on not believing

The doubts come often. Not just the questions, but the questioning. The questioning that doesn't seem to be satisfied with the answers of scholars and pastors and mentors and books and studies.

Sometimes the doubts come unexpectedly, like a passerby stopping by to say hello, making sure I remember his presence. Sometimes the doubts come overwhelmingly, like a hurricane wrecking havoc on my tightly held beliefs, my contented mind, my seemingly satisfiable answers leaving behind a trail of what ifs, and whose to says, and could I be wrong? Could so many be wrong? Sometimes the doubts make a home in my brain and sometimes they slip through for just a moment.

Nevertheless, the doubts come often.

I used to think this meant I couldn't possibly claim any sort of truth honestly. How could I stand on a foundation of faith that, for me, felt too often foundation-less? How could I claim a truth I felt unsure of? How could I sing beside those who believed the songs they sung? How could I count myself among the believing when so often I found it hard to believe?


I still think that way sometimes.


When I was nineteen years old I understood for the first time that I may never fully understand but that my understanding was not dependent on my security. For the first time I realized that Jesus was my foundation and that he offered to be my foundation, because my own faith just couldn't bare the weight of my own questioning. I found myself like the man in the Bible, believing but needing help for all my unbelief. And wondering if these two things could co-exist.

Derek Webb wrote:

i’ve said recently that my songs feel like my personal liturgy, things that i don’t necessarily or always believe but i show up to recite again and again in hopes of believing them. if i’m honest, most of the time i don’t believe the words in my songs. i have a hard time believing in a God that could make, let alone love a man who could do such things. so, i’ll go on reciting and adding to my liturgy in hopes of believing the words, because i wish to. more than ever, i wish to.

I don't always believe the way I want to believe. I want to believe with a certain, unshakeable, no questioning belief. I want to believe in a way that makes questioning seem foolish and doubts foreign. 

But it is in this not having the kind of belief I want that I have found Jesus. I have found him loving even me, who can't muster up the faith to believe in him so he tenderly gives me his own. Jesus, who took my unbelief on the cross, took my doubting and my lack of understanding and gave me his brilliant and beautiful and pure and sure belief. He has given me the faith I can't obtain.

So I stand beside those who believe the songs they are singing and I sing with an even louder voice than before all the things that I want to believe but find so hard to believe. I sing to him who loves me and keeps me all the same.