faith and doubt

On the way home on Friday I was flipping stations and came upon a Christian station and the gentleman speaking was saying that he believes that you can not have faith, real faith, without having doubt. To have faith without doubt, negates the faith and the two go hand in hand. He further indicated that he believes you can never get to the place where you don’t doubt again.

First off, I think I can safely assume that this gentleman isn’t a Nazarene because this sounds very anti sanctification – the lack of ability to sin probably means a lack of an ability to doubt….but, that is neither here nor there, whatever his affiliation may be.

I have really been thinking about this over the weekend and I just don’t think I can get a handle on it. I believe that we can and do doubt but does my faith rely on the doubt, I don’t think so. I know people in my life who have so much wisdom and grace that I find it had to believe that they continue to doubt God’s movement in order to increase their faith. I can not believe that we can’t get to a place where we stop doubting and just being living and accepting. To me it just seems counter-intuitive.

While I spent time thinking this and other thoughts over the weekend, it seemed to move by all too quickly. I had a wonderful time just having dinner and being with my mom, she is always a joy to be with and a bosom friend. My beloved came home earlier than expected on Saturday and we spent much time at the table just talking about all that he saw and heard. He did pick up a pretty awesome magazine at the conference called Geez Magazine, it's cool, edgy, and not politically correct to the fundamentals - great magazine.

Sundays are always quick and hectic at our house. Church, lunch out, a little shopping and then some yard-work only to find that the evening snuck up on us and my husband had to head out to a meeting for the evening (leaving me to tackle a mound of ironing). I hate the feeling of looking forward, all week, to the weekend and then having those two days rush by rather than being able to really savor and enjoy them. I know that my working is important to our family and to the stability we need (i.e. so the government will not reposes our car due to the fact that the don’t pay the school loans) but still, there are days…but when I say that and think about what I would want to be doing, I don’t really have a good answer, so, I know the answer is that I am where I am supposed to be for now.

I started my new book for my book club and realized that I don’t really like Zorro or care about him. But, that’s the joy of being in a book club, reading something you normally wouldn’t on your own. I am still working on “In Cold Blood” and must admit, I fell asleep last evening reading it…I think the middle has gotten less interesting than the beginning was….