What If I’m Wrong? How to Seek Truth With Humility

There is a question I have been asking myself a lot lately:

What if I’m wrong?

That is not exactly the kind of question we love to ask ourselves, especially when it comes to our faith.

Most of us have beliefs that have been shaped over many years. We were raised a certain way. We learned Scripture from particular teachers. We went to a particular kind of church. We listened to certain people explain theology to us. We developed ideas about what Christians believe, what other denominations believe, and what we thought was obviously true.

And eventually, those beliefs can start to feel less like things we have personally examined and more like facts that simply belong to us.

I know that has been true for me.

But what happens when you encounter something that makes you stop and say, Wait. Why do I believe that?

That question can be uncomfortable, but I have started to believe that it can also be an incredibly beautiful invitation.

Because if Jesus is the truth, then we do not have to be afraid of truth.

We can ask questions.

We can investigate.

We can admit when we were wrong.

And we can trust that wherever the truth leads us, Jesus will still be there.

What If We Are More Attached to Being Right Than Knowing the Truth?

I recently had the incredible opportunity to talk with Kimberly Hahn, whose conversion story has deeply impacted me.

Kimberly and her husband, Scott Hahn, were both Protestants when they began seriously examining the claims of the Catholic Church. Scott actually became convinced of the truth of Catholicism before Kimberly did, and their journey was not simple or immediate.

Kimberly had studied theology extensively. She was not someone who had never thought deeply about Christianity. She had a master's degree in theology and was very comfortable with the tradition she had grown up in.

So when Scott began becoming convinced that the Catholic Church was the Church Christ established, she had plenty of reasons to push back.

And she did.

What struck me as I listened to her tell the story was that she eventually became willing to investigate the things she thought she already understood.

That takes humility.

It is easy to investigate something when you already expect it to prove you right. It is much harder to say, Lord, if I have misunderstood something, I want You to show me.

That is a completely different posture.

You are no longer trying to win an argument. You are trying to find the truth.

And I think that distinction matters tremendously when we are asking serious questions about Christianity.

We Should Be Willing to Examine What We Have Always Believed

One of the most interesting parts of Kimberly's story involved contraception and the Christian understanding of openness to life.

She initially assumed contraception was not really something she needed to investigate. She had never been Catholic, and the teaching of the Catholic Church on contraception seemed completely foreign to her.

Then she was given an opportunity to study the topic.

So she did.

She began looking at Scripture, Christian history, the way early Christians understood marriage and children, and the reasoning behind the Catholic position.

What she discovered challenged assumptions she had carried for years.

One of the things that struck her was the biblical picture of children as a blessing. Throughout Scripture, children are repeatedly presented as gifts rather than inconveniences or obstacles to the life we want.

She also began thinking more deeply about what it means to give ourselves completely to our spouse and ultimately to God.

That led her to another question that I think is worth asking in every area of our faith:

Have I actually asked God what He thinks about this?

Or have I simply assumed that my culture, my family, my church, or my generation already answered the question for me?

That question convicted me.

Because there are plenty of things I have accepted as normal simply because they were normal to me.

That does not automatically make them wrong.

But it does mean they are worth examining.

Following Jesus Means Being Willing to Let Him Correct Us

I think sometimes we approach faith as though our job is to become increasingly confident in everything we already believe.

There is certainly something beautiful about having confidence in our faith. But Christian maturity also requires enough humility to allow Jesus to correct us.

That can happen in small ways.

Maybe you discover that the way you have always understood a particular Scripture passage is incomplete. Maybe you learn something about Christian history that you were never taught. Maybe you encounter a teaching from another Christian tradition that makes you realize you had never actually understood what that tradition believed.

Or maybe you discover something that challenges you much more deeply.

The question becomes: What will I do with it?

Will I immediately dismiss it because it makes me uncomfortable?

Will I create a caricature of what the other person believes so I can easily argue against it?

Or will I actually take the time to understand what they are saying?

That last option requires humility, but it is also where genuine discovery can happen.

Sometimes We Need to Stop Arguing With the Version of Something That Exists in Our Head

This has been especially important for me as I have explored the Catholic faith.

I grew up with certain ideas about Catholicism that I assumed were true. Some of them came from things I had heard other Christians say. Some came from my own assumptions. Some were simply caricatures of what Catholics actually believe.

And then I started reading.

I started asking questions.

I started actually listening to Catholics explain what they believed instead of relying on my understanding of what they believed.

That distinction is enormous.

For example, one of the most common objections I had heard was that Catholics worship Mary.

