Faith is looking out upon a planet swallowed up in war and greed and chaos, but still saying, I will trust God’s promises for peace. I will live the new creation that God wants for the world.
When doubt enters into the equation it is either something we keep well hidden in the back of our closet for fear that someone more pious might find out and raise their eyebrows in our direction. Or doubt is something that paraded as a public virtue; the sign of an active mind.
I think doubt is neither something to be proud of nor something to be ashamed of. Doubt is part of our human makeup. However, doubt does make faith more compelling. One writer suggests that doubt makes faith “heroic;” the greater the doubt the more heroic the faith. I don’t know if that’s true but it certainly sounds good.
Sometimes we live our faith whether we know it or not. Like Peter running out into the lake without really thinking about what he’s doing, sometimes faith the result of a lack of foresight, or it’s just plain ignorance. We don’t know we’ve stepped out of the boat until our shoes fill up with water. (the rest here)
1 comment:
I think I may have quoted this here before, but it seems relevant again ...
The best faith advice I got was in my first year Religious Studies class with Dittmar Muendel (amazing man) - "faith without doubt ceases to be faith and becomes knowledge" - accepting and addressing doubt can only make your faith stronger, but ignoring doubt can make your faith irrelevant.
markh
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