Fractured Faith - Lina Abujamra

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Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. Can you find your way back to God after your faith fractures? Don't miss today's Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. I think the theme that comes up in this book is that we have this father who doesn't leave, no matter how much we give him cause to leave. And to me, that's the astounding reality that has grown out of the season of darkness that I've been in. Somewhere along the way, the Christianity you knew began to crumble. You became disillusioned because churches hurt you.

The people you trusted let you down. And it felt like God was silent. Is he really there?

That's you. Don't miss today's Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Our guest is an author, speaker, and physician, Dr. Lina Abu-Jamra. There's been a lot of talk lately, particularly in evangelical circles about deconstructing faith. And Dr. Lina is going to talk about her own experience. And we have our new book linked at fivelovelanguages.com.

It's titled Fractured Faith, Finding Your Way Back to God in an Age of Deconstruction. You know, Chris, I think this discussion is going to be very pertinent because through the years, and you know, I've worked at the same church now for 50 years, and I have seen people walk away from God because of things that happen in the church. And so I'm excited about this conversation. And I hope those who are tuned in today will have open ears for themselves, as well as perhaps friends, that they can use this book to help them.

Yes. This program, this conversation might be an answer to prayer for you and somebody in your life that you're just really concerned about. So let me introduce our guest. Dr. Lina Abu-Jamra is a pediatric ER doctor now practicing telemedicine. She's the founder of Living with Power Ministries, popular Bible teacher, podcaster, conference speaker. She's written the books Thrive, Stripped, Resolved, and the one we'll talk about today, Fractured Faith. You hear her on Moody Radio's Today's Single Christian, and she's engaged in providing medical care and humanitarian help to Syrian refugees and others in disaster areas in the Middle East. Her ministry also provides spiritual retreats for women at the Hope Ranch.

You can find out more about her at her website, livingwithpower.org, or just go to 5lovelanguages.com. Well, Dr. Lina, welcome back to Building Relationships. Oh, it's so good to be back with you guys. Well, let's jump into your story, and it begins with the day you decided to walk away from your church. Tell us about that.

Well, you know, it's funny. The story sort of jumped speed at that point, and I don't know that I even understood some of the questions that were in my soul, except that I knew something dramatic was happening. I was living in Chicago a few years ago, and now people think of Chicago as a place that has gone through some massive church stories, very much publicly written about.

But when we were living through it, I was one of those people that was watching things unfold. And so in that setting, there were a lot of questions about what was happening in our church and our leadership structure. People were leaving the church. Elders were leaving the church.

It was a very unsteadying season. I had been in leadership at this church, very much in the closed inside circle, so to speak. And it was hard for a while to tell truth from lies, gossip from reality. And there was a point in that last year that was really troublesome to me where I found that I was spending more time talking with close family members who were at that church with me and friends about the stories going around about church than we were about the Lord.

So I knew there was some issue there. And by the time I had finally, there were things that happened, I discussed briefly in the introduction of the book, where there was a point where it was like black and white, like it was time to leave. And so by that time, I thought I was doing the righteous thing, right? I had prayed about it. I was walking with the Lord. I was serving him in ministry.

Two of my books were coming out that summer. And so I felt like God was behind my decision. And so I think things sort of, you know, it was like whiplash, really, in the sense that I walked into the decision soberly, prayerfully, spirit-filled. And it took only really days to weeks before I sort of realized, wow, this is not going to be an easy road. And I think I didn't really understand the full spectrum of what was happening inside me until months or even years after that. And that's sort of what the story of Fractured Faith is. The unraveling of my faith that started out of the simple decision to sort of walk away from a church that I felt was making some decisions that were questionable at that time, which now have proven to be, you know, you can see now the rest of the story. But at the time, it was several years of walking in a very dark tunnel.

Yeah. So you didn't decide to leave on a whim. It was a process, but it still took a lot of courage to leave, right? Look, I mean, I even say that in the intro, I think it almost sounds laughable to people who are not committed to church to see the agony that Christians who are committed to the Lord and to church go through before leaving a church.

I've never, I can't, like, even now, I think about it sometimes, and even in 2021, we're living in the COVID era. I think church attendance has changed in our minds, but I grew up in the church. I don't remember a time in my life when I wasn't in the church. And from the moment I committed my life to the Lord and back dating my teenage years, I've just been, I went to med school, never missed a Sunday. I mean, I just had certain convictions in my life about church, the body of Christ, and then felt called to ministry. And so throughout my life as a doctor, I started working at church and it was everybody who knew me knew that my life was the church. I didn't get married and felt like really my social fiber, my culture, my life, my beliefs, my convictions, everything that I had dreamed and aspired to be for the Lord were connected to the local church. And so it was a huge decision and the ramifications were bigger than I expected them to be.

Yeah. Have you thought about what might have happened if you hadn't left? Well, it played out before our eyes. Many of my close friends who stayed have walked through that agony.

And, you know, it's interesting. The one people early on would used to ask me, within a couple of years of leaving, and I'll tell you, I didn't talk about it publicly for a while. I didn't make any big statements, though I was blogging, though I had, you know, I was a sort of a public figure at the time, you know, certainly, you know, with a smaller platform and whatnot, but still it was a quiet departure. And I agonized sometimes whether I should have said more or not, but there was enough talk going around and I felt convicted by God that it wasn't the time to say much. And I remember later, a couple of years later, as things were playing out and becoming more severe, if I had one regret, it was that I didn't leave sooner. And I think it was my lack of courage at the time and my desire for things that I was hearing to not be true and also this attachment to my expectations in my life and ministry and calling that were so rooted in the church. But as it played out, I saw, had I not left, you know, another part of me thinks, I wish I'd never had to leave. I wish it was never a situation where I had to leave, that the church was so great for so long and I longed for the revival that was happening.

