Can faith reside comfortably with doubt? I have grappled personally with this paradox, questioning my beliefs and the pressures of evangelical expectations. Today's episode will take you through my journey of embracing the uncertainty and finding peace in not having all the answers. We're going to redefine faith, not as a destination, but as an ongoing expedition, a continual exploration of life's greatest mysteries.
As we delve deeper into this journey, we'll be wrestling with doubt and faith, examining how they can coexist and even enhance our relationship with the divine. It's time to discard the burdens of omniscience, let go of the need for certainty and embrace the humility that comes from admitting we don't have all the answers. If you've ever wrestled with your faith, questioned your beliefs, or sought a greater understanding of your spiritual journey, this episode is a sanctuary for your thoughts and an invitation to a compassionate conversation. Let's find comfort in the uncertainty together.
Can faith reside comfortably with doubt? I have grappled personally with this paradox, questioning my beliefs and the pressures of evangelical expectations. Today's episode will take you through my journey of embracing the uncertainty and finding peace in not having all the answers. We're going to redefine faith, not as a destination, but as an ongoing expedition, a continual exploration of life's greatest mysteries.
As we delve deeper into this journey, we'll be wrestling with doubt and faith, examining how they can coexist and even enhance our relationship with the divine. It's time to discard the burdens of omniscience, let go of the need for certainty and embrace the humility that comes from admitting we don't have all the answers. If you've ever wrestled with your faith, questioned your beliefs, or sought a greater understanding of your spiritual journey, this episode is a sanctuary for your thoughts and an invitation to a compassionate conversation. Let's find comfort in the uncertainty together.
Real quick y'all. If you are able to, can you help me spread the word about rethinking Christianity? There are three things that you can do rate and review and share this podcast. It will only take a few seconds and it would mean the world to me and, more importantly, it could help somebody that may need it. It's a it's a weird place to be at because two or three years ago I can remember there being a lot of moments like where I would be thinking about like existential questions about God and the universe and life in general, and it would freak me out because I would. It would be like, oh my gosh, how do I, how do I live and have faith if I don't have answers these questions? Can I still have a faith even though I don't have answers to these questions? What's up y'all?
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of rethinking Christianity. It is going to be an episode that I have kind of thought about the last couple days. I haven't been doing as many interviews lately. The last episode I put out was a sermon that I did. Hope that was helpful. I don't know. You know some people that listen this podcast may not really want to hear sermons, because sermons are related to church and church is kind of iffy for you. So that's cool. If you you didn't want to listen to that, totally get it.
Speaker 1:This episode is going to be on doubt. So I'm on the app threads. It's this like new app with Instagram, which I kind of like it because it's it feels really anonymous because I'm threading I almost said tweeting but I'm threading from from the podcast page. I'm not having to like do it from a personal page, and so I'm able to just reply and respond to things, maybe in a way I wouldn't if it wasn't or if it was under my personal account. But anyways, I did a thread the other day that I had been thinking on and it's something I'm always thinking about and something that I'm kind of constantly wrestling with, because obviously, you know, that's why I do this podcast, but it's on the idea of doubt and certainty and where the tension between the two is right, and so this thread that I wrote out will kind of be what this podcast episode is kind of focused in.
Speaker 1:On the hardest part, this is what I wrote out the hardest part about my faith over the last few years has been reconciling that there are questions that I will never have answers to. So that's kind of the beginning spot. So that is where I met in a lot of places in my faith and a lot of places in my walking with God and with Jesus. It's a it's a weird place to be at because two or three years ago I can remember there being a lot of moments like where I would be thinking about like existential questions about God and the universe and life in general, and it would freak me out because I would. It would be like, oh my gosh, how do I, how do I live and have faith if I don't have answers, these questions? Can I still have a faith even though I don't have answers to these questions? And even the concepts of like belief in the like reality, of whether or not my faith system, which is a Christian, is it true, so like these questions, were things that I would wrestle with, like are these actually things that I will ever have answers to?
