Navigating Doubt as a LeaderMuestra

These three verses are a turning point in Asaph’s prayer. He has named his doubt and defended it before God, and now he starts asking questions.

“Did I purify my heart for nothing? Wash my hands in innocence for nothing?”

He is describing the life of righteousness he has lived and asking God if all of it has meant anything.

He says, “If I had decided to say all this out loud…” (in other words, “If I had gone around using my platform and influence to speak against You…”) “…I would have betrayed Your people. Instead of leading them in worship, I would have led them in idolatry and apostasy.”

Here is the reality:

People don’t move from belief to unbelief. There are no true deconversion stories where someone once believed something and now believes nothing. Instead, people leave one set of beliefs for another set of beliefs. Doubt is the invitation to exchange one belief for another.

Here, we see Asaph tell God in prayer what that has been like for him — the beliefs he is starting to consider in place of the ones he is doubting, like:

“None of this matters.”

All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. (v. 13)

He is beginning to exchange “God is good to his people—those who are pure in heart” for “Purity doesn’t matter; holiness doesn’t matter; how you treat others doesn’t matter.”

If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed the generation of your children. (v. 15)

He is describing the kind of person he would become if he stayed on his current path. He would no longer be a worship leader for God; he would be an antagonist against God. He sees where his doubt is leading him.

And this is where the prayer turns. Asaph realizes that his doubt is leading him somewhere he cannot go. He realizes that his doubt is making him someone he doesn’t want to become.

There is something really beautiful about this moment. I take great comfort in it in my own doubts. Asaph has not yet resolved the things that caused his doubt, but he has counted the cost of letting the doubt rule him. He has weighed what life would be like if doubt won. In counting the cost, he has found beliefs that he isn’t willing to give up.

"Purity does matter… I don’t want to hurt God and his people…I love leading in worship." Asaph realizes all of this and is honest enough to see that those things come from and with God. He refuses to act like they don’t.

What would that sound like in your prayers? To name the doubt, defend it, but then start being honest with God about where it’s leading you. Ask these questions in conversation with God:

Who will I become if the doubt wins? Cynical? Bitter? Hopeless? Dishonest?

What in my life that matters to me will matter less if my doubt wins?

When I think about this in my own life, it is so helpful. The only way I know to make sense of the deep joy in life, the real love in life, the tragic pain of life...is if God is who He says He is and the story He tells is true. And I don’t want to be the kind of person who denies joy and love, and pain. I don’t want to be the kind of person who pretends I can understand any of that without God.

So, I may not have all the doubt resolved, but there is a place I won’t let doubt take me. There is a person doubt would make me that is not who I want to be.

If Asaph describes his doubt as stumbling, at this point, he is saying, “I would rather stumble along a path I know to be true than to have nothing at all to stand on.”

What would it sound like for you to say those kinds of things to God?