Advent for those deconstructing their faith - Day 6

God.

Is this all true?

Is everything I’ve been believing true?

Right now, I’m craving authenticity, reality, sincerity, TRUTH.

And in the midst of all this chaos, Your word is sounding less and less comforting and more and more hypocritical; less and less secure and more and more twisted.

I find myself reading with a hyper-critical eye, and listening to sermons and prayers with disgust. I am ashamed and embarrassed and kind of afraid of my thoughts as I know they reveal the negative, unbelieving state of my heart.

But, my God, why did you make it so hard to believe in this stuff??!!? I read to my kids about Jonah and Noah and Moses and good lord, it just sounds like a bunch of fairy-tales. I try to wrap up the stories nice and neat with how they all tie-in to Jesus, but I feel like we may as well be talking about the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy.

Can I really believe this?

To my evangelical mind, there’s only one option – I have to believe it. After all, if you admit that one part of the Bible is not true, then how can you believe any of it is true?

I roll my eyes now at how stupid that sounds and how silly I feel for having fallen for that line for decades, but when my sense of belonging was at stake, I was pretty much willing to believe anything.

It’s strange to me that my search for the truth has led me so far away from everything I knew to be true. Jesus said, “the truth shall set you free,” but did He mean for it to set me free from a faith that is built on Him?

As I let go of all these beliefs that were once my truth, and now seem like lies, I see how malleable the “truth” can be. I feel wary… unwilling to commit myself to any such faith ever again.

I don’t want to make the same mistake twice.

I don’t want to just switch out one set of beliefs for another.

Maybe I will just become an atheist. Not even bother with an idea of “god” anymore. That would solve the “truth” problem, wouldn’t it?

And that appeals for a while… until I remember why I am here in the first place. Who or What pushed me into this deconstruction? Who or What slapped me across the face and woke me up and startled me out of my doubt and fear, and wrestled me out of my tightly-held, normal, mainstream life, and dragged me into this wilderness?

This wilderness where I am confronting the truth head-on and no-longer afraid of the answers…

In defiance and anger, I want to say there is no “God!” But, in the stillness, there is a presence – an atmosphere – that is celebrating and joyful and peaceful, and is welcoming me here, and I sense that I have actually won a great victory, and have not really lost anything of value at all.

Words to contemplate:

Moses
On that holy mountain
the lonely man dared not look,
and hid his face.
On that windy outcrop
the single man was deathly afraid
even to lift his eyes above the rocks.
Only when he, lonely and alone,
turned away from what he knew
were the hidden things of God
suddenly before him.
Meister Eckhart “Book of the Heart: Meditations for the restless soul” (as collected and translated by Jon M. Sweeney & Mark S. Burrows)