The Question My Daughter Asked at Bedtime
The Question My Daughter Asked at Bedtime
RedeemedExistence daily devotional, September 25, 2026
My daughter is seven, and last Tuesday night she looked up from her pillow while I was mid-prayer and asked me how I actually know God is real. Not smart-mouthed, not testing me. She wanted a real answer, the kind a seven-year-old asks when the lights are off and the day is done and there is nothing left to perform for. I opened my mouth and nothing useful came out. I gave her something about the Bible and about feeling Him in church, and she nodded the way kids nod when the answer did not really land, and I lay awake long after she fell asleep turning her question over like a stone I could not put down.
I have been sober eleven years now, and most days my faith feels as settled as anything in my life. But that night reopened a door I thought I had shut for good, back to the years when I could not have answered my daughter's question either, because I did not believe it myself. I remember lying on a stranger's floor at four in the morning, certain there was no one watching and no one who would ever come looking for a man like me. Doubt was not a theological problem back then. It was just the air I breathed. Coming to faith years later did not erase every trace of that air. It just gave me new reasons to keep breathing it out instead of in.
What surprised me, turning her question over that night, was discovering that doubt shows up in Scripture from men I always assumed had it easier than I do. A father brought his desperate son to Jesus and did not pretend to a confidence he did not have. "Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, 'Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!'" (Mark 9:24, NKJV). He believed and doubted in the very same sentence, and Jesus healed the boy anyway. I have spent years assuming real faith meant the doubting had to stop first. That man never got the memo, and neither, apparently, did Jesus.
Faith itself is defined in a way that should have told me sooner that certainty was never the point. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1, NKJV). Not seen. If I could see it plainly enough to answer my daughter's question with a diagram, it would not be faith anymore, it would be arithmetic. Paul says the same thing about how a Christian is actually meant to walk through a life full of unanswered questions. "For we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7, NKJV). I keep wanting sight. I keep being handed faith instead, and some nights that trade feels like a downgrade until I remember which one Scripture actually promises.
Here is where my own reasoning runs out of road completely. I have tried to build my daughter, and myself, an airtight case for God's existence out of pure logic, and every version collapses somewhere, because God never designed Himself to fit inside my own understanding in the first place. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9, NKJV). I used to hear that verse as a scolding. Lying awake after my daughter's question, it read more like an invitation to stop demanding a proof that was never going to be handed to a mind as small as mine.
Solomon told me plainly where I keep going wrong in the meantime. "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths" (Proverbs 3:5-6, NKJV). My own understanding is exactly what failed me at my daughter's bedside. It has never once been built to carry the full weight of who God is, and leaning on it that night only left both of us more unsettled than before.
Paul tells the Corinthians there is a kind of knowing that was never going to come from reasoning it out at all. "But as it is written: 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.' But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God" (1 Corinthians 2:9-10, NKJV). Revealed, not deduced. I was trying to hand my daughter a proof when what I actually have to offer her, and myself, is a Person who searches the deep things and makes them known in His own time and His own way.
This is what abiding in the Spirit actually gives me that eleven years of good arguments never could. It is not a stronger case. It is an actual peace, standing guard over a mind that cannot fully reason its way to God and was never asked to. "And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:7, NKJV). Surpasses understanding, not the product of it. Jesus promised His own followers a guide for exactly this kind of night, one who was never going to leave the question unanswered forever. "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come" (John 16:13, NKJV).
I went back into my daughter's room the next morning and told her the truth, that I do not have a proof, only a Presence I have felt too many times to keep denying, and that doubting Him sometimes has never once made Him stop being real. She seemed satisfied with that in a way my first answer never managed. God is alive tonight, and He already knows exactly which question is keeping you up in the dark. He has a plan for you that was never contingent on you solving Him first, and He will never leave you to work out the proof alone.
Scriptures used (NKJV): Mark 9:24; Hebrews 11:1; 2 Corinthians 5:7; Isaiah 55:8-9; Proverbs 3:5-6; 1 Corinthians 2:9-10; Philippians 4:7; John 16:13.
