When Your Kids Struggle With Faith: Helping Them With Doubts and Questions

Do your kids or teens as you hard questions about God or may have doubts about Him?

In this episode of the Home and Marriage Podcast, we discuss how parents can handle their children's questions and doubts about God and faith. We share personal stories about our own moments of BIG questions. We emphasize the importance of patience, prayer, and creating an open dialogue about faith in the home. We also highlight that faith struggles are natural and can occur even in the most devout families. Additionally, we offer practical advice for encouraging a thinking and resilient faith in children. This episode is filled with personal anecdotes, scriptural insights, and encouragement for parents to remain steadfast and supportive as they guide their children through their spiritual journeys.

Transcript

Christal 0:01

To me, that surprised me is when our oldest daughter started asking questions about God and I was like, is this already happening? She's so young and she's asking these big questions about God and his existence. Do you remember that?

Lennon 0:15

Oh, no one asked. More profound philosophical or theological questions than a 4-year-old while you're walking out of the room after you say goodnight. This is the Home and Marriage Podcast with Lennon and Christal Noland, where we help couples become better at home and stronger together. We are husband and wife, parents and ministers who want God's best for our home and for yours. Well, hello friends. Welcome to the show today. We're so glad that you're with us wherever you are and whatever you're doing. I'm here with my bride, my lover, my baby's mother. Christal, how you doing today?

Christal 0:50

I'm doing well. We are now officially in the month of Love, February.

Lennon 0:55

We are in the Month of Love. We're this, the show is made for this. This is our moment.

Christal 1:00

It is. This is what we do. It's all about love, Lenn. Loving your spouse, loving your kids. So February is the month of love.

Lennon 1:09

Loving, life, loving you.

Christal 1:10

Loving life, loving you.

Lennon 1:12

Yeah. It is the month of love. And we are really busy this month as, as you would imagine, friends we spend so much of our time doing marriage conferences and bringing encouragement, people like you. Uh, we've got a lot of that going on This coming weekend, we're doing a marriage conference in Austin. The next weekend we're gonna be in Roy City. We've got more coming after that, right?

Christal 1:33

We're we'll be in North Carolina. Yeah, coming up. So we, we got some great, um, ministry opportunities. I'm excited to meet the people we're gonna go minister to. I'm excited about sharing from our heart and hopefully encouraging couples in their marriages. I'm ready for that.

Lennon 1:51

It's gonna be great. And we're also working on content right now for a new parenting conference that will be launching this year as well. So all of that to say, friends, if, um, you or your church would ever like to have us in to be with you and bring encouragement regarding your marriage or life at home. It is what we do. Go to home and marriage.com and you can find all the info you need right there.

Christal 2:13

Hey, can I also say that if you wanna give your spouse a good Valentine's gift, you could purchase the six Habits of Happy Couples course. That is a great gift to show. Hey honey, I wanted to do this with you. Can I just say that usually it's the women that will do that, so what if we got a few husbands that did that for their wives? I'm just gonna say that that speaks. So much to their hearts, I believe, saying, honey, I wanna invest in our marriage. Let's do this course together. Let's just get better at marriage.

Lennon 2:44

Yeah. And it's not an overwhelming amount of content. Gentlemen. We did make this with men in mind, but you can in fact have a better marriage for less than the price of a date night. And so if you go to home in marriage.com and you do want to get the course, there's a coupon code just for you, podcast 20. It'll be $20 off. Make the course 55 bucks. It'll be good. You should do it.

Christal 3:06

Well, and today on the podcast, we're not really talking about marriage. We're actually talking about when our kids. Struggle with their faith and all the questions and doubts that may come over the years through parenting that will will be faced with as parents. I'm sure most of us that are listening, that our parents have probably had a question or two already, even if the kids are young. To me, that surprised me is when our oldest daughter started asking questions about God and I was like, is this already happening? She's so young and she's asking these big questions about God and his existence. Do you remember that?

Lennon 3:44

Oh, no one asked. More profound philosophical or theological questions than a 4-year-old while you're walking out of the room after you say goodnight. Mm, yeah, they, they wanna unpack the trinity and the mysteries of the universe, and so the questions there can sometimes be beyond you and they're surprising. But then as kids grow, and it's different in teenager years as well, can get even more intense, right? That some of the questions can be. Huge, and this is a real pain point for some parents, probably for almost all parents. At some point in the journey of raising a kid, my kid is asking questions that I don't feel like I have the answers for.

