Kill the Spider Read online

Or how about this? You grew up in church. You loved Jesus with all your heart. He was your joy and guide. He was the answer to all of your problems. And then one day you woke up and couldn’t seem to find Him. He used to be there for you all the time, but now, somehow, He is silent. You give your heart the benefit of the doubt, but you still find silence. What happened? He used to be loud and now He isn’t. Does that make His loudness a lie? Was it ever Him to begin with? Truth doesn’t seem like truth anymore.

  A State Farm insurance commercial asks this question: “What if we woke up one day, and everything just stopped going wrong? No more accidents? No more fires? No more emergencies? No more bad anything?” In the commercial it shows a scene of an intersection with forty cars speeding through with no method to their madness, and there is a kid riding his bike through the middle of it with no worries and without getting hit. Unfortunately, this is what we expect to get when we say yes to Jesus. And although it may feel like this for a hot minute, this isn’t truth—at least not this side of Heaven. It won’t ever be true, but man do we want it to be true. So often we come out on the other side of a tragedy completely giving up on God because our feelings do not match our dreams. But this unraveling of truth, although gut-wrenching and terrifying, is the beginning of getting to real truth—a truth that doesn’t depend on your feelings and that will allow you to face your spider with strength, not fight it with a nerf gun.

  For me, this unraveling, gut-wrenching, terrifying moment happened on day three of OnSite.

  Every morning, we woke up and had our “meditation time” before breakfast, but after coffee. There was no smoking at OnSite and no drugs—except for coffee. That is a legal drug there, and every morning, almost every single person gathered around one coffee pot. It was in the old Gone With the Wind house kitchen. Forty humans, beat up and battered from the emotional work of the day before, would show up and stand in line for the liquid drug. And slowly but surely, Folgers drip coffee returned hope to life. I swear it tasted better than the best pour-over coffee I’ve ever had at Crema. (Well, until I was able to get back to Crema.) Isn’t it funny how when you don’t have options, that option suddenly tastes like manna from Heaven?

  For the first two mornings, our meditation had been in the big room where we all gathered for our large group time. We started off with a breathing exercise that, without the coffee, would have put me right back to sleep. After calming ourselves, Bill began to read meditations to us and take us to places in our minds and hearts we probably hadn’t been to in a long time, if ever. I’ve never been much of a meditator, but I was growing to like it. It was a departure from anything I had normally done. I had been taught to pray when I woke in the morning, and I guess this was a sort of prayer, but not the kind I was used to. When I pray, I talk. This was more listening.

  But this morning, after we got to the room, Bill declared to us all that we would be taking a walk. Oh, I thought, a cute nature walk. It was 7:30 a.m. on a late summer Tennessee morning, which meant it was already spiritual. The morning fog had yet to lift from the hills, so we were walking in a sort of mist. Single file, past the horseshoe pit and around the first set of cabins. Nobody said a word. Remember the silence I was talking about earlier? She was singing. It was absolutely beautiful. The property was fifteen miles from the nearest highway, so there wasn’t any traffic in the distance. No hum of cars or trains rumbling by. It was just our feet tapping the slick grass beneath them. A few times the horses to our left neighed and made other horseish type sounds, as if to say good morning as we walked by them. But it was so quiet. And it was so right.

  “We are heading toward a labyrinth, friends. For those of you not familiar with a labyrinth, it isn’t a maze. A maze may have multiple ways in or out. A labyrinth has a single direct path from beginning to end with many turns. So although it may look like a maze, it’s not.” Okay, I liked this. All the hippie was spilling out of me at this moment. I was in.

  Bill continued, “When we get to the labyrinth, we will slowly, with a steady pace, single file, enter the labyrinth. As you enter, think about God—who God is to you. Once you have that in mind, with every turn you take in the labyrinth, begin to let go of something you have held true about God that you need to get rid of. Just begin to strip away all of the stuff God does not need from your heart and soul. With every turn, take something and place it to the side. When you get to the center of the labyrinth, we will all be there together with nothing but whomever ‘God’ is in your life.”

