Finding Doubt

I was with a friend of mine today who just found out that his uncle has cancer and doesn't have much chance of surviving. My friend was understandably having a hard time with the news, and an even harder time with the fact that his uncle does not have a relationship with Jesus. Like many of us who see ugly or evil things in the world, he is in a place where he is doubting the goodness and plan of God. We were able to have a really good time of processing his thoughts together, and there was one thing he said in particular that caught my attention. He confessed, "I wouldn't say this to many people, but I'm really doubting the sovereignty of God right now. I know that probably sounds like I'm losing my faith, and I'm not, but I'm just really doubting right now."

I was blown away! Not by the fact that he would doubt something he's been taught about God in a difficult time where things don't make sense, but that he was afraid to share his doubt. He wanted to make sure I wouldn't share what he was thinking with others and he felt the need to throw in that his doubt probably made it seem like he was losing his faith. I think one of the reasons that he was feeling the way he was about doubt is that we have made being a Christian consist of being able to fully subscribe to a list of propositions without hesitation. When someone doubts one of these propositions, like my friend, they think they are about to lose their faith in God unless somehow they can get rid of their doubt.

Today my friend was more a Christian than he's ever been. I think doubt can bring us closer to God and deeper in our faith, rather than it being the other way around. The reason for this is that following Jesus is a relationship, not a proposition. Sure, there are things that we believe about Jesus that are absolutely essential, but questioning them does not dissolve faith. Real faith in Jesus is the faith to say, "I am really doubting what I know about you right now. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't fit with what I'm experiencing. But I know that you love me and I love you to. I still want to follow you, even though I don't get it all. Maybe I never will. But I will follow you anyway." The best human relationships we have are the ones where things go wrong and we don't run away. We work through the difficulty and find a new level of depth in relationship that we didn't know existed. In the same way, our doubt in our propositional knowledge of God can lead us to a depth of relationship we didn't know existed. This is why our sisters and brothers in Christ are such a blessing. They can walk in the doubt with us. We can find doubt together and by struggling through it find a deeper walk with our Savior. I pray that my friend, and the rest of us, will never be ashamed of our doubt again.