The Unexpected Freedom of "I am done with it"

I haven’t stopped by to say much here. I haven’t had much to say. However, today, I have something to share.

For the first time, I consider “leaving my religion.” There is an unexpected shift coming from that consideration.

I’ve always thought of myself as just alienated from it, intending to return. But l must face it. in the last decade I have been a Christian not in name, nor in witness, nor in my inward life.

After reading this article last night about a man who left his religion all together, and his experience now … well, I’d never considered just leaving and saying, “That’s it.” I’ve always said, “I miss it.” (I’d said it the very night before, sitting with friends around a fire.) But never, “I am done with it.”

I notice, however, an interesting shift in myself on the other side of “I am done with it.” Habits that are not good for me, that are in the Christian parlance sin, that are destructive to my heart and my time, are today unpalatable. 

Not because, as it has been most of my life, I am letting someone down—God—but because I am bringing destruction on myself. I am hard wired to please people, and living as I have—this last decade--knowing I am not pleasing the most fundamental person in my life, again God, has created this inner battle that has brought not only depression but also inaction and indecision.

I didn’t expect this shift. I had no idea it would occur. The whole point of the gospel is freedom from self and the “desires of the flesh” (whether it be lust or laziness, etc) but what I encountered instead in this time—and perhaps all of my Christian life—is this inability to satisfy God.

I recognize (and confessed for years) that it is the blood of Christ, the working of the Spirit, and the grace of God that are to empower me. That it’s not my work or efforts, but the daily renewal of Christ within me that is bringing the changes and the fruit. At the end of the day, however, I was always consumed with “I am not enough” and “I will always fall short” and, again, as I am wired, I could only thrive in my Christian life in the brief moments I was living in victory over my cyclical battles.

I have always hungered for purity. For a clean heart. (Again, not only with lust, but with jealousy, with hate, with all of the parts of my “fallen nature.”) I desired it, pushed for it. As I grew, I labeled my Christianity not merely, cultural, but “devotional”—a life that was spent reading, studying, and praying; that had a closer adherence to the scripture, that "vital connection to the vine." This is how I lived because it is what my nature required. (Today I look at many of those around me who call themselves Christians and what I see is no fruit. Drunkenness. Foul language. Men who are married, not honoring their wives in thought or speech. This is not to call out some set of rules they should be adhering to. It's that the words "I am a Christian" should really mean something, that the encounter with Christ should change you.)

Which brings to me to what began my battle with my Christianity in the first place. I do not trust man any more. I do not trust (many) spiritual leaders, having been not only bent, but completely broken by them.** I tried it on my own, to live a life aside from the church, but what I found was, again, cyclical. Excited about the Bible and returning, and then wandering. Losing it and then feeling bad about it. It’s not worth it. It’s destructive to who I am.

My world view has been (since I was 13, and before) shaped by the Bible. My rights and wrongs, my understanding of mercy and compassion come from there too. What I find (now) is that there is morality outside of Christianity. That these concepts apply. And now that I am accountable to myself, and not some other being, that morality is somehow more authentic.*

“I am done with it.” The release of pressure is astonishing.

But what I know is that my heart has, for so long a place, for Christ that I cannot say I am done with Christianity. I am done with religion. I am done with this accountability I cannot satisfy. (This paragraph is filled with contradictory statements).

This is all new, and again, surprising. Now I will see how I live on the other side of it. See if I can live on the other side of it.

*I read that sentiment in the article above and I thought it ridiculous. "Living your life accountable to 'you?' That's dumb." What I find is that living my life to my convictions is more true than living my life to someone else's code--regardless of how fundamental that code was to forming those convictions. I was drawn to Christianity because of a call in my heart. The call was there. Christianity echoed it. It is not chicken and the egg. The truths resided in my heart before.

**There are lots of good people doing good things from pure places in their hearts.