Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent" (John 6:29).
I believe; help my unbelief (Mark 9:24).
A member of my congregation asked, "How do you answer someone when they tell you they are losing their faith?" What follows are some of my thoughts as I answered her.
1. No one has perfect faith, so it is natural for doubts to creep into the minds of even the most devout saints from time to time. This is true when life is going well, so when it becomes difficult then doubts come much more easily.
2. When someone confesses that they are losing their faith, there is probably a lot more going on than just the confession. The loss of faith could well be a symptom of a past trauma, a heavy stress load, unresolved grief and anger. It has been reported that mother Teresa felt spiritually abandoned and cut off from God for the last fifty years of her life. She felt no presence. She felt alone, but she continued on because she believed anyway. Her experience seems to be the common experience of those who work in difficult and traumatic situations. The Lord Jesus Christ himself cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The Psalmist questioned with tears, "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?" Within the pages of scripture these honest expressions of doubt are allowed. God understands. This is one of the reasons I believe that the Bible is God's Word; it is real; it speaks truly of the human experience. Somtimes faith is not easy; we under estimate how hard this work of believing is. Doing God's work means believing in Jesus through extremely difficult times when believing doesn't seem to make sense.
3. Many are unbelievers because to be a believer means that they would have to change and they refuse to do that; they do not want to be born--again (Hosea 13:13).
Do not forget two things: 1. Often our feelings do not reflect the truth. 2. No one understands like Jesus.
Grace&Peace,
Tom
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment