I had a Christian foundation I didn’t appreciate.
Sunday school. Youth group. Bible stories before bed. The whole infrastructure was there… I just took it for granted. Figured everyone had that baseline of “God exists” and “the spiritual realm matters” and “truth is real even when you can’t see it.”
Turns out that foundation is precious. It’s an anchor.
But when you have it from childhood, you don’t always recognize what you’ve been given. And honestly? Sometimes the familiarity becomes the problem. You’ve heard the same sermons so many times they become background noise. The worship songs blur together. You know all the right answers for small group, but the words feel hollow when you say them out loud.
You know about God. But you’ve never actually met Him.
All those years in church, and somewhere along the way it just stopped landing. The faith you inherited never became your own. It stayed in your head and never dropped into your heart.
That’s where my story gets messy.
When the Motions Stop Working
I grew up in church. Knew all the stories, had all the right answers, could play the part when I needed to. But I wasn’t actually connected to any of it. I had this whole faith handed to me that I never really owned. It was like knowing someone’s biography without ever meeting them.
And when life got hard (really hard, the kind where you’re going through three-hour job interviews and getting multiple callbacks but never the offer, while people you’re literally helping with your own custom templates are getting hired after one interview)… I got angry.
Not just frustrated. Angry.
I cursed at God. Told Him exactly what I thought about how He was handling things. I was done being faithful and getting nothing in return. Done watching people who seemed to care less about God succeed while I struggled. Done feeling like I was doing everything right and still getting passed over.
Looking back, I can see what was really happening: I thought knowing the right answers entitled me to the right outcomes. I stood before God like I’d earned something. “I went to church. I know the Bible stories. I’ve been a good Christian. Where’s my reward?”
And when the reward didn’t come on my timeline? I decided God wasn’t keeping His end of the deal.
So I drifted.
The Pull of “Taking What Resonates”
What made it complicated is that I wasn’t exploring other spiritual territory despite wanting God. I was exploring because I wanted Him. The hunger was real. The seeking was sincere. Church had left me feeling numb and empty, and I genuinely believed I was getting closer to something real by expanding my search.
So when anyone suggested my path was a problem, it felt like they were criticizing my desire for God, not just how I was going about it.
It took me a while to separate those two things. The desire was legitimate. The hunger was from Him. But the map I was using? That was leading me in circles.
What happens when you have a Christian background but drift into mixing beliefs from everywhere is that you become… complicated. Convincing in a way that’s hard to untangle.
Because you can blend Christian language with other practices in a way that sounds deep and evolved. You can quote Jesus while following your gut into territory the Bible actually warns against. You can talk about God while quietly making yourself the final judge of what’s true.
God becomes “the Universe” or “Source Energy.” The Holy Spirit becomes just your intuition. Jesus becomes one wise teacher among many. The Bible becomes a buffet where you take what feels good and leave the rest.
And it works. For a while.
I genuinely believed I was helping people find spiritual connection. Built a following creating content about practices I thought were expanding my consciousness. I felt empowered. Liberated. Like I was finally spiritual on my own terms without all the religious baggage and performance.
But… with your own spiritual system, you become the thing that has to hold it all together.
The Exhausting Work of Being Your Own Authority
You’re curating. Always curating. Taking what resonates from Christianity, Buddhism, manifestation, energy work, whatever shows up on your feed. Blending beliefs from everywhere based on what feels right in the moment.
But you’re also constantly defending. Justifying. Trying to make contradictions fit. “Well, karma isn’t technically biblical but the principle of sowing and reaping is basically the same thing…” “Jesus taught love so obviously he’d be fine with me using tarot for guidance…”
You’re mentally exhausting yourself trying to make everything fit together while insisting to yourself that it does fit together, that you’ve found the perfect blend, that your personal spiritual path is finally coherent.
Except… it’s scattered. And somewhere deep, you know it. Even if you’d never say it out loud.
You keep searching for that one more practice, one more teacher, one more framework that will finally make it all click. That will deliver the transformation you’ve been chasing.
In a way, this was me. And during it all, the Holy Spirit kept tugging at my heart anyway.
That persistent discomfort. That gentle but insistent voice asking me to reconsider what I was doing. At first, I resisted. My pride wouldn’t let me admit that the sophisticated spiritual blend I’d built might actually be keeping me from what I was looking for.
But I couldn’t ignore the conviction anymore. I realized I had no actual authority to guide my own soul, let alone anyone else’s. That authority belongs to Christ alone.
The Difference Between Conviction and Shame
Conviction and shame feel similar, but they’re not the same thing.
Shame says “you’re permanently broken, too far gone, don’t even bother coming back.” Conviction says “this isn’t working, and there’s something better.”
The Holy Spirit’s conviction never crushed me. It was actually… gentle? Persistent, yes. Uncomfortable, absolutely. But it always pointed toward something, not just away from something. Shame paralyzes. Conviction invites.
