There is various ways on how to stop being skeptical.
Skepticism can be defined as a lack of confidence in the veracity of something.
Often, people face this lack of trust in relation to things like: the existence of God, or the fact that God is directing a specific situation. one can learn more about existence of God
Skepticism can become an obstacle, even irrational, that prevents us from accepting God’s love and approaching Him.
For that reason, I would like to share with you a reflection on how to stop being skeptical.
#1. Take a different view on failure
To do so, I would like to start from a history of the Bible on how to stop being skeptical.
This is the event recorded in the book of 1 Samuel, in which the Philistines captured God’s ark and kept it in their territory for several months.
The Bible relates that as a result of this situation, God began to bring calamities to every city where the Philistines placed the ark.
Wherever they placed the ark, in that city tumors fell on the skin of its inhabitants and there were plagues of mice that destroyed the crops.
The Philistines, who were a people whose religion was based on the worship of the pagan god Dagon, could not believe and accept that the reason for these disasters was related to the God of Israel.
They moved the ark to three different cities. They had to serch on how to stop being skeptical
In each of them, the plague of tumors and mice was triggered killing many people, destroying crops.
Seven months after suffering this, the leaders of the Philistines decided to consult their sages and soothsayers about what to do with the ark problem.
The answer was that they should return it to Israel with a guilt offering and acknowledge that they had offended the God of Israel.
Initially, philistines were skeptical but they stopped by taking a different view on failure and returned the ark.
#2. Help other people
Let’s read a little of the instructions given by the sages and what happened next, as recorded in the Bible:
“Now then, get a new cart ready, with two cows that have calved and have never been yoked.
Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up.
Take the ark of the Lord and put it on the cart, and in a chest beside it put the gold objects you are sending back to him as a guilt offering.
Send it on its way, but keep watching it.
If it goes up to its own territory, toward Beth Shemesh, then the Lord has brought this great disaster on us.
But if it does not, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us but that it happened to us by chance.”
So they did this.
They took two such cows and hitched them to the cart and penned up their calves.
Then the cows went straight up toward Beth Shemesh, keeping on the road and lowing all the way; they did not turn to the right or to the left.
The rulers of the Philistines followed them as far as the border of Beth Shemesh.
1 Samuel 6:7-10; 12
Even though God had made it clear that He was the one causing the calamities, the Philistines, including their sages, did not know how to stop being skeptical and thought it was possible that it was all a coincidence.
To confirm whether or not this was a coincidence, they devised a plan.
The plan was that they were going to put two cows with no work experience to pull the cart.
It wasn’t normal for them to do it because they weren’t trained for it, if the cows pulled the wagon, it was a sign that possibly someone was leading them.
However, with that, those cows had to have un-weaned calves, and they were going to send the calves alone behind the cows’ backs, in the opposite direction to Israel.
It was unnatural for cows to let their calves go without following them.
Even more unnatural that they would move in the opposite direction.
But even more, no one was going to lead the cows on the way to Israel pulling the cart, they had to take the right path.
If all these conditions were met, then the Philistines would understand that, indeed, the God of Israel was the true God, and that he had punished them for disrespecting his sacred object.
All of this happened perfectly because God wanted to give all possible evidence to the Philistines that He is the true God, in order to give them a chance to recognize Him as their God.
However, despite this, the Philistines did not recognize Him. They had not discovered how to stop being skeptical
Seeing all the evidence, they decided to return to their people to continue worshiping their false god.
#3. Pinpoint your insecurities
In many cases, the skepticism is not due to a lack of evidence or pinpointing insecurities , but to a lack of humility in accepting the evidence.
The real remedy on how to stop being skeptical in many cases, is not evidence but humility.
Understanding that not always the most obvious explanation is the seemingly rational one.
Understanding that not everything in life can be explained as a coincidence.
When we face hard evidence and reject it, we don’t do it because we’re rational people, we do it because we’re proud people.
Just as God revealed Himself to the Philistines on that occasion, He often reveals Himself evidently to us in our lives.
We can see the evidence, but we decided to be skeptical and come up with explanations that contradict the obvious.
Human beings, both believers and non-believers, have problems with selective skepticism.
With the things we want to be true, we do not demand further evidence and do not examine them carefully.
On the contrary, with the things that we do not want to be true, we become highly skeptical.
We demand absurd and unnecessary evidence, only to ultimately reject it no matter how strong it is, simply because we never really wanted the truth.
We just wanted to believe what we wanted to believe.
I hope these words are a blessing to your life.
And what do you think? Would you like to stop being skeptical? Share it in the comments.
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A hug, God bless you.
