Most of the time, we think of faith and doubts as polar opposites. We think of faith and doubt on a single spectrum. We think that if we have more doubt, we have less faith, and if we have less doubt, we have more faith.
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Doubt Faith
But that’s not what the Bible teaches. The Bible’s perspective on doubt and faith is more like the father with a sick child who said to Jesus: “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). Belief and unbelief are all mixed together - like overlapping ovals. We have all these doubts of different shapes and sizes, but they can be enveloped by an even larger circle of faith. Having doubts does not mean we don’t have faith. Doubts can actually enlarge and enrich our faith. True faith is not being doubt-free. True faith is taking the leap to trust God even while the doubts are there screaming that we shouldn’t. True faith is moving forward to follow Jesus - even if it means carrying a backpack full of doubts along the way.
Sometimes, we let our doubts drive us away from God and away from God’s people. We can get very ashamed of our doubts. We think, “If I was a real Christian, I wouldn’t feel like this. If I really trusted God, I wouldn’t have these doubts.” And so we end up hiding our true selves from other people at church and even from God in prayer. We only say the nice things. We only pray the nice prayers. We stuff our doubts down. We try to shoo them out the window of our souls.
Here’s the thing about doubt and pain and fear. It’s part of us. It will always be part of us as long as we live in this broken world. If we don’t bring God our pain and fear and doubt, then we are leaving a huge part of us in the back room of our souls. If we don’t bring our church and our friends our pain and fear and doubt, then we are hiding huge parts of ourselves and preventing deep relationship from ever happening.
We (as a church) and we (as Christians) have to find healthier ways of dealing with pain and doubt. Thankfully, we have Psalm 22. This is probably the single most famous “lament” or “doubting” Psalm in the Bible. Listen for how it mixes together doubt and faith.
1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help?
