On this episode of The Disciple-Making Parent Podcast, we explore Eden Parker’s faith journey and her work with Bibles.net. We discuss the impact of growing up in a Christian home, the challenges faced during college years, and how these experiences led to the creation of a unique online resource for Bible study. We talk about the importance of discipleship, the role of mentors, and how Bibles.net aims to provide curated, reliable Christian content for those seeking answers to life’s big questions.
Resources From This Podcast
Topics Covered In This Week’s Podcast
03:00 Eden’s faith journey
09:47 Challenges to faith in college
16:16 Bibles.net
28:10 Advice for parents
37:58 Advice for teens with wavering faith
Episode Transcript
Chap: I’m Chap Bettis, and you’re listening to The Disciple-Making Parent, where we seek to equip parents and churches to pass the gospel to their children. Young people have questions about God and life. And who do most kids ask when they have those questions? The answer is Google and the internet. Well, where can we direct them to good resources?
Hi, my name is Chap Bettis and I’m the author of The Disciple-Making Parent. We all know that kids are on their phones and they’re asking the internet important questions about life. So who is seeking to bring the gospel to this generation through the internet? And where is a trusted resource that we can point young people to?
Well, it’s a joy to introduce Eden Parker to you and introduce this conversation. I met Eden this past June as we were both exhibiting at the Gospel Coalition’s Women’s Conference. We were neighbors with our booths right next to each other. And of course at a conference there’s an inevitable downtime for the exhibitors where you get to know each other. And I became fascinated with her ministry that she’s the editor for, and I was delighted to learn her story as well. And I thought, Man, this would be a great conversation to have for the podcast.
Eden serves as general editor for bibles.net and has done so for the last several years since graduating from Wheaton college with a bachelor of arts in Christian education. She enjoys anything athletic or outdoors, traveling, creating things, or spending intentional times with those she loves. And she also loves her home church, the Orchard North Shore.
Before we start, I want to remind you to check out our newest book, Launch. The book will help in moving your teen or young adult into the real world. This is a quick read book. You can cover it in under an hour. And I found a lot of resources helping teens in the later in college years, but I did not find any for parents. And I remember that was a confusing time for me as a parent. In the book Launch, I lay out some foundations that can guide our thinking in the teen years, and then I apply those to three different scenarios: leaving for college, staying at home after graduation, and staying at home, well, maybe when they should not be. So the book is Launch: Biblical Help for Moving Your Teen or Young Adult into the Real World. It’s available in our bookstore at theDiscipleMakingParent.com. or on Amazon. But for now, let’s listen in on my conversation with Eden Parker about the resource Bibles.net.
Well, it’s a joy to have Eden Parker on The Disciple-Making Parent podcast.
Eden Parker: Thanks for having me. It was such a joy to meet you and your wife at the Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference, and I’m excited to talk to you today. So thank you.
Chap: Well, thanks. Well, just let’s start with you telling us a little bit about your own story and your faith journey and how you got to where you are now.
Eden: Okay. So my faith story really feels like just all grace. I grew up in a Christian home and my parents came to know Jesus kind of as they were dating. They both grew up in Christian families but really recommitted their life to Christ around the same time as they were dating, and they got plugged into a really discipleship-oriented church, just filled with people that really wanted to live their lives according to God’s word and to do it together.
And so for as long as I can remember, my dad would read me the Bible every night along with my brothers, and we would pray before bedtime. And prayer was something that was very normal to our family. Like every morning for breakfast we would call my dad on the phone and he would pray for a meal- because he works in business. So he was already on the train off to Chicago and my mom would then read us either Psalm 34 or Psalm 23. So my parents were very intentional. And as long as I can remember, church was our favorite place outside the home. And the people that we knew from church were like our family. And to this day, the church that I grew up in, the couples that my parents were good friends with from that church are more to me like extended family than they are acquaintances. So I just grew up in this community where everybody was seeking Jesus and trying to live according to his word together. And so I just got to bear the blessing of that, with my parents sowing God’s word into my life.
