Struggle Sunday: Doubting God’s Direction

To kick off my first “Struggle Sunday,” which just so happens to align with the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I thought I’d talk about something we all experience at one point or another: doubting God’s direction in our lives.

I’ve never heard God’s audible voice. Never seen mystical writing in the sky or in the sand or inside my eyelids when I close them at night. And yet somehow I knew where to go to college my freshman year and whether to transfer after that. I knew to study abroad at Oxford University one summer and to serve with YouthWorks another. And ultimately I somehow knew to undertake a crazy life-altering cross-country move to California.

I’ve experienced it time and time again: God surely pushing me in the right direction. I love those transcendent moments when I’m on that never-ending flight to the UK or driving in the middle of a New Mexican desert en route to California, knowing I was undoubtedly right where God wanted me at that particular time.

So if God’s “shown up” time and time again, why do I dare doubt He’ll show His face once more?

I’m currently in another potentially transitional time of my life, wondering what the next couple years may hold. Wondering where my wandering self will call “home” next. While I’m still here in southern California, I’d love to plug into an awesome community of believers and fellowship with them on at least a weekly basis. But for whatever reason, this ideal has always eluded me.

And so I wonder, where is God? How come He’ll lead me all the way to California, but He won’t confirm a church to me? Won’t provide me with a solid community of believers when surely He must desire this for my life?

Why does He lead so obviously in some ways, yet seemingly not at all in others?

God is God, and I am not; He’s the writer of my life, not me. Wouldn’t it be silly for any story’s characters to cry out to their writer why things are falling apart all around them?

Doesn’t the writer eventually bring Frodo Baggins to Mount Doom? Doesn’t the writer bring Aslan back from the grave to bring victory to Narnia?

Doesn’t our own Writer pen us through life’s darkest valleys and eventually bring us to those long awaited sunrises?

Our stories aren’t always pretty — in fact, they can get quite messy. Look no further than 9/11/01 when thousands of lives got messy in a hurry. But already in my brief quarter-century life, I’ve started discovering why unfortunate things have transpired. Started seeing the wisdom of God’s plan.

And yet still I doubt. In the last several months, I’ve grown way more honest with God when considering His plan for my life.

It used to be that I’d say, “Well goshdarnit, this sure stinks, but I’m trustin’ ya, God! I’ll just focus on today and try to let tomorrow worry over itself!”

Contrast that with today: “God…I don’t understand. I just don’t. Why are you allowing this to happen to me? Haven’t I gone through enough? I honestly don’t know how much longer I can keep going like this. Do something soon. Please. Help.”

I’m learning it’s okay…

• To be confused with God’s plan.
• To question God’s plan.
• To cry out against God’s plan.

We’re not surprising God with our confusion and questions and cries of anguish. Indeed, I’m only now starting to understand what it means to be real with God. To ask Him for things I once felt silly asking Him for. To take advantage of something regular storybook characters can’t do:

“Breaking the fourth wall” by communicating with our beloved Author. Let’s stop masking our anxieties from the One who already knows them. I’ve been a lot more blunt with God lately, and I think our relationship has taken on so much more depth as a result. I think He loves it when we’re open with what we’re really feeling. When we’re real with Him.

How do you respond to doubt and uncertainty? Are you afraid to be blunt with God?