Sometimes this has left me groping in the darkness, hoping in the darkness, I will run into you again. . . . I’ll wait for your mystery to rise up and lead me home.
—Sara Groves, “Mystery”
I got my first pair of glasses when I was in second grade. My eyes have been getting progressively worse since then, and at this point I am useless without glasses or contacts. Before I go to sleep at night, I’ve made it my habit to put my glasses on my nightstand next to my bed. More often than I would like to admit, I make the mistake of leaving my glasses somewhere else before I go to sleep. Like on my dresser or in the bathroom. This results in mass confusion when I wake up.
I am whatever the opposite of a morning person is. I wake up and hate life for at least half an hour. It’s rough for anyone who has to be in my presence during that time. In my groggy, already-ticked-off-at-morning state, I feel around for my glasses, and if they aren’t where they are supposed to be, what usually comes out of my mouth is the phrase, “Hey! Who moved my glasses?!”
This, of course, is a ridiculous question, as though my husband or the dog moved them while I was sleeping. My husband says nothing because he is a smart man. And because he knows that Morning Steph is not a nice person.
Clearly no one took my glasses. They just aren’t exactly where I expected them to be. But they are somewhere. They are not far from me, but it feels like they have disappeared. This is how so many people feel as they wake up to the reality that they are doubting their faith in God. They reach out for where they thought they had left God. But they feel nothing! In those moments, it’s easy to have the knee-jerk response, “Hey! Who moved my Jesus?”
This can be the beginning of doubt and questions that may grow to consume your heart. It feels as though God has moved or changed, leaving you wondering if Jesus is who he said he was. You can easily wonder if what you’ve been taught about God is true—and how could you know? You begin to frantically search, unable to see clearly enough to grasp onto God or to see where God might have gone.
To make matters worse, many in the Christian tradition pour salt on the wound in these moments. A pervasive and harmful teaching equates doubt to a sin or sees doubt as a sign that someone is weak. I don’t think doubt is sinful or weak, and my hunch is that these perspectives come from a misunderstanding of just a few passages of the Bible.
When reading through the narrative of the Bible, we are reminded again and again that humans have always struggled through doubt and questions about God. Jacob wrestled with God all night long in Genesis.[1] The Hebrew people experienced doubt throughout the Old Testament. When they didn’t seem to get what they wanted from God, they asked lots of questions and expressed doubts and even anger at God. In the Psalms, we see the song writer express questions like this from Psalm 13, “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”
Even Jesus’s followers struggled with doubt while he was with them. The father in Mark 9 who wanted his son to be healed said the now-famous line, “I believe, help me overcome my unbelief!” Peter doubted—as Jesus invited him to walk on water, Peter began to sink.[2] Thomas doubted Jesus so distinctly after the resurrection that popular culture has given him the nickname “doubting Thomas.”[3] He wanted Jesus to prove that he was really alive after his resurrection. But it’s not like Thomas was the only one; most of Jesus’s followers doubted that he had come back to life. These stories are comforting to me. Jesus always engages those who doubt with love and tries to help them deepen their understanding.
For some reason, many Christian leaders and pastors have overlooked these stories and defaulted to just a few passages that seem to contradict the Bible’s openness to doubt. This has left many feeling they are damned if they doubt rather than encouraged to be honest with their questions. Barna studies have shown that at least two-thirds of those who self-identify as a Christian, or who have in the past, experience doubt in their life of faith.[4] Yet many who experience doubt feel a deep sense of shame. When we experience doubt, most of us are very unlikely to bring those doubts and questions to spiritual leaders. People in roles like mine either don’t teach on the subject of doubt or teach with a bad biblical hermeneutic that interprets the original intent of the biblical writer incorrectly.[5]
For instance, one of the most damning passages used is James 1:6–8 (NIV):
But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
The Greek word used in this passage for doubt is diakrinoe, meaning “to withdraw or desert, to separate oneself in a hostile spirit or enmity in separation.” When this word is used other places in the Bible, it describes the separation and enmity between the Jews and gentiles. Or when the archangel Michael is said to be “standing against” Satan.[6] Yet, look at how our most popular Bible translations render the word here:
Based on these translations, it’s no wonder we assume James is saying, “If you ever question or doubt God, you will be a wave tossed by the wind. God won’t give you anything, and you will be unstable in all you do.”