Christal 4:25

What in the world do I do? Yeah,, I will admit, I was just surprised by some of this and. We wanna encourage parents is don't be super surprised, even though I have been surprised by it, but it will happen at some point and, and that's not a bad thing that kids or, or young adults or teens are asking these questions and coming to you for the answers or coming to you maybe with mom and dad. I don't know if I believe in God anymore. You know, they're actually opening that conversation though up, so that's not always a bad thing. So

Lennon 5:02

No, it's not. And that encouragement you gave, not to be surprised. I think that is the biggest deal because we, I mean, we spent so much of our early ministry years working. Uh, in the context of the college campus at Angelo State University and Duke University and famously. College. Those are the years where everything you believe will be pushed on. Things proposed from different angles. You expect college students to wrestle with faith, and so that was part of our life. But I would say that we probably assumed without anybody ever telling us to expect it, that, well, we are raising our kids in an atmosphere of faith. We're teaching them about it from a young age, so they're not gonna struggle.

Christal 5:47

Right. I. Remember as young adult pastors having some students that would come talk to us who came from Christian Homes, great parents that love the Lord, and they came to college and maybe had a professor that said, first day a class, I don't believe in God. So leave that at the door, or whatever it was that challenged them to start questioning things. And I remember some conversations of students that said, in my home, I couldn't question my faith, or I couldn't even bring it up without feeling ashamed or like I'd done something wrong for asking these questions, and that really caused more of a division or shutting that kid down from from being able to ask their parents anything and so they just didn't feel like they could go to their parents about these things. And honestly, the home before they leave is the best place time to struggle with faith or to be able to ask those questions.

Lennon 6:46

That's right. It is the best time because you're still there to help love them and walk with them through it is where whenever they leave the home. You're not having those conversations with 'em. You don't know exactly what they're struggling with at any given time. So if that's the case and it's, it's actually the best time for it to happen if it's gotta happen. Why do you think as parents sometimes we freak out so much, why would we ever shut down those kind of questions?

Christal 7:15

I think the natural reaction is to assume that you must have failed somehow for them to even question the existence of God. Or why would God let you know bad things happen to good people? What kind of God is that I think initially you just think, man, I must have failed or I've done something wrong as a parent. For my kid to even be questioning this. They, you know, for us, we've pastored for years and we've been in ministry for years and our own kids have grown up in the ministry and they've seen God do great things in people's lives and in their own lives. And we've, we've taught them many things about the Bible and about God and had lots of conversations. And so you would think that that alone would be enough and they would not struggle. But that's not true. Even pastor's, kids and minister's kids definitely are gonna struggle at times. They have to have their own faith in the Lord. It's not their parents' faith that eventually, you know, they have to grow into their own faith.

Lennon 8:16

And that is, that's actually a really. Simple and profound point at the same time that the goal of our parenting and parenting kids toward the faith is we wanna give them something that they eventually own for themselves, and only they can do that part for themselves. And so that fearfulness in us, that feels like if our kids are struggling with faith, I must be a bad parent. We've gotta look at scripture and at the types of people that struggled with faith. I mean, look at Adam and Eve in the Garden. An unfiltered relationship with God, the closest one ever, right? And yet, not only did they struggle with their faith in the crucible moment of being tested with temptation, you know, they, they broke pretty much the only guideline that they had been given. That wasn't God's fault. God could not have done something different or better. Judas. He had seen anything and everything from Jesus and yet turned against him. That wasn't Jesus's fault, and I'm not trying to compare kids to Adam and Eve or to Judas. I'm saying there's somewhere in this continuum, right? We cannot be such good parents that our kids never have a struggle with faith.

Christal 9:35

Right. My, one of my heroes of the faith and of motherhood and everything is Sally Clarkson. And I know I've heard her several times talk about some of her kids, all of 'em, I don't know how many, but have all struggled with their faith or have had times in their walk with the Lord that they didn't know if they believed this anymore. You know? And this is a woman who I revere, and you know, they've homeschooled their kids. Since they were young and taught them the Bible and, their kids very much grew up in a home where they learned about the Lord, but they got to a point where they were struggling with their faith and so that helps me see that it's not about being a perfect parent to keep that from happening. This is just what's gonna happen with all of us. I mean, if you, we think about it, all of us at one time or another have struggled with faith, right? And maybe we had questions Maybe we went through this really horrible situation and this thing that happened to us that we didn't bring on ourselves, but it happened. We went through pain, and we're starting to ask this question, how could God let this happen to me? And that to me is where you usually start to question is God really real? All this stuff that I believed over these years. Yes. And so I feel like we've all had our own challenges, so why wouldn't our kids also have those challenges?

