Sometimes, it can be really hard not to doubt. It can be hard, as Christians, to really accept the promises of the Bible. Rather than trust all God says is true, it can be easier to fall into cycles of doubt, questions and confusion. We find it easy to challenge his promises or believe they are only true for others and not for ourselves.
Too often we doubt because of life's circumstances. We forget the promises of an unchangeable God because of our ever-changing life circumstances. And we doubt a lot of things. We doubt we are as loved as God says we are. We doubt that we are royal sons and daughters of the King. We doubt that we will be delivered, that we will experience joy again, that we will find stability, that he will grant us peace, that he will work all things together for our good (Romans 8:28.)
And we don't just doubt the truths of God and the Bible, we doubt God himself.
When we experience the hard realities of life, the results of our sin or the damage of living in a sinful world, we turn to God in confusion, anger and frustration, wondering if he really is as good, sovereign and loving as the Bible says he is. We reach a place where we know the truths in our heads but our hearts just don't quite buy into them. We know he is good but we don't really know it.
So, regardless of the reason, what do we do when we are filled with doubt and unbelief about the promises of God and his character?
We wrestle.
We should never be stagnant when it comes to our unbelief. When we struggle to understand or trust something about God and our identities in him, we need to actively pursue his truth. God has given us the tools and means to seek him, seek his answers, seek his clarity. God wants us to wrestle with him for that is when our faith grows.
It's okay to have unbelief and doubt. We all do. We all struggle with different promises of God, different parts of his plans and his ways, and that is okay. God is God. We can't understand how he works and I think if we could, he wouldn't be as amazing as he is. We can never answer every question and we will never really reach that place of total understanding or belief in all he says, but we cannot be content with that. Just because we cannot comprehend all he is, that does not give us a reason to not pursue his truths and wrestle with those areas of doubt.
In the struggle to understand, our faith grows. We wrestle with God through praying, studying the scriptures, worshiping, fasting and building community. We wrestle with God by bringing our unbelief to him and struggling through it with him. We seek scripture to combat the lies of the world and the enemy. We talk through our questions and doubts with fellow brothers and sisters. We worship God's goodness through it all. We fast and pray fervently, pursuing a relationship with him and asking for more understanding, more truth, more him.
God's promises to us are too rich, too good, too transforming to be ignored or disbelieved. He has so much good in store for his children. He offers hope and peace in our times of struggle, wisdom and strength to treat others well and a grace and love too powerful to be rejected. In wrestling with our doubt, wrestling through those moments of questioning our identity and God's character, we grow in our faith, God reveals truth to us, and he fulfills his promise to put his law within us and write in on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33).
God is too good for us to be content with our unbelief. We can doubt and we can struggle but we cannot accept unbelief. We must actively fight it and let God take the truths in our minds and ingrain them on our hearts.
Don't rest in your unbelief. Wrestle with it.
