Psalm 51:17
The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Incoming!!!
Seeking deeper faith
I'd love to say that since I accepted Christ my faith had been rock solid. I'd be lying. If you read the "This Prodigal's Story" tab from my header you'll know that my faith was shaken at the age of fifteen and lost to me for the next thirty-four years. Then I found my way back to faith last October.
To my great consternation, the skeptical streak that ran through the fabric of my personality at fifteen is still very much with me at fifty, and this week I endured a real Satanic attack on my faith. I found myself struggling with everything, seemingly at once. It was pretty awful. But, I think that it may have been just another one of those trails God is willing to let me face in order to strengthen me. I did emerge stronger in my faith than before, but not before walking through a very dark valley.
It helped to read about Billy Graham's own struggle with doubt. Billy, in the early days of his ministry, encountered a lot of opinion among "modern" theologians questioning the authority of the Bible and the divinity of Christ. Billy's battle was resolved when he laid his Bible on a stump in the forest and pledged, on his knees, to accept those scriptures on faith. He acknowledged that there were many troublesome points, many unlikely stories, and many things in the Bible that seemed to be refuted by modern science and scholarship. But that he would put all of that aside and simply trust God.
Well, seeing Graham, one of God's dearest servants, struggle in the same as me was a great boost. I've decided that I'll regard doubts as a breeze I'll allow to just blow on by. I can't really keep the breeze from blowing, but I can certainly keep it from setting up and whirlwind in my heart and head.
I'd love to say that since I accepted Christ my faith had been rock solid. I'd be lying. If you read the "This Prodigal's Story" tab from my header you'll know that my faith was shaken at the age of fifteen and lost to me for the next thirty-four years. Then I found my way back to faith last October.
To my great consternation, the skeptical streak that ran through the fabric of my personality at fifteen is still very much with me at fifty, and this week I endured a real Satanic attack on my faith. I found myself struggling with everything, seemingly at once. It was pretty awful. But, I think that it may have been just another one of those trails God is willing to let me face in order to strengthen me. I did emerge stronger in my faith than before, but not before walking through a very dark valley.
It helped to read about Billy Graham's own struggle with doubt. Billy, in the early days of his ministry, encountered a lot of opinion among "modern" theologians questioning the authority of the Bible and the divinity of Christ. Billy's battle was resolved when he laid his Bible on a stump in the forest and pledged, on his knees, to accept those scriptures on faith. He acknowledged that there were many troublesome points, many unlikely stories, and many things in the Bible that seemed to be refuted by modern science and scholarship. But that he would put all of that aside and simply trust God.
Well, seeing Graham, one of God's dearest servants, struggle in the same as me was a great boost. I've decided that I'll regard doubts as a breeze I'll allow to just blow on by. I can't really keep the breeze from blowing, but I can certainly keep it from setting up and whirlwind in my heart and head.
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