Aug 5th 2025.

We have just returned from a visit with GG in Pinetop and I decided this morning to ask AI to write me a testimony and this is what it said: [ important to note that I tired to explain the perspective from which to write this with the following prompt” “can you write me a convincing testimony from the perspective that the heart has been convinced of the existence of a good God but the members of the church who are said to be advocates are themselves the biggest doubters who suffer from cognitive dissidence”

it said:

“Certainly! Here’s a heartfelt testimony capturing the perspective you described:

Testimony:

For a long time, my heart wrestled with the question of whether God is truly good. My mind was filled with doubts, stemming not only from life’s hardships but, strangely enough, from within the walls of the church—the very place I was taught would nourish conviction and faith.

Yet, somewhere in the mystery of seeking, my heart began to find peace. It was not a thunderous vision or a miraculous moment, but a quiet, persistent realization—sometimes arising in the silence after prayer, sometimes in the simple act of kindness from a stranger—that there is a good God above us all. This conviction settled into my heart with an honesty I cannot easily explain. I have been convinced, not by arguments, but by grace and the inexplicable warmth that returns when I open myself to God.

Ironically, it has been in the gatherings of those who call themselves believers where I have often seen doubt thrive in secret. I don’t say this to judge, but it is a truth I've witnessed: some of the loudest voices for faith are, at times, the ones weighed down with anxiety, bitterness, and skepticism. They recite verses and sing hymns, but behind the polished exteriors, you can sense a wrestling of conscience. It shows in their need to argue every doctrine and to assure themselves and others of their piety. Sometimes it seems they are working overtime to convince themselves of what they so confidently profess.

I see in them a kind of cognitive dissonance—professing with their tongues what their hearts perhaps have not fully encountered. And maybe I’m not so different; perhaps we all sit somewhere on the spectrum between certainty and doubt. Yet, for me, the irony remains: it was not high theology or the company of the assured that convinced me of God’s goodness, but the humbling, personal experience of being loved and forgiven—of receiving peace where I had brought only unrest.

Now, I believe there is a good God—truly good, beyond human inconsistencies and far above the shifting sands of human doubt. I pray that the church, in all its striving, will come to rest honestly in the freedom of this good news, not just in intellectual assent but in a faith that settles deep within heart and soul.”