How Honest Doubt Builds a Confident Faith
Josh Gray has a t-shirt somewhere in his closet that says "Hope Dealer" right across the front. He could not find it this week, but he could not stop thinking about the phrase. What does it look like to actually deal hope into the kingdom of God?
He landed on Shawshank Redemption, one of his favorite movies. There is a line where Andy Dufresne tells Red, "Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." Red had spent the whole film arguing that hope was dangerous inside a prison. Andy refutes him. Hope is not the danger. Losing it is.
That set up the real question Josh wanted to ask the room. Not whether hope is good, but whether you actually have it, confidently, and could say why. How confident are you in your faith, in what you believe about God, the Bible, and who Jesus was? Have you inherited that faith from somebody else, or investigated it for yourself?
That question is the whole reason for a new sermon series at Real Life, and "Questions Are Good" is where it begins.
Are You Ready to Give an Answer?
There is a QR code in the bulletin this week, staying there for the length of the series. Point your camera, click the link, and submit a question anonymously, the kind you might be embarrassed to ask out loud. Josh plans to compile them and actually answer them from the stage, not with gotcha one-liners, but with answers people can internalize.
The anchor text for the whole series is 1 Peter 3:15-16, written to a persecuted church: "In your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. Do this with gentleness and respect."
Josh did not let that stay theoretical. He asked the room directly. Real Life's own missionaries from Nepal were in the building that morning, and Josh brought up the devastating floods there, whole villages buried, thousands still missing. So how could a loving God allow that? Do the people who died there know Jesus? If they did not, where does that leave them?
Nobody raised a hand.
"You see," Josh said, "questions are good."
God Never Asks You to Abandon Your Mind
Here is the big idea for the whole series, the sentence Josh had the room say out loud together: God never asks us to abandon our minds to trust him. He asks us to use them.
Biblical faith, in Josh's words, is confident trust built on God's revelation and character, not blind optimism. Colossians 4:5-6 backs this up: "Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." Wisdom, opportunity, grace, and a real answer, not just a nice tone.
People Who Set Out to Disprove It
Josh pointed to a pattern that shows up across history. Somebody smart and credentialed sets out to prove Christianity is nonsense, and ends up a believer instead. C.S. Lewis, an Oxford professor, tried to dismantle the faith and became one of its most famous defenders. Alister McGrath, a biochemist, and Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project, both arrived at the same conclusion.
This fall, Real Life is bringing in Christian apologist Mark Mittelberg, a longtime colleague of Lee Strobel, for a Sunday message and an evening Q&A. More on that below, because Josh wants your calendar to have it circled.
A Daughter With Ten Fingers
The most personal moment of the message was not academic. Josh talked about his daughter Tori, born in 1998 when he had only been a Christian for three years and knew almost nothing yet. What actually moved his faith was not a stack of arguments. It was counting her fingers. Ten of them. Toes. Red hair nobody expected.
"You cannot just shake all the parts up in a bag and hope that works out," he said. "I think there's design involved." Watching the miracle of a birth up close rocked his world more than any debate could have.
Doubt and Faith Are Not Enemies
Mark 9:24 gives the church one of its most honest prayers: "I believe; help my unbelief." Faith and doubt can sit in the same sentence, and Jesus welcomes the struggle rather than punishing it. Thomas doubted, and Jesus invited him closer instead of shaming him. Jude 22 instructs believers to "be merciful to those who doubt." The church's job is compassion, not condemnation, gentleness instead of trying to win an argument and lose a soul in the process.
Proverbs 2 says wisdom comes to those who actively seek it. The Bereans in Acts 17 examined Paul's teaching rather than accepting it blindly, and Paul praised them for it. God is not threatened by investigation. He invites it.
Trust Beyond Certainty, Never Without Reason
Josh walked through ordinary examples. You sat down in the new chairs this morning without inspecting every screw. You trusted the brakes on your car without checking the pads yourself. None of that is blind. It is reasonable trust based on real evidence.
Then the bigger picture: the Golden Gate Bridge. You cannot see every bolt or inspect the foundation in the bay, but you watch the construction, you watch cars cross it every day, and you have good reason to believe it will hold you. Eventually you have to step onto the bridge. That is faith.
"Faith always involves trust beyond certainty," Josh said, "but never without reason." Hebrews 11 describes faith as confidence and assurance, not a leap in the dark. Blind faith says, "I hope this is true." Evidence-based faith says, "I have good reason to trust, even though I do not know everything."
In the Beginning, God
Josh pointed out something easy to miss about how the Bible opens. It does not spend its first chapters trying to prove God exists. It simply introduces him: "In the beginning, God." Everything else, purpose, morality, hope, forgiveness, eternity, flows from that reality. Every question in this series, however sharp, eventually points back to him.
The Goal Is Not Winning, It Is Worship
Josh closed with three postures. If you are skeptical, keep coming, and do not dismiss Christianity without actually investigating it. If you are struggling, bring your doubts into the light instead of hiding them, because hidden doubts grow and shared doubts in community tend to heal. If you are confident already, learn to give your reasons with humility, because people do not just need better arguments. They need to see better Christians.
He compared it to standing under a night sky. The more astronomers learn about the universe, the bigger it gets, not smaller. Knowledge does not shrink awe, it increases it, and that is the trajectory Josh wants for this whole series: not a stack of facts, but a deeper confidence in Christ that grows into worship. The goal of investigating your faith was never to win an argument. It is to worship the God who created the galaxies and still entered history in Jesus Christ.
Taking It Into Tuesday
- What question about your faith have you been sitting on quietly, afraid to say out loud?
- Where in your life have you settled for inherited faith instead of investigated faith?
- Who around you needs to see you handle doubt with honesty instead of pretending it does not exist?
- Are you currently more interested in winning an argument or in helping someone meet Jesus?
Circle October 24th on Your Calendar
Josh is not asking you to figure this out alone. This October, Real Life is hosting Christian apologist Mark Mittelberg for a Sunday message, followed by an evening Q&A where you can bring your own hardest questions. Mark your calendar for October 24th and start collecting the questions you have been sitting on.
If you cannot wait until then, you do not have to. We gather every Sunday at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM at the Eastside Marketplace in Moscow, and your questions are welcome there too. Your kids have a place through Lifer Kids, and each week we take communion together as a family, remembering why we have a reason for this hope in the first place.
Bring your doubts. Bring your questions. We would love to meet you there.