#doubt tag

Hey there, anon! When you’ve been raised never to question God, the idea of questioning them can be kind of scary -- but hopefully you will find it to be freeing and empowering and enriching, too! 

Now, I think most Christians would ascribe to some sort of “who are we to question God?” type mindset, as you name. I think I probably do, insofar as that means I tend to understand God as omniscient; I do believe that God’s answers and God’s will are Right and Just, are Correct, and that I don’t really have any hope of “proving God wrong.” But even so, it’s not a failure of faith to question anyway! As this post will assert, questioning is a healthy and powerful part of faith. 

For in questioning God, in going on a journey of reflection and asking God what the heck is up, I will learn and grow -- I will discover what God’s will truly is, and just why it is Right and Just. And I will grow deeper in relationship with God on the way. 

___________

(Before expounding on all of that, I want to add that there may well be some Christians who do believe that God might could be proven wrong -- or at least that God is open to learning and changing God’s mind! Diversity of faith and interpretation is valuable and worthy of respect. 

After all, there are stories in scripture where God changes Hir mind -- Xe is convinced by Abraham not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if even just 10 righteous people live there; and by Moses to spare the people of Israel. 

And then there is one of my favorite stories from the life of Jesus, i.e. God Incarnate, where he seems to get schooled by a Canaanite or Syrophoenician woman. I’ve got a sermon on this very story and what it might mean about God’s relationship with us as one open to give-and-take, growth and change! 

If I’m not mistaken, a faith that makes room for the possibility of God changing God’s mind is more similar to most Jewish persons’ beliefs about God than a “God is always right. period.” type mentality. Anyway, back to the main point of this post!)

___________

Questioning God does not = a lack of faith. After all, countless faithful figures in scripture asked questions of God, from Moses to Habakkuk, from the psalmist to Jesus himself. See this post for examples!

In fact, many say that questioning God is actually evidence of a deep and vibrant faith. (Again, this idea is a Big Deal for our Jewish neighbors.) 

If you dare to question, if you spend time and energy pondering hard topics and you engage with God as you do so, that’s a sign that you care. That you want to know what is true about God, what is true about God’s will for us. You’re not willing to swallow lies or submit to easy answers. That’s powerful faith. As Rachel Held Evans puts it in her book Inspired,

“If I’ve learned anything from thirty-five years of doubt and belief, it’s that faith is not passive intellectual assent to a set of propositions. It’s a rough-and-tumble, no-holds-barred, all-night-long struggle, and sometimes you have to demand your blessing rather than wait around for it.”

___________

Now, saying all this stuff about faith probably requires a redefining of faith. If you’ve grown up being told that faith is as simple as believing in God, as not doubting God’s existence or God’s will, all of this stuff about faith being a struggle or a conversation with God or any of that doesn’t make much sense. So here are some quotes + places you can go to explore new meanings of just what faith is:

“The opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty -- because what need do the certain have for faith?” - Science Mike, The Liturgists. 

"The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns." - Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

It can also be helpful to understand faith not as an achievement, but as a gift -- not something we earn, but are given freely. See this post. 

The idea of faith being a journey with ups and downs, and doubt not being faith’s enemy but a healthy part of it, can be explored in this posts + the posts linked in that one.

I find Barbara Brown Taylor’s discussions of a full solar faith vs. a lunar faith in her book Learning to Walk in the Dark very helpful when discussing a relationship with God that allows us to bring Her all our questions and doubts and messy emotions. I described her idea of the perils of a full-solar faith in which we cannot question God and must act happy & thankful all the time in this older post.

____________

Okay. Let’s get to the part of asking questions of God that excites me the most -- using our questions as a way to enrich our relationships with God!

God longs for real, mutual relationships with us -- and that can’t happen if we are unquestioningly obedient, right? A relationship cannot be one-sided; it cannot be unbalanced; it must involve a willingness on both sides to hear the other out. It must allow for vulnerability, for confusion, for communication. 

In asking questions of God, we can grow in relationship with Them. And we will be following in a long tradition of good and faithful people who have done the same! 

Here’s a quote on how sharing our questions and frustrations with God can actually deepen our relationship with them:

"My favorite Quaker example of this willingness to confront God is a story told by a woman who was so frustrated with her life she began berating God. For nearly an hour, she told God how pissed off she was with Him. Finally, her anger subsided and she heard a “still, small voice” whisper to her: “Finally, we can have an honest relationship.”"

- Anthony Manousos

And another quote about how letting God in on our anger or frustration towards Them is an important part of being honest and connecting with Them:

“Is it ever acceptable to be angry at God? I would suggest that it is not only acceptable, it may be one of the hallmarks of a truly religious person. It puts honesty ahead of flattery.” - Harold S. Kushner

_____________

An additional reason we would want to question God is because sometimes, what we are really questioning is whether a certain thing we have been told is actually of God is or not. Often, when we question God what we’re really questioning is the ideas of God that have been fed to us by other human beings. 

For instance, if we have been told that the Bible holds nothing but God’s direct word and will, and then find passages that seem to promote harmful things like genocide or slavery, it is right and good and human to question whether such things are actually promoted by God! 

“Accepting the Bible’s war stories without objection threatened to erase my humanity. ‘We don’t become more spiritual by becoming less human,’ Eugene Peterson said. How could I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength while disengaging those very faculties every time I read the Bible?” - Rachel Held Evans, Inspired

Or if we’ve been told that LGBT relationships are not God’s will, but then we see such relationships bearing good fruit while the repression of an LGBT identity bears bad fruit, it’s sensible and good to question what God’s will in this matter really is.

"If same-sex relationships are really sinful, then why do they so often produce good fruit—loving families, open homes, self-sacrifice, commitment, faithfulness, joy? And if conservative Christians are really right in their response to same-sex relationships, then why does that response often produce bad fruit—secrets, shame, depression, loneliness, broken families, and fear?" - Rachel Held Evans

For more on this element of questioning God that is more about questioning scripture or certain church teachings / leaders, see my “Framework for Interpreting Scripture” page on my website. 

_________

I’ll close by commending to you my #wrestling God tag. There you will see many examples of faithful people asking God questions, bringing their difficult emotions and their doubts to God, and even getting snarky with God! For instance, a post with verses expressing anger or confusion towards God.

Finally, if you dive into what it means to ask questions of God, things might get overwhelming for a while -- some people find that taking these steps causes them to feel like everything they thought they know about God has changed. If that happens to you, I’ve got a post that aims to guide you through some steps to getting to know God again. 

You’re not faking mental illness. Trust us. You could be misdiagnosed, but all that means is that you’ve been using the wrong name for what’s going on with your brain.

If you’re self-diagnosed and it turns out you were wrong, it means your opinion was misinformed and no one can fault you for misunderstanding or not knowing everything. If you’re professionally diagnosed and it turns out your doctor was wrong, it means they made a mistake.

CW: abuse mention, psych ward mention, fear

Hey there, I’m so sorry for the delay in answering. For a short answer to your question -- yes. Yes, a thousand times yes, you will be and are accepted by God. 

I’m not saying that it’s “fine” or “good” to ignore God, but it is understandable after all the things you’ve been through. That you are still drawn to God despite the hate you’ve experienced by conservative Christians is an incredible thing! 

I can’t claim to know God, who is so vast while I am so finite, but I do know that ours is a God of compassion. Scripture shows us this fact about God over and over: from God seeing the enslaved woman Hagar abused and driven into the desert to starve and promising to protect her; to God seeing and feeling the suffering of the enslaved Hebrews in Egypt and bringing them out of that pain; to God the infinite Creator embracing finite human life in the form of Jesus and walking among us, truly experiencing what it is to be hungry and rejected and afraid and in pain alongside us.....God is a God of compassion.

God has so much compassion for you and what you have been through. It’s almost impossible to grasp that this infinite Being really gets what it is to feel doubts and distance and suffering that makes it hard for us to connect, but She does! 

Your faith, which isn’t so much about believing and behaving perfectly but rather about continuing to make the effort, is a gift from God. You can find yourself drifting and make your way back again and again, and always find God joyful and ready to embrace you. 

Hey there, dear. I’m sorry you’re going through this right now. I promise you, you will not go to hell for your doubts!! God knows us intimately, knows we are human and that our faith journeys involve forays into doubt. God even invites our doubts, invites us to wrestle with Them. Take your anxiety, your doubts, your questions to God! even if they’re messy, even if they’re angry, God wants you to bring them forward, so that God can help you through them. 

Check out my #doubt tag for reassurance that doubt is a natural part of faith. God is with us even when we don’t feel that Presence, and we can continue to be faithful in practice even when our minds and spirits are roiling with doubts. 

A song I like to listen to when I’m feeling overcome by doubt and anxiety is “Be Still and Know That I Am God.” It reminds me that whatever is going on inside or outside me, God is here, God is ultimately in control, and God loves me and will bring me to rest. The song comes from Psalm 46, if you prefer reading to listening; another psalm that helps me find rest and comfort is Psalm 131.

Hang in there, dear. You are safe, and loved, and you are protected by God – you do not need to fear hell.