Searching for Enough: The High-Wire Walk Between Doubt and Faith

by Tyler Staton

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18–20 The King hands off the keys to the everlasting kingdom to his apprentices. What a moment! But of all the times I’ve heard this passage talked about, and all the different preachers I’ve heard explain it, every single time, without fail, they’ve conveniently sidestepped a pretty crucial line that immediately precedes those famous words: Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Matthew 28:16–17 But.

Some. Doubted. And to a group that included some men and women full of belief and hope and others riddled with doubt and uncertainty, Jesus says, “Here’s my name, reputation, power, and kingdom. It’s yours to give to the world now.” What does it tell us about the heart of God that he put the keys to the kingdom in the shaky hands of people who were something less than certain? That he looks the doubter in the eye and says, “Not at some future point when you get every intellectual quibble sorted and every question answered, but right in the midst of your doubt, I choose you. I trust you. I send you.” Apparently, Jesus was much more comfortable with doubt than most of our churches are.

The biblical story doesn’t end with God whisking off a lucky few into a utopia in the sky. That’s a rumor that started with Plato and accidentally stuck in certain branches of the church, but it has nothing to do with Jesus. Jesus talks constantly about bringing heaven to earth, not getting people to heaven. His mission is not to get you into heaven; it’s to get heaven into you. Read every single recorded sermon in Acts, and you’ll notice a pattern: Not a single one focuses on salvation as a way to escape the fires of hell and book a room in a much more preferable location in the sky. Instead, the good news is always about eternity invading this life. The end of the story isn’t a pious few strolling the golden streets in the clouds. The final pages of Revelation picture heaven coming to earth—the whole world redeemed, renewed to its original purpose as a paradise of unbroken communion between Creator and creation.