Where God's Word Meets Our Mess
I'm so excited to invite you to a conference this October—UncommonTEEN Live—where I'll be speaking alongside my friend Jamie Kirschner! I had a blast sharing on the UncommonTEEN podcast last summer, and I'm thankful to Jamie for the opportunity to share at this conference for Christian teen girls. If you're interested in attending this conference, check out the event details below.
Today’s post is a continuation of last week’s post where I shared two things not to do when you have doubts about your faith. Those two things—which I learned through personal experience—are (1) isolating and (2) pretending you’re not struggling. But there are a couple other lessons I learned from my struggle with doubt, and as promised, I’ve included them below. These are two more things not to do when you have doubts about your faith.
Honestly, there’s a major lack of solid biblical resources available for Christians who are struggling with doubt—which is why I wrote this post. If you have doubts about your faith, here are a couple things not to do.
I should definitely preface this post by saying that you’re not sinning if you choose not to go to college or if you choose to go to an in-state college. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with choosing either of those options! However, now that several months have passed since I graduated from an out-of-state college, I can say that I’m really glad that I chose to go there. I encourage you to consider these reasons for attending college out of state if you’re getting ready to enter that season of life.
So in response to my Bible reading and my increasing weariness in the post-release season of Real Recovery, I wrote the following angry words in prayer: Dear God, as You know, it’s really frustrating to know that You can do BEYOND ALL THAT I ASK OR THINK yet You’ve done so much less than I asked or thought.
I wouldn’t say that I've “arrived.” I don’t have thousands of blog followers—not even close. I haven’t been published on lots of “big” Christian websites like Christianity Today or Desiring God. I don’t have a book proposal ready (or even started, ahem). But I’m here—and "here" is a good place to be because this is where God has brought me. He's the One who helped me say “yes” to this journey.
But something had happened. I had been majorly disappointed. Again. When would I learn to not have such high expectations?
To be honest, this summer wasn’t easy for me. It was a rollercoaster of anxiety, happiness, fear, discouragement, excitement, frustration, eagerness, and doubt. But I’m still here. I survived the summer of 2018. And I learned a few life-changing lessons along the way.
And then I began to realize the truth: I wasn't trusting God's plan. I wanted to receive a book contract now. I wanted to be a successful author now. I wanted my dreams to come true now. But that clearly wasn’t God's will for me. Even though I struggled to accept His will, He graciously used my disappointment to teach me three important things about my dreams—and I'll share them with you here.
Tizzie's Tidbits of Truth 