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Conversations: Questioning Your Faith
Jeff: In college, they teach us that religions are there to control the population, and also to give people something to look forward to. I ponder sometimes if this is true, and I feel guilty. I was saved when I was nine years old, but sometimes I feel quilty for questioning things. Thanks.
Ruth: You say you sometimes feel guilty for questioning your faith. Without doubt there could be no real faith. Indeed, Christianity is a religion that speaks openly of the kind of doubts and questions you mention. Adam and Eve started us out with matters of doubt and unbelief. Sarah doubted God as did Job and the psalmist—repeatedly so. Jesus responded to his disciples' doubts, most notably Peter and Thomas. Paul offers more than hints of his own doubts, but he also speaks of the incredible sense of confidence that comes by exercising faith. The passage I most often quote is Philippines 3:10: "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings."
Allow your doubts to strengthen your faith.
More than a hundred years ago, F. W. Robertson wrote: "But there are hours, and they come to us all at some period of life or other, when the hand of Mystery seems to be heavy on the soul. . . . Well, in such moments you doubt all—whether Christianity be true; whether Christ was a man or God or a beautiful fable. You ask bitterly, like Pontius Pilate, 'What is Truth?' In such an hour what remains? I reply, Obedience. Leave those thoughts for the present. Act—be merciful and gentle—honest; force yourself to abound in little services; try to do good to others; be true to the duty that you know. That must be right, whatever else is uncertain, and by all the laws of the human heart, by the word of God, you shall not be left in doubt. Do that much of the will of God which is plain to you, and 'You shall know the doctrine, whether it be of God.'"
I hope this is helpful.
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