One Doubt at a Time — Carol McLeod Ministries
A Note from Carol: One of the greatest joys of my ministry is celebrating voices that share God’s hope and truth with boldness and grace. Today, I’m honored to share the blog space with my dear friend, Niki Hardy. Niki is the author of God, Can We Chat? A Daringly Honest Guide to Growing Closer to God, One Doubt at a Time—a beautifully vulnerable, hope-filled book that invites readers to bring their whole selves, questions and all, into conversation with God. With wit, wisdom, and raw honesty, Niki helps us see that doubt isn’t the end of faith—it can actually be the beginning of a deeper, more authentic relationship with God. If you’ve ever felt like you couldn’t bring your mess, your questions, or your “not enough” to God, this book will remind you that He welcomes it all—and He’s already leaning in, ready to chat.
“Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”
Matt 11: 28
I finally met Jesus over a pasta dinner in a Victorian church with bare brick walls, minutes from Buckingham Palace. A friend had invited me to hear a talk about faith and whether life held meaning, and my curiosity and stomach couldn’t resist (she’d mentioned there’d be pasta and cake). Dressed in dark jeans and an even darker T-shirt, the speaker looked normal enough (“normal” equating to trustworthiness in my young, twentysomething brain), so I listened with an open yet curious skepticism. As we took the last bites of our baked ziti and looked longingly at the promised coffee and cake, he reassured us Christianity isn’t a religion but a relationship.
Until then, my relationship with God (if you could even call it that) had been tenuous at best. Having gone to church as a family when I was small, if you’d asked me to state my religion, I’d have checked the “Christian” box, not because I knew and loved Jesus but simply because I wasn’t Muslim, Hindu, or atheist. I felt spiritual up mountains and believed in something bigger and better than me, which, for lack of another name, I’d labeled “God.” In hindsight, I was Christian with a lowercase c—a default setting thanks to my heritage, upbringing, and apathy towards religion in general. But that night I felt as if I’d been reintroduced to an old friend.
Have we met before?
Why does he seem so familiar?
Why do I want to know him so badly?
As dinner ended, Mr. Black Jeans and T smiled and assured the motley bunch of Londoners before him how much God longs for us to know him, and that we’re loved and known by him. Everything in me wanted to say yes. This knowing and being known sounded so astoundingly simple yet breathtakingly wondrous. Could this be the unreachable thing I’d strained to connect with, more off than on, over the years? Could this fill the unfillable longing for something more within me? From what I could tell, it would. So with my normal barrage of questions silenced by this new-found desire to be friends with the Creator of the galaxies, I simply whispered, Yes please, God. I’m in if you’ll have me.
In that moment, relationship, reason, and a thousand questions I’d been happy to park for a while collided to awaken and fuel a delicate, newborn faith. Fast-forward thirty years, through massive job shifts, international moves, church planting, burnout, and cancer—not to mention a global pandemic and political, racial, and religious division—and I found myself longing for the willingness of that night to live in peace with my questions, wishing I wasn’t such a relentless question asker or black-and-white thinker. The years had knocked what I held true. I was like a tortoise flipped on its back, my faith feet kicking wildly, failing to find traction. With my faith’s tender underbelly exposed, I longed to right myself despite having more unanswerable questions than faith to believe.
Maybe you’re there, too.
Doubting the faith we once held dear or questioning the God we’ve always loved and trusted isn’t a pleasant place to be, so I’m glad you’re here, looking for a safe place to be curious.
We’re often told our doubts are our faith’s kryptonite— didn’t Jesus admonish folks with little to no faith and praise the faith of others? But I’ve come to realize that doubts hold the potential to be faith’s superpower. When we lean into our questions and allow our doubts to lead us to Jesus, he reassures us that we see only in part (1 Cor. 13:12) and that God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours (Isa. 55:8). Then, like great women and men of faith before us, doubting (far from being a swear word) becomes one of the most faith-building things we can do for ourselves.
I believe God’s not as phased by our doubts as we worry he is or as concerned by them as we are.
I believe it’s time more of us know the power our questions hold—not to destroy or weaken our faith but to build and strengthen it. Not to distance us from God but to draw us ever closer.
I believe God loves us—every part of us, including our most honest questions.
I believe it’s time for a daringly honest and wonderfully imperfect heart-to-heart with God about it all.
We worry the strength of our faith is limited by the strength of our doubts, or doubting means we’re doing something wrong. But I see it differently. What holds our faith back isn’t our questions but our unwillingness to dive into the murky unknown. Because it’s there, in the cloudy waters of life and faith, we discover the untapped power of curiosity to draw us closer to God.
What if by embracing the very things we fear are tearing our faith apart, bringing them in honest conversation to the one we’re worried might not be good after all, we find what we’re looking for?
Not certainty but relationship. Not answers but the assurance we’re loved. Not intellectual satisfaction but intimate connection.
What if the creeping fear that our doubts are chipping away at the faith we hold close isn’t the beginning of the end of our faith but the end of the beginning? Here, at the crossroads of doubt and faith, is where true intimacy with God begins, not ends.
If you’ve come to the intersection of faith, doubt, and skepticism, and you’re worried your faith is slipping away (if not totally falling apart), I want to help you find the space, direction, and confidence to not bury your concerns, become bitter, or walk away. Together we’ll learn to doubt in conversation with God, discover the intimacy and faith you long for, if not the certainty we all assume we need, and find the rest your soul is craving.
Over the years, as a science geek, question asker, and someone who’s recently wrestled with all things GodFaithChurch, I’ve regretted the questions I haven’t asked more than the ones I have.
So let me ask you, is your relationship with God worth facing your doubts for?
Would you like it to be? Because I’ve discovered it’s a relationship leading to a life and faith stronger, deeper, and more alive than we can hope for. Not a life of unwavering belief but unrelenting love.
Niki Hardy is an author, speaker, and coach, who believes God loves a cheerful doubter. Yes, our questions hold power, but not to weaken our faith, to strengthen it and draw us closer to God.
Download the first three chapters of God, Can We Chat? HERE
Buy your copy HERE and get the full audiobook FREE as a thank-you gift (until March 31st, 2025).
On today’s episode Carol welcomes back another friend to the podcast: author and speaker Niki Hardy. Niki’s latest book is titled ‘God, Can We Chat?’, and is a daringly honest guide to growing closer to God, one doubt at a time. Through her journey and study of scripture Niki has realized that God far prefers our honesty over silence, even when what we’re being honest about is our doubts. In today’s heartfelt and rich conversation Carol and Niki discuss practical ways to maintain intimacy with God amidst uncertainty and the significance of open conversations with Him, encouraging listeners to bring their struggles to God.
Connect with Niki and order her books at https://www.nikihardy.com/
