We're stuck - here we are, children of a cynical culture, and we serve a master whose top priority is teaching his disciples to trust a God they can't see. Along the way, Jesus said and did some outrageous things. How do we live the life of faith while not checking our intellect at the door?

Along comes a minor documentary that helps us wrestle with the issue. It's called The Finger of God. Filmmaker Darren Wilson was a natural-born skeptic, never having personally witnessed a miracle. When his uncle and aunt showed him the amazing gold teeth God gave them, he decided to go in search of the miraculous, wherever it may lead him.

While starting in places like the local Pentecostal church, where falling down in the Spirit is regular fare and gold dust and gemstones showed up out of thin air, Wilson soon moved on to places like Mozambique to interview Rolland and Heidi Baker.

Seeing God heal is the standard way the Bakers start their outreaches in a village. In one scene, Baker calls a deaf woman to the front. She asks the crowd, "Is this woman deaf?" Everyone shouts back that she is.

Then, after praying for her, the woman is healed. While seeing is believing for the locals, and many come to faith, I wish it were so easy for us Americans. Weaned on movies replete with special effects, we tend to be like Toto, wanting to pull back the curtain on the Great and Powerful Oz. With Roger Daltry of The Who, we sing, "I won't get fooled again."

It's hard to be a person of faith when you're born in a nation of Doubting Thomases. We're not going to check our intellects at the door. Some of us have polished them to a fine sheen at the best graduate schools. In an age of science, gold teeth look to us to be some kind of hoax. People lie all the time, and the religious
crowd so earnestly desires to believe.

Why shouldn't they fudge the facts a bit?

Yet, at the end of the day, I believe in a God who is still in the healing business. I can't explain the gemstones, but when Wilson interviews a man who was
murdered, raised from the dead, and then converted his murderer (who subsequently became a preacher), I find the story compelling.

It reminds me of Paul of Tarsus, and I choose to believe. All of us who call ourselves "believers" (believing in stuff we can't see) at some point have to make that choice. What's your experience with doubt and faith?

Also, check out:

• Heidi Baker expects miracles - so should you
• Story of a friend raised from the dead