“It’s not what we don’t know that hurts, it’s what we know that ain’t so.” Will Rogers
“I believe God. But I don’t believe I believe everything I used to believe about God.”
Dennis Lynn
I have my doubts. The primary influences of my spiritual heritage reflect a fairly limited perspective. My grandfather was a preaching minister of the Church of Christ in Arkansas. I grew up attending a congregation of the Church of Christ in the suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri. I attended two colleges associated with the Church of Christ and then worked for twenty years at two colleges with the same affiliation. I preached for four years at a Church of Christ in Michigan. I am grateful for my heritage in the Church of Christ, but I am keenly aware that most of my influences and insights have come more from review than re-study. I’ve noticed that when I think I have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I tend to spend more time defending the truth as I have received it, and less time grappling with truths that I’ve never even considered.
I find myself now in a wonderful period of life where I am eager, with a clear conscience and pure motives, to quest for God in ways that require re-examination. To quest requires questioning. For me, only arrogance or fear would compel me to assert that I have no doubts about God. I have faithful doubts. And I don’t think I’m alone. Frederick Buechner writes: “Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” Faithful doubting doesn’t mean that you flippantly discard beliefs you have cherished. But it does demand that you be willing to push, prod and probe until you are satisfied that what you believe to be solid ground really isn’t sinking sand.
Brian McLaren, in the book Adventures in Missing the Point, suggests four stages of faith development and spiritual growth. The starting point is simplicity, where everything is easy, black and white, known or unknowable. Next is complexity, when scenarios get more complicated, requiring new approaches of thought and study to find truth. Third is perplexity, where, for a while, you may become a disillusioned learner. But the fourth stage, which he calls maturity or humility, is when you come to terms with your limitations and learn to live with the mystery of God and things we may never know.
If, on occasion, you find yourself in a period of faithful doubting, trust God to be with you there. Share your confusion or uncertainties with a few faithful friends. And then, enlarge your experience of people and perspectives to gain new insights that might help you see God in fresh and new ways. God is greater than your doubts. In fact, God is greater than the unquestioned and unchallenged certainties you believe to be true.
Seek and you shall find.
Dennis Lynn
