Uncertainties Volume I by Brian J. Showers

Whenever doubts would assail me, I would get out my list and start reading. I started writing down verses that discussed salvation – verses such as Romans 10:13 “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” and Acts 16:31 “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” I created an ever-growing list of verses such as these and started to claim God’s promises. And his attack was working because, although I was beginning to believe these doubts were unfounded, I still couldn’t banish them.

I was really struggling, and I eventually started to sense that these doubts were an attack by Satan, meant to cripple my faith. The talk with my mom encouraged me for one day but left me questioning again the next. Our Bible lessons on how to know you’re saved left me with more questions than I started with. I asked counsel and listened to sermons and lessons, but it just wasn’t helping. What if I didn’t have enough faith? If I have doubts doesn’t that mean I don’t have enough faith? Will I ever be sure? I must’ve prayed just-in-case prayers (where you ask God to save you again just in case you hadn’t really meant it the last time) about a hundred times – and I sincerely meant them each time. Pastors would ask if I “knew that I knew that I knew I was saved” and I would just think, no, I don’t. I wasn’t sure If I had meant it, wasn’t sure if I had enough faith, wasn’t sure if I could be sure. I had prayed and asked Christ to save me in sixth grade, but in high school I was still tortured by doubts.

For over a year I was plagued by this question, wrestled with it daily, and could find no peace. Actually, struggled would be an understatement.

When I was a teen I struggled with doubts over my salvation.

Uncertainties Volume I by Brian J. Showers