The Benefits and Dangers of Doubt

My journey in life and in faith has been a weird one at times.  I was raised in an environment where doubting one's beliefs was almost synonymous with sin.  I vividly recall telling my grandmother about having doubts and she seemed to panic gently as she went to get a videotape which used the Bible to reaffirm an unwavering belief of Jesus Christ as Lord and of the necessity to be unwavering in this belief as well as the urgent need to ask Jesus into our hearts and "be saved."  While I love my grandma dearly and know she was doing the most loving thing she could think of, this kind of faith has left me, as well as many others I'm sure, feeling suffocated.  There is no gray area.  All in or all out.  Heaven or Hell.  Eternal life or torment.  Doubt is viewed dangerously in this context, but this view of doubt ultimately turns many people away from healthy communities, healthy questions, and turns doubt into something that can become more harmful than if it were embraced, which leads me into my recent struggles with doubt which can be unhealthy.

The flip side of doubt being repressed is that doubt can turn into nihilism, whether consciously nihilist or subconsciously, or somewhere in between.  I will share another example from my own life.  As I've grown older, I came to embrace doubt as I stopped being afraid of not knowing and being comfortable with not having to have all the answers.  Over the last few years I have been through some very difficult times.  In a short span I lost a job, a home, failed to start what I thought would be a fulfilling career, felt called to ministry, felt rejected when I didn't get into ministry after completing the preliminary work and have had to deal with all the family problems that have come with this when you are married with two young children.  I have always handled anger through sarcasm.  Worry has never been a problem for me, even when it should be and procrastination has been a constant struggle for me.  As a result of the pain and emotional scarring I have endured recently I believe I have at times come close to having my doubts turn into nihilism.  Sometimes you try so hard and put so much into something that when it leaves you burned you can't help but to not care anymore as an emotional defense mechanism.  The problem is that on the inside you still care as much as you did when you fought so hard for your goals.  When doubts eclipse faith, the danger is in thinking nothing matters.  This is doubt gone wrong.

The beauty of life is that even when we feel hopeless and that the light inside of us will never show through our doubts which eclipse it, God works his miracles internally and we are able to once again see a light at the end of the tunnel.  Even right now as I'm writing this, that light may just be a glimmer, but it's there.  I did my best to find my purpose by doubting my faith away, but the hunger for my purpose remains.  The beauty of a healthy doubt is that it opens us up to true reconciliation with God.  I feel badly for those of you who are only born again once!  When you have no doubts how can you have faith?  When you have all the answers you put yourself up so high that you would be fortunate to survive the fall.  Could it be possible that God relates to us more in question than in answer?

To conclude, I am far from perfect.  I get close to not caring, but being with a supporting group at my church has kept me from straying to the "point of no return."  My pain still walks with me, but it reminds me that I do care; that God cares.  The more we learn the less we know.

God bless.