I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)
What do you do when you doubt?
Did God ever do anything for you?
Did He save you? Did He spare you from the net of the fowler?
Did He forgive you and shine His grace upon you?
Did He give you wisdom when you lacked it?
Did He ever bring conviction on you that led to repentance?
Did you ever read the Bible and feel like God was speaking directly to you?
Did one of God’s people ever minister to you at just the right time, like they were on a mission from God Himself?
This is what you do when you doubt. You go back and remember what God did in the past.
Maybe you aren’t feeling His presence right now. Maybe He seems far away. Maybe He let you down. He didn’t do what you thought He should. Maybe you are starting to believe those who say there is no God at all. What should you do?
Go back and remember what God did in the past. Or as one old Gospel song says, go back to the old landmarks.
There’s another old Gospel song called Jesus Gave Me Water.
The chorus says, “Jesus gave me water and it was not from the well.”
It’s based on the story from John chapter four about the woman at the well.
Jesus and His disciples went to a city of Samaria called Sychar. Outside the city was Jacob’s well. Jesus sat by the well while His disciples went into Sychar to buy food.
Then a woman came out to draw water from the well. Jesus asked her for a drink, and ended up talking to her about “living water.”
Jesus told her that whoever drinks the water from the well will get thirsty again, but whoever drinks God’s living water will never thirst because it will “become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
That goes along with what Jesus said in John chapter seven. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” Then verse 39 explains that when Jesus said living water He was talking about the Holy Spirit, “whom those believing in Him would receive.”
The woman at the well believed in Him. And she brought a bunch of people from Sychar and they believed in Him as well.
And those who believe in Him would receive the Holy Spirit, which is the living water.
Did you ever have the living water of the Holy Spirit flowing like a spring of water within you? Maybe it is hard to remember, so go back to the old landmarks. Think back to what God has done for you in the past.
What do you do when you doubt?
Think back!
Back to the song Jesus Gave Me Water. Later in the song there is a line about doubt. It says, “every time she doubted.”
Now you’d think the woman at the well would never doubt, right? I mean, she talked in person to Jesus and He read her mail. He prophesied to her. What’s to doubt?
Or maybe she never did doubt. It’s just a song, right? But doubt has a way of creeping into everyone’s life at one time or another. Even John the Baptist in prison sent a message to Jesus saying, “Are you the Coming One or do we look for another?” And that’s the same John the Baptist who announced, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
So back to the song. What did she do every time she doubted? It says…
“Every time she doubted, she’d start to think about Him,
The Man that gave her water, and it was not from the well.”
When you begin to doubt, go back to the old landmarks. Think about what God has done for you.
For the woman at the well, at least according to the song, she would remember when the Lord had her shoutin’ and there was no room for doubtin’, that Jesus gave her water and it was not from the well!
May God bless you today.
I’m Doug Apple.