  What in the world would I need to get rid of? God was God. He was and is everything to me. But just as everything else I had experienced so far that week, I dove in head first.

  If you are over thirty-five and reading this book, the word labyrinth may take you back to the psychedelic puppet movie with the same name starring David Bowie. It had a massive labyrinth with walls as big as a house. That wasn’t the case with this one. This labyrinth was made of stones not bigger than our feet. It was a path, not a maze. It was at the top of a hill looking over a field. We all got to the top of the hill and stared silently at the majesty that was this Tennessee morning. It was so quiet. So peaceful. So still. The mist was still heavy and the dew lingered. You could have heard a pin drop. Suddenly there was sound. From somewhere in the woods, we heard the long, drawn out sound of a bagpipe. Just the drone. You know the one—the low hum.

  I was captured by the sound. This place had more tricks up its sleeve than I had anticipated. Bravo, Bill. I liked the bagpipe music being pumped through the speakers in the forest. Nice touch. The singular note soon turned into a melody with a drum beat on every second and fourth beat. But the sound was getting closer. Not louder, but closer. Bill told us to begin the exercise. And so we began to enter the labyrinth, one by one. As I entered, I saw him. A figure appearing from the woods. He was wearing a kilt, playing a bagpipe, and suddenly I was in Braveheart. A real bagpipe player? This place is magic. As he got closer, I recognized the familiar tune. I was entranced by the melody. The words were on my lips, and I sang along in a whisper, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound / That saved a wretch like me. / I once was lost, but now I’m found, / Was blind, but now I see.”

  The grass that our feet had been pacing across now turned to dirt. The path which was outlined with stones was now a little bit crunchier. But I think they designed it that way on purpose. Something tangible happens inside you when you step off something soft and onto something hard. With every turn of the labyrinth, I felt a sense of freedom. I was dropping things that I held that I no longer needed. A bad church experience at the first turn. That moment I was told that I wasn’t a capable Christian leader by someone I really looked up to. I’m sure they meant it in love but, man, I had no idea how much it hurt. Pause. Breathe. Now, just like Bill said, lay it down. And so I did. A lie I believed about God at the second turn. That God had favorites. That for some reason He didn’t believe that I could handle being a Christian leader. Oh wow. That stung. And look how closely it’s tied into that moment at the last turn. I’ve got to let this go. It’s not true. So I do. My pace began to slow as I approached every turn. I wanted to make sure that I unloaded what was weighing me down in my faith. I could see only a few turns into this exercise how freeing this was going to be. As I continued toward the center, I literally was feeling the freedom of getting rid of these lies that were not necessary in my faith.

  Somewhere behind me, Bill called out to us. “Now, listen guys. When you get to the center, you will have only your God, but on the way back out of the labyrinth, literally, at every turn, I want you to put back in place only what is necessary in your faith. Leave behind what you don’t need. You can put some stuff back on if you want, but know that you’re making a choice.”

  I wasn’t to the center of the labyrinth yet and still had several turns to make. This small bit of information from Bill made me wonder. What else was I going to let go of? I had this calm yet piercing thought: let go of everything but God. I didn’t know what that meant, bu
t on the very next turn I said out loud to myself, “Okay, I believe in Jesus, but for just a minute, I’m going to put that to the side because it’s a hard one. The whole raising from the dead thing. I know I believe it, but for just a second, let me rid myself of anything hard to believe in. Just get to God.” Dangerous? Sure. But, for the sake of the exercise, I put Jesus to the side. The next turn I said the same thing about the Holy Spirit. I mean, the Trinity is real to me, so it’s not like I was actually putting Jesus and the Holy Spirit to the side. But, figuratively, I needed to get to the simple root of who God the Father is.