Lennon 10:57

Yeah. So we want parents for sure. So just some warnings, you know? Don't be surprised. Don't assume it means you failed as a parent. Don't lose your temper out of fear and instead we wanna give you a few encouraging things in the next few minutes that, not if, but when you were walking your child through a valley of doubt. Some things that you can hold onto yourself to help you kind of navigate these moments.

Christal 11:26

Mm-hmm. The first thing is to be patient. Be patient with the process and when your kids are going through these struggles, Don't go straight to worry and, and straight to, oh no, they're gonna lose their faith. Pray for them be, and I think being patient, the way you can be patient is to put it in God's hands too. Not to try to control the situation, but to allow God to work in them. First of all, God is their God. You can't be the Holy Spirit for them. You can say things that I believe the Holy Spirit will give us wisdom as parents to say and in the right moments and how to guide them in this time, but god has to be there. God,

Lennon 12:12

Jude deals with some pretty intense stuff in just a few verses, talking about faithfulness to God and false teachers. And as he is wrapping up, he says, but you beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. That leads to eternal life. And then he gives them this encouragement and have mercy on those who doubt. He doesn't say rebuke those who doubt. He doesn't say question. The salvation of those who doubt. He says, have mercy. Just understanding that they may be going through a thing, and so walk with them through this. Don't be hard on 'em. And so that applies to us as parents. If your kid is struggling with doubt, let's, let's not be hard on them. Let's not be shocked. Let's have mercy and we're gonna patiently walk with them through this process.

Christal 13:12

Yeah, and take a deep breath when they start to come to you with these big questions. And I will say many times since our kids were even little, some of those questions like we were talking about earlier, that they asked when they were so young, I didn't even always know how to answer them. And so sometimes. You just answer what you can. And also based on the level of their understanding, answer what you can and what you know to be true. And if you don't know, just say you don't know.

Lennon 13:41

You know why? Because you can say you don't know and then you can go try to learn, right? You can go and and try to become somebody who who knows. And that is actually, that's not just an encouragement for. Kids that they need to grow in their faith no matter, you know, whether they're seven or 17. We as adults, we don't need to be stuck in an immature or lacking understanding of faith because the last time we learned something new was years ago. No, if, if your kids are struggling with, that question, why would a good and loving God allow this? If that's new to you, then go do some reading on that. You know, look some things up. The thing about the big questions of faith is that they've been being wrestled with forever. Mm-hmm. And so you mentioned the classic scenario that happens to some people. A professor says something they weren't prepared for. I remember in my, I think it was my junior year, had a professor, his name was Dr. Eli at Angelo State University. He was older, he's, he's probably passed on. And he was going around the room. Everyone was making introductions, first day of class, and a few people mentioned their faith. Several people did. In fact, I was one of those. And whenever he got to the end of all those introductions and he said, well, since so many of you, you mentioned, your belief in God, this may be important to you. He said, I've gotta tell you, I do not believe in God. Whenever I was a kid, my parents fought. Terribly. And it was so bad. And I remember one night in particular, hiding behind the couch, hearing them scream at each other. And he said, I, I prayed to God. God, if you are real, please stop this. He didn't stop anything. I don't believe that God is real. I think we are taking care of ourselves. I had never heard anything like that. Mm-hmm. And that, that really did push me. It, it made me struggle. Well, God is loving. Why didn't he? But the struggle was part of the growth. Yeah. Where that, that's a valid question. For anything that goes wrong and bad in this world, of course we're gonna struggle with it. And why do those kinds of things happen? Mm-hmm. There's, there's a lot to work through and. I was asking that for the first time at that point, but it wouldn't be the last time that I asked it, and today I wouldn't be nearly so blown away. So that made me wanna learn and study some things for the first time too, that the world and finding out and just realizing the world really is broken, right? People make really sinful choices. Christ had to die for us because we were so broken. Those were some foundational things, but I needed to own them for the first time.

Christal 16:33

Right. And since we're talking about this, I wanna go into, to be willing to grow. 'cause I think it goes really well with this point that we're making. really, Having kids is one of the things that grows your faith more than anything. I will just say as a parent, my faith has grown because of situations with parenting. And so be willing to grow. Here's another thing. We want to be thinkers. God gave us a brain to think, and we want to continue to grow. I mean, we need to be in the word every day and to grow ourselves, but these questions that our kids bring to us and ask, I think will challenge us to grow maybe deeper than we thought. Or planned on. And that's a good thing because like you were saying with struggle, no one can grow in anything without some struggle. I mean, we know like we can't physically get better or stronger without some struggle and resistance. Resistance and struggle is not a bad thing. And the Lord even, and the word many times has put struggles in people's lives so they can grow. Right, right. So be willing to grow, be willing to research, be willing to help your kids be thinkers. We can't just say, well, you know what? It says this, so you just believe it. It's okay to give the reasons why or to learn more about why is it that that happens. Mm-hmm. What do you think about that? I know we can't have every answer to every question we have in our lives. Exactly. To the T like we want it. But what do you think about raising Christian kids that are thinkers also, not just, well, you gotta believe it because they said it.

