“So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe’” (John 20:25, NIV).

I had invited him to join us on our international mission trip last year. He was excited to come and serve the Lord through educational evangelism with medical students. One month before we left, he learned his job was terminated. He had committed to our mission trip, but that was under different circumstances. Would God honor both his family needs and the mission? After much prayer, he joined us, and God used him beautifully in His work.

Sometimes, we face doubt at a fork in the road of our lives. Sometimes doubt tempts us to turn away from God’s road, and we have to sort it out. Doubt is not the sin. The sin comes, or does not, with the steps we take within the doubt.

Sometimes, in deciding which road to take, it helps to return to the beginning, to the foundations of our faith. Kennon Vaughan, senior pastor at a large church in Memphis, Tennessee, was the only survivor of a plane crash that killed a number of his close friends and ministry partners. He also was severely injured, requiring multiple surgeries. He describes the moment Soup Cambell came to him at his lowest point and offered, “Either He is or He ain’t.”

God is or He isn’t. If God is, and is the God we know, the God of our Bible, then all else folds into that story, whatever chapter we are living at the time.

Thomas, the disciple, doubted the resurrection of his Lord, but he was still there in the room with the other disciples when Christ appeared. The doubt in his mind did not alter the commitment in his steps. We can live for God’s glory, even within our doubt, if the next step we take is the fork that leads to Him.

Donald Hankey said, “True religion is betting one’s life there is a God.”

Dear God,

When I doubt, let me take the right step.

Amen