 3 minutes of qualifying and I have evolved to become a real runner.
I suppose, like Thomas, we all need evidence. That makes it easy to begin. I needed evidence to build faith in myself to register for my first marathon. But when my body started to shut down because it was in crisis mode, something else happened. Hitting the wall is a pretty small crisis compared to physical peril or personal tragedy like being in a hospital recovery room or having someone close to you recently pass away. But in a small way, I think to get out of it, you need the same response. You need to hyper-focus on your inner strength and gather faith from those around you. Time slows down and you go into autopilot to pull through. When you make it, there is no better feeling and you end up growing in faith just a little bit more.
Thank you, Wes, for sharing your experience with us this morning.
Notice what Thomas does to get past the wall of doubt in his journey of faith.
He attacks it. He does not keep silent. He voices it openly. He does not drop out of the race, just because he hit the wall.
Also, he continues to hang around with the other disciples, rather than go away by himself as he had done earlier. Like many of us in times of grief and stress, Thomas wanted to be alone. As we meet him in today’s Gospel reading, he is the one who has begun to pull away from the little company of The Twelve. He is the only one who is not present that Sunday evening of the first Easter. He had not gotten the word about the empty tomb. Or perhaps he had heard it but found the whole idea too weird, too ghoulish, too strange
to contemplate. Or maybe he had just decided to withdraw into himself –– go off somewhere quiet and try to forget it all. Try to put his life back together again.
In this regard, Thomas has made a common mistake. We make it all the time, don’t we? The assumption that we can make it on our own, do it all
ourselves.
But notice this: it wasn’t until Thomas rejoined the others that he met the risen Christ. Off there by himself, he was left to his own devices, but when he came together in the company of other believers he was able to meet the Christ and confess his faith. And somehow, odd as it may seem, that is the way it is with us, too. Not off in our private corners somewhere mumbling our prayers to ourselves, but here in a gathered community praising God
together, singing hymns familiar and foreign, listening for the Word of the Lord together; telling the stories of faith to one another. Giving a hand of
welcome and friendship. For better or for worse, the Lord chooses to be identified primarily with a gathered body of God’s people. It is here, as we
gather for worship and study, for fellowship and service, that we are most fully able to meet God, to know ourselves welcomed and accepted as God’s own.
The church exists, you see, as what the Creed calls “the communion of saints.” As a community in which those who have heard the Word of God share their gifts and their strengths –– as well as their doubts and uncertainties –– with one another as together we seek to discover and fulfill God’s purposes for us. Like Thomas, we are called into community, a household of faith in which we belong to one another as well as to God.
Where do you find yourself on the marathon of faith this morning? Are you at Mile 20? The point at which you hit the wall of doubt? Are you at the
point of dropping out? Throwing in the towel? Giving up?
You don’t need to drop out. You can hang in there. You begin by hanging around others on the same journey of faith. You attack the wall. You take action, focused action, as Wes pointed out to us. And, like Thomas you too can go past the wall and experience the exhilaration of meeting the Risen
Christ himself. And then, you too will say as he did: “My Lord and My God!”
Let this be your experience. Thanks be to God. AMEN.
