Shepard and his faith

While reading Thomas Shepard's autobiography, it's easy to notice how he struggled with his faith. At certain times he thinks he is unworthy of Christ's love, or he questions Christ's wisdom/righteousness/sanctification, and he even considers atheism. He realizes, though, that it is the Lord who is responsible for all of this "questioning of faith": it is His way of testing us.

Shepard realizes that this test is not a justification of ourselves to God, but rather a justification for our own self-realization. If we can't justify our faith internally, than God is not going to bother testing us. Early in his life, he attributes seemingly trivial things to God's charity (he basically prays to God to help him develop better note-taking skills) and does not realize that because of his belief that God answers his prayers, he becomes a better person. God is not shaping us to be better people: he is shaping our belief in ourselves that we can be better people. Just because we pray to God to solve a problem and it gets solved does not mean that God has taken a special interest in us as an individual. But by believing that God has noticed us, we start to believe that we deserve His notice. This circular logic makes it seem as if faith is born from our want of faith: God is there because we want him to be there. This doesn't make it false faith, but after we realize that God does have a plan, we will "follow the Lord to remote and strange [places],"(53) where we normally would not go. This pays off for Shepard when he meets his wife in a place he describes as "a vile and wicked town and country,"(54).

Through faith, we can see how the Lord beats us down so that we can pick ourselves up; "the Lord [puts] forth his strength in [our] extreme weakness,"(50). The themes of testing faith and the ups and downs of finding God are both attributed to helping the "heart exercise" itself. Shepard wants us to realize for ourselves that we can't sit around waiting for God to come along, lift us up, and dust us off; we have to realize for ourselves that God is behind everything, both good and bad, and the ups and downs in life are all a part of His plan for us to believe in ourselves.