I don't perfectly believe everything I preach. Neither does any preacher I know. Nor does any Christian I know. Perfect faith (actually perfect "anything") is impossible if we believe with any fidelity a biblical theology of sin, fallenness, and human frailty. It's also honest just to put it out there... all of us doubt whether any or all of this stuff is true. It's best to admit it, and it's best to develop what we might call a robust theology of doubt.
As we continue our waiting in Advent, surely this must come up for you. Did God really come the first time in the person and work of Jesus Christ? Will he really come again to make all things right? As we say our prayers during Advent is there an actual relational connection with God or are we just projecting our wishes and talking to the ceiling? Is a loving heavenly father a reality or just about our own "daddy issues"? If all this is true, why are there so many bizarre manifestations of Christianity that seem to be completely aberrant to the message I read in scripture? Why don't I feel God's presence more in my life? Why can't I seem to change? And those are just the personal kinds of questions of doubt. The big philosophical questions that we've answered many times in our heads through books or research, still may come back and plague us periodically, if not all the time.
Maybe all this sounds unfaithful because you've been taught that faith and doubt are mutually exclusive which has led you to live in the shadows about the kinds of questions I'm raising here. Maybe your Christian experience has turned into one miserable journey because you doubt, assume your faith is shot, and either panic, self medicate, or crank up the self flagellation, depending on your personality and background. This is especially true when you have no authentic community of imperfect believers with which to talk out loud about these questions without feeling like you just got a one-way ticket to the *island of misfit Christians. When that scenario comes around enough times, walking away from God altogether is very attractive. It at least makes the noise go away, for a little while anyway. There must be another way to process doubt.
So two things to remember, and then a link to one of the best articles on doubt I've ever read. First, this is regular operational procedure for Christian experience. A cursory reading of the lives of Christians and their experience, along with our own personal experience tells us this. Going through "the dark night of the soul", where God seems to be absent, is the universal testimony of Christians for 2000 years. Second, your doubt is not the enemy of your faith, but it's (unwanted I know) friend. God can not only handle your doubt, but uses it to grow us up. As the article will point out... "there are some things doubt can do spiritually that nothing else can do." Really?
Read on... your Advent reflecting needs a good shot of doubt theology so that you can imperfectly believe with integrity. And don't be surprised if your favorite prayer in the Bible becomes "Lord I believe, help my unbelief!"
Article: The Benefit of Doubt: Coming to Terms with Faith in a Postmadern Era
*HT to my friend Diane for the "island of misfit Christians" phrase...that's a keeper!
