In Our Doubt Battle
“But when you ask, you must put all your trust in him without doubting. - James 1:6
BY TJ SMITH HHau Mitakuye pi (Hi my relatives),This is a traditional greeting in Lakota, my language. I used this as I welcomed students to the Young Adult Retreat (YAR) and as I greet you in this writing. I have now had a week to reflect on what the Creator is doing as I was honored to share my heart at the CYAK retreat on Feb. 10-12.It was amazing to watch the young adults enter with a ‘us and them’ mindset and leave more like family. In our humanness, we do that often when we gather in groups. We often doubt and wonder, “will I fit in?”.
At the Young Adult Retreat, we took a look at doubt. We looked at it through the experience of Thomas in John 20:24-29. Each session looked at two verses. At the end of the first two talks, we sent them into small groups to process with those they came with. Saturday night, we asked students to write doubts they have on a 3x5 card, then a panel addressed those doubts. It was an honor to watch the Spirit transform their hearts. Either through conversations with CYAK staff, worship, elders panel, or small breakout groups, we could start to see the transformation in their hearts.
being human. It is all about how and what we do with our doubts. In talking with the young adults and other staff, here are some comments we heard about the retreat. “I am learning to listen to my heart over my head.”
“I am growing to trust what God is calling me to even though it is scary.” “I don’t want to escape my doubts in an unhealthy way.”
“I am taking the longest trip of 18” from my headto my heart.” “I am looking for ways through prayer, the Bible, mentors, and church to grow so I won’t lose faith and doubt as much.”
I shared a line from a song by Maverick City they call ‘Wait on you Reprise’. The line is “It’s not about the waiting, it is what you do in the waiting.” As we looked at Thomas’s life, and how he acted then reacted, we can see what he did in the waiting. We saw how Thomas grew and how we can grow. From Thomas, Peter and ourselves can learn to see doubt, not in a negative way as the world says, but as a way todeepen and grow in our faith.
February 2023
As we talked about doubt, we looked at the lack of trust due to many things; words others have said, our culture, and things that have happened to us. We saw that even though Thomas had doubts, the Creator used him. We learned that He will use us too and that our doubts are part of
At the end of our weekend, after times of being together through the YAR Olympics, snow machining, worship, meals together, and conversations, I asked them, (and I’ll ask you), what do you do in the waiting when doubt creeps into our lives? When we change from hearing thedoubt in our head to hearing the Creator in our heart, it changes from doubt to trust, and faith.
Here are things I challenged the students to ask themselves and I ask myself the same
YOUTH OF
questions when doubt creeps in…
- What happened that you changed from your heart to your head?
- What is causing you to doubt?
- What emotion/feeling do you have at the heart level?
- What story is replaying in your head?
- What song is relaying when faced with what others have said to or about you?
- What does Creator Sets Freed (Jesus) say from the Bible? What does Scripture say? The last one is maybe the hardest…what are you called to do in your doubt battle that is counter-cultural? Counter to what the world says when we have doubt?
James 1:6 First Nation Version “But when you ask, you must put all your trust in him without doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave in the sea tossed about by the wind.” May our anchor in the storms of doubt be in the Creator alone.
