Faith in Freefall

A story for anyone who has ever felt lost in their faith.

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It’s difficult to describe what the darkest part of my deconstruction journey felt like.

After concluding that the science behind evolution was correct, I went into a spiritual freefall and ultimately found myself standing at the edge of atheism—a place I’d never expected to be. After all, I’d believed in God from the time I was a child and I’d placed my faith in Jesus when I was a young teen. I’d felt called to ministry and gone to Bible college and seminary. I’d spent decades in some form of full-time ministry. God had always been a part of my life and it was unthinkable that that could change.

Yet there I was, in the middle of the dark forest, overwhelmed by doubt and questions. So overwhelmed, in fact, that I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore—or even if I believed at all.

If you’ve never been in a place like that, let me tell you…it’s scary.

I don’t know how long I was in that dark place but I was there quite a while. I sat many days in the middle of the dark forest, alone with my questions, wondering if I’d ever leave the confusion—or the forest—behind.

God, who had always been so near, now seemed far away. As I sat there with my questions I wondered if he even existed. And if he did, how could I reconcile my understanding of science and the universe with him?

Thankfully, it wasn’t always dark. Although there were many days when I doubted everything, on other days the sun would peek through the gloom and I’d feel the cool breeze of God’s presence. But just when I’d allow myself to think that the worst had passed, the next day the sky would darken and I’d be back where I was before.

Rachel Held Evans’s posthumously published book, Wholehearted Faith, has a chapter titled: “On the Days When I Believe.” I heard that phrase for the first time when I attended the 2019 Evolving Faith Conference in Denver. Rachel, co-founder of the conference, had tragically passed away a few months earlier and her absence was keenly felt. By that time, I had embarked on my reconstruction journey and was slowly making my way out of the forest. At least that’s what I thought at the time. But that phrase, “On the days when I believe,” was a perfect description of where I was at my lowest point.

Some days I believed; others I didn’t.

There are many possible outcomes to faith deconstruction. Some walk away from their faith entirely. Others come full circle and return to what they believed before they deconstructed. Still others choose not to walk away from their faith but come back changed.

I was at the point where I needed to find a way out of the forest. But I was stuck.

I wish I could say a bright and shining light broke through the fog and I found my way out into a beautiful green meadow with wildflowers all around. Perhaps that’s how I’d write it if I were writing a fantasy story. In fiction it’s called a deus ex machina, “God out of the machine,” where an unexpected (sometimes supernatural) occurrence solves a plot problem.

But that’s not reality.

In reality I had a choice to make. I could walk away from God or I could press forward and see if there was a way out of the forest.

I chose to press forward.

Why?

Partly because I couldn’t conceive of my life without God in it; partly because I remembered how I came to faith in the first place; partly because I couldn’t live without hope.

I wasn’t raised in an evangelical church and didn’t have doctrine and Bible stories drilled into me from the time I was a toddler. We went to church on Sundays and my dad said the Lord’s prayer with me every night, but that was the extent of my training. I never opened a Bible until I was in my teens.

I came to faith in Christ because God drew me to himself without any of the “normal” influences. He sought me; I didn’t seek him.*

Even in the midst of my confusion and the darkness of the forest, I couldn’t deny that.

I couldn’t deny what God had done in my life.

And when I began to focus on that, bit by bit I began to remember the times when God had worked. The times he’d been there for me in inexplicable ways. And those events became like a trail of tiny points of light leading me forward.

And I’ll talk about those next time.

TAKEAWAY: I don’t know where you are in your spiritual journey, but if you find yourself deep in the forest like I was, don’t rush to get out. Take time and wait. Perhaps God will meet you there, as He met me.

*I won’t retell my conversion story here, but you can read it in posts #2-4 in this series. (link: A Deconstruction Observed)