Speaker 1:And over time, as I have had, thankfully, really healthy conversations with people that have gone through the same stuff that I have, you know, they also those conversations have made me feel better and help me realize, you know, a lot of people are on this journey. A lot of people are wrestling with these questions and we all are just kind of doing our best at times to reconcile with that. And so for me, the last few years and part of it has been doing this podcast which has been really, really helpful is that I have been able to be okay with saying you know, I do not know, right, there is a lot of peace in that idea of I do not know, and then it really does kind of like allow yourself to separate yourself from you know, this idea of a God, right, that if there is a God that is controlling everything you know, obviously I wouldn't have answers to some of the questions that I have, and so it's like it creates this mystery about God that I struggle with and I wrestle with, because I'm kind of like sometimes, you know, the human in me wants to question why, why does God do it this way, or why does God do it that way, why wouldn't he do it like this or whatever? And so over the last couple of years, like I said, just reconciling, like that doubt and that need for certainty doesn't have to be there and that I can have faith is really really cool and I can just rest in that and stay in that. Now, that's not going to be like the case for everyone. There's going to be people that listen to this and they're like probably like well, good for you, I'm still dealing with these questions and I totally get that. But the next portion of this that I wrote out I said I used to believe that I needed certainty to have a strong Christian faith.
Speaker 1:Okay, so if you grew up in the evangelical world at all, you know I grew up I remember going to when I was like in middle school or fifth grade or something like that. I remember going to this like Ray Comfort and Kurt Cameron I think that's his name to do from left behind. I remember going to this like apologetic thing that they had going on in a church near where I lived and we went to this thing with my. I went with my parents and they were giving these presentations on how to share the truth of the gospel all the way down to like you know, the idea of like evolution is outside the realm of Christianity Like you can't believe that and be a Christian. So it was this very rigid thing and the the idea was street evangelism in some ways. But I remember like going to that, and I remember growing up apologetics being really a big deal, because it was this idea of we got to be ready to, like you know, share the truth or have the truth and know the truth. If we don't know the truth, and what do we have?
Speaker 1:And so for my Christian faith, as I lived my life, with their doubt being without coming into the picture, that's the opposite of what I grew up in, and so for me it made me really wrestle and struggle. The fact like, okay, well, can I even be a Christian and have all these doubts? Can I even like follow Jesus and follow God if I have questions sometimes or if I worry that it's not even true, sometimes, like those are like legit human things that people deal with, and I think in some ways I've been afraid to sometimes even talk about that and be open about that, even on this podcast sometimes. And the thing is is you can have those thoughts, their thoughts, you can have those questions, their questions, and you can still have a faith and have a Christian faith, and it's almost like it's kind of like well, obviously like a choosing faith in the midst of those doubts is a faith like you're staying faithful right. Everyone's kind of like, you're uncertain about it, and so this apologetic, needing truth type of Christianity that I grew up in I think a lot of evangelical people grew up especially if you grew up in the Bible Belt probably created this mindset of having to like, always have to have the truth right, always have to like, be certain. And hear me out, I'm not saying that those things aren't true. I'm just saying that it was this desire for truth and certainty that created such a like tension within me that when doubt arose and when doubt would come, and when I would read things in the Bible or come across a book and read it and it would cause me to question what I believed, I began to think like, oh man, I'm a bad Christian, right. So that was the second part of this thread.
Speaker 1:The next thing is this quote from Pete Inns and I've quoted Pete Inns before. I love the Bible for normal people. I think they have a podcast called the Faith for Normal People, but this quote comes from a book called the Sin of Certainty and it's this idea that essentially, like there can be it's in the title there can be sin and certainty, and this quote goes like this and this is what we can kind of, I guess, hope to get to when we reach the point where things simply make no sense, when our thinking about God in life no longer line up, when any sense of certainty is gone and when we can find no reason to trust God, but yet we still do. Well, that is what trust looks like at its brightest, when all else is dark. It's an interesting idea to like. When things are at its like bleakest, like you're not really feeling it and you can still have like a faith, right, we can find no reason to, but we choose to. That's when, like, trust looks the brightest, and I resonate with that as I think about it, and I resonate with that idea. I would encourage you to check that book out. It's a sin of certainty If I remember to, I'll put it in the show notes when I go and I edit this.
Speaker 1:But doubt is this thing that everyone deals with, and I don't, you know, I think that I think everyone deals with it. You know, I have, and I know a lot of other Christians that have, and I know a lot of Christians that, because of their doubts, they chose to like walk away completely, like okay, well, I can't. I don't think that has to be the case Now, if you want to. I'm not telling you what to do in your faith, but I think that there is a place for Christians that are wrestling with doubt and they are wrestling with like uncertainty that they can have a faith where they follow Jesus. I mentioned on an episode from a while back.
