Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Final thoughts on "Faith & Doubt"

A couple of quotes from "Faith & Doubt" that I really like.
  • The Christian faith is bi-polar. Disciples live their life between worship and doubt, trusting and questioning, hoping and worrying.
  • Disciples are not people who never doubt. They doubt and worship. They doubt and serve. They doubt and help each other with their doubts. They doubt and practice faithfulness. They doubt and wait for their doubt one day to be turned to knowing.

I especially relate to the first quote. I feel I go from trusting God completely, to questioning what I am suppose to do next. My faith exists with unknowns. I wrestle with issues. I don't doubt my faith, I just don't understand how it always works. Faith is not a guarantee that you will have all of the answers (actually I feel I have less definites now than several years ago), but you have to trust the one who is going to catch you. One final quote from the book:

  • The last words used to describe the disciples in the gospel of Matthew - our last glimpse of men who followed Jesus for three years, learned from him, and saw him crucified and resurrected: "Then the eleven disciples went to...the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted" (Matthew 28:16-17) This is an amazing picture. They have seen him, listened to him, followed him, studied him, and seen him crucified and ressurected - and the last thing we read about them is "and some doubted." Matthew doesn't cover this up. He points it out.

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