What’s interesting about the formation of “doubt” and “doubting”, is that they could easily become “do” and “doing” with one smudge of the pen, or with the help of the ever-so-annoying auto-correct.

All that needs to be removed is the b, the u, and the t. The BUT.

“But” gets in the way a lot. We can have big aspirations to accomplish a certain goal, but then “but” comes in.

I’m going to lose 20 pounds, BUT what if I can’t stick to the nutrition plan?
I really want this new job, BUT what if I don’t get it? Or what if I get it BUT suck at it?
I’d like to quit my job and start my own business, BUT what if I fail?

But what if BUT didn’t get in the way?

What if you took pride in being a DOER rather than a DOUBTER?

What if your default reaction was to DO instead of having a default reaction to DOUBT?

Doubting is really easy to do. Almost too easy. Doubt often shows up without merit. For some of us, we feel like doubt is always there. Instead of having a shadow of a doubt, we feel like we always have doubt as a shadow. Seemingly with everything we try to do, doubt is there.

I want to share a story from the Bible that illustrates how easy it can be to doubt. I hope you can appreciate the message of this story regardless of your religious background.

25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. 27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” 28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” 29 “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
(Matthew 14:25-31 NIV)

When Peter doubted what he saw on the lake, Jesus affirmed it was He. When Peter doubted it was Jesus who spoke, He assured Peter he could walk to Him. When Peter took his focus off Jesus and started worrying about the waves, doubt crept into his mind a third time and he almost drowned.

Even through DOING, DOUBT still crept in. Even when we trust in something as great as God, we still have doubts about what He’s capable of.

We still have doubts about what we’re capable of.

Now that you see how easy it is to DOUBT, see how easy it is to DO. See how DOING naturally comes with DOUBT, BUT DOUBT’s power lessens with more DO.

Let DOUBT pass like a wave across your feet. Notice it but don’t invest in it.

Ask yourself in a playful way, “Why did I have so little faith? Why did I doubt?”

What’s your reply? “I can do this. I have CONFIDENCE.”

Some dictionaries describe doubt as “lacking confidence in”. Doubts will never go away, but we can work on our confidence levels.

If you’ve been with us these past 3 weeks we hope you’ve found some ways to build your confidence inside and outside of the gym.

If you’re still searching for confidence in an area of your life, send me a message and let’s see what we can do to help build it up and crowd out doubt.

Going forward, let’s look for ways we can trade Doubt for Do.

-Coach Tony