Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else? – Matthew 11:3

John the Baptist’s question to Jesus from jail illustrates how doubt can blur our minds and cause people to question the very things they have affirmed with absolute certainty as truth (Matt. 11:1-6). Frustrated in jail, the man who confidently announced to Israel, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn. 1:29), now sent to ask Jesus if He was “the One who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matt. 11:3). It’s an example of how our unmet high and lofty expectations can defuse our confidence and trust in God.

For instance, a man meets a woman and falls in love. They get married and begin a life together. They believe every word God has said concerning marriage. Over time, their personalities begin to knock against each other. They begin to doubt if they saw right, heard right, or made the right choice. Suspicion reigns everywhere and the relationship begins to crumble. Meanwhile, Mr. Doubt tells them that God cannot help them resolve their issues. They must work things out their own way. Valuing the other person above themselves or looking to the interest of each other, as God says, ceases to be the creed of their home (Phil. 2:4). It is “my way or not at all.” The wheels of their marriage begin to move towards the edge of the precipice and into the deep and treacherous valley of divorce, the very thing God has said He hates; but they can’t even see it.

Doubt is a dangerous visitor that has power to destroy relationships, if entertained for any reason. It has a way of planting itself in the mind of a person with no intention of leaving until awareness evicts it. When comfortably settled in one’s mind, it takes the character of chief inquisitor. It suspects everything and melts confidence like butter in the noonday sun. It destroys trust and causes a person to see shadows around everything. It’s like a misty cloud on a bright beautiful day. It says to its host: “You can’t believe that. It’s ridiculous!”  Two of its familiar clichés are: “He doesn’t love you as you think”. “She is hiding something from you”.

Do you remember the day you met Jesus and fell in love with Him? Things were going well until you hit some potholes on the way. You lost your first love, and Christ became your burden instead of your burden bearer. Now He is no more the powerful Savior who carries His children through challenging times. Doubt has eroded your faith and you don’t know what to do with Jesus anymore.

Maybe Jesus’ answer to John the Baptist could be helpful here. He told John to take his mind from his own ideas and expectations of the Messiah and fix it on the reality of His “being in very nature God” (Phil. 2:6), as evidenced by His works (Matt. 13:4-6).

Likewise, you don’t have to look at your circumstances and question your faith. You got it right with Jesus. Stay diligently in His word and draw closer to Him. It will make you diminish so that Christ may increase in your life (Jn. 3:30). For only then can you have the right perspective and the winning attitude in your trials.

So, don’t let doubt frustrate your faith in Jesus. He is the only answer to all your issues.