Aug 25, 2010
Ed’s Christian Survival Guide: Just Another Day of Doubt
Over the summer a month passed without much seeming to happen between myself and God. Oh, things weren’t too bad, but it was all quiet and stuff when I prayed. I was used to getting some kind of sense of God’s will from my prayer time, but that didn’t happen for a few weeks.
What was going on?
I know that God has answered my prayers in the past and ministered to me and through me. I have also seen God speak to and use others. What was up? As my prayer time fell flat, I began to doubt a bit. Had God given up on me? Was I just making stuff up in the past? Was I classifying my emotions in the divinity category?
That season passed. Well, it sort of passed. I heard God say “Intercede” one day, and it was like old times all of sudden. I was praying for other people, rather than my own issues, and I was on the same page as God for a while—at least, until things quieted down again and some doubts crept in.
I still get extremely introspective at times, but thankfully God still breaks in and screams into my little troubled world, “Get out of there!” I come out, go back in, wonder why things are not clicking with God, begin to doubt, and then he has to snap me out of it again.
There are plenty of reasons why we may doubt God. Speaking from the context of American evangelicalism where the Holy Spirit gets treated like a footnote in the Bible when he/she should be a main character, it’s easy to turn Christianity into this game of information and report cards. Behave and get the answers right, and you’re good.
The trouble is that we can unwittingly shut God out of our lives and not know why or how it happened. I can’t tell you why you have doubts or how to get rid of them. That’s something you need to seek out in the quiet place by yourself and with a trusted group of Christian friends who can handle hearing you say, “I’m not so sure about God sometimes.”
What I can say is that I’ve stared into that void. I’ve wondered whether God is real or whether God really cares about me, and he’s come to me. Not right away. Not when I demanded he show up. Not even in the way I expected. But he came.
As I learn to wait, to remain open, to listen, and to get out of my own head, he can speak to me, use me, and tell me how he really feels about me, about you, and about the world. How does he feel about us? He loves us with an intensity that will one day drive out our doubts and fears, even if we imperfectly move toward his Kingdom, stumbling forward and backward and forward again—and again.
Doubts can be a daily struggle. They can be normal. But God wants to move us away from them and into his love. Perhaps the first step to overcoming doubt is believing that last sentence is true.
