For The One Deconstructing Her Faith
Maybe it was something the pastor said, a line you read in a book, or when inexplicable tragedy entered your life. Mom got cancer. He got hit by a car. A pandemic stripped everything away.
My journey of deconstructing my faith started when I was a teenager in youth group. At the time, I couldn't make sense of why the Christian adults in my life didn't live lives that reflected the faith they preached.
As a sixteen-year-old, I didn't have a place to ask questions or get honest answers. Growing up in the church, I already knew the stock apologetics answers I'd get if I asked a Christian my questions.
I needed to talk to people who would be straight with me, people who weren't trying to convince me that they were right, people who had wrestled with tough questions themselves.
That journey to find answers took me to 34 countries on 4 continents, a dozen jobs and hundreds of books in every section of the bookstore.
Now, over ten years later, I have a profoundly more nuanced understanding of the Christian faith and what it means to know, follow and love God. At times, the journey of unpacking my faith was desperately lonely and painful. I didn't have a relationship with my parents for years. I cut myself off from all my Christian friends, the girls with whom I had grown up. I stopped reading the Bible and praying, and of course, I stopped going to church.
I wish someone had told me that it's okay to question God at the start of my deconstruction journey. God is not afraid of my questions. In fact, I believe He loves them.
I've come to understand that he has wired some of us to pry the intellectual depths. Not all sixteen-year-olds have questions about church denominations. Yet, even if you're not the type to think of rebuttals to your pastor's sermons, there comes a time in every Christian's life when God will lead you beyond your current belief structure.
Here's what to do if you find yourself in a season of deconstructing your faith.
1. Know that you're not alone.
Author Richard Foster writes in his book, Prayer,
"Times of seeming desertion and absence and abandonment appear to be universal among those who have walked this path of faith before us. We might just as well get used to the idea that, sooner or later, we, too, will know what it means to feel forsaken by God."
Countless Christians have ventured into the spiritual wilderness with God and re-emerged with newfound hope and meaning. The 16th-century mystic St. John of the Cross called it the 'dark night of the soul'. During my darkest hours, I was comforted knowing that my spiritual desolation was not a unique experience.
As a creative, I was familiar with the stories of artists and musicians going through dark periods in their lives, so I had a grid for what was happening to me. We usually only hear dark nights it these artists overdose or commit suicide. Still, the experience is much more common than we think.
2. Let go of the guilt.
This may not be happening because you are 'backsliding' or did something wrong. It could be a move of God.
For years I carried the acute sense that there was more to Christianity than what I was taught. I cannot point to a particular moment that this revelation came to me as a teenager, but this 'knowing' lodged itself in the core of my being. The more widely I read, the more I realized that sense was right. There is more to Christianity, a whole lot more than fits into four worship songs and a 30-minute sermon.
It took me a long time to let go of the guilt around the years that I never went to church or prayed. However, I look back on those years now with gratitude: they were a gift from God. Those years of searching gave me compassion and an understanding for the seeker's heart that I wouldn't have otherwise.
3. Give yourself time.
Picking apart your Christian faith and finding where you stand with God is not going to happen in a week. If you feel like you need more than one Sunday off church, take it.
I didn't go to church for years, and when I did return, it meant something very different to me.
Sometimes I meet someone who feels the need to find a new church or leave the church, and I encourage her to take a time out. I believe that is God speaking to her. God wants to meet her in new ways. In my time away from the church, I came to know God as my caretaker, my confidante, my refuge and most importantly, my friend.
It could take you months or years before the dust from deconstruction settles, and you can't rush the process. You have permission to wrestle and wail, to weep and wait.
4. Trust that God is the one guiding you.
There are times that God deliberately 'hides' himself from us so that we can come to know him in other ways. Richard Foster puts it like this, "In the very act of hiddenness God is slowly weaning us of fashioning him in our own image."
I know that might sound cruel, but I've come to see these periods where God changes his 'form' as a gift. They allow me to stop being a child who is constantly asking for treats. These periods give me a time to become an adult in the faith, knowing that my Father loves me, even when he's not giving me treats.
When God starts to break apart your ideas of him, it could be that you are being invited to know him to whollynew ways.
5. Follow the impulse to find answers.
There were periods where I shut God and Christianity out and went about building my life on my own terms. It was only when I kept hiding roadblocks my attempts to build a business, that I finally stopped doing and started seeking. For me, that looked like reading countless books on spirituality, philosophy, religion and personal development. I watched youtube videos and lectures, attended seminars, and signed up for online courses.
On the outside, these periods of seeking would have looked like I was 'rebelling' and turning away from God, but I didn't care. I needed answers. In the end, all of my seeking gave me a sense of clarity and confidence in God's love that I wouldn't have found otherwise. I know how good it feels to be the prodigal who returned home and discovered the Father's love.
In ‘traditional’ Christian circles, there is a fear of looking outside of scripture or Christian books for answers. This is unfortunate because it can make Christians ignorant. In my experience, you don't need to be afraid. I have seen God use non-Christian books to reveal himself to me.
I am sure of what it says in Jeremiah 29:13, "when you seek me with all your heart, you will find me."
When we are sincerely searching for truth, we will find it.
6. Keep an open heart.
Although you might be frustrated with God or Christianity, it's still possible to keep your heart soft. Keep your eyes open with wonder. Let God change you and your beliefs. If you get to the point where you don't even want to use the word God (I've been there), let life change you. Let yourself change. God works in the depths of our spirits.
Paula Darcy writes, "God comes to you disguised as your life." As you go on your deconstruction journey, when you think you can't stand another cheesy Christian Instagram post, keep your heart open to other ways God might be speaking to you.
7. Be Brave.
It's going to take courage to actually look at intense questions like, "Why does God allow suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people? Does believing in God make in any difference?" Don't avoid the questions you have, even if the church does. Trust that the questions, which I believe are invitations from God, are leading you somewhere you need to go.
One day, you will arrive at your new destination: a spiritual and emotional and psychological place where are you certain of your identity, where you are going and what your whole life is about.
When this happens, God may be more beautiful, good and true than you could have imagined.
The exact revelations and experiences you have along the way will be unique, but take heart, knowing that you are not alone.
God is with you, even if you have to stop believing in Him for a while.
Infinite Love,
Anita
