– Today’s blog is from the book Pause: The Secret to a Better Life, One Word at a Time. Pick up your copy on Amazon or right HERE.
The unknown. It’s staring at us all. Will it promote our risks or prohibit them? Five years from today, will we look back and remember how a season of the unknown strengthened us? Or will we pretend we’re living with no questions at all?
Becoming aware of our dreams and our doubts provides honest views of ourselves. Doubt is okay as long as it doesn’t control us. If it motivates us to seek proper counsel and invest time in preparation, then let’s keep it. If doubt controls us and deprives us of adventures into wonder, then let’s kiss it goodbye.
Reflect:
- Identify your doubts and write them down. How does the list look to you?
- Which doubts fall under the category of healthy? What ones are unneeded?
Doubt is a hard thing to overcome, especially for someone who is the “golden child.” That was me in my family. I was the child and sibling who was supposed to go far and be successful. It was a lot of pressure and there were plenty of people who were smarter, prettier, thinner, and more confident than me. Honestly, that’s still true today. Doubting my capabilities is something that all of my professors still scold me about. It’s something God and me are working on.
I almost feel like we should have a different word in the English language for doubt in the sense that it overwhelms and controls us, and doubt in the sense that it is something that motivates us to seek truth. Having one word that can be so vast in meaning doesn’t seem like such a good concept. That being said, I think I was always taught “trust but verify”. Don’t be a fool and believe everything everyone says, but do not be closed off to ever trusting someone. The thing about God is, people try to apply the “trust but verify” rule to him without accepting the Bible stories or the past experiences as the verification to their trust. To be honest, I find myself not trusting God for the same ridiculous reason. My God parted an ocean so his people would not be hindered by it. How much more can he move things out of my way to lead me where he wants me?
Doubt creeps in when I don’t even realize it. I’ve noticed this year that the more I set goals, the less I doubt. More importantly, the more I give those goals over to God, the less i doubt.
Doubt can stop anybody in their tracks in achieving their goals but I think anyone can achieve their goals as long as push through the doubts and hand them over to God then they can achieve their goals.
Doubts – the things that make us question why God made us a certain way a convince us that we cannot do what He has called us to do. Sometimes doubts are good, because they can strengthen a godly decision, because you spend more time praying about it. However, most of the time doubts let us consider ourselves to be worthless. It is always important to pray when we have our times of doubts, even if it seems like the most inopportune time.
It’s very hard for me to doubt. I’m so optimistic and unrealistic that it’s very hard. But i know I’m called to help others get over there doubt. To focus on God and not the Goliath in there life. To only see Him and in Him there is no doubt.
Silence initiates doubt. Doubt precedes anxiety. Anxiety initiates panic. Panic results in depression. Part of God’s nature is his hiddenness. He doesn’t always speak or move or show. Those seasons terrify me, because of the above mentioned cycle unfortunately engrained in me. It’s in these times I have to cling desperately to the Word of God like a toddler to her father’s leg pleading for him not to leave, or a lover to the letter of her distant companion as she awaits their reunion. The Word of God is timeless and in it I find the voice in the midst of silence.
Sometimes doubt is what it takes for us to finally look to God. Doubt usually keeps us from surrendering because we want to sweep it under the rug or handle it alone. However, both of those routes will fail, then we will look to God. Count it all joy, doubt can be the answer.
Doubt keeps me from drawing closer to God. i doubt Him and the power that He has. The power to conquer all fears and doubts is within me, and i don’t utilize it. I have doubts about my career, about what the next step in life is for me. I place God in a box. I put it all on my shoulders. The doubts of fear and selfishness are un needed in my life. As the next step in life vastly approaches, i need to surrender my doubts, my struggles, and my everything to Him.
I find myself dealing with doubt more than I should. Whenever I realize there is doubt and my life, when I look at it through a magnified lens, I realize that it is not entirely doubt but overthinking disguised as doubt.