Guest Post: Growing Doubt is Growing Faith

A guest post by Jess Connolly

I have never had a season before in my faith where I really struggled with, well… FAITH. I’ve had flashes of confusion or fear, but never full-on periods where I stopped believing in God or started questioning His goodness. 

Until this Lent. 

And this Lent, when by all appearances my faith should have felt firm, God grew my doubt in the most beautiful ways. I find myself as a Christian entrepreneur and author, a pastor’s wife, and the kind of gal who has her walls filled with scripture. 

But I found myself quietly sitting with doubt and confusion.

Have we made all of this up? Am I confusing God’s voice for my feelings? Am I basing all my decisions on myth or actual real experiences I’ve had with God? 

I feel like it was God who gave me the permission to let those feelings sit and linger, and that was so incredibly freeing. He didn’t sweep them under the carpet or ask me to reject them. He let me look at my doubt, hold it, examine it, feel the weight of it. And then I believe He lovingly answered each of my questions with truth. 

I believe God grew my faith by growing my doubt.

He let it be a piece of me and He answered it with truth and because of that — it wasn’t paralyzing and it didn’t derail my life. It wasn’t shocking and it didn’t stunt me. It was there, and then, by grace and peace, it didn’t disappear — it was answered. 

And there’s my encouragement for us today: If you’re struggling with doubt about anything — your business, your relationship, your identity, or your God — don’t feel like you have to sweep it under the rug and ignore it. Don’t frantically pretend like it never existed. Weigh it and answer it full in the face. 

Hold it up to the light and put truth next to it.

Our greatest doubts can grow our faith, when we answer them with grace and truth. 

Jess Connolly is a gal who wants to leave the world more in awe of God than she found it. She’s a passionate entrepreneur, author and speaker and loves talking to women about Jesus on the internet or over coffee. She and her husband Nick have recently planted Gospel Community Church in Charleston, SC. Jess is the cofounder of The Influence Network and the lead designer + owner of Naptime Diaries Shop. Her first book, Wild and Free, co-written with Hayley Morgan, will be out in spring 2016 with Zondervan. She blogs at jessconnolly.com.