What to Do When You Doubt God Is Really There

Have you ever wondered if God is actually real?

Or if you're just believing because you want it to be true?

Maybe you've prayed and felt... nothing. Or you've looked around at the world and thought, "If God is real, where is He?"

Here's what I want you to know: you're not alone. And you're not a bad Christian for asking.

Doubt isn't a sign of weak faith. It's a sign of honest faith.

It means you're not content with blind belief—you want to know if this is real.

I get it. I spent 36 years not sure if God existed. Then I spent the next 33 years watching Him prove that He does exist—through specific, measurable, traceable interventions in my life that I can't call coincidences.

Today I want to share what I've learned about doubt.

Not just how to survive it.

But how to find solid ground underneath you—evidence that holds up when feelings disappear.

Doubt Asks a Fair Question

Here's the thing about doubt: it can feel like failure to Christians.

We think we're supposed to have unshakeable faith. Constant certainty. Zero questions.

When doubt creeps in, we wonder if something's wrong with us.

But doubt asks a legitimate question: "How do I know this isn't just in my head?"

And honestly? That's a fair question.

We live in a world that values evidence. "Real" evidence. Evidence "from this world". We don't just accept claims—we want proof. We want facts. We want something we can measure, trace, verify.

So when it comes to faith, we feel this tension: our hearts want to believe, but our minds want evidence, whatever that is.

Here's what I've discovered: wanting evidence doesn't mean you lack faith. It means you're honest.

God doesn't ask us to check our brains at the door. He invites us to "come, let us reason together" (Isaiah 1:18).

He welcomes our questions.

He provides evidence.

The problem is, we often don't know where to look for it.

Maybe we think faith is about feelings—and when the feelings fade, as feelings invariably do, we panic. We think we need some mystical experience to "prove" God is real. And when that doesn't happen, doubt wins.

But here's the good news: there's another way.

There's actual evidence—both historical and personal—that can strengthen your faith when feelings fail.

Let me try to show you.

We Have More Evidence Than We Think

Here's something that fascinates me: we apply a double standard to historical evidence.

Most people readily believe that Julius Caesar fought wars with the Gauls. Why? Because he wrote about it. We have manuscripts from centuries after he lived, and we accept them as historically reliable.

Nobody questions whether Caesar existed or whether those wars happened.

We just... believe it.

But when we turn to Jesus, the standard suddenly appears to change.

Here's what most people don't know: we have far more historical evidence for Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection than we do for most ancient events we accept without question.

We have multiple eyewitness accounts written within decades of the events.

We have extra-biblical historical references from hostile sources—Roman historians like Tacitus, Jewish historians like Josephus.

We have the dramatic transformation of Jesus' followers from terrified deserters to bold proclaimers willing to die for what they claimed to have seen.

We have the explosion of the early church in the very city where Jesus was executed—people who could have easily disproven the resurrection if it hadn't happened.

If we applied the same historical standards to Jesus that we apply to Caesar, Alexander the Great, or any other ancient figure, the evidence for Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is actually quite strong.

You don't have to take my word for it. There are many experts who wrote about this topic (like William Lane Craig, Craig Hazen, Sean McDowell at Talbot and Gary Habermas at Liberty, to name a few).

Look, I'm not saying that historical evidence proves everything beyond doubt.

But I am saying this: if you're doubting because you think faith requires believing something with zero evidence, you're wrong.

There's historical evidence. Real evidence. The kind historians accept for other ancient claims.

And here's what gives me hope:

If God provided that kind of evidence in history, He's still providing evidence today—in your life and mine.

God Showed Up When I Didn't Even Believe

I was raised by atheist parents.

Faith was like a language we'd never learned—we simply didn't speak it. God wasn't part of our vocabulary, our worldview, or our lives.

I didn't think much about it. It was just... normal.

Until February 1993.

I woke up one morning with a tingling feeling in my legs. Within 48 hours, I couldn't walk.

