Many people give up on God because of two things;
1. His people let them down
2. Life circumstances appear to contradict that God loves them and is in control....
Why is it that some people go through things like this and come out stronger, with more faith as a result whilst others renounce God for ever?
Let us look for a minute on what faith is based on. I think many people assume that faith is the absence or the opposite of doubt. I disagree. I think faith and doubt often mean the same thing. Let me explain…
If we knew the answers to everything, we would not need to live by faith. We would live by certainty. Our faith makes room for our doubt. It fills the gaps at it were.
Our doubts are a healthy expression of our humanity. They are often our way back to God and our way back to faith.
Doubt is not always a negative. It can lead us, like Thomas to incredible outbursts of "My Lord and my God!"
Last year, someone let me down dreadfully. For a while I wondered whether I would spiritually survive. I was challenged to handle it alone and to share my feelings with God. I learnt a huge amount of grit and determination through this period. This has definitely strengthened my faith. But my journey to get there was to doubt along the way.
As part of that experience, I was also confused about whether or not God had allowed something to happen to me or turned His back on me. (That can sometimes look the same to human eyes, after all.)
All I can say is that I am much, much stronger. I can take no credit for it. Faith is a gift, not something we can call our own possession. But we can certainly cherish it, polish it and nourish it.
So however you feel at the start of today, whether full of faith, or riddled with doubt, know this: God is at work in you. He doesn't just choose the sanitised, sorted, safe bits of you to work in. He goes for the messy, illogical, improbable, impassable, ugly, dirty, doubtful parts of your life too.
Take it from one who knows.
Ems Hancock, Singer / Songwriter and Blogger
For more info about Ems ’ work, please visit http://www.emshancock.com/index.php
Comments (2)
Posted by Catherine Francis 21 Dec 2010 at 00:53
I love this piece and couldn't agree more. I have seen many people walk away from the church, and from faith, because instead of being allowed to express and explore their doubts, they are admonished, coerced to close their minds to difficult questions, and told they must simply believe a bit harder. Honesty and integrity make it impossible for many people to do this forever, and they then feel they have no choice but to walk away.
However, like Ems, I don't believe that faith and doubt are opposites - rather, that they are part of the same thing. For many of us, those times when we've felt compelled to question everything, to pull it all apart and piece it back together again (sometimes looking very different to how it did before) have been the most painful but most important and formative stages in our spiritual journey and Christian development. I'm not sure my faith would be worth as much without having gone through those times.
I nearly had to walk away from the church a few years ago. I was very fortunate to find my way into my current church, where everyone is fully included in church life, whether they are full of faith, racked with doubt, on fire for God, or not sure they even believe any more. No one is cornered and pushed to make a decision... we just journey on together as a spiritual community, trusting people to find their own way, and believing God can be trusted with them, without our clumsy interfering. As a consequence, the church steadily grows in numbers, in faith, and in love and support for each other.
Not everyone is as fortunate as me. For many people, the constant haranguing to resist doubt and close their minds to questions is the very thing that drives them away. Then they are written off as 'backsliders' or rebels - but for many, it is their refusal to live a lie that forces them to walk away, and their honesty puts us to shame. Sometimes people's faith survives this trauma; sometimes it doesn't. Either way, people deserve better from us - don't they?
Posted by George Elerick 8 Jan 2011 at 11:12
to believe is human, to doubt divine - peter rollins