At different times during my life, I’ve experienced periods of doubt. While attending a Jewish university, for example, I recall my struggle with the basis of authority for my faith. “Given that you’re a Christian, that might be expected,” you’d say. True enough, but the specific struggle I encountered focused on the difference between how I’d been trained (with authority in the Scriptures) and how people in my new environment grounded its authority (in the Jewish Community). As a result my colleagues could entertain very negative views of Scripture without conflict, but I couldn’t. That sent me scrambling for a deeper foundation.
In a course on Job at that school, I also found the book excited me. That began a lifelong love which has led to a desire to write a book, based on Job, to help people recover from significant loss. I discovered Job’s doubts about God’s goodness faded as he grappled with the new perspective on his suffering God revealed.
In order to find answers to my questions, I returned to study for a summer at my Christian college, and and, when I began study at seminary, I found a renewed authority in God’s word. My preaching class forced me to rethink my doubts: if the Scripture wasn’t God’s word, what did I have to preach?
At times, doubts still come. That’s part of being a thinking person God created. What doubts do you entertain? How will you resolve them?
