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I Love God... But What Do I Do With My Doubts?
141 Plays2 months ago
Today’s episode is a conversation with three of our regular podcast hosts, Rach, Britt, and Bec. The After Dinner Mint is a podcast of Stories I'd Tell You at Dinner. We bring Christian women in Western Australia together through honest stories.
In today's episode, we explore:
- How we came to faith
- The doubts we experienced in the Christian life
- What made doubts harder to process
- What helped us process doubts
- The surprising role of Christian community.
You can check out our show notes here.
If you enjoyed the honest storytelling in today's episode, sign up for free encouragement in your inbox on Wednesdays from local Christian women. One week you get essays and poetry, the next week you get a podcast episode.
Music: Come Back by Ketsa. Licensed under a Creative Commons License Non-Commercial, No-Derivatives 4.0 International License.
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Transcript
Introduction & Guest Introduction
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to the After Dinner Mint, the podcast for Stories I'd Tell You at Dinner. We're Christian women in Western Australia sharing honest stories with other women. I'm your host, Bec. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to our newsletter for honest stories in your inbox on Wednesdays from local Christian women.
00:00:19
Speaker
On the podcast today, i have Rach Steadman and Britt. Hi guys. Hi. So as we all get to know each other, maybe
Rach's Faith Journey
00:00:29
Speaker
Rach, could you start? Could you tell us how you became a Christian? i have lived in Perth my whole life and I grew up but with Christian parents and my two sisters.
00:00:40
Speaker
My mum and dad ah run a missionary organisation. They run Challenge Newspaper, which is an evangelistic newspaper. And so I grew up in the church, grew up going to youth group and all those things. So I think I became a Christian sort of by osmosis.
00:00:57
Speaker
yeah I don't have like a write the date in the Bible kind of thing, but it happened organically as part of me coming into my own knowledge of faith.
00:01:09
Speaker
I really love that. I really hope that for my kids. It's really beautiful. It has some pitfalls, but it's all right.
Britt's Faith Journey
00:01:18
Speaker
And Britt, how did you become a Christian? So i grew up in Perth as well in a family where my mum had always gone to church and my dad didn't.
00:01:29
Speaker
So as a child, I went to church fairly on and off. I'm from a pretty large family. So I think probably with the stresses of life, we just kind of stopped going as a family.
00:01:41
Speaker
But I did do my first confirmation by choice in Anglican church when I would have been year six-ish, like 11, 10 or 11 years old. So I did have exposure to the gospel, but I i wouldn't say I became a Christian until i was about 16.
00:01:58
Speaker
And that was because some of my friends in high school were going to youth group. they I didn't realise that they all were from Christian families and – I got jealous that they didn't invite me.
00:02:12
Speaker
So I invited myself, which, you I guess that's a good way to deal with you jealousy. Anyway, I went along. I went for a year to church and listened and I really was like grappling with what they were talking about. And I just remember several sermons that made me really think and I'd go home kind of trying to work out what I thought, what did i think about Christianity, was it real, was it too good to be true.
00:02:36
Speaker
And then I kind of had this moment on a school camp light This sounds so stupid, but I was alone in the bush. I saw a kangaroo and got really frightened and ended up finding a friend of mine from school and she said, oh, I'm about to pray. Do you just want to pray together?
00:02:52
Speaker
And I said, oh, okay, sure. And then we prayed and I went home from camp and laid in my bed and was like, this cheese is Jesus true? Is not true? Do I believe in it? Do I not? And I kind of went back and forth for ages and then I ended up deciding if it It wasn't true. I'd probably have quite a good life being a part of a church community, but I didn't want to get to the end of my life and dismiss it and then realise it was true.
00:03:18
Speaker
I was kind of motivated by this concept of what would happen if I didn't invest in this? And then, yeah, just decided, okay, I'm going to become Christian. i believe in Jesus. And then that was kind of the start of it all.
00:03:31
Speaker
Then I started learning all this stuff. Like like I knew nothing. It's a very appropriate story for today's
Exploring Doubt and Faith
00:03:38
Speaker
topic. Yeah. I love Yeah. I love it.
00:03:44
Speaker
ah love it. It's like similar to mine, except mine doesn't have a kangaroo. yeah Oh, shame. I Why can't you be more Australian? I know. I really need a better testimony.
