Faith deconstruction seems like a natural by-product of life. The faith of our childhood, our young adulthood, should morph, change, and become more mature. If I still have the faith of an 18-year old at age 58, something went seriously wrong.

Six months ago I left a church I attended and was a part of leading for 23 years.

But, I left evangelical conservatism years ago. I never fit, though I tried. I got caught up in it during my college years, trapped in the web of the "everyone is going to hell if you don't save them" belief system.

I have known for years that Christianity is exponentially bigger, broader and wider than the American evangelical movement of the last few decades.

It has been more recently, however, that I consciously let all those old beliefs crumble to the ground. Those doctrinal structures just didn't hold up anymore with how I saw the world, how I saw myself, how I saw and understood God.

After this happens, many begin to immediately talk of reconstruction.

What are you gonna' rebuild to replace what was demolished?

But what if there is no need for reconstruction? As if a relationship with the Living God is some kind of architectural structure, with right angles, level floor joists, sturdy building materials? Everything drawn-to-scale, sized up, and tightly sealed?

Inflexible. Indestructible. Immovable.

This imagery - of rebuilding - still carries with it the feel of trying to control the uncontrollable God.

What if, instead, we allow all the walls of certainty, man-made doctrine, and self-created mandatory beliefs to simply fall to the ground?

And what if what shows up in its place is ...

Fire?

Pure Presence?

Mystery?

A sense of free-fall and being held at the same time?

What if we don't deconstruct in order to reconstruct?

What if we allow the walls that incarcerated us in our tiny jail cells of control

to tumble to the ground

so that we can,

hand-in-hand with Christ,

walk out into the open arms of the Universe

and into a wild, joyous life

of glorious freedom?