Doubt is the shadow cast by faith.
—Hans Küng
“Let go and let God” may top the list of the most cringeworthy Christian clichés. And yet, I know that it points to something true. The more control I try to take of everything around me, the more out of control I feel. I wish the cliché “God helps those who help themselves” was more accurate. I’d rather be able to work harder and smarter and get the results I’m hoping for. While this may work in areas of sales or profit margins, it is just not going to get you anywhere when it comes to spirituality.
Jesus says to his followers, “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” A little more poetic than “let go and let God,” but I think that is what he is saying. We are the people who made it into a meme or a Hallmark card. He also expresses numerous times throughout the Scriptures that worrying about your life or trying to gain the whole world or seeking after all the things you think you need in life isn’t going to do anything but lead you to “forfeit your own soul.” We forfeit our own soul when we strive after things that will never give us what we desire or hope for. Running after answers or certainty will not give us the deep faith we’re actually looking for. Doubt can cast a dark shadow over our lives, but I know we can live beyond the shadow of doubt.
It is possible to actively seek and follow our curiosity without being someone who is striving. When we notice ourselves striving, we are being motivated by a desire for control rather than following our curiosity. Notice within yourself when your anxiety is rising because what you are actually seeking is control. Stop and engage the curiosity in your heart; don’t let it be drowned out by fear and anxiety. When you are in hot pursuit of control, it will feel like you are under a dark cloud of doubt casting an ominous shadow. When you are stepping into curiosity and wonder, you will see the sun peeking through the clouds, shedding light on what you are discovering. Warning: the shadow of doubt can be relentless; it takes intentionality to release control and surrender.
Sometimes, when I am feeling a need for control, which is very common for someone with my personality type, I actually find a place to sit or even lie down and I do a short body prayer. I ball my fists up like I am holding tightly onto something and I imagine all the things, people, situations that I wish I could control. Slowly I pray and ask God to help me let go and release the things I desire to control. (The Serenity Prayer can be helpful for this.) In some instances, I release just one finger at a time because I really don’t want to surrender. But by the time I get to the point where my hands are open, what I realize is that I am now in a posture to receive.
Before, my hands were full and there was no way I could receive from God, or anyone else for that matter. In my open-hands moments, I have the ability to receive grace, compassion, or mercy from God—or even from myself (I have trouble giving myself compassion even when I desperately need it). I also have my hands open to hold on to curiosity—to let wonder lead me to places in my mind and heart where I don’t feel the need to take back control.
When you are in the midst of doubt and questioning, you may need to do a surrender body prayer every few hours. I’ve been there, and I am sure I will be again. In the wilderness, we feel vulnerable, and we are tempted to try to take control. Think back to the story of the people of God wandering in the wilderness. God gave them what they needed, like manna and quail for food every day. But they wanted to take more than they needed each day and store it up in their tents even though they were instructed not to. Their attempts at control just led to rotting food and maggots all up in their tents. Let’s be honest: we all have some rotting, nasty, maggot aspects of life that have come from our desire for control. Yikes!
Of course, it takes effort to seek and discover, to follow your curiosity and passion. Just recognize that surrender is necessary if you want to have open hands to receive what you will find along the way. Surrender isn’t standing still and not moving, it’s letting God be the one to lead the way. This is what can help us move out from under the shadow that doubt so easily casts in our life.
I got married a bit later in life than many in my community. Living nearly thirty-five years without a significant other helped me realize that I didn’t need someone else to validate my role as part of the kingdom of God and my faith community. The pressure of the dominant culture toward marriage and having kids leads many single people to feel less than worthy in Christian community. As I formed intentional relationships with people in my community, long before I met my husband, I learned that covenant commitment is not only reserved for marriage but that I could make commitments to others when I experienced God leading me to do so. So in addition to my commitment to my husband, I have a covenant commitment with a group of women. We commit to always support each other as a group of friends that we believe God brought together.
In each of these commitments and promises, I thought I was signing up for more certainty. I can be certain that these women will be there for me because we have committed to each other. I can be certain that I will be married to my husband till death do us part. Of course, I know that people sometimes break their promises, and I can’t be so proud as to assume I might never break a promise, either. But I trust in the promises I’ve made to and with these important people in my life. Even still, I’ve learned that by making these commitments, I have actually signed up for more uncertainty!