I went to that church because I believed in what was happening there. And so to see that unravel has and continues to be a source of deep pain for anybody who's been in that story or other stories in Chicago or in the United States, because the pain of it is, it's the other side of how good it was. If it wasn't good for so long, we wouldn't feel the depth of the pain, but because it was so good, I think it hurts so much. But as it turned out, those who stayed at some point came to find out that the stories were true and things did change. And it was, has been and continues to be, at least with the people I know in the area I'm living in, very painful. And though the pieces are being picked up now in the last year or so, there still is so much shrapnel from the church stories that have happened in the Chicago area that you're hard pressed to go into a local church and not find some people who have, you know, who identify, I've been in that sort of that ramifications of the pain that has happened is all over our city.

There's no question that there is an effect that has continued to be felt in our city. So obviously a lot of other people are having feelings similar to yours and through the whole process. Yeah, I mean, a lot. I, you know, right around when I agreed to write, I really wasn't planning on writing any more books. Book writing has a love and hate relationship for me.

And I love, I want to be used by God. I want to live out my calling, but book writing highlights a lot of those things that many of the millennials and under have criticized in, you know, so that the mega church celebrity pastor sort of culture, which has been part of the church movement in the United States in the last 10 years or so. And the stories have become very many in the United States of all of the things that have happened that we wished were not part of the evangelical structure, which is why people are leaving that. But when I, I remember when, when somebody from Moody Publishers reached out to me to write a book, Judy Donegan, who's wonderful.

She, I didn't have a great idea to write a book, but I was living through this nightmare. But even then I had just, I had just watched a famous Christian claimed to be deconstructed, no longer a Christian. And he had had a huge impact on people in, in his writing.

Earlier in my single years, I had read a book of his, I think, I think most Christians who are familiar with his work probably already know who I'm referring to, but he had been very public about leaving, you know, first his wife and then the Christian faith. And, and, and at the time I was speaking at a chapel and, and I had had this, in some ways, a connection with this person in watching, you know, it sort of felt like even though I wasn't, I hadn't left the faith, I still concerned myself very much a Christian, a follower of Jesus, but I knew something internal was happening to me. And so watching him sort of walk the other side, I felt like, wait, wait, wait, why are you leaving?

And like, what had just happened? And, and as a result, I was going to speak at a local chapel here at a university in town and at Judson. And I remember coming up with that title. Initially it was a reconstructing faith, and I wanted to speak to that and the wrestling that happens in our soul. And, and, and so then Judy had asked me to write the book. I said, you know, the process went on for a couple of months.

I ended up submitting the proposal and getting the acceptance to write it. And right around then I gave a talk at a conference in town and I was asked to speak about the wounds of what happened to me. And I really, honestly, my first response was like, oh, I don't know. I just don't really want to revisit this.

This was like six years after the effect. And, and, but I had to write this book sort of on this premise and God's timing was so perfect because I remember sort of, I planned a trip away at the time and I went walking on the beach and I said to God, it's like I had this conversation with God that was so raw, you know, and, and, and I wish we have more of them with the Lord. But I remember that day. I thought, what do you want me to say to people? I don't want to go there. I don't want to talk about this anymore. I'm done. I was still in this sort of, I'm done with it. I'm numb of it.

I don't want to deal with it. Well, I came out of that two day retreat and gave a talk that was probably one of my shortest talks and probably one of my more profound talks that connected with people deeply. So the question you asked me was, are there other people who, who have, who have gone through this in the area or who have walked through the pain? And I cannot tell you the amount of emails and hits that we had on this talk because of its truthfulness. I think it was a moment where I just was like, I put it all out there.

And it was my first time really sort of talking honestly about not the situation that had happened, but how that situation had impacted me and my faith and caused that near what I call a near collapse, but were it for God's grace. And so yes, many, many, many are hurting. Uh, I believe that with all my heart. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . If you want to suggest this broadcast to a friend, send them to FiveLoveLanguages.com. They can hear this conversation right there. Our guest is Dr. Lina Abidjamra, author of the new book, Fractured Faith, Finding Your Way Back to God in an Age of Deconstruction.

Again, find out more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Dr. Lina, you write, and I quote, I measured God's goodness to me by the amount of blessings I was experiencing in my life, end of quote. Was that thinking wrong? Yeah, I think we all sort of have that internal, it's like, it's like you're, when you're walking, nobody's walking in 100% obedience, but if you're a Christian who's following the Lord to the best of your ability in obedience, yeah, we all have our little sins, right?

I'm gonna lose my temper here and there. I may have a bad thought here. I mean, no one's perfect, right? But in general, you're trying to live in obedience. I think every Christian has this sort of secret like thought that, well, you know, it's going to turn out good for me, right? And I think we just like, I don't even think we understand the depth of that thought that if I do my part, God's going to do his. It's like we live in this contractual basis with God.

