Hello all, sorry it’s taken me so long to write a blog, the Philippines has been an absolute roller coaster. There is a lot that has happened to me and with my faith and there will be no easy way to put it so just try and hang with me.

The Deconstruction of My Faith

This all started about five weeks ago during our last day in Vietnam. Something spiritual had shifted inside of me and I was riddled with doubts and anxiety. I let them take over and didn’t even try to pray them away, they owned me. By the time I arrived in the Philippines, I had a hard time saying I believed in God. One week goes by in the Philippines and I get a call from someone back home, what they had to say really challenged my faith even more. While on the phone I was able to defend what I believe and stick up for my faith but as soon as the call ended, I was a complete disaster. I sat in the chair for about 30 minutes and completely talked myself out of Christianity. I thought to myself, “how foolish are you to actually believe all these sorts of things.” A bunch of lies came flooding into my head, “You’re a horrible person,” “you shouldn’t be here.” I hated myself. I walked inside the house, turned on the shower and sat in there for at least another 30 minutes trying to isolate myself, scared of what everyone would think. Eventually the thoughts in my head became so overbearing that I knew I needed to seek help. So I walked outside and found my leader, Nick. I told him everything that had just happened and he prayed over me. After his prayer, I continued to sit in the chair for another 20 minutes where I was able to talk myself into an apologetics point of view on Christianity where God exists because he has to exist. This is a place where I’ve been before but have never actually liked being but it was better than not believing at all. For the next three weeks, I wrestled with this. There was never a good day or a bad day but everyday I would believe in God for moments at a time and then the rest of the day I would be in complete disbelief. I didn’t let anyone in on the things I was struggling with because I thought I could handle it all by myself. Eventually the burden became so heavy that by week three, I had to tell the team. I sat them down and told them everything that had been going on. They immediately surrounded me and covered me with prayer. One of my good friends took me on a walk around our neighborhood, towards the end we were talking about spiritual gifts like tongues, and prophesy and he just looked at me and said, “why? Why does it matter if those thing are real or not?” And I answered him, “because if they are not, everything that I’ve been taught is a lie.” Immediately my eyes were opened to a new perspective. My foundation wasn’t actually Jesus Christ alone, my foundation was built on the hopes that what people tell me is true. I was rattled by this but not as much as you would think. I was actually filled with so much joy. I knew that my faith was going to have to be built from the foundation up again, but this didn’t scare me. In fact this is exactly what I had been hoping for.

There’s this analogy that we learned at training camp that I really liked that came to mind during this time:

The guy teaching us had a cement block and placed Jenga blocks on top of it (secondary issues). I don’t remember everything that he said but he talked about how the higher you build this tower, the blurrier the foundation gets and you can’t see it crumbling if it’s not actually built on Jesus.

I realized that I had built this tower of secondary issues so high that I couldn’t see the false foundation that I had put them on. What a joy it is to have your eyes open to this sort of thing and realize that there is a living God who wants relationship with us and doesn’t leave us when we leave him.

Where am I now?

I have so much joy in knowing absolutely nothing. During the last week and a half I’ve fallen deeper and deeper in love with the people that God places in front of me. I love meeting strangers on the side of the road, having a conversation with them, and by the time it’s over, leave feeling like I had just made a lifelong best friend. I would say right now my foundation is being built. Im not confident that I have a steady one quite yet and I am perfectly content with that because if my foundation is not 100% Christ, I don't want it. I also am not reading my bible at the moment which to a lot of Christian’s, may be controversial, but again, i am filled with an overwhelming amount of joy and a peace that surpasses all understanding. My reason for this is because I still have a lot of questions and issues with things in the bible such as contradictions, slavery, when and who wrote the gospels, but to me these are just such secondary issues, like those Jenga blocks I was talking about, and I don't want to place those blocks yet while Jesus is still constructing my foundation. I have fallen into such a deep love for prayer though. To me, prayer is more powerful than the bible will ever be. The bible, sure, is a great tool and has a lot of good things in it but when we pray we are literally having a one on one conversation with the living God of the universe. How is that not insane to everyone. Prayer is so underestimated. It can literally change the atmosphere around us and free souls. This is actually so cool, I can’t even put it into words. The bible doesn’t change people, prayer does. God does. The bible itself says that those who have not heard the word of God or read the word of God will still believe because of the creation around them. That’s how God reveals himself. So right now I’m not fully convinced that the bible really is all that necessary for being a Christian. But like I said, at the moment, that’s a secondary issue. The face of God is in front of me and nothing is going to distract me from fully looking towards him. One day I do pray that the bible and its true power would be revealed to me but that’s just not where God is moving me right now and if Gods not moving, I’m not moving. Find me at the feet of Jesus, that’s where I’ll be.