Faith and Doubt

A conversation with a good friend of mine this week got me thinking about faith and doubt.  There are lots of bumper stickers and notebooks and pretty wall hangings that make a particular one word statement/imperative - "Believe". Just believe.

Well.... believe what?  And why?  And how will I know what I'm believing is right?  It sounds so good and deep and transcendent to just say "Believe!"  But many of us know from personal experience that, well, it isn't really all that simple.

I'm a believer in the body of a doubter.  My natural inclination is to question.  I've struggled and re struggled over the decades with many of my core beliefs. I can remember how good it felt to believe everything my parents told me as a child, that grounding confidence I had in their omniscience.  But as it was destined too, that foundation had to crack, because of course my parents (though very wise) are not omniscient. They could be wrong about things, and as I got older that meant I had to figure many things out for myself.  And that journey can be a painful one.  And it can be a fearful one.  Because if your entire life structure and internal essence is based on certain beliefs, can you survive it if they crumble? Would you want to?

I wish memories weren't so weak.  Because if I look back and pinpoint some experiences of my life, they tell a powerful story about the hand of God in my life.  Proofs of His existence and Presence.  I felt and watched my sister's short leg grow out in my hands as we prayed for her in my grandparent's kitchen.  Tissue that didn't exist before is there ex nilo.  My spirit grew in the soil of the stories from my parents and grandparents and the large array of international Christians that sat around our dinner table of how God directly spoke to them and guided them.  I believed them.  And I cried with my family when we learned of the death of our Peruvian friend who died at the hands of men who hated his message of peace. 

At times I've pulled against it even while fearing it would release me into an undefinable vacuum, but the tether that ties my soul to the story of Christ somehow holds strong.  And even now as I get older and questions surface, I feel the unyielding tie that I now know will never break.  So even though I'm prone to doubting, I remain a believer.

A large body of the things that have convinced me of what I believe are convincing because of my first hand experience with them.  I know they don't hold the same weight for people hearing them second hand.  A person I kind of know seeing a miracle is no proof to me of miracles.  Me seeing one on the other hand - a little more compelling.  So what do I tell my friend who like me, finds herself most often in the grips of doubt?

I don't have perfect answers. Few doubters ever do.  But a few things I would say to you who struggle with belief are as follows:

Don't use doubt as an excuse.  Sometimes we can use not being sure about everything as an excuse to not do anything.  It keeps us from having to commit to something.  It keeps us from changing our lives.

Don't let it disable you.  Don't throw up your hands and give up as soon as things don't make sense.  Use it to press forward, not give up.

You are a lot more likely to find answers if you purposefully look for them. A promise Jesus made was "ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you."  It implies a bit of pro activeness on our part.  And though faith is and isn't simple, in my experience asking God for helping finding Him and knowing Him is a request He loves to answer.