Talk to God About Your Doubts
Other Posts in this Series
What are your doubts about God? Don’t tell me you have no doubts. Faith demands that we work through our doubts. How can one have faith without having experienced doubts? It would be like having love without ever experiencing hate or hope without ever experiencing hopelessness. We know the one by the other.
Back to my question. What are your doubts about God? Can you make a list? Here are a few I’ve had over the years and continue to have from time to time.
- Does God really exist?
- Does God care about me?
- Does God intervene into the affairs of my life and others?
- Does God hear and answer our prayers?
- Did God really become a man in Jesus?
- Was Jesus really born of a virgin?
- Did Jesus really come back to life after dying?
- Is it possible to truly hear God?
- Is it possible to know God’s will?
- Does God have a special task for me?
Okay, I could go on, but you get the point. If you haven’t wondered about some of these things from time to time, you probably should. If you haven’t, I wonder if your faith is truly yours, something you’ve come to on your own accord or a choice you’ve truly made. Faith requires that we wrestle with some or all of these issues.
I’ll continue to the second question, then, assuming that you have wrestled with your doubts and tried to make sense of them. The second question is, “Do you talk to God about your doubts?” If your answer is “no,” why not? Honestly, I don’t always talk to God about my doubts like I should for a number of reasons.
First, I don’t want to think about the doubts. Therefore, rather than airing them with God, I push them back down hoping they will go away. It takes energy to think about these doubts. The very nature of doubts is to conflict with faith. Doubts call my comfortable belief system into question. I simply don’t want my comfort disrupted. I tend to avoid conflict whenever I can, especially if that conflict is internal.
Second, I don’t share my doubts with God because my adopted meaning system tells me that doubts are not a possibility. If I allow one doubt in, then a whole flood will come in causing chaos in my soul. If one of those doubts causes even one segment of faith to crumble, I fear my whole system of faith will crumble. This internal voice tells me my faith is fragile, so don’t touch it. It has no real strength. It’s only there to look at and may not be able to manage the weight of my life.
Third, I don’t share my doubts with God because I’ve been taught that doubts indicate a lack of faith and without faith we cannot please God. Therefore, in order to keep God pleased, I’ll hold my doubts and keep them from God. I would not want God to think I’m unfaithful. I fear that if God thinks I’m unfaithful, then God will withdraw the Divine love or somehow punish me. I want God to love me, so I won’t tell God what’s on my mind.
I hope you can see that these are ludicrous arguments. We show God our love by sharing our doubts. When we choose to hide our doubts from God we demonstrate our comfort level is more important than our understanding of God, we demonstrate what little faith we have in our belief system, and we demonstrate a secretive, withdrawn relational style. Which shows more love–a stubborn silence that refuses to share our secrets or an open, honest discussion about what we are thinking? Open communication always shows more love. Silence and secrets in any relationship results in schism and conflict.
When those doubts come (and they will), talk to God about them. Over come your fear of crumbling faith or loss of God’s love. Enter into that uncomfortable zone of conflict and allow God to help you through the doubts into a place of strengthened faith.
Comments
Share your thoughts...
