What Do You Doubt About Your Faith?
Q: What do you doubt about your faith/Christianity?
Life after death.
Feels funny saying that out loud, especially as a pastor. But, like everything else in life, there is nuance to the answer.
I wonder if “doubt” is the right word, or if “scares the crap out of me” might be better? What scares me is that I could be wrong. Wrong about heaven. Wrong that there is an eternal life waiting for me after death. Instead of a glorified existence where there is no more pain or tears or suffering, it’s just infinite blackness. Like click, the lights go out. The end.
Isn’t that like the biggest selling point for Christianity, immortality? How on earth could I still be a pastor when this is the thing that I doubt?
Well, first off, I don’t think anyone is 100% certain about life after death. Sure, there are stories of people dying and coming back to life who report seeing God or heaven or whatever, but I haven’t been there myself, so I’m still 100% sure. I don’t know that I would even trust a pastor who said they were 100% certain because they would probably have “evidence” that might make me think they were a crazy person. Or I’d always feel guilty for being a human with doubts when the leader of my church was positive about all aspects of faith.
But second, and I think more importantly, while I may have moments of fear about what is going to happen after I die, I have many, MANY more moments of assurance and confidence about my faith while I’m still living.
I have to say at the outset that I have a pretty high view of God, meaning I believe he can do anything. I don’t really doubt that he could have created the universe with his words, or that he can speak to us, or that he guided the Bible into existence through authors thousands of years ago, or that he lived on earth, died, and rose from the dead to give us the power to live new lives. If God is who he says he is, then all of those things are par for the course, in my opinion. God can do those things and I believe he did because of the biblical account, the archeological and anthropological findings that support them. And even without these “evidences” from other fields of study, I still find myself believing that we were created and that a relationship with God was the point.
Now, included in my beliefs is the belief in eternal life. However, the biblical description of eternal life is not simply life after death, though it certainly includes that (Revelation 21:3-4). The bible acknowledges that death still comes for us all, but that it is not the final reality of our existence (Romans 6:23, 1John 2:17). The eternal life we receive, however, is the existence that continues after death.
Most of the references in scripture to eternal life have to do with two things however: not dying/eternal life, and knowing God.
In one of my favorite verses in all of scripture, Jesus says it this way:
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:3
I would be incapable of following a belief system that did not have practical implications on my day to day living, and this verse (among others) assures me that one of the tenets of my faith, eternal life, has current ramifications. Eternal life is not simply about existing forever. It is not solely about experiencing pleasure and good things for all of time. It includes these things, but it has far more to do with knowing God in real and tangible ways than anything else.
The God of the Bible is depicted as “slow to anger and abounding in love” as I have stated in another post, and we will discuss how to approach the places in scripture where this doesn’t seem to be the case in an upcoming discussion. But overarching it all, we may approach a relationship with God understanding that he IS love (1 John 4:8). He is the perfect example of what love looks like, how it behaves, what it values, and the way it orders a life. If we look at Jesus, we can do so knowing we are looking at a perfect representation of a life ruled by love.
That being said, eternal life becomes about knowing Love himself, and that knowing starts now. I have had enough experience getting to know God, enough years ruled by love, enough times in prayer and in reading scripture and in conversation with others and in persevering through crappy life situations that I can affirm that God is in fact love, and that I know him.
Having known God for so many years I can confidently say I’ve been experiencing eternal life, and it is a good life. It is one that is ruled by love, one where the needs of others are a higher concern than my own yet my own needs are met every time they arise both by the hand of God and through the love of his people. It is one where I regularly lay down my life in an effort to display the compassion of God, and continues to be worth it even when I am ill treated and unloved by others. It is one where I am compelled by the God of justice to fight for the rights of the oppressed and downcast, while recognizing that I can minutely impact my small world and doing so anyways. It is one that is governed by grace, humility, and forgiveness, where I hold myself responsible for cleaning up the messes that I make but not for endlessly punishing myself with guilt and shame, living with a clear heart and free mind. It is one that commands me to love and be loved across all lines and boundaries and attempts we make at division and hatred.
It’s a good freaking life, and I don’t know how I could exist any other way as an imperfect human with other imperfect humans in an imperfect world. And if this is eternal life here and now, and the promise is that it will continue in perfection after I die, well then I’d rather spend my life holding out hope and living well than resigning myself to hopeless and selfish living. I’ve experienced God fulfilling his word to me enough times that I tend to think He’ll continue to do so after death. But if I get to the other side and it is all over, well I’ll be really satisfied with a life lived the way it’s meant to be lived for anyone who claims to follow Jesus.
Don’t get me wrong, I think part of the journey of faith is wrestling with our doubts and taking them to God and asking for answers or peace, and I will continue to do so for the rest of my life. But doubt isn’t sin. I believe hopelessness in the face of doubt is, because then we begin to disbelieve that God is good (Exodus 34:6) and that he is in fact working all things for good for those who love him (Romans 8:28).
And maybe you didn’t care about that entire conversation we just had, but more than anything you need to hear that it is ok to doubt. So, there you go. You’re human, welcome to the club. As for me though, I’m going to doubt towards faith, if you’d like to join me.