So I’ve known Jesus as long as I can remember, but it was when I was seven years old that- I had a lot of anger issues as a little kid, and I realized this one day. A couple of things kind of coincided at once. I realized on the one hand that when I got angry I couldn’t fix my own attitude and I really hated that I could be this awful of a little person. And I had a really close relationship with my older brother and it hurt me that I hurt him so often. But then also at the same time, every time I was alone, I came under this conviction of my sin. I know that Jesus died on the cross for people’s sins. And I know a lot about Jesus. And as a little kid, I could quote a lot of the Bible to you and tell you I loved the Bible. I loved Bible stories, but I realized that I had never come to Jesus myself and asked him for forgiveness for my sins.
And so it was actually through my mom reading me a portion of The Chronicles of Narnia. My parents would read to us books out loud and she was reading to me part of Narnia and there was something about the character of Aslan in that story that I kind of understood more of the character of God. And so that night I was going to ask my mom if she would pray with me because I knew that the verse Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you’ll be saved.
So I had this conviction that I couldn’t just ask Jesus alone, but that I had to tell someone about my faith. So I was too shy to ask my mom. So I delayed a night. And then the next day I asked her to come and pray with me as I confess my sins to the Lord and receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior. So that was when I was seven and my parents would say they saw a change in me, which is cool. They saw the Holy Spirit’s work softening my heart and changing my little girl self.
But since then, I would say two of the biggest things that I have learned in my walk with Christ are that number one, our Christian life is a life of faith. I think for a long time, I still really believed in the works righteousness, that after I was saved, that it was my own efforts that would make me pleasing to God as a Christian. And he took many years and some really sweet mentors in my life to break that idea down and replace it with the idea that our Christian life is one of depending on the Holy Spirit’s help to help us obey Christ and relying on his power.
And then the other thing I would say is, just realizing that the Lord is the one that directs our life. And we can have a lot of expectations for what our lives are going to be, but really, it is up to Jesus where your life goes and so learning to hand over every dream, every desire, every area of my life to him, because Jesus saves us, but he’s also our Lord. And I think a lot of our Christian life is learning that he is Lord of everything. And that can be hard to learn. But that’s kind of how he’s worked in my life.
I found out a few years ago that I was a fourth-generation Christian. So four generations back, my family has known the Lord at least that far. And I think that just speaks to what Ephesians talks about, that it’s by grace that we’re saved. My encounter with Jesus began in the home before I was old enough to even know what I was encountering. And that is a huge grace on my life, and a huge blessing from the Lord. So that’s how he saved me through tons of godly people and my parents that sowed God’s word into my life.
Chap: I think that will encourage parents and grandparents. Just different methods your father and mother did, and I’m sure prayed also, and the fruit. But also interesting- taking hold of the gospel for yourself at seven or eight and just realizing you still have to do that. On the one hand, as parents we’re responsible. on the other hand, it needs to be a heart that reaches out, takes hold of the Lord. And so lots of good maturity there.
Tell me a little bit about school and college where you felt like your faith was challenged. I don’t know what words you would use, but some of the things that you’ve been taught were, were challenged there.
Eden: Yeah. So I attended a Christian school and I expected because of what I knew about this school that I was going to go and people were going to be loving Jesus, wanting to learn more about his Word, and that it was going to be a place where I was spiritually refreshed. And what I found was that the school that I went to was far more liberal than the people around me knew it was, and that I had expected.
And I was a Bible major because I always wanted to grow up and be a mom and, Lord willing, disciple my kids and disciple other girls in the church. I had a really influential mentor in my life who knew her theology very well and knew the Lord really well. And so when I would come to her with a question, she would answer me with counsel from scripture that was just so pertinent. And I thought, I want to be able to do that for other girls. And because of the church community I grew up in, and the wonderful example of my parents, I thought, Well, girls just grow up and they raise a family and love on people and support a godly man in his mission, and I didn’t really have vision beyond that. So I thought I’m just gonna study the Bible. I love teaching the Bible. I love sharing it with others.
