One Minute Apologist - Doubting Toward FaithНамуна

First is emotional doubt.

Perhaps nothing paralyzes a Christian’s once vibrant faith more than emotional doubt. This facet of doubt is brutal. It wears you down and at its peak it can bring you to the utter end of yourself, drowning you in despair.

Generally, emotional doubt arises when we experience or hear about something that is hard to reconcile with a good and loving God. It’s in wrestling through the problem of suffering and evil where we feel the full force of emotional doubt. This is where we ask why God? Why is there evil and suffering in the world? Knowing that there is evil and suffering doesn’t give us a real reason to dismiss the existence of God.

Like a doctor who may inflict his patient with pain in order to provide a greater good, so too we must trust that God has His reasons for allowing suffering, though those reasons are often unseen. He may allow suffering to wake us up from our complacency, to teach us a greater dependency, to develop compassion or forgiveness in us, or to help us trust in His unseen plan.

REFLECTION