00:03:58
Speaker
But i yeah, my family didn't go to church. But I went to a Christian high school and I had a couple of friends and we were just really annoying. Relate. As you are when you're like 15, Yeah. Maybe when you're 35, guess.
00:04:17
Speaker
And we'd go talk to this teacher at school and we'd ask him questions, you know, like, if God is good, why is there suffering? And he just didn't give us pat answers. Like he would give us really thoughtful answers. And after a while I think he was like, well, don't you guys just like want to read the Bible together?
00:04:32
Speaker
And I was like, yeah. So he read the Gospel of Luke with us for about two years. Wow. And I remember, yeah, like the whole thing. And um remember leaving school and being like, I think this is real.
00:04:46
Speaker
I think I'm a Christian. I really had this thing where like, well, I guess Christians go to church So I guess that's what I'll do.
00:04:56
Speaker
But it was ah quite a culture shock. Like everyone is singing. I don't know why. I that.
00:05:06
Speaker
Yeah. So that's kind of, that's kind of how I started. So he's a real Christian because he picked the longest gospel to do with a bunch of 15 year olds. He could have gone with Mark.
00:05:18
Speaker
and I know but then I did Mark with like it took me two years to do Mark with some friends and I'm like I understand now it's hard it's so today's topic is doubt in the Christian life so before we jump into discussing specific doubt how would you define doubt for you I found this surprisingly hard to think of, to be honest.
00:05:44
Speaker
I know what doubt means, but for some reason I can't give you any explanation of what doubt means. Yeah, like it's just the vibe. Well, yeah, I probably wouldn't go that far. But maybe it's to do with rather than being a negative of doubt being something where you're being led astray or not believing, it's more to do with grappling with and considering something and trying to think deeply about it and make sense of Yeah, I guess the Gospels kind of compel us to respond in some way and change in some way.
00:06:16
Speaker
and so if we're not doing that grappling, questioning, doubting part, perhaps we're not really applying to our own lives.
00:06:26
Speaker
not like that. and When I saw that question, or like I could think of, exactly I know exactly how doubting something feels, but I couldn't really define it. But I think it means that uneasy, unrest feeling when you go, oh, what do I think about this situation?
00:06:41
Speaker
What I kept thinking of was that feeling of like that, not butterflies, but that, oh, I don't know. don't know what I think about this. if It's something then that you have held strongly and then you go, oh, maybe that's not what I thought. Yeah. Like the ground is shifting underneath you.
00:06:59
Speaker
You know, like the wise man built his house. let's Yeah. box are shifting beneath you and you're like oh hey is this right like that kind of yeah yeah because like I'm a total nerd I did look this up in the dictionary because I was like all I have is a vibe yeah someone has to yeah yeah and that's who I am I'm fine with that But doubt had two definitions. So one was to call in to question the truth of, to be uncertain or doubt about.
00:07:30
Speaker
And the second one was to lack confidence in, so more like a trust issue. like the Yeah, the other example was trust. I like that because one of them is like what actually is the truth of this and the other one, like I think this is the truth but I don't trust it.
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah.
Personal Doubts and Struggles
00:07:45
Speaker
Yeah. So that for me kind of dovetails nicely with what you guys are saying. Mm-hmm. a Yeah.
00:07:55
Speaker
So since you've become a Christian, what kinds of doubts have you experienced with your faith? um Maybe, Britt, you can go first. so No pressure. Yeah, no pressure.
00:08:06
Speaker
I'm trying to think. There's been definitely different periods of my life. I had a period where I lived overseas and I just didn't find a local church to be a part of a community in.
00:08:18
Speaker
And so for a year period I didn't really go to church at all. And I don't know that I really doubted God in that time, but I probably didn't really think about him or consider my faith that much. So that felt quite stark.
00:08:33
Speaker
I remember coming home and going to church again and it being a bit of a relief to be back into that pattern again. Like I just never worked out a way to do it. And looking back, I probably should persevered with what was difficult to engage with rather than I don't know, I think I tried to listen to sermons online. But when you're doing things by yourself, it's very hard to keep going.
00:08:57
Speaker
e and then another period that I definitely doubted was after the twins were born and I had three young kids and it was just, it was more to do with extreme levels of fatigue. It's not like I doubted that God was with me. It was just like I don't know that I had space for anything.
