A few years ago, I asked Harbor attenders to let me know about some of the doubts they have about God. They were honest and heartfelt in their responses.
One person said, “I doubt God’s patience.” Another, “I doubt that God actually hears my prayers and that he’ll actually respond to them.” Another person said, “Sometimes I doubt God’s existence, especially when I’m faced with mysteries like as the Trinity, Divine sovereignty and human responsibility, or the problem of evil.”
There are serious concerns many long-time Christians have about God. So how are we supposed to deal with those kinds of doubts?
Some people let their doubts keep eating away at them. They stew and stew over them, until they finally can’t deal with them anymore. They just give up on God. Give up on church. Give up on faith. “Deconstructing” is the trendy new term for this ancient tendency.
Other people use their doubts to justify their sin. They’ll say God obviously isn’t good enough or powerful enough to take care of me, so I owe it to myself to take what I want in life.
But then there are many, many Christians in the middle who have doubts, but don’t want their doubts to derail their faith. And in his book The Reason for God, Tim Keller said this is actually a very healthy thing:
A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic.
A person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection. Believers should acknowledge doubts and wrestle with doubts — not only their own but their friends’ and neighbors’.
Even as believers should learn to look for reasons behind their faith, skeptics must learn to look for a type of faith hidden within their reasoning. All doubts, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternate beliefs. You cannot doubt Belief A except from a position of faith in Belief B.
You can see many of our heroes in the Bible wrestle with some of those kinds of “alternate beliefs.” Take Moses. When God appeared to him in the burning bush to tell him he was sending him to go to Pharaoh and rescue the Israelites from slavery, Moses replied, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11). In other words, “I can’t do this! I don’t want to do this! I just want to live a quiet life in Midian. Just me and my wife and kids and my sheep.”
Doubting God’s Goodness
What’s the alternate belief underneath this doubt? If I follow God, he’s going to make my life harder!
I talk to people all the time who aren’t sure they really want to follow God, because they think he’s going to make them do things they don’t want to do. One of my non-Christian friends once told me, “I want to love God, but I love women too much.” Maybe you think if you get too close to God, you might have to surf less, or shop less, or travel less. He’ll want more of your time and money. Or maybe he’ll want you to go talk to the awkward guy in your office that nobody wants to be around.
One person at Harbor told me he was concerned that God will make him into a doormat that people will walk all over. He said, “I doubt God will stick up for me or make people treat me the way I feel I should be treated.”
How does God respond to that kind of doubt? Like he said to Moses, “But I will be with you!” In other words, I’m not the kind of demanding God who sits in heaven and just barks out commands for you to follow. My goal isn’t to ruin your fun, and make your life miserable. “I’ll be with you, and encourage you, and strengthen you, and guide you, and comfort you, and provide for you!”
Doubting God’s Faithfulness
But Moses still had more doubts: “Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” (Exodus 3:13). In other words, “I don’t even know your name! “I don’t know what you’re all about. I don’t know your character. I’m not even sure I like you yet!”
There are lots of folks at Harbor who expressed the same kind of doubts. One person said, “I often doubt that I am really forgiven. I tend to think in terms of sin that “isn’t that bad” vs. sin that he couldn’t possibly forgive. The symptom of this is ongoing guilt. If I suffer on guilt about my character or things I’ve done, I’m slave to that guilt and I’m doubting God’s promise to restore me.” In other words, “I’m not sure I can trust God’s grace.”
Another person said, “I doubt that I truly have the Holy Spirit in me,” which means they doubt whether God really can overcome things in their life. Another person said, “I doubt God’s holy character and I wonder if he’s more like my earthly father.” In other words, “I’ve been let down by a guy who was supposed to care for me. … How can I be sure that God’s going to be any different?”
The alternate belief is that God can’t be trusted. So how does God respond to that? He said to Moses, “I am who I am. And he said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ (Exodus 3:14). In other words, “I’m here. I’ll always be here for you. I don’t change. I’ll keep offering grace, love, and mercy.”
God then said to Moses, “Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt’ (Exodus 3:16-17). In other words, “I keep my promises! This is how I’m fulfilling the promise I made to your great-great-grandfather Abraham (in Genesis 15)!”
How to Combat Doubt
This is how we combat the doubts that inevitably creep into our hearts: by remembering the promises of God and reminding ourselves how he’s already kept his promises in our lives.
What are some of the promises God’s given to you?
- “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. “
- “The same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.”
- “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Not death or life, not angels nor demons, not our fears for today or our worries about tomorrow.”
God keeps all of those promises just like he kept his promise to the Israelites. How have you seen him keep his promises to you?