”God wants us to wrestle with Him”
The Benefit of
By Carolyn Arends
Sarah is a deep thinker. She wishes she could just accept things on the surface, but she can’t. A theological question about God’s sovereignty began to
haunt her in her early 20s. She took her
question to the spiritual experts available: her pastor and a local “Bible Answer” radio
personality. They both told her it was arrogant
to question God. But she found it difficult to be
dishonest with God. So she stopped talking to
God altogether.
Jenny grew up in the church and laughs
that she’s saving her “rebellious phase” for her
upcoming 40s. She’s had many faith-building
encounters with God and loves to share them.
What is harder for Jenny to talk about is the long,
dark season after her first pregnancy when she
had a colicky baby and a whopping case of post-partum depression.
Worse, she had an agonizing sense of being
cut off from God. For several months she begged God to break
through the haze of her exhaustion and hormonal desperation
with some reassurance of His love. The breakthrough didn’t
happen. Gradually, she stopped feeling so desperate. But she
also felt a little abandoned. Even now, when others testify
about the times God met them in an hour of need, Jenny’s
eyes well up with tears.
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Richard was a minister but he’s not anymore. When a bridge
collapsed unexpectedly in his small maritime town, so did his
faith. His teenage son was on that bridge and drowned. After
that, Richard couldn’t think of anything to preach about.
I’ve believed in Jesus since I was old enough to believe
in anything. I can barely imagine a world or a life without
God. And yet, now and then, I find myself sitting in a church
service suddenly struck by the thought that perhaps the whole
thing – faith in a personal, knowable God and all the creeds
and prayers and the relationship that follow – is only a lovely
dream, a benign fabrication that gives meaning to an otherwise
achingly futile human existence. I refute these ideas as quickly
Doubt is a much maligned
reality of a living faith. If you
have it, don’t despair – most
of the people in the Bible
were ”a questioning lot”
writes Carolyn Arends,
an evangelical author and
award-winning musician
from Coquitlam, B.C.
as I can but I’m troubled by the fact that even now, after all
these years of discipleship, such thoughts are possible.
I have questions about … doubt.
My research on doubt is informal. I’ve simply listened to
my own heart and the half-whispered confessions of other
pilgrims. But I’ve become convinced that most Christians experience doubt at least now and then. There are exceptions,
beautiful ones, of believers who seem never to falter. I often
wonder (as I fight back my envy) if perhaps they have received
the particular spiritual gift of “faith” the Apostle Paul says has
been given to some (1 Corinthians 12: 9).
Whatever the explanation, these unflappable Christians
seem to be the exceptions who prove the rule. The rest of
