Embracing Faith to Overcome Doubts and Challenges is part of a blog campaign for CNN’s Finding Jesus through Grace Hill Media. All opinions are my own.

Here we are just a few days into Lent for 2017.

Have you been keeping up with anything you have chosen to do during this penitential season?
Or, are you being tempted to just give up after just starting?

For me, I like to ADD things to my life that help me grow in relationship with God.

One of the ways it sometimes happens is with the addition of books or shows with a connection to the Christian faith.

Embracing Faith to Overcome Doubts and Challenges

I believe that we all struggle with doubts and challenges. Some are easier to overcome than others.

Whenever I find one of those obstacles in my life, taking it to God in prayer is a way that I fully embrace my faith as a way to overcome.

While I do not believe that the Christian life is meant to be easy, I do believe that through a healthy relationship with God we can find peace and contentment.

The struggles may still be there. But, we know that God is with us.

Example of Embracing Faith to Overcome Doubts and Challenges

One such time in my life when I found myself embracing faith to overcome doubts and challenges is when I was discerning the call to homeschool.

My eldest son was struggling in the parish school.

The child I never thought I would consider homeschooling was now causing me to really consider it.

I had tried to teach him ‘preschool’ at home, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience.

Sometimes the easier path to take is the wrong path to be on.
Yet, events have to happen to affect change.

In his case, it was a drop in grades coupled with his bringing home HOURS of homework to do each day. The new after-school routine became one of his having a meltdown for up to an hour over the work followed by 2 to 3 hours of work.

When something isn’t working, you need to look at alternatives.

For me, switching to the local public school was not a viable option. I believe in taking struggles to God in prayer while seeking advice from wise counselors. That is what I did.

After taking the path of prayer and counsel, I made the decision to pull him from the school. Only, we would wait until the school year was over as financial agreements had been signed. I believe in fulfilling obligations when at all possible.

While the struggle remained for most of that school year, I had a true sense of peace.

Embracing my faith, my belief that God would direct my steps through the Holy Spirit was what led me to the journey of homeschooling. I still have struggles.

But, until the Holy Spirit leads me down another path this is the one I walk.

Doubting Thomas: An Example of Embracing Faith to Overcome Doubts and Challenges

Sometimes watching a good show, whether it is a documentary or movie, can help you put things into perspective.

Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact Forgery captivated audiences in 2016 as well-known Pastors, theologians, and archaeologists, examined famous religious artifacts and brought to life the places, pilgrimage sites, and people from the Bible and ancient world.

In season 2 (2017), one of the episodes focuses on Jesus’ disciple Thomas. Many have heard of him as “doubting Thomas.”  But there is so much more to his life story.

His journey to overcome his doubts and fears, and to redeem himself by spreading the Gospel and message of love to a faraway place is an inspiration!

It’s also something we can all relate to as each one of us at one point in our lives have struggled and overcome our own doubt and fears. This might be in order to fulfill a great challenge in our lives, or even our faith journey.

My Thoughts on Finding Jesus

I was given access to a few of the initial episodes from Season 2.

As someone who has more recently embraced history, this documentary series is perfect for me. They have a nice cross-section of experts and leave theology up to the viewer.

The episodes I viewed are the one on Thomas as well as one on Pontius Pilate.

While some of the information was not new to me, other things were. And, I always love to see artifacts as well as the locations where history was made.

What I had forgotten before watching the episode on Thomas is that he was sent to India. Many times we think the Apostles just traveled a bit down the road, not truly to the ends of the earth.

Sometimes it is easy to look at just the here and now. Yet, so much of what is happening is tied with the past.

The Christian life is intimately tied with all those believers who have come before us as well as Christ’s life.

Learning more about key people during the time of Christ is one way to help us build faith.

We need to know where we’ve been to better see where we are going.

Finding Jesus originally aired on CNN. As of March 2021, it is available for purchase on Amazon or to stream on HBOMax.

There is also a companion book: Finding Jesus: Faith. Fact. Forgery.: Six Holy Objects That Tell the Remarkable Story of the Gospels.

Have you found yourself embracing faith to overcome doubts and challenges in your life?
Have you struggled with doubts about your faith at times? If so, how did you overcome those?

This post was originally published on March 3, 2017 and has since been updated.