Doubt
"Faith without doubt leads to moral arrogance, the eternal pratfall of the religiously convinced."
-Joe Klein(source article posted at the end.)
This quote jumped from the page as I read it today.
How are we tested? Through trials.
How do we build faith? Through trials.
What is faith without doubt? Nothing, it really isn't.
Much like there would be no Jesus without Lucifer. No light without darkness. Faith wouldn't be faith without doubt.
Too often in this life I have used "have faith" as a band-aid. Whenever doubt would creep in I would bat it out like an annoying fly but, like that fly, it doesn't go away unless we kill it, or set it free.
Killing doubt, as we all know, is an impossibility. SHUCKS!
But setting it free, now that is something.
I realize that it isn't popular, but embracing, entertaining, searching out, and "freeing" my doubts has deepened my faith.
It has changed my faith.
I know my children and my wife are mine forever. And I am theirs. Whatever that may mean.
I know that being a decent human being is vastly more important than being right.
I know that my faith is more complete when I cease to compete with my doubts.
I know far less now than I knew in the past.
I am happy.
Very well done. Many times I find myself using the same bandaid. I suffer a lot of guilt, grief and shame for my past and as I work daily to strive towards a better me that always seems to deteriorate my faith for a better me. As you said, kicking that doubt out is ultimately the desired solution yet as flawed humans it seems so hard to do sometimes.
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