Danny ChaiThere are two times in my life when I really struggled with doubting not just the goodness of God, but the very existence of God, at least as far as the evangelical conception of Him is concerned.
The first time was in high school. Precipitated by, of all things, my (liberal) Catholic high school religious studies classes. Their approach to studying Scripture was unlike anything I had previously encountered. I had, for a long time, studied the Bible in Sunday school and whatever. But I realized that the evangelical approach, while intensive, in some sense only scratched the surface, at least in my experience. There are some unsaid assumptions, for example that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and that everything is consistent.
I’m by no means saying these assumptions are wrong. I was just surprised in my classes to find that there was a rich academic world that did question these assumptions. We learned about what the original Hebrew looks like, and why that leads certain scholars to postulate different authors and editors of the Pentateuch. And the translation we used emphasized these differences in a way my NIV never did, like calling Gen 1 and 2 the first and second (separate) accounts of creation, making the part of the story of Joseph where he is sold into slavery completely irreconcilable as a single account, stuff like that.
And that shattered my intellectual world. Made the Old Testament seem a lot more human and messy than I had thought. And it was a slippery slope in my mind. Once I was introduced to the idea that there was a pervasive human element in the formation of the Scriptures, it made me wonder how much more of it was purely human.
Through good counsel and the grace of God, I eventually got over these issues but to this day I’m bitter that these ideas were introduced to me by theologically liberal school teachers rather than evangelical church teachers. The evangelical church does its members no favors in sheltering them from this kind of stuff. They need to know the ideas that are out there and be shepherded through them. I dunno, my opinion.
My second time was during junior year of high school. If my previous doubt was intellectual, this one was emotional, spurred by personal stuff happening in my life at the time. It’s weird, because maybe a month before this stuff happened, I distinctly remember praying a prayer of thanks to God that I’d finally reached a point in my life where my faith was unshakeable. It’s a very clear memory.
I had always thought that the response of Job’s wife to his afflictions was really odd, when she told him to curse God and die. That made no sense to me. Given the choice between believing in a God that could rescue him and not, wouldn’t you choose the former? Is there anything at all attractive about the latter? Yet I found myself, in the midst of personal issues that, to be honest, are kind of embarrassing to talk about since they pale in comparison to the stuff other people have had to face, struggling with doubting God. It was just easier emotionally to reconcile the idea of there being no God at all than there being a supposedly good God who allowed random pain to occur to loved ones. Why love at all if God will just bring pain to them, and to me, through my relationship with them?
Again, by nothing other than the grace of God, I worked through this also. They say that struggle makes you stronger, and at least in these two cases, I think it was true for me. I came away from the first with a greater intellectual support for my faith in Scripture. And I came away from the second with a stronger understanding that everything, even faith, is from grace. I’m completely aware of my weakness as far as faith is concerned. But I fall on grace, and nothing’s stronger than grace.
I have no idea why I’m writing this. Oh yeah. I’m reading through John and was thinking about 6:25 – “Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.'” A really interesting verse. And my prayer in regards to stuff like this is always, Lord, help me believe. I need your grace to even believe.
Anyway, even though this entry is way too long already, and despite the fact that my own wife’s eyes glaze over whenver I do this, I’ll leave with another song whose lyrics I love. This is pretty much my spiritual walk. I am weak – his grace is strong.
Shifting Sand
Caedmon’s Call
Sometimes I believe all the lies
So I can do the things I should despise
And every day I am swayed
By whatever is on my mind
I hear it all depends on my faith
So I’m feeling precarious
The only problem I have with these mysteries
Is they’re so mysterious
And like a consumer I’ve been thinking
If I could just get a bit more
More than my 15 minutes of faith,
Then I’d be secure
(Chorus)
My faith is like shifting sand
Changed by every wave
My faith is like shifting sand
So I stand on grace
I’ve begged you for some proof
For my Thomas eyes to see
A slithering staff, a leperous hand
And lions resting lazily
A glimpse of your back-side glory
And this soaked altar going ablaze
But you know I’ve seen so much
I explained it away
Chorus
Waters rose as my doubts reigned
My sand-castle faith, it slipped away
Found myself standing on your grace
It’d been there all the time
(Chorus repeated)
Stand on grace