Ch. 3, Pt. 4: Did God Trick Me?
On the “other side” of the most unsettled season of my life, I was not the same and God was not the same to me.
All my old certainties had stopped working.
But I had managed to wedge a broom handle in the crack of the door of faith to keep the following possibilities open:
1) God could be real
2) God might not have abandoned me
3) Maybe I heard God wrong or misunderstood what he was doing (through Overflow)
Maybe God tricked me?
Yeah, I smell it: the stench of bad theology. Tricking people shouldn’t be a thing a loving God does (bc: freewill), right? But, I’ve also caught whiffs of MUCH worse theology in pleeenty of sermons, so let’s follow the trail and see where it goes…
The thing is, if I had known that trying to start a church would turn my world, faith, “career,” relationships — all the most important things to me — upside down: I wouldn’t have done it.
If I had known we would fail by the church-world's standards (embarrassing) and I would be left feeling broken and confused, angry and fragmented…
If I had known how much it would hurt, how much it would change me...
If I had known the trajectory (spoiler alert!): that I would end up an ex-pastor, post-evangelical, part-time atheist, full-fledged believer in evolution, LGBTQ+ affirming, and a Democratic voter! There’s NO WAY I would have done it!
I KNOW ME! I would have foreseen being "deceived by the world" — the slide down the “slippery slope” — and been scared sh*tless! I would have holed myself up in some established church, walls-up, bubble culture...where I could remain safe and blissfully ignorant.
So, maybe God tricked me — despite myself — to move me somewhere new?
Maybe he “called” us to plant a church under false pretenses: we thought we were starting a church FOR the outsiders, but it was really a call to BECOME outsiders? Not to be the “saviors,” but to be saved (from our savior complexes?).
Maybe he brought us through all this: through confusion and failure and the death of a dream so that we could come out the other side different people and learn to see him and the world differently?
What I Don’t Know
I don’t know if this is the big answer to WHY God did or didn’t do what he did or didn’t do in Overflow — maybe it’s just me looking for answers where there aren’t any (we humans are story-telling, meaning-making machines!).
Maybe I’m rationalizing what is clear dis-confirmation of God’s existence, to try to sustain a belief I prefer. I know I’ve been conditioned to respond to suffering this way…with excuses…with rationalizations…with answers.
(Part of me is sad that I prefer a God who tricks me than a God who isn’t real. That I want to believe the ole “God gives you what you need, not what you want” adage. That making excuses for God comes so naturally to me — a well-worn neuropathway, difficult to re-wire. That I lost my sense of self, walked on eggshells, and normalized shame in pursuit of God for so long.)
That is not healthy faith.
A healthy faith is not controlling or coercive. It’s not fear or shame-based. It’s not in denial, minimizing reality.
It’s eyes-wide-open, able to consider outside perspectives, and willing to be honest about what you find or don’t find (in pursuit of God) and how you feel about it.
A healthy faith is a FREEING faith.
I’m reminded of something Jesus said in the middle of describing his relationship with his Father (Matthew 11, the Message version):
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Recovery.
Real rest.
Unforced.
Nothing heavy or ill-fitting.
Learning to live freely.
Lightly.
How does one live freely and lightly? My eyes fill with tears at the prospect.
It’s like Jesus knew how hard and complicated it is to be human. It’s like he knew the abuses of religion. It’s like he knew about grief and loss and trying your best and failure. It’s like he knew about the shame and the eggshells. It’s like he knew about health and unhealth, healing and harm, wholeness and brokenness, flourishing and confinement. It’s like he cared about our freedom, our autonomy, our agency, our dignity.
It’s like he had our best selves in mind.
It’s like he wanted so much more for us.
What I Do Know
Whether God did or did not trick Gabe and I (leading us to church plant and fail, directly causing our distress, knowing it was ultimately for our good) — here’s one thing I do know:
My failure to achieve success, and God’s failure to do what I expected, forced me to doubt.
It forced me to look closer at my pursuits, motivations, and definitions, and see that they were lacking — all wrong from the start.
Doubt drew me out of the assumptions that were so unhealthy for my soul.
Doubt set me free from the guilt, shame, and fears I carried so dutifully.
Doubt tore down my old, useless prisons.
Doubt took me to a space where I could stop pretending and tell the truth.
Doubt opened my heart to greater empathy for the human beings all around me.
Doubt set me on a new trajectory.
And I couldn’t be more grateful.
Honesty > Certainty
Anne Lamott says, “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty” (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith). And that makes sense to me.
Certainty doesn’t require vulnerability or facing fears, but doubting what you always thought was true — sheesh, it’s scary!
Doubt — the very thing we often label as a cop-out or cowardice — is PROOF of how much we care (what might be called faith-full-ness)!
Doubting is brave. It means being willing to admit you were wrong (humility). It means venturing into the unknown all alone (courage). It often means digging deeper (even though it hurts), wrestling something to the ground (through blood, sweat, and tears), weeks and months and years of anguish, and even (a kind of) death.
For me, it was the death of a dream.
The death of who I thought I was and wanted to be.
The death of God, or at least my old conception of him.
A letting go…
But it became the beauty of new life. A fresh start.
I had been confined to such a small, closed space, before (and I was actively confining others to that same space)! But something changed along the way of my doubt and disorientation.
The more I let go, the more the doors and windows started opening to me. The more I let my Old Self die, the more stale and stagnant air was replaced with a fresh breeze!
Yeah, doubt dropped us off in a weird, lonely stage of life where we didn’t know where or with whom we fit. But I wouldn’t go back and change a thing about the path we took.
Because, in this new place, I was noticeably lighter. I could breathe deep breaths again. I could smile, and be enough ❤ I was free.
Crisis #2 updated profile:
What stopped working? Calling, “God’s plan for my life,” my identity, certainty
How would you describe the crisis? Very personal “Dark Night of the Soul” or de-conversion. Existential, gut-wrenching. At the deepest level of identity & belonging. Breaking life into before and after.
What was the timeframe? the rawness of “the dark night” stayed with me for 2-3 years (2015-2017 especially)
What resources did you find helpful? How God Changes Your Brain by Andrew Newberg, When God Talks Back by T.M. Luhrmann, Finding God in the Waves by Mike McHargue, Love Wins by Rob Bell, Out of Sorts by Sarah Bessey, The Sin of Certainty by Pete Enns (fave!), Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor, Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown.
How did you resolve the dissonance? There was no going back to “before.” I knew if I were to try to walk the Old Path of “secure” and “certain” faith, I would be nothing more than a phony. So, I stood outside — apart from my life with God — to gain perspective and assess its health.
I found a new equilibrium in allowing space for UNCERTAINTY. Rather than rush to rebuild beliefs, I resolved the crisis with acceptance of my own skepticism.
Vulnerability and honesty set me free from the shame associated with doubt and the fear of being swept away into disbelief. My truthful admissions snuffed out the anger, bitterness, and cynicism that were bubbling up inside me. The more I was able to name my fears (especially out loud), the smaller they became. Health, recovery, and real rest became my focus…I’d leave everything else in the rearview mirror.
Stay tuned for chapter 4 (leaving church).