Doubt is not something we must fear but embrace. It is not the anti-thesis of faith. In fact more faith has been deepened through doubt then lost. Doubt is a hunger that seeks satisfaction, but this appetite is fed by daily bread--not once for all time. The greatest fear that is wrapped in our doubt is that someone else might find out we don't know everything. Security in faith does not demand command of the truth, but submission to it. But as Pilate said before sending Jesus to the cross. "What is truth?"
Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth." I want a faith that takes Jesus' hand daily and walks a couple more steps along the way. Doubt can best be satisfied in the majesty of a lightening storm, the creativity of an exploding bloom, or another's love loosely concealed beneath a smile.
An assent to someone else's verbal declarations of truth is really only half-truth. The daily bread of knowing is not found so much in the head as in the experiences of a life. Dirty hands, breaking hearts, rumbling stomachs, ...cry out. Serving hearts must cry with them.
Where is God in all this? Whoops! Did I just express a doubt? I guess I can live with that. I hope in things yet to come, and for now, I grasp the dirty hand, hug the broken hearted and hear God's call in the rumbling stomachs and realize tenatively that we call it faith, because we are not always sure.
Lou
2 comments:
Yes, Lou, you're set up for Anonymous comments.
But I want to put my hand up for there being a genuine kind of knowing that simply comes from hearing something that our souls recognize as truth. Augustine said that the God-spark within us resonates with the truth, (to mix metaphors) because it recognizes its source in the truth.
And yes, that resonance or recognition, in order to magnify the truth, does need to shift from sight to action, unless we're just Emersonian transparent eyeballs. And I'm not about to be transcendent. I sweat too much for that.
Jeremy
I was thinking about your mixed metaphor. If God is the light, maybe the multi-colored image I reflect is a unique image of God's glory. If I remember my physical science class, I reflect certain colors from the white light (that is God), but this reflection is absolutely unique to me.
Could this mean that each of us experiences God in our own way as well? Each of our understandings is narrowed a bit and colored by who we are. This does not change who God is or the purity of the light God shines.
Lou
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