Lennon 18:12

Yeah, their, their faith is gonna have holes punched in it at some point. And so what we can do that is helpful is to teach them to not be afraid of those moments. Being confronted with something you don't understand or know is just an event of a given moment. It doesn't mean that you can't grow and come to understand more and come to know things that you don't know. And I think that. Sometimes it's a really simplistic version of faith that scripture is, faith is the evidence of things unseen, and it is. And so, sometimes we tend to think so faith is something that there's no evidence for. We just leap into the dark and we just believe it. And that's what it means to really believe in Jesus. And yet, Paul said something like this. If Jesus Christ was not really raised from the dead, then we above all people are to be most pitied. So Paul had no tolerance for believing something that. You know, there's no evidence for it, but it encourages you and gives you something to believe in. Paul didn't take that stance at all. Right? And so we do want our kids to be thinkers, right? 'cause somebody's gonna think and they, we don't need them Believing that believing in God is in opposition to all of the other realities of the world. Right? And so he, we've gotta, like you said, we've gotta be willing to grow ourselves.

Christal 19:37

I think It's just really dangerous to send our kids off into the world. And if they're thinking, they're not supposed to question whatever the leader is that's speaking, or the pastor, and they can't research for themselves or know the word for themselves, they just take. Everything at face value. I think that's just a dangerous thing. So it's a good healthy thing to say, you know what? We want you guys, when y'all leave this house to be in great churches that have great teaching and they're accurate with the word. That's really important. But to do that or to know that, you're gonna have to learn the word for yourself too.

Lennon 20:14

Yeah. And don't you think it's important if we wanna raise kids who can have resilient faith in these tough moments, and if we wanna navigate. These difficult conversations about doubt and belief, this shouldn't be the only time that God comes up in our home. Right. Right. I mean, we've, we wanna be able to talk about the things of God before crisis moments.

Christal 20:36

Yeah. Make it normal. I mean, I know there's been times after maybe a church event or something, we ask the kids, what did y'all think about that message? Or what were your thoughts on the subject? We went over today and. That right there just opens conversation just to talk. 'cause if they had some questions or they had some doubts about. What did that mean? We were able to talk through it. So even just initiating that conversation and just opening up questions to them. We're not afraid to ask you guys questions about this, or even being honest sometimes and saying, one thing that didn't quite sit right with me was this, teaching. What did you guys think though? Maybe there's a better way to teach that. Is that, do you think helpful?

Lennon 21:18

Yeah, I do. I do. We just want our kid, we want it to be the most natural thing in the world to talk and dialogue about the things of God, because the other, the other reaction is what we've already covered, kind of leaning in in a teeth clenching, kind of white knuckled, fearful way, saying, we never doubt God. We do not have doubts in our family. I raised you better than that. We don't want our kids feeling like, whoa. I cannot talk to mom and dad about, about this kind of stuff. Yeah. We wanna talk about anything and everything concerning God, so we can talk about these really intense things concerning God too. Mm-hmm. So make it normal to talk about the Lord in your home. Yeah. Talk about church and, um, these other conversations will come in a much less threatening way, and you don't have to deal with it all in this moment. Mm-hmm. You can come back to it tomorrow. Mm-hmm. Or the next day.

Christal 22:11

Right. Well, what else can we encourage parents to do during these times?

Lennon 22:16

I think you wanna keep believing in your kids and praying for your kids, especially when they're older. One of the things that we have to know as, as moms and dads, is we cannot make our kids believe what we believe. Right? You can raise them to believe what you believe. You can give them a foundation of faith as they get older. They are gonna have to own this thing for. Themselves. Mm-hmm. And so you've gotta know that if you're dealing with a, a teenager, Dr. Ken Wilkis, who we've learned so much from, he, he really makes the point, like his parents of faith, we've gotta remember no one comes to the Lord unless the Holy Spirit draws him. We can't argue our kids into all of the right beliefs. Now we can present them the right beliefs. We can have good arguments for belief, and we have to know we've gotta pray for them. God capture their heart. And I know sometimes as a dad, frequently as a dad, I pray, Lord bring other Godly influences than me into the lives of, of our kids. Yes. Whether that's a good youth pastor or volunteer leaders, certainly as they go into the college world. Who knows? Campus missionaries, other Christian friends.

