Doubt

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. - 2 Corinthians 10:4-5

I’m really excited to talk to you today about doubt, because other than the book, Get Out of Your Head, where I go into great detail with my 18 months of wrestling with doubt, I really haven’t dealt with the issue of doubt. I haven’t spoken directly to those of you who might be feeling doubt. I think the trials and tribulations of this year brought about a lot of things we don’t like to think about. We try not to think about death, we try not to think about deep things everyday, because we’re getting through our lives and taking care our business. But when that business goes away and things are more quiet and chaos is everywhere, we do tend to think more about life and death and God and Heaven.

I really believe this is something that is really relevant to this season. I don’t think Get Out Of Your Head has done so well in this season because of the doubt primarily. It’s because of the issue of our minds and the captivity that it can get in with toxic spirals. I think people love the book because it tells us we can stop and change our minds and not live in this toxic pattern. What the doubt story does for people, and if you haven’t read it, the story is for 18 months, I walked through an intense season of questioning my faith in the middle of the night, by myself, at 3am, every single night. That takes a toll on you and it bleeds into the day and eventually those doubts and questions of “is God real” and this fear of death grew in me. It lead to a lot of anxiety and apathy, because if it’s not all true, then what am I doing with my life? My life specifically - I’m preaching Jesus everywhere! That season costs me so much, and I realized on the other side of it that it was a spiritual war and I was under attack, but I did not see it in the middle of it.

The reason I wanted to address this in this season is recently a friend of Kate’s brought up some concerns that he had in his life about doubt. He knew I’d struggled with it, so we ended up talking a little bit about it. One thing I said to him is, “I’m sorry Christians don’t talk about this more. I’m sorry this isn’t a part of common conversations in the Church.” Because I really believe faith has doubt in it. There’s a relationship between faith and doubt. Because we never talk about it, we feel ashamed that we’re struggling with doubts. We think it’s not normal. We question whether we’re even a Christian. The reality is: doubt is going to be a part of our faith.

Tim Keller talks a ton about this. If you’re wrestling with this, the first thing I recommend is reading The Reason for God by Tim Keller. It’s a fantastic book that I read a long time ago, but it’s just the basic questions of faith that were so helpful to me. I love everything Tim Keller says and does. I listened to his podcast those 18 months. I actually played it in my car everyday. I felt like he was holding my faith in tact. I know it was God in the end, theologically I understand that, but in my mind, he was bringing truth in a calm, centered way with such intellect and insight. He was pastoring me everyday through this season. 

He talks about how doubt can make faith stronger. He says doubt is something every person should wrestle with so that their faith is secure and clear. I think of the verse, “work out your faith with fear and trembling.” There’s a little bit of, “is this true?” and questioning. I told Kate’s friend, “this is evidence of your faith.” This is evidence that you really love God and you want a sincere faith and not a faith that came from your family or your church. You want a faith that’s vibrant and real, and you’re fighting for that. But here’s my recommendations for you that are wrestling with doubt. 1. It’s normal - don’t freak out and 2. Realize it’s a spiritual war.

2 Corinthians 10, you’ve heard me talk about this a lot, because it really defined this season so well for me. It put words to what I was experiencing. It says we don’t war against the flesh, we war against the spirit, and there are divine weapons in the spiritual realms that God gives us that can destroy strongholds. We have divine weapons that destroy strongholds. This is the verse I haven’t talked a lot about, and it’s verse 5: we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. That is what the enemy was doing in my mind night after night. He was raising up arguments against God. So what does it say we’re supposed to do with that? We’re supposed to take every thought captive. In essence, we’re not supposed to feed it. We’re supposed to feed faith, not doubt. 

There’s a million ways in that 18 months that I was feeding doubt - I wasn’t bringing anyone into it, I wasn’t being honest with myself about how much doubt I was feeling, I was feeding it news that put fear in me, I was not watching my inputs, I was not in scripture the way I had been previously in my life - I was feeding doubt. I was also feeding faith. Praise God for Tim Keller! He was feeding my faith whenever I would get in my car. I also had church and accountability and small group, but largely day to day, I was feeding this cynical, “is this true? Is this real? Are you sure?” thought process. The intellect would say, “Jennie, you really should think about that!” That’s why I recommend reading The Reason for God, because everyone has to go through the intellectual decision of “is this possible?” Is it possible Jesus was the son of God and was raised from the face of the earth? We have to walk through the evidence of faith - you have to have that season. But I had already done that. I’ve walked through that. I went to seminary. I can intellectually espouse that faith, but even the demons do that! That’s not actually faith - intellectually thinking it’s true. It’s putting your hope in it. I believe that Jesus died for my sins. I believe that Jesus Christ is my Savior, and I want to follow him. That’s transforming faith versus intellectual ascent. 

If you’re struggling with intellectual ascent though, there are ways to work through that. But you have to do the work. You can’t just sit around and think you’re going to wake up and not have doubts about your faith. You’ve got to explore it and do the work of it. Assuming this is just an argument being lifted up in your head about God, not just some moment in time where you’re questioning everything you’ve always believed. But if you’re genuinely just thinking, “I don’t know! Does it fade to black when we die? Can’t all religions go to Heaven?” If you’re asking questions like that, there’s the intellectual piece of that, but there’s also the spiritual piece. I told Kate’s friend, “I think you’re fighting this on an intellectual level and a flesh level when this is a spiritual war.” But he was like, “but how do you fight a spiritual war when you’re doubting that spiritual war even exists?” I said, “you fight it like it’s all true.” So you pray, and if you can’t pray you ask people to pray for you. You put that truth in your mind and your life and you fight for it. There’s no other delight in the enemy’s life greater than stealing your faith. That’s his goal. He can’t steal your salvation if you put trusting faith in Jesus Christ. Your salvation is secure, because Jesus secures it. We are not left as orphans and there is a seal and a promise with the Holy Spirit in us that he will come back for us. Nothing can disrupt that. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. We are safe and our salvation is safe, but what happens in the erosion of your faith is you get apathetic, cynical, you’re not on mission, you’re not making a difference in people’s lives. Then you have to ask yourself if there was ever a true, saving faith if you sit in doubt long enough, which is also a really important question to ask.

