A mature Christian woman recently told me of an experience that caused her to doubt the existence of God.

Hearing a woman of the church talk about her doubts got my attention. Over the years I’ve thought of women not only as the gender chosen to give physical birth but most likely to nurture spiritual life as well.

By contrast, I know men who resonate with a line from Inherit the Wind, the dramatic portrayal of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial. The event was historic. The state was challenging a teacher’s right to teach evolution in public schools. When a prospective juror was being examined for religious prejudice he replied, “My wife tends to religion for both of us.” His comment reminds me of Paul’s New Testament letter to Timothy where he refers to the faith that was first in Timothy’s grandmother and mother (2 Timothy 1:5). Over the years I’ve known many women who have faithfully prayed for their unbelieving children, husbands, and fathers.

Yet after the recent conversation, I began to think about the wives and mothers I’ve known who, at difficult times in their lives, have had deep and disturbing questions about the existence of God. I remembered the obvious—that neither men nor women are immune to crises of faith.

Reasons to doubt

I suspect that women experience spiritual uncertainty for many of the same reasons men do. Global disasters, personal losses, unanswered prayers, church scandals, and abuse of spiritual authority are just some of the factors that can cause both men and women to wonder if their faith in God has been wishful thinking.

An additional complication for people of the church is the pressure we feel to deny our doubts. While agnostics and atheists use unanswerable questions to support their worldview, it is more difficult for people of faith to face and process thoughts that seem to threaten what is most important to us. Other resistance comes from friends and family who are alarmed by tough and irreverent questions. Then there is the pressure that seems to come from the Bible itself. What are we supposed to think when the first words of Genesis simply say, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”?

How can we turn our minds off and just assume that God is there? How can we “just believe” in One who has always existed? Why would there be a God in the first place? In the shadows of such looming questions, it’s important for us to know that Moses wasn’t asking for a blind leap when he wrote the first words of Genesis.

Reasons to believe

Imagine looking over Moses’ shoulder as he slowly pens, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” What could he have been thinking? What reasons did he have to believe? What did he know about his subject as he wrote his famous opening line?

Exodus came before Genesis

Since Moses was born long after Adam and Eve, we know he was not sitting on a rock watching creation happen when he wrote Genesis. So where was he? The only plausible answer I’m aware of is that he compiled the book of beginnings while camped in the Wilderness of Sinai—after the supernatural events of the Exodus.

The miracles that broke the grip of the Egyptian Pharaoh were part of the national record by the time Moses started writing. With millions of his countrymen, he had seen a powerful God open a path through the Red Sea and defeat the armies of Pharaoh. Together they had seen Him provide for their hungry, thirsty children in a barren, sun-baked wilderness. Day after day, they had seen God’s presence in a pillar of smoke by day, and fire by night. Camped at the foot of Mount Sinai, they had heard His voice. Then, in some of the darkest and most memorable days of their lives, they had seen a plague swallow up members of the family who had not learned to fear or trust the God who had been revealing Himself to them.

Moses’ knowledge of God was more than wishful thinking or speculative philosophy. It was a compelling fact of history. The powerful, undeniable evidence he saw left no doubts in his mind that there was a God who cared for him and the people he led.

Christ came before the church

The practice of using history to confirm the existence and love of God is repeated throughout the Bible. Many years after Moses, a woman named Mary of Magdala spread the word that she had seen Jesus of Nazareth after His resurrection from the dead (John 20:18). Later, the rest of Jesus’ disciples joined her in confirming not only His empty grave, but face-to-face meetings with Him after His execution and burial. In one of these meetings, a man named Thomas touched Jesus’ scarred body while the other disciples looked on. In another meeting on the shore of Galilee, Jesus prepared a fish breakfast and ate with a group of His friends.

The God who proved Himself to Israel by making “the exodus” part of their national history is the One who gave the church a “new exodus” through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. As God used Moses to lead Israel out of slavery in Egypt, He used His Son to lead His people out of greater bondage of sin and death.

Although many questions remain, one answer is clear. The God of the exodus and the resurrection doesn’t expect us to just believe in Him. In addition to the historical record of the Bible, He has left His fingerprints and signature all over creation (Romans 1:18-21), and His footprints in the circumstances of our lives (Acts 17:22-34). 

Father in heaven, thank You for giving us the national record of Your people and the life, death, and resurrection of Your Son. Thank You for showing us not only that You exist but that You care for us with a love that is so much greater than our doubts. —Mart De Haan