00:09:17
Speaker
Like to really think about my faith, to grapple with my faith. It's only now as my kids are getting older that I feel like I'm at a place where I can start engaging again and really have like mental capacity to do the work that needs be done. Like it felt in that period of fatigue and also grief because my dad died in that period too, it was like I needed the body to carry me, like the body of the church.
00:09:44
Speaker
And so literally all I could do was be like, I'm just going to go every week to my Bible study. I'll go every week to church. And that's what's going to have to be enough for this period to keep me along. So don't know if they're really specific doubts so much as just periods of feeling far away or less engaged with my faith.
00:10:03
Speaker
But I like that because you kind of, I mean, not that you that you had those experiences, but that they kind of, map on to you know you're not like a brain but you know what i mean you're a person in a body and so those things kind of map on to periods where you're yeah you're quite isolated or the physical parts of your life are that much that it makes it really hard to engage with the other stuff and yeah yeah definitely I think as well one thing that I still kind of do probably struggle with and actually I think I need to explore this and really think about it properly and I haven't done so yet is I heard a sermon.
00:10:48
Speaker
mate So my mum has also died. So like probably a couple of years after she died, I heard a sermon on the sovereignty of God and him being sovereign over everything that had happened. And I had a conversation after with someone who didn't know my mum had died and we had quite a terse back and forth about God being sovereign over everything, even bad things, and i just could not go there.
00:11:11
Speaker
Like I was just like, well, I believe God is sovereign, but is he sovereign over my mum dying? don't know. And I think I still probably haven't, although I've grappled with grief and have a strong sense of God in it with me, I don't think I've grappled with that piece of
Understanding Doubt's Role in Faith
00:11:27
Speaker
sovereignty. Like do I believe God is sovereign over everything that's happening on earth, even when it's painful for me, which I guess is that whole, like, question of evil thing that lots of people struggle with and can become a stumbling block to their faith.
00:11:42
Speaker
So it's not enough of a stumbling block that I don't want to be a Christian, but it's definitely something, like, I can't make sense of.
00:11:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. you And there's the bombshell. Yeah. No. No. And then it's that thing of how do i marry the the God that I, that you know, God the Father and his nature and then how do I marry that with what's happened and how do I do that without making God to be the something he isn't in my own head to feel the thing that i want to be true.
00:12:16
Speaker
yeah Without, yeah, without going, well, God owes me, like he owes me this or yeah he doesn't. But, you know, that like. Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:27
Speaker
And is it more that the doubt just reminds us that this is the deposit of what's to come, that the unrest we feel on earth is a good thing, is a gift to make us seek God rather than something to make us not see his goodness?
00:12:50
Speaker
It should. yeah Does it always? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, I think people struggle. Yeah. And I do wonder about people who never grapple with anything where you're like, does anything bother you or is anything weird about the Christian faith? And they're like, no, like nothing.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think I relate to that a lot in growing up in a very, well, not very conservative, considerably conservative and in the ninety s The nightties was a weird time for a lot of stuff.
00:13:20
Speaker
oh But I think it was encouraged to, just sort of general vibes at the time was that doubts were discouraged. So more, okay, well, that's just, we know where the Bible is true and we know that's true. So just like, and I don't know whether that was actually encouraged or whether that was just me pushing things away, but i was like, okay, well, I just know the Bible is true. And so I'll just put that aside. Anything that's like,
00:13:51
Speaker
and confronting people. or But then i told you guys about this quote, but I heard this quote from Tim Keller about doubts. He said that faith without without doubts is like a human body without antibodies in it.
00:14:05
Speaker
People blithely go through ah life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe what they do. They will find themselves defenceless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart sceptic.
00:14:19
Speaker
and I like that, you know, it when you think about the immune system and you go, things are introduced, small amounts, and then your your body works them out and it creates things to deal with that. And then when you face that again, you go, oh, I've got i've already got stuff because I've already worked through that. My body's already done something to deal with that, and which is a very, very good explanation of what apologetics is.
00:14:43
Speaker
is I have an answer to that because I've already worked through it. And now here is my answer because I've wrestled rather than moving, you know, just pushing it down or moving it away and going, no, no, no, that like me questioning that is questioning my salvation. So I need to just push that away because that is going to undermine yeah Yeah, like it's too scary to even go near that. So I'm just going to, I can't tolerate that, so I'm going to stay away from those topics because they're too scary what they might mean if I looked at them.
