10. Being certain about my beliefs isn’t as important as it used to be for me.

How important to you is being certain of your beliefs? If you were told that certainty of belief is something to move beyond, how would that make you feel?

What fears do you have about your beliefs?

Has your need to be certain about everything changed as you’ve grown in your love for Jesus? If so, explain.

How might any wrong ideas you have about God shape your relationship with Him?

How might the wrong ideas you might have about God not change your relationship with Him?

Is it possible that participating in a growing relationship with God could give you a more accurate picture of God than studying about Him would? If so, explain.

Early in our spiritual journey we naturally work hard at knowing what we believe about God. We were just beginning to understand who God is, His love for us, and the new life that is available to us. We knew that our beliefs would be critical to our journey, especially as we wrestle to know the difference between what really is true about God and what our culture and the world says.

In our desire for truth, we want to know that our beliefs are correct, but we sometimes equate accuracy and certainty of our beliefs with evidence of our devotion to God. The danger is that we can worship this “certainty” instead of worshiping God. Being convinced about the accuracy of our beliefs can become an obsession generated from fear. We might be afraid of being wrong, of what happens if we are wrong, (pain, suffering, hell), of disappointing God, of missing out, etc.

However, as we grow and mature in our relationship with God, we can begin to relax our preoccupation with certainty and be less motivated by fear. A deep and simple love for God will replace our fear of being wrong.

As we let go of needing to know, understand, and control God we enter a more trusting relationship with Him. Our journey shifts from God being a thing or idea to figure out to a Person to get to know. And as our journey continues, we find that there is so much more to God than we had imagined.

We give up trying to learn things that we can be certain about and instead embrace what we do know, enjoy, and trust about God. We find that loving God removes the fears we once experienced. And as we admit our own finiteness as we embrace an infinite God whom we actually know very little about we adopt a posture of vulnerability.

We know that perfect love casts our fear (1 John 4:18) so we choose to love God and not worry about any inaccuracies in our beliefs about God. We trust God and the relationship that we have with God to protect us from any harmful beliefs.