Doubt always coexists with faith

"Faith is taking the first step

even when you dont see the whole staircase"

Martin Luther King Jr.

So I'm reading about faith, in a book by Philip Yancy. It's interesting to hear a devote Christian man talk about his doubts, his times of unsuress and wavering faith. I think those of us who are Christ followers have been drilled to have faith at all costs, never doubting. This guy has come "out of the closet" on his doubting....and It's OK ! Doubting is healthy, after all how would our faith grow if we never doubted? There would be no way for our faith to be stretched.

"Doubt is the skeleton in the closet of faith, and I know no better way to treat a skeleton than to bring it into the open and expose it for whah it is: not something to hide or fear, but a hard structure on which living tissue may Grow".

We have all felt the wavering faith when tragedy has stuck in some form or another. It may have been as small as losing a very precious material thing, to losing a best friend or family member to death. We live in a fallin world, tragedy happens, is God responsible for that....NO.

Heck, several important peeps in the bible had doubts, Paul, Moses, Abraham, David, Job, to name just a few. All of them experience crisis that tempted them to judge God as uncaring and incapable. So they all had to choose.... "do I turn away, bitter and angry or step ahead in faith"? In the end they all chose the later and for this we remember them as "Faith Giants" On the other hand there were others who chose a different path and failed. Cain, who killed his brother, Judas, who betrayed Jesus, Sampson and Soloman just to name a few. Their lives were filled with remorse and saddness.

Those who are skeptics and even myself at times wonder why God doesnt provide clear-cut direction and meanings in the bible. We are left to our own interpretations, and still at times wonder "WHY" things are the way they are. In Yancy's book he says. "I wonder if God has perhaps fenced off an area if knowledge, "The encyclopedia of Theological Ignorance". These answers remain in God's domain, and God has not seem fit to reveal them. Something we just arent gonna know and for which (thankfully) we must trust God.

Faith means taking risks, stepping out, sometimes without a clear end in sight. (Without risk, there is no faith! ) It means following, trusting, holding out a hand to an invisible Guide.

There will be times of saddness, lonliness and unexpected tragedies but because of faith in knowing that I have a living, loving savior who will never waver, I will step forward reaching for my invisibal God. I cant see Him but I feel him in every aspect of my life, He is unchanging, and his promises hold true. There may be tough times when I wonder.... where is God now, but then I will remember that He is there and that it's probably me that's taken my eyes off Him.

"Doubt always coexists with faith, for in the presence of certainy who would need faith at all?"