00:15:15
Speaker
Which I think at the core of that is, which i is a recurring theme in my life, is a misunderstanding of the nature of God in that he's big enough to deal with me doubting him. Like yeah I'm not special and my doubts are not too big for him.
00:15:34
Speaker
me wondering things about him and about Christianity and about this, like he is very much big enough and powerful enough to deal with me going, oh, I don't know, like am I elect? Am I predestined? Whatever, you know, any of those things you That's okay. he's He's like, that's fine. You can do that.
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, i find that encouraging where you're like God is actually big enough for us if i've got If I'm angry at God for something that's happened, like he's actually big enough for that.
00:16:06
Speaker
And not concerned that I'm going to rage forever.
Faith Crises and Assurance
00:16:11
Speaker
Like the Bible is actually full of examples of people doing that. And God is still good to them just despite that. Yeah.
00:16:18
Speaker
I was listening to a thing today about that and she specifically says about, which I confess is not one of my favourite books, but the book of Habakkuk. And at the beginning he's just like, what's going on? Like this is an awful place. It's very violent and you're not doing anything.
00:16:34
Speaker
are you doing? But like his his doubt and his like questioning of God is genuine and not he's not sceptical. He's just like, what what are you doing? And then God honours him with an answer.
00:16:48
Speaker
And he's like, no, no, all right. the I mean, it's not good, but, you know, Babylon's coming in all those things. Yeah, and I think we think that people in the Bible, you think of these things and all the stories you hear is Daniel and the lion's den and all these wonderful faithful people who, you know, all you ever hear is the best stories about them, even though there's so many examples of people that doubted consistently. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:18
Speaker
I love that. And I love like, yeah, you've got the Psalms and Job and all these people who doubt God to his face. like You know, God, do what you said that you're going to do. You're like, oh, he is big enough to tolerate that.
00:17:31
Speaker
like And I think my experience of doubt would have been a little while after being a Christian, being in the church, and I had convinced myself that actually like I had faked my way in there.
00:17:42
Speaker
I was like, I was like, Yeah, I think it's people gave me the hardcore, you know what i mean, like dead white guys, predestination, all this kind of stuff that I was reading.
00:17:55
Speaker
And I was like, oh, my goodness. I'm not, like, God's not called me. I'm not a lag. You know what i mean? I've just faked my way in here and I'm believing this stuff, but I'm not actually like, you know, i was just hearing this whisper, like, did God really say that you're saved? I was like, no.
00:18:12
Speaker
and No, I'm definitely not. No. And what really threw me off because I was like, i thought that Christians, like, wouldn't want to have wouldn't want a sin at all if they were a Christian.
00:18:23
Speaker
And I was like, well, that's definitely not true, so i must not be I must not be a Christian. like Which is funny in hindsight, but in at the time, like you, I was like, oh, well, I can't ask anyone about this. I don't want them to know that I'm not really a Christian.
00:18:38
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, I think particularly growing up, and this is ah this is a thing that I've heard from a lot of different people who grew up in the church, but in the era, I mean, a lot of people still do it, but the era of the sinner's prayer and the Billy Graham and the, like, write this date in your Bible and that's when you became a Christian, whatever.
00:18:58
Speaker
I prayed the sinner's prayer almost compulsively to be like, i got to, like, like you know, got to get myself in the safety net continuously as ah as a child and as a teenager because it was like a magic spell, which is quite unbiblical.
00:19:17
Speaker
And I've talked to a lot of people who grew up in the church where it was presented like this thing that just cast the spell of you being saved, but then if you had any doubts, you could just use it as like an invitation over yourself to be like, okay, no, no, maybe I'm not saved, maybe I'm not saved, I'll just pray that special thing again.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, like an OCD safety behaviour. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. yeah I actually don't know when I stopped doing that. I don't know how I dealt with that in the long run. I don't know.
00:19:47
Speaker
Maybe I just, I don't know. Well, I mean, as a side, like almost as a sidestep, like was there anything that like wasn't helpful for you in the periods of time that you did have doubts about like
00:20:02
Speaker
in the worst periods of doubt rather than like when you didn't have doubts. But was there anything that wasn't helpful, like that didn't help, that kind of made things worse when you were grappling with doubt?
00:20:14
Speaker
I never had this experience, but I have had friends where they were they felt very dismissed when they tried to talk about their doubts. Yes.
