Learn trust in the midst of doubt

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 15, 2024

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Learn trust in the midst of doubt

Peter Enn’s The Sin of Certainty is as much an autobiographical confession as it is theology or sociology. But before he shares his story, professor that he is, he shares a seven-point program for dealing with doubt, and redefining the value of certainty.

1. 1. The challenges of modernity have shaken our sense of certainty and in doing so, pushed us toward trust.
   2. We can’t get our minds around God. Faith is not fundamentally rational, meaning that a God who can be comfortably captured in our minds is no God at all.
   3. Christianity is a setup for letting go of certainty. Take incarnation and resurrection. Neither can be experienced, observed or tested. They are known only by trust. Peter says, I don’t mind saying I find it strangely comforting that walking the path of Christian faith means being confronted moment by moment with what is counterintuitive and beyond my comprehension to understand or articulate.
   4. Adjust our expectations about what the Bible can deliver. I expect the Bible to reflect fully the ancient settings in which it was written, and therefore not act as a script that can simply be dropped into our lives without thought and wisdom.
   5. Expect God-moments. Trust your experiences, not to prove anything but to deepen our relationship with God.
   6. God is not a crutch, but so much more. Eventually, God becomes all we have.
   7. Struggling with faith is normal. Journey and pilgrimage have become powerful words for me describing the life of faith. I have come to expect periods of unsettledness, uncertainty and fear, to remind me that who I am, where I am, and what I think do NOT define reality.

As I read this book I feel surrounded by clouds of witness: memories of books I’ve read at retreats, sudden surrender of one piece of ego after another, realizing how much I want to give up more, knowing through the books and the prayers and the people around me that I am not alone.

None of us is alone.

Books like this guide me toward Eden. They help me dwell on my own failure LESS and God’s idea for me MORE. This bibliotherapy probes deeply, rather than covering up my doubt, and teaches me to surrender to God instead of surrendering to the world. You know – the world we are IN, but not OF (John 17:15).

Peter speaks from his own experience:

Doubt is what being cornered by our thinking looks like. Doubt happens when needing to be certain has run its course. It’s God way of saying “Time to move on.” Doubt has a way of forcing our hand and exposing our frail thinking … and moves us away from the foolishness of thinking OUR god is THE God.

All of us, all Christians who take their faith seriously, get caught up thinking that God is really what we think God is. God becomes the face in the mirror.

By his mercy God doesn’t leave us there.

In your mercy, hear our prayer.

(Isaiah 50, Psalm 116, James 2, Galatians 6, Mark 8)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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