The diagnosis: a serious case of Guillain-Barré syndrome—a condition where my immune system was attacking my peripheral nerves.

The neurologist was direct: "You probably won't walk for at least a year. But don't worry, people only die from GBS if the paralysis affects the heart, and that's rare."

That night, it became clear that the paralysis was affecting my heart.

I thought I was going to die. I had a wife, two young sons, and a demanding career. This wasn't just about losing mobility—this felt like the end.

That's when I prayed—as a last resort.

I didn't know how to pray. I had never prayed before. I didn't have a relationship with God. I didn't even know if He existed.

But I was desperate.

"God, if you're real, please get me through this and help me walk again. And if you do, I promise I'll tell people about you and what you've done for me."

It was clumsy. Transactional. Probably all wrong by any accepted religious standard.

But God heard it anyway.

Two months later, I was running five miles a day.

The medical team was pleasantly surprised—this wasn't the typical timeline for such a serious case.

At the time, I still doubted. Was it God? Or just good medical care and my body's natural healing? Maybe just "coincidence"?

I had no framework to understand what had happened.

But looking back now, I can see something I couldn't see then: God was already at work, already proving Himself faithful—even to someone who didn't believe in Him.

The Promise I Didn't Recognize

But something else happened during those dark days of paralysis.

I had what I can only describe as a "knowing"—a certainty that came from nowhere: I would have another son.

It was so strange that I didn't even tell my wife. Who thinks of having another son when 100% paralyzed? How could I explain something I didn't understand myself?

Exactly one year later, our third son was born.

At the time, I didn't recognize it as God keeping His word.

It just seemed like... life unfolding.

Then 15 years passed.

I was busy with my career, my family, my life. That desperate bargain? Mostly forgotten.

But God hadn't forgotten.

One day, my third son—now a teenager—asked if he could visit a church with a friend. Could I give him a ride?

I said yes.

Then he invited me to come in with him.

We went to Saddleback Church in Southern California.

I can't fully explain what happened that day, but something shifted inside me. The language of faith I'd never learned? I was starting to hear it, to understand it, to speak it.

And I became a believer.

Here's what stunned me when I looked back:

It was the son God had promised me during my paralysis, the promise I'd been too uncertain to even speak aloud—who brought me to the place where I would finally understand who God really was.

God didn't just keep His promise about another son.

He orchestrated which son, for a specific purpose, 15 years in the making.

And here's what this taught me about God's faithfulness:

He doesn't give up on us. He doesn't forget His promises. He plays the long game—working behind the scenes, orchestrating events we can't see, moving pieces into place across years and decades.

Even when we've forgotten Him, He hasn't forgotten us.

God's Track Record Is Perfect

The paralysis that got my attention.

The healing that showed me God was real.

The promise I didn't recognize.

My third son's birth exactly one year later.

Fifteen years of orchestration I couldn't see.

That same son bringing me to church.

My transformation from atheist to believer.

This wasn't coincidence. This was God proving His faithfulness.

This was evidence I could trace, measure, and verify in my own life.

And it gave me something solid to stand on—a track record of God showing up, keeping promises, orchestrating events for my good.

But the story doesn't end there.

Because God's track record didn't stop once I became a believer.

Twenty-Seven Years Later

Twenty-seven years after my paralysis, I was a more mature believer.

Leading a ministry at Saddleback Church, daily Bible study, regular deep conversations with other believers.

I was far from perfect, but my faith was real.

Then one day, I got a phone call from a member of the prayer team at church. It went something like this:

"Hey Guy, I felt led to call and pray with you. Do you have a few minutes?"

We prayed for a couple of minutes—nothing specific, just a general prayer covering my life and family.

When we finished, I hung up and thought, "That's interesting. I've never had a call like this from church before."

I literally hadn't even put the phone down, when immediately—not even a second later—it rang again.

It was my doctor's office.

"Guy, we need you to come in." That's when I learned I'd been diagnosed with cancer.

