Unchallenged Faith

5/24/15                      Charles                        about 30
Is unchallenged faith really faith?  As I talked with a man named Charles at a Target store, I wondered how he could now reject the Christian faith and deny God's very existence after growing up as a missionary's kid, being super active in his Pentecostal church's youth group, and graduating from a Bible college.  "The problem of evil" was, indeed, his problem.  "How could a benevolent God allow suffering and evil in the world?" he asked me.  We had a long discussion about that and covered a lot of ground.  The common thread of all his comments and questions was that if God is to be real He must be benevolent - on Charles' terms - and until Charles had rejected the faith after Bible college he had never been challenged with the obvious truth that not all in God's word and world is kind, harmonious and loving.  He had grown up in one religious cocoon or bubble after another, and hadn't been exposed to the fiery arrows of the accuser.  He needed to be exposed to the challenges of the faith in order to learn to defend it.  When he came out of the last cocoon of college he couldn't stand when he should have been able to walk on his own, and he fell into unbelief as soon as he was challenged a bit.  I write this as a wake-up call to Christian parents trying to shelter their children too much from the unbelief, the false teachings, and the evils of this world.  Teach them to think critically from a biblical point of view, to evaluate the world and it's values from God's standpoint.  Don't ignore the hard truths, for example, the fate of the men, women and children outside the ark in the flood of Noah or the judgment of the Canaanites in the promiced land carried out by Joshua and the ragtag army of Israel; don't teach them that God will answer your every prayer as if He were some sort of benevolent Santa Claus.  I also write this as a wake-up call to get out in the world and share your faith - expose yourself to the ridicule, sneering, and hard questions of an unbelieving world - learn to answer their questions not only for the sake of unbelievers but for your peace of mind as well.  We've all heard at least some of the accusatory questions of the world and we need to meet these questions head on before our nagging doubts turn into unbelief,  like they did for Charles.  And, please, pray for Charles, that he will have patience and faith "that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."  (Rom. 8)