Loaded Questions
Question 4: Can I Believe and Still Have Doubts?
Pastor Svea Merry May 17-18, 2025
Good morning! If we haven’t met yet, my name is Svea Merry, and I serve here as our spiritual formation pastor. Today, I have the pleasure of continuing in our message series, Loaded Questions, and we’re addressing another important, frequently asked one: Can I believe and still have doubts?
To help you know where I’m coming from on this topic, I want to tell you a story, but I feel I must first confess something. Some of you, especially if you’re a runner or a Disneyworld fan might judge me hard for this. Once upon a time, I was … a race bandit.
In an earlier chapter of life, I was a runner. During that era, my husband Steve was attending a medical conference held at a Disneyworld hotel and I was there with him and early in the morning as he left for his conference, I decided to go for a run. What I didn’t realize until I got outside was that the Disney half marathon was in full swing around our hotel area. Well, I really wanted to run, and in a moment of impulsiveness that betrays my more typical extreme rule-follower personality, I casually slipped in with the crowd and began running in step with hundreds of other runners. It was towards the end of the race and the real gunners had long passed. I was enveloped in a group of people just having a good time and I got swept up in the joy. I only intended to run along with them for a little while, but I soon realized we were headed straight into the Epcot center before it opened to the public. I’d meant to turn around before heading on to theme park property, but to my awkward shame, as we neared the entrance to Epcot, I realized that they’d put up barricades on either side of the path by that point and there was no way to get off the course anymore. I could have literally repented, turned back and swam upstream against the throngs of runners back to where I’d come from a couple miles back. But that seemed like a humiliating, if not disruptive action, so I justified my temptation to capitalize on my opportunity to run through Epcot. Which led to getting to cross the finish line with hundreds of other people celebrating their victory. It was exhilarating. Minnie Mouse cheered as I jogged by. But my exhilaration quickly wore off and I felt a hollow ache in my gut. Everyone around me was enjoying the victory of completing a half marathon. I’d only run a few miles. Everyone else was picking up their well-deserved finisher’s medal. I didn’t go near the medals knowing I deserved nothing as a non-registered runner.
Rarely in my life have I ever felt that much a fraud. I looked like I belonged. I was dressed like a runner; I’d been running along with everyone else. But inside, I knew I didn’t belong there at all. I was, what people in the running world call, a race bandit. My problems escalated when I realized everyone else had the necessary pass to get on the shuttle busses that would take them back to their designated location and I had no such pass. I was pretty sure I was about to find out if the dungeon in the Pirates of the Caribbean was functional or not.
The only other time in my life when I’ve felt that much a fraud was sitting in church with everyone around me worshipping, while I was deep in a horrible chapter of doubting my faith and questioning what I believed about God.
Today’s question about belief and doubt is personal for me. I grew up in the church, made my faith my own as a teenager, felt God’s presence with me through the cancer and death of my first husband, and depended on my faith to survive that. But a few years afterwards, as the grief faded and I was getting back on my feet, I couldn’t shake the questions about how a good God could let that happen. And then questions I’d suppressed from my younger years resurfaced. Questions about how to reconcile science and faith. Questions stemming from why some of the people I respected most didn’t believe in God.
I didn’t want to go to church – church just made me feel like a faith bandit. Looking the part, doing the run, but screaming inside, “You’re pretending. You don’t belong here.”
And yet, I missed God. I missed the faith I’d once had. I missed simpler times when I simply believed God was there, and He was watching over me. I felt very destabilized in that place. I was afraid to admit anything to my Christian friends, sure that they’d judge me or think less of me. I was afraid I’d blown it with God.
What I hope to offer you today, beyond my story, is a look at doubt and faith, a character study from a surprising doubter in Scripture, and finally, hope for emerging from doubt with a deeper, stronger faith. And if I don’t cover an aspect of this that is important to you, please take advantage of our Q&A after today’s service.
