I still get queasy in the pit of my stomach anytime I identify myself as “deconstructing.” I don’t like the term because of what people assume it means and the place it has taken in the conversation. More than that, I dislike the process and the fact that I came to a place where I felt the process was necessary. Parsing through your theology feels destabilizing. To stay intentional and grounded in identifying what you still believe, what you no longer believe, and what needs to be tweaked takes a toll, mentally.

What you believe about hell, for example, has some people condemning you to it. Remember that time John Piper Twitter-excommunicated Rob Bell for reexamining his hell beliefs? That happens a lot, for beliefs much smaller than hell. So it’s hard to take an honest-to-god review of your beliefs about hell when, in the back of your mind, there remains this nagging fear that where you come out on it may affect your eternal salvation. Or, more viscerally, your place in a community. My understanding is that eternal life comes as I consent to the work and lordship of Jesus. You don’t need full understanding or even enlightenment style, fully rationalized belief in order to consent.

Nevertheless, here is where I find myself, with a queasy stomach, parsing through my theology, wondering how patient Jesus really is.

If you haven’t picked it up yet, I struggle with a pretty severe case of religious OCD. In the past, this has shown up as long hour sessions into the night praying through every potential demonic influence or stronghold I may have given up through an “agreement.” These days, it shows up as I process what I believe while ever above me hangs the question, “What if you’re wrong, though, and are totally not saved and making Jesus angry?”

I rely, every day (sometimes every other day), on a firm conviction that Jesus loves me deeply. Despite my attempts to quit charisma, I keep experiencing words and affirmations about this! It’s mystical and uncomfortable, but for some reason Jesus keeps telling me he wants to be in relationship with me. Can I prove this to you empirically? Probably not.

I’ve only talked publicly about “my deconstruction process” twice (other than a few times on my private Facebook). Once with my friend Titus in a podcast episode we never aired and another on a podcast with my brother Asher. So I guess technically that’s just once, but I think both times I told them the thing keeping me grounded is an intuitive feeling that–despite all my fumbling–Jesus loves me.

To the Modernistic church enslaved to the Enlightenment, the idea of basing anything off of a “feeling” is anathema. It scares the hell out of me. What happens when I finally rationalize that away? Poof, my faith is gone? I think because a lot of folks have presuppositions about what deconstructing Christian or ex-Christian motives are, they assume anyone who acknowledges that they’re deconstructing wants to abandon their faith. Nothing could be further from the truth for me. I like Jesus! I am so compelled by the life and message of Jesus, that if he says he’s Lord, I’ll follow him even if that means being rejected by the world or the people I love.

I guess I am basing it off of more than just a bunch of mystical anecdotes and feelings. Paul prayed the Ephesians “being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that [they] may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3).

The love of God surpasses knowledge. You might say, it surpasses knowledge and hits you in your feelings. Take that, enlightenment theology.

There is so much crappy theology and philosophy that I have to untangle from my faith. I don’t even know where it all came from. It’s like I’m cleaning out a drain and keep finding random hair and rags and tangles clogging it up. Some of it has to be from the previous homeowner cause I sure don’t remember putting it down there.

But as I hash and rehash theology with myself and my community and my friends and my frenemies, I become more and more convinced that none of it is as important as we think it is. I didn’t say it’s unimportant. I said “none of it is as important as we think it is.” That distinction makes all the difference. Because if Jesus is waiting for us to figure it all out, then by George we’re so doomed.

And maybe–just maybe–Jesus is patient and willing to walk with us slowly as we sort through the mess together with him. Maybe eternal life has more to do with attempting to walk closely to Jesus than knowing, believing, and promulgating a systematic way of explaining what “walking closely with Jesus” even means. Again, in case you’ve been missing it, I’m not saying theology is unimportant. I am engaging in theology here.

However, I look at my life and I look at the lives of my friends and I see so many of us who are, deep down inside, complete messes (sorry friends). There’s so much fear and anger and pride and competition and unforgiveness and impatience and rampant abuse of power and influence. I know if you took an honest and vulnerable look at your own life, you’d see it, too.

Christ can only meet us in reality. Not because he’s stubborn, but because he is reality. He is Truth. In him there is no deceit. To put on a facade and expect to experience Christ is like refusing to touch water, but expecting to experience the ocean. To meet Christ in reality is to acknowledge our present, experienced brokenness. And here’s the kicker: when we meet Christ in reality we find faithful, generous love. Instead of the scornful look we’re expecting, we meet outstretched arms.

“That you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

All the fullness of God.

I can’t shake the feelings (and the explicit Scripture) that Christ’s mercy is far greater and bigger than we can imagine and perhaps–perhaps–his love is strong enough to see us through it. When I am afraid–when the sifting of my theology causes me anxiety deep in the pit of my stomach, I ground myself in this reality:

That no matter what I say, no matter what “eternal truths” I doubt and vocally question, no matter what good theology I missed in my search for truth, Jesus loves me far and above anything I could imagine. His love unshakably set in the stones of reality; forever imprinted in history at the cross.

I feel like a broken record, but I’m trying to communicate how comforting and grounding this is to me. That on this journey of parsing through my faith and trying to find what’s true, Jesus loves me more than I love me. He has a greater motivation and desire for me to find the truth than I do. And I just have–gasp—a deep deep feeling he will not turn away my (or your) sincere search for what’s true. And that my “salvation” is not so much in the understanding but in the walking.

So here I walk.