And so is it wrong? I think scripture has revealed that the way that we think of it is not biblical. Like, I've always connected the story of John the Baptist, who was serving the Lord like nobody's business and ends up being in prison while Jesus is healing everyone and he ends up, you know, asking like, Jesus, are you the one? You know, what happened here? And he has a crisis of faith. You almost wonder, you know, he deconstructed for a minute, but of course he ends up losing his head.

The story does not turn out well for him. So is it wrong to think that if I follow the Lord, things are going to work out like I want them to? Yeah, I'd say that's wrong. I think we have a misunderstanding of what the goodness of God means. And I think we're idealistic in our desire to think that we're going to be fine. Like we always say, man, if you put me in, you know, like we're watching the Afghani stuff happen and we're like, if I was a Christian there, I'd die for Jesus.

But like, really? Because I can barely stand the idea that God hasn't provided me the perfect guy or on and on, whatever it is our American dream brain has. And so I think it's a complicated question that once what you want is put to test, your view of God is really put to, is revealed. I say in my book elsewhere, pain doesn't, pain exposes your belief in God.

It doesn't cause you to disbelief God, but it just exposes what you really believe about God. Yeah. You use the term fractured faith.

What's the significance of the word fracture? Yeah. We were trying to change the title from reconstructing faith. You know, I joke that my mom couldn't understand that title, but there was a general sense.

It was sort of a, you know, a Home Depot title. Like, well, what does that mean? Like, people weren't connecting with it. And for me, it was like, it was because I felt like there should be a positive spin on this, not as a spin, but as a, in fact, like you can be in the pits and then still somehow your story of faith, like, like remember all this was happening in my life that I sum up in this book, it was ugly for a while inside, but I was still sort of going through the motions. And so, and so, so, so when we started to go to the table with my team and we're thinking through what we could name it, and we couldn't find a word that accurately felt what I was going through.

And then my friend Tina, on that last swim, you know, when you finish, like you're brainstorming, you can't come up with anything. You're like, well, let's sleep on it. And right at the end, she texted, what about fractured faith? And it was like, everybody, you could feel the pin drop because that's sort of what it felt, you know, fractures are breaks, bottom line. You know, another word, I think that, you know, dislocated faith. I think sometimes we think about our faith as taking a hit.

You know, people always think of what's a tragedy come to the ER. They think a fracture is different than a break. Really it's a break in faith. First, you have to have faith in order for it to be fractured.

And really the book is geared towards people who have been in the faith, who are in the faith, even now, who are probably walking in churches and small groups and, and watching church on zoom. And they're just, they're just, you feel in your soul, like something isn't right. And there's sort of a bend to your faith, the pressure on it. There's pain. And I think that's sort of what's what I'm trying to, to, to convey in that word fractured. And listen, the good news about a fracture is that it can be healed. And I think the hope of the book is that there is healing when you feel like your faith is just, it's not gone, but man, is it fractured.

And that's where I was at in those years. Why do you think it is that leaving a church is so difficult for so many people? I think we have so much of our Christian identity in the church and I don't think that's necessarily wrong. I think our identity ought to be in Christ first, but I think most Christians, and I think that truly, you know, fractures in the faith that happened are generally people who have walked in faith, they've walked through this dark night of the soul.

It's not like someone who's a skeptic, never believed. It's usually someone who's been all in and then things just sort of go awry. And I think there's such a deep, well, some of it is the cause of what happened at the church to cause that. And the common thread that seems to be emerging in the last five to 10 years in the United States has been related to corruption of some sort and people that we don't expect to be corrupt.

Like intellectually, we know that leaders can become corrupt, but we always think, but not my leader because we sort of idolize them for so long. And I think that's on us. Like, I mean, that conversation coming out of where I was at church, we had that conversation so often, like, you know, is the person to blame? Is the members to blame? Well, I don't know who's to blame, but there is dysfunction when the person leading the church becomes the head of the church.

And I think everybody has to take some accountability in that. But I think we value the church. That's why it hurts when it's below what you expect Christians. One of the chapters, I think I talk about, you know, is this how Christians are supposed to act? And certainly most of us would admit like Christian leaders ought to do better. And yet again, I think in the same breath, there's almost like the sense like, God, it's your church.

Why aren't you fixing it? So I think that's the weight of the disappointment to me. It wasn't just a disappointment in my leaders. I mean, that was a disappointment, but why church hurt was so hard for me was that on the second side of that coin, the other side of that coin was this reality that God, it's your church.

Why aren't you doing something here? Like, so it felt like it was a, turned into a wrestling match, not against the leadership of a church. No, it was deeper than that. That to me was the deconstructing of my faith. It was that I questioned God and where was he in my pain and why wasn't he defending me? And I hadn't done anything right. I stood up for what's just. And if I can see what justice is here, why aren't you seeing it Lord? And I think now in hindsight, I think, man, I mean, that's arrogant on my part, but on the other hand, it was real. And the beauty of God and the awesomeness of God is that he doesn't look at his children who think like I did and go, you know what? You're arrogant, man. You're, you're, you're almost, I mean, you can almost sometimes I'm used to fear like, am I blaspheming?

But like, I'm feeling the, I don't know what to do with this. And yet in his gentleness, this is, I think the theme that comes up in this book is that we have this father who doesn't leave no matter how much we give him cause to leave. And to me, that's the astounding reality that has grown out of the season of darkness that I've been in. Yeah. Yeah.

