He Sent the Ones Who Were Still Wavering

Eleven men climbed a mountain in Galilee because Jesus told them to be there. They saw Him. They fell down and worshiped. And then Matthew writes the sentence he could have left out: "but some doubted" (Matthew 28:17).

Think about where that sentence sits. This is the last paragraph of his Gospel. He has one shot at the ending. And he spends part of it telling us that some of the men on that mountain were still going back and forth in their heads. The word he chooses is the word for wavering rather than the word for unbelief. It means standing at a fork. Leaning two directions at once. It is the same word Jesus used with Peter out on the water, right after Peter started to sink.

Then, without stopping to fix it, Jesus hands them the world.

Here is what that ought to do to the rest of us. Most of us are waiting on a feeling. You have decided you will say something about Jesus once you are steadier. Once your own house is in better order. Once the questions get quieter and the doubts stop showing up at two in the morning. You are trying to become a finished Christian before you will be a useful one. Those eleven were not finished either. He did not wait for them to feel certain. He gave them a command, and He gave them Himself.

So do one small and specific thing this week. Write down one name. Not a category. Not a mission field. Not the lost in general. A name. Somebody whose number is already in your phone. Somebody at the next desk, or the next mailbox, or the next seat at Thanksgiving. Pray for that person by name every day this week. Then watch for one opening and say one true thing about Jesus out loud.

And when you feel unqualified for it, read the rest of the paragraph. "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). One chapter earlier, the Son cried out that His Father had forsaken Him (27:46). The forsaking was real. It was His. And it is the reason the presence is ours.

He was left alone on a cross so that you would never be left alone in a conversation.