Guest Blog by Shane (Spokes) Pickel

This is for anyone and everyone and me who have moments or seasons of doubt. We often see doubt as failure so we try earnestly to avoid it. Failing to know what doubt is what really needs to be avoided. Below is an excerpt from a talk from Paul Enns.

“Sometimes we think of our faith as a fortress. It’s comfortable and above all safe. But what if God doesn’t want us to be comfortable and safe? What if comfortable and safe keep us from pursuing God? After all – what is safe? God isn’t safe. Not according to scripture, creation or CS Lewis. But He is good.“

Sooner or later God—because He is good—tears your fortress down, and He pushes you out, and puts you on a spiritual journey—which always involves some deep struggle.

Doubt forces us to look at who we think God is. It makes us face whether we really trust HIM, or whether we trust what we have made God to be. Doubting God is painful and frightening because we think we are leaving God behind. But doubt—real hard deep unnerving uncomfortable scary doubt—helps us to see that, maybe we have made God into our own image. We come to discover, slowly but surely, that the “faith” we are losing is not faith in God. It is actually in the idea of God that we surround ourselves with.”