Have you talked with married couples who have, how they've handled a hard church situation? Yeah. I've talked about it, done podcasts on it, gotten questions about it from them. I mean, listen, this isn't, you know, you can, you can turn this into a five left love languages of deconstruction, but it's actually a great idea. You know, it's true. People handle it differently. You know, some, you know, there's, we might get into it in a minute, but, but yeah, I think, I think one of the biggest struggles in marriages that I see happening in our era is when one member, so, so first there's disagreement in terms of what's happening in a church.

You see that a lot. So there's conflict in the marriage because of that, but then how do you handle it? The hardest situations are hearing of couples who used to be strong in faith and, you know, you know, the story of deconstruction can end in one of two ways. You can end with still some belief or you can leave. I mean, the tragedy, why this book I think is needed is because we don't want people to get to the point where like, I don't, I'm no longer that. And there's many who now, were they ever a Christian?

Are they still going to come back? We don't know, but in the moment they will no longer say, I'm a Christian. I'm a follower of Jesus. And we see that in couples happening. And to me, that's wow. I mean, you come into a marriage thinking this is going to be one thing and you're both on the same page spiritually. And now you're both walking through a crisis in a church and one person leaves the faith and the other is like, wow, what do I do with that?

It's hard. And so this is not a singles issue. This is not a married issue.

This is a human being issue and a Christian issue. Yeah. But it can certainly be divisive among a married couple, for sure. At some point, as you were telling the truth about what had happened and what you had gone through, you were seen as divisive by some people. How did you handle that? Yeah. You know, that's hard, especially when I was still in public ministry.

I had two books came out the summer I left. And so there was sort of the pragmatic side of me that was like, you know, I don't want to, you know, there's sort of a side that you're like, I don't want to ruin the name of Jesus. Not to say I can carry that weight. I mean, I'm not going to, like, I'm not that important.

Right. But there is a sense that you don't want church, like dirty laundry. People always talk about don't wear dirty laundry.

And so whether in the marriages or whether in families or whether in churches. And so there's a part of you that's like, I just want to ruin the reputation of the Lord and church and whatnot. But then there's another part where you're like, you also are like pragmatic, like I'm a ministry, like I don't want to ruin that. And on the other hand, you know, you sort of want to protect the sheep, so to speak. So what doesn't need to be said, doesn't need to be said. And yet there's this responsibility of saying, well, but if we know there's danger down the path, like why would you let people go down the path? And so there's all these things going on in your brain. And I think there has to be some sense. And I think, honestly, the Holy Spirit guides people differently. I mean, people have talked a lot about, well, whistleblowers, what's their role in all of these things.

And there's ranges of stories that have come up due to whistleblowers in the last five to 10 years and the pros and cons of all that. But for me, you know, I was cautious at the beginning. I didn't say too much. I didn't have any NDA. I have a great job.

I still do. I don't get paid by the ministry. I have a medical job that supports me. So I've always been free of that. If I was silent at the beginning, it was out of a sense of respect to the church, to friends I had who were still in the church. I had private conversations with people when asked. But when that conversation, I told you that speech that I did that connected with people. Even then, I remember comments coming through the blog that I just had to delete, you know. I didn't give that speech until after he was disqualified by the elder board.

So it was a done deal. And I still was seen as a person who potentially was wreaking havoc. And I think one of the things I saw in myself and I have acknowledged is we fear man.

And I know it's always been there. But like there's a part in the deconstruction scenario where you question, you know, you look at the things that you've believed about the church, about the leaders, about your faith, and you kind of come to terms with these things. I think there's a truth that unfolds. And one of the truths has been, you know, I want to be liked and respected by people.

I really long for that. Words of affirmation are my love language. So there is so much of yourself that blocks the way of truth, too. And I think to acknowledge that and to care less about what people think while still loving them, that's been and is continuing to be a growth point to me. You know, we all want to be liked and we all want to belong.

And so I can hear one negative comment and it will outweigh 100 positive comments. And so there's a lot of hard work that gets done in seasons of deconstruction that I think is part of why God allows these painful seasons. Yeah, yeah. On another topic, you say, and I'm quoting, the key is in remembering who God really is, not who we've made him to be.

Explain that for us. Oh man, you picked some of my favorite quotes, actually. That's, I mean, I think we are idol makers in our natural bend. You know, the people of Israel waiting for God on the mountain. They've seen the 10, I mean, they've seen him do the 10 plagues. They've been saved. Every Egyptian lost a son and here they were, they were set free. They saw the waters part of the Red Sea and now they can't wait 40 days and they just make an idol.

Why? Because they have an idea of who God should be. And though they've seen all of these things about the Lord, like my life has been full of the goodness of God and of the blessings of God, but I still have a list of what I think I want my little God to do for me.

And it centers around me being on the throne of my life. And no matter how you parse it, I think we all sort of have that propensity and it is God's grace that opens our eyes to it and keeps us from following that God. And you could argue, you know, you could say, well, well, aren't the desire, by the way, a big chapter in my book talks about desires and longings.

Cause I think this is where we get stuck. We just think, well, if God gave me the desire and he wants me to get it fulfilled. And now we want to come to God with this idea of what fulfilling the desire looks like. And so again, we take this big God who spoke the word into existence, who is, you know, running the world with his legs up, so to speak. And, and, and, and we, we sort of want to bring him into this little box of Lena's desires and world. And if he doesn't do exactly what I think he should do, all of a sudden I'm like, I'm miffed at you Lord.