Speaker 1:There was this episode I did early on and I think it was titled Doubt as a Tool, and this idea is that doubt can be a tool that actually draws you deeper to relationship with God. I remember mentioning how, like in the Westminster Confession, they talk about how the God that's worshiped is this like God that can't be understood, this God that is indescribable, and the idea there, I think, is that if it is a God that can't really be understood, fully, like and it's indescribable, then of course you as a finite being would have doubts about this infinite God. Right and see, doubt is not like a sign of weakness and it doesn't diminish our faith. It serves, it can serve, as a catalyst for growth and it's an invitation to deepening our understanding of God and what he wants from us. Right, doubt is not the sign of weakness and doubt can be this catalyst for growth in our faith, when we recognize that it's there and we become okay with it. I think that's the starting place and doubt is the sign of weakness. Like for you as a listener, maybe you wrestle with doubt. Doubt can be a place where you grow.
Speaker 1:Before we continue on in this episode, I just wanna say thank you for tuning in. If this podcast has been helpful to you, I invite you to share it with somebody that maybe could find it helpful as well, and I also invite you to follow us on Instagram. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me. I usually respond if I'm able to See it. If I see it, I'll respond to it. Thank you so much again for tuning in to Rethinking Christianity.
Speaker 1:Let's continue on in the episode and the last portion of this, the last portion of this thread that I did I kinda mentioned how, for myself this is what I wrote for myself a big part of faith has not become about destination, but a continual journey to find contentment and the lack of answers that my faith is not about this destination, that I get to one day where I'm like this is it, I've got it, I have it, I know it and I'm certain of it and maybe I'll get to that point. I'm almost, I think, at a place where I have peace. It's a weird thing where it's like I have peace in the midst of this. And so in that piece I've done the wrestling, like I've done the struggling and I continue to struggle. But I've done a lot of the wrestling, I've done a lot of the struggling, and I come to a place where I'm okay with where I'm at and I wanna follow Jesus, I wanna embrace Jesus, I wanna look at Jesus from all these different lenses and it's like it's opened this door for me. It's opened doors for me to be able to like look at Jesus and the things that he says from this angle and look at Jesus and the things that he says from this angle and really lean into allowing what I'm able to draw out of that from each angle and allow that to shape my life and who I am and what I want to be. And so it's really like this beautiful thing that, as I've done this podcast and I've done these episodes and as I do these interviews, that I have found in some way some contentment where I'm at and I've learned it's not about this destination and sometimes the faith can feel like, okay, I've gotta get to this place and I'll have it all together, but I just feel like I don't have to be at a destination. But it's a continual journey to find contentment and the lack of answers. And I think that if you're hearing this and you resonate with that, I hope that this is helpful, that for you as a listener, that, as you maybe wrestle with doubt and you struggle with doubt and you don't know where to go, what I would say is let it take you where it takes you. That you don't have to go to a certain place, you don't have to get to a certain mindset. Like let it draw you towards a deeper faith, right. Like it allows us to grow, something that I think is really beautiful and anything that's worth doing is hard and anything that's worth allowing ourselves to go through at times can be hard and right.
Speaker 1:So like I think that the big thing that I think a lot of people probably struggle with in this is being able to talk about it, and I know that that is a whole nother conversation that I could do a whole nother podcast episode on, but you know, for those of you that have communities where you can talk about this or you have friends that you can trust. You know, some of the most like fruit-filling conversations I've had is with people that I can trust on these conversations, that when I go to them and when I talk to them about it, I know they're not going to like judge me. I know they're not going to think, oh well, he's just this crazy heretic now, like he doesn't know he's talking about. These are people I can go to and I can talk to, and so I would encourage you, if you have those people, talk to them. Or sometimes it takes courage to open the conversation, because I can't tell you how many times I have maybe brought up some of the things that I talk about on here to people and they're like, oh my gosh, I've been going through that same thing, I've been thinking about that as well, and so it's, I think, good for the biggest thing is it's good for us if you can have these conversations and community, and I think that the biggest thing is just embracing it. Just embracing it, embrace where you're at, embrace the questions, embracing doubt. It does not mean abandoning our beliefs. You don't have to abandon your beliefs. It strengthens our faith and it invites us to this deeper connection with God, this deeper connection with Jesus and this deeper connection with the divine. And, at the end of the day, you can have answers and miss the whole point of what it means to follow Jesus.
