Hey guys.
My name is Abigail. For the past few months, I’ve been doubting. My doubts have grown so, that I’m not sure I can believe at this point. I’ve had people tell me to believe on Christ, and place my faith in Him. I don’t think I can, and let me explain.
Faith comes from Him. Ephesians say so, and I’m worried I don’t have that. I doubt so much, that I question even my own motives. “Do I truly want to believe?” Or even things that are obvious in my life, done by Him.
I sit under very sound teaching in a reformed church. I was involved in legalism before that, but God brought me to the truth. I know He did. Now, I even question the obvious things, and it scares the daylights out of me. The basics of the faith!
I’ve talked to so many people, and gotten so many different opinions. I’ve read so many books, I’ve prayed. I just don’t think I can believe, and I’m scared. I want to believe, but I even question that desire (which I know is God-given.) I’m so worried I’m an apostate, because I’m basically not believing what I know I’ve heard is true.
The Bible says even demons believe and shudder. I understand, intellectually, how well the Bible makes sense. I get it, I can talk apologetics all day long. It’s something deeper than that for me, and that’s what so frightening. I’m worried it’s a willful decision not to believe. As I said again, I believe in reformed theology. I know His word is true. It’s like I am disbelieving it, even though I don’t want to.
Please tell me there’s someone out there who can relate at all, who has gotten through something like this.
Several years ago, I had an experience much like yours. It was perhaps the most excruciating mental pain I have ever endured. As much as I wanted to believe in God, I felt like I didn't believe, even though I knew good apologetics arguments. I didn't feel certainty. I didn't feel I perceived him in life. I went into a mental breakdown. I began to question everything about our day-to-day experience and reason, and felt emptiness in everything. (Although I eventually realized there was no good reason to question our basic experiential and rational truths, and that I was presuming and using these very same truths to try to argue that they might not be real, which was only self-defeating and thus confirming their validity.) When I look back on this more than 7 years later, I realize that this experience was very "psychological" in nature, even though at the time I thought it was rational. It was based less on any real reason to doubt these things, and based more on emotional anxieties and insecurities that had gone out of control. My anxiety and my mental routine were causing these perceptions, and I was telling myself they were true, even though there was no reason to think so.
So I think it can be very helpful to keep in mind that even "questioning obvious things" can be very psychological in nature and may not be based on good reasons. If you feel your doubts are getting out of control, then seeking mental health treatment/counseling, as well as learning more about how the mind works, can be very useful. Which I have found in my own experience.
I also think, on reflection, that I did have some kind of belief in God because I was so driven towards him, even if I didn't "feel" the reality of His presence/existence in my cognitive state. So it's good to remember that our faith in God doesn't necessarily have to be a kind of cognitive awareness of His existence, it can just be a choice, a commitment to Him.
Also, I began to ask God to give me a spiritual experience of Him so that I would know He was there. I prayed this obsessively every day for nearly 12 months. Sometimes I felt so pained that I wanted to give up, but I never did because I knew how important this was. I told Him I would keep seeking to experience Him in my life so that I would believe, even if it took the rest of my life.
Some people have an experience of God in their lives, a kind of conscious sense that's just as real as their sense of, say, the physical world. After almost 12 months, I experienced this in a very direct way for the first time. I was praying in distress about how many lost people there were in the world, and for the first time I perceived God's presence. It was like He was visiting and communicating to me on a conscious level, though not using our language, but just on a very direct level that wasn't differentiated into "words". I knew it was Him, the same way I can instantly recognize the existence of anyone I see in person. And He was giving me reassurance that He was there, and that He would bring about everything in the world, in life, and for mankind, for the best.
I didn't always experience Him in that same direct, "loud" way again, but I've generally always sensed, even if on a softer and less conscious level, His presence in my life. The only time I felt like I was "losing contact" with Him again was when I had developed a very bad bronchitis around New Years '16/'17, that was causing me panic attacks and deep depression every day, and I started obsessing on little things I didn't feel certain about. I was worried I was starting to awaken to problems I was ignoring. But after the illness passed, my mind went back to normal again.
But this made me realize more so how psychological and brain-oriented unbelief/doubt can be. It may not be a reflection of reality. And I continued to research into any doubts that sprung up during that illness and settle my understanding of them, and I feel a lot more comfortable with then now. In fact, these days, I find God's existence more obvious than ever. I find that His non-existence is less and less realistic and reasonable, the more I understand Him, and the more my questions come together into a cohesive understanding. There was a time, in 2011, when I felt like I would never be able to believe, no matter how much I tried. But in the present, the reality of God seems so much more obvious to me now.
It's just something that takes a long time to develop, and wrestling with your doubts and questions will be apart of that development. But also understanding how your mind works and why you think things the way you do will also be apart of that.
I also had one more experience when God communicated to be in a very direct, blatant way. He suddenly warned me one day while I was walking outside about the darkness of a friend of mine. The next time I tried to contact this friend just to say hello, she was extremely spite and vindictive towards me in a way I would have never expected from her, and she has not changed in that in over 2 years. We had had some arguments before regarding difficulties in our interactions, but she always seemed to strive to be reasonable and civil, at worst just avoiding of issues. There was no reason at all to think she abruptly would change the way she did into an antagonistic way, that didn't seem in her character. It would have shocked me if God had not warned me beforehand.
Also, given that you are so concerned about believing, that strikes me as a very good sign that you are on the right path, even if you feel doubts and disbelief. Ultimately, it's about your choice to commit to God, even if you don't feel like you are consciously aware of His reality.
I've also heard of many accounts of people who wandered away from the truth, but came back to it later in life (sometimes much later). This is possibility is even acknowledged in the New Testament, as I recently noticed mentioned in James 5: 19 - 20.
If you are wanting more of a direct experience of God, then I would just pray on this and have patience. Sometimes, it can take a long time before God chooses to give one an experience of Him. But I believe He will give you one eventually.
