Prone to Wonder

Doubt.  This short little word harnesses so much power and meaning in our daily lives.  It is something that can strengthen your faith, drawing you to a place of deeper understanding, but it can also deteriorate your faith and your ability to trust in something bigger than yourself.  There are so many stigmas and judgments tied in with doubting, especially in Church communities.  So many assume that if you have doubt, it makes you a “bad” Christian somehow.  But I think if we try to pretend that we don’t have any doubts, we preclude ourselves from the opportunity to draw closer to God and live out the kind of faith Jesus calls us in to.

I will be the first to admit that I have doubts, daily, and so often I find myself frustrated by my inability to understand and truly believe.  But what I am learning is that I need to embrace my questions and allow them to make my faith something I experience and journey through with the community around me.  A lot of my doubt recently has been bred out of experiences and circumstances.  I have these nagging questions because what I read in the Bible and desire to believe is so different from what I have seen and experienced in reality.  And I am left asking how I resolve my faith and my experiences/interactions when they don’t match up.  How do I truly trust in unconditional love when the human love that I encounter is broken and fallible?  I am still seeking that answer, but I know that the answer lies in the power of the cross and the goodness of salvation Jesus brings.  I feel like the best way for me to tend to my questions is to surrender them to God and be still before Him so that He might show me who He is.