And I can't believe you're doing this. And I think we lose this ability to see the grandeur of God. Not that he doesn't care about those desires.

No, but that he gets us so deeply that if you could just trust him to let the story play out, you would eventually see that. And, and, and listen, I'm not, I'm not speaking as one. I mean, those little faith crises happen to us all the time. This is a daily conversation we need to be having with ourselves and with God. Cause it's not like you can, the Israelites, I mean, to go back to that example in Exodus, I think 32 ish. I mean, you go back to that. That wasn't the last time they had a crisis of faith, even though 32,000 people fell that day, it was only a matter of days before they had another crisis of faith where they questioned who God is, right?

Because they couldn't get it into their thick heads. And, and if I have a prayer for myself, and if anyone's listening who tends to be like me, where you just like frustrated with God, cause, cause your life isn't always what you want it to be or think it would be, or, you know, in our Hollywood version of this world think it should be now, I would urge you to, to, to admit that to God. You know, I think forever I used to be afraid. Like if God saw that, I mean, like, I just think we have a, we have a good, a fear of God, but it's almost like we don't understand what that really means. And so our fear of God, what we, so we're afraid God will sort of find out that we think those things.

So we hide them from him or we think we do, which is sort of naive because he already sees that we're thinking those things about him. And so to acknowledge it, to come humbly and say, God, I'm really struggling. Here's a desire I have.

I don't see it played out. And I thought you would do this and I'm not getting it. And like having these open, authentic conversations with, with God. And honestly, I mean, you're Dr. Chapman, I mean, you, you, you do this for a living, but like I've had to get some help and I've had to talk with a therapist through some of those things to be able to vocalize maybe some of the angst that was internal.

I'm an ER doctor. I'm trained to, to compartmentalize, to ignore, to, to sort of shove emotions in a bucket. So my, my, you know, my healing and deconstruction, if it were left to me would be like, shove it all in a box and hide it. And we'll talk about it in eternity.

And it doesn't work this way, right? It doesn't because you end up exhausted and disappointed and frustrated and disillusioned, not just in that church, but in the Lord. Whereas God wants to open up those boxes that we've shoved in our hearts and deal with them and heal them.

And again, I go back to that's what grace is, is his willingness, not just to ignore those boxes, but to bring them to the place where we can heal inside and out. You're listening to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . We're talking with author and speaker, Dr. Lina Aberjammer. Her new book is our featured resource today. It's titled Fractured Faith, Finding Your Way Back to God in an Age of Deconstruction. To find out more, go to FiveLoveLanguages.com.

That's FiveLoveLanguages.com. Dr. Lina, this conversation, of course, is dealing with some real emotions. And in the book, you talk about that there are people who are Christians who are going through the motions, they're reading their Bibles, they're going to church, but inside they're becoming numb and shriveling inside. If someone listening is going through that, what do you say? I don't think it's someone.

I think it's many people. I mean, church has been a big part of my life and I continue, by the way, I continue to be part of a local church. I'm in a small church plant now. Karl Clausen from Rudy Radio is my pastor.

Love him. He's been part of the story of my healing, him and his wife. We can talk about that in a few minutes if you'd like. But I'm convinced, in fact, I would reiterate this book is really written with those people at heart. I think I have friends whose, you know, millennial kids have deconstructed and they no longer see themselves as Christian. They might not directly connect with the book. I don't know if they would or not.

I think they might be too far out in a sense. God might use different means to get those people attention, you know, their heartstrings, whatever, however you want to talk about a book connecting with people. But really, my experience in the church is that we're all really good at faking it. We really are. I think we show up and we play the game and sometimes we don't even notice we're faking it.

For that 45 minutes on Sunday or an hour of Sunday, we might even feel good in that moment. And by the way, I didn't foresee that I was writing the book with this extended COVID season. I started writing it during COVID and I don't think anyone knew how this would play out.

And here we are now, a year and a half later, still dealing with COVID. Now, Zoom is no longer, you know, the stock price of Zoom is probably stabilized. We're all very familiar with Zoom now. I don't think anyone is a newbie to Zoom.

My seven-year-old nephew can run a Zoom room and better than I can. And so I think church has evolved in many Christians' lives. You know, we went from this season, prolonged season where we didn't even have a church to go to.

In Chicago, our churches are a little bit more on the, our state is much more restrictive. But church attendance changed. And then because Zoom was available now, most churches are offering Zoom services. So even before the skills we developed to hide in the fiber of the church, we don't even need them anymore. We just put the Zoom on and hide the video.

There are so many ways that you can hide now. Like, it's amazing to me how Christians have lied to ourselves or even lied to others. I don't even think we do it deceptively.

I think we do it in an effort to, I just don't think most of us have the bandwidth to deal with some of that negative emotion. And so I think sometimes this is exactly why God has to bring it to the head. It's like an infection that hasn't come, you know, an abscess is one of the gross listeners out. But there's a point where it can be popped. You can compare it to a zit.

You know, but there's a long time, the worst zits are the ones that you can't pop right away. You watch and they hurt and they're there. And I think many Christians are like that.

They show up, they go through the motions. I think even we open our Bibles, try to read them every day and get nothing out of it and don't know why. And we just keep going day after day after day thinking at some point, I want that breakthrough that that guy on Instagram with million followers has, why do I not have it?