  I started feeling some anxiety the closer I got to the center. I mean some real, tangible anxiety. When I got to the center of the labyrinth, I remember specifically feeling like I still had God. And God was good. And God was in control even though I felt very out of control. It was an incredibly strange feeling, and it was a long few minutes in the center of the labyrinth before Bill told us we should start making our way back out again. I could not wait because I was ready to get Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the Bible and all of the stuff that makes my faith work back on. Turn number one. “Okay, I put Jesus back.” Nothing. I felt nothing. “Jesus. I believe in you. I think. Jesus? Are you real? Jesus?” The panic began to flood over me in ways I hadn’t felt in years. “Holy Spirit. Come. Come, Holy Spirit. Come, please!” Nothing. Nada. What was happening? With every turn, I got closer to the outside of the labyrinth, and nothing was sticking. Bill said we could put back on everything we needed, but nothing was sticking. I began to weep. I felt so lost. By the time I got out, I sprinted to Bill and Nancy who were standing on the edge.

  “Hey, Bill. I don’t know what’s happening. I’m kinda freaking out. I can’t seem to reconvince myself that Jesus is real. He is real. I mean, I think He is. He is, right? What’s happening?” I was in a full-blown panic. Nancy grabbed my hand and walked me to the side.

  “Breathe, Carlos. Take a deep breath. Remember, trust the process. Celebrate the miracles.”

  “Nancy. This isn’t a miracle. I don’t like this process. I can’t go home and tell my wife that I don’t believe in Jesus anymore! What is happening?” I quietly yelled. (Yes, that is possible.)

  “Maybe you never really believed in the first place.”

  What was this mythical spiritual mumbo jumbo she was talking about? Somebody told me Jesus was real. I sang songs about Jesus being real every week. And then the thought hit me. Maybe I always just assumed Jesus was real. I never really found out for myself.

  I sprinted back to my cabin and grabbed the only thing I knew could bring me peace in this panic-filled moment: my Bible.

  I opened that bad boy up and started flipping. I wanted and needed some sort of anchor. But you know what? It all felt like fluff. It all felt like made-up stories. What was happening? Was everything I ever believed about God an absolute lie? Was everything I ever believed about Jesus a sham? Had I been duped? Absolutely everything about my faith was being turned upside down in a matter of hours. I was scared. I was confused. I didn’t know what was happening. I felt as though my faith was a lie. I was screaming at God from my bed in my cabin. I felt so alone. I just wanted to go home, back to before I experienced this confusion. Who was I without the faith I had built my life on?

  But the truth was, I was just beginning to find Him. Jesus never left. The Holy Spirit never left. They were there. I just had to find them for myself. Instead of letting songs and sermons be my guide, I was going to have to find them in the silence. And the new truth that was coming was greater than any truth I had ever known before.

  What If It’s Actually God Unraveling Our Beliefs in Order to Rebuild Them?

  Facing a crisis of faith is not uncommon. Many of us go through this experience. It’s not only okay, it’s important. We can grow up either having a faith ingrained in us by our families and communities, or we can grow up with misconceptions about faith as an outsider. Neither of these is real or personal. We often have to unpack the baggage we’ve carried through life around this issue so we can start anew with a different set of essentials that are what we really need to take with us on the journey.

  •What sort of experiences are stretching your view of God?

  •What does the current state of your relationship with God look like?

  •How can you disturb and disrupt your relationship with God so that you get uncomfortable?

  CHAPTER 8

  THE SATAN DUPLEX

  The morning after I had accidentally stopped believing in Jesus, I woke up feeling like I had been to the final round in a prize fight. Everything was sore. I was exhausted. It was as though I had been in a physical battle as opposed to a spiritual battle. But then again, maybe those two aren’t separated by as much as we think. I picked up my Bible and opened it again . . . Sigh . . . Just as fluffy as it was yesterday. Stick a fork in my faith. It was done. And as depressing as that sounds, it was true. All my years growing up in the church . . . working full-time for the church . . . writing songs for the church . . . That faith was gone. I didn’t know where the outcome of this spiritual battle royale was taking me, but I knew it wasn’t to the safe spiritual sauna I had been relaxing in before. No, I knew I could never go back there again. So where would I go? How would I find my faith again?

