Everyone has faith in something—not just religious people. I appreciate that Tim Keller relieves us with the converse: everyone has doubts too. A Christian who doesn’t doubt, wrestle, and struggle with his faith is in denial, since doubt is part of the very essence of faith.

I love Stephen in Acts, he has to be my favorite character in the Bible (ok, second favorite). It is written that he is a man “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.” It is a daily prayer of mine that God would help my unbelief (give me faith); to this I’m now adding that he would fill me with the Holy Spirit. I too would like to be a man whom detractors could not stand up against because of wisdom or the Spirit within me. When others look at me I would like them also to see something like the face of an angel. I would like to boldly proclaim the faith as one completely unafraid of the response. I would like to be one, even in the face of death itself, who has so fixed his eyes on things above that I see my God and not my enemies. And most of all, I would like to be one who can say under the most severe persecution, perhaps even by friends or family, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”