DoubtLess: Because Faith is Hard

DoubtLess does a phenomenal job of addressing the issue of doubt when it comes to faith. It specifically hones in on the difference between doubt and unbelief. Written to target college student and other young adults, this text is encouraging and empowering. While this complimentary book was provided for review by New Growth Press, no other compensation was given. All remarks are my personal and honest opinions.

DoubtLess does a phenomenal job of addressing the issue of doubt when it comes to faith. It specifically hones in on the difference between doubt and unbelief. Written to target college student and other young adults, this text is encouraging and empowering. While this complimentary book was provided for review by New Growth Press, no other compensation was given. All remarks are my personal and honest opinions.

One of the things I really enjoy about my job is that I get to spend a lot of my time in 1-1s with people. I spend hours reading the Bible with, praying with and discussing some of the difficult questions people have about the Christian faith. Too often I’ve seen Christians worry that their questions will be thought of as doubts and a lack of faith. This is a great book touching on that very topic… In Doubtless Shelby Abbott does a great job at helping Christians see that God is not annoyed at their questions. Abbott stresses the importance of brining your questions, all of your questions about the Christian faith, to God and to fellow Christians. Here’s what Abbott himself says… “It’s important to understand what doubt actually is and what it isn’t before making assumptions on the nature of what we’ll be talking about in the coming chapters. Many people, Christians in particular, conclude that doubt is the same thing as unbelief. Let me assure you that it’s not. If doubt were the same as unbelief, I don’t know a single follower of Christ who could be certain that their salvation was secure. They would feel as if their eternal destiny were in the throes of a cosmic ping-pong match, bouncing back and forth between heaven and hell, peace and anxiety, joy and despair. Unbelief is a conclusion someone reaches—a deliberate decision to live life as if there is no God. Doubt is something significantly different.” This book is jammed with pastoral experience of serving and discipling university students and young adults. The thing I like about this book is that it doesn’t tackle the normal apologetics questions. Instead Abbott addresses questions like… What does it mean for my Christianity if I’m doubting? I don’t feel loved by God right now, is He really there? Why am I so anxious when I have questions and doubts about God? Am I alone in my doubt? Doubts and questions can be scary, it can feel like the thing that you’ve believed your whole life is crumbling under your feet. But the questions is, what do we do with our doubts? Abbott rightly highlights the danger of dwelling on our doubts and the negative effects that can have on our spiritual life. This doesn’t mean that Christians should have questions. Every Christian does, whether they admit it or not. But there is a big difference between recognising doubts and questions and dwelling on them almost to the point of them being an obsession. The later can lead to a person walking away from their faith. We must let our doubts, our questions and our worries make us run to God and seek Him in absolute honesty and faith. Faith can be unfairly characterised as a leap in the dark or blindly stepping into the unknown. “faith isn’t ultimately about absolute certainties. It’s about a willingness to trust in the promises of God and the saving work of Christ, knowing that one day our trust will be vindicated. One day we’ll have all our questions answered; but for the moment, we walk by faith, not by sight.“ It is important that we’re honest about our doubts because not speaking about them can have real consequences… “Doubt becomes unbelief when you let it become unbelief. When you cling to unrealistic ideas about the Christian faith, get hopelessly preoccupied with doubts that are a natural part of the life of a believer, or fail to allow your faith to grow, you are making active choices to move to unbelief. It’s important not to be ashamed of your doubts. When you are, hiding, isolation, and loneliness become the natural by-product. Consequently, the cycle of shame, hiding, isolation, and loneliness feeds on itself, driving you further away from your faith.” I could go on and continue to quote some really good and helpful advice that Abbott gives in this book. I could continue to highlight some of the great teaching points and applications that he brings out in this short book. However, the best thing for you to do is just go buy it for yourself. I wish I had this book as I was wrestling with my faith when I was younger. Do you have doubts? Do you have questions? Are you unsure about how to reconcile your doubts and your faith? Is the whole situation sending you into a negative spiral? Then I highly recommend this book. It would be a great book to discuss in a 1-1 with another person, it would also be a great one to work through with a group of students and teens.

