Believe it or not, deconstruction is essential spiritual and emotional work for the overall health of your life and relationships. 

1. Deconstruction helps keep God on the throne of your heart.

One of the reasons you might have started deconstructing is your church hurt. We get hurt and harmed by the church when we are looking for the institution to give us what only Jesus can. When we start diving into scripture and taking our questions and hurt to Him, God takes His rightful place back on the throne of our hearts. The church comes down, and our worship and devotion are directed where they should’ve always been. 

2. Deconstruction gets you into Scripture.

When we decide to take our pain and the questions that come with it into the pages of scripture, we will find ourselves desiring to know God more and hear what He has to say. Weeding through all the lies you’ve believed and the wonders of your heart is hard work, but the result of a more profound desire to know God is worth the hard work of finding what is true. 

3. Deconstruction helps give your life a renewed purpose.

When you discover what is true, God renews your desire to tell people about Him. To share the good news that the burden sometimes found in religion isn’t the way, but He is. We don’t have to measure up to the standards of a pastor or do every church activity under the sun to be loved. We only have one call: Help people find and follow Jesus Christ. Our job is to show Christ’s love through how we live and tell people about Him through how we speak and what we talk about. 

4. Deconstruction helps you forgive.

Probably the greatest gift I was given in deconstruction was forgiveness. Being able to surrender the people and places that hurt and abused me changed my life. Giving them to God and trusting that He cares about them more than my revenge does and that He will have His way in their lives set me free. We can focus on healing from how they harmed us instead of fixating on the who. We can’t live free if we are holding on to our revenge fantasies of seeing churches burn and leadership dethroned. There is no life there. But we can live when we trust God and let go of the who.

5. Deconstruction reveals who your real friends are. 

One of the most challenging parts about deconstruction is that you will lose friends. Some will not understand what you are doing or believe that anything harmful ever happened inside the walls of your church. They will claim you are being destructive or lack discernment. Some will even go as far as to say you never truly believed in God. But deconstruction will also reveal who your real friends are. They may not 100% understand, but they respect you and want you to find healing and what God says about your questions and doubts. They care more about you as a whole than how your life looks in this moment because it can look messy and sad for a while. 

Deconstruction is about restoration. We don’t leave a kitchen torn out when we remodel; we rebuild it, and typically, we rebuild it better than before. We change the footprint and make new boundaries so the kitchen can function well in the home. Deconstruction helps us develop our spiritual lives around God’s boundaries so we can live healthily inside the church. 

Deconstruction isn’t a waste of time when the only outcome with Jesus is health and restoration. 

For more encouragement, check out Deconstructing: A Devotional for Restoring Faith after Church Hurt