Unlike fasting from sugar, social media or coffee, giving up religion for 40 days has surprisingly left me with little to no temptation or relapse. My finger tips don\u2019t quite tingle at the thought of opening my Bible and I\u2019m not yearning to go out in the world with a discipleship team and pray with strangers. I\u2019m beginning to think this might be one habit that will carry over long after the Lenten season ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before all the church ladies in my life panic that they\u2019ve failed me and start praying without ceasing, I need to clarify that I\u2019m still a highly spiritual person. Despite how many times I\u2019ve tried abandoning the Christian label, it seems like it\u2019s here to stay\u2013as God often is.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Faith and religion are two different concepts, and what I mean by religion are all the obligatory rituals I\u2019ve practiced solely in an attempt to gain the approval of other people: perfect attendance at Sunday service, volunteering to pray at the end of Bible studies and agreeing to uncomfortable mentor sessions with church elders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During my impressionable early twenties, I\u2019d summarized all of these actions as \u201cGood Christian\u201d qualities; the \u201cGood Christian\u201d being perfectly joyful, Pro-Life, married at 19 and easily abstaining from ripped jeans, foul language and bad attitude. Naturally by comparison, I concluded that God had programmed me incorrectly, having accidentally included stubbornness, sarcasm, feminism, an interest in tattoos and a discomfort with fundamentalist Christianity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d begun overcompensating for my low self esteem by agreeing to every event and volunteer opportunity just to disguise myself more like this \u201cGood Christian.\u201d I masked my \u201cUnchristian\u201d anger, frustration and discontentment with disingenuous love, compliance and patience. I\u2019d humored (and later resented) obligatory coffee dates with unenjoyable company because canceling would have been \u201cUnchristian\u201d of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this process I naturally withheld my democratic political affiliation, opinions on same-sex marriage and feelings on abortion because I feared it didn\u2019t fit the mold of conservative Christian dogma\u2014which I\u2019d been conditioned to believe was the only dogma\u2014but always knew that it never did and never would. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I no longer trusted myself to hear directly from God after being strongly encouraged to \u201cseek counsel\u201d and allow other people to dictate the divine experience for me. I had difficulty voicing personal boundaries and too often felt that I was in defense of my personal beliefs and decisions. The more I tried looking like a \u201cGood Christian,\u201d the less I looked and felt like myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After leaving such a stifling church environment, I was still so grimy with religious muck that I had trouble seeing myself or my world clearly. It took months of professional therapy to wash the shame away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So while this was years in the making, I\u2019ve confidently given up religion for Lent. I\u2019ve not attended one Lenten church service or started one devotional on the Bible app. Moreover, I have not asked one person for their opinion on my prayer life or allowed one ounce of unsolicited spiritual advice to enter my ears. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m starting to regain a healthy balance of humility and confidence, no longer accepting that just because my beliefs may be different than others’ they are inherently wrong. I\u2019ve finally found myself in the daily presence of a God who welcomes my uncensored prayers and emotions; who understands the flaws of my humanity, never holding me to a standard of perfection; who holds me accountable for my choices but does not punish them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Realistically, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll abandon religion forever. It\u2019s the student in me who enjoys scribbling notes during a sermon and the artist who appreciates the orchestration of a contemporary worship service. But for now, indefinitely, I\u2019m allowing myself to shamelessly repose and recover, as Jesus said \u201cCome to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Feature photo by\u00a0Akira Hojo<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Unlike fasting from sugar, social media or coffee, giving up religion for 40 days has surprisingly left me with little to no temptation or relapse. My finger tips don\u2019t quite tingle at the thought of opening my Bible and I\u2019m not yearning to go out in the world with a discipleship team and pray with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[49],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jordanstovka.com\/steepedinsound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jordanstovka.com\/steepedinsound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jordanstovka.com\/steepedinsound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jordanstovka.com\/steepedinsound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jordanstovka.com\/steepedinsound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=964"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.jordanstovka.com\/steepedinsound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":967,"href":"http:\/\/www.jordanstovka.com\/steepedinsound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964\/revisions\/967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jordanstovka.com\/steepedinsound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jordanstovka.com\/steepedinsound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jordanstovka.com\/steepedinsound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jordanstovka.com\/steepedinsound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}