No longer traditional

  I have been getting acquainted with Frederick W. Robertson as of late and the two following quotes really resonate with me. We begin our faith in Christ with much influence from others, our denomination, and the books we read. At some point we must cling to Christ with a faith that is our own, it may look like others but it is distinctly our own, hewn with our own experiences and as distinct as our personality, anything less.......... is less. 

 It is an awful moment when the soul begins to find that the props on which it has blindly rested so long are, many of them, rotten, and begins to suspect them all; when it begins to feel the nothingness of many of the traditionary opinions which have been received with implicit confidence, and in that horrible insecurity begins also to doubt whether there be any thing to believe at all………

I appeal to the recollection of any man who has passed through that hour of agony, and stood upon the rock at last, the surges stilled below him, and the last cloud drifted from the sky above, with a faith, and hope, and trust no longer traditional, but of his own – a trust which neither earth nor hell shall shake thenceforth forever.

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 I am quite sure that what you say is true about getting truth – at least truth enough – at last, and I am quite willing to struggle on in twilight until the light comes. True, manly struggle cannot fail. I know that. Only a man must struggle alone. His own view of truth, or rather his own way of viewing it, and that alone, will give him rest.

He can only adopt the views of other minds for a time; and so long as his own is inert, the help that he gets directly from others generally does no good.

Picture from the Internet