So, let’s get honest about doubt. Here’s something I wish I’d known when I thought everyone else had it together and something was broken inside of me. Spiritual doubt is incredibly common and can even be a healthy part of the process of taking one’s faith to deeper level.
According to research conducted by the Barna Group amongst Christians, 2/3 of all believers will go through an extended period of doubt at some point. This means that if you’re someone who is or has wrestled through this, you’re not alone. Statistically speaking, the person sitting on either your right or left, has gone through this too. And if you haven’t ever struggled through doubt, this might be an opportunity to listen with some compassion because, statistically speaking, the people on both your right and left may have struggled in ways you’ve been spared.
Here's another thing that would have brought incredible reassurance to me in my dark chapter: Doubt doesn’t mean you’re not a person of faith. It may be evidence you are!
Think with me about this. We might assume doubt is the absence of faith, but biblically, that’s not true. The absence of faith isn’t doubt—the absence of faith is indifference. Doubt is like a shadow—it only exists when there’s light nearby. If the light didn’t exist, neither would the shadow. You don't wrestle with not having something if it is non-existent or valueless. So, you won’t be bothered by doubt if you don’t deep down believe that spiritual faith is real and valuable. If you really didn’t believe, you wouldn’t be bothered by doubt at all.
So, what is faith? Although the words often get used interchangeably, faith does not equal belief. The Bible makes a crucial distinction between intellectual assent—agreeing that something is true—and saving faith, which involves trust, surrender, and allegiance. James 2:19 confronts this head-on: “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.” In other words, mere belief in God’s existence or even in the truth of who Jesus is doesn’t equal saving faith. Demons have accurate theology, but they do not love or trust God.
A couple weeks ago, Pastor Rick mentioned a modern-day example of this kind of belief without faith. In his sermon on Truth, he referenced a pre-eminent biblical scholar named Bart Ehrman who has dedicated his life to studying the New Testament and understands its historical context better than most pastors ever will. But despite all his knowledge—including his belief that Jesus truly existed and was crucified—this scholar does not trust or follow Jesus as his Lord. His beliefs are robust, but they’re not redemptive.
I point this out because for people, like me, who love to learn and reason and theologize, there can be a false expectation that if you just know enough or understand enough of what to believe, it will automatically translate to having a confident faith, and I just don’t think that’s always the case. Because there’s a difference between having all the right beliefs and actually believing.
Faith isn’t just about information; it’s about transformation. It’s not just knowing everything about Jesus—it’s choosing to trust in him when you’re sure he’s right and even when you aren’t.
Jesus said to his disciples that if you do not have faith like a child, you will not enter the kingdom of God. He didn’t at all mean that we should be immature or underdeveloped. What he meant was that children with a loving parent can trust their parent to care for them, provide for their needs, and help them grow and mature. That’s what he’s inviting us into in our faith. We’re invited to be sons and daughters of the most loving Father God who promises to care for us, provide for us, and help us grow and mature. The faith like a child that Jesus points to is trust that He will do for us what He’s promised He’ll do for us.
Faith in Christ is bigger than our doubts or our questions and totally able to coexist with them. Children don’t always understand why parents make them go to school, go to bed, or eat their vegetables, but even when they’re frustrated about it all, they still instinctively know they’re much better off trusting the way of their loving parents than leaving them and living on the street.
In case you haven’t heard it clearly yet, the answer to our question, Can I believe and still have doubts, is undoubtedly yes! It’s absolutely possible to trust in Jesus and still have lingering questions.
But if I were sitting out there with you right now, listening critically, I’d be thinking, but I must have answers to my questions before I know if I can fully trust God.
Sometimes we forget that our relationship with God is exactly that: a relationship. How much do you know about someone when you decide you’re ready to marry them? I’m not advocating for impulsive weddings, but even if you’ve dated someone for more than a year, do you really know everything about them and everything about what lies ahead? Even in something as important as marriage, isn’t there a leap of faith required?
