Max Lucado address the issue of doubt in Chapter 12 (“Fear That God is Not Real”) of his book Fearless. He begins by listing 4 characteristics of the “gray terrain” of fear, noting that, to one degree or another, we all journey in that valley:
1. the Bible reads like Aesop’s fables
2. prayers bounce back like cavern echoes
3. moral boundaries are mapped in pencil
4. believers are alternately pitied or envied; someone is deluded
Max states that Jesus had 2 solutions for His doubting disciples- “touch my body and ponder my story”. Today we can touch the body of Christ through fellowship in a Christian community- the church. Such fellowship is critical, because doubt makes us hermits and drives us into hiding. Loneliness is dispelled through the words of Christ as we confess, pray and worship together.
The second solution is to be in the Word. Max relates the story of a militant atheist, Jack, who came to study at Oxford and eventually became a professor there. During his tenure he met another faculty member by the name of J. R. R. Tolkien, who suggested that Jack do something he’d never considered- read the Bible. C. S. “Jack” Lewis never was the same.