RedeemedExistence daily devotional, September 25, 2026
My daughter is seven, and last Tuesday night she looked up from her pillow while I was mid-prayer and asked me how I actually know God is real. Not smart-mouthed, not testing me. She wanted a real answer, the kind a seven-year-old asks when the lights are off and the day is done and there is nothing left to perform for. I opened my mouth and nothing useful came out. I gave her something about the Bible and about feeling Him in church, and she nodded the way kids nod when the answer did not really land, and I lay awake long after she fell asleep turning her question over like a stone I could not put down.
I have been sober eleven years now, and most days my faith feels as settled as anything in my life. But that night reopened a door I thought I had shut for good, back to the years when I could not have answered my daughter's question either, because I did not believe it myself. I remember lying on a stranger's floor at four in the morning, certain there was no one watching and no one who would ever come looking for a man like me. Doubt was not a theological problem back then. It was just the air I breathed. Coming to faith years later did not erase every trace of that air. It just gave me new reasons to keep breathing it out instead of in.
What surprised me, turning her question over that night, was discovering that doubt shows up in Scripture from men I always assumed had it easier than I do. A father brought his desperate son to Jesus and did not pretend to a confidence he did not have. "Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, 'Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!'" (Mark 9:24, NKJV). He believed and doubted in the very same sentence, and Jesus healed the boy anyway. I have spent years assuming real faith meant the doubting had to stop first. That man never got the memo, and neither, apparently, did Jesus.
Faith itself is defined in a way that should have told me sooner that certainty was never the point. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1, NKJV). Not seen. If I could see it plainly enough to answer my daughter's question with a diagram, it would not be faith anymore, it would be arithmetic. Paul says the same thing about how a Christian is actually meant to walk through a life full of unanswered questions. "For we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7, NKJV). I keep wanting sight. I keep being handed faith instead, and some nights that trade feels like a downgrade until I remember which one Scripture actually promises.
Here is where my own reasoning runs out of road completely. I have tried to build my daughter, and myself, an airtight case for God's existence out of pure logic, and every version collapses somewhere, because God never designed Himself to fit inside my own understanding in the first place. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9, NKJV). I used to hear that verse as a scolding. Lying awake after my daughter's question, it read more like an invitation to stop demanding a proof that was never going to be handed to a mind as small as mine.
Solomon told me plainly where I keep going wrong in the meantime. "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths" (Proverbs 3:5-6, NKJV). My own understanding is exactly what failed me at my daughter's bedside. It has never once been built to carry the full weight of who God is, and leaning on it that night only left both of us more unsettled than before.
Paul tells the Corinthians there is a kind of knowing that was never going to come from reasoning it out at all. "But as it is written: 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.' But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God" (1 Corinthians 2:9-10, NKJV). Revealed, not deduced. I was trying to hand my daughter a proof when what I actually have to offer her, and myself, is a Person who searches the deep things and makes them known in His own time and His own way.
This is what abiding in the Spirit actually gives me that eleven years of good arguments never could. It is not a stronger case. It is an actual peace, standing guard over a mind that cannot fully reason its way to God and was never asked to. "And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:7, NKJV). Surpasses understanding, not the product of it. Jesus promised His own followers a guide for exactly this kind of night, one who was never going to leave the question unanswered forever. "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come" (John 16:13, NKJV).
I went back into my daughter's room the next morning and told her the truth, that I do not have a proof, only a Presence I have felt too many times to keep denying, and that doubting Him sometimes has never once made Him stop being real. She seemed satisfied with that in a way my first answer never managed. God is alive tonight, and He already knows exactly which question is keeping you up in the dark. He has a plan for you that was never contingent on you solving Him first, and He will never leave you to work out the proof alone.
Scriptures used (NKJV): Mark 9:24; Hebrews 11:1; 2 Corinthians 5:7; Isaiah 55:8-9; Proverbs 3:5-6; 1 Corinthians 2:9-10; Philippians 4:7; John 16:13.
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