On Falling Away

There has been nothing more confusing to my faith than watching another so-called strong believer walk away from the faith.

Sometimes they don't walk away, but they take a really long break from any sort of spiritual living. And you ask them, "What about God?!" And they shrug and say, "I wonder if He's still relevant." You just want to shake them and say, "What happened to that faith, that fruitful and powerful faith, that I've seen in your life? Why are you asking childish questions that you would've had so many true answers for just a few months ago?"

It's true that every believer goes through dry times. If I've learned anything this semester through surveying the Old Testament, it's that everyone from Abraham to Moses to Elijah went through dry times where they had trouble seeing the value in following after God or trouble feeling that God was really there for them. Every few weeks, I sit and look around and think, "Is God really out there?" But in the end, I always still believe, deep down, even if I can't resolve whatever doubt is bubbling in the microwave at the time. It feels like there's a difference between dry times and people who just put down their faith and walk away from it for several months or years or forever.

Something that occurred to me is the thought about how parents feel when the kids leave the house empty. A parent who has spent time and shared the joy and experience of life, real life, with their kids will never look back and say, "Well, at the end of the day, all I have left is an empty house, full of unresolved clutter and unoccupied rooms. Did I raise the kids for nothing, if it's just going to end up like this?" The parent knows, deep down, that it was worth it, even if the time being is a little unsatisfying -- the parent knows from experiencing the joy of knowing and growing with their kids.

I wonder if people who fall away from the faith have never known God. I think people can think that they've experienced God -- it's easy to get caught up in the emotion of a budding ministry or exciting conference or new bible study or amazing worship. But at the end of the day, when God seems far away or somehow irrelevant, people whom you think had it all together will say, "Well, I thought it was all worth it. But what was the point of all that? Did I just waste a few years of my life? I don't feel like God is really out there or relevant at all right now." They are not like the parents who know their empty house is just part of the valuable experience of raising kids. I've found that if you ask them, many can't really recall any real moments of joyfully experiencing or knowing the unquestionable truth and love and reality of God - they more or less went through the motions hoping that it would come at some point.

There are believers that have dry times often, but never really put God in a closet and walk away, and those believers I've found have often experienced God in a real and unforgettable way. I'm not any smarter, any more diligent, any wiser than any believer I've known that's walked away. They could all give the "right" answer to the doubting questions they ask. I think there's a lot of grace that God has kept me alive in Him and really shown Himself in my life in a very personal way. I've had so many good times with God that I think it would be unlikely for me to walk away from Him. I thank God often for His grace in that.

1 John 2 says, "Little children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been with us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us."

It is easy to look at a believer and mourn the loss of their faith, and in some cases, rightfully so. But this verse would suggest that maybe they never really knew God in a real, life-changing way, and maybe the purpose of knowing that would-be believer is so that we would know the difference between an antichrist and a believer and that we'd be sure to find ourselves on the right side. It is a sobering thought that God would use the fall of another person as a cautionary message to His redeemed, but it is scriptural.

It is true that we are saved by grace. It is true that God can redeem anyone, and as I've seen in my friends, He has redeemed the faith of some who have turned away.

It is also wise to see someone who walks away and ask, why do I really believe? Is my faith built on solid ground? Am I really seeking to know God? And to pray for God's grace to manifest itself in a powerful, personal, irresistible way that we ultimately can't walk away from.