00:20:25
Speaker
Yes. And I think sometimes, and I would have been guilty of this as well, is that doubts were seen as, like almost incriminating of like, what do you mean? What do you mean you like, you know, and you go, okay, well, I'll just, I'll just keep, just keep that in. That's that okay. That's fine. We don't, we don't, we won't, don't talk it.
00:20:45
Speaker
And I think, but but I also in reflecting, I think, think I doubt myself more than I doubted God. I think I doubt my salvation and am i doing the right thing? Am I, which, yeah, I think I know, i know god is good.
00:21:01
Speaker
But I think I'm more like, ah okay, well, I mean, but I know I'm not good. So, yeah. Processing this as we speak. This is probably not helpful.
00:21:16
Speaker
I was really similar in that I would be like, oh, like I know God is good, but like i'm I'm definitely not. So like I i can't be a Christian. And the things that then because I felt like, oh, no, I'm definitely not a Christian.
00:21:31
Speaker
I kind of was like didn't talk to anyone about it and didn't like bring up those doubts. And I felt like, again, maybe a bit dismissed where I was, but who knows, that could have also been me being like I didn't want to bring it up in the first place.
00:21:43
Speaker
But then it kind of meant that I was like, well, I'll just go off and do my own thing because I'm not really a Christian. Like, you know what i mean? That lie kind of made it a lot easier. But then like I went off into my own thing, but it just made me miserable.
00:21:56
Speaker
Like it kind of. leaning into that doubt and doing an isolation didn't actually take me anywhere good. Yes. Yeah. I think that there's a, I mean, you you may have heard it in a sermon at one point because it's a fairly common sermon analogy, but about...
Community's Role in Faith and Doubt
00:22:14
Speaker
there was a man and he stopped going to church and the the pastor came to visit him and he was sitting by his fire and the pastor took the one of the burning coals out of the fire and put it on the hearth.
00:22:28
Speaker
And it was this an example of you are this coal and you out of the fire, the fire of, well, fire is probably not a great analogy, but the fire of fellowship and being around other Christians with the Holy Spirit together, once you're separated from that, you can watch the your light dim and that the power of fellowship and being with other Christians even it as you were saying Brit like even when you're like I'm just hanging on even just that being in the presence of the Holy Spirit just by going to church with other people with the body can be enough to just hold you up for them
00:23:05
Speaker
And if you, if we separate ourselves from that and then go sit alone without doubts and then just keep ruminating and then go, okay, well, but just do what I want because I'm not a Christian anyway, because I'm not like, this is not working. So I'm just going to like isolate myself.
00:23:20
Speaker
it has the opposite effect to what we think. Yeah. it's a I like a visual, so it like I can picture that bit of coal just dimming and then it sits there cool when there's a whole fire of people together.
00:23:39
Speaker
I guess to your point around being in the fire with other people, I wonder if in some ways like God designs doubt for us to need one another. Because if you're not, if you don't have any doubt or nothing that you can't make sense of by yourself, you don't really need the body that much. Thinking about what you're saying, Rachel, about being in the fire and the heat from the other rocks, like needing to be together, it does just make me wonder if the purpose of doubt kind of in God's good design is that it causes us to need one another.
00:24:15
Speaker
So it's almost like we need to encourage doubt and we need to encourage grappling because i think the pattern I more see is that people might be struggling with doubt. They never articulate it to anyone because they're ashamed that they have that doubt.
00:24:32
Speaker
And then the next thing you know, they're just not really involved in church anymore and you don't really know why. yeah You've not had that journey with them where you've seen anything. You just see the byproduct, like you said, where you just kind of start doing your own thing.
00:24:45
Speaker
It's really easy to do your own thing when you're not in fellowship yeah with other people. Yeah. And I think those are the things that kind of were highlighted with yours as well. Like if you've got a period of suffering,
00:24:57
Speaker
like it does take intentionality to be like, I'm going to suffer but also in community. Yeah. Like ironically, I mean this is the next question, which was anything that did help me process. But, I mean, iron ironically for me, the thing that helped me process my doubts was going back to church, like getting into a Bible teaching church, actually looking like not reading all books about the Bible or people's opinions. Like what does the Bible actually say? Yeah. And just reading my Bible saying,
00:25:25
Speaker
and talking to people about it yeah i would agree i have a new habit where i'm reading the bible with a group a smaller group of women and literally we just text and say i read it this is my question this is what i think and i reckon it's been one of the most kind of edifying things I've done a long time. And I've still been going to church. I've still been reading Christian books at times, like all those things, but it's actually the act of reading the Bible that's been the most helpful for making me feel more rooted in what I actually believe and just getting that overarching narrative of these people in the Bible sometimes are so dumb.
