What secret doubts haunt you as a Christian? I know it can’t be just me. True, it’s not something people like to talk about. It’s fairly common for Christians to admit various human weaknesses; learning and practicing humility is essential to a healthy Christian faith. A prayer for help with self-control, lust, or greed probably feels shameful, but is expected, and the repentance it signifies is celebrated. Jesus, after all, came for the sick, not the well, and his power is made perfect in weakness. There’s one confession, though, I’ve never heard from a Christian. That’s the confession of doubt.

Maybe it’s because the Bible is so clear that it is by grace we are saved through faith. Maybe it’s because it seems logical that if we have any doubt in God, we wouldn’t be able to pray or serve in the first place. I’m not sure what it is, but I’ve rarely felt comfortable declaring anything but sure, steady faith. My doubt is this… am I actually deceiving myself?

I have a strong academic faith and a deep emotional faith, but I have a very hard time connecting them. For example, I cherish my Bible study time, both studying alone and leading a group. I live for time spent at my desk, with a mess of books and notes and post-its exploding around me. Attaining knowledge of the character of God and of his great plan playing across history is a treasure to me. What it does not do, though, is produce much emotion. It is academic study made significantly important because of the subject matter. When I speak of emotional faith, though, I’m referring to those times when the depths of my soul react without words to the majesty of God and his creation. When certain music plays or when I read certain passages of the Bible, I choke up and tears come. If I’m alone listening to certain pieces of music, it sometimes brings me to my knees weeping. Studying the Word and listening to it be preached do not produce anything like that.

I grew up very reserved emotionally, to say the least. I was happy or angry, basically. Particularly, I kept my sorrows to myself. Until my first episode of bipolar depression when I was 21, the only person who had seen me cry since I was a young child was my mother. Scarily enough, I was proud of that fact and thus all the more devasted when my illness caused me to lose control of my emotions. I’m not sure if spending half of my life with my deepest feelings under lockdown is the reason I struggle now, but my emotional immaturity has definitely been around awhile.

When I first returned to Christianity about 11 years ago, I was an enormous mess, emotionally. The medications I was being given for depression were kicking my bipolar disorder into hyperdrive. All the things I’d used to build my old life had crumbled away, and I was 27 years old and being cared for by my parents. As things progressed, though, I remember hating the fact that I had no control over when I would start crying. That loss of self-mastery terrified me. I am no longer frightened by my uncontrollable swells of emotions, but I certainly haven’t embraced them. The fact that I can’t sing certain hymns straight through because I will start crying frustrates me. I’m always mortified when I can’t read a Scripture passage in Bible study because I get choked up. What I am grateful for, though, is the fact that I can feel these emotions in the first place. Either my conversion or my illness or the entwined nature of the two have loosed the bonds I placed on all those feelings.

The problem for me now is that I either react to Scripture and the Christian life with my brain – thinking, doing, learning, living – or with my heart – pure emotional response. My biggest area of doubt springs up in the gulf between these two. I try using my mind to assess my faith and to prove it’s real. I don’t know enough to argue my faith based on my academic knowledge of its truth, though, so I question myself, asking, how can you believe in something you can’t even defend to yourself? Then, I’ll look to my emotional response to the revelation of God’s character in his Word and in creation to prove to myself that my heart truly belongs to God. But, I’ll say to myself, everyone gets emotional at certain music or gorgeous vistas – you’re just attaching it to God.

I suppose it should be easy for me to connect these two arguments and show myself my own faith as a strong unified belief and trust in God. I haven’t yet been able to do that and from that fact blooms my secret doubt. It is not the simple question, Do I believe God is who he says he is and am I reliant only on him? It is a deeper, transient unease that sometimes troubles me and sometimes seems laughable. The doubt I confront is whether the belief I live and profess is real. It’s like I hear a voice in my head saying, If you had real faith, you would be joyful when learning and speaking about your belief. If you really were a Christian, you would be able to fit those overwhelming emotions you feel listening to music into your everyday pursuits. If, if, if…. I sometimes wonder if this is the whispering of the Tempter. When I let those words worm into my brain, they produce fear, anxiety, and shame.

I’ve found resistance to be simple in concept, but not easy or immediately effective. All I have to do is ask myself if I want to submit to the God of Creation. When I answer that with a resounding yes, my doubts settle down a bit. My problem has never been doubting God is who he says he is, even before I actually decided to give my life to him. And so, how could my God, who longs for his people to return to him, turn me away if I honestly desire to love him? No, I can’t yet do this in some sort of unified heart-mind-body way, but I know that becoming a Christian is not some secret, complicated formula. I believe, I confess, I submit, and I am raised. Someday, I will be able to praise the Lord in heart, mind, body, and spirit in wholeness and completion; it’s what I’m meant to do. I also know, though, that this reality might not come to be until the hurts of the world are cleansed and we are all made perfect. I know there will still be times when I question whether my belief is a true faith and established hope in the Lord. Meanwhile, my approach to dealing with these misgivings is simple and universally applicable: turn my eyes from myself and instead consider God.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
  In the light of His glory and grace