Like I said last night, the possibility of taking on a greater role in the church has me a little frightened ever since it was hinted at last May. All summer, I've felt unprepared for the possibilities-
"I've had too many doubts about my own faith and too many unanswered questions. If I'm not even sure about my own faith, how can I encourage others?"
-Specifically, I've had a hard time reconcilling God's apparent inactivity in my life to the active, emotional flow of faith that I've seen in both "strong" Christians and those who are actively struggling and seeking. The technical, scientific view that has been my focus since before college seems to contradict this touchy-feely, emotional faith that has been seen in others. And despite my own multitude of questions, I've wasted the whole summer doing very little aside from being dragged into prayer sessions and Bible studies. After all, I don't want to look bad to my friends and my church, now do I?
Finally, tonight I found some good answers at the weekly study. It took some wrangling to get to the point, but I got it.
1) Faith is not the absence of doubt. I was comforted by this, but it didn't answer my questions.
2) Faith IS NOT THE SAME AS EMOTION. My entire technical, scientific worldview had me thinking that since I didn't have this touchy-feely emotional charge, I must not have a strong faith. In addition, since God is outside of the physical world, you can't use science/physical evisence to search for God in one's personal experience, and that my only hope was that God would give me a "Road to Damascus" moment to turn me around dramatically. But faith is not emotion. This rids myself of the goofy idea that God must drop evidence in my face for me to get over my doubts and follow Him. There is truly evidence to be found for the nature of God out there. I simply haven't tried to look for it.
With that off my chest, I'm going out for a 6-mile day hike across the AT tomorrow after work. My friends are going to watch the sunset tomorrow from a viewpoint on the Blue Ridge, and instead of taking the easy, half-mile stroll to the overlook, I'll head in early from the other way and get someone to drive me back to my car.
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3 comments:
you pooper. i can't believe you get to day hike the AT..just rub it in my face why don't you ;) seriously though, hope you have a great time and post pictures!!
p.s. concerning the faith part of your post I'm going to write you an e-mail, is that okay?
Sure thing, Jo!
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