Doubt...

A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection.

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God (2008, p. xvii)

“Any belief worth having must survive doubt”

I grew in a very secure Baptist church with godly parents and my faith was grounded in the Bible, and grew in knowledge and love of God. This was great. But, my faith in God or the Bible was never really challenged. I lead a remarkably pain free existence, never had any major traumas that caused me to question God. I also was never really faced with any intellectual challenges. I went to public school, but my teachers all taught evolution with a wink and were believers who did not press the issue hard. So, my faith continued to flourish unchallenged protected in a cocoon. It really was not until college and seminary when I started to share my faith with people who had real issues with God. They had faced major heartache and doubted God’s love, they had some real apparent intellectual objections against God. I was unprepared. There doubts and there issues took me back. I tried refusing to think about them, because I had already moved “all in” in my devotion to God. But, these little tiny doubts and questions continued to grow.

Now, I never had a moment of just thinking about throwing it all away. But, my doubts caused me to move closer to God to find the answers. These new doubts moved me away from Christian apathy; a refusal to deal with doubt or not to respect the real doubts of others. You see doubt is not the opposite of, or enemy of faith. Apathy is the opposite and enemy of faith. If you doubt you are at least engaging with the truth, and I believe that God will honor that engagement. Apathy is the real faith-killer, not doubt. I don’t have all the answers, but being honest and open about doubt is healthy. Besides what good would an untested faith be, anyway? An untested faith is an unproven faith. Many, who say that they believe in God, that they trust in God, are only speaking mere words that mean nothing. Faith, by its nature, must be tested; and faith, to be tested, must bear suffers hard times. We learn the extent of our faith by seeing how well it stands up to the traumas of life. A strictly fair-weather faith is no faith at all.

C.S. Lewis after the death of his wife and struggling with the pain of lose and questions about the love and consolation of God said “You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.” Or like the father of the young boy having seizures who told Jesus in Mark 9:24 "I do believe! Help my unbelief." Understand that the attitude of trust and confidence that the Bible calls belief or faith is not just something we can obtain without help. Faith is a gift from God Eph 2:8-9. No matter how much faith we have, we never reach the point of being self-sufficient. Faith is not stored away like money in the bank. Growing in faith is a constant process of daily renewing our trust in Jesus. So remember let us be open and honest with our doubts, the faith that have is a gift from God and that faith is essential because Hebrews 11:6 “Now without faith it is impossible to please God, for the one who draws near to Him must believe that He exists and rewards those who seek Him.” Sorry to get long winded, anybody have any doubts or times of you doubt you want to share feel free.

Got to get back to work, Pastor Phillip