What do you do when you have doubts about your faith? Where do you go? This book by Shelby Abbott would be an excellent place to start. As he notes, all Christians experience doubt, but there are risks when it begins to lead to unbelief, and so doubts need “to be discussed in a safe environment of grace, truth, and love.” What he wants to do is ”give you the tools to develop a healthy sense of godly perception when doubt hits.” It’s aimed at young adults in academic contexts of “deep thought, intentional study, and challenging opinions”, however, I think older believers will also benefit from Abbott’s wisdom. He is not dealing with apologetics (the answers to the tough questions), but rather the issues behind the questions people have when they are wrestling with doubt. His encouragement as people deal with doubt is: “to lean into your relationship with God in the process, instead of succumbing to the temptation to flee from him. Let’s link arms together and move forward, with a spirit of hope and expectancy, as we trust the Lord during the struggle. May our faith in Jesus Christ be anchored and strengthened through our wrestling with doubt.” In Section One, he considers seven foundational issues to do with doubt. These include realising that doubt is biblical and common, following through on questions, feeding your faith, admitting it is arrogance to think you can know everything with certainty, and ensuring you have the truth of the bible’s reliability and Jesus’ resurrection core in your heart. Section 2: Everyday Doubts cover these which can erode your faith over time. These include the unwillingness to ask questions, to be able to trust in God’s sovereignty and care, and well as warning about wallowing in doubt rather than researching issues. He finishes with practical strategies to combat doubt: practice thankfulness, meet with ‘real and right’ people to work them through, continually remind yourself of the gospel and share your faith. An excellent book for young adults (and others) encouraging them to work through doubts, be honest about them, seek help and guidance in them, and continue to so while growing in their relationship with God, trusting in Jesus and all he has done. As he encourages: “lean into your relationship with God in the process, instead of succumbing to the temptation to flee from him. Let’s link arms together and move forward, with a spirit of hope and expectancy, as we trust the Lord during the struggle. May our faith in Jesus Christ be anchored and strengthened through our wrestling with doubt.”

What Christian hasn’t experienced doubt at one point or another? It’s hard enough to work through doubt as an adult, but it’s even more challenging for young adults. Author Shelby Abbott’s DoubtLess is just the rulebook doubters need. He provides guidance for finding your way through doubt before it turns into unbelief. Abbott hits the mark with his explanations and guidance for doubters. He has a history of working with and writing for young adults. Although younger people are his target audience, I felt as if an adult could gain as much from DoubtLess as anyone. It’s written generically enough that it doesn’t focus on today’s specific issues for teens or young adults and the concepts are presented in an ‘adult’ way. This is a great book for budding apologists, as Abbott creates the interesting and logical case that Jesus actually rose from the dead. He describes the circumstances that lead to doubt and the steps to take to prevent the doubt from becoming unbelief. Each chapter ends with thought-provoking reflection questions that help the reader work through their current doubts. DoubtLess is packed with practical information and guidance. It provides the reassurance doubters need and the roadmap from doubt to faith. DoubtLess is an antidote to today’s secular society. How this book affected me: I love books that offer substance and DoubtLess delivered! Doubt and faith are such abstract topics that I wondered if the author could hit his mark, but he did. Also, the actions he suggested to strengthen your faith are things I already do to keep my faith strong, so I know they work. I was pleasantly surprised that the author tackled this topic so well. Who would enjoy this book: Young adults (or any adults) who are struggling with Christian doubt would appreciate DoubtLess. It’s not necessarily an ‘easy’ read because the concepts are thought-provoking, but anyone who genuinely wants to work their way through doubt would be well served by this book. Our Christian Book Reviews: The book reviews at Finding God Among Us focus on Christian books – adult and children, fiction and nonfiction. Our specialty is books on faith and new Christian book releases. We’re proud to be included in the Top 50 Christian Book Review Bloggers. Our publisher partners include New Growth Press, Shadow Mountain Publishing, and Revell and BakerBooks, divisions of Baker Publishing Group. I chose to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

What Christian hasn’t experienced doubt at one point or another? It’s hard enough to work through doubt as an adult, but it’s even more challenging for young adults. Author Shelby Abbott’s DoubtLess is just the rulebook doubters need. He provides guidance for finding your way through doubt before it turns into unbelief. Abbott hits the mark with his explanations and guidance for doubters. He has a history of working with and writing for young adults. Although younger people are his target audience, I felt as if an adult could gain as much from DoubtLess as anyone. It’s written generically enough that it doesn’t focus on today’s specific issues for teens or young adults and the concepts are presented in an ‘adult’ way. This is a great book for budding apologists, as Abbott creates the interesting and logical case that Jesus actually rose from the dead. He describes the circumstances that lead to doubt and the steps to take to prevent the doubt from becoming unbelief. Each chapter ends with thought-provoking reflection questions that help the reader work through their current doubts. DoubtLess is packed with practical information and guidance. It provides the reassurance doubters need and the roadmap from doubt to faith. DoubtLess is an antidote to today’s secular society. How this book affected me: I love books that offer substance and this book delivered! Doubt and faith are such abstract topics that I wondered if the author could hit his mark, but he did. Also, the actions he suggested to strengthen your faith are things I already do to keep my faith strong, so I know they work. I was pleasantly surprised that the author tackled this topic so well. Who would enjoy this book: Young adults (or any adults) who are struggling with Christian doubt would appreciate this book. It’s not necessarily an ‘easy’ read because the concepts are thought-provoking, but anyone who genuinely wants to work their way through doubt would be well served by this book. Our Christian Book Reviews: The book reviews at Finding God Among Us focus on Christian books - adult and children, fiction and nonfiction. Our specialty is books on faith and new Christian book releases. We're proud to be included in the Top 50 Christian Book Review Bloggers. Our publisher partners include New Growth Press, Shadow Mountain Publishing, and Revell and BakerBooks, divisions of Baker Publishing Group. I chose to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

