I Have Lost My Faith…Now What? 4 Things That Might Help You Move Forward.
“I feel like I am losing my faith; what do I do now?”
I get this question quite often and the answer isn’t simple. Losing your faith looks different for everyone.
For some it happens all at once; like a person walking away from an exploding building. It is traumatic and immediate. For others it is a slow burn over many years; one day you realize the house is gone. It is gradual and under the surface.
I was one of the slow ones. This could have been because I was a pastor for much of my adult life. I was paid to believe on behalf of others just as much as I had to believe for myself. In spite of this, like a patient glacier, my faith shifted over time. One day I woke up and I found myself a stranger in a strange land.
I used to see faith shifts as signs of weakness. They indicated that a person was not strong enough to hang on to the truth. As I have aged I now see that the “truth” is often a moving target. We have to constantly adjust our perspective in order to keep finding it each day.
When we stop adjusting our perspective the truth moves on without us and we miss out on an opportunity to grow as a person.
That said, realizing your faith is not what it once was can be a traumatic thing. A thousand voices from within your head and outside your body will tell you that you are on the wrong path. Doubt is not handled well in communities of faith. I find that tragic and a little bit ironic. The true enemy of faith is not doubt; the enemy of faith is certainty.
So if you find yourself doubting I want you to know that you are in the right place. It is ok to look at the faith you have been given with a critical eye.
At some point in this process, usually the point when you realize you might not have any faith at all, you will start asking yourself, “Well now what?” I would suggest that it is at this point the real work begins.
Some may get to this point and decide they want no faith and want nothing to do with religion…that is ok. You will get no shame here. I am not going to convince you to come back if you are not ready or don’t want to. If you would like you can stop reading now. Go and live your life to the full.
But I know that isn’t everyone. I know that wasn’t me. A connection to God and a community of faith were still important to me and if they are still important to you I would like to offer four things that I have found helpful over the years when deconstruction came calling.
TAKE A BREAK:
When my wife and I had a major disappointment with religion our whole family took almost a year off from going to church. It was the best thing for us at the time.
We still loved God. We still wanted to be in connection with the sacred. We just could not do that in a church setting.
Taking a break is particularly important if you have experienced a trauma of some kind. You have to let time work its magic. When we experience trauma our subconscious mind tries to prevent that trauma from happening in the future. If your hurt was associated with a church then it is not odd at all if churches and church people make you uncomfortable.
It is your body’s way of protecting you. It isn’t a lack of faith or a personal flaw. It is your body doing its job to keep you safe.
Being away is sometimes a part of the healing process. Don’t worry about it. You will know if and/or when the right time to go back is.
FIND A SOME SPIRITUAL PRACTICES THAT GIVE YOU LIFE:
When we are in the middle of a crisis of faith it is not unusual that the faith practices that were once lifegiving suddenly become lifeless. I am not certain why this is but it is not uncommon.
You have the option to keep doing them anyway out of duty. It might even score a few points with religious scorekeepers but I would not recommend it. If you want to get through this with something better on the other side you will have to find new ways to connect with the divine, or your higher self, or just peace of mind. You are allowed to call it whatever you want.
For me it was yoga and meditation. That was really all I could do. I did not care to read the Bible and praying just did not have the same luster it used to.
I could have labored away and done those things anyway because that is what you are supposed to do but it felt like returning to a dry well and expecting water. It just won’t work. I had to keep moving.
If I have learned nothing else from my various struggles with doubt it is that you have to go where the water and the light are. Humans are by nature nomadic creatures and I think our spiritual nature is similar.
When the land we are in no longer produces good fruit we find new land or we starve.
For you a new practice could be like mine or it could be something else entirely. If you are stuck it is time to get creative. Anything that heightens your consciousness and gives you a larger perspective is what you are looking for. Get in the habit of doing that thing and viciously protecting it.
Will it be the “approved” thing? Probably not. What is “approved” isn’t important right now. When you are in survival mode the thing that gives you life today is all that matters. Find it and do it.
CONNECT WITH A SAFE COMMUNITY:
This one is key and also the most problematic. Finding people you can trust is the challenge of a lifetime.
It is also likely that you thought your faith community was safe and then discovered that they were not. Even so, at some point you will want to find a group of people to talk about this with. Trust me when I say that spinning your religious gears alone is not productive for your health or sanity. We social animals and are not meant to be alone forever.
What helped me as I began looking for another community was to keep things casual. Don’t go in expecting much and feel free to leave if things get weird. Ask lots of questions.
If you aren’t ready to meet people in real life find a community online and just lurk for a while. Facebook, Twitter, and various podcasts can facilitate this nicely. Find some like-minded people and once you feel up to it share your story. It is healing to get it out there.
LET GO OF THE IDEA IT WILL BE LIKE IT ONCE WAS:
One day I hope that you find yourself with a healthy spirituality but I want to emphasize that it will not look like it once did. You’re not building the same house again. You are building something completely new. It will not be the same.
This part can be the hardest to accept. Change is never easy and spiritual change can be the hardest of all. You want the feelings you once had and the certainty that kept you feeling safe. You want the old rituals and rites to work again but like old children’s toys they cannot bring true joy, only the memories of joy.
Come to terms with the fact that what once was will be no more. Trust that what is ahead is so much better.
In many ways I am still figuring things out myself but I can say with some degree of confidence that the work is worth it. If you do the work of healing what you come to find is a healthier connection with the sacred and a stronger relationship with yourself.
There is a line by Richard Rohr that goes like this, “The people who know God well — mystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God — always meet a lover, not a dictator.” As you do this work this is what I hope for you; that at the end of the road you find the deepest of loves.
The journey is worth it. Keep going.
Call to Action:
Have you had an experience of faith loss or deconstruction? As you piece things back together which of these practices do you think would be most helpful?
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