When Faith Fails: 10 Days Of Finding God In The Shadow Of DoubtSýnishorn

The story of Jacob wrestling with God is a beautiful depiction of what deep faith looks like. Deep faith is an intimate, tenacious, all-of-life, sweaty, bloody, sometimes awkward, and always real encounter with God. Faith isn’t a choreographed script; it’s a wrestling mat. It means taking all of your fears, sins, insecurities, and doubts and going head-to-head with God. And yes, you’ll probably get bruised and lose your swag. But it’s better to be an authentic mess before God than a fake religious person.

Faith means going all in.

If you want deep faith, not just the faith of your parents, friends, or church, but a faith that changes you and makes you come alive, then there is no other way. . . .  In Galatians 6:16, Paul says that we are “the Israel of God.” In other words, because our spiritual heritage is full of people who wrestled with God, then we are called to be wrestlers too.

The only way that the Jacob in us can become Israel, the only way our faith can grow, is if we bring all of who we are to God. Everything. And that includes our doubts. Especially our doubts. . . .

Faith matures as it moves past the safe and predictable and into the dark, doubt-filled places. Faith refuses to reduce your dreams to the size of your fears. Faith doesn’t hide from questions but passionately struggles with them. . . .

Scripture isn’t the story of people who sluggishly tolerated doubt; it’s about people who ruthlessly battled their doubts. They burned for something more than just a cursory, vapid, two-dimensional faith. Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The authors and heroes of the Bible insisted that the unexamined faith is not worth believing.

And so, chapter after chapter, verse after verse, they boldly, passionately, and audaciously wrestled with their God. Their ragged voices yelled, “I won’t let you go until you bless me!” They knew it would be hard and harrowing, but it was worth every second.