What if I want to believe but can’t

Wanting to believe is not a failure of belief. It is belief in the bud — the first bend of a stem toward light. No one wants what is truly nothing to them. You have already crossed the threshold most people never reach the door of: you have admitted the direction you want to face. “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24) is the most honest sentence in the Gospels, and Christ did not correct the man’s grammar. He answered the want.

Now let us be honest about the can’t. Usually it is not one thing; it is a knot — an old hurt wearing the costume of an intellectual objection, or exhaustion with people who spoke for God and spoke badly. Both are legitimate. God is not offended that you arrive carrying damage. “A bruised reed shall he not break” (Matthew 12:20) — bruised reeds are specifically promised gentleness.

So do this, only this: ask for the want to grow, in whatever words you have, for a week. Do not perform belief. Do not fake a feeling. Just keep the window cracked. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find” (Matthew 7:7) — and notice the verbs are small and continuous, not heroic. Faith, when it comes, rarely arrives as an argument. It arrives the way morning does: you notice, after a while, that you can see.