Increase My Faith

Thursday 3/22/18 3:40 AM

Today I read John Powell’s words in his book, A Reason to Live! A Reason to Die!, which address the doubts that have become part of my life. “In the process of faith, doubts and crises must occur. Paul Tillich points out that only through crises can faith mature. Doubt eats away the old relationship with God, but only so that a new one may be born. The same thing is true of our human, interpersonal relationships. They grow from initial fragility into permanence only through the tests of doubts and crisis. So Kahlil Gibran says that we can ‘forget those we have laughed with, but we can never forget those we have cried with.’

“There is something in older people that feels uneasy with, or even resents, crises of faith in the young. We lose sight of the fact that faith can mature only because of these crises. We forget that no one can say a meaningful ‘yes’ or commitment until he has faced the alternate possibility of saying ‘no.’ The most destructive thing we can do to those passing through periods of crisis is to attempt to downplay these legitimate doubts and encourage their repression. Repressed doubts have a high rate of resurrection, and doubts that are plowed under will only grow new roots. One thing is certain, that passage through the darkness of doubts and crises, however painful they may be, is essential to growth in the process of faith.”

As an older person I don’t so much resent or feel uneasy with the crises of faith in those who are young; they are to be expected. What troubles me most is my own crises, which seem to undermine what once was a stable foundation of faith. The picture that comes to mind is a house on a cliff by the sea or on a bluff overlooking a river, once firmly planted on its foundation but now falling into the water with the soil that once held it so secure. Powell suggests such crises are essential to growth in my faith. Somehow seeing things falling around me prohibits me from having the vision of a new house with a stronger, firmer foundation. Intellectually I know this to be true but living out that truth from day to day is a different story. Lord, increase my faith.