"Watching certainty slide into uncertainty is frightening. Our beliefs provide a familiar structure to our messy lives. They give answers to our big questions of existence . . . Answering these questions provides our lives with meaning and coherence by reining in the chaos.
When familiar answers to those questions are suddenly carried away. . . we understandably want to chase after them to get them back. When once settled questions suddenly become unsettled, our life narratives are upset--and no one likes that. . .
Another dynamic at work here is how friends, family, and church members would handle it if they knew what you were thinking. Feeling judged and banished is a common story among those who take a risk to let people in on their well-guarded secret." p. 8-9
"I won't say my faith is 'stronger'--that implies that the uh-ohs have been fixed or conquered, which is the opposite of what I am saying. I mean my faith is more real, more textured, three dimensional, and without the constant fear of being wrong playing in my head or that God is disappointed in me for not acing a multiple-choice theology exam." p. 11
"Religious structure provides a sense of self . . . without it, I felt utterly alone, with no idea where all this was heading:
What do you really believe. . . when no one is telling you what to believe Who is God to you? Is there a God? How far are you willing to go to accept the challenge of this new journey where you can barely see your own hand in front of your face? What familiar road map are you willing to leave behind? What will you do now that Go is no longer a turned back page in a familiar story you can flip to whenever? What will you do now that God is far off, out of sight? And how will you handle the likelihood that things will never be as they were? . . . Seeking answers to those questions meant accepting the challenge of an unsettled faith. That takes courage. . ." p. 14
"Walking the path of faith means trusting God enough to let our uh-oh moments expose how we create God to fit in our thinking. But that is hard work. We like our ideas about God. We need them. And that is really the deeper problem here. . . When we are held captive to our thinking, moving to what is not known and uncertain is automatically seen as a fearful development. We think true faith is dependent on maintaining a particular 'knowledge set' and keeping a firm grasp on a tightly woven network of nonnegotiable beliefs, guarding each one vigilantly, making sure they all stay above the water line no matter how hard the struggle--because if what we 'know' sinks, faith sinks right down with it." p. 17-18
". . . at the end of the day, we are all responsible for what we do. No one blackmailed me or held me hostage. And playing the blame game only keeps us looking in the rearview mirror, which is a sure recipe for misery." p. 33
". . . trust in God grows best when things are falling apart." p. 71
"Humility, love, and kindness are our grand acts of faithfulness and how we show that we are all in. 'no one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us' (1 John4:12). Loving each other is the closest we get to seeing God. . . Being 'in' with God is about much more than the thoughts we keep in our heads, the belief systems we hold on to, the doctrines we recite, or the statements of faith we adhere to, no matter how fervently and genuinely we do so, and how important they may be. Being obsessed with making sure we have all our thoughts about God properly arranged and defended isn't faith. How trusting we are of God day to day and how Godlike we live among those around us day to day is." p 102
"Preoccupation with correct thinking and holding on with zeal makes us horrible people and those around us miserable. But even here, these can be God moments if we have ears to hear.
Perhaps even here God is present, opening up pathways to other communities of faith for us, to a new way of being Christian, where holding on for dear life to what we 'know' isn't front and center. I've found that we can be tied hard and fast even to abusive religious homes, and we don't leave until things get so bad we simply can't stay. . .
There's nothing like being subject to Christians of ill will to expose the dark underbelly of where the preoccupation with correct thinking can get you--and to begin seeing the value of a different kind of faith. Rather than being the end of faith, these moments can introduce us to a faith rooted in trust rather than certainty." p. 142-143
"We're not always too happy about letting go of our egos and telling our overactive thought world to take a seat over there and be quiet. 'knowing' has been in charge for so long, we forget all the other stuff we read in the Bible about how we are to act toward each other. . .
And here is the risk of love. When we love as Jesus describes, we are changed because we are letting go a little bit of what we were holding to so dearly--in my case, being right and saying so. We relax our grip, step out of ourselves, and truly see things from the perspective of someone else, which is a genuinely selfless act." p. 149
"Doubting God is painful and frightening because we think we are leaving God behind, when in fact we are only leaving behind ideas about God that we are used to surrounding ourselves with--the small God, the God within our control, the God who moves in our circles, the God who agrees with us. . .
Doubt strips away distraction so we can see more clearly the inadequacies of whom we think God is and move us from the foolishness of thinking that our god is the God." p. 158
"Doubt is sacred. Doubt is God's instrument, will arrive in God's time, and will come from unexpected places--places out of your control. And when it does, resist the fight-or-flight impulse. Pass through it--patiently, honestly. and courageously for however long it takes. True transformation takes time." p 164
"Wanting clarity is seeking some sort of control. . . Darkness does us a favor by exposing control as an illusion." p. 170
"When we are out of control, that is when God can speak to us--without all of the layers of God talk we have piled up inside of us. God puts us out of our control so that we can learn to trust rather than cling to knowing what we believe--a deeper state of being than the familiar meanings of belief and faith don't quite get to. . .
Trust is letting go and learning to lean on God, and not our own insight . . .
When faith has no room for the benefit of doubt, then we are just left with religion, something that takes its place in our lives along with other things--like a job and a hobby.
Doubt is God's way of helping us not go there, though the road may be very hard and long." p 172
"Part of my own journey of faith is letting go of knowing first, of sorting it all out first before I commit. For me, a big part of learning to let go of knowing is to not care how or whether my experiences can fit together in some overarching intellectual structure where my rational mind remains enthroned as the true and final arbiter of what is and isn't real." p. 180
"I was being led to a much bigger God--and a much more interesting and caring one. . .
these experiences have drawn me out of my safe haven of certainty and onto a path of trusting God--not trusting God that my thinking is correct or soon would be, but trusting god regardless of how certain I might feel.
My way of thinking was being tamed . . . I was experiencing for myself what is really the point of this entire book: that trust means letting go of the need to know, of the need to be certain. And a long and honored Christian practice . . .already existed that understood that process.
I also understood that the responsibility for where I had been and where I could go was all mine--a freeing and also unnerving thought. I was entering . . . the 'second half of life' as some call it , and was presented with the choice to remain where I had been or to press forward." p. 192
"Letting go of the need for certainty is more than just a decision about how we think; it's a decision about how we want to live.
When the quest for finding and holding on to certainty is central to our faith, our lives are marked by traits we wouldn't normally value in others;
- unflappable dogmatic certainty
-vigilant monitoring of who's in and who's out
-preoccupation with winning debates and defending the faith
-privileging the finality of logical arguments
-conforming unquestionably to intellectual authorities and celebrities
That kind of faith . . . is stressful and anxiety laden, and it doesn't make for healthy relationships with others."p. 204
"Rather than being quick to settle on final answers to puzzling questions, a trust-centered faith will find time to formulate wise questions that respect the mystery of God and call upon God for the courage to sit in those questions for as long as necessary before seeking a way forward. . .
Rather than defining faithfulness as absolute conformity to authority and tribal identity, a trust-centered faith will value in others the search for true human authenticity that may take them away from the familiar borders of their faith, while trusting God to be part of that process in ourselves and others, even those closest to us.
The choice of how we want to live is entirely ours." p. 205-206
"Rather than simply protecting the past, our faith communities have a sacred responsibility to protect the future by actively and intentionally crating a culture of trust in God, in order to deliver to our children and children's children a viable faith --
- a faith that remains open to the ever-moving Spirit and new possibilities, rather than chaining the Spirit to our past
- a faith that welcomes opportunities to think critically and reflectively on how we think about God, the World, and our place in it, rather than resting at all costs on maintaining familiar certainties." p. 208
". . .a faith in a living God that is preoccupied with certainty is sin, for it compromises the gospel--personally, locally, and globally. But it need not remain so. As Jesus said . . 'Go your way and from now on do not sin again.' (John 8:11).
Developing that culture of trust rather than preoccupation with certainty means discerning, articulating, and embodying the heart and soul of the Christian tradition, wile also-and just as passionaltely-remaining open to the movement of God's Spirit. . ." p.210
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