Reasonable Doubt

THURS., AUG. 18, 1983, 5:52 AM
FARM, STUDY

There is no doubt that this shall be another hot summer day. Yet doubt, o son, is part of the world I created, and it should be the basis of a good lesson this morning.

There are certain important matters about which you have few doubts, and even though this does constitute some disability in the stratum of society in which you operate, I approve. You have few doubts about your relationship with Me and how this is best nurtured. Most of your contemporaries have more than you, and so one emotion that threatens in such a situation is resentment. In a sense it is aimed at Me for not offering to them the experiences which do much to melt doubt away. But any reasonably good Christian should feel uncomfortable in resenting Me. So it is easy for you to become the target.

I have given you the answer to this dilemma. If you have… and exhibit… a faith that is relatively doubt-free there must be challenges to it. Resentment from others is one type of challenge, and you must meet it with love, patience, and a unique rhythm for each individual. Your talk with Carolyn this week went very well. Yet it is not a set pattern for conversations with Duane and Wyatt. Each is a separate challenge… to give testimony to your faith without stimulating undue resentment.

Relationships with clergy-persons are particularly challenging. In confrontation with you they may be confronted with the disability of having more doubt than you, a layman. This can make you into a threatening figure, and clergy usually dislike the feeling of resenting Me. “Why hasn’t such a spiritual experience come to Me? If it is not something clergy like me experience it is reasonable to doubt its authenticity.” This is one of the reasons I have guided you into good relationships with clergy-persons over the years before I commenced this phase of Our life together… so that you know and are comfortable with many of the ordained stripe and can deal effectively with them as doubting persons.

For you to doubt that it is I, the Holy Spirit, who speak to you and teach you in this way, after all these experiences, would be unreasonable. Communicating this lack of doubt in non-threatening ways is your reasonable, and continuing, challenge.

The other area where you do not have what most of your colleagues would consider reasonable doubt is that of death. You shall be restimulated to think about that on this day, and you know, from experience thus far, that interactions can be uncomfortable. You know that death, at its best, is a conscious moving on to another plane of being, often with some amount of relief that the earth sojourn has been completed. For those who are “ready” the dying experience, for those close to them, should be like unto the send-off on a valuable long trip. Yet when the dying person does not have such a perspective the attitude just described can seem quite threatening.