In a recent issue of Time magazine, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was featured in their section 10 Questions. To the question "Have you ever had doubts about your faith?" Tutu responded:

Doubts? No. Anger with God? Yes. Plenty of that. I've remonstrated with God quite frequently and said, "What the heck are you up to? Why are you letting these oppressors get away with this injustice?" But doubting that God is good? That God is love? No. 

His answer particularly hits home because a few years ago I was asked by a friend a very similar question to which I replied a simple "no."  As I reflect, frankly, my answer saddens me. How utterly incomplete it was, especially in light of the deep place in which my friend was asking.  My simple response included none of the tension that I experience as a daily part of my faith. The deep groaning questions that at times are so deep and painful that they remain unutterable and instead bounce around within my depths as an unnamed longing.  Most of these seem to be the sticking place between what I believe of God's character (and thus what I perceive will/should be God's action) and what I experience happening both in my life and in the world.

Tutu's response is a much better articulation (go figure... there are reasons why he's the archbishop). He simply but profoundly expresses what I think is a key component of faith: believing in who God says God is and holding that belief despite evidences to the contrary.