When Steve and I met, we had a whirlwind romance. We got engaged 3 weeks after our first official date, actually seen here in this picture, and married 3 months after that. I know many people, including some of you in this room(!) thought we were crazy and had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. And there may have been some truth to that. We felt like we had talked about all the deepest, most important things of life, and even though we were deeply connected on our shared experience of losing a spouse to cancer and seeing God’s faithfulness to us as grieving, single parents, we didn’t know a fraction then of what we know now about each other now that we’ve been married for almost 20 years. We took a big step of faith in saying “I do” right here on this platform.
Your initial step of faith might be in accepting God’s proposal, His gift of salvation. But your lifetime of walking with Jesus as your Lord is what grows and deepens your faith, even while you’re still coming to understand him better over the years.
But also like any relationship, there are seasons that are fun and full of joy and happiness, and others that are dull and dry and unsatisfying. And for many, a period of doubt may simply be a check engine light, warning of a neglected relationship. And none of us have a relationship with Jesus that isn’t vulnerable to doubt when we neglect spending time with him, or our circumstances threaten to eclipse our faith, or we lose our focus on the truth of who he is.
I want to do a bit of character study of a person in the Bible who doubted and to see how Jesus responded to him. Jesus had a relative named John who was born just before him. He’s sometimes known as John the Baptist because of his role in baptizing people. Others call him John the Baptizer, so it doesn’t confuse people into thinking he had a denominational preference before that was yet a thing.
John was a very special child. You can read his backstory in Luke chapter 1. For now, I’ll summarize that he was the long-awaited-for child born to parents who had experienced decades of heart-aching infertility. So special was God’s plan for this child, he sent an angel to his father, Zechariah, telling him this boy would have the honor of preparing people for the Lord, announcing the arrival of the Messiah.
Even before John was born, his life was oriented towards Jesus. We’re told that when his mother, pregnant with him, greeted her relative Mary, pregnant with Jesus, John leapt inside her. His father declared after he was born:
“And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.” (Luke 1:76–77)
John’s father was a high priest and John would have been in line to continue this legacy, but he gave up that privilege, trusting his calling, choosing instead to live in the wilderness, embracing his relationship with God, and telling people to get ready for the Messiah to be revealed.
The 4th Gospel tells us when John fully realized Jesus was the Messiah:
“29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! … Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One,” John 1:29-34.
He told everyone, including us by extension, that when he baptized Jesus, God the Father authenticated the full identity of Jesus as His Son as the Holy Spirit rested on him. Having experienced this amazing display of the full trinity, you’d think that if anyone should ever be completely free from the potential for doubt, it would be John.
But I’ll say from my own experience that even when you’ve had encounters that you can only explain as the evidence of God in your life, it doesn’t mean that you’re doubt-proof.
Disappointment with Jesus, and doubt in who he was, ate away at John as he experienced suffering. John was thrown in prison as revenge for speaking out against the adulterous relationship between Herod the Tetrarch and his brother’s wife. And as John, an innocent man, sat in prison, he began to question everything.
Worse yet, it must have appeared to him that Jesus was doing amazing things for other people but had abandoned him. This part of his story if found in the middle of Luke chapter 7, but the chapter begins with Jesus rewarding the faith of a Centurion and because of that, healing his servant. Soon after that, Jesus sees a grieving mother whose son had died, and he raises him back to life.
And it’s in this context that John’s storyline gets picked back up in Luke 7, verse 18. “John’s disciples told him about all these things” – these things being the amazing things Jesus was doing for everyone else but not for him. “Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’”
How could John, the one who seemed to recognize Jesus even before he was born, who dedicated himself to pointing people to Jesus’s true identity, who witnessed the authentication of that by God the Father and Holy Spirit with his own eyes, fall into doubt?
Because he was human. And his unmet expectations, suffering, and uncertainty all converged at a vulnerable moment. I can so relate to that, and my heart goes out to you if you can, too. Unmet expectations and suffering are two of the most common triggers for doubt. But there are many more as well.
