Doubt means spiritual relocation is happening. It's God's way of saying, "Time to move on.

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.

Reading the book of Proverbs on child rearing is like paying good money for financial advice and being told after ten sessions, "Here's what I've come up with. Invest your money wisely, and you will be set for retirement." I was hoping for stock tips.

The way forward is to let go of that need to find the answers we crave and decide to continue along a path of faith anyway (as Qohelet would say). That kind of faith is not a crutch, but radical trust.

This is the point of the story: the choice put before Adam and Eve is the same choice put before Israel every day: learn to listen to God and follow in his ways and then—only then—you will live. The story of Adam and Eve makes this point in the form of a myth. Proverbs makes it in the form of wisdom literature. Israel's long story in the Old Testament makes it in the form of historical narrative.

Doubt signals that this process of dying and rising is underway. Though God feels far away, at that moment God may be closer than we realize—especially if "know what you believe" is how we're used to thinking of our faith.

I'VE BEEN ON A JOURNEY of rediscovering the Bible and the God behind it for over thirty years and I don't see that journey ending any time soon.

That kind of Bible works, because that is our story, too. The Bible "partners" with us (so to speak), modeling for us our walk with God in discovering greater depth and maturity on our journey of faith, not by telling us what to do at each step, but by showing us a journey of hills and valleys, straight lanes and difficult curves, of new discoveries and insights, of movement and change—with God by our side every step of the way.

the Bible is ancient, ambiguous, and diverse.

The darkness does us a favor by exposing control as an illusion. When everything is removed, "Where can I take back some control here?" eventually ceases being the active question and is replaced with a plea: "Lord, help me let go of control. Help me die. Help me trust.

I find it strangely comforting that walking the path of Christian faith means being confronted moment by moment with what is counterintuitive and ultimately beyond my comprehension to understand or articulate. In an unexpected way, God becomes more real to me, not less.

Rather than providing us with information to be downloaded, the Bible holds out for us an invitation to join an ancient, well-traveled, and sacred quest to know God, the world we live in, and our place in it. Not abstractly, but intimately and experientially.