UNCERTAINTY
For those living in a Christian faith full of doubt and uncertainty please know this is ok. The essence of faith in many cases is simply not knowing, not being sure. It affords the disbeliever (or unbeliever) time to look around, investigate, pray, worship, cry out, ache, share a broken heart with God, or simply learn to live in a new spiritual tension that doesn't require answers from God but perhaps better questions from us.
Too many Christians, it seems, require certainty and absolutes to assure their faith. When done it becomes a closed faith living with static pictures of an unseen, fantasy world. But doubt and uncertainty can be good things. These elements demand an openness to the hard questions of life which may never be answered as fully as we wish. It allows us to breathe again while paradoxically finding reassurance in the face of not knowing.
If we turn to the Scriptures many of the biblical figures we read of were led by God through a difficult time of personal unknowing, uncertain, even a doubting faith. A kind of faith which must allow for uncertainty while believing (or trusting) God enough to keep pressing forward.
It is said wisdom comes through experience. Faith then, is like wisdom. It needs "travel time in our lives" in order for it to take root.
R.E. Slater
March 24, 2016
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