Doubt has a bad reputation in most Christian circles because it is often portrayed as the enemy of faith. There is a problem with this portrayal of doubt though because faith is not certainty. The apostle Paul gives us some insight into the nature of faith in 1 Corinthians 13:12 when he says, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” The insight Paul gives us here is that faith recognizes that there are things about God that we will never know in the short years of these mortal lives we are leading. God shows us enough of Himself to enable faith but to not force certainty upon us. Without certainty, doubt has room to roam and it does so throughout our lives.
The question then is not will we face doubt, but rather, what will we choose to believe when there is not sufficient information given for us to be certain. We will either choose to follow faith or fear. What is faith? The writer of Hebrews gives us a great definition in Hebrew 11:1, “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.” Faith is the choice to believe that God is true and trustworthy in spite of my fears and doubt.