Human

The following post is the final part of a series describing my story of deconstructing my Christian faith and reconstructing it within orthodoxy rather than choosing to deconvert. Make sure to read up on Part 1 and Part 2 before moving on!

Where Else Would I Go?

There’s a song by John Mark Pantana that goes like this:

I don’t know anything about anything anymore. All I know is You, more than I did before.

I had this song on repeat after God exposed me to myself. I really felt like I knew nothing — except I knew Jesus is who He says He is. For a reason I can only explain as a real and quiet love, Jesus was the only thing I was left willing to hold onto with a closed hand, that I couldn’t fully walk away from.

Everything else was up for grabs.

In the wake of my own exposure to my sinful nature, I was slammed with all kinds of questions, many I had never thought to ask before and many I had never dared to ask before but couldn’t help but ask now. Many of these questions sounded like:

• Why can I trust the Bible?
• What does it mean to be saved? 
• What does Jesus mean when He says to have faith like a child?
• Who am I? What does it mean for me to be made in the Image of God? To be human? What does my broken and sickly body have to do with my identity? 
• How do I reconcile who God is with my suffering?
• Who can I trust?
• Do I really need all the spiritual stuff?
• What is love?
• What is faith?
• What is grace?
• What’s the deal with the Church, with community? Do I really need it?

As you might guess, these questions did not come from an innocent, wondrous place within me. These questions sprung up out of deep wells of pain, loneliness, hopelessness, grief, anxiety, sickness in my body, and anger towards God and the people in my life.

Whatever framework I had for the Christian life was shattered. I was spilling out everywhere and I knew I needed to rebuild my theology. 

The Beginning of Reconstruction

My favorite Bible teacher, Phylicia Masonheimer, says this about theology:

Theology is the study of the nature of God and His truth.

Bruce Shelley says in his book Church History in Plain Language that

The answer to bad theology can never be no theology. It must be good theology. God gave us minds, and surely he expects us to use them in thinking about His truth. Charles Williams, the English writer, was right: “Man was intended to argue with God.” That means theology … theology is rational thought about God.

And lastly, Oswald Chambers said one of my favorites:

My goal is God Himself. Not joy, nor peace. Not even blessing; but Himself, my God.

I had to learn that God can take my questions and my doubt. He can handle my anger, and felt sense of betrayal, and my grief.

My options did not include shoving these feelings away anymore and continuing on in Christianity as if everything was fine — it wasn’t. It was not possible.

I could either run away with these questions and feelings on my back, or carry them still, but to the throne of God. The answer was plain to me: Where else would I go?

I needed to know what the core of Christianity taught, what had endured for two millennia — the things that people before me stood their ground and died for. That was the Christianity I wanted.

More than Belief — Allegiance

What I discovered first was that

• Romans 10:9 — “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
• Ephesians 2:8-9 — “For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift — not from works, so that no one can boast.”
• 1 John 5:3-5 — “For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands. And his commands are not a burden, because everyone who has been born of God conquers the world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith. Who is the one who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”
• Luke 8:42-48 — Jesus heals the woman with the issue of blood and says to her, “your faith has saved you.“
• Luke 17:11-19 — Jesus heals ten men with leprosy, and only one comes back to give glory to God and thank Him; to this man, Jesus says, “your faith has saved you.”
• Luke 18:35-42 — Jesus heals a blind man and says to him, “your faith has saved you.”
• Hebrews 11:1-2 — “Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. For by this our ancestors were approved.” 

Nothing and no one can save me but God, and I receive that salvation “by grace through faith.” Faith has to be more than belief or trust; Scripture tells us that even the demons believe.

In looking at the stories above, faith seems to be a recognition of God in our midst and giving Him our allegiance (Jesus is Lord, Jesus is God) — even if that faith is as small as a mustard seed, allegiance like that is enough to save and secure. After all, Jesus also said that a mustard seed grows to be the biggest of all the garden trees, which means there’s room for our faith to grow, too, by the grace of the Founder and Perfecter of it.

This is why the Gospel really is good news and why the way of Jesus is not a heavy burden — we’re not living holy lives (doing good things) in order to be saved, but because holy is who we are (Phylicia Masonheimer).

Holy is our design, and we can only grow into who we really are by the help of the One who made us as He enables us with His grace to walk in His ways.

Faith Like a Child

Within the Church, many of us have heard the call to “have faith like a child.” Stumped in the middle of this crisis wondering what this meant, someone graciously told me it means I’ve got to stop trying to save myself, and everyone else.

A child knows she is needy, and ideally, she asks her parent for help to fill that need, attaching herself in confidence to her parent because she knows her parent loves her.

One day, I sat by a lake where I watched a young family in front of me. A little girl did a little dance, her mind trying to figure out how she was going to get down to the beach to join her big brother and her father from this short shelf on the lake’s edge. Her father stood and waited for her, watching for what she might do.

“No, I need you to hold me,” the little girl decided, a soft plea for help squeaking out of her throat.

“Here, come to your Papa,” her father said in a gentle response.

He reached his strong arms up toward her and she gingerly fell into them, wrapping her own arms around his neck and her legs around his torso. A sweet giggle escaped her mouth as he carried her and held her close, an instant place of safety created.

She knew her father, recognized that she couldn’t do it on her own, but trusted her father to help and catch her because she knew that he loved her.

This is what it is to have faith like a child.

To Sum It Up

The Gospel starts with exposure to ourselves and acknowledging our need — our lack, our limits, our finitude, our powerlessness, our weakness, our fragility, our propensity to wander — I found myself constantly praying

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Psalm 51:10-12

And

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Psalm 139:23-24

Once we see the true state of ourselves, we have eyes that can see Christ and we can follow faith. In drawing near and staying, even as we struggle, the One who is perfect love will shape us back to our design, our true selves, a work that will be complete when we walk into Paradise. 

I questioned my salvation all the time before and during this whole process. But now, in going back to that song

I don’t know anything about anything anymore. All I know is You

I’ve recently realized that this should have been evidence to me of the assurance of my salvation — 

“I don’t know anything about anything, except You, Jesus. And even that is as small as a mustard seed.”

And with a gentle reply, He says “That’s enough. I can work with that. Your faith has saved you. Now, let Me lead you back to who you really are.” 

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I’ve done a lot of work to rebuild my theology within historical orthodoxy (sound teaching) through this process, and rather than tell you all those details, stay tuned for a resource list of my favorite books, podcasts, and teachers that have helped me find freedom among two thousand years of family history, so that hopefully you can find what you need, too.

If we know each other in our day-to-day lives and you want to know more, let’s grab coffee.