“To doubt is to dishonor God,” I told an anxious friend on her way to address a large crowd, something she rarely did. Affirming that she existed to honor, not dishonor, God helped turn her from doubting her own abilities to trusting God’s presence and power. The talk went well.

When we struggle with self-doubt, it seems as if succeeding in life, or even simply surviving, is all about us—about our capacities or seeming lack of them. But the most profound, illimitable power undergirds our ability to make progress: namely, divine power. It’s leaning on the belief in a lesser power than God that’s problematic. As Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Omnipotence has all-power, and to acknowledge any other power is to dishonor God” (p. 228). 

We can know that in whatever way self-doubt whispers into thought “I am you,” it isn’t us or our thinking. We are created to honor God in knowing and proving that there is no other power than God. And to the degree that we see through the opposite view to the truth that God is the only source or influencer of our abilities, we find that we can think, say, and do whatever we need to.