- Intellectual questions (science and faith; contradictions in the Bible;)
- Sociocultural differences (differing views on sexuality or ethics)
- Influential people who believe differently (a Muslim friend who is just as convinced)
- Church hurt/hypocrisy of Christians
That last one is a big deal. A Barna research study from 2023 ranked disillusionment with the church or with Christians as the second highest reason given for why people doubt the Christian faith, right behind suffering. That should give all of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus a reason to pause and think about how we are representing him to the world around us. We had a series thesis in a sermon series a couple years back that was, “We are the wrapping paper that people have to get through to get to the gospel.” The implications in that for other people’s faith may be far more profound than you realize.
Whether you’re in a season of doubt right now, or enjoying the joy in your faith, there’s something for all of us to remember. Spiritual growth isn’t always a straight line—it’s a long, slow journey. There’s a classic text in Spiritual Formation theory called The Critical Journey. It maps out stages that, generally, people go through in their life with God. At first, there’s excitement as we discover God and our newfound faith, the second phase is all about growth and learning in our discipleship. Next, we move to the productive life and serve with passion, and somewhere around there we take what they call, the journey inward as we process our faith and how it’s playing out in our life over time. And these phases could last a few years, decades, or even one’s whole lifetime. But many of us hit a wall—a season of doubt, suffering, crisis, disillusionment, or just prolonged spiritual dryness. And that wall can feel foreboding and insurmountable. Or make you question God, especially if He feels silent or distant. And some people hit the wall and get stuck there, either choosing to remain in these first 4 stages of real, but underdeveloped faith. Others hit the wall and deconstruct.
But here’s some great news. Those who press through often don’t just renew their faith—they move forward into an even deeper trust in God with a faith no longer based in their own performance. As their faith matures, they progress to becoming a person of love – love for God and love for others. These are the people who have made it through dark times, and now radiate peace, compassion, and gentle, confident strength.
If you talk to anyone with a beautifully mature, deep faith, ask them about the hard time in their life they had to work through; either a time of suffering or a time of their faith was tested. Even if they don’t use the same language as the Critical Journey’s “wall”, I’ll be you’ll hear them talk about working through some kind of big trial or wilderness period, and discovering a deeper, richer faith on the other side.
If you currently feel like you’re your faith is in the wilderness, take heart. God hasn’t abandoned you. Your prior faith wasn’t a mirage. God might have you where you need to be to break through to an even better faith as you press on through this.
But while you’re going through it, it sure can feel dry and lifeless. The motif of wilderness is a powerful, recurring theme in the Bible. Far from being a place of abandonment, the wilderness is frequently a place where God brings His people so they can encounter Him in profound ways.
In the Old Testament, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years—not just as punishment, but as preparation. God used Moses to lead them through the wilderness to humble them, test their hearts, and teach them to depend on “every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” It was in the wilderness that they learned God's provision through manna, guidance through fire and cloud, and His faithfulness despite their doubts.
Elijah fled to the wilderness when he was depressed, and—after the chaos of wind, earthquake, and fire—it was there that God gently ministered to him. The wilderness became a sacred space of renewal and redirection.
Jesus Himself was led by the Spirit into the wilderness before beginning His public ministry. There, He fasted, faced temptation, and affirmed His trust in the Father. The wilderness, in this case, wasn’t a detour from His calling—it was the venue for preparation.
Biblically, the wilderness is rarely comfortable, but it’s purposeful. It strips away distractions and illusions of control. It reveals what we really trust in. And paradoxically, it may be what it takes to bring us closer to God. In seasons of spiritual dryness or doubt, the wilderness reminds us of what we long for from God. And even if we can’t see it, He’s still at work, forming us, honing us.
When I was in my wilderness period, I was simultaneously upset with God for seeming to be distant from me, but also afraid that He was disappointed in me. This made me feel ever further from God, because though I wanted to find Him, I also didn’t because I was afraid He might punish me for my lack of faith. And I really didn’t want to talk to anyone at church about it because I thought they’d judge me or think less of me, or that it would somehow cancel out all the times I’d expressed having a solid faith in the past.
