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I Doubt It: How to Deal with Uncertainty

The Subject No One Talks About

There's a religious topic I've spoken about several times, in churches and at college gatherings, in small groups and among friends. When I bring it up, I try to be as honest about it as possible. Not for the shock value — I hope — but only in the interest of authenticity, transparency and encouragement by way of shared experience.

On multiple occasions, after having addressed the topic, I've had people approach me and tell me how refreshing it was for me to bring it up, how bold it was for me to get it out in the open.

"I've never heard anyone preach about that before," one 40-something father of teenagers once told me.

"No one ever talks about this in church," a college student once told me.

"You certainly are full of yourself," you are wishing you could tell me.

Unfortunately, all of the above statements are true, including the last one.¹ You're wondering what the subject is, aren't you? Is it porn? Sex? My secret addiction to "Dancing with the Stars"?²

No. It's nowhere nearly as lurid as those. But it's definitely something that doesn't get a lot of play from the pulpit on Sunday mornings.

What is it? It's doubt.

Capital-D doubt. I am a doubter. A skeptic. A "wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind."³ There are days I am absolutely certain of the existence of God, and the trustworthiness of the Bible, and the historical reliability of the resurrection. Those are the good days.

But there are just as many days when that certainty is gone. I spend those days … wondering. Wondering why some people seem to experience God's presence in their lives on a moment-by-moment basis, when I don't. Wondering why a great deal of modern evangelicalism leaves me cold, unfulfilled and frequently annoyed. Wondering if the whole thing's as true and reliable and life-changing as advertised … or whether Christianity isn't just a primitive, ancient religion that somehow gained a lot of traction over the years.

I'll be honest: There are days I wonder if God even exists.

And when a person admits to that in a church service, you know what happens? People get uncomfortable. Because that's just not the kind of thing you want to hear at church. Shouldn't the guy on stage be a little more certain of his faith before encouraging us in ours? Shouldn't our leaders be rock-solid on the stuff they're supposed to be teaching us?

Ideally, yes. And that's one of the reasons that doubt doesn't get discussed too often among Christians. But we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a fallen one. We are finite creatures. Our understanding is limited. And when we push against those limits — when we temporal, weak, petty humans try to believe in an eternal, all-powerful, all-loving God — well, that's when we doubt. We shouldn't be so surprised about it. Maybe we shouldn't be so ashamed of it, either.

Boasting of My Weakness

Paul concludes his second letter to the Corinthians with a series of passages about the struggles he's endured. In the 11th chapter, he outlines the ways he has suffered for his faith, from shipwrecks and hunger, to arrests and beatings. In the 12th chapter, he mentions his "thorn in the flesh" and speaks of the comforting fact that God's grace is made perfect in his weakness. Three times in these passages, he repeats something that we'd do well to notice: If we must boast, we should boast in our weaknesses.⁴

There's value, he says, in being forthright about our failures. There's something un-Christian about hiding them or ignoring them, because it's among our weaknesses that God's grace is the most powerful.

My weakness is doubt. Let me brag about it a little.

I'll willingly identify myself as a Christian. I live as a Christian. I write magazine articles and books for Christians. But there are days that I don't feel like a Christian. Faith for me is hard.

There are plenty of reasons for this. Maybe you identify with them. Sometimes I doubt because of sin. Willful disobedience doesn't remove me from God's presence or love — nothing can do that, according to Romans 8:38-39 — but it can certainly mess up my experience of His presence and love. Sometimes I doubt because of negligence. When I'm going through a spell of prayerlessness or spiritual apathy, God begins to feel distant. It should be no surprise, then, when it feels like He's not just far away, but completely absent.

And education causes doubt, too, as you've likely experienced in your college classes. I think of myself as a rational person. I'm quick to debunk urban legends and hesitant to over-spiritualize the randomness of life.⁵ And so when I learn things that call elements of my faith into question — like scientific theories or advances in neurology — it's sometimes hard for me to reconcile it with what I believe as a Christian. I have a hard time writing off all scientific progress because it doesn't seem to match up with the Bible. But I also have a hard time writing off the Bible because it doesn't seem to match up with science.

