When Belief Breaks Open: Trusting God In The In-Between

I'm down to the last few loads of belongings to move from my old house to my new one. Throughout the moving process, I've had to make decisions about what would be moved and what would be sold or donated.  

Turns out, there was a lot of stuff that didn't make the move.  I completed my 16th trip to Goodwill yesterday, and already I'm thinking that number might rise to 18 before I'm done.  

I am also not entirely sure where everything is at the new house.  It's going to take a lot of unpacking, and I'm already realizing that some of the things I moved are probably going to need to go after all.  

Last night, I started thinking about how all of this moving is kind of a metaphor for what I went through when I began deconstructing my faith and beliefs.  It started with a realization that what I had believed about my faith no longer worked.  

I had to get rid of a lot of ideas that weren't going to make the journey, and even on the other side of my deconstruction, I discovered there were even more beliefs that didn't fit in the new space I inhabited.  

Deconstructing long-held beliefs can feel like standing in the middle of a house you just moved into, with no clue where everything is going to go. What once felt certain begins to shift. Questions rise. Doubts linger. And the faith that once came easily may now feel fragile in your hands. It is a disorienting place—both necessary and deeply uncomfortable.

Rachel Held Evans once wrote, “Faith isn’t the absence of doubt; it’s the courage to keep seeking in the presence of it.” 

Those words offer both honesty and hope. Deconstruction is not the enemy of faith—it is often the doorway to a deeper, more resilient one. When we allow ourselves to question what no longer holds, we are not abandoning God; we are making room to encounter God more truthfully.

Scripture reminds us that this kind of wrestling is not new. Jacob wrestled with God through the night and emerged changed, marked, and blessed (Genesis 32:22–32). The psalmists cry out in confusion and lament, asking hard questions of God (Psalm 13:1–2). 

Even Thomas, often labeled as “doubting,” was met by the risen Christ not with shame but with an invitation (John 20:27). These stories reveal a God who is not threatened by our questions but who meets us within them.

Reconstruction, however, is rarely neat. It is slow, uneven, and sometimes lonely work. It requires humility to admit what we do not know, and courage to rebuild with intention. Yet in this process, something sacred is unfolding. A faith that has been examined, wrestled with, and re-formed often becomes more grounded, more compassionate, and more alive.

If you find yourself in this space, take heart. God is not waiting for you on the other side of certainty—God is present with you in the uncertainty itself. Trust that even in the unraveling, something holy is being woven together.

Prayer
Gracious God, meet me in my questions and my searching. Give me courage to release what no longer brings life, and wisdom to rebuild what is true and good. Help me trust that you are with me in every step of this journey. Amen.

Reflection Questions

1. What beliefs or assumptions in your life are you currently reexamining, and why?

2. Where have you experienced God’s presence in seasons of doubt or uncertainty?

3. What might it look like to trust God more deeply in the process of rebuilding your faith?