Sitting in a room surround by peers?
An Artist
A lawyer
A Missionary
A Preacher
A Former Preacher
A Lifelong believer twice the years of a lowly peer.
Write, speak, read aloud are the orders.
Don’t be shy, you’re amongst peers.
But how? Surely nothing said by the lowly peer
will amount to a revolutionary heart renovation.
Not to the level of these prestigious peers.
To achieve the same level of eloquence,
to transform like these brilliant, prestigious minds
is unattainable for someone so lowly.
It seems Doubt has found a way in.
Doubt seeps in the ears of the lowly peer
as they digest the prophetic words of the prestigious.
Slowly Doubt slithers into the mind,
and silences all logical thought the lowly peer once had.
The mind is lost, and with it all flair and academic vernacular.
Finally Doubt can capture its intended target.
All that was near and dear to the heart is gone.
Engulfed by Doubt, the heart no longer pumps with enthusiasm.
The heart that once stood reassured and proud,
now withdraws into the believed safety of nothingness.
In the nothingness of Doubt,
all that is left is the gaze of the lowly peer
into a void of emptiness.
But an unseen force decides to intervene.
It draws the lowly peer’s gaze away from defeat,
towards what they didn’t see before.
To words often read by many but understood by few.
The lowly peer begins reading the words that seem to be directed to them.
Inside Doubt screams, No!
Those words will not help your lowly state.
The words, like punches, deliver blow after blow to Doubt’s self-righteousness.
The first words come from a meek and lowly son,
“Come to me if you’re tired. I will give you rest.
Take my jacket upon your shoulders, and learn from me,
for I am gentle and lowly in heart.”
Hearing the son leaves no doubt.
Doubt has no choice but to retreat from the heart.
Then the son’s loving Father begins to speak,
“Don’t be jealous of the prestigious.
Haven’t I kept your mind well fed and your heart pumping with joy?
Oh, do you not know what I can do
with but one word from your lips?”
It is a gentle rebuke of the lowly peer
for allowing Doubt to make it so far in.
But now the mind is free,
and Doubt must flee in desperation.
Again, the son speaks, this time offering the companionship of a loving brother.
“Stick with me and you will also do the works that I do,
and possibly even greater works than me.”
Doubt can no longer stay — it has lost the fight —
it flees from the lowly peer
back into the nothingness and emptiness
from which it came.
Now the lowly peer walks taller — lighter —
the void which Doubt once occupied
is now filled with the fullness of something unseen.
The gentle guidance and loving words spoken
were a harmonious melody to awaken the heart of the lowly peer.
The melody has led to an awakening:
Mountains can move, the earth can shake, seas can divide,
and hearts can be transformed for eternity —
even from the words of a lowly peer.
As life fills with new challenges, it is easy to believe the self-doubt. Negative self-talk can start guiding my decisions. Thoughts enter my mind such as: I’m not very smart. My experience is limited. What difference could I make? Do I really have anything worth saying? I wish I wrote, prayed, or spoke like that person!
Self-doubt seems to consume me when I write. I began writing because I wanted a voice — I wanted to be heard. But what I constantly need to come back to is this: my story, my writing, is not mine. It is part of a larger story — God’s story. It has become my way of worship.
I shared this poem because I want you to know you’re not crazy if you doubt. But more often than not, if your intentions are good and your heart posture is turned toward God, He can and will work it for His glory. God’s perspective is far different from ours, and that is where my confidence rests.
Art isn’t art until someone experiences it. In the same way, people don’t know God until they experience Him. We are called to go and make disciples of all nations. God wants to use us — even with our doubts — to call people into the same confidence we rest in. That’s why, even in my doubt, I will make every attempt, in the way I believe God wants, to proclaim to the nations that Jesus is Lord.
Lit Lamp For The Soul 
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