Certainty of being right is the surest way of keeping the truth at a safe distance. Those things that bring doubt into our lives – like grief, disappointment, failure – are really uncomfortable, but they can be our Damascus Road experiences that bring us with open hands and open minds into the presence of true truth – that is, the presence of Jesus. George MacDonald is one of the most influential authors in modern history. When one of his readers wrote to him complaining about his habit of questioning Christian orthodoxy his reply included these words: “With all sorts of doubt I am familiar, and the result of them is, has been, and will be, a widening of my heart and soul and mind to greater glories of the truth – the truth that is in Jesus – and not in Calvin or Luther or St Paul or St John, save as they got it from Him, from whom every simple heart may have it, and can alone get it… Doubt is the hammer that breaks the windows clouded with human fancies, and lets in the pure light.”