Doubt and Dim Sum

I traveled through Hong Kong several years ago, and, as is my custom when traveling, sought to experience something quintessentially "Hong Kong." I was told to go for dim sum. 

Dim sum is an hors d'œuvre style meal served a la cart. Servers bring around assortments of food, and you sample them until you've had your fill. Ordering is progressive. 

None of us had ever had dim sum, so we asked the concierge where to find some. He told us of a hotel in Kawloon to visit. The next day we ventured out. Around lunch time we began looking for said hotel. It took us awhile and even when we did it wasn't easy to find the restaurant, which was on an upper floor. We arrived for the late-lunch ebb. Much of the dim sum was picked over and luke warm. When we ordered, we mostly each chose something that looked good and filled our plates. (Rather than sampling.) It was fine.

As we left I said, "That wasn't a very good lunch."

Later we began to plan for the following day. I piped up, "Well I'd like to do dim sum again tomorrow."

My companion looked oddly at me. "But you didn't like dim sum." 

"I know," I replied. "So I must not have got it right. There's no way everyone talks about dim sum if it isn't any better than that. I want to get it right this time."

Sadly I couldn't persuade my companions. I've never had dim sum since.

What does this have to do with anything?

Jesus is much like dim sum. He is talked about around the world. There are songs about Him written in all generations. Grand cathedrals stand in His honor. Nevertheless, many (most?) of His follower are experiencing only a hint of what He supposedly offers.

Consider the following promises:

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

"I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."

Utter satisfaction. Rest of soul. No hunger nor thirst. How many of Jesus' follower can say these are lived out in our lives? What say you? "Sort of?" "Sometimes?" "Rarely?" "No comment?"

This stark reality can give rise to painful doubts. "Is this even real?"

Why are we still following Him? 

In the midst of the final promise, where Jesus taught He was the bread of life, many, we're told, "turned back and no longer walked with him." Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?"

Peter's response is insightful. "Lord, to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life."

What we see here is faith overcoming doubt. Not blind faith, but progressive faith; dynamic faith. The idea is not that Peter and the rest knew exactly what Jesus meant, nor that they were perfectly experiencing it. They knew enough, however. They had experienced enough. 

They knew and had experienced enough of both the world and Jesus to continue in their choice. The others evidently returned to their everyday life, "Let's stop wasting our time following this bozo." Peter knew no one else who was more worthy of pursuit.

Later Paul spoke in these terms: 

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on..."

Our lives are an ongoing process of applying belief in the face of doubt. It is enduring disappointment and confusion by reminding ourselves of what we know.

The Psalmist writes:

"Why are you downcast, O my soul? 
       Why so disturbed within me? 
       Put your hope in God, 
       for I will yet praise him, 
       my Savior and my God. 
       My soul is downcast within me; 
       therefore I will remember you..."

Notice how he speaks to his soul, "Put your hope in God!" What else, "I will remember you." What else, "I will yet praise Him." Present, past, future. 

Be honest with the doubt in your life and also with Jesus' promises. It doesn't mean what you believe isn't true, only that you've yet to experience it in all of its fulness.

Consider C.S. Lewis's quote:

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. "

Without such two-edged honesty, we'll be Christians making mud pies if we remain Christians at all. The alternatives are either: (1) There's nothing to it or (2) there must be more to it. A follower of Jesus is the one who concludes the latter--even in the midst of searching, real doubt. 

Remember Jude's counsel and "Be merciful with those who doubt," including yourself.

Some day I hope to return to Hong Kong. I will get dim sum right. 

Each day I will wake up I will seek the same of Jesus, never being satisfied with less than He allows. Doubts will serve to remind me primarily that I have only scratched the surface.