Doubting Your Skills

By thissmallgroup, April 23, 2020

I feel like doubt is a topic within faith that everyone tries to make black and white. If you are a good Christian, then you don’t doubt God and His plan; you trust Him always. If you doubt, then you’re a terrible Christian; how dare you doubt God? However, while doubt is definitely not a good thing, I think it is something that many Christians do struggle with and experience. Whether it’s a big aspect of faith or something significantly smaller, I think it’s something that most of us will deal with in life. I know I’ve had my moments of doubt: doubting whether God is even listening when I pray, doubting that I’ll ever figure out His plan for me, doubting that He’ll be with me through challenges and struggles.

I think doubt when it comes to God’s plan is unfortunately a frequent occurrence. We can run into roadblocks or difficulties and we start to think that this must not be what God has in mind. Even when God gives us certain passions or certain skills, when we hit a barrier, it can be easy to think that maybe this isn’t what we’re meant to do or maybe even that God made a mistake and picked the wrong person to give talents and skills to or that there’s someone with more skills who should be the one used by God in some great way.

I have definitely experienced this. From a pretty early age, I loved reading which then translated into a love of writing. I loved writing short stories when I was little and had started working on writing longer ones up until about high school. In high school, I had two friends who were fantastic writers and they actually posted their writing for others to read, getting compliments. At that point, apart from family, I hadn’t really shared my writing with anyone. Because of this, I got pretty discouraged from sharing my writing, leading to a discouragement from virtually any writing at all.

After I graduated college and entered the world of adulting, I started dealing with a lot more stress. Yes, college had its stressful moments, but I feel like that was nothing compared to real life stress! As I was trying to figure out good ways to de-stress, I realized that one good way was to have a creative outlet. Since I am not a skilled artist (I can barely draw a decent looking flower, haha), I figured I would jump back in to something I at least used to really enjoy and have a passion for.

It started with just writing for my own enjoyment. Then, Abby, Hannah, and I were hanging out and grabbing coffee and we wound up talking about starting a blog (which, you are well aware of, ended up coming to fruition). So, instead of having my writing just be a personal creative outlet, it’s now posted online for anybody to see.

Now, I am not saying that I’m planning on being the next Jane Austen or anything like that. And yes, there are still people who have significantly more skill when it comes to writing than I ever will. But, God definitely had a plan for us to start this blog. As Abby, Hannah, and I have said, we don’t know what’s going to come of this blog, but however God sees fit to use it, I’m just so grateful that He has at least let me feel the same passion for writing as I had when I was younger.

I know it can be really easy to doubt your God-given skills and passions, but God gave them to you for a reason. Maybe you are meant to be the next great actor, singer, writer, artist, politician, etc. Or, maybe you’re meant to use those skills and passions in a way that isn’t as broadcast to the world. Whatever the case may be, God gave them to you and, as such, you are meant to use them.

-Allie