I Doubt It: How Your Doubts Can Strengthen Your Faith

I have always struggled with doubts. There. I said it. I am a Christian pastor and missionary and I doubt at times. And...I believe my doubts (at least how I have responded to them thus far) have strengthened my faith. Let me try and explain why.

I believe the time has passed for mindless faith. That is, inherited faith. The faith that says, "that's what mama and daddy believed so that is what I believe." To say we are living in the 'information age' is an understatement. I was teaching a class yesterday and a retired long-shoreman in the class was taking notes on his iPad. We are not in the stone age anymore.

We are all going to encounter two things in life: tragedy and skeptics. When these occur, if we have not been through the spiritual exercise of doubt, the subsequent exploration of why we believe, receiving the illumination of reasonable answers, our spiritual knees will collapse. 

I have lost a child, a teenage daughter. I have been criticized for my faith by people I care about deeply. If I hadn't wrestled with doubt before and been through the aforementioned process, I certainly could not be teaching people about Jesus and encouraging them to believe in and follow Him. 

Something else that has created resolve in my Christian faith has been watching people who love Jesus deeply journey through the pains of this life. There is something truly different about them. They are anchored. I've watched them leave this life in peace, knowing they are going home as a trophy of Divine grace. 

If you are a Christian and find yourself at a doubting place, it's ok. 

I guess the main point is this: Jesus can stand up to scrutiny. Some books I have read through the years that have strengthened reasonable faith in my times of doubt are:

The New Testament - New Living Translation, New King James Translation, The Message

The Case for Christ - Lee Strobel

More Than a Carpenter - Josh McDowell

and a current read...The Reason for God - Tim Keller