So I was a Bible major and I started running into things like Matthew and Paul disagree with each other. Or Noah’s flood was a localized flood, not a worldwide flood. Or in the book of Job, Satan isn’t actually the devil we think of. It’s just an accuser. And so as I would run into these things in my classes, I was like, Wait a minute, this feels very wrong. I don’t know how to answer this. But at the time, it really created a crisis in my faith, and I wouldn’t say that it created a crisis in that, I didn’t begin to doubt what I believed. I was just really frustrated and discouraged by what I was hearing. And I was like, How is it that people that say they love Jesus are constantly questioning his Word? And so I was very disoriented. And I was also experiencing a lot of spiritual warfare in my own life personally. And so it was this time where I would say I was struggling to believe that God is good.
I was reading my Bible probably more than I’ve ever read it before. I was getting up early and being in his word and praying, but I just felt the silence of God and that I think some of the intellectual attacks on God’s Word came with real spiritual attack. Because the first person to ever say, “Did God actually say. . .?” was the devil. And so I was experiencing that intellectual battle, but it was also taking form in my faith and really discouraging me and disheartening me.
I would say that it was my parents who played a large part in getting me through that season. My parents and also a mentor. In the church that I grew up in, as I said, discipleship was super important. And so I knew from a young age that when we follow Jesus, we follow someone who’s a little ahead of us in age and we follow and we pull someone along who’s a little bit behind us. And so up until college, I had always had a younger girl that I was meeting with and an older woman that I was meeting with, and just sharing our faith in Jesus and coming around God’s Word. And so I had a woman named Shauna- Oh, if I think of her, it’s going to make me cry. But she just would hear me pour out my heart, pour out my doubts. And she would respond to the things that I would share with God’s Word and just hold up the shield of faith for me through that time in college. And I would come home a lot of times in tears and be like, “Mom, Dad, this is what I’m being told in class. And it’s really discouraging.” And they would say, “Well, you know, that’s not true. And here’s scripture to back that up, and let’s pray for you.” And so it was really their support and their encouragement and their pulling me back to the truth of God’s Word that kept me from being pummeled by the enemy, I would say.
And as I look back at that time, and even while I was in that time, there were so many times that I came away and I thought, This is so troubling to me because I know that there are other kids in the school who are learning the same things and they don’t have someone to tell them that maybe this isn’t correct. A lot of them don’t have a loving relationship with their parents, and that’s not someone that they might go to for that kind of help. And so I, again, saw my parents as a huge grace of God given to me to help me work through that season of life. It’s easy in college to think, Oh, I’m finally like out of my home and I get to make decisions on my own. A lot of kids are kind of excited to fly the coop. But I saw that my parents were a gift from God, and parents are not something that God gives you till you’re 18 years old. They become lifelong friends. A gift that God gives you if you really invest in your relationship in a way that that can happen. They were a huge help to me and some of what got me through that season.
Chap: Oh man. So much. And what you just said, whether discipleship relationships or being in the Word, handling those attacks and finding answers. Well, I assume that that naturally motivates or that leads to bibles.net, right? Is that just your desire there to have a place that kids can come to and where there’s good biblical information? Tell us about bibles net.
Eden: So in the last year of college I’m praying for direction from the Lord and I ended up switching to a Christian education major. Because I thought, I just want to share the Bible with others. And so that major was really exciting to me. It taught a lot about education and how to apply the scripture you have learned to people in different age ranges, backgrounds, etc. So I was praying for work, because I was like, I don’t know what to do with my life or with my education. And my boss, and the founder of Bibles.net, he had the idea to begin this website. And he said, I need someone who has studied the Bible who wants to share it with people that are newer believers and who has worked as an editor. And that was me. So the Lord really dropped this job in my lap as an answer to prayer.
Bibles.net is a website designed for people that didn’t grow up in church. And our goal is to help people that are hopeless and searching online for answers to their questions to discover the Bible. Because the Bible is our source of hope because it tells us the message of good news about Jesus and what he’s done for us, but it also gives us wisdom for all of life. And it’s God’s sufficient Word to guide us and counsel us through everything that we go through in life.
