How my doubts led to growth...

How my doubts led to growth...
I've always been wary of doubting.
Of not really believing.
But I've also been wary of absolutely knowing the truth.
About God, His word.
Knowing all the answers.
I mean, what if one day it was all uncovered.
Revealed as a lie.
A nice story along the lines of The Wizard of Oz, where at the end it was all a lie, a lovely dream, a faraway hope.

For a long time these thoughts would plague me.
Singing worship songs in church, but inside thinking, "is this real?"

My doubts scared me.
All I really knew was church, my friends were there, my family was there.
Everything was there.
And if I didn't really believe, I didn't really belong, right?
So I went through the motions for many years.

I loved God, I loved Jesus, but with this fear still that this love was for something I could just be imagining, hoping was real.
What do you do when you have so many doubts?
About yourself, your faith, your salvation?
I kept going. I worshipped. I wore my uniform. Tried to read my bible. All of the things that made me feel like I was a Christian, like I was doing the right things, believing the right things.

Even though I still had my doubts, I feel in that time God was showing himself to me, not in the things I did, but in the love of people around me.
In people who were examples of Jesus' love to me.
In seeing the world around me, with all the pain, but also all the love and mercy we humans seemed to be capable of showing.
Seeing people love with a love that wasn't human, it was of God.
I saw glimpses of Him, so I kept on.

A couple of years ago I discovered there were a lot of different ideologies and practices related to being a Christian that I'd never heard a lot about.
Facebook was a place where I found out a lot more about these practices, ideas and beliefs and it felt to me like something new, something fresh, an identity for me as a Christian, because I still didn't really feel the part.
I felt like I had to do more, to be different to feel I was a true Christian.

I learnt about practices such as skirt wearing, having long hair, complementarianism, homeschooling, real/traditional food, quiverfull families, biblical manhood and womanhood, return of the daughters, patriarchal ideals, and much more, and I was fascinated, I guess.
Maybe learning and trying to practice some of these things would make me fulfilled as a Christian.
As I learnt more, read more, asked questions, I began to have niggles of doubt about the things I was reading.
A lot of these practices seemed to glorify family above all else, put men on a pedestal, and involved legalistic rules and roles.
I felt I was caught in the middle.

I was so interested in all this, and it felt like it was a way I could identify with something, like I was doing something different and that it somehow made me more of a Christian.
Looking back, I know I was really searching, but what I was searching for wasn't going to be found there.

And the questions I had still nagged, like if this is real, why don't I feel it, what am I doing wrong.
And some, not all, but some of the people practicing these ideologies seemed to be very judgemental of those who did not. Like a we're right and you're wrong sort of attitude.

I wondered what mattered to God more - wearing the right things, doing the right things, or having a right heart attitude.
I decided that with all of the confusion it was time for me to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12b)
I went to the Salvation Army Book of Doctrine, to see for myself again what the foundation of my faith, my belief was.

The thing that stood out the most to me reading through this again was how the important things mentioned aren't about outward, legalistic practices, but what we believe and the attitude we have on the inside.
I was writing about this one day and reading through what I'd written, I realised how many times I said 'if I believe in God' or 'if I believe in Jesus'
I'd had enough of doubting IF I believe in Jesus, IF I believe in God.

I looked around me and saw evidence of Him in creation, I thought of the people I had seen the love of Jesus in, encounters of the Holy Spirit I had experienced when worshipping, the assurance that although I didn't always feel it, I knew God was there.
I knew right then I didn't need to doubt about that anymore. I believed in God. I believed in Jesus.
The only qualms I had now was the questions I still had about many things, Christianity seemed to be complicated in so many ways, where was the simple childlike faith found?

I was talking to someone about this, and saying about the doubts and how I'm trying to work out what I believe, who I am in God.
She said that it was good.
She said that Christians have in common their belief in Jesus, who He is, what He did for us.
But that there are other areas where we can differ, different ways we're called, different positions we can take on certain things.
We can disagree but still be brothers and sisters in Christ.

This was a turning point for me, in realising I don't need to have all the answers, it's okay to have questions, to have doubts.
I know who my Saviour is.
There are many other things I don't know, I don't understand.
But Christ is my cornerstone.

Next post I'll be talking about how I am continuing grow and some of the things I've learnt.
Plus, a book club I'm going to be part of this year.
Blessings,
Jenna :)