When Your Faith is Wavering
To have faith is to choose to think thoughts that will never be proven in this lifetime. We think about faith in a religious context but there are actually many things we have faith in every day. If you are a logical, analytical thinker your mind will naturally want to see how things add up. If you are a more organic, creative thinker faith might come easier. None of this means anything has gone wrong. In the LDS religion we talk about things outside of us making us feel a certain way. We forget to discuss the part about our role in what we’re feeling. The temple can’t make you feel anything. The scriptures can’t make you feel anything. Nothing outside of you can actually make you feel anything. The thoughts you have about the temple and the scriptures are what give you your feelings about them. This is not to negate the role of the Spirit, but rather to point out that Heavenly Father will never control your mind just as Satan can not either. Let’s begin by owning the truth about what we are experiencing, our role in it, and then deliberately choose what we want to believe.
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I thought you nailed this, and I think is such important stuff. It still kinda blows my mind that the temple can’t make you feel anything, but I channel my inner emotional adulthood and try wrap my brain around it. I think I get it. Thanks for all your insight!
Right on Tara. Thanks. And when your brain wants to question it all…no big deal. It’s one of the things I love about you. Your ability to think through things. xo
Hi Jody. My husband and I have been experiencing doubts about the Church for years, and this episode of your podcast was shared with us by a family friend. I think that wavering faith is such an important topic of discussion within the Church, and I am glad to see you tackling it.
I would like to address your comments on the term “faith crisis,” however, and why I feel it is an important term for those wrestling with doubt. When those who doubt begin to entertain the thought that what they have been taught all their lives isn’t true, it causes them to question everything– long-held beliefs, worldview, decisions made, etc. Doubt also carries with it a stigma, which can strain relationships and isolate the doubter. For many, it truly is a crisis, and it is wrong to downplay the strong and complex feelings associated with doubt.
In fact, many who experience a crisis of faith would argue that it truly isn’t about their faith at all but rather about the “truth crisis” that the LDS Church faces in this day and age. To say that doubt is solely an internal battle is not only false but detrimental to one’s intelligence and integrity as well. There are numerous external issues coming to light in church history and culture that vary drastically from the narrative taught on Sundays and in the missionary discussions, creating cognitive dissonance in a different way than the one you mentioned, forcing people to sweep unsavory information about the Church under the rug, or put it on their shelf so-to-speak, until that shelf finally breaks, and they are left trying to put the pieces back together.
I do not mean to be disrespectful of you or your perspective. I simply think it is crucial that empathy and understanding be forged between firm believers and doubters or else the gap between the two only widens and nothing is accomplished.
Hi Kelly – Thanks so much for your comment. I think this is a great discussion to have and I can see your viewpoint and I’m sure many people would agree.
To have thoughts such as, “What I’ve believed for so long and what the people around me believe is not true at all and this is terrible news,” will generate feelings of doubt, confusion, fear, etc… Our feelings come from what we are thinking… not from what happens outside of us. What other people say or do or teach or lie about etc… has no effect on us until we make it mean something. It is understandable for someone to feel a lot of painful emotions but I think it’s important to keep the ownership for them so that when one is ready, they can feel at peace if they want to.
I can only imagine how challenging this particular scenario would be. However, to me a crisis is something that happens to me that is outside of my control and I am left to just survive the storm. So labeling it a crisis puts all the power externally and that is neither necessary nor helpful unless it helps one feel compassion towards themselves. Otherwise it makes the person a victim to external circumstances.
If new information changes a person’s belief about something, it could be liberating and freeing and empowering. It is only a crisis if we define it as such and then it will likely become one in our lives.
If calling it a crisis helps someone to feel more at peace with what’s going on then I have no problem with that. For most people it is disempowering and it’s become a common label so I simply want to offer that it is not the only option in this situation.
That said – I think we have a long way to go in the LDS culture of being more compassionate and understanding of people on this journey. For human beings in general it’s challenging for us to watch our loved ones choose a path we think is not in their best interest but I believe the best we can do is to love each other unconditionally. With this in mind I believe most people are doing the best they can. Unfortunately sometimes our best is terrible.
Thanks again for sharing your insight and I hope lots of love and peace for you and your loved ones.
First of all, I have to tell you how much I love all your podcasts and all the work you do. I’ve had a really terrible year, and your podcasts are one of the major things helping me through.
I loved this episode, I’ve been struggling with my faith as we’ve faced some major challenges this year. I think I too have placed some blame in culture and religion. I’m also an extremely logical analytical person.
And my follow up question I guess, is:
So is all faith/belief simply a choice? Do we choose to believe something, then generate our own good feelings?
Where does the spirit actually come in?
Or is it all in our heads and our own thoughts, until we accept it as truth?
Thanks!