Christal 23:33

Yeah, they really need that and we really have to be praying for them. We're in this moment of life too 'cause our oldest is about to go to college and I know once she gets there, she's gonna be making decisions that I won't be a part of or be there to guide her. Exactly. You know, of course if she wants my guidance, I'm, I'm happy to give it to her. But I have to be believing that God is working in her life and be, and to be praying for her to come to know the Lord in the way that only she can know him and hopefully in a stronger way. I will say too that you can't make your kids believe what you believe, but the biggest thing I think as parents we could do is live out this example, of our relationship with Christ in front of them, reading our Bible, praying, you know, as a family, but living that kind of life, not a perfect life, but not a hypocritical life because we can't just go to church on Sunday and talk about the Lord, and then in the week we don't ever talk about the Lord or they've never seen us read our Bible. That's right. Or pray. And so I think the example of us in our own relationship with the Lord and who we trust. In, because what happens when we go through a really hard time? Do our kids see us turn to the Lord? Or do our kids see us turn straight to worry and stress and fighting and other sources, you know, what do they see? And I think that's gonna really stay with them.

Lennon 24:59

It does. If they, if they've seen mom and dad, okay, life wasn't perfect for them and they weren't perfect, and they didn't let some really hard seasons or big questions. Sink their faith. It brings resilience to have doubt in the things that bring you doubt and not to give such credence and weight to every doubt that you have. Uh, I don't know who said this, but I love the statement. Sometimes we need to learn to doubt our doubts instead of doubting Christ. Hmm. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Like, not, not every big question is a reason to wrestle with should I believe anymore, but if your kids do wrestle with belief. Don't be shocked. You know, one of my favorite passages of scripture, mm-hmm. It's actually in Matthew 28 and my friends. It is literally right before Jesus makes the statements that we know as the great commission, all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. Go and make disciples of all nations. Like we know that by heart, so many of us, but the verse before. I think it's verse 16 says that the 11 remaining disciples had gathered on, on the mountain where Jesus had called them to and when they saw the risen Christ, it says they worshiped him, but some doubted now who? Who doubted it was the 11 disciples that were with Jesus there. Some of the 11 looked at him and worshiped, and then some of them also were like, is this real? No one had seen more convincing proofs of who Jesus was than these men, and yet even still, they're sitting there like, this doesn't happen. You don't just get crucified. Then now you're here. Mm-hmm. And to those same ones who had a moment of doubt and struggled with faith right there, Jesus gave the great commission. Mm-hmm. So don't you dare believe that just because your kids are struggling with issues of faith, that not only does God not have a future for them, but they may have a great future in their lives and in their own ways of serving God and his kingdom.

Christal 27:07

That's very true and it, it's very encouraging for parents. And I just want to encourage parents too, maybe you're in those little years where they're really formative right now. I mean, I love it. One of the. The best things is when you have a young child in a worship service with a parent. You see them worshiping like their parents. They're just trying to copy what they do. Yeah. And so those stages are really precious because they're just copying you, mom and dad. They're just trying to do whatever you say and they're really open to learning and that's a really beautiful time. So that's a great time to really.. Teach your kids all about your faith, and as they grow and start developing their own minds and thoughts about things and questions, just don't be worried that you can't do a good job parenting them through those struggles. I do believe God gave you the kids he gave you because. He knew that you would be their parent. Yeah. You know, he, he trusts you as a mom and dad who's who are believers that you're going to do a good job with it. And so if you're even listening to this podcast, I mean, I think that shows that you are wanting to be that kind of parent and so he's gonna help you. Don't feel like you're all in this alone parenting, and you gotta figure it all out for them. He will help you in it. I think we can be encouraged as parents just to know that this is challenging. It's gonna be challenging sometimes, especially in those older years in our kids maybe don't believe quite like we do or have all these questions and it really worries us. We may have listeners that have a kid that's not even really following the Lord right now, but continue to pray for them, continue to be there to talk to them and encourage them and know that the Lord is working behind the scenes when you can't see it.

Lennon 28:56

Friends, thank you so much for being with us today. Don't forget to follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. We drop new ones every Tuesday, and if this conversation about kids and faith, if this resonates with you, I'd love it if you take a moment and just share it with someone else who you think it would help. You Can visit home in marriage.com for more resources like our Six Habits of Happy Couples Course, and if you'd like us to come speak at your church or event, you can schedule us through the website. You can also follow along on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. All those links are in the show notes. Thank you for joining us on the Home and Marriage Podcast. We really do believe that home can be your favorite place. We'll be back again next week with more encouragement and wisdom to help you become better at home and stronger together.