I’m finding that some of my best moments of writing have come while listening to Mumford and Sons. And with the way that this band has taken off I am sure I am not the only one. But there was something in this quote from “Winter Winds” that led to some reflection on my part.

I am working through the concept of doubt these days, and to some may be trending on some dangerous ground, but for me I am beginning to see and feel faith more than I ever have.

As I thought about the quote and although I like the sound of beauty trumping doubt, the thing is if you do not doubt freely without the need to “know” that eventually things will be okay you have never really doubted. Beauty may in fact trump doubt, but doubt must be fully engaged for it to do its work in you and for beauty to rise. And I believe that doubt is a very important part of faith.

Are you able to doubt freely? Or when you doubt, do you say to yourself, “It’s okay that I am questioning my faith, because God is bigger than my doubt.” If you are saying things like this to yourself, then I am sorry to say you are not doubting freely. (Not to sound trite).

I have heard a couple different schools on this (via @peterrollins) that I have found helpful. (I adapted it a little).

Picture a cliff. You are standing at it with questions. Those questions may or may not be answered on the other side. So in order to confront the questions you decide to jump off the cliff.

The person who doubts freely knows that when they jump they might fall for a very long time (perhaps forever), possibly never obtaining the answer. But this freedom allows the person to receive, live in tension and see beauty.

The person that does not allow doubt to freely do its work will still jump, but their jump is reserved in that they have this idea that the ground is only a few feet down from the cliff or they jump with this metaphorical harness knowing that God will catch them and make all questions clear with answers when they jump bringing them back to safety.

I see this mentality a lot. I specifically see it in those with Christian backgrounds that have “left” the church but always speak in terms that suggest they “should really go back.” I feel a sadness for these people. They are in essence stuck in the purgatory of faith. Never really growing and always hanging on to something that in practice has never truly worked for them, because if it did they wouldn’t speak in these terms. I think in some variation of this idea this is where I sit.

I see issues in both the hard and fast believer (reject all doubt as a way of belief) as well as in the hard and fast doubter (never trusting the beauty that could trump the doubt), but I won’t get into that now.

So I ask you, are you able to doubt freely?

I think church people get nervous when they read this:

“Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”

And I think they have avoided truly understanding this:

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’” ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them.

The first suggests that there are those people who may not ascribe to all of what Jesus teaches, but if they are doing what is good then they should be left alone… or even encouraged and learned from?

The second is even more vague. Jesus speaks of a farm that has weeds and wheat growing up together and suggests that we don’t pull the weeds, but let them grow together.

In both cases I believe control is the main issue. Jesus seems to want us to trust and release control. It is not our job to sort another persons motivation, but we should address our own.

It is not our job to remove the bad from the good (from our perspective), because we may remove some good in the process. And it’s pretty ego-centric to think that you know what is good and what is bad.

So what can we do?

We stop controlling. We learn how to be free. We trust. We have faith. We learn from everyone.

I think we have miss-read this passage:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

To test and approve we cannot conform. In order to not conform, we have to have be transformed. In order to be transformed, we need a renewed mind.

Let me translate: In order to be able to allow weeds and wheat grow together (learn from everyone) we need to see life as God sees it, not feel the need to control it. In order to not control we need to be able to observe ourselves and move forward in faith. In order to be move forward we need to rethink our whole self-centered outlook on life.

It all begins by addressing your ego.

“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”

The more your ego has control in your life, the more you need to control, and the further away you are from truly learning from everyone.