Where Is God When We Doubt?

That evil thoughts return is no token that they have not been subdued.

I did not suppose that the devil would leave off whispering his “ifs” at once: the more attention you pay to them, the longer probably he will continue them. They answer the purpose of his malice in plaguing you. To suggest doubts about faith altogether or any portion of it is one of his known devices. Pascal was an instance. Pascal’s advice was, “Take no notice of them, but do some contrary act of faith.” If Satan found that he could disturb neither your faith nor your peace, he would leave off. For his pride makes him hate to be baffled. When Job had stood his malice and blessed God when he hoped he would curse Him, he left off. He departed from our Lord for a season when he had failed, hoping to prevail another time.

It is a very simple temptation, and not uncommon. “What if it is all a dream!” has been suggested to many. The object is to prevent its becoming chronic, which, if you let it take hold of you, it might. The way, then, is to act quietly.

Satan cannot understand faith and love; only the knowledge of his own doom. And so he subserves the ends of God, in giving Him the occasion to conquer in His own. You remember Saint Catherine’s “Where wert though, Lord, when I had those thoughts?” So even to Saint Catherine of Sienna it must have been a perplexity. And it was her favorite grace against which he jabbered. And yet she was puzzled, and could not make out that they were not her own. If she was so puzzled, much more may you be. So then take our Lord’s answer as said to you, “Where art Thou, Lord?” “In thy heart, else though wouldest not hate them.”

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis, Mists, 1906.

But the less you think about them the better. Do what you can for God in His poor. He says, “Blessed is he that considereth the poor and needy. The Lord shall deliver him in the same time of trouble.”

So He will deliver you. Satan can only be an occasion of good to you.

The “price which you have to pay” is to accept the mist of having the doubts put into your mind. God has put you into this battle. But He bids you fight. He conquers in His own: He himself is crowned in them, who He crowns. It is not your duty to analyze yourself, as you describe yourself as doing. Any temptation might find an echo in your heart but for the grace of God. It is a saying, that we have the germs of all the deadly sins in us. God has been very merciful to you in letting Satan tempt you in this way, and not in others which might have been more distressing. But He says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” It does not depend upon you, how long the mist will last. This is in God’s hands. But as long as He allows it to last, you must believe that the sun is behind it, although you do not see it, and all around is damp and clammy. You are not “resuming your offer” by fighting. God accepted your offer by putting you into the battle. The mist will last as long as God wills, and, as long as it lasts, you have the battle to fight. Not to ask help of God would be unchristian. The devil tells you this, and you must not believe him.

Never mind your feelings. The trial must be dreary. Dreariness is part of your trial. If all were bright within, then temptation would be but summer clouds. You do believe in God. It would be Satan’s lie to say that you did not. I fear that you hug your temptation, as if it were part of your offering, or not your temptation only, but your inaction under it. Jesus, your Redeemer, is not dream. It was blasphemy and ingratitude to think it. The “if” is giving way to the devil. Fight, as others have fought. God met Job, face to face, but after that, by God’s grace, he had conquered. While he had to fight, God helped him without his knowing it and unseen.

Do everything just as you would have done if Satan had not put the “ifs” into your mind. They are his, and the malice of them will be ascribed to him, not to you.

Source: Edward Bouverie Pusey, Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey (Longmans, Green, and Co., 1898) 98–103, 331.