Rethinking Faith: Beliefs about God, a Wrestling Match, and Residual Evangelical Guilt
This month let's ponder our beliefs about God, explore an inspiring wrestling match, and question our residual evangelical guilt.
Rethinking Faith: November 2024
Welcome to the November issue of Rethinking Faith. This month we will take time to ponder our beliefs about God, explore a truly inspirational wrestling match story from Aaron Duvall, and question our residual evangelical guilt.
What Do You Believe About God?
It started with a question, a challenging question from a reader:
I’ve been following you for a while, but not closely. To date I can’t say that I’ve seen you write much about who you think God really is. That’s why I asked: because I’m not sure what you actually believe, beyond the idea that a lot of people don’t believe what they should.
I try to learn from everyone. It seems you mostly write about deconstruction, but I haven’t read everything. Have you written anything that explains what you believe about God?
I’ll be honest, I felt a bit of conviction in that question. Have I become so focused on talking about what I don’t believe that I’ve failed to talk about what I DO believe? Have I fixated on deconstruction to the point of ignoring the very Real God that I’ve found as I rebuilt my faith? The next morning I sat down and wrote out a simple statement of three things I believe about God. There is a lot more that I could say, but I was writing for Threads and they have a word count. And yes, there is a typo; it should say, “here are three beliefs I now hold.” Good times.
This post led to an amazing thread on Threads of people sharing who they have discovered God to be. I was stuck by how most of the answers lacked the Christianese language that many of us are used to hearing (and are often triggered by). Most of the replies weren’t Sunday School answers. Most of them were from people who seemed to have wrestled, doubted, and discovered a God who was only bigger and better than any religious god they might have experienced. Here are some of my favorite replies.
“God has big shoulders and can handle our bitterness and anger. He will lovingly listen to us until we are done spewing. He will then show us how much He loves and adores us. This is what he did for me after I hated him for 25 years.” ~ Cindy
“God is not afraid of our doubts or feelings. He already knows so trying to lie to him is futile. So rage away. Cry, scream, say what you need to say, God will listen and then envelop us with His peace.” ~ Jade
“I kinda related to the idea of God as the most loving and merciful Father, but since I have abandonment issues, it was hard for me to understand. As a wife, whose husband loves me with a fierce, sacrificial tenderness and capacity for calm and patience, I am beginning to have an inkling of how much He loves me.” ~ Nikki
“God is always there. In, beside, in front, above, behind, below & to the side. Even at our worst God is there. Nothing separates us except our feelings that we are separated, but that is not the reality.” ~ Peter
“He is the most successful Guerrilla/Rebel of all time and his weapon is LOVE.” ~ Myriam
I’m overwhelmed by God’s intense pursuit of people who often want nothing to do with Him. The more I learn and study Scripture in context and without those old voices in my head, the more I see a God who has never separated Himself from us despite our sin. We are the ones who left. We are the ones who walked away. And God continually pursued. He is the good father waiting with open arms for his son to return. He is the good shepherd out finding His wandering sheep. And He is the good woman who never stopped looking for her coin until she found it. (All of these parables are found in Luke 15.)
That, friends, is some of what I believe about God!
“At my worst I wanted to fight. In my arrogance and anger, I wanted a good old-fashioned wrestling match with God. And for that, I felt guilty.” ~ Aaron Duvall
“I met her eyes smiling as best I could.
“God. Is. Good.”
I affirmed something that I had said, from the pulpit no less, hundreds if not thousands of times. Something I had quoted in hospital rooms, promised to dying people, swore to college students during pastoral care times and clung to during some of my darkest and scariest moments. Yet, as I was staring at my wife, who three days before had been diagnosed with what we were told was Stage 3 breast cancer, I no longer had his praise in my lungs or on my lips.”
Aaron Duvall is a Wesleyan/Nazarene pastor in Idaho that I follow on Threads. He recently shared this article that he wrote back in 2020 about his response to his wife’s battle with breast cancer. As I read it, I was hit by the raw authenticity of his words. I’ve also faced gut-wrenching pain and places where I wondered if God was aware of my situation or if He even cared. I know what this feels like.
“After three days of calling God out for being silent and absent, I started to realize that I wasn’t ready to hear from God. I wasn’t ready to see him. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure what I would do if he actually showed up. But God did show up, as he always does. He showed up at the end of the sermon.”
I’ve read this essay more than once and each time I am amazed by the way God showed up for Aaron in exactly the way he needed right at that time. It’s a beautiful story with an important message, and I hope you are as encouraged by it as I was! If you missed my first link, I’ll leave you a big one:
It might put tears in your eyes, but I promise you will be glad you read it.
What Do We Do with our Residual Evangelical Guilt?
I started spiritual direction this week. It’s something I’ve been interested in for a while and God randomly opened a door for me to work with a woman in North Carolina who is training to be a spiritual director and needed someone to direct.
If you aren’t familiar with spiritual direction, it is basically a contemplative practice of deep listening and spiritual guidance. The director listens to their directee talk, asks questions, and gently points out where God might be moving. I think. I’ve only done it once.
I don’t know what exactly I was expecting, but I do know I wasn’t expecting to spend most of the session in tears.
Nancy had me start by sharing whatever I wanted to talk about and then she asked me some questions. Somehow we got to how I spend time with Jesus. I instantly felt guilt because my “quiet time” in the morning—which is supposed to be coffee, Bible reading, and journaling—has become increasingly filled with social media. Scrolling some, but mostly planning thoughts to share on Threads, Instagram, or my Substack notes. I told Nancy about it.
She said, “Hmmm.” Then she asked me why that time in my morning had to look a certain way. She wondered if Jesus could still be part of my social media experience since I’m trying to create things about Him. Couldn’t we do it together?
I started crying. I didn’t even realize how much guilt and shame I was holding for failing at the right kind of “quiet time.” Nancy then wondered if there were ways I could bring Jesus with me into my day instead of fixating on one special time. Yes, yes there are.
Wow, talk about residual evangelical guilt.
Nancy goes to an Episcopal church. She has a different framework she uses to approach life. She doesn’t have the baggage I do. It was good to hear.
Theologically I’m still pretty globally evangelical. There are still pieces of worldwide evangelical tradition that I think are good. At the same time, I’ve discarded a lot of American evangelical tradition. And yet, despite all the deconstruction and reconstruction I’ve done, apparently there are still pieces of “we are the ones who do this the right way” that are hanging on tight. Like quiet times.
Thanks to Nancy, I’ve been inspired to:
Take moments throughout the day to put my feet in the grass and breathe deep while acknowledging God’s presence.
Actively invite Him into my creative processes while embracing my gifts.
Remember a favorite space where I used to seek God and go there in my imagination any time I want to.
I’ll still journal, drink coffee, and read Scripture. But if I spend that time writing instead, I’m gonna kick the guilt and shame out the door. Because there isn’t one right way to seek the Person of Jesus. Whew!
What residual evangelical guilt might you still be holding on to? This is your permission to let it go!
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, or comments. You can find me on Threads, Instagram, Facebook, my website, and on my original podcast. I’d love to connect with you on any of these places!
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Thank you for taking the time to write more about God, Christy. I like it. ❤️