Here’s a snippet of mine that just appeared in UBBC’s wilderness-themed Lenten devotional series:
In October 2014, I stumbled into a wilderness I hadn’t packed for. After decades of secure faith, I was suddenly struck by what I described at the time as “acute, soul-threatening” doubt. I looked for God, and for the first time, found only silence. I wrestled with the problem of evil, the problem divine hiddenness, and the problem of unanswered prayer, losing sleep and peace in the process.
But that wilderness wasn’t just a place of deprivation; it was a place of transformation. In that dry season, when my intellectual certainty withered, something new began to grow. Drought-tolerant virtues emerged from the dust of my doubt:
- empathy (my uncertainty made me less dogmatic and more empathetic toward others),
- action orientation (“for in Christ Jesus…the only thing that counts is faith working through love”),
- metaphysical flexibility,
- humility, and even
- lightheartedness.
Above all, I discovered that faith isn’t a feeling of certainty, but a decision of allegiance. And I have decided to follow Jesus.
(I haven’t since returned to my homelands of certainty, and probably never will. But thankfully, He has given me practicable confidence more than enough to carry on.)