I was a Religion major in college. When I first got to Florida State, I made it my practice to take one Religion elective each semester. I knew those classes would present challenges to my faith, but I wanted to be sure that my faith could stand up to intellectual challenges. Most of the time my professors’ arguments were not terribly hard to refute. A little thought and a little investigation would usually show that what seemed like a damning critique was really not all that convincing.

I remember one time, however, when a professor said something in class for which I didn’t have a ready answer. It felt like I’d been punched in the stomach, because his comments had raised serious doubts in my mind. I don’t remember the issue he raised which caused my doubts, but I vividly remember the pain associated with those doubts. I immediately went for a walk to pray through my doubts.

The irony of this was not lost on me. Here I was doubting God, yet turning to him for help in the midst of my doubts. I began by frankly telling him why I found the professor’s arguments persuasive, and I remember saying, “Lord, I just don’t have an answer for this!”

It was then that an interesting thing happened. I began thinking about the people at my church. Not the pastors, but the regular folks with whom I had Bible studies and barbecues. Most of these people would have been terribly intimidated by my professor. Heck, they seemed to be intimidated by me simply because I was a Religion major! I knew none of them would have an answer for the intellectual challenge my professor had presented, but somehow, they had the answer I needed. You see, I thought about the rich spiritual life I saw in these simple people, and I realized that I didn’t see anything even remotely like it in my professor. In that moment I knew that they had something real, something which could not be assailed by a well-constructed syllogism. God used these people to reassure me in the midst of my doubt.

With that reassurance, I calmed down enough to begin thinking through my professor’s arguments, and by the end of that walk, I had an intellectual answer for those arguments as well as an emotional one.

As my oldest son is about to turn fourteen, I’ve been thinking more and more about the ways his faith will be challenged in the coming years. Until now, he has believed what his parents have always taught him to believe. But now he is beginning to show a keen interest in understanding why he believes as he does. He’s also beginning to interact with the ideas of people who do not share those beliefs.

David is therefore very interested in the evolution–creation debate. He wants to know about other religions. He’s very critical of atheistic political philosophies like Marxism, and is generally busy trying to understand how Christianity relates to the world at large. We’ve had lots of interesting family discussions about these things, and David tends to come alive during those discussions. It’s exciting to watch, because I know that David is beginning to formulate his own set of beliefs, going beyond merely believing what his parents have always told him in order to test those ideas and (hopefully!) make them his own. Right now, David’s worldview still looks very much like that of his parents, but I know that as he matures, his worldview will likely begin to look different from ours. My prayer, of course, is that he will choose to think differently than his parents in the nonessentials while holding firmly to the essentials of the faith. Looking ahead, I know my challenge will be to let him wrestle with formulating his own ideas without trying to interfere too much. If his faith is to become truly his own, he’ll have to struggle through his own moments of doubt and find his own source of assurance.

As a parent, how do you prepare your child to deal with doubt and come through to the other side? You can say, “Son, some day you may doubt what you’ve always been taught,” but at this point, David is so flush with adolescent certainty I’m not sure he would really believe me. I think the best you can do is to try to give your children the tools they’ll need to deal with the “dark night of the soul” when it comes.

This week in my work for Accordance Bible Software, I’ve been working with a resource I think will be helpful to David as he tries to take ownership of his faith: The Apologetics Study Bible. I’ve given my commercial for this study Bible elsewhere, so I won’t repeat that here. But when I finished developing the Accordance module of this study Bible, I decided to give my print copy to David, because I think it addresses many of the questions he is asking or will soon ask. On the flyleaf, I wrote this to him:

1. David,
   

2. This study Bible is all about knowing what you believe and why you believe it. As I've been reading it, I've been thinking how helpful it would have been to me in college, when I had to deal with professors who questioned the Bible's truthfulness and authority.
   

3. As I watch you grow to be a young man, I am continually impressed with your eagerness to know what you believe and why you believe it. It is not enough just to believe what your parents have always taught you; you must come to the point where you know it to be true yourself. That's why I'm so proud of your zeal to know and defend the truth.
   

4. Toward that end, I want you to have this Bible — in the hopes that it will help you find answers to the tough questions. A true faith is one which is intellectually credible, yet which is not merely intellectual. In other words, your faith should satisfy your mind, but it must also fill your heart. That is my prayer for you.
   

5. Love,
   

6. Dad
   

7. Psalm 19:160; John 17:17; 1 Corinthians 8:1-3
   

I gave the Bible to David this morning, and he read the inscription with that sheepish look he gets whenever he’s touched and trying not to get too emotional. My prayer is that some day in the future, when he’s experiencing a moment of doubt or deep questioning, he’ll reread those words and find the same reassurance I found long ago. My hope is that he’ll realize that his dad likewise had moments of doubt, and that he’ll see in his parents that same spiritual life which I saw in the members of my church: that life which can demolish even the most well-constructed argument and dismiss even the darkest of doubts.