And at some point, something tips you around the bend that sends you down a path of deconstruction because you just, I think your soul isn't supposed to live in this kind of unhappy survival mode in Christ. I really think God is more interested in getting to the root of these infections than to letting us meagerly survive in some kind of facade of okay. I do believe that Jesus says he has come to give us an abundant life. And so many of us settle for less.

And God's grace is that he doesn't allow us to settle for less. And he does it through pain. In many ways, if we're simply going through the motions, it's just like any other religion, right? Yes.

Yes, exactly. And so what difference? There's no living God that's, I mean, I have a friend, her name is Joy and it describes her. And this woman has, she's older than I am and I'm not young anymore. And she's been through a lot. You would never know it. She's that, you know, I just remember growing up in Lebanon and these missionaries would come and we had one missionary couple, they were like 80 when I met them. They're now passed on to glory, but they had served forever in Cambodia before coming to Beirut. I mean, think about their life. It's like in some of the worst conditions during the seventies and eighties. I mean, and I mean, you could tell they were Christians.

They were seeping joy out of their pores. And I just don't think we've, I think our culture has become so cynical and independent and you know, it's, I don't even think we, we don't even like what we are, but we just are told that this is how we should be. And I don't know that we know how to transition into a church. And so I think there, you know, but we know that we're supposed to be there.

And so we keep showing up. We think, well, if I do, again, you go back to that contractual, well, if I read my Bible every day, then God's going to give me the things that I want. And so we're caught in this vicious cycle of religion. And until we can step out of it and get back to intimacy and authenticity with Jesus, I think that's where joy is. Yeah. You say in the book that instead of coming to God with expectations, we should come to God with our longings. Yeah.

Yeah. I spent a lot of time on that section. It's funny, you know, as a single person, I spent a long time and you know, you and I, Dr. Chapman have talked, and Chris, by the way, both of us have talked a lot about singleness with my book, Thrive, and I've sort of had a big part of my ministry spent in that. And one of the biggest verses, you know, that single people get stumbling over is like, if you delight yourself in the Lord, he'll give you the desires of your heart. And so I always chuckle because that's like the singles life verse. But the truth is that we all sort of have that, you know, I think we, the question that many cynical singles or singles who have felt like they've been given something they didn't deserve, I think it gets caught up in that verse.

And so we've, you know, we've put it, you know, I can't tell you how many times I've heard this. Well, it's because God is going to change your desires. Like we have so many ways to try to explain away God's word. And I think that bothers me when I see that happening. I think we're far too honest in 2021 to go for like some explanation of what does it mean?

And maybe, maybe, you know, some Bible professor somewhere can kind of go back to the word roots. And it's almost like this discussion between joy and happiness. Like I get like happiness is based on circumstances, joy is based on reality.

Like I get those things, but tell that to the person who's hurting, tell that to the person whose desires are not fulfilled. And so I think you have to go deeper. So I spent almost more than a chapter, I think I address it in two or three chapters. There's one chapter where I talk about sin, which sort of you're like, why are you talking about sin in a book about deconstruction? Well, because they're sort of tied in when we start to live in a space where what we want deeply hasn't happened. We either have to conclude that our desires are wrong or that God is mean because he hasn't fulfilled them. And I think you have to sort of get past like, what is the difference between a desire, a longing and an expectation?

And I think it's the expectation part that gets us in trouble. And so I think if you have a desire, I mean, unless it's a sinful desire, I mean, again, that's addressed in the book where I talk about the difference between good desires and bad. I mean, if you have a desire to kill someone, like that's not from God, but I think by and large, it's our good desires that get us in trouble. And where does the line go from it being just a good desire to it being something that's destroying us and to where we can move into a place where now we no longer see that desire as like, it's me and my desire against God to know God has actually allowed that desire and there's a reason for it.

And I think it's those very unmet desires that ultimately I genuinely believe are ultimately the key to deepening our intimacy with the Lord. Yeah. We've used the word deconstruction. And in the book, you actually have a deconstruction diagram. Yeah.

First of all, just clarify again what you mean by that word deconstructing and kind of walk us through that diagram. Yeah. My friend, Karen Pryor, has a great article that came out that I think is the best. She came out in August of 2021 that I think she defines it in the best way I've found. And so I'll just quote her.

And then I'll talk about the diagram for a second and why I created the diagram. So basically she says that deconstruction essentially describes what happens when a person asks questions that lead to the careful dismantling of their previous beliefs. Something happens and you start to wonder. Now that doesn't mean, do I believe in the existence of God always?

It can be, do I believe that the church, like for me, the situation was with church or maybe your singleness or your marriage. You sort of have to go back, like there's something that happens in your life that sets you off to start to ask questions. Questions that might be harder than can be answered in a 45-minute sermon, which if that's the only forum, I mean, one of my critiques of the type of church style, the consumerist church that the American culture has wanted in the last few years is that we literally show up and we want those 45-minute injection. It's like people who go for IV fluid injections. They're tired. They want like, just pop in an IV, give me vitamin B12 and fluids and I'll be fine for a while. That's what we want in church. And unfortunately, that's not sustaining. And so over time when questions happen, well, the poor pastor, he's got 45 minutes to boost you in the arm. He can't address all of your questions.

