DISCLAIMER: This post is about to get very real. If you are uncomfortable with honesty, vulnerability and crying out to God, stop reading now.
I have been a Christian since I was 3 years old.
I have gone to church services. I have been in Bible studies. I have led Bible studies. I have gone to worship nights. I have helped lead worship. I have gone to conferences and retreats. I have been on multiple mission trips across different continents. I have dedicated my life to this deeply rooted belief that I have been called to love and serve others as Christ first loved us.
With most of my life consisting of this, how could I possibly doubt and question God?
(Note: I originally wrote most of this back in January, but as I’ve been reflecting on turning 23 in a few days, I felt that it was time to share this post. I have been amazed at looking back on all that the Lord has done, but personally want to enter my next year with this season behind me. I hope my story can encourage you in yours.)
To share some of the doubts and questions that ran through my mind, I’ll post some of what I wrote in a journal entry months ago on December 15, 2014:
- “What if I have been living a lie? What if I’m basing my faith on things I’ve seen and it’s all just been an illusion? If so, what am I living my life for? There are so many questions in my head right now and I feel like that shouldn’t be the case but it’s time I be very real with myself and God—sometimes I wonder if you exist. What if this is all just a social construct? What if there is no God? Why are we here? How do we hear the Holy Spirit? Has he forgotten me? Does he not love me? Why would some people end up in hell? Why did God create us? He didn’t need us. Why am I here? I don’t ultimately matter. I’ve said I want to love like Christ but if I don’t even believe or trust it, how can I? GOD, WHERE ARE YOU?”
I would never have thought I would be in such a place of doubt, darkness, and confusion with my faith. The church tends to not discuss doubt, and when we enter seasons of it, we don’t know what to do. We feel shame or feel that something must be wrong with us. I wanted to challenge that and share my story of this season of doubting and questioning because, thankfully, that season has pointed me back to Christ.
I thought I had been re-centered through my summer in Nashville (2014) because of getting back into reading my Bible, finding people in a community who encouraged me, and spending time reflecting on His faithfulness, etc. But through a few events, a tiring and challenging fall semester, and a lot of spiritual warfare, I had fallen back to a discouraged place yet again. Deep down, I felt like God wouldn’t come through for me. That He kept leading me to places or situations just to leave me there. That He isn’t truly faithful.
While these doubts have been in my head for years, I knew it was time I really wrestled with these questions. I came home for Christmas break in a state of numbness, trying to sort out my feelings with the “truths” of this faith I had based my entire life around. If the Bible says that He will never leave me nor forsake me, but if I have felt abandoned by God, then maybe there is no God at all. I had an extremely terrifying thought: I would rather believe there is no God than to believe there is a God who would cause pain. (With all of the darkness and evil in the world, how many of us have had a thought like that?)
I wrestled with that idea and slowly started opening up to those that were near me. Doubting God can be extremely lonely because it’s something that is so personal and that happens internally in one’s soul – but I urge you to not keep your doubts completely to yourself. I voiced my doubts to my Dad, who enabled me to take a step back and think about it in a very simple, logical way that stuck with me: one can’t argue that Jesus, as a human being in history, existed. That’s fact. So it’s your choice to believe that Jesus is either the biggest liar that ever existed – or – He is the one who has saved you.
I am a very emotional person and that can be very dangerous when it comes to faith – just because I feel like God isn’t there doesn’t mean He isn’t present; just because I don’t feel God working doesn’t mean He’s not weaving together things in a beautiful, unknown way. As I talked with a few dear friends from home, I was able to voice my doubts, which gave them less power over me. Did I like being in that place? No. Do I like knowing I’ve doubted God? No. Am I ever going to have the perfect faith? No. Does Jesus love me? Yes. Does God have grace? Yes. Can the Holy Spirit speak Truth into my life and walk alongside of me? Yes.
It was an odd time because I was questioning God days before I’m supposed to celebrate Christmas. How much of a hypocrite could I be? However, even in the midst of these heavy thoughts, I realized I needed to make a decision either way. I could keep being in this state of doubt, or I could take action to really deal with these questions.
So I started reading and listening to sermons, and my heart began to quickly soften. I listened to an amazing sermon about how we often don’t know what to do when God doesn’t “come through” in the ways we expect (Elevation: When Life and Truth Collide from 2007). It was an encouragement to look at John the Baptist, who personally baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, and see how when he was in jail, he started doubting and wondering if Jesus really was the Messiah. The beautiful part of the passage is that Jesus didn’t rebuke him for questioning; instead, he reminded him of the Truth.
We are human. We will doubt. We will question. We will not understand.
Once we accept that, we can be free to press into God to embrace the TRUTH that exists.
My thoughts were extremely sobering: what purpose does my life have? If I am on this earth and God doesn’t exist, then why am I here? What good am I? I will graduate college, get a job, raise a family and then…die. I will be forgotten. What meaning does my life have? That’s my destiny. What is the hope and joy in that? All the riches in the world or all the “happiness” of people and events would not satisfy. Why live?
Because someone gave us Life.
It is through these conclusions that I realized that God not only exists, but he has an incredibly redemptive plan that seeks to give each of us life and meaning. But how often do we turn our eyes or our hearts to focus on ourselves? With that perspective, we have nothing. With the realization that God loves us and has a bigger plan for our lives, we have meaning. We were created with a purpose beyond ourselves to play our individual role in God’s greater plan.
While it has been a long process for me dealing with doubt, I have seen God move in amazing ways and I have seen my soul come alive, refreshed in Truth. Because I am human, I will still struggle with questioning and doubting. We are always on this journey – and that’s the frustrating, humbling and yet beautiful part about walking with God. We will never trust God enough. We will never accomplish enough. We will always be tempted to doubt when we don’t understand. And you know what? God takes our hand, looks into our eyes and proclaims over us, “You are enough.”
“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” (C.S. Lewis)
**PLEASE reach out to me if you are struggling with these thoughts. You are not alone. I can say that I’ve honestly been struggling for a couple years in this season of doubt and questioning, yet seeing God bring me out of the darkness has been incredible. And if you have never believed in God but you want to talk to me, please reach out. Sending love to everyone who reads this!
The Beauty In Our Brokenness 
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