This article was written by Rev. John Elford, 

the Senior Pastor of University United Methodist Church.

Last summer, I picked up a copy of a beautiful children’s book by Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls. It’s the story of 13 year-old Connor O’Malley whose mother is dying of cancer and who is visited by a wise monster.

Connor learns several things in his journey with the monster. I was struck by one of them — that human beings are complicated beasts. He discovers that there is no such thing as good people over here who do good things and bad people over there who do bad things. Everything is mixed up. A queen can be both good and bad. A prince can be a murderer and a savior. A person can be all mixed up but also wonderfully good-hearted.

I’ve found that to be true. We are a tremendously mixed bag of good intentions and bad habits, of wisdom and folly. And of faith and doubt.

In my ministry, I’ve met with so many folks who struggle with honest doubts about the faith they’ve grown up with. They have this sense that being a faithful person means having no doubts, being absolutely sure-footed with answers to every one of life’s persistent questions.

What I’ve discovered over time is that you can be a person of faith with doubt, even with profound doubts and questions because faith and doubt are not opposites. They are not mutually exclusive.

One of my favorite theologians, Peter Rollins, says this: “The word “faith” is a much-misunderstood term. In contemporary discourse, it often means the act of believing in something that lacks empirical evidence, something that one affirms through intuition ….”

So faith has come to mean believing certain unbelievable things to be true. If you have faith you believe all of those things without a doubt. If you have little faith, well, you only believe a few of them. And so, particularly in North America where certainty is our god, faith means we never have doubts, that we never struggle with what we believe, that we never have any questions.

But what if religious faith is about something else?

I’m finding that faith is more about trusting God with my life. It’s a pilgrimage with a lot of twists and turns, ups and downs, and, yes, even questions and doubts. Faith that is about dogmatic certainty engages life in constant battle mode. Trusting God invites me to meet life with humility and vulnerability. Instead of final answers, we form wise questions and we embrace mystery.

In Psalm 13, the writer begins with her fist shaking at God — “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” But notice how it ends — “I trusted in your steadfast love, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation, I will sing to the Lord, because God has dealt well with me.”

About 10 years ago, I went through a time when I simply had to trust. I experienced what it’s like to have what supports you fall away and trust in God is all you have left. I became deeply aware of what I really needed and what I was supremely grateful for – non-judgmental friends, a supportive community of faith, and most of all, worship that connected me with the One who is beyond us, transcendent, holy and loving.

I still have doubts and questions about my faith. But I take refuge in this –that when I doubt and wonder, I’m not stepping outside the song of faith. I’m simply singing faith in a different key.