But when you actually investigate Catholic teaching, that is not what the Catholic Church teaches. Catholicism distinguishes between worship, which belongs to God alone, and the honor or veneration given to Mary and the saints.

You may still have questions about that distinction, and that is okay.

But there is a difference between disagreeing with something after understanding it and disagreeing with something because we have never really understood it.

That is why I think curiosity is such an important part of seeking truth.

Before we reject something, we should at least understand what we are rejecting.

What If God Has More for You to Discover?

Kimberly described her conversion in a way that I have not been able to stop thinking about.

She said it felt like going from renting an apartment downtown to discovering that she actually owned an estate at the end of the road.

That is how discovering more of the Christian faith has felt to me.

It has not felt like losing Jesus.

It has felt like discovering that there is so much more of Him than I had understood.

And that has challenged me to think differently about the way we sometimes talk about faith.

We can become so accustomed to the little corner of Christianity that we know that we assume we have reached the end of the story.

We know the phrases.

We know the songs.

We know the answers we are supposed to give.

We know what our particular church tradition says about certain theological questions.

But Christianity is not merely a collection of answers we inherited.

It is the discovery of a person.

It is knowing Jesus Christ.

And if we genuinely believe that Jesus is Lord, then we should be willing to follow Him into deeper truth, even when that truth makes us uncomfortable.

Truth Matters More Than Our Comfort

One of the most beautiful things Kimberly shared was a conversation she had with her father during her conversion.

She asked him to challenge her if he genuinely believed she was making a terrible mistake.

His response was gracious, even though he did not agree with her.

That conversation revealed something important about how we can handle disagreements over faith.

Truth matters.

It matters enough that we should be willing to investigate it.

It matters enough that we should be willing to have difficult conversations.

And it matters enough that we should love people even when we do not agree with them.

I have people in my own life who do not understand every decision I have made in my faith journey. Some people may never understand it.

That can hurt.

It can feel lonely to discover something you believe is true when the people you love do not see it the same way.

But I have been learning that I do not have to force anyone into agreement with me.

I can share what I believe.

I can explain why I believe it.

I can invite someone to ask questions.

And then I can trust Jesus with the rest.

What Do We Do When People Judge Our Faith?

Kimberly gave some advice that I loved.

Share with joy.

That sounds simple, but I think it is profound.

When someone looks at your faith and thinks you are strange, defensive arguments are not necessarily going to change their mind.

But a life transformed by Jesus is difficult to ignore.

If your marriage is healthier because of your faith, let people see it.

If your family has more joy, let people see it.

If your understanding of motherhood has changed, let people see it.

If your relationship with Jesus has made you more generous, more peaceful, more joyful, more patient, and more willing to serve, let that fruit speak.

We do not have to convince everyone.

We can live deeply.

We can love people well.

We can share what we have discovered without treating every conversation like a debate we need to win.

And when someone asks questions, we can welcome them.

Maybe the Prayer We Need Is Simpler Than We Think

If you are currently questioning something you have always believed, I want to encourage you not to be afraid of the question.

You do not have to have everything figured out today.

You can bring the question to Jesus.

You can open Scripture.

You can read Christian history.

You can talk to people who disagree with you.

You can investigate the beliefs of another Christian tradition from the people who actually hold those beliefs.

And most importantly, you can pray.

A prayer I have found myself returning to over and over is simply:

Jesus, show me what is true.

That is a vulnerable prayer because we do not get to decide what the answer will be.

Maybe the answer will confirm something you already believe.

Maybe it will deepen your understanding.

Maybe it will completely challenge something you have believed for years.

But if we genuinely believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, then we can trust Him enough to ask.

We do not have to protect ourselves from truth.

We can pursue it.

There Is So Much More to Discover

My conversation with Kimberly reminded me that faith is not supposed to become stale.

There is always more to learn about Jesus.

There are questions we have never asked.

There are parts of Scripture we have not understood deeply.

There are pieces of Christian history we were never taught.

There are traditions and teachings we may have dismissed without ever really understanding them.

And perhaps God is inviting some of us to become curious again.

Not curious because we want to find ammunition for an argument, but curious because we genuinely want to know Him.

That requires humility.

It requires us to loosen our grip on the need to be right and replace it with a desire to know the truth.

And I think that is a beautiful place to begin.

So if there is something you have been wrestling with lately, bring it to Jesus.

Ask the uncomfortable question.

Open the book.

Have the conversation.

Do the research.

And then keep following wherever the truth leads.

Because if Jesus is the truth, we have nothing to fear from finding Him.

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