Let that sink in for a moment.

A prayer call. Then instantly—instantly—the cancer diagnosis.

This was God saying, in the clearest way possible: "I've got your back. Whatever's coming, we're in this together."

This was evidence I could measure. Timing I could verify. A specific, traceable intervention that showed me God was still faithful, still present, still orchestrating events for my good.

And because of that phone call—because of that preparation—I didn't fall apart when I heard the word "cancer."

I wasn't desperate this time. There was no frantic bargaining, no panic, no "God, if you do this, I'll do that."

Instead, there was trust. Peace.

Because I had a track record. Twenty-seven years of evidence that God shows up. That He keeps His promises. That He's faithful.

His Track Record in Your Life Matters

So what do you do when you doubt God is really there?

Here are three things that have helped me—and I think they'll help you too.

Look backward at God's track record

God's orchestration is usually only visible in hindsight.

I couldn't see what God was doing during those 15 years between Dylan's birth and him bringing me to church. I was just... living. Working. Raising kids. Going through the motions.

But when I looked back, the orchestration was undeniable.

Ask yourself: "Where have I seen God show up in my past?"

Think about prayers that were answered in unexpected ways. Doors that closed—and better ones that opened. "Coincidences" that were too perfectly timed. People who came into your life exactly when you needed them. Crises that led to transformation.

Connect the dots you couldn't see at the time.

That's your evidence. That's God's track record in your life.

And here's the encouraging part: if God showed up then, He'll show up again. His track record is perfect.

Trust orchestration over feelings

Don't judge God's presence by your emotional state.

Some days you'll feel close to God. Other days you won't feel anything.

That's normal—feelings are unreliable.

But orchestration? That's evidence you can trace.

Look for specific timing (like that phone call seconds before my diagnosis). Promises kept (like my son's birth exactly one year later). Patterns across years (like the 27-year arc of my story). Transformation in yourself (how you handle crisis differently now than before).

This is the kind of evidence that holds up when feelings fail.

And it reminds you that God is working—even when you can't feel it.

Doubt your doubts, trust God's faithfulness

When doubt says "God isn't real," ask yourself: "What evidence do I actually have for that claim?"

Then stack it against the evidence you have that He is.

Your past answered prayers. The orchestrated events in your life. Your transformed heart—you're not who you used to be. The historical evidence for Jesus. The testimonies of others whose lives have been changed.

Here's what I've learned: my doubts are often based on feelings or current circumstances. But my faith is based on evidence accumulated over years.

When doubt comes, I don't try to manufacture feelings or force myself to believe harder.

I look back at the evidence. I remember what I know to be true. I hold onto God's track record.

And I trust that the God who showed up before will show up again.

Because He always has.

You Have More Evidence Than You Think

Doubt is normal. Even mature Christians wrestle with it.

But doubt doesn't have to win.

Because God provides evidence—both historical and personal.

He shows up in specific, traceable, measurable ways. He orchestrates events across years, even decades, to prove He's real and actively working in our lives.

Your job isn't to eliminate all doubt.

It's to pay attention to the evidence. To look back and connect the dots. To see God's track record in your story, even when you couldn't see it in the moment.

Here's my challenge to you:

Take some time this week to look back at your life. Ask yourself, "Where have I seen God show up?"

Write it down. Connect the dots. Build your evidence file.

You might be surprised at how much proof you actually have.

And when doubt creeps in again (and it will), you'll have something solid to stand on.

Not just feelings. Not just wishful thinking.

A track record of God's faithfulness.

Evidence that He shows up. That He keeps His promises. That He's orchestrating events for your good—even when you can't see it.

P.S. Want to read the full story of how God proved Himself real across 27 years of my life? I've put together a free guide called "7 Ways God Showed Up When I Didn't Deserve It" that walks through the specific moments where God orchestrated events in ways I couldn't ignore. It's evidence that God is real, active, and personally invested in our lives—and it might help you see His track record in your own story.

Get your guide here: