Skeptic > Cynic > Rebel

I was summarizing the main points of the book "Faith and Doubt" by John Ortberg recently and suddenly this passage spoke to me...It didn't the first time round.

He talks about how doubt can destroy a person and went to state that there are 3 kinds of doubters:

1) The Skeptic
The skeptic is someone who says “I’m going to suspend judgement. I’m not going to commit myself, because the demand for sufficient evidence has not yet been met.”

2) The Cynic
Unlike skeptics, cynics are not so much looking for answers as they are offering conclusions. They offer conclusions about the world that paint it in an entirely negative light: People can’t be trusted. Circumstances typically get worse.

Give a skeptic a hug and she will doubt you really mean it. Give a cynic a hug, and he will check his wallet to see if you’ve picked his pocket.

3) The Rebel
The third category of mismanaged doubt is sometimes called “unbelief” in the Bible. This is the severest form of doubt gone wrong.

Unbelief is a refusal to trust. It is not uncertainty in the intellect; it is a settled decision of the will.

The rebel is not simply someone who doesn’t believe. He or she is someone who doesn’t want to believe.

Skeptics abstain because they don’t know who to vote for. Cynics abstain because they are suspicious of everybody. Rebels don’t just abstain; they secede to set up their own little dictatorship.

Skeptics question, cynics suspect, rebels defy.

As I typed out these pointers, suddenly, something hit home. I realised that I fell into one of these categories!

I was once a hopeful, a motivational speaker, a leader, a utopia-nist...Until I ran into many incompetent, apathetic leaders in church, awry Christians in the assembly, and uttely self-centred people in the army...

All these began to break my optimism, vision and hope. I guess I didn't guard them properly or I guess I'm just too weak. But I'm picking myself up again...

All these experiences not only hurt me, it made me at first a skeptic.

Now I am a cynic. I unashamedly say it. I have yet to reach the point of being a rebel. But when I do, that won't be nice. It'll take a lot of repenting and re-aligning to God's will and love before I can return to normal.

I guess this transformation isn't all bad. I've learnt a lot through these experiences. But I must not be maimed by them!

I'm healing and beginning to grow again...All thanks to Jesus and the awesome friends that love me enough to stand by me and correct me and take all my nonsense.

Father, this rite of passage I surrender to you. May you take me and make me the man you want me to be :) Amen :)