Doubts (03/30/2025)

Yesterday brought me blessings when I met up with a new friend for coffee and conversation. We discussed our faith journeys and marveled at the similarities. The conversation stirred my memories, and I recalled another formative conversation about doubts and faith.

I was much younger, in my thirties. My faith was growing, my love of the LORD was growing, but there were times when a question fermented into a doubt, and I didn’t know what to do with it, what to make of it. I went to my friend, an older woman, a widow, with grown children who grew a massive garden every year. I was always impressed by her faith and her practice of her faith. Often when I’d stop to visit, she’d invite me inside for a cup of coffee.

I remember asking her point blank during one of those impromptu coffees, “Do you ever have doubts?” She laughed and said, “Of course, I’m human.” So, I asked a second question, “What do you do with them?”

She looked at me closely. “This is really on your mind. It’s troubling you, I can see.” She paused and then she told me, “You can do two things. You can walk away, or you can see it for what it really is, God asking you to come closer because there’s more you need to understand.”

And suddenly I remembered my conversation with my father years earlier when I was doubting. And as he told me to look upon the crucifix and understand that “God takes care of good people” looks different than I imagined. And that day with my father, I felt Christ asking me, “Come closer.”

I’m a slow learner, I realized. Life lived with introspection can produce a great deal that demands to be dealt with in faith, with hope because of love. Thankfully, the LORD has intersected my journey with that of some very loving and wise people.

Over the years, through these life-building conversations with others, I have come to realize that doubt isn’t the opposite of faith – atheism is the opposite of faith – but doubt calls one to come closer, to look deeper, to open up more fully, to trust more wholly, to love more purely. Doubt is an alarm that tells us we have outgrown our current theology. When we were little, Jesus is my friend resonated. But as an adult, Jesus called me to a walk with Him that involved my own cross. I needed a more mature and more in-depth theology to deal with life as an adult. Life brings us multiple challenges that tell us it is time to go deeper, time to draw closer like when my grandson died or when I was struggling with cancer again.

As we journey, let us keep in mind that as we age, as we change, our understanding is often challenged. Let us turn to the only one who can really help us through these moments of doubts, our all-loving and ever-present LORD. When doubts arise, let us hear the invitation that is clearly there – “Come closer.”

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.