Call Me Saint Bill...
Too much we're taught that doubt is the opposite of faith - that "real" Christians never experience doubt.
Faith is born in doubt.
Every so often I think just how ludicrous this whole faith thing really seems.
Think about it - we trust some unseen presence to forgive us of sins that that unseen presence imposed on us to begin with - and we have to completely surrender...and...and...what about blood? I mean, why does someone else have to die for me? And what about...what about the miraculous? Huh? Where's MY miracle? And...well, there's a bunch of stuff that in my dark days I think to myself, "This can't possibly even be true."
And yet out of those moments faith blossoms.
Because I struggle with this great Truth that has been handed on to us. And I struggle with what it really means to follow Christ. And, God help me, I struggle with sin. Of course I'm in good company, right? "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." And still I wonder...and still I have doubts...
Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Yeah, we're taught it is. We have Doubting Thomas to beat up on. But, in the end, he falls to his knees and he's the first of the Twelve to confess that Jesus really is God - "My Lord, and My God!" And, man, there's another thing I can't wrap my head around...God - three in one - what? How?
Doubt is not the opposite of faith.
Tennyson wrote, "Faith lives in honest doubt."
Anne Lamott wrote in an article a couple years ago,
"The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do. The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery of God's identity and love and ways."
(here - though the quote may also appear in her book Traveling Mercies).
Certianty is the opposite of faith.
Faith is born in doubt.
If that's so, go ahead and call me Saint Bill...'cause I'm deep in the dark of doubt right now...
Faith is born in doubt.
Every so often I think just how ludicrous this whole faith thing really seems.
Think about it - we trust some unseen presence to forgive us of sins that that unseen presence imposed on us to begin with - and we have to completely surrender...and...and...what about blood? I mean, why does someone else have to die for me? And what about...what about the miraculous? Huh? Where's MY miracle? And...well, there's a bunch of stuff that in my dark days I think to myself, "This can't possibly even be true."
And yet out of those moments faith blossoms.
Because I struggle with this great Truth that has been handed on to us. And I struggle with what it really means to follow Christ. And, God help me, I struggle with sin. Of course I'm in good company, right? "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." And still I wonder...and still I have doubts...
Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Yeah, we're taught it is. We have Doubting Thomas to beat up on. But, in the end, he falls to his knees and he's the first of the Twelve to confess that Jesus really is God - "My Lord, and My God!" And, man, there's another thing I can't wrap my head around...God - three in one - what? How?
Doubt is not the opposite of faith.
Tennyson wrote, "Faith lives in honest doubt."
Anne Lamott wrote in an article a couple years ago,
"The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do. The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery of God's identity and love and ways."
(here - though the quote may also appear in her book Traveling Mercies).
Certianty is the opposite of faith.
Faith is born in doubt.
If that's so, go ahead and call me Saint Bill...'cause I'm deep in the dark of doubt right now...
posted by Pastor Bill at 7:23 AM
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