00:26:08
Speaker
Yes. In the same way I'm done, they are done. Oh, I love, I love, every time I read the Israelites and people like I can't believe they did that. i was like, that's exactly what I would have done. Yeah, totally.
00:26:18
Speaker
I would do the same thing. Probably sooner. Like. More patience than Moses has been up there a long time. love a camel. Yeah.
00:26:30
Speaker
I love a camel. The Ninevites don't deserve this. No. Maybe they don't. Maybe they're really annoying. Yeah. Well, and then he but made a tree and had a worm and stuff anyway, so he wasn't psyched about it either.
00:26:42
Speaker
He did the right thing, but he he was still angry. Yeah, which I relate to. Oh, do you have any right to be angry? He's like, yes, I'm angry enough to die. i know. I love that. Yeah. Same.
00:26:55
Speaker
hey um Have you ever had anyone, I think you, well, you sort of said it before with that guy at school back, but like, have you ever talked to someone or like brought up a doubt and someone is just not aware worried about as in like in a good way they're just like oh yeah that's that's a great question let's talk about that and you go wow oh this is actually fine this this my doubt did not scare this person but particularly someone who you like someone who's older and further along in their spiritual journey and you ask them something and they're just not bothered by your doubt and you go oh
00:27:27
Speaker
And it's it's that thing, you know, that very like bringing something into the light takes away its power so quickly. Yeah. And keeping and then you go, it's, this is not that scary. I'm not special.
00:27:40
Speaker
the The church has been around for 2,000 years. People have been wrestling with things and it's okay. Because that's another thing I find very encouraging to go like, I know everyone in our current day, go oh, my gosh, it's the end times. It's done. with with yeah like You know what? And it might be. That's fine.
00:27:57
Speaker
But people have been saying that for 2,000 years and God has held the church. It's so like there's been a lot of crazy stuff happening and it's okay. Like the stuff isn't okay, but this this is not up to us.
00:28:10
Speaker
It's fine. Yeah. You're like you're not the first person ever to be like, did that? No. Like are we okay with that? Did that thing happen? You're like your doubts. I love that. Your doubts aren't No.
00:28:22
Speaker
There's nothing new under this plan. Yeah. That's quite arrogant to think that they are. Yeah, I know. That you would think you were smart enough to have a new doubt that no one else had ever thought of.
00:28:33
Speaker
Absolutely not. you have not. but any of you and that's where you're like come back to that community aspect of faith where it's like you should be discussing it because turns out maybe somebody else has actually grappled with it and read on it and thought about it and prayed about it in a way that you haven't had the opportunity and they can support you in that.
Resources and God's Support for Doubt Handling
00:28:53
Speaker
And, yeah, there's a shame in it. God is big enough for our doubts. It's not like he's offended. There are a lot of really, really good answers to, like, hard questions.
00:29:05
Speaker
And i I often feel vaguely, I mean, I have a bit of a prohibitive conscience anyway, I feel guilty for stuff shouldn't, but... Like I often am like I have so many resources. Like even 100 years ago there were Christians going, i don't know, and they couldn't Google something. They couldn't get a book from Flippin' Coorong.
00:29:24
Speaker
thing You know, like that we have all these resources to answer our questions and we still have doubts. so Yeah. You know, like what a new thing. But we do have the most the most amount of answers available to any other Christians before us.
00:29:40
Speaker
But so many of them, how do you know which ones are good ones? why that is Well, that's that's also true. It's the opposite problem where you're so many resources, you're like, I don't know. Yeah. What's a good resource? What's a bad resource?
00:29:53
Speaker
I also just get overwhelmed. Yeah. There's too many things I could look up or too many spaces in which I could go to look for answers that I don't go anywhere. And sometimes I kind of give up.
00:30:06
Speaker
I think i again, God is big enough for me to not want to wrestle with that doubt right now as well. Like sometimes you go, you know what, I actually can't, I can't do that one. can't, like, I don't know.