So there’s the intellectual ascent and then there’s the spiritual war. So how do you fight the spiritual war when you’re not even sure it’s true? That’s where the Bible is everything, because there is this black and white document compiled over centuries by multiple that loved God and listened to him. It’s the very words of God inspired by God himself, every word. It’s a sword that pierces joint and marrow. If there’s ever a time where you need a sword that pierces joint and marrow, it’s during a season of doubt. You want something that’s going to come inside of you and cut out this thing that is tormenting you. When you have doubt, the reality is it’s so scary. I didn’t want to have doubt. I didn’t want to be questioning my faith. It was miserable. I felt like in Star Wars where there’s this dark hole, in the more recent Star Wars, where the Jedi girl is drawn to it. She doesn’t want to be, but she just is. That was what was happening to me. I was being pulled into this dark pit of despair and doubt that I hated and I wanted out. All that to say, there is a way out and God gives it.

What does the scripture say? In Ephesians 2 it says, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. All of us also lived among them at some time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and satisfying its desires. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath. But, because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions. By grace you have been saved. This is our hope. Not that we save ourselves. We were dead. We were in the dark. We couldn’t turn the lights on. We could not solve this problem. But God. Because of his great love for us made us alive in Christ. That is the thing you hold onto in the middle of the night. But God. God will hold me there, God will keep me there. Faith is a gift. It is a gift from God, and Ephesians 2:8 says that - it is not from yourself, but it is a gift from God. This is where we pray! If you’re struggling with doubt, you say, “God, help my unbelief! I need you to gift me faith. I need that gift Jennie is talking about. I need that gift you talk about in Ephesians. I need you to assure me of my salvation. I need you to assure me you are real.” You ask God for it. You don’t ask him for a feeling. You ask him for assurance, and he can give that. He is the giver of wisdom. He is the giver of faith. He is the giver of counsel. He is the giver of assurance. It is a supernatural war and you’re asking for a supernatural change. You’re asking for a supernatural gift to enter your life and mind and take out the darkness. It is possible. This is where fasting and praying and casting out all the stuff comes in. You can not doddle with doubt. You can not sit there and fester and grow and spin and toil. You have to kill it. You have to fight it. You don’t deny it, but you fight it. 

Here’s a quote from Tim Keller: “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 he or she has failed over the years to listen patiently to listen to his or her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection. Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts. Not only their own, but their friends and neighbors. It is no longer sufficient to hold beliefs just because you inherited them. Only if you struggle long and hard with objections of your faith, will you be able to provide the grounds for your beliefs to skeptics, including yourself, as plausible rather than ridiculous or offensive. Just as important for our current situation. Such a process will lead you, even after you come to a position of strong faith, to respect and understand those who doubt.” 

It’s so good! I needed to know it was okay. I needed to know that I wouldn’t be there forever and that it was just a season. This is what I did for my daughter who walked through season of doubt that was pretty significant. I told her we’re going to set a timeline on this. We’re going to do the work. For 6 months you can ask any questions, we’re going to read the books, and I want you to decide after 6 months whether you believe it’s true. Then you stand on that faith and you live with that faith as your foundation and you build on it. But if you just toy with doubt overtime, then it’s going to grow. You can’t just live in that state of wondering if it’s true. At some point, you’ve got to make a decision.” That’s faith. To step out and build your life on something that is not certain. This is the definition of faith, Hebrews 1, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. In that whole season, I did not lose my faith. I never quit holding onto hope that it was true. I hoped for it. Also God was holding me in place, so I couldn’t have lost it. But faith is the substance of things hoped and the evidence of things not seen. The faith of others around me - Tim Keller, my small group, my church, my pastors, my friends, my husband, my kids - they were holding me in faith. I was borrowing it. I remember looking over constantly during that season at people who loved God and were spending their lives serving him. My friend who was serving on the mission field at the time - her faith was evidence of what I couldn’t see. People don’t do that unless they believe in God! Disciples don’t lay down their lives for something that wasn’t true. They saw his resurrected body firsthand. That doesn’t happen. This has to be true. I looked for the evidence of things unseen in people’s lives. I looked for people who had been changed. If you bank only on that, you’ll see all the hypocrites. You’ll see all the people that mess up and their evidence is not strong. It’s pretend or religious. That’s their business with God. But look a little bit further than the hypocrite down the street. Look at missionaries around the world. Read biographies. There are so many people that have shaped my faith because they lived in such a way that they could go through that, Corrie Ten Boom, there’s no way you can go through what she went through and come out the other side with joy and hope apart from a real savior that issues that. Borrow from other people’s faith as your in this, and be honest about it. Tell your people and process with your people. 

This week I get to talk to my friend Joni Eareckson Tada and you’ll see - it’s one of those stories. You hear it and you know God is real, because there’s no way someone can live 50+ years in a wheelchair as a quadriplegic with joy and happiness without a savior that is issuing that to her daily. Make sure to tune into that episode and hear her story!