Why Struggling With Our Faith Is A Good Thing.
I’ve struggled with my faith since the day my Sunday school teacher told me that God is three in one (um…what?). That was the beginning of a never ending confusion about what exactly I believe.
It has caused me the greatest turmoil, and the deepest peace.
The enigma that is God is terrifying. We like to control things, know things, understand things, but this is one thing that we will never be able to grasp. We hate that. Some of us cannot live with that. So we line up all of our ducks in a row, dot all of our “i’s”, and still have no control.
I have spent most of my young life assuming that there are answers out there to my God questions and I am just missing them.
What if there are no answers?
What if there are no formulas?
What if faith is always a struggle?
And most importantly: What if that’s ok?
What we like to call “struggling with our faith” is a part of faith. It’s not this separate thing that we need to get past in order to have real faith. It is faith. it’s the most beautiful part of our faith.
Who needs to have a relationship with a God that makes total sense?
All of our questions and our unknowns only pull us closer to our creator.
Even questioning the very existence of God.
Yup, I totally just said that, so sue me.
God wants a real relationship with us. Like a really real one. None of this fake stuff that we do so much with each other.
Even the hardest stuff.
A friend of mine told me the other day, “I want to believe in God, but I just have so many questions”. And so I told her, “there doesn’t need to be a ‘but’ in that sentence. Believing is having questions”.
Our questions won’t scare God, they won’t offend God, they won’t even make God hate us.
They may actually be the thing driving us straight into His arms.
Struggle with your faith friends. Ask all of the deepest, darkest questions. That’s the real faith.
I really appreciate your straight, pointed honesty. I have been wrestling around with my faith over the past couple of years — even to the point of abandoning it some times — always with the assumption that I would come to some conclusion and stop wrestling. I no longer believe that I will but I no longer feel I need to either.
I really appreciate your straight, pointed honesty. I have been wrestling around with my faith over the past couple of years — even to the point of abandoning it some times — always with the assumption that I would come to some conclusion and stop wrestling. I no longer believe that I will but I no longer feel I need to either.
Thanks Gray! I think that we put a lot of pressure on our faith to make sense or come together in a tight little bow, but I have found that the richness of faith comes from the struggle. Good to hear you have come to some peace in this area.
Thanks Gray! I think that we put a lot of pressure on our faith to make sense or come together in a tight little bow, but I have found that the richness of faith comes from the struggle. Good to hear you have come to some peace in this area.
Love your honesty and your writing style. Keep at it.