I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief. Mark 9:24 – A father with a dying son, to Jesus of Nazareth
(Man, now that guy I get).
We often live in two very different worlds, almost simultaneously.
There are days when faith comes easy, when the reality of God so fully saturates everything; every corner, every cell, every crevice of life, so much so that not believing is all but impossible.
To choose anything other than belief in those times feels like a reckless act of rebellion; an exercise in colossal stupidity. Our worship in those moments, is an almost involuntary response to the beauty and poetry around us.
There are other days, though, days when rhyme and reason and justice and sense, and love and kindness, and any kind of peace seem completely absent from the world; days when things are random and ugly, and the silence from a Divine voice is a deafening sound to the listening soul.
In those days, faith seems the last act of a hopeless, desperate fool. In those days, it takes every bit of strength you have just to hold on to the thinnest, most fragile, most precarious remnant of hope, a thread of trust in God and His goodness.
So many times, (many more than I like to admit), my faith seems to be hanging by this narrowest of threads.
This is the place where Doubt lives and breathes.
Doubt is often many Christian’s dirty little secret. In church world it’s seen as a moral character flaw, one of those “don’t ask, don’t tell” deals that’s better kept to oneself, and so that’s often what happens.
Make no mistake: In people of faith and in communities of faith, Doubt happens all the time, but it largely happens in the shadows.
As a pastor, you’re not supposed to talk about a personal crisis of faith, at least not in the here and now.
Oh, you can talk about the doubts of others. You can preach about doubters in the Bible. You can even testify to your own doubt in the past, but presently you’re expected to be well through that dark wilderness of disbelief; standing sure and unwavering.
I don’t mind telling you that right now, in these days, in these moments—I waver.
It’s not that I doubt God, but there’s a massive sifting of all the stuff around God that’s happening in my heart and mind; a testing the sturdiness of everything my faith has been standing on and surrounded by for the past thirty years, layers of theology, tradition, dogma, history.
With each question, with every new conclusion, and with every question behind it, a little bit of the big rope unravels.
This doesn’t alarm me anymore though and it doesn’t dishearten me. In fact, this unraveling comes with great relief and peace, because I know that whatever of faith is real and true won’t break under the weight of the deepest questions.
I’m a Christian and a pastor, and I’m OK with my doubt.
I’m learning to make peace with those times of questioning and those seasons of uncertainty, and I’m taking comfort in trusting that God is present and working in them, fully willing to let me come open-handed like a persistent, curious child to get answers I don’t yet have.
Doubt for me isn’t the sign of a dead faith, not necessarily even of a sickly one.
It’s often the sign of a faith that is allowing itself to be tested, one that is brave enough to see if it can hold-up under tension.
Be encouraged when your faith wavers, friend. The worst thing you can do in those times, is to pile upon your already burdened shoulders guilt for the mere fact that the wavering exists.
A God who is worthy of worship, is big enough to withstand the weight of your vacillating faith and your part-time skepticism. God can handle it, even if those around you can’t.
If your faith community doesn’t welcome your questions and welcome you as you ask those questions, it’s not the right one. Find a place where you can be you, not just when belief comes easy, but when it is elusive and fleeting.
And if your God and your religion can’t stand up to scrutiny, they aren’t worth holding onto. There is Truth that is far stronger than any religious house of cards; one that isn’t able to be shaken.
So, don’t be afraid of your doubts.
Don’t bury the questions.
Don’t hide the struggle
Don’t hesitate to let it all unravel.
Because there on the other side of the doubts, at the end of all that unraveling, in that thinnest of threads that remains; that’s where God is.