We were disheartened by how many teenagers are on their phones and looking on their phone for answers to questions that they used to ask their parents or their pastors. So kids are Googling things like, Does God really exist? Who is Jesus? How do I deal with my anxiety? Things as serious as how do I deal with suicidal thoughts? or how do I overcome a pornography addiction? Those sorts of things. And we thought, Oh, we want them to find Christ when they go looking for answers to these questions on their phone, but how do we get God’s Word into their phone? There are already so many wonderful Christian ministries out there and people have answered the questions I just relayed much better than we could ever answer them. And so we thought we don’t want to reinvent the wheel. But if there’s a person that’s looking online for an answer to that question, they do not know how to navigate the results that they’re going to find on Google because you could have a reliable Bible teacher right next to someone that’s teaching something that’s not biblical and that’s false about the Lord.
So we decided that what we would do is organize the wealth of Christian content on the web and what that looks like is, we have a set amount of topics. So crisis issues like I mentioned- How do I deal with anxiety? Doctrinal issues, like Who is Jesus? or Why did Jesus come to die on the cross? And what we do is we look for the very best biblical answers to those questions and that can take the form of sermons, articles, podcasts, songs, books, quotes, et cetera, from reliable Bible teachers that both are around today and that are from church history. So we put together these resources, hopefully in an engaging, visually interesting format that people can browse through on their phones. So, if you look up a question on our site like, Why did Jesus have to die? You’ll come to a page that’s filled with resources that you can browse through and, learn from whatever interests you.
Even though we address a horde of different subjects on the site, the site originally had the idea to create this journey through our website that starts with, Why do we rely on the Bible? Why is it the Bible that we look to for hope? How does it stack up with history, science, and archaeology? And then we move someone to getting a Bible- so helping them find a Bible that’s right for them. And then, How do I read the Bible? Because we assume that the people coming to our site didn’t grow up like I did in a Christian home, where they know where to find resources that are reliable. And then after helping them read the Bible, we move them to know the Bible. And so that section of the site addresses all the main doctrines of the Bible. So, What are the most basic biblical teachings? And then Live the Bible has those subjects related to life crisis issues. And it also talks about What does it mean to really live life with Jesus? What’s the cost of following him? What about sharing Jesus with others? What is missions? Things like that.
So, the goal of the website really is to take a new believer through the whole Bible and through the whole Christian faith. But you could also look individually at topics that we address on the site. So we’ve called it the social media of Christian content. It’s a fantastic thing for a teenager to be looking on their phone at late at night when they’re bored. Because they’re going to discover videos and books and quotes and things like that to look at and interest them, that are going to feed them really excellent content, that would help them learn from God’s Word and engage with God’s Word. So that’s a little bit about Bibles.net.
Chap: So you’re a curator. A museum curator goes has some artwork in the back room, but it’s bringing out certain pieces and saying, Here, this is what I want to show you an expert. Here’s what I think you should look at. And so similarly, it’s overwhelming the resources out there. And so you’re going to curate these and say, This is a place you can go.
Let me ask a question: Do you guys have an app? I don’t actually know.
Eden: We don’t have an app. The reason we don’t have an app is it took about five years to build our site to where it is now, and it would take a little bit to transfer it. But also we want people to find our content while they’re searching on Google through organic search. And so having it as a website enables people to enter our site through all sorts of different webpages.
Chap: I also assume it’s very mobile friendly, since. . .
Eden: Yes.
Chap: People will be looking at that. I’m looking at it now. It’s gorgeous. It’s very attractive. What if I’m a parent, if I’m a grandparent checking this out for my child or for myself, maybe. Where would you suggest I start? Under Start Exploring?
Eden: Yes. So, there’s a page called Family Worship. That’s under Start Exploring, then Read the Bible, then there’s a Family Worship button. And that will take you to a page all about how to listen to and love God’s Word in your home and share it with whoever is part of your family. And that page has videos and it has ten different articles that answer questions about family worship. That’s a great place to start. And connected to that page, you’ll see a banner that links to a page of resources for every book of the Bible.
