Faith isn’t magical thinking, wishing something was so. 

Faith is the evidence of things unseen. It ​“shows the reality of what we hope for” (Heb 11:1). 

What does that mean? 

It means we trust something we can’t see enough to act in accordance with that trust.

Take electricity. It is an invisible force, yet we move toward a light switch with confidence, with substantive hope, that flipping it will make a light come on. 

That confidence is faith.

But faith isn’t usually as quick and clear as a flick of a switch. Sometimes we believe God for something for a long time but it never happens. 

Or we believe that since God is good, the world should be a certain way — at least our little world should be a certain way. Then comes the fire, the bullet, the divorce, the diagnosis. And whatever world we imagined we were living in comes crumbling down, bringing our ideas about God down with it. 

That’s when doubt comes knocking: 

Is that what God is really like? Is God actually good? Is God even there?

And at this point we have some options. 

One is to ignore doubt. Grin and bear it; grin and believe it. Faith isn’t about feelings, we tell ourselves, it’s about trying hard to believe something we don’t really believe! But eventually the facade we confused for faith comes crashing down. A flimsy front can only withstand so much wind and rain.

Another option is to glorify doubt. Make it our sage and guide, or at least our little pet. We mistake the voice of doubt for the voice of wisdom. We feed doubt like a baby tiger hoping it’ll guard us from disappointment when it grows up. Until one day it swallows us.

The third option is to acknowledge doubt as an invitation to a sturdier faith. Some folks say we should welcome doubt and give it hospitality. There’s something helpful there, but it’s probably too generous. We don’t want to host doubt for dinner and dessert. Notice is a better word. Notice disappointment. Notice disillusionment. Notice feelings. 

From there we can follow the Psalmist’s lead and spill these noticings in ink. It isn’t right, God, that your friend Albert got cancer. Are you asleep? We can also go to the closed car and air loud grievances to God, even if it isn’t clear in that moment that God is listening. 

And we need not navigate doubt alone. There are people who have experienced the hand of Jesus pulling them gasping from raging waves of doubt — people full of compassion, not platitudes, who can help us find Christ when we’re sinking.

(It’s worth noting that some types of doubt — assailing accusations — may need rebuke, not just noticing and surrender. Jesus showed us there’s a time to say, ​“Away from me, Satan.” A wise spiritual friend can help us discern when this is the case.)

Still, after all the noticing and writing and yelling subsides into silence, there comes a time when we have to decide what we believe. Will we put our confidence in God? Some call this a leap of faith; I call it a confession. 

I remember 15 years ago when our family was shaken by mental illness. I was deconstructing or however you want to label it. I wasn’t sure if God was good or real. One day I sat shellshocked at my desk and Andrew Peterson’s song ​“The Good Confession” came through my speakers. 

I believe, Peterson sang, He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. 

And there, like Peter sinking in the sea, some deep part of me reached up and said, I don’t know what else is true, but Jesus, I believe you are the Christ.

That was the start of rebuilding a sturdier faith, a faith that doesn’t have a perfect confidence in God but a growing confidence — a faith that gives God the benefit of the doubt.