I lay in a crumpled heap, tears streaming down my face onto my husband’s lap. The foundation of all I believed was crumbling.
I was still learning the ropes of a new culture from our move to East Africa alongside dealing with postpartum anxiety. I was also questioning everything I knew about the God I had followed my whole life.
As a full-time missionary, I shared about this God with others day in and day out, yet I didn’t know if I truly trusted His love anymore.
Two questions plagued every aspect of my life: Is God truly good? Does God really love me?
Through my doubts about the love and goodness of God, the enemy planted and watered lies that took root in the fabric of my soul.
But let me tell you the best part of this dark part in my story: the Lord, in His goodness, didn’t leave me there. And He will not leave you either.
That night, as I breathed through my panic and cried out to my good Father, He spoke softly to my heart, “I love you. I’m here. We’ll walk through this together.”
From that moment on, I journeyed back to the heart of God—and it transformed my life forever.
How to Silence Doubts About God’s Love for You
God loves us, and He wants to be found (Mt 7:7), even when we succumb to the lies telling us otherwise. He desires for us to rest in the assurance of His love as we seek Him.
Here are three ways to silence doubts when you question if God really loves you:
1. Get back to the basics of God’s love.
Many of us know the Lord from an intellectual standpoint, but we may miss the kind of intimacy that comes from experiential knowledge. The Bible refers to this kind of knowledge as “yada” in Hebrew, which is deeper and more personal than solely head knowledge.
In Jeremiah 1:5, the Lord says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew (yada) you.” We’re intimately known by “a compassionate and gracious God, [who is] slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:5).
The very essence of God’s character is love (1 Jn 4:8). John writes to believers at the end of the first century, sharing “how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love” (1 Jn 4:9-10).
The Creator of the universe sent His one and only Son to die in our place because of His love for us. God’s love is the basis of the gospel and the joy of our salvation.
We’re His beloved children (1 Jn 3:1). When we grow in our understanding of the depths of His love, the way we view ourselves is also transformed.
We’ve been brought from death to life because of God’s love (Eph 2:5). God’s love causes our hearts to want to know, or “yada,” Him in return because “those who know your name trust in you” (Ps 9:10).
Intimacy with our Father builds our trust in Him. As we deepen our relationship with the Lord and respond to His love, we’re shielded from the lies of the enemy seeking to distance our hearts from God.
2. Hide the truth of God’s love in your heart.
Sometimes we forget God’s truth. Memorizing Scripture is a tool to remind us of what we’re prone to neglect or push aside.
David consistently writes in the Psalms of how he meditates on God’s Word (Ps 119:11). We can’t reflect on what we don’t know. Like David, we should hide Scripture in our hearts.
If we find ourselves struggling to remember the love of God, we should choose passages to study and memorize so we can recall them quickly, especially when the enemy’s lies seep into our thoughts.
3. Be honest about doubting God’s love.
We can be honest with the Lord when we question His love.
We can admit to other believers when we have doubts about God’s love, rather than struggling in secret. The body of Christ is meant to be a beacon of light in the midst of our struggles.
Jude calls the early Church to “keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ” and to “be merciful to those who doubt” (Jude 1:21–22).
Our church community should be a safe place to share our doubts, and we should be a safe place for others who are doubting. We want to be a community pointing one another toward biblical truth in love.
Let’s pray as Paul did for the Ephesians that “being rooted and established in love, [we] may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Eph 3:17–18).
Find True Freedom and Joy in God’s Love
Do I still struggle with doubts? Of course!
But because of this hard-fought journey to truly grasp the Lord’s love for me, I am now experiencing a life of overflow from a foundation of being deeply loved by my Creator.
He desires that assurance for all of us.
Doubts may continue to visit us, but we can build a foundation of faith on the deep love of God.
When we live in assurance of God’s love—confident in who He is and who we are in Him—we can experience freedom in Christ. And oh, what joy there is to be found in a life with such a loving God!
Jessica Jolley
Jessica Jolley is a momma and mission mobilizer living in Kenya, and she and her husband Taylor lead their Nairobi City Team as they pursue the mobilization of the global Church toward the unreached. Her writing has been featured in places like Risen Motherhood, Thrive Ministry, The Way Back to Ourselves, and more. You can connect with her on Substack or Instagram.
