My Spiritual Life: Doubt

Doubt becomes WONDER 

~ Audrey Assad

I’m besties with doubt, in my early thirties this unraveled me. I can clearly recall sitting at Harmon Park in Kearney wondering how I was going to have a meaningful conversation with the young woman I was preparing to meet.  How when when my faith felt so shaky, so unsure would I have anything of value to lend her? At the time we served in a church that was built around certainty. If we weren’t certain we didn’t do it. If we weren’t certain, we were doubting and if we were doubting, we were sinning.

So there I was swinging and crying and mad because I wasn’t certain of anything. I wasn’t certain God was good. I wasn’t certain he was faithful.  I wasn’t certain we wouldn’t get to the end and find out it was all a sham.  I had a choice to make, was I going to be real about my doubt or was I going to pretend to be certain. The choice was HARD! This wasn’t safe. This wasn’t easy. This could be the undoing of me. I was certain of one thing, judgement loomed just around the corner.

That night I sat in my living room across from this beautiful put-together young professional, who was everything I was not, and said, “I have to be real, I have some doubts.” Her response was relief that I, a pastor’s wife, would also doubt. That I, someone who was supposed to have it all together, would say through tears, “I don’t know, but can we figure it out together.”

But, like I said, I’m besties with doubt.  This wasn’t the first time I admitted doubt and it wouldn’t be the last. But it was the first time I let someone in on my secret. It was the first time I noticed words like “wonder” and “mystery” in scripture and began to make friends with doubt. I made it my bestie. Now, I want every doubt I have about Jesus, the Bible, and the church to lead me to wonder, that magical feeling of awe. When I question the way we handle different issues within the church, I want to link hands with doubt and wonder, not always the magical wonder but the wonder that leads to questions and doesn’t just accept answers, like, “because it’s the way we’ve always done it.” This wonder asks and digs and keeps asking.

Here is my promise to you, when you doubt, I will link hands with you and doubt. We will wonder together. Sometimes, we will stand in awe at the profound mystery we have stumbled upon and other times we will ask as many questions as we can.  We will become besties with doubt.