For All the Doubters Out There
Faith is Not a Feeling
I want to share something personal this morning because I know that, somewhere out there, a doubter is trudging through Christmas in terror or shame, laboring to hide their very un-Christmasy cloud of doubt. If every Christmas hymn seems a cold and unfamiliar story—and a rebuke to your secret doubt—this post is for you.
About ten years ago, I entered into the darkest, most terrifying and hellish experience of my life. I had been struggling with a rather depressing form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder during months of unwanted thoughts, and my days were already heavy from these violent assaults. My only relief had been a constant diet of books authored by Puritans, who seemed uniquely adept at exposing Satan’s endless array of frightening tactics.
Yet, the worst was to come: In the midst of this period, I woke up one day wondering if God even existed. Overnight, my “feelings” of faith had disappeared completely, my only remaining hope now hurled into the hellish abyss. I was friendless, alone; the Puritans were no longer my allies. On a sunny day, I remember looking at the clearest blue sky, horrified that I couldn’t enjoy it. When Christmas approached, the nativity scene and holly-jolly music stirred no “Christmas spirit,” but only guilt and fear.
Surely I couldn’t share this with anyone—I was a Christian mom of six young children; I was even one of those homeschooler moms! I dragged through sunless days of robotic mothering in my new, atheistic prison. Soon enough, that turned into a horrid sense of alienation—the inexplicable feeling that I’d been shut out forever from the happiness that others enjoyed, against my will, left alone at the hands of a cold universe. Everyone else continued on blissfully, never doubting that God existed, never doubting scripture, enjoying Christmas fun. I hid my doubts.
I also worried that my children would discover my devastating doubts and turn into atheists themselves. Every day that my faith didn’t rebound felt like another nail in the spiritual coffin; In my dejection, I felt like the spiritual outcast who would surely destroy my own family’s hope as well. Heaven disappeared from view, but hell was stubbornly close at hand, numbering me among the condemned. I was eager for faith to return, yet I couldn’t shake my doubts about whether its greatest object even existed.
That year, Christmas was joyless for me; I was miserable.
The best kind of plot twists take routine or unguarded moments to turn the entire story upside down. So it went for me; when all the tears, apologetics, agonizing and ruminating could not rescue my faith, a random little drawing did.
One of my children was studying the anatomy of the eyeball, and a printed diagram lay on our dining room table. As I walked by one morning, its ornate architecture caught my eye; the eyeball was actually a camera that projected an upside-down image to the back of my eye, and somehow the optic nerve shuttled the information to the brain, which knew the word for the image. Had I forgotten this staple of elementary science class? It was all too amazing to be an accident.
In that one moment, a little flame illuminated my prison. I remember this odd dining room scene like it was yesterday. In the ensuing days, my gloomy curtain began to lift. I cannot say it was an instant process, but the light was now on, and the familiar objects of my heart slowly came into focus again. I could enjoy the sun’s warmth, too; my universe was no longer a cold and faceless terror. The world glowed with the beautiful magic that had been hidden by atheistic despair.
What I want sad doubters to understand is not how wonderful eyeballs are (although you should check out a diagram sometime). The point here is that I didn’t “work” to regain faith; God himself hung onto me securely the entire time, even when his face was hidden from me. He kept his promises when I wasn’t even sure he existed.
He didn’t reject me or cast me off in my doubt. When I felt utterly helpless to still my quaking heart or convince my impenetrable mind, it didn’t matter—God was still keeping his promises. When we are faithless, miserable, and confused, he remains the same; and in his own mysterious timing, he turns on the light.
If you’re a doubter this Christmas, I have some news for you: You and your heaviest resistance cannot insulate you from the God who framed the universe. Your blank and depressed mind are no obstacle for him. He is not angry when you don’t feel “the Christmas spirit” or enjoy its hymns. He is not waiting for you to work up feelings of faith or get through a thick theology book. The faith that he requires, he supplies.
Faith is God’s work, and it has different looks. For a believer, faith is doing the next thing, even when your feelings scream of hopelessness and atheism. Faith is obeying God’s word, even when your emotions oppose it, or even if the Bible itself seems to be one, big unlikely story. Faith is waiting patiently in the darkness; faith is not a feeling.
Faith for a nonbeliever is turning from deeply ingrained lies about ourselves and God. It’s not a mindless trust in the universe or in manifesting positivity. It’s recognizing that without the work of Christ on your behalf, you and your best efforts are indeed hopeless. It’s letting go of substitute gods to embrace the only God who loves you—and who is also the only Way, Truth, and Life. Again, the good news is that God gives you this kind of faith; it isn’t something you must manufacture yourself. Ask for it, and you will receive it—the very best gift this Christmas.
Finally, a word from someone named James Hinton (and I don’t know much about him). It’s an old-fashioned and wordy little passage, but it’s worth your attention.
“Stand up, Oh heart! and yield not one inch of they rightful territory to the usurping intellect. Hold fast to God in spite of logic, and yet not quite blindly. Be not torn from thy grasp upon the skirts of His garments by any wrench of atheistic hypothesis that seeks only to hurl thee into utter darkness; but refuse not to let thy hands be gently unclasped by that loving and pious philosophy that seeks to draw thee from the feet of God only to place thee in His bosom. Trustfully, though tremblingly, let go the robe, and thou shalt rest upon the heart and clasp the very living soul of God.”
Take courage, doubters; God is for you.
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