You Can Love God and Not Trust Easy Answers

You Can Love God and Not Trust Easy Answers

There is a quiet fear many sincere believers carry but rarely name:
If I stop trusting easy answers, will I lose my faith altogether?

Somewhere along the way, loving God became tangled up with being certain. Doubt was treated as danger. Questions were seen as cracks. And complexity was viewed as something that needed to be resolved quickly, preferably with a verse, a slogan, or a tidy explanation.

But I’ve learned something through grief, ministry, and long seasons of unknowing:
You can love God deeply and still mistrust easy answers.

In fact, that mistrust may be a sign that your faith is maturing.

Easy answers often function as spiritual shortcuts. They sound faithful, but they don’t always tell the truth. They bypass lament. They rush past mystery. They try to protect God from our questions rather than trusting God with them.

When someone is suffering, an easy answer might say, “God has a plan.”
When faith feels thin, it might say, “Just pray more.”
When injustice persists, it might say, “Everything happens for a reason.”

These phrases aren’t always wrong but they are often incomplete. And when offered too quickly, they can do more harm than good.

Scripture itself is far less tidy than we like to admit.

Job loved God and rejected the easy answers of his friends.
The psalmists loved God and cried out, “How long, O Lord?”
The prophets loved God and argued, protested, and wept.
Even Jesus, in his final hours, refused a neat resolution and prayed, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Love did not disappear in the presence of unanswered questions.

It grew deeper.

There is a difference between faith and certainty. Certainty wants closure. Faith is willing to remain present when answers seem sparse or uncertain.

Many people aren’t walking away from God as much as they’re walking away from thin explanations that cannot bear the weight of real life. And perhaps that’s not rebellion, but discernment.

At some point, trusting God demands we stop trusting answers that are too small for our grief, too fragile for our doubt, and too shallow for the mystery of a living God.

This doesn’t mean anything goes. It doesn’t mean truth no longer matters. It means we are learning the difference between defending God and abiding with God.

Love stays.
Love listens.
Love waits.

And sometimes love says, “I don’t know and I’m not going to pretend that I do.”

That kind of faith may be quieter. It may look less impressive. But, it is often more honest and more durable than the kind built on answers that crumble the moment life stops being theoretical.

You can love God without needing everything to make sense. You can follow Christ without rushing toward resolution.You can be faithful without being certain.

That, too, is a form of trust.

Until my next post…

Be salty, stay lit.

Rainer Bantau —The Devotional Guy™

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