NormsMilfordBlog

The Best of Jack’s Winning Words 10/30/23
“Everyone tells me you are a fake, but I believe in you. P.S. If you are a fake, don’t tell me.  I don’t want to know.”  (Linus writing to The Great Pumpkin) Cartoonist Charles Schulz never hid the fact that he was a church member, and some of his Peanuts comic strips showed that. Just because someone is a church member doesn’t mean that they don’t sometimes doubt their faith. One time a father brought his son to Jesus for healing. Jesus asked him if he believed, and he responded, “I believe. Help my unbelief.”  What Linus says to The Great Pumpkin could be rephrased to, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” Faith, whether in a religious context or not, isn’t the absence of doubt,!  -)  Jack
 
Originally sent October 26, 2022.

Aa I have gotten older I have become better at keeping separate my faith from my religion. I go to church most weeks and sit there with others who are there seeking help with their unbelief. We all believe, but we all need help with our unbelief.

One thing that age does is give you the time to ponder the alternatives to belief in God and they all end up leading you down the same blind alley with nothing at the end – no answers and no viable alternatives. There is God or there is nothing and nothing is a sad and scary thing to conclude indeed.

Faith is based upon hope and without faith there is no hope, and that is a dead end. Faith allows us to believe that death is not the end. A good deal of mankind’s development of religions is devoted to descriptions (some quite elaborate) of the hereafter, based entirely on man’s limited imagination. I find some comfort in believing that what comes next is much more than we can imagine.

In times of great suffering, pain, or sorrow, those with a strong faith find comfort in it. It is also a time when one’s unbelief can cause them to question why God would allow such pain to happen or even to question whether God exists at all. It is in those times when the words of Mark 9:24 ring the truest – “I believe; help my unbelief.” 

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 9th, 2023 at 2:12 pm and is filed under faith, Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.