Given everything I have explored so far, and the recurring theme of my earlier struggles with belief that runs through it all, a natural question arises. Why was it, and in some ways still is, so difficult for me to believe certain core elements of my faith? I have asked myself this countless times, and I imagine others who have followed my story may be asking it as well. It’s an honest question, and one worth sitting with for a while. In my own reflections, I have found that while I did wrestle with particular beliefs – especially about the nature of the Bible, which I hope to explore in more depth soon – the heart of my struggle was not with the content of any single belief. It was with the nature of belief itself, and with the place belief holds in the life of faith. The real tension was less about what I believed and more about what I believed about believing. I wrestled not only with whether my beliefs were true, but also with whether they could be chosen at will, and whether their correctness was necessary for my relationship with God.

For much of my life, I rarely thought deeply about the nature of belief. Like many people, I simply assumed I could choose what to believe. This was not a carefully reasoned conviction, but more like a default setting I had inherited without noticing. Our language reinforces this assumption. We often say things like, “I’ve decided to believe this,” or, “I will never believe that.” Such phrases suggest that belief is something we can summon or dismiss at will. That was the world I lived in. My initial approach to faith, especially during my years of study in philosophy, theology, and apologetics, was to find the position on any given topic that had the strongest arguments and best evidence. My goal was not to believe whatever made me comfortable, but to believe only what I had good reason to think was true. I believed I had the ability to choose my beliefs, so my task was simply to choose the ones that most aligned with truth.

Over time, “truth” became the ultimate authority in my life, the standard I was determined to honor above all else. It did not matter if a belief was personally comforting; if it was true, I would accept it. If it was false, I would reject it. That posture carried me for years, and it might have continued indefinitely if not for my habit of relentless self-examination. I could not help but analyze my beliefs, probing them for weaknesses and testing them against counterarguments. This scrutiny was not reserved for the beliefs of others; I applied it to my own convictions with equal, if not greater, intensity. My mind functioned like an internal cross-examination, a courtroom where I served as both witness and prosecutor, and the case was always ongoing. While such questioning seemed virtuous in the name of truth, it eventually began to undermine my stability. The more I pushed, the more I realized that my framework for belief might not hold up under the weight of my questions, a realization that was both disorienting and clarifying.

As strange as it may sound, this habit felt natural for someone consumed with the pursuit of truth. Yet over time, my questioning turned inward in a new way. I began not only to examine my beliefs, but also my beliefs about my beliefs. Then I questioned my beliefs about those, and the cycle repeated. Like a child endlessly asking “Why?” I pushed further down the chain, sometimes losing track of where I began. This was not rebellion, nor an attempt to evade responsibility. It was an honest desire to understand why I believed what I did, and whether I had good reason to keep believing it. But such deep and constant questioning can be exhausting. It was like sitting in an interrogation room under the harshest lights, only to realize that the interrogator was me. The process felt endless. Every time I thought I had landed on a solid foundation, I would find myself prying at its corners, wondering if it, too, could be dismantled. I wanted certainty, but my very process for pursuing it seemed designed to unravel whatever I had built.

Years of this self-interrogation produced mixed results. In some cases, my convictions grew stronger. My belief in the existence of God, for example, became even more deeply rooted. Yet many other beliefs strained under the weight of my questions, some collapsing entirely. This was not only because certain beliefs lacked compelling support, but also because I became overwhelmed by the sheer variety of competing views and the depth of disagreement surrounding them. Even simple ideas could lead me into long chains of inquiry, stretching on for weeks or months until abandoned out of mental exhaustion. Gradually, I found myself drifting towards a weary but humble agnosticism on more and more topics, longing for the freedom to explore without the constant burden of defending a fixed conclusion. The problem was that I still lived with the idea that certain theological beliefs were necessary in order to please God, and – perhaps most of all at the time – to secure my spot in heaven. This drove me to shore up my beliefs, desperately trying to secure them before they slipped away entirely, but a battle that began to feel increasingly unwinnable.

