Using Your Doubts To Stimulate Your Faith

Rel­e­vant Mag­a­zine has a great essay on how your doubts can build your faith. Here’s an excerpt:

Doubt in our faith can lead to the gate­way of spir­i­tu­al growth. Doubt calls us into deep­er exam­i­na­tion. It draws us onto the path of undy­ing curios­i­ty for real Truth. As Fred­erich Buech­n­er said, “my doubts keep me mov­ing.”

…

Bri­an McLaren, in his soon-to-be-released book Adven­tures in Miss­ing the Point, writ­ten with Tony Cam­po­lo, address­es the ques­tion of allow­ing doubt to take hold. Some­one asked Bri­an, “Well, won’t an open­ness to doubt lead to spir­i­tu­al insta­bil­i­ty and inse­cu­ri­ty?” “Yes,” he respond­ed, “but couldn’t an unwill­ing­ness to ques­tion lead to false secu­ri­ty that could be even more dan­ger­ous?” Being coura­geous enough to ask “why” (or even “why not”) can lead to a deep­en­ing of faith. Jesus nev­er said to us, “I will nev­er leave you or for­sake you … well, I take that back: I’ll only leave you when you start to doubt and ques­tion. And when you doubt, I’m out­ta here.” I believe Jesus, when He said He would nev­er leave us or for­sake us, He meant He would stick by us at all times, even in the tough times, the times when we won­der if he is even lis­ten­ing at all. Doubt can be painful, but it has the poten­tial for an incred­i­ble spir­i­tu­al break­through.