Doubt's Value.

• Author: Miller, Bruce B.
• Position: RELIGION

Our doubts can drive us to discover God's reality and, more importantly, to experience God's goodness.

"I DON'T BELIEVE in God," he told me confidently. "Oh?" I responded. "Why is that?" "There's no evidence that God exists. No proof that God is anything more than something people made up to make themselves feel better," he said.

Have you looked around lately? How could there be a good God in control of the world when terrible things happen every day?

"That's fair," I said. "You're right--the world is full of pain and suffering. It doesn't make any sense."

He paused, surprised to hear something like that coming from a pastor. Then he turned toward me more directly and looked me straight in the eyes. "Then why do you believe in God?" he asked.

That day, I could sense that this young man's question was sincere; he really wanted to know my answer. The conversation was not a debate, a game, or an argument. There was a tinge of hopeful longing in the tone of his voice, as if to communicate his desire to see something that might point to God's reality. He listened quietly to my response and then asked: "How long will it take me to figure out if God is real or not?"

Honestly, I do not know the answer to that question for him--or for you.

Maybe you are pretty skeptical that there is a God out there, but you are curious. Maybe you know you believe in God, but you are not sure how to respond when someone asks you why you do. Here is what I do know: exploring God is a worthy endeavor. Questions like these are worth asking, and their answers, worth seeking.

Let me lower your expectations right from the start. It is unlikely you will have all of your questions answered, and your doubts will not be eradicated. I am not here to tell you what to believe or to force you to accept something blindly.

It is vitally important that we each take ownership of our faith. It is not enough to believe in something simply because someone told you; there is no depth to that. We must be critical and intentional in pursuing truth and letting the answers we discover inform our beliefs. The realizations we uncover on our own terms have the potential to transform our lives.

Novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote, "I believe in Christ and confess him not like some schoolboy; but my hosanna has passed through a great furnace of doubt." From the refining fire of doubt, strong convictions can emerge, forged by pursuing answers to our hard questions.

Doubt often gets a bad...