Not only do I have the uncertainty of my own life, but now I have taken on the uncertainty of others. The pain of loss, the confusion of calling, the disappointment and the bewilderment of being hurt by others. When they feel it, I feel it. But I also get to experience a depth of joy that I would never have in my life if it weren’t for the commitment I have made to these dear people.
Through joys and sorrows and everything in between, the only constant is more uncertainty. When my husband has a setback, it’s our setback. When my husband has a success it’s our success. And vice versa. It’s not that we have lost sight of the fact that we are two different people, but this is what it means for two to become one. In fact, when we were writing our wedding vows, my husband insisted that we include the line, “I give myself to you in faith and in doubt, in times of clarity and uncertainty.” Commitment doesn’t remove uncertainty; it brings more questions into your life.
The same holds true in my commitment to following Jesus. When Jesus says that there is a “new covenant in his blood,”[1] he is telling us that he has done what is necessary for us to have a commitment, a covenant, a promise that we can hold on to. In Jesus’s time, people often solidified commitments with a “blood promise,” or “cut a covenant.”[2] People would kill an animal, separate the two sides of the animal, and ceremoniously walk through the severed animal. It was a way of saying “we can’t go back,” just like the blood of the animal can’t be put back in its body. Jesus, of course, had his blood shed as the final blood promise between God and humanity. No future animals needed to be harmed or injured in this process!
So many of us feel that we have to be absolutely certain before we enter into a blood promise with Jesus. It makes sense! Any wise person would tell you to know what you are getting into when you sign a contract. A lot of headaches have come from failing to read the fine print. Curiosity in our pursuit of Jesus is a vital process—no question. However, saying yes to this commitment is not going to give you greater certainty but increase the uncertainty.
I believe that a commitment to Jesus means eternal life with God. John 3:16 was the first verse I memorized, just like all the other four-year-olds in my Sunday-school class. I take great comfort knowing God redeems even me and the broken world we live in. My faith gives me a sense of security in certain ways, for sure. That is what it means to me that Jesus is my Savior. However, the commitment to follow Jesus means that he is also my Lord, or more literally my leader. And it’s that leadership part that leads to the uncertainty. When Jesus is the leader of your life, it’s not about a list of moral rights and wrongs. I used to think that was true, but reality is much more complicated. Much more gray and less black and white.
Following Jesus is about actually being on his heels, asking some very different questions, and being willing to embrace the uncertainty that can come from the answers! When you agree to a covenant with God, through the blood of Jesus, you accept God’s leadership. This will cause you to care about things that you never cared about before. Things that break God’s heart will break yours. You will begin to see people the way God sees people. Just like the other covenants in my life, I take on the heart of God’s people in a way that I can’t escape now that I’ve made the commitment to be intertwined. I want to encourage you to commit to the person of Jesus and commit to the uncertainty that comes with following him. Take your time, and don’t fake it. But don’t wait until you have reached all the certainty you desire, because if you wait till then you’ll never make the commitment. This kind of commitment is a scary proposition, but I promise you that it leads to a better way to live.
Imagine you have fallen in love with someone everyone in your life has come to love as well. You decide to commit to marriage, but it dawns on you, you only really know so much about who they are. What if they change? What if there are things you don’t know that become important later? What if you got some things wrong about them? It’s enough to give you cold feet and send you running from the altar. But anyone in your life who sees that you truly love your betrothed and knows there are no red flags would beg you not to run. That’s because they know the damage it would do to your heart to live your life without the one you love by your side. As you walk down that aisle, you can’t possibly know everything you need to know. Is there any way to know how you and your partner will change over the years? Nope. Do you have a perfect handbook on how to be a good partner to this specific person? Not really. Is it risky to commit to another being? Oh yeah. Will there be a whole new level of uncertainty that this relationship brings into your life? Yes. Is it worth it? I would say so.
You might choose any number of daily questions to guide your life: “What makes you happy?” or “What is most life giving?” or “What will bring me the most meaning?” or even “What is the most selfless way I can live for others today?” All those questions sound good to me, but I urge you to ask yourself these two questions each day: “What is God doing around me?” and “How will I respond?”
Curiosity should lead us to acknowledge that God is moving around us and is active in our world today. A naturally curious person would wonder, “What is this God up to?” The answer to that question is usually not written on a wall or spoken through a bush. Moving beyond our cynicism to wonder what God is doing around us will take intentionality. It is absolutely worth the risk to open our eyes and hearts to the movement of God.
Asking these daily grounding questions about God’s activity has opened my life in incredible ways. When I pay attention, I am led into further questions and even to make huge changes in my lifestyle: to stop on the road and pick up strangers or to write this book! These two questions guide my curiosity. If you were to ask, “God, what are you saying to me?” I wonder how God may lead you and how it might impact your life. Sometimes I ask that question and go days without gaining any clarity or awareness. Other seasons, it feels like God is doing so much around me. This is just the normal rhythm of faith. Let your curiosity about God lead you in your life. You will have to take risks and bold courageous steps even when you are afraid. When you step into your daily life, living your questions actively, you will end up in places you never thought you’d be, but it’s an adventure worth taking!
What would Jesus do? This question became very popular because of a book and some bracelets in the nineties. But I think there is a better question when it comes to the doubts and questions we face in our lives: What would Jesus ask? Jesus is the question man, not the answer man. Throughout the Gospels we see Jesus ask many deep and thought-provoking questions. If the questions were important enough for Jesus, perhaps they are questions we should consider as well!
Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say I am?”[3] If Jesus is to be your true north in the midst of chaos, coming back to this question may be crucial. Jesus also asked a blind man who reached out to him, “What do you want me to do for you?”[4] Now, I’m sure Jesus already knew the answer to this question. But Jesus knew it was important for the man to speak what he truly wanted from Jesus. We often hold back from telling Jesus what we want him to do for us. If we know what we want, let’s tell him. Especially if it’s guidance through the wilderness!
Some others worth considering:
“Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”[5]
“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”[6]
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”[7]
“What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”[8]
“Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand?”[9]
“Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?”[10]
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”[11]
“For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves?”[12]
The questions we have about life, God, faith, the church, and the world aren’t going to all be answered. My encouragement to you is that asking these questions means you can stay curious! Starting with the questions Jesus asked can help reorient us when our list of questions is getting long and daunting. Engaging the questions Jesus asked in the midst of our own, we can further our curiosity and step out into deeper purpose and meaning.
Like many others, one of my favorite narratives is the Chronicles of Narnia. Author C. S. Lewis creates a fictional parallel universe, which four young siblings accidentally enter in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Within this world they encounter an allegorical God/Christ figure as a gentle, yet fierce lion named Aslan. During the siblings’ second adventure in Narnia, Prince Caspian, one of the main characters, Lucy, is on a journey with her siblings through the forest of Narnia. She believes she glimpses Aslan through the trees and tells everyone they must try to follow him. It has been so long since anyone has encountered the great lion that no one believes her. She reluctantly goes along with them, forgoing the chance to try to pursue Aslan, who she had come to love so deeply on their previous adventure in Narnia.
The group stops for the night and makes camp, and Lewis describes what happens next:
“Lucy woke out of the deepest sleep you can imagine, with the feeling that the voice she liked best in the world had been calling her name.”[13]
She begins to walk through the forest, trying to follow the sound of her name. She finally steps into a clearing, and there is Aslan sitting in the moonlight. She can’t contain herself, and she throws her arms around him in the sheer joy of seeing him tangibly before her.
“Welcome, child,” he said.
“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”[14]
The expansion that happens in our life causes us to grow. Contrary to what we, and Lucy, might think, it doesn’t cause our experience of God to shrink. It usually causes it to expand. We may experience wandering through the woods trying to find God in the midst of the wilderness. We may go a long while not hearing anything at all. But when something familiar seems to call your name, don’t let anyone or anything hold you back from following after its sound. When wonder moves us to follow what might be God, there are seasons where we come to a clearing and encounter Jesus in a way that seems different from our previous experience. And when we do, there is a good chance we will have grown. So when we come upon him, we will find him bigger than we ever had before.