Losing Faith

It's another Gilmore Girls evening for me.

 

In the episode I've just been watching, one of the characters fears that she has lost her faith, so her friend goes round to give it back to her.

 

It's an interesting concept: losing your faith.

 

No matter what we believe, there are always moments when we question our beliefs.  There are moments when we wonder if what we believe is really true, when we doubt ourselves and our faith.

 

But doubt is not the opposite of faith, or the absence of faith.  It is an integral and inseparable part of faith.

 

In fact, even if you lose faith in something and stop believing it, you will unintentionally and automatically start believing in something else.  We all have faith in something: God, religion, science, nature, ourselves ...

 

Faith is believing in things that we can't see, or don't know for sure.  If it could be proved indisputably, it would be fact.

 

The Bible says,

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

 

[Hebrews 11:1 NIV]

 

Doubting is not the absence or loss of faith, but rather the strengthening of it.

 

Without questioning and doubting and wrestling, our faith never grows or develops.  It is through this doubting and refining and redefining that our faith is strengthened.

 

We cannot have faith without doubt.