“What would everyone say if they knew I was struggling with this?”
There was a time in my life when these questions passed through my mind pretty regularly. They started with what I believe were genuine concerns. Growing up in a family that was professionally involved with ministry and the Church, I had the opportunity to experience moments of true life and vibrancy but also some dark and ugly things too. My doubts began as they do for many others: “how can someone love Jesus so much and yet hurt me so deeply?” or “do we take this stance on this issue because the Church teaches it or because it’s politically and culturally convenient for us?”
Eventually, those questions raised other questions about the whole system. “Does our Church actually encourage us to think and act in these destructive ways?” or “can the Bible really be trusted on this issue?” By the grace of God and with the support of a healthy community, I found answers to these questions that were deeper than the shallow and surface level responses so many of us so often receive. All throughout the process, I still experienced a sense of shame that I wasn’t living my faith in the way that I was supposed to and also a sense of fear that if those around me really knew how I felt about these issues, I would lose their love.
Shame and fear seem to be, unfortunately, completely bound up with doubt in contemporary Christian life. While some communities might give freedom to wrestle with our perception of God and acceptance of the teachings of the Church, by and large our reflexive response is to view doubt as a bad thing.
Let’s be very clear on something - doubt in the Christian life is not a bad thing. In fact, I believe doubt is often an invitation from the Holy Spirit into a deeper spiritual maturity.
Take the Creation narrative as an example. When, as a child you first discover the wonderful and weird world of Eden, Adam, and Eve and their enemy the serpent, the best way for your brain to grapple with the objective truth of that story is to understand it through a hyperliteral and concrete frame. As you grow and mature in your faith, it becomes possible to “deconstruct” (in a sense) your previous understanding of the truth to make space for something more robust: namely that the Creation narrative can be understood as an allegory to examine the origins of the war between good and evil in the depths of the human heart.
In this sense, doubt does not render your previous beliefs untrue; it makes space for you to believe those same things in a way that is more true (and more complex) than what you held before.
So how do we make space for these doubts if our emotional responses are telling a different story or the community around us is unsupportive or judgemental in our struggles?
Of course, we should first bring our doubts to God. There is no one who will be more secure with your struggles than He will. God is not scandalized by your questioning. As long as we approach Him with sincerity and humility, He will not turn us away.
What do we do though, in those moments of dryness, when it seems that God isn’t responsive to our doubts? Again, we must persevere. There’s a beautiful story in the book of Genesis where Jacob, the founding father of the tribe of Israel, encounters the angel of the Lord who engages with him in conflict all through the night. As the conflict is prolonged, the angel injures Jacob’s hip and asks to be let go. Jacob refuses until he receives a blessing. The angel grants it to him and changes his name from Jacob to Israel, which means “he who wrestles with God.”
There is a beauty in this story for those of us who struggle with doubts as one who wrestles with God. Just like Jacob, we may be injured in our struggle but if we are willing to persevere through the dark night, we will receive God’s blessing. Bring your doubts to God over and over again, even if days turn into weeks turn into months turn into years. These struggles take time but our patience will be rewarded.
While doubt and deconstruction are not inherently bad in and of themselves, they can be blinding and difficult if we approach them alone. Without the clarity and wisdom of deep friendships, doubt can turn into a spiralling kind of despair. Sometimes our own thoughts cannot be trusted - we need to bring them to others. What do we do if we don’t have people around us to bring these struggles to, or if those around us are unwilling to support us as we wrestle with God?
Commit yourself to finding just one person you can be truly open and transparent with, ideally someone you can trust when it comes to matters of faith. If you don’t have anyone like this in your life, look for them, actively! Many times in the journey of doubt, it’s the wise and experienced most equipped to walk with us, rather than peers. Consider talking to your Parish priest or a member of a religious community if there’s one close to where you live.
You might also consider talking to older relatives who have walked the journey of faith for a long time. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, godparents - if you have any that are faithful they might have the patience to work through these struggles with you. Don’t neglect meeting to talk with the people you trust, even if that means scheduling a regular meetup to work through your doubts. It might also be good to ask them to pray with you. Through the wrestling, the mystical and spiritual dimensions of our faith are also in play and we need both the power of the Holy Spirit and protection from evil. The goal is to find someone who can wrestle with you, not someone who rushes to give advice and answers. It might be hard to find that person but it’s worth putting the effort into seeking them out.
Our hearts and our relationships are complicated, especially when it comes to faith. Allowing ourselves to wrestle with our doubts from a healthy place in both of these areas will help us turn our struggles into sources of joy in the long run, rather than something to fear or be ashamed of.