Self-Doubt

I’ve been in a church planting residency since January 2020. The goal has always been to plant a church, to learn what that looks like, and to establish an understanding of what a church is. Here I am several months out from actually planting a church in the town that we grew up in, the town that my family loves.

We have a vision, we have a biblical foundation of that vision, but slowly doubts begin to creep in. They start quiet, but as we get closer and closer to planting they begin to grow in volume. I doubt myself.

I know that the success of The Table in Clyde will have nothing to do with me and everything to do with God. I know that God has placed Jessika and me in Clyde to start a new community of believers. Still, the voice of my flesh can be louder than the voice of the creator of the world.

When we experience this self-doubt what do we do? Raised in the church, I know the answer that is always given is to have faith, is to believe harder. Even that idea seems to be wrapped in my ability, me. If we are doubting then how can we believe that we can bring our doubting self out of the doubt?

We have to conclude who we are. We are doubters, we are fragile, we are broken. We are going to let ourselves down, let our family down, let our friends down. But we have hope that God, through his Son, and the empowerment by the Holy Spirit is doing a work in us. We are weak but he is strong.

⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

We walk through this life not in our flesh but as redeemed people, people that have become the righteousness of God. We press on and move forward knowing that it was never about us, but about the creator.

Just like you, I know that I have my weaknesses and I will continue to doubt, but I know that in my doubt, in my weaknesses my Heavenly Father is strong, and as his child, I am made strong.