We Christians are faced with doubts. That is not a bad thing. As Abbott points out, we need doubt as it helps strengthen our faith. We should not avoid nor ignore doubt. But we cannot be passive about it either. We must work through doubts with intention and enthusiasm, Abbott writes. This is not a book of apologetics. It deals with the principle of doubt in general with ideas to work through it. I like the way Abbott distinguishes doubt and unbelief. Doubt is the natural questioning one has about faith. Unbelief is a deliberate decision one makes about belief. Even though doubt is far from unbelief, Abbott reminds us doubt, unchecked, can lead to unbelief. Hence the encouragement to work through doubt. We cannot think we will get a definitive answer to our every doubt, however. I like how Abbott points out the arrogance of having the unreasonable attitude we can know and have the ability to understand everything about God. We are not on the same level as God in knowledge and understanding and we must leave room for mystery. So it might seem a fine line, feeling one must work through doubt yet knowing there will not always be answers. College students and young career age are often the most challenged about their Christian faith. Abbott has written this book to help them work through the idea of doubt, what doubt is and how it is to be tackled. He has practical teaching and thought provoking questions at the end of each chapter. Abbott points out the value of having the right people beside us as we struggle with doubt so I would recommend this book be used in a group of trusted friends. Going through this book will be a good help in understanding and working through doubt. I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

There is tremendous wisdom in this short book. Shelby Abbott brings together his Biblical knowledge and ministry experience to dispel the false notion that doubt is the same as unbelief. He also shows us that faith isn’t the absence of doubt; it is rather the means by which we “overcome and walk through the valley of doubt.” Most importantly, he points us to Jesus, who is the source and the object of our faith. Shelby points out astutely that doubt arises within the context of faith. In the words of Alister McGrath, doubt is “a wistful longing to be sure of the things in which we trust.” He shows us clearly from Scripture that doubt was common both in the Old and New Testaments. But doubt, though not the same as unbelief, can easily turn into or lead to unbelief, if we constantly feed it instead of faith. He rightly explains the difference between living a life of anxiety and a life of faith. Anxiety because of doubt brings turmoil, takes us away from God and changes nothing, while faith amid doubt brings peace, draws us closer to God and changes our lives. In chapter 3, he simply says, “Feed your doubts and your faith will starve…Conversely, if you feed your faith, your doubts will starve.” Indeed! In Chapter 5, he shows us 3 common roads to unbelief: an unrealistic attitude in relation to faith, a morbid obsession with doubt and a refusal to grow up in our faith. He tells us that the road to unbelief is marked by daily active choices that move us to unbelief, “Doubt becomes unbelief when you let it become unbelief. When you cling to unrealistic ideas about the Christian faith, get hopelessly preoccupied with doubts that are a natural part of the life of a believer, or fail to allow your faith to grow, you are making active choices to move to unbelief.” Shelby also shows us that our suffering can easily lead to doubt. When life’s circumstances cause us to doubt, Shelby encourages us to look to the cross and the resurrection as vivid reminders of God’s compassion and power, despite the evidence against His love and ability. Shelby then shows us the need to work through our doubts with intentionality, instead of treating them with indifference. Doubt in one sense is needed to develop “antibodies” to fight our future battles, which can help strengthen our faith. Working through our doubts is a process and the method used to conquer our doubt is faith in the Son of God. Shelby concludes with four practical strategies to fight doubt: practicing thankfulness, engaging in community, remembering the gospel, and sharing the gospel. These strategies are powerful weapons in our fight against doubt that leads to unbelief. I was encouraged and challenged by this brilliant book. I could relate well to most of the chapters and am thankful for the insight I gained as I made my way through the book. I was especially glad to know and understand that faith isn’t about absolute certainties, but rather “a willingness to trust in the promises of God and the saving work of Christ, knowing that one day our trust will be vindicated.” I am glad to commend this book to young people and all leaders, especially those in youth ministry. 5/5 stars. *I received this free book from New Growth Press, but was not required to write a favorable review.*