A more accurate translation of diakrinoe would be: “If you separate yourself from God and are against God or hostile toward God in your life, you are like a wave tossed by the wind.”
This exegesis focusing on the original language helps us reflect on the message that James had for the original audience.[7] A helpful hermeneutic for us today would be to think about our lives and to ask whether we are hostile or against God. If so, then James is referring to us. If we are questioning, doubting, or even angry with God (as we see the psalmist lament over and over), we are not the kind of person James is referring to.
When Peter doubts and falls into the water, Jesus says, “why do you doubt?” The Greek word used is distazo, which is the word in Greek most similar to our English word doubt. It means literally “to doubt or waver.” But even as Jesus names Peter a doubter, he doesn’t say, “Peter, you are unstable in all you do! You are a wave tossed in the wind.” Instead, Jesus calms the storm.
In the “doubting Thomas” story, the word translated as unbelief in the NIV is apistos, which means “not able to trust.” Jesus responds by letting Thomas touch his wounds, and that increases trust for Thomas.
It’s so clear in these stories that Jesus moves toward the doubters, not away.
Doubting and wavering do not cause God to abandon or judge the questioner. God invites us to press into our doubts and questions when we see the surprising results for those who engage in this challenging process.
Barna’s 2017 study revealed that 12 percent of people who acknowledge a time of spiritual doubt in the past lost their faith, 7 percent said their faith weakened, 28 percent experienced no change in their faith, and 53 percent said it strengthened their relationship to God. So overall, 81 percent of those studied said their faith did not change or was stronger after going brick by brick through the wall of doubt.
These findings help me to lean on the promises from God in Scripture, like this one from the prophet Jeremiah: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”[8] “Seeking with all of your heart” is active and probably takes a lot of emotional strength and perseverance. But these studies suggest Jeremiah’s promise from God was true! Jeremiah was writing to people in exile—people in a wilderness generation—and telling them to keep seeking God with all their heart. Sounds applicable to me!
The Bible warns us about what happens when people become hard hearted.[9] They are not able to hear from God or find God. Our hearts can harden easily when we hit the wall. When this collision happens repeatedly, a callus can easily form. But our hearts don’t have to stay that way. When we recognize how Jesus responded to those who were doubting, we just might begin to accept his compassion. And that can help us soften our hearts once again. Perhaps, we can have some compassion for ourselves as well.
Think about the analogy of a heart. It’s a muscle with an important job. Unhealthy lifestyles cause the heart to experience calcification. It literally gets harder as its muscle tissue turns to bone. So the hardness of the heart doesn’t lead to strength but makes the heart weaker. We think of hard and strong as a pair, just like weak and soft. When we seek with all our heart, it’s healthy and strengthened and we avoid dangerous hardening.
When Jeremiah wrote the letter to those in exile, encouraging them to seek God with all their heart, he wasn’t asking them to do something easy. To truly seek, we have to move away from skepticism. I think there is an inner skeptic in all of us. It is that voice that tells us to be cautious and careful not to trust where trust has not been earned. At times, it serves us well and helps us avoid those who mean to do us harm. I know my inner skeptic will always be with me. But to seek after something with all of your heart, you have to set aside your inner skeptic and embrace a posture of openness. I mentioned in an earlier chapter that we need to move from knowing to seeking. Most of us take a detour through skepticism with a posture of questioning that presumes there are no answers that can be trusted, even before any are suggested.
