Dealing With Doubt and Questioning

No life is ever lived without challenges.  Even Jesus had to face challenges, and, if the Bible is accurate, he struggled with doubt, as did the Buddha and every other famous “enlightened” man or woman who has ever lived.

If the miraculous events that the Bible describe happened as they are described, it seems somewhat hard to believe that Jesus could struggle with doubt.  How could someone who had an ability to understand and know God’s will so clearly, heal the sick by laying hands on them, and perform astonishing miracles doubt himself?  Isn’t doubt something for the rest of us?

To have supernatural and miraculous experiences can be something that takes us to a place beyond doubt.  Skeptics can cast doubt on almost anything, but people who have experienced something far above and beyond what is “normal” on a personal and direct basis know that the doubts and explanations of outsiders are not valid or sufficient.  Still, the nature of who and what we are makes it certain that doubt can never be completely removed from life.  No matter how clear the truth seems at certain moments, there are always some times and places where things can get tricky and seem complicated.  Any one of us can begin to have doubts that life makes sense or that we are on the right track and doing the right thing at those times.

To this universal human problem, there is really only one solution.  We need to remember to keep a grateful, appreciative attitude toward all the situations and people that life presents us with, as much as we possibly can.  We need to keep learning all the time.  And we also have to build the strongest and clearest inner sense of knowing the truth that we can.  We need to discern what it is that it would really be best to do at any given time and place in our lives, and do it.  On an inner, level, we need to connect with the inspiration of our Higher Self, and make it a true focus and priority in our lives to know it and live it.

This is all the more important, in consideration of the fact that the world exists not in shades of black and white, but in shades of gray.  Some things are obviously right to do and not right to do, but many others are not as clear.  There is no set answer, for example, to the question of whether a given individual should be a teacher or a doctor or a farmer.  The only way to know the answer to that question is to know one’s self.  That means having an advanced and strongly developed level of inner knowledge.  

There is a higher part of each of us that aids us in making the right decisions so that we can fulfill a greater purpose in life when we want to.  The better we get to know this higher part of ourselves, the more we are able to learn and grow from every experience we have.  We can even get to a point where we have a great deal of faith in this part of ourselves, and we can even defy the outside criticism of others with the knowledge that what we are doing has a greater purpose that others can’t necessarily understand.  

Once we connect with this higher part of ourselves, we may have times of doubt or struggle, but the key is to stay focused on what we know to be right.  This means keeping faith that we can know what is right and keeping faith that we will be supported in what we do by sources of wisdom above and beyond our selves, even though we may make mistakes along the way.

It is clear that a genuine inner source of truth and guidance exists.  It is also clear that, as imperfect beings, we will not always be able to get every message or insight that this higher source communicates to us clearly.  We will make mistakes.  We may garble the message sometimes. We may be confused at times about what the right next step to take is.  We may do wrong out of weakness.  But it is also true that we can always learn even from our mistakes.

It takes some time to develop a strong and clear inner source of wisdom and guidance in the mind.  Like all other things worth doing in life, it takes some focus and effort, and applied intelligence.  We can benefit from some instruction from others on how to go about the process.  After that, there is no question that we can keep working at getting clearer and better at connecting with the inner source, one step at a time.  Like any other thing that we want to get better at in life, we can greatly benefit from practice.  And keeping faith in ourselves and in the fact that life has a purpose and that we can know and perceive what our own highest purpose is keeps us on a track of progress, onward and upward, even if we have a few setbacks and moments or days of doubt along the way.