I Have Started Doubting His Kindness

Every page on this site opens with the same words and I am glad it does. This is not medicine. I am not a clinician, nothing here is treatment, and nothing on this page ever takes the place of a doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist. If anybody in that house is unwell, ring somebody qualified today, before anything else here.

Now. Let me say the sentence for you, because I think it has been sitting in your chest unsaid for months.

You still believe He can. That part has never moved. You would say it in front of anybody and you would mean it.

What has gone quiet is the other half. Whether He will. For you. In this.

And the reason you have not said that to anybody is that it sounds, in your own ears, like the beginning of losing your faith. So it stays in, and it gets heavier, and now you are managing a private thing on top of a public one, and the private one frightens you more.

The man says both halves in one sentence

There is a moment in Mark where a father says something that has kept a great many people in the faith, and the reason it works is that it is not tidy.

And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. (Mark 9:24, King James Version)

Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief.

Both halves, out loud, in public, in front of the one he was asking. He does not resolve them first. He does not go away and sort himself out and come back with a clean position.

And the account does not record one word of rebuke for the second half.

You are permitted to say both halves at once, and saying the second one has never once disqualified anybody. Mark 9:24 puts the belief and the unbelief in a single sentence addressed to Christ Himself and receives no correction in reply, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gets the honest half out of a person's chest.

And notice he says it with tears, which means he was not comfortable with it either. This is not a man being casual about doubt. He is frightened of his own sentence and he says it anyway.

You have never once been asked to arrive tidy. The Spirit of God is the one who is present with somebody saying the half they are ashamed of, and it is written that the father cried it out rather than mentioning it quietly, and that nothing in the account corrects him for it.

What actually happened to the second half

Let me say the practical part, because I think something here has been misread and it is costing you.

The conclusion that gets drawn is that the quiet half means the faith is failing. What is far more likely is that it is worn. Hope that has been asked to hold a specific outcome for a long time gets thin at that exact point, and nowhere else.

Notice what has not gone. You still pray. You still believe He is good in general. You still believe He can. It is one specific place that has worn through, and a worn place in one spot is not a collapse.

You are not losing your faith, and a thin patch has never once been the same as a hole. Mark 9:24 has a man name his unbelief while actively asking, which means the asking and the doubting were happening in the same person at the same moment, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells the difference between worn and gone.

And I am going to say the thing this site exists to say, plainly, because it is the exact place where a page like this could do harm. Nothing that happens or does not happen is being decided by the state of your believing.

You were never the mechanism, and the burden has never once sat on the person doing the hoping. The Spirit of God is the one who takes an accounting off somebody who has been auditing their own faith, and what is written has a father say the honest thing and be answered without one word about the quality of his believing.

The plain routing, and it does not need you to believe anything

Here is the part of this page that is not comfort, and on an article about doubt it is worth noticing what it does not require.

If something is happening right now that frightens you, that is 911, and that call does not ask what you believe. If the heavy thing today is in your own mind, and especially if the quiet has spread further than this one subject, 988 answers, and a real person picks up. And whatever the situation is, it goes to a doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist today.

You are able to do all of that with a thin patch in you, and it has never once mattered to any of it. Mark 9:24 has a man bring a real request while carrying an admitted unbelief, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves somebody who does not feel qualified to move.

I find that steadying and I hope you do. The phone does not ask. The appointment does not ask. You do not have to believe well to be looked after.

You have things you can do today that have never once required a particular state of mind. The Spirit of God is the one who is present with a person acting while unresolved, and what is written records the asking and the unbelief in the same breath and answers the man anyway.