00:30:19
Speaker
And I might, I might never But like, you know, i often go back to the, it's repeated in the Old Testament over and over again, but you know, the, yeah ah The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love, and that's always true. Slow to anger.
00:30:37
Speaker
His fuse is very long. He can deal with my continuous doubt. He can deal with me not having the capacity to deal with that doubt today. That's okay. Yeah. I guess that's one thing that is helpful, like being both being reminded and reminding each other of the character of God and his goodness.
00:30:59
Speaker
And the more we kind of practice that, like what's that part Bible where it's like right around your neck and basically carry it with you because you actually need to be reminded and we have really short memories. We're like little goldfish.
00:31:11
Speaker
Like we can't remember or keep hold of who God is because he is bigger than brains. Yeah. Like we need to have that act of reminding. and we're allowed to really love that.
00:31:23
Speaker
Yeah, you've got to. Like God is what we don't know everything about God, but like what you know about him is sufficient. You're like, okay, i know his character.
00:31:35
Speaker
You know, he's he's big enough to hold me. I know that he is good. I know that he loves me. think Like isn't that so lovely? Like he's given us the church to kind of be like, okay, even if I do have all the the questions that I could Google and watch all of the YouTube videos on every evangelist, like actually, yeah,
00:31:53
Speaker
The church is still really good to be like, I'm going to ask an actual person, like you said, Rachel, who's not scared of my doubts, who's like, oh, yeah, I've thought that before. You know, let's pray about it and, you know, maybe this is a thing that I read or you could, like, spend time here. But, you know, they're not forcing you to just produce the right answers. You know what i mean? Like how tomatoes, like, ripen before they're ready.
00:32:15
Speaker
oh Yeah. I didn't know that. Oh, no, so them they spray them, I think. You know when you get those tomatoes that they look like a ripe tomato but they're not actually?
00:32:26
Speaker
Nice. Like they, yeah, they do it too, have tomatoes year-round. Well, and also we can also, like, ask God for help too because one of my One of my favourite, maybe my favourite verse in the Bible is, you know, I can't, I don't know which gospel it's in, one of them.
00:32:43
Speaker
You know, the guy whose son is demon-possessed and is trying to, keeps trying to throw himself in the fire and he asks if you can to Jesus, if you can, could you heal him? And Jesus says, why do you ask if I can?
00:32:56
Speaker
to know, all things are possible to those who have, who who believe. And the man says, i i believe, help me with my unbelief. And you're like, yeah he's not there yet, but he's like, I do, like, help, please.
00:33:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And then Jesus heals him. Like his faith was enough. it wasn't It wasn't complete, but it was enough. and it Yeah. but Yeah.
00:33:23
Speaker
I really love that. yeah I think it often is kind of the most simple or most boring thing like kids' church answers that actually make the difference.
00:33:34
Speaker
Like read your Bible, ask for help, be humble about the fact that you just cannot know everything and be aware of your limitations as a creaturely human being.
00:33:47
Speaker
Yeah. I mean ah can't think of a better summary than that, Britt. That's just solid. And then be the person that you didn't have with your with other with your children and with other people's doubts.
00:34:03
Speaker
be Yeah, true.
Addressing Children's Faith Questions
00:34:04
Speaker
the person who's not scared by other people's doubts. Yeah. Yeah. I think especially with children because I think my compulsion, if my kids start asking lots of questions, is that spirals in me, a worry that they won't yeah have a faith.
00:34:22
Speaker
Yep. Rather than... actually just trusting that God is bigger than me needing to control all the outcome I want. Yes. And me having an answer to their question as well because I don't know.
00:34:36
Speaker
A lot of the time I don't know. Oh, yeah, there'd be loads I don't know. Yeah. So much. So much. But I think... I think that's right. Like I had a woman say to me once, like, oh, you know, like we don't discuss the red herrings of Christianity in a Bible study. And I was like.
00:34:53
Speaker
What a terrible policy. I mean, granted, i had I had a lot of questions. but you were like, I throw the red herrings. What are you talking about? I love the red herrings. That was why I was here. Yeah.
00:35:07
Speaker
But I think it's that, yeah, just being gentle with other people's questions. You're like, yeah, and maybe we don't know, but let's like pray about that together. love that.
00:35:18
Speaker
Okay. Well, maybe let's wrap up there. I feel like with it's been really good answer. So we will see you guys next time. Bye.