Have you ever doubted your faith? What do you do when you hit those moments of doubt? Is it a sin to doubt?
I am reading . The subtitle speaks for itself: the dilemma of doubt & how to resolve it. This gem of a book, written in 1976, is out of print. Fortunately, I found in our church library.
What is doubt? Reading this book reminded me of an email I received several years ago. I was teaching a college Sunday School class at the time. One of the members of that class, a girl in her junior year of college, sent me this email. I will call her "Jane" though that is not her real name.
Jane wrote:
"I just wanted to let you know that your teachings on relativism and truth could not have come at a better time for me...These past few months at school have been really hard, and really confusing. I met with a leader in Intervarsity who was reading over Eph. 1 with me, and he looked at my face and said, "you really don't understand this, do you? How can you be in a Women's Bible study about becoming an influential woman if you don't even understand grace?" Well, that sent me into a tailspin over, "Am I really a Christian if I don't understand even the basics? Do I know who God is?"
Over Spring break I started to read "The God who is There" and when the topic of existentialism was reached I started thinking, "There are so many other people who believe different things. How do I know that what I believe is absolute truth? Do I believe what I believe because I was raised in America and in a Christian home? What if I had been born somewhere else?" and Jeff, I realized that if what I believe is NOT true, then I have no reason to live. My hope and my purpose for living really is Christ, and I don't want to walk away from what I know to be true in order to analyze the "facts".Somehow over break a part of me died, and I think it was the part that had a whole lot of preconceived notions about who God is, and possibly the part of me that always believed without questioning i.e.-my childlike faith. So now I am really empty and longing to be filled with truth that is not emotional and that is not a result of society or my family or even my church ... and I don't know how to go about doing this. Ever since I have come back to school I have been up to my ears in papers and exams. This is by FAR the most incredibly stressful semester I have ever been through, and that has made it a little easier to forget all of the spiritual issues I am struggling with, because I barely have time to SLEEP, let alone have a significant quiet time. I don't mean to bother you or to load you down with information that you may not care to know, but from what I understand and see about you, I think that you manage by fact and are willing to be approached about this without judging where I am compared to where I "should be".
Everyone keeps saying, "just immerse yourself in the word, and it will come to you." Well, I've been immersing myself in the word since I was five, and suddenly I feel like it is foreign to me and I don't know how to go about reading it. If you don't have any books that you could suggest to me, could you and Leslie just pray for me? This is just so painful and confusing, I am feeling a little isolated.
Thanks for listening!
Have you ever been there? Is it wrong to question? Are you just supposed to "immerse yourself" in the word as Jane was told to do? Do you "just believe" your way through it?
I am thankful that God put me in the right place at the right time to help Jane. I am even more grateful that she felt safe to share it with me. That is what being in the body of Christ is all about.
We all go through seasons of doubt. It is called being human. I will share some personal thoughts on dealing with doubt, as well as some thoughts from Os Guiness on this important topic.