A Deconstruction Observed, Pt. 24
“I stood at the edge of eternity and beheld only blackness.”
That’s where I was during my darkest times. It wasn’t a pleasant place to be.
I had believed in God from the time I was a young child. I’d placed my faith in Jesus when I was a teen. I’d walked with him for most of my life. Now, I felt as if all that stood between me and a plunge into atheism was a prayer:
“God, please don’t let go of me. And don’t let me let go of you.”
Would it have been possible for me to walk away from God?
In the past I’d have said absolutely not. But now I’m not so sure.*
On December 31st, 2013, Ryan J. Bell, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor announced on Huffpost that he was going to try on atheism as an experiment. He planned to live a year without God. He wrote, “For the next 12 months I will live as if there is no God. I will not pray, read the Bible for inspiration, refer to God as the cause of things or hope that God might intervene and change my own or someone else’s circumstances. I will visit atheist gatherings and try it on.”
[Link to article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-year-without-god_b_4512842]
When I heard about that, it unsettled me deeply. Based on the timeline of my own deconstruction, I’d have been well into the dark forest when this announcement was made. But what was even more disturbing was what happened at the end of Bell’s year-long atheism experiment.
He decided to remain an atheist.
I can’t comment on Bell or the genuineness of his faith. Only God knows people’s hearts. But the timing of his experiment—and its results—couldn’t have been worse for me. It raised the specter of the possibility of walking away from everything I’d believed my whole life. It lurked in the back of my mind whenever waves of doubt swept over me.
As I stood in the middle of my dark forest, I felt as if I had come to a point where I had a choice. I could go my own way or I could press forward with the hope that somehow I’d find a way out, that I’d somehow be able to rebuild. Whether that choice was real or just a product of my struggle, I have no idea. But it felt very real.
And the fact that Bell walked away from God after “experimenting” with atheism made it feel all the more unsettling.
I’m not 100% certain, but I imagine that’s when I began praying, “God, please don’t let go of me. And don’t let me let go of you.”
As I’ve mentioned several times, that prayer isn’t original to me. I read it somewhere and latched onto it as a drowning man clutches a life preserver. Perhaps a better metaphor would be that I was a man hanging from the edge of a cliff and I was clutching God’s hand as he held on to me.
“God, please don’t let go of me; and don’t let me let go of you.”
I prayed that prayer a lot. There were days when I prayed it many times.
And I sincerely believe that God answered that prayer.
In the midst of my confusion, doubt, and uncertainty, God met me there.
And he held on to me.
When I faced the unthinkable, God met me there.
And he held on to me.
When I didn’t know what would come next, or even if I could go forward, God met me there.
And he held on to me.
And then he helped me begin to find my way back.
As with almost everything else in this journey, I can’t nail down a specific time or event. It wasn’t like there was a voice from heaven or some sort of epiphany. There was no earth-shaking revelation.
But there were memories.
Scripture memory has been a constant throughout my Christian life, and I’ve spent a great deal of time memorizing from the psalms, the prayer book of the Bible. My guess is that what came to my mind was Psalm 77:11a – “I will remember the deeds of the Lord.”
I began to recall what God has done over the course of my life. How he has worked. What he has brought me through. How he has provided. I began to look back on everything God had done in my life from the very beginning. And those memories became like tiny candles, spaced along the path, that led me around the chasm and showed me the way out of the forest.
TAKEAWAY:
Are you in a dark place right now? Perhaps your own dark forest? Don’t despair. God is there with you, even if you can’t sense his presence. Tell him how you feel, what you’re afraid of, how you’re hurting. Ask him to hold on to you and bring you through.
He’ll answer that prayer.
***
You can find links to all the posts in this series at: https://www.jamespence.com/a-deconstruction-observed/
*Note: Typically, Calvinistic evangelicals say that it’s impossible for someone to “lose their salvation” and when someone “falls away” it’s because their faith was never genuine. Those who lean toward Arminian theology will acknowledge the possibility of someone abandoning the faith.