I wish I’d known that God has much gentleness for us while we’re in a wilderness period in our faith, and He wants the church to be gentle with people going through this phase too.
Jude, a younger brother of Jesus, says plainly to believers, “Be merciful to those who doubt.” I love this verse. Showing mercy mirrors the character of God, who is “rich in mercy” (Ephesians 2:4). And Jesus said, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). For all of you who are in a solid place in your faith right now, think about the power in this statement: To be merciful to someone wrestling through doubt is to reflect the heart of God to them. The doubting believer needs your mercy, your compassion, your love, and by modeling this, you may actually help them to see God at work.
Jesus must have oozed this kind of mercy. There’s a powerful story in Mark chapter 9 about a father seeking Jesus’s help to heal his son. The father says to Jesus, "If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." (v. 22) “‘If you can’? said Jesus. Everything is possible for one who believes.” (v. 23) At this point, the desperate father has every incentive to project belief to Jesus so he can get relief for his son. But his response is amazing: “Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, ‘I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!’” (v. 24)
This man’s doubt is clinging to him like wet clothes, and yet he sees something in Jesus that enables him to admit he needs help with his unbelief even at his most vulnerable. I don’t know if it was Jesus’s face, his body language, his tone of voice, or just his beautiful character, but this man felt safe to be transparent with Jesus and Jesus did not judge or rebuke him. He healed the man’s son. We have biblical precedent to bring ourconflicted, imperfect faith to Jesus, and trust in his love and mercy.
But maybe you’re thinking, well, Jesus may have done that because he had compassion for a desperate father and his child. Would he have reacted so graciously to someone who already had a deep relationship with him and was now questioning if he is who he says he is?
Remember where we left John in Luke 7, sitting in prison, incarcerated unjustly and hearing his friends talk about all the great things Jesus is doing for other people? This John whose entire life has been oriented towards telling people that Jesus is God with us now questioning it all.
If I were in Jesus’s sandals, I think if there was one person whose doubt would offend me the most, would feel the most like invalidation, would do the most damage to my credibility, it would be John. So how will Jesus respond even in this most intense of examples?
22 So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor, Luke 7:22.
It's important to understand that what Jesus is saying here isn’t about pointing out to John all the good things he’s doing for other people. He’s quoting Old Testament prophecy that John knows—probably something John himself had preached to help others identify the Messiah. Jesus references Isaiah 35 and 61 to remind John of the evidence he’d known to look for: “I am confirmed as the one you said was coming—even if I’m not doing it the way you expected.” But Isaiah 61 had also said that he would proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, which, though Jesus did for others, is not what John is currently experiencing.
Jesus stopped short of quoting that and instead gives a gentle wink to John tacitly acknowledging John’s hurt and says “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” Jesus is saying in essence, “Don’t lose faith just because you’re in a dark place and I’m not doing what you expected me to do for you. You’re seen, known, and loved. You’re blessed.” Jesus doesn’t give any rebuke, just a gentle blessing. It’s a blessing for those struggling to hold on to their faith in Jesus. And it affirms that doubt does not disqualify us—it places us in the company of great prophets like John.
After the messengers left Jesus to go back to John, Jesus began speaking to the crowd about John. He affirmed his role as a prophet and never back-pedaled his respect. He certainly didn’t cancel him like we might do today. In fact, even as John sits in his doubt, Jesus says, “I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John.”
Jesus isn’t offended, hurt, or rejected when the even the most significant human to authenticate his identity questioned him. May that be extraordinarily reassuring to us when our circumstances make our faith blurry.
But ultimately, no one wants to live in a blurry doubt. The payoff comes from getting through the wilderness, not camping in it forever. So how do we emerge?
Well, I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that there are things you can do and pursue. The bad news is that there is no one-size-fits all formula and even if you do all the “right” things, as with any relationship, it’s not exclusively up to you. But that might not be all bad.
My own doubt period lasted for about a year. It moved in on me gradually, like fog rolling in.
