You can never go home again...but I guess you can shop there
Deconstruction of where you started with faith or belief can lead to a lot of things, including walking away from faith or belief in God. But it also can and does include the option of throwing out what wasn't real or grounded in truth and re-sorting what you have kept in ways that align more closely with all that.
From a lot of conversations and reading, I see that people who go through big things like divorce, loss from death of someone close, loss of health, lifestyle or identity, or other world-shaking kinds of things seem to grasp the idea most. Probably because it is "forced" on to you and there's no "going back".
Once you are spit out of what is known and comfortable, there's really nothing left to lose. Now, that doesn't mean that a lot of people don't stand at the door they were shoved out of and bang on it for a long time - maybe the rest of their life - wanting to be let back in.
A lot of people do bang on that door, or at least revisit it a lot. There's a sense or hope of "Maybe if I do ____, I can get back in and life will feel normal again." But normal is gone. It was tied to a reality that existed because it had not been interrupted and you cannot undo the interruption.
In a lot of those situations, people just do not know what else to do. What they have known is all they've known. There are other things around them to learn, experience, and know, but they're hard to see or begin to hold on to because they don't look or feel like what has been left behind.
Some simply wallow in it for the rest of their time. Some begin to take small steps out into a new reality, led mainly by what feels good and what returns a chemical/mental "green light" for them. Others step out in faith, knowing what "works" probably won't feel right for a while, but that it will pay off, given time.
There's a lot of psychology and sociology in all that - some complicated stuff. But you don't have to understand all that to work on it and move from point A to B or wherever. You do have to learn to be uncomfortable at times and that it's okay to be uncomfortable since it's probably temporary anyway.
Some people get bogged down in the pride or shame of not knowing what's going on because they're still using old groups, old ways of life, old whatever as their frame of reference. Old frames of reference can still be helpful going forward, as long as you use them for understanding and not affirmation.
"You can never go home again, Oatman...but I guess you can shop there" IYKYK
More on all that processing and unpacking another time, but here's a few things that have become new because what was old wasn't working anymore:
Accepting God's invitation, his grace, etc - it's not just for a certain slice of people - it's for anyone who will accept it. I think the "accept it" is probably the hard kernel I had to work through because of my cofC vs. Baptist background - we worked hard to explain why you couldn't just "accept Jesus".
I still think people struggle with that because they struggle with "going to church" being wrapped up with knowing God, denominational differences tied to an "us vs. them" mentality, and are worried that they're going to do something wrong and make God mad, etc.
If nothing else, being able to hear the message that, in Christ, all that was bad between people and God has been taken care of and that he invites you to know him and not worry about all the stuff you probably are encouraged to worry about from a lot of religious groups - that's a hard thing for a lot of people.
A lot of religious groups and people want you to get and understand and believe all the they hold to be important and so the reaction they often have is to quickly scare you into believing that you can mess this up with God pretty easily and either "lose your salvation" or not "be blessed" in this life.
2 Peter 1 reminds us that we can certainly begin to lose focus and "drift" back into things that waste our time and steal our confidence with God. Peter reminds us to lean into the good things - to cultivate a way of thinking and living that is helpful SO THAT we don't forget what WE HAVE already.
Most people who are believers that I'm around struggle with that because the dominant message out there is that you need to avoid sin so you don't tick off God and make him take you off his nice list. But that is a point of view that we bring to scripture, not what scripture actually says.
If fear is what is needed to continually drive us to "be good", then we've missed something about the good news of God in Jesus and are having to do a lot of mental and verbal gymnastics to explain away a lot of the things in the New Testament, usually by projecting our assumptions on to cherry-picked verses.
Learning to interact with other believers without the need for a hierarchy that replaces God's Spirit. That's a weird thought, isn't it? Most of us - self-included - lean on someone being in charge or responsible so that we can point our finger and say, "They said..." or "I'm just doing what I was told by...".
There is a lot of freedom in not having freedom. You can rest easy that you don't have to think. You can feel better that someone else is in control and, if need be, you can hide behind them and their decision to lead you in certain directions, if things go south.
We like pastors or teacher or professors because we can learn a lot from them. And we can 100%. But God didn't give us those people who have a gift of teaching or persuading to replace him actually guiding us through his Spirit. Many of them will gladly take that role on because it's a mutually beneficial thing.
But we miss out on so much when we let someone else be God's voice in our soul and not let God himself be the one we interact with. And I know that there are plenty of people who think that's crazy and I 100% get that too. Just because we're not aware of it or used to it doesn't mean it's not an option.
Usually, most people who occupy the role of minister or other religious leader are just doing what they've learned from many before them. I know because I was one for a long time. We never said it, but a LOT of what's taught is to make sure you and your organization get paid. Not a lot of people "doing it for free".
I don't mean to throw everyone who does that under the bus or say that people who have that as a job should not get paid for doing it, but to acknowledge that there is a degree to which it is always colored with the need to make sure bills are paid, because a lot of "the flock" aren't that invested.
Many in those positions have to create things for you to be invested in. They usually build on obvious needs and concerns and expand from there. Family, kids, health, a good life, and eventually anything else that keeps your attention and looks successful, all the way up through politics and social justice.
Not saying that any of that is wrong to talk about or work on, just that it's a pretty short trip from the "foolishness of the gospel" to "I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos, or I am of Cephas, or I am of Jesus" (see 1 Corinthians 1 for more on what that means).
People have gifts ranging from knowledge they can share, abilities they can share, and other things like that. God doesn't put them "in charge" of you. You are still the only one who can walk with God for you. A pastor can't do it for you. Don't be captive to someone who might not realize what they're doing.
A lot of life just "is". We often talk about "God's will" or "God's plan" or the way things are or are not going for us in relationship to how much money we have, what kind of relationships we have, our health, the government, etc - but most often they are not connected in ways that we might think.
Sure, in some cases, if you "live a godly life" as defined by some, you *might* be more successful or "blessed". But there are plenty of times when that same godly life gets you into serious trouble. And there are even more times when it doesn't "do" anything for you, positively or negatively.
We make the association between God and life in ways that often appear to reflect what a combination of advertisers and evangelists would say if they were putting together an PR campaign. But if you read through the scriptures, you don't ever see that kind of relationship. It usually what we project on it.
Plenty of people in scripture trusted and depended on God and were not successful in life. Most all the apostles died a horrible death because of their faith. Many believers had their livelihoods taken from them and could not "name it, claim it" or "manifest" their way out of their situation.
Sure, we should pray about everything. Paul reminds us in Philippians 4 to bring it all to God, but he doesn't say that God will give us everything we're asking for. Instead he says God will give us peace. He goes on to say that even he had learned to be content when his prayers weren't answered like he wanted.
A lot of churches work hard at being the answer to prayer. They want to create environments in which people feel safe, have plenty, aren't suffering, and can come for healing, etc. Most do an okay job of that with a certain slice of life, but struggle with those whose needs are too great or too different.
There is nothing wrong with being the answer to prayer. I think that's probably the way God answers a lot of prayer - through his people. But let's say that and not paint a mysterious picture of God doing maybe doing something if we "get it all right first" or "pray hard enough". Just be the answer for prayer.
God will do what he will do. Sometimes he'll give guidance/provision in ways that we'd never have imagined. Often, though, he'll do it through people. That's what Romans 12 and other places in scripture are about - his work being done through people who have learned to see life through his eyes.
That's enough for today.
Peace and goodwill.
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