Skepticism is in the same genre of life as uncertainty, but it is the sad, snarky side of the spectrum. Moving away from skepticism doesn’t mean abandoning questions; it means genuinely wanting to know the answers. It doesn’t mean pretending you believe something that you are unsure of; it means choosing to commit to a process even though you are uncertain what the outcome will be. Cynicism is often perceived as a move away from the black-and-white nature of certainty, but in reality, it’s a form of false certainty. The cynic easily disregards certain situations, people, or worldviews because they have decided they know what is true and their judgment must be accurate. Moving away from skepticism and cynicism to become a curious seeker softens and strengthens your heart.
The apostle Paul, during the days where the church was still just beginning, spoke to a group of people who were not yet Jesus followers in the city of Athens, a city with many different gods. He walked out into an open area surrounded by idol statues made of stone and other adornments. And he said to all the people gathered there:
The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. For “in him we live and move and have our being.”[10]
Paul was speaking to the skeptic in all of them—the little voice that caused them to make one idol after another so that they could be sure they were covering their bases. Paul acknowledged their desire to be able to reach out and touch a god. These stone gods were static and unchanging. They weren’t active, so they wouldn’t move overnight while the people were sleeping, causing them to wake up asking, “Who moved my idol?!” Paul understood this, and so do I. I wish I could reach out and touch God physically.
But Paul said to these people, “God is more than stone! God gives you your very breath, God put you where you are, where you live, where you work, for a reason: so that you would seek God and find God, because God is not far from any one of us.”
God doesn’t change, but God does move. And we change and move, too.
Sometimes we reach out for God and don’t find God in the same place as before. We don’t connect with God like we used to.
But it’s a mistake to assume that this means that God is not near. It might mean you have expanded and changed, and when that happens to you, it changes all of your relationships, doesn’t it?
Paul says God wants people to “seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, he is not far from any one of us.”
This is a call to be active: to seek, to reach out, to find. Don’t stop looking until you touch something or see something that feels like it might be God. And when you feel the tips of your fingers brush against something holy, move toward it. Because even if you’re doubting, Jesus is not running from you but rather wants you to follow.
The following are some experiments you could try in order to “pass through” from skeptic to seeker.
Take out a journal or start a new document on your computer and write out every question and doubt that has been on your mind and heart. Next, take some time to meditate on the level of importance each question has to you in your life. Put an asterisk by three or four of the questions that seem most important to you.
Meditate on the following:
Find a conversation partner and talk through what you discovered in this experiment.
The Latin phrase visio divina means divine seeing, and it shares roots with the ancient practice of lectio divina, which means divine reading (this experiment will be offered in a future chapter). This experiment could work with many different images, but I’ve used Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son. Google the image, and then try to look at it with the highest resolution quality possible. This painting depicts the story Jesus tells a group of people who were often marginalized and judged (you can find it in Luke 15:11–32).[11]
As you gaze at the painting, meditate on the following:
Finally, spend a significant amount of time wondering about this question:
Find a conversation partner and talk through what you discovered in this experiment.
Take out a sheet of paper and draw a circle using dashed lines in the middle of the page, about the size of a large orange. Next, draw a circle outside the first circle that can reach to the edge of your sheet of paper; this line can be a solid line. Leaving plenty of space to write in each circle, label the inner circle dwelling and the outer circle seeking. Now get another sheet of paper and draw the exact same diagram.
Dwelling represents the truths in your life that feel settled and comforting. They represent where you feel at home in your mind and heart. The seeking outer circle represents the awakening anxieties, questions, doubts, and curiosity you are experiencing.
If you can, consider a time when you were experiencing less feelings of doubt or confusion than you do today. Write the year on the top of that page. Jot down bullet points in the inner circle that represent the dwelling areas of your life at that time and in the outer circle add bullet points that represent the seeking areas of your life at that time. Write the current year at the top of the other sheet of paper. Do the same exercise for how you feel about dwelling and seeking today.
After you have completed the exercise, meditate on these questions:
Find a conversation partner and talk through what you discovered in this experiment.