Many believers have to struggle with times of doubt. We want to believe and at the same time things may happen that make us wonder, or people around us challenge us, situations seem dim and difficult.

Those circumstances can make us forget that we are actually loved by God and special and worthy in his eyes. God created you and me and all of us because he wanted us to be here, to exist. That alone makes us precious to him.

When we are hurting, it hurts God. That is why God has sent his Son into the world to save us, because of that love (John 3:16), and grace makes us worthy even with our faults and shortcomings.

Doubt is something very human and we don’t have to be ashamed about it. Even the disciples of Jesus, who had spend years with him, had their doubts. Most famous is the story about “doubting Thomas” in the Gospel of John 20:19-31.

Jesus had appeared to the other apostles on that very first Easter Sunday in the evening. They had met behind closed doors out of fear, John says. In Verse 28b and 29 (NIV) we read: “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.’”

Fear is a symptom of our doubt, our lack of faith. Before they understood and rejoiced, Jesus had shown them his wounds. When Thomas, who had missed the meeting, heard about it, he doubted, too. In verse 25 he says: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

In a way Thomas wasn’t that much more doubting than the other ten disciples. They had seen the wounds before they rejoiced. Thomas just did not trust their witness. After all, Judas, who had been a member of the 12 before Good Friday, had betrayed them and the Lord. Who can you trust?

However, when the disciples were together a week later to celebrate the next Sunday, which became their weekly little Easter, Thomas was there as well, and the risen Christ appeared again, went straight to Thomas and invited him to touch his wound marks.

That is when Thomas made a remarkable statement of faith (verse 28): “My Lord and my God!” All his doubts disappeared when Christ showed himself to him. The Gospel of John uses a lot of symbolism and images to explain the importance of the message. The Lord did not criticise Thomas, he understood, and then he turned it into a teaching moment for us in the next verse: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Our faith depends on trusting. When ever one gives witness, just as the other ten disciples did when they had told Thomas about their experience, it invites us to put our trust into that witness.

Of course, some people may have had bad experiences when it comes to trust, just like Thomas was maybe disappointed with Judas. However, we need to trust and are better off if we don’t give up on it. All our lives we depend on trusting others. We need to trust parents, then teachers, friends, spouses, and so many others.

Trust is even a bit more than believing. There is a fun story about a tightrope artist, Charles Blondin, who in 1859 went back and forth over the Niagara Falls. He did this more than 300 times, collecting a nickel each from the spectators. He changed the programme every so often, like walking backwards, blindfolded with a bag over his head, and once he even cooked an omelette mid-air.

At one day he showed up with a wheelbarrow. The crowd cheered. He asked whether they believed he could push a person across, and they all said they did, until he asked for a volunteer. Yes, they believed he could do it, but who would trust him with his life?

It is this trust in Him Christ wants us to develop. It is about life and death. We can only truly believe when we trust. We need to trust not only what we can see with our own eyes and touch, as Thomas proclaimed, but trust the witness of others, listen to their experience and trust it.

Billions of Christians over the last 2,000 years have put their trust into the witness of those disciples who witnessed the risen Christ and the witness of many more after them. Even more, we trust that this did not only happen back then, but it happened for us, for you and for me. That is what makes it so special.

There are other stories in the New Testament when people wanted to believe and doubted at the same time. In Mark 9 a father of a boy with seizures asked Jesus to help his son, adding: “If you can.” Christ replied, “If you can? Everything is possible for one who believes.” The father then said famously: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

Christ had helped so many others before, so the father believed Christ could do it, however, he had to come to trust that he would do it for him as well. He had to overcome his unbelief, his doubt, and he knew, he needed Jesus’s help for that as well.

When the risen Christ appeared the last time before his disciples in Matthew 28, it was 40 days after Easter and just moments before his ascension, we read in verse 16 and 17 (NIV): “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.”

So yes, even some of the 11 disciples, who had seen him at Easter and the week later, still had their doubts at times. They still had doubts because we are rational beings. We look for proof, for explanations.

I know some very serious Christians who try to find proof for this and that, for example from archaeology, worldly texts from non-Christians writers from the time of Jesus, or try to find scientific proof to explain the miracles Christ had performed.

It shows we all have a bit of Doubting Thomas in us, sometimes more and at other times less. The good news is, our Lord has understanding for that. He wants to strengthen our faith.

That is why he promised the Holy Spirit. He did so that first Easter evening according to John 20:21-23 (NIV): “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’”

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit …” This Holy Spirit strengthens our faith in special times. When we have the feeling we lack faith and trust, we can shout out like that Father in Mark 9: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” so that with Christ’s help we can get to the strong witness Thomas gave: “My Lord and my God.”

• Karsten Decker was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary United Methodist Church in Smith’s