The Benefit of Doubt: How Confronting Your Deepest Questions Can Lead to a Richer Faithનમૂનો

What Do You Doubt?

It’s an important question because, until you get clarity about what you’re doubting, you’ll feel confused instead of getting answers that can satisfy you.

Are you asking ...

• Is there a God?
• Is Jesus who He said He is?
• Who is God? Is He really Jesus? Or Buddha? Or Allah?
• Does science contradict some things in the Bible?
• Does God really love me?
• Does faith in Jesus really change people?
• Why isn’t God answering my prayers?
• Why are there so many controversies among Christians about the Bible?
• Why does God allow so much pain and suffering in the world?

While you’re pondering what you doubt, you may also want to assess why you doubt. What’s lurking behind your doubt? Consider the why behind the what.Let’s look at some common dynamics that can be at the source.

Doubts may be driven by circumstances.

We may hate what’s happening and feel like there’s no way a good God would allow something so bad, which leads us to wonder if maybe there is no God or He’s just not as good as we were told.

Doubts may be driven by intellect.

I’ve found people are especially vulnerable to intellectually driven doubts if they don’t know why they believe what they believe. Then, one day, a friend poses a question, or a teacher belittles what they believe, and suddenly, there’s a fissure in their faith, and the foundation starts to falter.

Doubts may be driven by emotion.

We may realize our faith is built almost entirely on feelings. Perhaps a person had a euphoric experience when they came to Jesus. After being emotionally pumped for a bit, eventually, that spiritual high began to wear off. Now, panic sets in, and the questions come: Is my faith disappearing? What if I was never really a Christian in the first place?

Doubts may be driven by other people.

Maybe someone has been around some hypocritical Christians—a pastor who was loved and respected but then fell morally, or a dad who supposedly loved Jesus until an affair came out. So the person decides, “If that’s what Christians are like, then the whole thing must be a joke.”

Doubts may be driven by a relationship with an absent or abusive father.

If you look at the most famous atheists of all time, many of them had absent or abusive fathers, including Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Friedrich Nietzsche. I get it. I bet it’s easy to come to the conclusion, If this is what earthly fathers are like, I sure don’t want a heavenly father!

Doubts may be driven by personality.

Some people are just naturally more cynical or contrarian. That can make it more challenging to have faith or easier to rebel against a family or a culture founded on faith.

Doubts may be driven by decisions.

When Christians make deliberate decisions to sin and keep sinning, they’ll feel further and further from God. Why? Because sin separates us from God. Then this person is upset because God seems distant and may start to wonder, Where is God? Why don’t I feel His presence? Is He even real? But the issue is not with God. It’s with the choice to stubbornly cling to sin.

Did any of these resonate with you? The “why” behind the “what”?

Our doubts cannot be diffused until they are defined. If you don’t know what’s behind your doubt, you may never experience the benefit of your doubt.

So consider the question today: What is your doubt all about?