Doubt...

Tonight's meeting at New Community was about doubt - and how refreshing!

When considering doubt I always remember (and this is true, I do always remember this...) my first placement in my PGCE year when training to be a maths Teacher. I had a conversation re Christianity with a teacher at this school, who was a "lapsed Catholic". I said to him that I "knew" that God existed. He said to me that I couldn't "know". So I asked him what I could I say then, and he replied that I could say that I couldn't imagine believing anything more strongly than I did; that without doubt, there is no faith. I stopped right there. I paused, and said, "Good point!". Hmmm, faith in a vacuum is meaningless.

Y'see, I realised in that moment in my life, that his lapsed faith had greater depth and reality than my easy certain cheap answers faith. The wrestling with doubt is, actually, essential to faith. What is faith if it is not the triumph over doubt? And doubts will surely come, either fleetingly or sustained. I have read of great heroes of the faith enduring these very struggles with doubt and overcoming - it all sounds so, well, holy, but these people were wondering whether God actually existed or not! True, they came to the conclusion that he did, but in conversation of a Sunday I would be thinking, "Oh, it's a shame that they're a bit weak in their faith!", not, "Oh yes, see the mighty Christian warrior battling against doubt and overcoming!"

I can be driving along in the car on the way to lead the musical worship and find myself thinking, "Oh, come on, how can this all really be true, eh?", but then I remember all that He's done for me and that I "knew" from my earliest memories that He is who He is and that I was, am, and will always be, His.

Faith without doubt cannot exist any more than light without dark.