Me too. These two very short words have incredible impact. When people have questions and doubts and feel like failures these words can be powerful and life saving. The truth is you are not alone. You are not the first person with questions. Every person has had them. Everyone has gone through seasons of doubt. No one is perfect. We all have our own issues. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be human.
Here is the test to know if you are missing something in your journey. When can you, along with other believers, confess your sins and ask for help? When is it okay to admit you are struggling? When can you ask for help? When can you admit you don’t know or understand something? If the answer to these questions is, ‘you don’t know’, you are missing out. Without these things we miss out on the healing that comes with our confessions. When you are left to think you are screwed up, a failure, and alone in your battles, you are sentenced to spiritual misery.
You need opportunities to be real with others. To admit it when you make mistakes. Incredible things happen spiritually, emotionally, and physically when repentance and forgiveness happen. In this place we give an opportunity to let God minister to the real issues we are facing and let the healing begin.
The fact that we have questions and need a place to ask them seems obvious. However, one the main toxins that repels this generation from the Church is that they feel the Church can’t handle their failures and doubts. This is a problem for two reasons. Most churches really don’t handle failure well. Secondly, people who have doubt and failures don’t always handle it well.
It’s no secret you will mess some things up in life. But what happens when you do? Do you try and make it right? Ask for forgiveness? When you have a doubt or questions about the Bible or your church’s beliefs have you sought out answers? Have you read your Bible? Have you asked people you trust about their beliefs? There is a responsibility on your part to get the answers you need.
As individuals, groups, and churches we need to extend the same grace Jesus did to the young men He was with. This does not mean we tolerate things we shouldn’t. Jesus corrected His own disciples when they needed to be corrected and it was done in love, in grace, and mercy. Even if these haven’t always been extended to you, you need to do the right thing: be like Jesus and extend it to others.
Also, realize that many people don’t know how to handle other’s failure, or those who think different, and have doubts. I wish I could say it would never happen to you but perhaps it already has, or will. This does not mean God has rejected you. Perhaps a person has, but they aren’t Jesus. This is the time to ask God to examine your own heart and attitude. Maybe there is something that needs to change in you, or maybe God can lead you to a place or person to help walk you through your own failures, struggles and doubt. It is important you have a person, a group, or a church that will help you in your journey. I pray, as you should also, that you will find those people or places.