Doubt

Ann: "Bruce, do you ever have those moments of doubt?"

Bruce: "Like what?"

Ann: "You know, like when you question your whole understanding of God. What if I project too much of myself onto God? What if I rely too much on my own imagination? What if, in the end, I'm just making all this God-stuff up? You know, that kind of doubt."

Bruce: "Yes. I definitely have those moments."

The vast majority of my spiritual life has been a great tension between what I think and what I feel. With one breath I am certain that God is present in an undeniable way, and then with the very next breath I'm asking God, "Who are you really, and are you even here?"

Inevitably someone will read this and misunderstand me. Someone will think I've somehow gone backwards in my spiritual journey as if only the immature bow to doubt. But I resist that line of thinking. I think that my doubts have always been present, and that until recent years I've never felt safe enough with God or myself to let them breathe. So, in some mysterious way expressing doubt directly to God is perhaps a testament to the nature of my relationship with him. I generally don't express my deepest questions and struggles to people that I don't trust.

This week I'm at a staff retreat at Canon Beach. Last night I had an epiphany of sorts during our worship session. The guy leading the music played a bunch of songs I've never heard, which is fine. But as I was listening, my spirit became utterly still inside. All my weariness and restlessness didn't disappear but became secondary. I began to have a picture formulate in my mind. It was like someone grabbed my hand and began to lead me through time -- through the last ten years of my life. "Rememeber this? What about this? How about that?" it whispered as I reflected back on key events and spiritual experiences in my life. I began to see patterns emerge, the most predominate pattern being God's voice moving me in a way I can't explain and definitely can't take credit for. I think I'm pretty creative, but what I'm referring to here was so intense that no human creativity can even begin to touch or take credit for.

This morning I read something that struck me. St. Teresa of Avila said:
"If one were to tell me that a person with whom I had just conversed, and whom I knew well, was not that person, but that I was deluding myself, and that they knew it, I should certainly trust them rather than my own eyes. But if that person left with me certain jewels -- and if, possessing none previously, I held the jewels in my hand as pledges of a great love -- and if I were now rich, instead of poor as before...." then she would believe.

So basically what helps me seperate illusion from reality is found in the substance that is left behind. I've never known an illusion powerful enough to produce substantial and lasting peace, faithful love, or a joy strong enough to thrive in dark despair. Deep down I think these are the makings of a basis for trusting a God I often cannot explain, and my trust has become such that I will lower my strongest filters in his presence and dare to doubt. Perhaps God loves me enough to not soothe every anxiety and restlessness until my deepest questions surface and my darkest doubts breathe. Had I refused this query, I would not know God as I ought.