Introduction

No matter what you do, there's a learning process and a journey from the beginning to success. Think about top athletes like Simone Biles. There was a time when she had never done a backflip before or done a splite. Or take LeBron James—at some point in his life, he had to learn to dribble! The Bible equivalent is probably someone like Paul. Paul didn't start as Paul the Apostle; there was a process and a journey.

In church you of hear people talk about spiritual adults vs. babies (probably a concept that comes from 1 Corinthians 3:2; Hebrews 5:12-13). I usually refer to myself as a spiritual young adult—I'm still struggling with certain things, but I'm at a point where I'm aware that I'm struggling. When I look back on my life, I see some really odd phases in my Spiritual journey and they don't really line up with the baby to adult trajectory necessarily. I thought, since I've never heard anyone talk about this, I would. You may have very different phases in your personal journey, or you may have similar phases in a different order than I did; I'm just sharing my experience.

The Lukewarm Phase

No one wants to be called lukewarm and if you grew up in the Church you definitely are offended by the term, but the fact is many of us have a lukewarm phase. I was in this phase all the way in to my mid 20s, and what's funny is I don't think anyone who knew me would have described me as such. I've never been the type of person to attend service every week, but I was there more often than not. I was heavily involved in the community doing lots of volunteering. I attended Bible studies and even took two theology classes. But I listend to vulgar music and watched movies and tv shows that glorified murder, violence, witchcraft, etc. I went to parties and while I didn't get drunk, looking back I drank more than I should have—I'm still appologizing to my liver for that time I took a shot of straight Everclear! (0/10, do not recommend.)

I call myself lukewarm during this phase because I had one foot in the world and one foot in the Kingdom. I believed, and I did the things I though I was supposed to do, but God was not first in my life. During this phase, He was more like an accessory. I didn't actively pursue God or seek His Will in my life, I just expected Him to give me all the things I asked for like a genie with unlimited wishes.

The Unlearning and Oversharing Phase

A lot of people would call this the on fire for God phase, but I think sometimes our passion for God manifests in unhealthy ways and so I want to stay away from that phrasing.

During this time in my life, I was learning—and unlearning—a lot about God, the Church, and the Bible. I started to get answers to questions from childhood and I learned to go to God with my questions directly. This is the phase in which I broke free of just following what the pastor or the church told me, and actually started to develop a relationship with the Most High for myself. That's the best part of this phase.

The bad part of this phase, however, is that I was so excited about everything I learned that I wanted to share it. I was shouting from the rooftops ever new truth or exciting fact I found. I had to tell everyone I don't celebrate Christmas and that the Sabbath is the Sabbath. I had tell people about clean and unclean meat and other doctrines churches are misteaching. But everyone isn't in this phase, and everyone isn't ready for these conversations. Not to mention, there's a time and place for everything. The checkout line in the mall is not the time to get into a theological discussion about the origins of Christmas. Yet, that's exactly what I found myself doing!

In this phase, I was a lot like the other believers who come off as "Bible thumbers" or judgmental. We're trying to convince the whole world to see what we see. The catch is, it's not our responsibility to convince anyone of anything. The Holy Spirit is responsible for conviction (John 16:8). We can study together and hold each other accountable, but the Holy Spirit has to lead the charge! In this phase I lacked discernment for when to speak vs. keep my mouth shut, and what to say when I did speak.

The True Growth Phase

This is my favorite phase. In this phase I'm still learning and growing, but I've added compassion, context, perspective and experience to the mix. This is the phase in which I start to see more clearly, and some things that may have seemed very black and white previously (like magic!) start to grow more nuanced.

It was in this phase that I finally saw myself as broken and flawwed, and humility allowed me to truly repent. This is the phase that taught me I don't have the answers, and allowed me to see the humanity in others. I would say this is when the fruit of the spirit actually began to blossom in my life. This allowed me to step back and have more compassion for others, but also enabled discernment on how I'm sharing the message of God.

The Lonely Phase

This is the phase I feel like I'm in now. I want to fellowship with other believers, but often find myself unable to find a people I can fellowship with. Most Bible studies or churches I visit aren't really interested in digging deep or questioning the status quo. I inevitably get annoyed that when I bring up a question people don't want to walk the journey of discovery; instead they want to rush back to familiar waters. Because of this, most churches are celebrating not only Easter and Christmas (which at least I can give them the benefit of the doubt and say they mean well) but also Halloween! I found one congregation about 20 minutes from me that doesn't celebrate pagan holidays, but their pastor just gave a sermon trying to justify Israel's takeover of Palestine, so I'm not interested in fellowshipping with them either.[5]

At this point in my journey, I have a few friends scattered accross the US that I can talk to, but I struggle to find a local community where I feel comfortable; this is why I dubbed this phase: the lonely phase.

References & Footnotes

1. Gospel being presented as milk vs. meat -> 1 Corinthians 3:2; Hebrews 5:12-13
2. Law written in the heart and not needing to teach your neighbor -> Jeremiah 31:33-34; Hebrews 8:10; 10:16
3. I have a post in progress on this and will link it when I'm finished, but in the mean time, this is in reference to experiences like the ones Moses, Elijah, and Messiah had where they were alone in the wilderness and growing their faith.
4. Responsible for every idle word -> Matthew 12:36
5. Ree Hughes. "Let's Talk About Zionism...". PSALMS to God. May 15, 2021