So this is probably my favorite part of our website, but we actually created a page of resources on every book of Scripture. And that page includes a five-minute book introduction. And our editorial team wrote these with a teenager in mind. And I said, “Okay, I want us to write these intros as though a teenager is sitting across from you., and they say, ‘What is this book of the Bible about? Why should I care about it? And how does it fit into the Bible story?’” So, that’s the book introduction. And then you’ll find overview videos, insights, answers to tough questions that might arise from that book, and some dictionary definitions to terms that someone might not know if they’re not familiar with Scripture. So those pages are awesome.
And then I would say like as a parent or grandparent a lot of the crisis subjects on our site, which you can find under the Topics tab. Those are just good to know about. So if your teenager is like, “Mom, I’m like more sad than normal, and I don’t know why I just can’t shake the sadness.” You could share with them the page on depression and that will have a lot of just godly counsel for someone that’s experiencing deeper sadness than normal. And so just to have those in your back pocket as a way to encourage your kids, and give them the freedom to explore those resources. I think those are some good places that a parent might want to know about.
Chap: I’m looking at the website now. So that’s under Questions or Topics?
Eden: Under Topics, and then under Life Challenges.
Chap: Life Challenges. Okay. Yeah. Fear, anxiety, overcoming anxiety. Loneliness, lament, helping a suicidal friend. So there’s emotional, relational, physical, and addictions.
Eden: Mm hmm.
Chap: Well, that’s really helpful. Have you had feedback from different users? So I see there’s a place you can chat. So there’s read, pray, chat.
Eden: Yeah. So the chat is for someone, and I mean, it could be your teenager. But we’re connected to a ministry called Need Him Global, and they have responders that if someone begins a chat, there’s a real person somewhere out in the world that loves Jesus that will engage with that person, and they could even move to a phone call or to texting. But they’re a really solid ministry that really moves every conversation towards the gospel and that we believe will really wisely counsel someone no matter what they’re going through. So that’s the personal aspect of our website. We’re really thankful to them for how they’ve partnered with us to be able to have those personal interactions with those that come to our site.
Chap: That’s great. Yeah. Well, what, let me ask you this. So growing up in a Christian home and watching your peers. What advice would you give to parents who want to raise their children to follow the Lord? Interspersed with your story there have already been a lot of things that make parents or grandparents go “Yeah, I should do that” or “That’s great,” but anything especially in this day of confusion? It feels like we’re living in a time of moral confusion. What advice would you give to parents?
Eden: As I thought about this question, I thought of three things. I think the first is setting an expectation as a parent yourself, and that is that salvation is from the Lord. I think it’s easy for a lot of parents to think that if I just do follow the right advice and if I soak my kids in Scripture and if I do everything well that they will know and love the Lord. And by God’s grace, every one of my siblings knows Christ. But I also know of parents that were just as faithful as mine and their kids don’t know the Lord. And I think it’s just good to remember that the teaching of Scripture is that salvation comes to us by grace. And I found in my own life that a lot of times the trials that I face are harder if my expectations were not right, and were not aligned with what the Bible teaches. And your suffering is enhanced if it’s paired with disappointment. And so I would just say to new parents or parents that are really wanting to seek the Lord and be a godly influence on their kids, that it’s really not up to you what happens with your kids. And I think that’s a good expectation to set.
And so in response to that, I would say pray. Just pray your heart out. Anything that you want to see happen in your kid will not come by your efforts It will come from God’s grace. And so whatever you want- If your kids have believed, whatever you want them to do, ask for the Lord to move in their heart to accomplish those things before you set about trying to accomplish those things in them. I would say my parents are just absolute prayer warriors. And I think that is part of what I attribute our faith to, because it ultimately wasn’t their work. It was God’s work to bring us to know him. So first I would just say, pray, pray your heart out, and don’t believe that it’s your efforts that will cause your kids to love Christ. It’s Christ that will make your kids love Christ.
