Dear Brothers, Sisters and all those in between,
I'm reading through the few blog posts that I've written, and I realize that I've made most of them sound like sermons. Today, I think I'd rather just ruminate a little.
I've had a tough week, with a great many doubts running through my head. I've been thinking really hard about my future, now that I'm allowed to chart my own course, and I feel a strong call towards full-time ministry. I don't know what shape that ministry will take, but I have watched as all the things I thought I wanted to do with my life and career have ceased to be interesting or important to me. As I told my pastor, I want to have my heart broken for hurting people, I want to be driven to my knees with the need to pray for the hopeless and the helpless, I want to have callouses on my hands from working on behalf of the homeless and the hungry. And I want to do it all in the name of Jesus, so that others will know the depth of His love and compassion.
But I have struggled with so many doubts, and I'm tired of struggling. So, I've decided to rejoice in my doubts.
We have this idea in Christianity that doubt is the enemy of faith, and I have wrestled with that idea all week.
"I need to stop doubting and trust God."
"I can't be a Christian and have all these doubts."
These thoughts were destructive to my spirit, and they were born of the idea that Certainty = Correctness. If someone is absolutely confident in a belief or an idea, then they must be correct. Right?
I'll give you a minute to chuckle.
What's funny is that I never operated under this assumption in the military. Sure, as a young Private, I may have trusted every blowhard that came my way... but after a few transformational experiences, I learned to add a healthy dose of doubt to my interactions. I didn't start to believe in the certainty/correctness principle until I came back to the church.
(Now, let me throw in a caveat: I don't believe that every person who is confident in their beliefs is necessarily an idiot or a liar. Some people have that surety, that conviction, after years of examining their faith. Bear with me, as I try to throw out the bathwater and KEEP the baby.)
Maybe I can both doubt and trust God... in fact, maybe that's a part of what faith is: trusting God in the midst of my doubts. Perhaps, I don't have all the answers, and the answers that I have are imperfect. But, I trust that I am always being led to a better understanding. to a more perfect communion with God.
When Jesus appeared to His disciples in the Gospel of John, Thomas wasn't around. They tried to tell him about it later, but Thomas said that he would not believe unless he could see the holes in Jesus' hands and feet.
So, in true Jesus fashion, the Lord shows up.
And he doesn't condemn Thomas. He tells him to stop doubting, and He blesses those who can believe without seeing. But, He gives Thomas what he needs to believe. (Thomas did end up believing.)
Maybe I'm stretching this story to prove my point - it wouldn't be the first time in the history of Christianity. But, I believe that Thomas had a really reasonable reaction to being told that a guy that he had watched die was now alive. No matter that Jesus had told him that He would rise again; Thomas had probably assumed, like most reasonable people, that Jesus was speaking figuratively.
A lot of Christians that I know really dislike atheists. In contrast, I have made a lot of friends who are atheists over the years; contrary to popular belief, there are many atheists in foxholes. Some of my Christian friends think that it's foolish to talk to atheists about faith. "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'." That's what gets quoted at me.
And it makes me feel like crap.
Here's the thing: we live in a world that is, at once, bigger and smaller than our ancestors could have ever imagined. We don't just know that the Earth isn't the center of the universe; we know that the Earth is just a speck on the galactic map. We don't just understand how our bodies work in a more complete way than our ancestors; we know how the individual cells in our bodies behave. I know people who will dedicate their entire lives to trying to understand life through physics, chemistry, biology, philosophy - and they will die having gained only a fraction of the knowledge that is available.
How can I look at that person and, because they don't believe in God, say, "You're an idiot."?
We have more access to information than we ever have before. We have the sum of human knowledge at our fingertips. We can talk to people in other countries, in other cultures, as if they're in the same room as we are.
My point is this: when you tell someone in this day and age that the key to their salvation is believing that the Son of God died and rose from the dead, skepticism is a perfectly reasonable response.
Do I think that atheism is a good way to live? No, because I've found a fulfillment in Christ that I could never have found outside of Him. Do I think that the logical person can find a way to believe in God? Absolutely. There's an entire branch of religious study, called apologetics, that attempts to do just that. But I think that atheists are serving a really important purpose in the church, even though I'm certain that they're not meaning to.
Atheists are making us face our doubts. They're making us question what we believe, to validate what we've been certain of for two thousand years. That "Old Time Religion" may have been good enough for the Prophet Daniel, and good enough for you, but it's not good enough for them. Should we change our essential beliefs, turn into pluralists, hem and haw around the Truth? Absolutely not. Should we examine what we teach and how we teach it? Should we appreciate the skepticism - even respect the doubts of intelligent, thoughtful and conscientious atheists and agnostics? YES PLEASE.
While that's pretty important stuff, there is something that I find more important: embracing and encouraging the doubters inside the church. That guy next to you in service, the one who is really into the worship? He's not sure that the Bible is true. The lady that teaches your 7-year-old's Sunday School? She doubts that God cares about her struggles. The pastor who has been ministering to your church for 20 years? He sometimes wonders if he has wasted his life.
We should be okay with that. We should be able to talk to each other about our doubts, without feeling that we're all one step away from the precipice of eternal damnation. Because Jesus didn't hit Thomas in the face or cast him out of fellowship - He showed Thomas the holes in His hands and feet. He gave Thomas what He needed to believe.
I cannot validate this next statement scientifically, scripturally or theologically. I can only speak from my own experience when I say that doubt does not lead to unbelief. Doubt leads to hope. And I know that faith is the substance of the things that I hope for, and also the evidence of the things that I cannot see.
So, I'm no longer getting my spiritual panties into a twist about doubt. I'm embracing it. I'm sharing it. And I'm waiting on the day when all of my doubts become hopes, and all of my sorrows become joys. In the Name of the One who is still willing to show the holes in his hands, feet and side, I hope, for your sake, that one day you will look at what He's trying to show you.
All my love to you, wherever you are,
Michael Brian Woywood
Saved by Grace
Full of Doubts
But Walking in Faith
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