So if you're counting on that 45 minutes to answer those questions, you're going to leave with some disappointment. And so deconstruction has become a term that's used in a wide array of ways. And so you'll hear a lot of people talk about deconstructing from a deconversion from X. So now they call themselves like ex-evangelical.

It's become a new thing. I'm no longer an evangelical. They'll talk, not me, but that's one description of it. And many people who go down that lane end up either saying, well, no, I'm no longer a Christian. Or, you know, they might change into a different style of Christian practice.

There are others who end up coming back to faith. And so like Saint John of the Cross is, I don't know that he, I mean, he's dead long dead. He's a writer from, you know, back in the day. But he writes about a book that he's well known for, The Dark Night of the Soul. And so now looking back, you go, well, he might have deconstructed. I mean, if you're looking at some of the questions that he might have had during those seasons where God felt very far away, everything he believed about God was put to test.

And then he landed on faith. He wrote about it. And that book that he's written has impacted many, many people over the years. And so I think when I was sort of trying to put words around feelings, and by the way, I think that's a bulk of what I do in this book.

I really think I walk through a painful experience. And one of the biggest comments that I've gotten from people who have read it has been that you write exactly what I was feeling. And by the way, I think that's what writers tend to do. That's what writers are supposed to do.

That's the biggest compliment that I can get. And so as painful as it is, when you can put words to feelings, people can go, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I see that. And so the deconstruction diagram was sort of taking these esoteric ideas of longing, of feelings, of doubt, of numbing, and try to put them in some schematic that would help people say, you know, I never thought I was deconstructed, but when I look at this chart, man, if I stay on this path of disappointment, so you have pain, it leads to disappointment, then it leads to doubt. And so you kind of walk through this deconstruction diagram, which starts in one lane and then moves into two lanes. And the two lanes are either disbelief to unbelief, or to eventual reconstruction and faith.

And by God's grace, I've landed in that reconstruction and faith, and I believe every follower of Jesus who's called by God will end up there, as the road may be detoured. But I think that chart, if anything, people should buy the book for that chart, because I think you can then diagnose yourself. There's, you know, every patient I talk to now on the phone, I do telehealth, and they're all like, well, you know, we looked at WebMD, and here's what we found. Well, this is like a WebMD of spiritual symptoms, and see where you are in the facet of that, and then go to God, the perfect, the healer, the perfect physician, who longs to heal you. And by the way, you don't have to go to Him, because the minute you start asking these questions, you're gonna sense His presence, because He's, He's there, He knows it now. And odds are that He's allowed you to listen to this now, because He's been trying to speak to you in many ways, but maybe you've been too stuck in your pain, like I was for so long, to hear clearly.

And so when God gives you an answer on a platter, then take it, because those are moments that become life-changing in your path towards Him. Thanks for joining us for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, and thanks for telling a friend about the program. If you know someone who would benefit from today's conversation, send them to 5lovelanguages.com, where they can hear this discussion with Dr. Lina Abu-Jamra. She's the author of our featured resource, Fractured Faith, Finding Your Way Back to God in an Age of Deconstruction.

Find out more at 5lovelanguages.com. Dr. Lina, we've been talking about church hurt. Do you think that many times the deconstruction or the disappointment in the move toward, you know, drawing back not only from the church, but from God, do you think that many times it is stimulated by hurt that is seen in the church?

I think right now, I would say for sure. You know, you know, biblically, you look at the move. I mean, the New Testament is only part of the Bible, so you can look at the people of God in general, but like, you know, how much of the problems in the modern-day church are related to local church issues. I mean, we know there were local church issues in the New Testament.

There's plenty of them. Paul addresses them on more than one occasion. I talk in one of the chapters about, you know, some of the, you know, the demise of some of the Christian's faith in the Word of God. But I mean, I think right now, you know, barring all those biblical examples and potentials, and yes, I think right now in 2021, we are living in an era, and I would push it even more, I don't even think it's just church hurt.

Church hurt causes a Christian to leave here and a Christian to leave there, right? I mean, back when we were in the 80s, we had a family, you know, our family was a church, and we ended up leaving one church for another. It wasn't a crisis. It was like, it just was time. You know, there's a lot of factors. We had been from Lebanon to the United States recently.

I mean, everybody has that story. But what I think is different in 2021, and what I think is your question is, is there a movement now away from the church due to hurt related to church? And I would say absolutely. Furthermore, I would point the finger to leaders. I think big leaders have taken big falls, and I think that has affected the next generation, because there has been a lack of willingness until recently. I think in the last couple of years, we've seen a little bit more work for answers.

I think one of the gifts of these conversations and social media is that as hard as these conversations are, they must be had because anyone under 30 is asking the questions. And they're looking at leaders. Now, everything is public. So there's no longer, you can hide something somewhere in a corner, and nobody knows about it.

Now it's like public knowledge. And so there has to be a change in the way that we view leadership and the way that we live our life as leaders. And listen, I'm speaking to myself too. Like, I know that it's going to be a harder road to walk if you're a leader, but I think we need to take some accountability to say, look, if you are a leader right now in the Christian movements and in the church, we've got to step it up, man. Or as my pastor would say, get on our knees and show that the way we step up as Christians is to get lower and lower and humbler and humbler. And so I would say, yes, a lot of hurt right now and departure from church is related to wounds at the hands of the church, but more so, and by the way, church and parachurch organizations, and I would even point to leadership failure. Leadership failure is really a leading cause of the pain that we're going through right now in this era.

