Dealing with the Doubters Around Us

Is there anyone in your life who doesn't accept you for who you are right now spiritually? Someone who doesn't believe you. Someone who doesn't acknowledge where you're at on your spiritual journey. Someone who rejects you and your level of faith, falsely accusing you of doing something that you've never had any intention of doing, dismissing you as being incapable of doing what you have in fact learned to do.

In Luke 4:24-30, Jesus shows us how to handle these people.

First, it helps to realize that it's normal to encounter people who refuse to accept our level of faith. We should not be surprised by it. Neither should we act surprised by complaining about it. As Jesus says in this Gospel reading, "No prophet gains acceptance in his native place." When this rejection happens to us, the best thing to do is to connect our suffering to Jesus' suffering. Our rejection unites us to Jesus' rejection in Nazareth. The 2000-year gap between then and now disappears. What a privilege!

Second, in love we give them a second chance to see and accept what God is offering to them through us, as Jesus did. He always gave His persecutors an opportunity to discover, "Aha! I need to learn from this!" Perhaps one out of a hundred of such people in our lives will have an "aha" moment, but that one person is a gift to us, and that one person does exist.

Not everyone from Jesus' native place rejected His messianic ministry. His cousin James (often called a "brother of the Lord" -- see Matt. 13:55 and Mark 6:3) became one of His followers, even writing a letter that was later accepted into the canon of the New Testament.

God has a James for every one of us. But how does He want us to deal with those who continue to disbelieve us?

The third step, in imitation of Christ, is to walk away. Jesus did not repeatedly attempt to change their minds. He did not insist that they listen to Him. He did not stomp His foot and pout and whine and all that other silly stuff we do to try to get the other person's attention. Neither did He stand there and let them hurt Him. The day would come when He would let that sort of people nail Him to a cross, but this was not the day. Like Him, we must always seek the Father's will to discern when it's time to go to the cross for someone and when it's time to simply walk away.

Walking away sounds easy and inviting, but it's not our first desire. We usually want to stay and wait until we are finally accepted. We don't like to ignore this feeling of being rejected. We want to be verified by the same people who disbelieve us. We want them to validate us and our faith and our giftedness.

Our second desire is usually to persist for the other person's benefit. We grieve that they're missing out on something valuable, and we feel guilty if we give up on them.

However, there comes a time when we must walk away from the doubters and move on to where we will be accepted and our gifts will be put to good use. Doubters drain us. Doubters slow down our spiritual growth. Doubters give us no support when we stumble and trip on our journey, nor do they encourage us when we feel weak and need a cheerleader on our journey.

Walking away does not necessarily mean that we walk out of their lives. Often it DOES mean that, but when we are married to the doubter or working with doubters or in some other way obligated to remain with doubters, walking away means that we stop trying to convince them of who we really are and of the rightness of our beliefs. We need to remember that only God's opinion of us really counts. It's okay if others misjudge us because GOD knows the truth about us and is very pleased.

Whether we walk out of someone's life or walk away from trying to change their minds about us, we must always seek and find people who share our values and our faith and have similar spiritual goals. These are the people we need to spend time with. These are the people who are able to identify our giftedness and our calling from God. They will build us up and encourage us and draw the best from us. They will allow us to give to them what God has given to us. By being in community and personal friendships with these people, we will be free to jog along on our spiritual journey at a pace as fast as we'd like to go.

As we say in a responsorial for Mass during Lent, Psalms 42:2-3 and 43:3-4, "My soul is thirsting for the living God: when shall I see him face to face?" Our thirst is quenched when we walk away from doubters and surround ourselves with people who are open to what God is doing within us. We see God face to face when we are in community with people who are capable of accepting the gifts from us that God has given us to share.

Are you currently in such a community? If not, get up, walk away from this lonely life, and join a Charismatic prayer group or a faith sharing group or a Rosary group or a Bible study group or some other group where people are working hard on their spiritual growth. I guarantee that God has -- right now -- a community of believers ready for you!