Borrowing Faith When Doubt Creeps In

As a teenager, I co-led my first small group with a friend, guided by an older woman from our church. During a discussion on faith, I decided to be vulnerable and share my own doubts about God to encourage others to open up.

After the meeting was over, the woman pulled me aside to caution me about setting a good example for the group. Her message was kind, but clear: Doubt was unbefitting a rising leader.

Over the years, my doubts have shifted. While I no longer question God’s existence or identity, I still wrestle with his sovereignty and goodness, wondering why his actions—or inactions—sometimes seem at odds with my understanding of who he is. 

I’m not alone. A 2023 Lifeway Research survey found that only half of Americans have no doubt that God exists—and half of those with a Christian background say they have gone through a “prolonged” period of doubt at some point in their lives.

Of course, doubt is not a modern problem. Humans have struggled to trust God since the Garden. The Bible portrays doubt as a common feature of our fallen human condition—even for the holiest among us. From Abraham and Sarah to “Doubting Thomas,” uncertainty has marked the lives of God’s people for millennia. Countless saints throughout church history have wrestled with disbelief, many of whom endured a “dark night of the soul,” as John of the Cross described it.

But the recent and widespread rise of doubt in the West is reflected in part by the steady decline of Christianity. In the United States, this has been termed “the Great Dechurching,” with approximately 40 million former churchgoers no longer attending. 

Along with “human suffering” and “conflict in the world,” two of the highest sources of doubt in America, according to Barna, are “past experiences with a religious institution” and “the hypocrisy of religious people.” The abuse crisis in the church reminds us that religious certainty can too easily be weaponized, and many Christian leaders and institutions have wielded it for evil. 

As I’ve experienced myself, the church can be an inhospitable place for the doubting—a reputation many have earnestly sought to remedy over the years. Instead of being “merciful to those who doubt” (Jude 1:22), we’ve too often condemned them.

And while far more can be done to accommodate faith struggles in the pews, it is equally worth cautioning against the other extreme. That is, in our attempts to encourage doubters and avoid weaponizing certainty, we must not lose sight of our call to be people of faith.

We live in an incredulous generation—an age of unbelief and religious deconstruction, in which suspicion permeates the very air we breathe. On both sides of the ideological aisle, people who place their wholehearted trust in any one set of beliefs have been dismissed as naïve “sheeple” who lack critical thinking skills or fail to “do their own research.”

If we’re not careful, the church may follow the cues of our culture and join in its effort to nurture skepticism  and enshrine cynicism. Some Christians say it’s natural, even healthy, to live in the perpetual push-and-pull between faith and doubt. A few have gone as far as saying faith somehow needs doubt to function properly—painting doubt as a virtue to nurture rather than a tension to continually resolve by faith. 

At first, such rhetoric can seem reassuring, especially to those who occasionally struggle to keep the faith. But for those, like me, who have found themselves deep in the dismal abyss of chronic doubt—more akin to despair—this is a depressing prognosis. In such times, I clung to a shred of hope that my season of doubt was temporary, and that I would someday regain a modicum of the unwavering faith some Christians seem to possess in abundance.

The Bible tells us that faith is essential. “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6).

Scripture repeatedly praises simple, childlike, dependent trust in God and encourages us to be like obedient sheep rather than rebellious goats (John 10:27, Matt. 25:32–22). And while we may have different natural capacities for it, we are all called to live “in accordance with the faith God has distributed” to each of us (Rom. 12:3).

Take my husband. He has the spiritual gift of faith (as listed in 1 Corinthians 12:9). A frequent pattern in our marriage is him calmly responding to a crisis with “Everything is going to work out.” To which I ask, “But how do you know?” and he says, “I just do.”

Rather than always finding this encouraging, for someone like me—cursed with an anxiety diagnosis and a theology degree—his unwavering faith can sometimes be irritating. 

It’s not as if he’s never experienced situations that threatened his faith. Our first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, and the birth of our daughter was marked by a traumatic moment in which my husband had to run down the hospital corridors at midnight, yelling for help.

Yet he constantly challenges me by living out the Bible’s most concise definition of faith: “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Heb. 11:1).

As author A.J. Swoboda put it, “Faith thrives in the tension of mystery, where we trust even when we don’t fully understand.” Faith isn’t about having all the answers, but about trusting the one who does—sometimes blindly.

When Thomas touched his resurrected Lord and finally believed, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). He also told his disciples, “You will receive whatever you ask in prayer,” but only “if you have faith and do not doubt” (Matt. 21:21–22). The one who doubts, Scripture says, “is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. . . . Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do” (James 1:6, 8).

I have been that wave-tossed person in past seasons of spiritual wrestling, and I can say this verse aptly describes the emotional reality of doubt.

The psychological theory of cognitive dissonance tells us our brains are hardwired to desire resolution and that uncertainty is an uncomfortable, untenable place to stay long-term. As theologian Brad East wrote for CT, “Doubt is a ladder, not a home.”