Speaker 1:And I think that for a lot of people, there is this kind of farcical way of living where there are those that have this bit of certainty about what it is they believe, but they use it as a burden that they place on people. Jesus talks about his way being light and it being easy, and that those who are burdened can come to him and find rest, and I think that there is something to be said about when we're in these places to simply center ourselves with Jesus. I know that sounds really like Christiany or whatever, but I do think that at the end of the day, there is this need, I think, for us to be open to it being all much bigger than us. The spirituality and faith is very, very deep, and that our certainty and our questions should not lead us to answers that we use as a way to burden others and to hold over others or to even burden ourselves with, but when we embrace doubt and uncertainty and we allow it to open us up and humble us to a place of being okay with it. I think that is where we begin to look at Jesus, as Jesus lived a life where there was this continual submission to God, the Father, and that he looked at God as submitting to that and looking at that as looking at that as an example of kind of how to maybe embrace some of these things. And it comes from a place of humility.
Speaker 1:And so, as I've been kind of talking through this, I hope that, like it is helpful for you to maybe think through your doubt from a different perspective and you know, as you walk through it or you, you know, crawl through it, wherever you're at going through these things that you can kind of find a bit of peace. For me personally, like I said, I'm kind of at a place where I have some peace, but I I don't think that that will always be the case. It kind of goes and comes in seasons and with each season I think that I just have to learn to wrestle with it and walk with it and journey with it, and I may find myself at a completely different place five years from now than where I'm at now, and you may do that as well. You know, I think that each of us have have to go through these things sometimes and I and I feel for you. You know, if you're going through this, trust me like I hear, I hear you, I know you're dealing with, I feel you. If you feel like there is no hope there, there's hope, it's okay.
Speaker 1:And a lot of times, you know, a reaction to uncertainty is what is the problem? Not our uncertainty, and I think that's because of, maybe, how we've been trained to like live out our beliefs and live out Christianity. And I don't want you to feel like that you are a bad Christian or that there's no hope or that it's the end of the world because you have a lot of questions and a lot of uncertainty. There's room for you, you know, in following Jesus. Jesus is a welcome of questions. God is a welcome of questions. God is welcoming of all people, where they're at, as their journey and as they're walking, as they're seeking, and that's the thing it is. It is a journey of seeking, not always finding, but seeking and looking and trying, and so what I want to do is I kind of want to close out the podcast with a few questions maybe you can think on. I hope that these are helpful. I hope that maybe this episode has been helpful.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I feel like I ramble this one. I had a little bit more of an outline, but I still sometimes ramble. But anyways, here's some questions to think on. How is this episode, as we've kind of been talking through this maybe challenge or reshape your understanding of doubt in the context of your Christian spirituality and faith? Maybe reflect on any personal experiences for you you know I mentioned like there are moments where I've laid in bed questioning reflect on any personal experiences where doubt has been a catalyst for growth or deeper connection with God. For me it has been. Maybe it could be for you. That's something to think on.
Speaker 1:Second question in what ways can you embrace doubt as a positive element in your faith journey? So that kind of goes back into like maybe it can be a catalyst. Is there a way to make it look as positive? Consider how questioning your beliefs and exploring different perspectives it might lead you to a more inclusive and compassionate spirituality. It can. It can help us not be so rigid sometimes, and Christians are really good at being rigid.
Speaker 1:The third question this one's really important how you support others that are like in doubt field journeys within your Christian community. Think about, maybe, ways that you can foster like an environment of understanding, empathy, open dialogue, where doubts are acknowledged and seen as an opportunity for spiritual growth. That is huge. That's the number one thing. That is a number one reason why I have this podcast and why I have the youtube channel and the stuff that I post on Instagram is so that people do not feel isolated in their journey. That it's okay. We I want this to be a community of people. They can have open conversation. So those are three questions that I think that are really helpful.
Speaker 1:I'll put these in the show notes. You can go and look at them if you want to use them. Hope that maybe it can be helpful to you. If you listen to this episode, share it with somebody that maybe is dealing with this. You know, I don't know how you found this podcast, but it may. If it's been helpful, there are others that need it. Right, and that's not to toot my own horn, that's just. We are all going through similar stuff and so share it with somebody and maybe y'all can have a conversation about it, right? I want to close out with this last quote. It's a quote by Rob Bell. It's a really good quote, especially what we've talked about.
Speaker 1:Take faith, for example. For many people in the world, the opposite of faith is doubt. The goal, then, within this understanding, is to eliminate doubt, to get rid of it. But faith and doubt are not opposites. Doubt is often a sign that your faith has a pulse, that it's alive and well, and Exploring and searching. Faith and doubt are not opposites. They are, it turns out, excellent dance partners. Thanks for tuning in to rethinking Christianity. This is Blake. See you next time. Thanks for listening to rethinking Christianity. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest from rethinking Christianity, you can follow us on Instagram at rethinking Christianity podcast, as well as on YouTube and Facebook. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time. You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you.