Because the harder I tried to force myself into belief, the more elusive it became. I could gather reasons for and against various views, but in many cases neither side ultimately persuaded me. This was not because the reasons were always weak, nor because I was setting impossibly high standards. It was because belief, as I was coming to realize, does not submit easily to the will. I could want to believe something very much, and still find myself unable to do so. I spent years circling this same track. No matter how many times I ran it, I ended up at the same dead end. That was when I began to question the entire enterprise. I asked whether belief was even under my control at all, and whether its correctness was truly necessary for the Christian life. The question, “What must I believe?” began to seem less pressing than, “Who do I follow?” The more I reflected on Jesus’ ministry, the more I noticed how He never made belief in specific doctrines the entry point for discipleship. Rather, he invited people to follow Him as they were, and let their understanding grow along the way, an observation that unsettled and liberated me at the same time.

Of course, I still think beliefs matter. They shape how we live and relate to God and others, but they change over time as we grow. Could it be enough though, at least when it comes to faith, to be committed to seeking the truth rather than insisting we have already arrived at it? Could discipleship be more about openness than certainty? Doesn’t coming to God “as we are” include our intellectual state as well as our moral one? If we can’t force ourselves to believe something simply by deciding to, then doesn’t it follow that we can pursue God sincerely even with open questions? For me, the inability to choose my beliefs at will wasn’t a theoretical notion; it was a daily reality. I couldn’t make myself believe something any more than I could make myself feel hungry when I was full. This recognition made me wary of the pressure – whether from myself or others – to treat belief as a simple matter of obedience. My faith journey began to shift from forcing intellectual assent toward nurturing trust in the One I was trying to follow.

It reminds me of the moment in Alice in Wonderland when the Queen tells Alice she is over a hundred years old. Alice replies, “I can’t believe that.” To which the Queen responds, “Can’t you? Try again: draw a long breath and shut your eyes.” That, in essence, was how I often felt when told to believe something I found unconvincing. I could pretend to believe it. I could even say the words aloud. But deep down, I knew the difference between genuine conviction and make-believe. To help give some experiential context to this, take something that you currently believe passionately and now choose to believe the opposite, even if for just a few moments. Can you do it? I mean really do it? The more I reflected on this, the more I began to see belief as something that happens to us rather than something we generate by sheer will. Real belief feels less like something I hold and more like something that holds me. When I truly believe something, it is because I am convinced it is true, not because I have decided to accept it for other reasons. Truth has a way of taking root in us, of settling into place until a greater or more compelling truth dislodges it. This process, I noticed, usually unfolds through experience or reasoned reflection, but not by command.

Looking at the Gospels, I could see that Jesus did not require His followers to assent to a long list of theological statements before joining Him. He called them into relationship first. As they walked with Him, their understanding and convictions grew naturally out of shared experiences. Their beliefs became their confessions, but not because they had been told they must check them off to belong. They grew from the soil of relationship, watered by trust, and warmed by love. The call was simple: “Come as you are.” It didn’t include a hidden clause about already holding the correct doctrinal positions. This realization began to free me from the fear that my questions would separate me from God. It suggested that belonging was rooted less in the perfection of my conclusions and more in the orientation of my heart toward the One who calls me. That shift didn’t answer all my questions, but it made them less threatening.

In the end, the most significant shift in my faith during this period was not the loss or gain of specific beliefs, but the transformation of my belief about belief itself. I moved from seeing belief as an act of will to seeing it as something that forms within us through the interplay of reason, experience, and grace. This shift altered the way I saw faith, the way I approached God, and even the way I understood spiritual authority. It was as if a door had opened in a wall I had been leaning against for years, and on the other side was a wider space than I had imagined. This realization was not the end of my questioning. If anything, it deepened it. But it also gave me a kind of peace I had not known before. I no longer felt the same panic when a belief wavered or failed to take hold. I could bring my doubts into the light without feeling they would immediately cut me off from God’s love. I began to trust that belonging to God was rooted in His grace, not in my ability to maintain an unbroken chain of correct conclusions about Him.

That trust, fragile as it sometimes felt, became a truer foundation than the fortress of conviction I had tried to build before. It turned my world upside down in ways I am still unpacking, and taught me that faith may be less about the perfection of our conclusions and more about the direction of our hearts. It reminded me that the invitation of Jesus was never to have it all figured out before taking the next step, but to follow and see where the path might lead.

Next time, I want to explore how all of this relates to the subject of authority, because this shift in my understanding of belief inevitably led me to reconsider where and how I had been taught to anchor my convictions in the first place.

Until then, thanks again for reading and – as always – stay curious, seek truth, and love well.