Perhaps this is why we are already seeing the cultural tides begin to shift from chronic doubt back to belief. Recent survey data suggest that the deconstruction movement—the swell of people leaving faith or rethinking their beliefs—may be slowing. And the precipitous rise of “nones” (those claiming no religious affiliation) and “dones” (those leaving the church) has plateaued.

At the same time, stories of unexpected conversions are popping up everywhere. From celebrities and influencers to cultural elites and academics, high-profile figures are finding their way to Jesus, or at least cultural Christianity, in the most unlikely ways. Time and again, faith has proven it can rise from the ashes of doubt.

“There is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe,” wrote Flannery O’Connor in a letter to a friend in spiritual crisis. “But I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened.”

I think now more than ever, discontented doubters will be looking for bold believers. They will be seeking out Christians with a resilient faith—not one that’s glib and unrelatable but one that has been tried, tested, and has triumphed, one that has peered into the abyss of a life without God and stepped back from the edge.

One such well of encouragement can be found in the spiritual lives of past saints—those who persevered in faith despite their struggles with doubt.

Theologian Søren Kierkegaard, like me, wrestled with his mental health, calling depression his “most faithful mistress.” In his pseudonymous work, he wrote that “doubt is thought’s despair” and that despair is a “sickness unto death.”

Kierkegaard acknowledged both the constructive and destructive aspects of doubt. He wrote, “I think I have the courage to doubt everything,” but he also wrote, “One of the most crucial definitions for the whole of Christianity” is that “the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith.”

While our doubts can sometimes be illuminating, Jesus calls his followers to act from a posture of faith, not out of doubt. As the apostle Paul said, “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23, ESV). Doubt is natural, yes, but faith is supernatural. As Kierkegaard observed, faith is a “leap”—and “without risk, there is no faith, and the greater the risk, the greater the faith.”

We also have saints alive today whose faith serves as a gift to the church for the doubting. But beyond praying for those who are struggling spiritually (which is the best place to start!), how might these people help?

The answer isn’t brow-beating disapproval and condemnation; nor is it a Pollyannaish optimism that dismisses spiritual struggles with a tone-deaf platitude and a smile.

Surely steadfast believers, especially those of us with scars from healed spiritual wounds, have more to offer than a sympathetic ear, a generic word of encouragement, and a polite prayer.

Yes: We have our testimonies—our public witness to the ways God has revealed himself to us. And we shouldn’t feel discouraged from sharing them with doubters (perhaps out of fear that it might alienate or shame them), because our testimonies aren’t acts of self-congratulation; they’re lifelines.

Our testimonies are like “totems” from the film Inception: personal markers of God’s past faithfulness that remind us of what’s real when life feels like a dream—or a nightmare. Such stories are akin to the stones of remembrance God commanded the Israelites to set up as monuments to his fulfilled promises (Josh. 4:4–9). We need such tangible markers outside of ourselves to tether us to truth.

I’m so grateful Jesus didn’t leave us to walk this journey of faith alone but instead sent the Spirit to continue his work in and through the church as his ongoing bodily presence on earth. Scripture makes it clear that every task of the Christian life, including rebuilding the scaffolding of our faith, was divinely designed for community.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, God has willed that we should seek and find his living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself.

Doubt thrives in isolation. In fact, Satan does his best work when there are no advocates around to speak a better word to us or for us.

Scripture tells us that those who lack the shield of faith are unable to withstand the enemy’s attacks (Eph. 6:16), which leaves them susceptible to the same cunning work the Devil’s been up to since the Garden—to make us doubt God’s goodness, faithfulness, and sovereignty.

Yet in one of the most powerful scenes in Scripture, the apostle John sees Satan (whose name means “adversary” or “accuser”) being defeated by Jesus and the saints: For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. (Rev. 12:10–11)

Ultimately, our doubts are not dispelled through argument or experience. Only Jesus’ blood and the testimony it produces in our lives has the power to combat the Devil’s schemes—his endless prowling, devouring, and accusing (1 Pet. 5:8).

Whenever we lend or leverage our faith for weaker brothers and sisters—until they’re strong enough to carry it themselves—we wage war against the powers of darkness.

In the end, our salvation is founded not on our faith but on Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate stone of remembrance. He is our cornerstone. So we fix our eyes on him as the “pioneer and perfecter” of our faith (Heb. 12:2). Faith doesn’t mean we never doubt. It simply means we trust Jesus enough to bring our uncertainty to him, knowing he will never pull away from us in our moments of disbelief, anger, or questioning but that he will draw near and invite us to do the same (James 4:8). 

Such trust is straightforward, but that doesn’t make it easy. “It is much harder to believe than not to believe,” O’Connor wrote to her doubting friend. But to anyone struggling, I echo her advice: “If you feel you can’t believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God.”

Even if all you can do right now is whisper a prayer, let this be your tiny mustard seed of faith: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24, NKJV). By God’s grace, it is enough.

Stefani McDade is theology editor at Christianity Today.