Doubt in God

Doubt in God

Many times I’m in such a state of doubt about God, I feel like there is clearly something very wrong with me. Maybe I’m not smart enough. Maybe I’m a faker. Maybe I haven’t memorized enough bible verses. Maybe I need to go to church more often. Whatever it is, I’m doing something wrong. It’s all my fault. Sometimes I question myself for what I’m doing and hope God forgive me for doubt in Him.

However, there is no criticism when we doubts faith. Doubting one’s faith in God is a very tough place to be. Faith in God is what keeps it all together when we are facing one of life’s many challenges things. Sometimes things happen in my lives, it may be one big catastrophe or a line of smaller things that pile up and I start having a lot of doubts. So I feel my faith in God slipping away and it is unsettling, disorienting, and frightening. 

Doubt is a spiritual destructive force that tears you away from God, right? WRONG. There is a benefit of doubts.

I remember mentally sitting in the dark room alone then I felt a powerful supernatural force blasted thru. Ray of lights surrounded me and the light pulled me out from my world. I snapped back to reality. 

Doubts tears down the castle walls I built, God did this to force me on a journey. I go thru a period of doubt that has value to move me further on in the journey, even when I feel like I have left the path altogether. It felt like God is far away or absent when in fact doubt is a gift of God to move me to spiritual maturity. Doubt is not a sign of weakness but a sign of growth. 

Doubting God is painful and frightening because I think I’m leaving God behind, but I only leaving behind the idea of God I like to surround myself with-the small God, the God I control, the God who agrees with me. Doubt forces me to look at WHO I THINK GOD IS. He want me to die constantly. Doubt is experienced as distance from God. Doubt signals that I am in the process of dying to myself and to my ideas about God. 

Jesus says, “take up your cross and lose your life so you can find it” Paul talks about being crucified with Christ, “I no longer live, Christ lives in me”

When we are in doubt, we are in a period of transformation. I learn to don't run away from doubt. Don’t fight it. Don’t think of it as the enemy. Pass through it— patiently, honesty, and courageously. Welcome it as a gift which is hard to do if my entire universe is falling down around me. God is teaching me to trust him, not ourselves. It means to have all of us, not just the surface, going to church, volunteering part. Not just the part people see, but the part no one sees. 

I read about the experience of deep doubt is sometimes referred to as the “dark night of the soul.” The dark night is a sense of painful alienation and distance from God that causes distress, anxiety, discouragement, despair, and depression. This dark night is a special sign of God’s presence. Our false god is being stripped away, and we are left empty before God with none of the familiar ideas of God that we create to prop us up.

The dark night takes away the background noise we have created in our lives in order to prepare us to hear God’s voice later on in time, when God deems we are ready. The spirit of Christ is who sets us free. God is always in control of all things...moving through all these events to reveal the truth. 

Throughout my journey I tried to piece everything together and make sense of it all. When I can’t stop thinking about the person that hurt me, I can get obsessed. I need to check in with the Lord and pray. God is our salvation. He is in control not me. God’s will is always good.

I’m not afraid anymore of receiving healing. I’m open to hearing more teaching so I can grow in my faith and learn more of God's words. I have to give glory to God.