Eric's thoughts

I've been called some bad nicknames during my baseball playing days in college...there was stickman, pogo stick, chalk (because if I would ever lay down in the chalk line nobody would find me)to name a few. Fortunately none of those stuck(that is until now.)

At least I can say that I didn't get stuck with a nickname like Thomas, one of Jesus's disciples. (John 20) Which is maybe the worst nickname of all time. I mean for the rest of time he will be known as Doubting Thomas. When people get to heaven they are going to be saying things like, "You're THE Doubting Thomas. How could you doubt Jesus?"

Maybe I should have though. I mean, if I were honest, I'd admit that I have doubts at times. Most of the time my doubts come when the Christian life is going to cost me something, like reputation, or when I try to put God in a box and he does something that I consider to be out of bounds. But let's face it, if you were a bit honest, you'd admit that you have doubts too. I mean, everybody has doubts, even during the time of Jesus, there was John the Baptist, the disciples, you can even make an argument that Jesus had doubts in the garden of whether he wanted to go to the cross or not. Yet Thomas is the one stuck with the nickname.

We all have, will have, or have had doubts. Yet what so many Christians do is try to cover up their doubt and questions. What makes us do that? What makes us think that we have an insecure God that can't handle our questions? Why do we try to pretend we have it all together? Do we really believe that God is honored when we pretend to have things figured out? Why aren't we honest with ourselves? Maybe a better question is why aren't we honest with God? Why don't we just come to grips with the fact that we are not going to have all the answers?

Here's what I propose, why don't we stop trying fool ourselves and others into thinking we have it all figured out and admit that we don't have all the answers. We can't have all the answers, can we?

But here's what we can have...we can have the God of the answers. We can have THE answer...Jesus. We can still have The Way, The Truth, and The Life. And He invites us into a relationship with Him...doubts and questions and all.

Maybe a nickname like Doubting Thomas isn't such a bad thing after all...in fact it sure beats broomstick with a hat on.