One of my favorite college professors, an Episcopalian Indian woman who taught Shakespeare, once said something I'll always remember. "The more you learn," she said, "the more shades of gray you'll encounter." She was right. And because college is a time when you'll be introduced to one idea after another, you should not be surprised when the black-and-white faith of your childhood starts to look all muddled and gray.

When that happens — and trust me, it'll happen — what do you do?

What to Do with Doubt

1. Admit it. There is no value in pretending to have everything together. If the Apostle Paul could boast in his weaknesses, the least you could do is own up to yours. Tell your friends about your doubt. Talk about it in church. Examine the issues in community with fellow believers. You'll find that almost everyone experiences doubt at some point, including the people you look up to. You are not alone.



Everyone has doubts, and God is not surprised by them.
2. Don't fear it. Our tendency is to freak out a little when doubts start to worm their way into our minds. Do they mean we're falling away from the faith? Are those thoughts the first cracks in a process that'll send our faith crumbling? Relax. Everyone has doubts, and God is not surprised by them. Jesus didn't rebuke Thomas when the disciple needed to touch His wounds. Instead, He stretched out His hand and let Thomas figure things out himself.⁶ I'm comforted by Jude 22, which says, "Be merciful to those who doubt." I need to show that mercy to myself.



3. Understand what faith is. Quick analogy: When I'm about to board an airplane, I only do so because I have faith that it's going to take me where I'm going without crashing. But do I know that for sure? Am I absolutely certain? No. It's not until the plane safely touches down that I know — without a doubt — that I'm safe. And by the time I've gained that sense of certainty, faith in the plane is completely unnecessary. I don't need faith at that point because I know the outcome. Christian faith is the same way. We typically think of faith as the opposite of doubt, but we're wrong. The opposite of faith isn't doubt, but certainty.⁷ It's knowing for sure. If we know something for sure, we don't need faith. That's why there will always be an element of uncertainty attached to our belief in God. Uncertainty and faith go together, because, this side of the resurrection, we'll never know without a doubt.⁸



4. Understand what faith does. When the disciples first encountered Jesus after the resurrection — upon actually seeing Jesus live in the flesh — Matthew's gospel says that some of them doubted.⁹ Jesus was right in front of them, and even then they doubted! But Jesus didn't scold them, or correct them, or give them a PowerPoint presentation proving the resurrection. Instead, He gave them a command: "Go and make disciples" (Matthew 28:19). Paul tells his readers to "work out" their salvation with "fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12-13). James tells his readers, "I will show you my faith by what I do" (James 2:18).
   
   
   I love. I obey. If I can't show my faith by what's happening on the inside, then I live it out on the outside.
   In the presence of doubt, the best way to express faith is by living it out. There may be a lot of things that bring me uncertainty, but there are plenty of things about which I'm very certain. I know that it's good to worship God and to gather with fellow believers. I know that it's good to extend mercy and grace to others, just like it's been extended to me. I know that I am to show love without discretion, I am to give without selfishness, and I am to care for those who can't pay me back. So when I'm faced with theological or philosophical uncertainty, the most faithful thing for me to do is to practice those things I'm certain about. So I worship. I give. I love. I obey. If I can't show my faith by what's happening on the inside, then I live it out on the outside. I show my faith by what I do. Sometimes that's the only mustard seed I've got.

The Most Important Thing

C O F F E E  S H O P

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What doubts do you find yourself having about your God and Christianity?

Join the discussion!

As Christians, what we need to remember is this: Salvation doesn't come from our ability to erase every doubt from our minds. It doesn't come from how strong our faith is or by how much certainty we can muster up about God. Salvation comes not from anything we do, but from the work of Jesus on the cross. Jesus saves us — not the absence of doubt. That frees me up to stop worrying about my doubts. It frees me up to trust. It allows me to pray, in all seriousness, the desperate request of the father who asks Jesus to heal his ailing son: "Lord, I believe! Help me overcome my unbelief" (Mark 9:24).

Amen, I say. Amen on both counts.