But then second I would say, and this is more broad, but my parents loved us very well, and they made sure that we knew that we were their friends, not just their kids, that they enjoyed us, that they loved spending time with us, and that we were very precious to them. As you said, Chap, our world is a little bit scarier to me now than it was to me growing up. There are just more sins in the world that are widely accepted that weren’t 15, 20 years ago. There are ways I’m discovering that people are sinning in younger generations that I didn’t know was even possible. So the world’s a scary place, but I think your kids are not going to want to have difficult conversations with you if they don’t know that you’re one of their nearest and dearest. And your kids aren’t going to want to listen to what you say if they don’t know that you love them, and that you have their best interest in mind.
And even as I think about our relationship with the Lord, it’s easiest to trust him when we are assured of his love. And I think that’s the way that parents and kids relate as well. And that’s why God’s created it that way. So I would say my parents deeply loved us and they lived in a way that convinced us that we were really dear to them. And so when tough questions came up, we wanted to go to them. When situations arose that we needed wisdom for, we wanted to ask them because we trusted that they were wise.
You can do a lot of things for your kids but not be present for them and they will feel that. I think about how to love the Lord your God with all your heart and to love your neighbor are the two greatest commands and Jesus says that all of the law and the prophets depend on those two things. So at the end of the day anything that God commands us and any instruction he has for parents comes down to love. And so I would say just focus on loving your kid and if you feel any lack of that to just pray that God would fill your heart with his own love.
And then thirdly, I would say just love the Lord with all your heart. So much of what kids learn is caught, not taught. And if a parent is teaching something that they’re not living, the kid knows. I had friends walk away from the faith at times because they were told to read their Bible, but they were not loved. They saw the lack of integrity in their parents- in their own walk with the Lord or how they treated their kids. I hear in my brothers, the dad that they long to be, or the husband that they love to be, comes from my dad’s example of following Christ. They can look at Scripture and say, Okay, this is how the Lord would want a husband to behave or a father to behave, but they’ve watched it. And so it’s the vision of obedience that has captured them, and thus they want to obey God’s Word in that area of their life. So for a parent, if they want their kids to read the Bible, read the Bible and read it with them and show them that you love it. And if you want your kids to be loving towards others and hospitable and kind to their friends and selfless, invite your friends over and be kind to them and go with them to drop off gifts to people that are suffering and invite missionaries into your home and do the things that you hope to see happen in your kids.
Ultimately, especially as someone that works in ministry, I’ve been so convicted recently by the need to spend time alone with Jesus and to seek the Lord on our own. And he says that if we don’t abide in him, then we can’t do anything apart from Jesus, we cannot be fruitful apart from Jesus. That’s a universal truth. That applies to me and it also applies to parents. So if you want to be fruitful as a mom or a dad, if you wan, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness to flow out of you and into your family, then you’ve just got to be connected to the Lord. And so that might mean you actually push everything aside in order to get alone with Jesus, you might actually need to spend more time with Jesus, less time with your kids, depending on how your schedule works. But not expecting that your kids are going to turn out because of your efforts, but choosing instead to rely on the Lord in prayer for their walks with him and then loving them and loving them as people and showing them that you love them. And then also just loving the Lord with all your heart. I think that’s what I’ve seen exemplified in my parents and I don’t have kids, so I can only share what their example has been to me.
Chap: Well, as you’re talking, I’m thinking, how old are you again? There’s so much wisdom. And I know people listening, maybe they’ll go to the YouTube and they’ll go, How old is this girl? Because there’s a lot of wisdom there. You were just saying a lot of what I say, just in different words. Just pray. We need to be faithful. We can’t control the outcome. Not by works: not by their works, not by our works. Love them. And then just be an example.
Well, let’s finish up by asking this question. So think about if a parent or grandparent said, Hey, I want you to listen to this young woman. What would you say to teens who might be wavering? They’ve grown up hearing the gospel. Maybe they’re in a home that has had trouble. Maybe Dad’s walked out and they’re questioning. Is this really true? Maybe our church is not as healthy as yours was. Any words besides go check out the website, which I think would be a great starting point that there are answers there to all that, but anything else you might say to someone who’s wavering?