  When I was twenty-one, I was in one of the darkest seasons of my life. I was in my fifth year at Berry College in Rome, Georgia, and I was a mess. I was a lost soul looking for any sort of validation. But I wasn’t necessarily looking to fix myself. I had a job. I hadn’t been expelled (yet). I had a condo. I had a girlfriend. People from afar still saw me as having it together. But, man, was I not together—drinking heavily whenever I could, sleeping till noon, and missing work all the time. I didn’t have a name for it, although now I can look back and see that I was suffering from heavy depression and anxiety. I was 2,500 miles away from my parents. I felt so alone. I had slowly but surely pushed away all my friends.

  It was a pretty scary and sad time. Sad is the easy word to define here. But I was also scared, and that word is a little harder to nail down. What did I have to be scared of? Nobody was after me. I had parents who loved me. But I felt this fear. I didn’t know why. It just lingered.

  “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).

  Man, I wish I had known more about this struggle back then. I didn’t. But I was about to be right in the middle of it. It was a Wednesday night in the middle of summer. Somehow I had figured out a way to extend going to a four-year liberal arts school into almost six years. My girlfriend had broken up with me the day before. Looking back, I don’t blame her. I was a hot mess. The week before, I had been fired from my job at Buffalo’s. I had stopped showing up. And on this particular Wednesday, I just sat in my condo and cried. How had my life ended up so sad, and why did I have this feeling of fear? I wasn’t telling anyone about my struggle. I was determined to figure it out on my own.

  That night, after spending the entire day inside my duplex, I remember feeling even more fear. It was kinda spooking me a bit. I checked all the closets to make sure nobody was in them. (Don’t fool yourself; you’ve done this before.) I remember even praying a shotgun prayer before I fell asleep. It was a heart cry loaded with, Dear Lord, help me not feel this way when I wake up.

  I woke up around 3:00 a.m. The feeling that came over me can only be described as dark. I had never felt so scared in my life. I pulled the covers over my head and started praying.

  Dear God, I pray that You make this stop. I’m so sorry. I promise I’ll behave, God. Please. Whatever is in here, make it leave!

  I knew nothing was in my room, but I knew something was in my room. The darkness was darker than just the lights being off and the sun yet to rise. Something was up. And that something was dark. My window was open, and the curtains were flapping a bit more tha
n normal. I was freaking out. After about two minutes of nonstop prayer, I knew I needed to be rescued from whatever was happening in my duplex that night. I needed my dad, so I jumped out of bed and ran to the kitchen to call him.

  Yes, I had to get out of bed to call him. The phone was fifteen feet away. This was before cell phones.

  Why would I call my dad? Because although I didn’t know much about this whole dark, evil, and spiritual warfare stuff, I was most certain that I was in it right then. And I was sure that my dad would know how to help me out of it.

  It was midnight in Fresno, California, where he lived. Would he even hear the phone ring when I called? I hoped so. I flipped the light switch on, and as I reached for the phone to dial his number, it rang. Read that again: Right as I was reaching for the telephone, it rang. And it rang. And it rang.

  I had never, nor have I since, felt as scared as I was in that moment.

  What was going on? Was I going to pick up the phone and hear the voice of Skeletor on the other end?

  Everything froze. I slowly reached for the phone, picked it up, and put it to my ear.

  “Carlos, it’s dad. It’s okay. I love you. I was woken up to pray for you, and I want you to know it’s okay. It’s time to come home, son. It’s time to come home.”

  I grew up in a Southern Baptist home where we sang hymns and nobody lifted their hands in worship. I didn’t grow up in a house where we talked about this spiritual warfare stuff. I didn’t grow up in a church where people fought against demons and things that go bump in the night.

  But you know what I did grow up in? I grew up in a home where I would seldom go a day without seeing my father on his knees with the Father. My dad was a giant. And apparently he had direct access to the Holy Spirit ’cause things just got crazy.

  You see, that is the sort of moment that you can’t ignore. You can’t forget.

  Guess what I did.