Years ago I was reading a Bible story to my son Rusty who was only five years old at the time.  The bedtime story that night concerned the rebellious prophet Balaam who was disobeying God. Balaam’s donkey spotted an angel in her path and bolted.

Balaam was spiritually blind and didn’t see the angel and started whipping the donkey.  “Then the LORD opened the donkey’s mouth, and she said to Balaam, ‘What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?’” (Numbers 22:28).

At that point, Rusty looked at me with a quizzical expression and interrupted…

“Dad, are you kidding me?  Donkey’s don’t talk!” I thought, “Oh, no, I’m raising a skeptic!”

Doubting? You’re in good company

But it’s normal to question the miraculous, even for a five year old.  Donkeys talking?  A man living inside a fish?  A sea parting?  A virgin giving birth?  Loaves multiplying?  A dead man raising to life?  “Are you kidding me?”

Almost all of us have doubted a Bible story on occasion.

Many Christians feel guilty entertaining doubts.  They think, “I should accept these supernatural events without question.  I must be a horrible Christian to doubt.”

But Lord Alfred Tennyson suggested, “He who never doubted never thought.”

If you experience doubt about the supernatural, be encouraged—you’re in good company.  Thomas, the disciple of Jesus, and John, the baptizer of Jesus, even Mary, the mother of Jesus, doubted.  Yet each one was deeply loved and greatly used by God.

C.S. Lewis, Galileo & J.B. Phillips on doubt

If you doubt, be encouraged by the fact that the Lord was always very patient with honest doubters.  He invited them to investigate the evidence and discover the truth for themselves.

A recurring theme in Scripture is, “Come and see.”  And God is not threatened by our questions today.

Be encouraged because there is intellectual credibility to the Christian faith.  It will stand up under scrutiny.  Some of the world’s greatest thinkers became believers in the miraculous as a result of their honest doubts.

C.S. Lewis is acknowledged by both the religious and secular world as a brilliant scholar.  Early in his teaching career Lewis was an atheist but as he examined the evidence he came to a belief in the God of the Bible and eventually wrote a book titled, Miracles.

Lewis admitted there were times when Christianity looked highly implausible, but then again, when he was an atheist there were times that looked highly implausible too.

Galileo insisted, “Doubt is the father of discovery.”

If you doubt, be encouraged, the God of the Bible is an awesome God.  J.B. Phillips wrote a book with the captivating title, Your God is Too Small.

How big is God to you?  Is He greater than His creation?  Is He more brilliant than your mind?  Is He more powerful than human strength?  The Bible assures us God is able to do immeasurably more than all we imagine.

The Psalmist wrote, “You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.  With your mighty arm you redeemed your people…” (Psalm 77:14-15).

God on impossibilities

If you can believe the first verse in the Bible you shouldn’t have much trouble believing the rest.  If it’s true that, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” then He could make a donkey talk without half trying.

In fact if man is capable of making an inanimate mouse talk at a Florida amusement park, man’s Creator would have no trouble speaking through the voice box of a live donkey.

When Mary questioned the possibility of a miraculous birth, the angel Gabriel, who had just come from God’s presence, assured her, “Nothing is impossible with God.”

Question: What impossibility are you facing?