If you’d rather watch than read, the video version is linked at the bottom.
The hardest changes in my life didn’t start with failure.
They started with doubt.
I remember sitting in seminary classrooms where questions were encouraged. Professors invited us to wrestle openly with theology and belief. One professor said something I never forgot:
“If you have questions or doubts, now is the time to work through them, not when you’re in the parish.”
It was meant to give us permission to ask hard questions.
But even hearing that, I stayed quiet.
Questions felt risky. I wanted to look like I understood. I wanted to blend in with the other students who seemed confident in their answers. Silence felt safer than admitting uncertainty.
At the time, certainty felt like strength.
Certainty gave structure. It gave identity. It made decisions simpler. When you feel sure about who you are and what you believe, the world can feel more stable.
Later, when I became a pastor, that expectation only got stronger. Somewhere along the way, I absorbed an idea about what a “good pastor” should be. A good pastor should know. A good pastor should be steady. A good pastor should be able to stand in front of people and speak with confidence about what is true.
And for a long time, I tried to live up to that image.
But inside, something started to shift. Not dramatically. Just enough to notice.
There were moments when I caught myself defending something harder than I was actually feeling it. Moments when the role I carried felt more certain than I did.
And the more I pushed that doubt away, the more unease, and even guilt, started to build.
Looking back, I can see how much of my certainty was tied to identity, approval, and belonging. I wrote more about that longer arc here: my journey from Christian pastor to Buddhist-aligned recovery.
Because doubt doesn’t just disappear when you ignore it. It waits. It lingers. It finds little ways to show up, usually when you least want it to.
When certainty starts to soften, it brings real questions with it.
- Who am I if this role or belief no longer fits the same way?
- What will people think if I admit I’m not as sure as I used to be?
- Will I lose belonging if I change my mind?
And this isn’t limited to religion or ministry.
It happens in careers. In relationships. In leadership. In parenting. In recovery. Anywhere we’ve built an identity around being the one who knows, the one who holds it together, the one who has the answers.
Sometimes we outgrow a version of ourselves that once made perfect sense.
That can feel uncomfortable. Even scary.
But I’ve come to see something over time.
The softening of certainty isn’t always a sign that something is falling apart. Sometimes it’s a sign that something deeper is beginning to grow.
Growth doesn’t always look like becoming more certain.
Sometimes it looks like becoming more open. More curious. More willing to listen. Less interested in defending who we used to be.
So here’s a question I’ve been sitting with lately:
Where might you be holding onto certainty because it feels safer than curiosity?
And where might something in you be softening, even if you’re not quite sure what to do with it yet?
