doubt on Abandonment

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? A Structured Complaint The Psalmist organizes his complaint against God in three sections. The first two sections dramatize the complaint (vv. 1-11 and...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? A Structured Complaint The Psalmist organizes his complaint against God in three sections. The first two sections dramatize the complaint (vv. 1-11 and...

Faith is a way of waiting—never quite knowing, never quite hearing or seeing, because in the darkness we are all but a little lost. There is doubt hard on the heels of every belief, fear hard on the h...

Doubt steals hope. And with no hope, everything that matters doesn’t feel as important anymore.

Christ never failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is can't believe. Unbelief is won't believe. Doubt is honesty. Unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is looking for light. Unbelief ...

God, our rock and refuge, there are plenty of things that we allow to erode our faith in you. When life gets stormy, we let our uncertainty cloud our trust in you. We think we know better and start re...

What is "Deconstruction"? What is it Not? Many pastors I know have told me that one of their most pressing pastoral concerns right now is knowing how to minister to people who are decons...

[These thoughts come from a journal entry of about 10 years ago when I was experiencing a deep and dark night of faith] I have found insight and wisdom for my journey with Christ in the writings of J...

Between the probable and proved there yawns A gap. Afraid to jump, we stand absurd, Then see behind us sink the ground and, worse, Our very standpoint crumbling. Desperate dawns Our only hope: to le...

Some years ago, I was approached by a young man in our church who described himself as an “unfulfilled atheist.” He wanted to know why he should consider Christianity. I responded to him by asking him...

Charles Templeton was a close friend and preaching associate of Billy Graham in the 1940s. He effectively preached the gospel to large crowds in major arenas. However, intellectual doubts began to nag...

The famous entertainer W. C. Fields, known for his humor, love of drink, and agnosticism, found himself bedridden in his final illness. When a longtime friend visited and noticed Fields reading the Bi...

In this short excerpt, pastor and author Austin Fischer describes a surprising dynamic that sometimes occurs in the life of a Christian: believing so strongly in a loving God that one cannot fathom th...

Holy God, we confess that we feel like we are incapable of doing what you ask of us. In our hesitation and doubt, we confess that we do not do what you ask of us. Forgive us for our fear. Forgive us f...

It is quite common for Christians to experience doubts from time to time. Unfortunately, doubts about our Christian beliefs are often treated in the same way we would treat a common cold. We wait it o...

A few years ago, a pastor of an evangelical-fundamentalist church with whom I’m acquainted announced on the Sunday after Easter that he had become an atheist. He told his stunned congregation that he ...

A faith without some doubts is like a human body with no antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask the hard questions about why they believe as they do will ...

Faith is not the absence of doubt. Faith is the presence of love.

Gracious God, we come before you with humility, recognizing that doubt has led our decisions. We have allowed fear to lead, rather than love. Because of this, we have been unkind to our families, our ...

Almighty God, we cannot escape your presence. Even in our darkest moments, you are there. When we celebrate, you are there. When we doubt your presence, you still are there. Please forgive us for the ...

Doubt is not unbelief, but it is not faith either. It wavers between faith and unbelief, unable to make up its mind what it wants to be. It is like the hitchhiker who was thumbing a ride with his hand...

Dear Heavenly Father, We are grateful that we can come to You at any time, about anything. We know that You listen to the earnest cries of our hearts. We know that You have great power; You are the Cr...

Heavenly Father, we confess that we come to this day of resurrection as imperfect people. Although we may have faith, we also carry doubts and apprehensions. Just as Jesus’s disciples were unsure of h...

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Most Christians can deal with inevitable doubts as long as there is room for doubt. But when a system is enforced that leaves no room for doubt, benign uncertainties can mutate into faith-destroying m...

In an article entitled, What the New Atheists Don’t See , the British author Theodore Dalrymple shares his honest struggles with atheism. The subtitle of his article is fascinating, “To regret re...

The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are to subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith.

At the heart of this story is Jesus’ generous offer of himself to Thomas... Thomas had established the conditions for his faith: He must be allowed to touch Jesus’ wounds…. Jesus does not censure Thom...

Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus.

Heavenly Father, it is astounding how many ways we find to doubt You. At times we doubt Your power and Your ability to do actual miracles in our lives. In other situations, we doubt that Your methods ...