Eden: Yes. So to someone who’s wavering, I think first I would ask them to take a step back and really consider their own relationship with Jesus. I would say first that people, including God’s people, are really going to disappoint you at times. Your parents are going to disappoint you. Church leaders will disappoint you. But Jesus has promised you that he is trustworthy. And a lot of times in our pain- like you mentioned, maybe their parents have gotten divorced or something is rocking their world. A lot of times in our pain, our reflex is to run away from God, because we don’t understand that he has compassion towards us. We have an emotional problem with him, not an intellectual problem with him. And so I would say first of all, you might have been hurt and hurt is actually leading you away from the Lord. And instead of running away from him, try running to him and see how he responds to you. The Lord says that he’s a compassionate father and Jesus died on the cross to bring us near to God, and part of that is we’re going to have questions, we’re not going to understand things, and we’re going to sometimes be an emotional wreck, and God can take it. He can take our hard questions, he can take our struggles, and he wants to hear what’s going on in your life. He wants to hear your pain. And he wants to answer you. So I would say, don’t run away from God. Run to him, try him and see what happens.
And I would also say, take a step back also and ask yourself, What am I really wavering on? It’s one thing to grow up in a Christian home and be taught the Bible, be told that you need to come along to church and decide, Yeah, I don’t really want Jesus. I don’t want to live that lifestyle. It’s another thing to be someone that has individually put your own faith in Christ and understood what he’s done for you on the cross and be at a place in your faith and your relationship with Jesus where you’re experiencing doubt, discouragement, questions. And so you have to kind of ask, Am I in a relationship with Jesus or am I not truly? If you take a step back and you say, I don’t know if I really believe these things, and I don’t know that I believe in Jesus, have you ever truly considered him for yourself? And I would say, again, try him. The Lord says if you call on his name that you’ll be saved.
And if you do have a relationship with Jesus and you find that you feel like your faith is wavering, I would say also cry out to God, but ask him for faith. Faith in God is a gift. The Bible says that faith is one of the spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians. And our trust in God is not something we conjure up. It’s a gift that God gives to us. And you might be doubting that God is good. That’s the number one doubt. The disruption in our relationship with God began in the beginning. But you might be doubting whether God is good. You might be doubting whether he’s compassionate. You might doubt whether he’s just. Ask him for faith to trust him in the area that you don’t trust him. And then wait for him to answer you.
And I think it’s helpful to say that all believers will waver in their faith at some point. All believers reach a point where they think, Is God really who he tells me that he is? And God sometimes brings us to those times, as James 1 describes, actually in order to strengthen our faith. And so, if you have a relationship with Jesus, and you find yourself doubting, James 1 tells us that when we meet a trial, that God’s goal in that is actually to test our faith and produce a steadfastness from it. So it’s easy to despair that if I’m having questions about God, I must not really know him. I must not really love him. But really, what God’s Word says to you is if you’ve come to a place of crisis, God’s intention for that crisis is actually to strengthen your faith. And the way that it’s strengthened is by receiving more of it from him, and seeking him in that instead of turning away from him.
So if you’re wavering, ask yourself, Do I really know Jesus? And if you don’t, ask him to reveal himself to you, and if you do know Jesus, don’t get disheartened that something’s awfully wrong. Every believer struggles in their faith and, and we rely on God to help us build that. Voice your doubts to him, be honest with him and he’ll answer you because he promises that when the righteous cry for help that the Lord hears them and he delivers them from all of their troubles.
Chap: Well, Eden, thank you so much for taking the time. You have wisdom beyond your years and I believe that this website, Bibles.net is going to help a lot of people. I think it should be on your bookmark bar that you go back again and again. So the Lord bless you, and keep up the good work.
Eden: Yeah. Well, thank you for this interview. Thank you for the time to share about Bibles.net and I pray that it would just be a blessing to everyone that hears about it through listening. So thank you.
You’ve been listening to The Disciple-Making Parent Podcast. For more information about the book, The Disciple-Making Parent, visit theDiscipleMakingParent.com.
