Faith AND doubt: 15/02/2010
 
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Those that know me well will know that the last few years has been challenging for me - that's the biggest understatement of the decade!. I've been going through what has been labelled by many as 'a desert exerience' in terms of my faith. I have taken the decision not to blog about this (I may do one day) as it's quite a private thing to be honest....

At Christmas, when my brother was over from China, he mentioned a book a friend of his had mentioned called 'Faith and Doubt' by John Ortberg. Paul, my brother, hadn't realised I already had this book but hadn't read it yet. When I returned home after Christmas I tried to find it and couldn't intially as it had dropped behind some of my other books.

I fished it back out, dusted it down and, with a couple of longish (work related) train journeys last week in tow, packed the book and demolished it over the journey.

You can read a little about the book here for yourslef here but here is a summary:

We often think of doubt as the opposite of faith, but could it actually strengthen our relationship with God?The very nature of faith requires the presence of uncertainty. 

In this refreshingly candid look at a life of faith, John Ortberg traces the line between belief and unbelief: less a dividing line betweenhostile camps than a razor’s edge that runs through every soul. His findings point us toward the relief of being totally honest.
 
Questions can expand our understanding, uncertainty can lead to trust, and honest faith can produce outrageous hope.

For me, this book has significantly impacted my life. I do not say that in any way lightly but has shifted the place I had got into (faith wise) significantly. There were no bells and whistles and don't get me wrong, I still am struggling with 'bog standard traditional evangelical style' stuff that I have fed on for years and years! I'm not saying I disagree with it all but it just falls very very short for me at times...I guess I find it gets in the way if I am honest?

Do get the book and have a read if you can. It's too deep and complicated for me to even start to go into how it's impacted me but I have just been left with a sense that, after all the analysis, all the study, all the questions, the debates, the arguments &, yes, criticism, what is left, as I guess I knew it always would be, is a choice: to beleive or not.

For me, I know I have to choose....to choose faith, faith in God, and choose to believe...whatever the cost!

What brought me great comfort from the book was the sense that faith and doubt can sit in tension together. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Many a saint (Mother Theresa is mentioned a lot) who has gone before me has sat with deep deep doubts and it is those doubts which have been the key to a deeper faith not the destroyer of it. Obvious for many of you maybe, but for someone like me who will never be happy with the simple 'pat answers' I hear offerred week by week from people & sermons it was a great comfort & challenge again.

There's loads of other things that impacted me from this book - far too many to mention - but for now, for another day, I have chosen to believe and wait for God to be real in my life again.

Bizzarely I have my big bro to thank for this!? The one who reminded me of this book. How bizzare is that? Some will know what I mean by that - others won't! Cheers Bro. Dare you to read it too??
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