In the light of all that we've been through, what do you see happening in the church as we move forward? Yeah. One of two things, right? Well, we know it's not going to stop. Like that's a promise from the word of God. And I know Christians always say that and, you know, as a part of your like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, like I really believe like the church is about the bride of Christ. Like it's not going anywhere now it might change dynamics. I mean, we've seen in other countries, like I travel enough to know that there's different flavors of church. Like some is underground.

Some is, you know, some is, it gets really small in some areas and grows in others, but the other side of it, and I think why people are still fighting for this thing. Why does a book like this come out? Why am I here talking about this? I mean, right? I mean, it's easy to just be like, well, I'll just watch zoom the rest of my life church. I mean, that's it. But that doesn't work. That leaves you hungry. God has created us in need of a fellowship and community and each other. Like it just doesn't work.

It's God's idea of the church isn't to watch it on a TV where you can possibly put in a comment and maybe if you're lucky not multitask, I mean, find me three church members who aren't multitasking watching the zoom. And so, so the hope and why we fight is that it could be the seed of revival. And I really long for that, that all the pain, all the examples, all the questions, all the things we do to numb our pain, all the disappointment and disillusion and dark nights of the soul can be put in a bucket and weighed against the grace of God. And the grace of God is so much heavier and weightier that we would say, man, I know, I know.

I mean, I know it's a long, hard road. That's, by the way, that's why I wrote the Afterword in my book. And it's just a summary of saying, look, here's what I know at the end of the day, there's a God who loves me so, so deeply. And I don't get it.

And I can't explain it. And I still, like, I see the darkness of my own heart and I see where I've been. And because I don't know if I'm going to go there again, I hope not, like who plans on deconstructing, but yet in it was a tender hand of a father who was unwilling to ever let go. And to me, when you really understand that you're on your way to revival.

I think that's what we need in our country right now. Lena, how does God use our failures to redirect our callings when we've gone through something like you've talked about? And tell us, how has that been true in your own life? Yeah, you know, every junction in my life when I thought, I'm done, man, my calling, my life, what I asked pirate to be for the Lord, my dreams for God are gone. I remember the first big time that happened, I was, I had broken my engagement and just wasn't sure what I would do with my life. And I, you know, talked about that in my first book, Thrive, and out of that woundedness and pain. And that was my minor deconstruction, my minor crisis of faith in hindsight compared to the last one I had. But I remember out of that was born my call to teach the Bible. I had never taught in a, but it was the healing that God brought in that time that sort of there was space for movements of God to sort of take me from the path that I was so intent on going to the new one. And then when this last event happened, and again, I'm not talking about little questions here. I'm not about big events or crises where you're just wondering, man, how did my life end up this way? So this last time, I should have known that God has a way of appearing in the darkness of our night.

But you know, our memories are so weak. And so I remember the year after I left, I didn't know what I was going to do because I had put God in this box of, well, I do women's ministry, and I speak at churches, and I write Bible studies. And this is, this is what it looks like to serve God. And it just, I didn't have the creativity to step out of that. And I was practicing medicine. I thought, well, I don't know what else to do. So I thought I was done. And it was in, I think, when we fail is when we can finally, especially by the way, I was gonna say, I was gonna say when you're running at my pace, but I think the American pace is so focused and so works oriented, and so results oriented, all of us, even the people who say, No, I'm not that I'm type B, you know, personality, type B, and I'm laid back. No, we all have a drivenness in us. And I think until we fail, we never get off that highway, where we can stop and say, Okay, God, I'm out of, I'm out.

I can't do this. Like, I need an idea. And so in that space was when God invited me through people to go to Lebanon. And I ended up starting to do medical mission trips there.

And now it's been about six years. Our global ministry is flourishing in Lebanon. We've got two medical clinics we run on the ground.

We support monthly, thousands of people and humanitarian needs, both Syrian refugees and now the Lebanese people. We've been able, our ministries, to many people is known as a global ministry, rather than a Bible teaching ministry, we do both. And so that has been a fruit of my failure. And if that's the case, if you see these patterns happen, I would say as much as I hated God, if this is what you can birth out of failure, then let the failure come, as long as you're in control of my life in it. Yeah. If we run to God, rather than running away from God in the midst of the pain, we'll find him, right?

You know what else I found? Not only if we, I think sometimes, and this is, I guess we're getting to the end here, but I would say for the person who's listening, who doesn't have the energy to run to God, God doesn't need us to do a whole lot of running. Just enough, just enough, just a little yes, a whisper that says, God, I want to, that's what I want. I just, and you'll find that he's already running to you.

Yeah. Well, Dr. Lina, this conversation has been very emotionally moving, and I'm sure that our listeners who have gone through similar experiences like this have identified, and I think this book is going to help a lot of people who are trying to work through the disappointment they've experienced in various aspects of the church, and sometimes attributing those things to God. So thank you for being with us today. Thank you for writing this book. Thank you for having me. So much we didn't get to on the program today. If you go to fivelovelanguages.com, you'll see that featured resource, the book by Dr. Lina Abu-Jamra, Fractured Faith, Finding Your Way Back to God in an Age of Deconstruction.

Just go to fivelovelanguages.com. And coming up next week, help for parents who want to encourage their children to become who God meant them to be. Don't miss the encouragement in one week. Before we go, let me thank our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Todd. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in Chicago, in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.