I hated it. And I wanted desperately to clear the fog. I tried reading books addressing my questions, listened to sermons, talked to people I thought might help me reason my way through it. None of that fixed it in a lasting way. The fog just seemed to persist, until God cleared it for me. And now, on this side of it, I’m so glad it happened that way because if I had just reasoned my way through my doubt, my God would have always been smaller than my own intellect.
But I know how desperate I was in that time for a strategy to regain my faith, and even though the path forward is ultimately up to God, there are things we can do to be healthy in our pursuit of Him.
There’s many great things to do, but let me suggest four:
First, be honest with God. Just like any relationship that needs a little repair, you can’t fix what you won’t acknowledge. Maybe you’re angry with Him and that anger has driven a wedge between you. I mentioned I was afraid that God was disappointed in me and that was causing me to hold back. Once I finally had the courage to acknowledge that to myself and to Him, that aspect of the fog lifted. Be honest about where and why you might be separating yourself from God.
Second, ground yourself in truth. Maybe some of your struggles would be helped with better understanding. Never neglect Scripture. Observe Jesus in the Gospels and seek to know him for who he truly is. Spend time in God’s word, feeding yourself truth and godly wisdom. If your questions are related to specific matters, there isn’t a topic out there that smart, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving theologians haven’t researched and addressed. The pastors here would love to help you find resources that would be helpful to you.
Third, connect with God in a way that’s authentic for you.
Some of my doubt was aggravated by feeling like my connection with God was inferior to other peoples’ connection with Him. I would see other people moved by a great worship song, or teary-eyed when talking about Him, and I just couldn’t quite relate to that. So, I figured something must be wrong with me.
I’ll never forget a few years later in a spiritual life class in seminary, when the professor described how some people have a very emotive faith and at the other end of the spectrum, a more intellectual faith. People with an emotive faith tend to be feelings oriented – they cry with joy as they worship, they get flush with passion as they pray. People on the more intellectual end lose themselves for hours in a great commentary on Scripture and marvel over theological ideas. There’s not a right or wrong place on the spectrum. Just as God created us with different personalities, He created us to enjoy connecting with Him in different ways. This was so freeing for me to realize.
Connect with God authentically in the way He created you. If you feel closest to God when you’re outdoors in His creation, enjoy being with Him there. If worship music is the soundtrack to your soul, turn it up. If you feel God’s smile as you care for and serve others, do that. Or maybe you’re recharged by contemplative prayer in solitude. There’s no singular right way to enjoy connecting with God. The best way for you will be consistent with the way He designed you.
Finally, look for Him looking for you. Remember, Jesus said our Father God is like a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep in his flock to safely retrieve the one that has wandered off. He can come to you however He wants, but what delight there is in noticing it when you see Him at work in and around you.
My own emergence from doubt resulted from a couple of ways that I saw God reaching out to me. I’d happily share the story, but it might not be very exciting to anyone else. It wasn’t a neon lights or miracle kind of thing. It was just a couple of incidents that made me feel seen and known to God and He released me from some of the knots I’d tied myself up in. When I began looking for His fingerprints around me, I began seeing evidence of Him more and more clearly, and each “God sighting” blew away a little more fog.
Last month, we celebrated Easter and the resurrection of Jesus. Around that time, a friend shared a painting with me of Mary Magdelene at the tomb after she discovers Jesus’s body is missing but before she encounters him. Can you see the grief and weariness in her face? She is suffering because of how her unmet expectations have darkened her world, afraid that Jesus is lost to her forever. But what she doesn’t realize is that Jesus is right behind her, ready to renew everything!
You may feel like Mary, alone in the wilderness of your faith, unable to see a path forward. But take heart. Jesus may be so nearby, about to reveal himself to you in powerful ways! And while you wait for him, know that you’re not a fraud, you’re not a faith bandit, you belong here. There’s mercy and respect for you here. Keep pressing through. An even better chapter of your faith may be just ahead.