“Doubts come when what your mind knows becomes unreal to your heart because of the experience.” Tim Keller, “Praying Our Doubts”
Lately I’ve had a string of late-night conversations with someone I dearly love.
How do you know if _____?
What if God doesn’t do ______?
Is it still possible for _______?
Scenario-spinning, projection, loss, regret, fear and anxiety over the future, trusting God when the thing you most deeply want slips through your fingers like a vapor—these have been the dominant themes of our conversations.
We’re all wringing our hands over the future right now. Instead of bounding into a new year with energy and hope, we tread weary and hunched, walking into the fog of 2021 with cynicism, angst, and doubt.
If you’re one of those souls whose deep personal struggle mirrors our collective struggle, if you’re facing a personal crisis within a pandemical crisis, I’ll say to you what I say to myself and what I’ve said to my late-night friend:
Haul all of your fear, doubt, pain, loss, and complication into the presence of Christ.
When your right-now experiences threaten to unravel what you know is true, ask Jesus to clear out the thorny, overgrown path between your mind and your heart, to make the “crooked places straight and the rough places smooth” (Isaiah 40:4).
He not only bears witness to your pain, he invites his heavy-hearted and striving-sick children to come to him for help, for rest, for company and consolation. (Matthew 11:28-30)
God is always at work in a million ways, even when we can’t see it or touch it. If you’re feeling your way through the fog today, desperate for any sure thing to stand on, I offer this prayer:
“Jesus, you see me, you know me, and you love me. This hard chapter of my story is not simply a ‘lesson’ in patience or perseverance; it’s an opportunity to be loved. Help me to free fall into that love today. Remind me of the personal truth I need to know. When doubt disconnects my mind and heart, may your love and truth provide reconnection. You are Love incarnate and Truth Incarnate, never one without the other. ❤️ Amen.”
Recommended: “Praying Our Doubts” by Dr. Timothy Keller, a sermon
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