If what you’re feeling right now is making you want to hide or give up entirely, that’s not from God. If it’s making you curious about whether there’s a better way… pay attention to that.
With God’s grace, I walked away from the spiritual blend I’d been building. Threw away the tarot cards and crystals. Stopped posting content. Went silent for over a year while I wrestled with what came next.
What My Devotional Actually Revealed
The devotional that sparked this reflection says: “You will never turn any created thing into your personal messiah. There is one true Messiah, and life can be found only in him.”
And then it lists all the things we try to make into saviors. Respect. Physical appearance. Possessions. Achievements. Jobs. Children. The “perfect” church. Education. Spouses.
Reading that list, I saw my whole curated spiritual system.
Not just individual practices, but the system itself. The framework I was so proud of. I’d made my own spiritual independence the messiah.
The very act of positioning myself as the ultimate authority (the curator who decides what’s true based on what resonates with me) was its own form of misdirection. I’d essentially made myself the center of my own spiritual universe. The source of my own truth.
And honestly? That position gets exhausting. Lonely. More terrifying than I admitted at the time.
What you don’t know about “taking what resonates” is that when you make yourself the final judge of truth, you’re not actually engaging with truth. You’re creating a mirror. You’re building a spiritual system that reflects back exactly what you already believe, what already feels comfortable, what already fits your existing worldview.
And a mirror can’t transform you.
It can only show you what’s already there.
What You Might Be Actually Searching For
What I discovered is the spiritual hunger driving your search isn’t hunger for a practice. It’s hunger for God.
Not for a framework. Not for a philosophy. Not for a curated system that makes you the ultimate authority.
For the Person who is the source of life itself.
Scripture says something that sounds harsh until you really sit with it: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5, NLT).
You might read that as controlling. God trying to limit your freedom, your autonomy, your right to figure things out yourself. But I see it as merciful… an invitation to stop carrying the impossible weight of being your own ultimate guide through territory you might not understand.
You’re not seeking freedom from authority. You’re seeking the right authority to surrender to.
And I know what you’re scared of. What if committing to one path makes me close-minded like the Christians who hurt me? What if going back to Christianity means returning to the toxic church stuff? What if I lose my ability to think for myself?
Those are valid fears. The church has wounded people. I get it. Honestly, I love Jesus but a lot of His fanbase has been… difficult. The hypocrisy, the judgment, the way some churches make you feel like you can’t ask real questions.But the existence of fake or toxic Christianity doesn’t mean real Christianity doesn’t exist. Bad maps don’t mean good maps aren’t out there.
What Surrender Actually Looks Like
I remember the first time I tried something different. Instead of reaching for a tarot card or a horoscope when I felt anxious about a decision, I just… sat there. Uncomfortable. Without an answer.
And I said something like, “God, I don’t know what to do here. I used to think I could figure it out myself. I’m willing to not know for a while if you’ll show me eventually.”
It wasn’t dramatic. I didn’t feel lightning bolts. But something shifted. The desperate need to know right now loosened its grip, just a little.
That’s what surrender started looking like for me. Not grand gestures. Not burning everything and starting over in one dramatic moment. But small moments of saying “I don’t have to have the answer” and finding out I could survive not having it.
Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, NLT).
For years, that verse felt exclusive, narrow, controlling. Now? I read it as clarifying. As ending the exhausting search.
Because if Jesus is life itself (not just a path to life, not a teacher about life, but the actual source) then there’s no need to keep shopping. Not because He’s threatened by other practices, but because He’s offering something they fundamentally cannot.
Not just wisdom about how to live, but life itself.
The Wilderness Period
After I walked away from the spiritual blend I’d built, I spent over a year just… studying. Reading. Trying to understand what I actually believed versus what I’d absorbed without thinking. Looking at the Bible seriously for the first time (not as a buffet I could pick from, but as something that might actually have authority over my life).
And during that time, something clicked: I’d always had a foundation. That Christian upbringing I’d taken for granted… it was never the problem.
The problem was that I’d inherited a faith I never made my own. I knew all the Sunday school answers without ever letting them become real to me. And when life got hard and those answers didn’t seem to be working, I got angry and drifted. But the foundation itself (the truth about who God is, what Christ did, how the spiritual realm actually works) that was always solid.
I just hadn’t built my life on it.
When I finally went back to church after over a decade away, I was terrified. Because I felt like I should be judged. I was judging myself and putting that on everyone around me.
But that’s not how grace works.
Where This Leaves Us
I haven’t figured it out.
I’m a couple years into rebuilding and still processing. Still wrestling. Still learning to read Scripture as something that has actual authority rather than just nice ideas I can take or leave. Still fighting the urge to curate, to control, to position myself as the final judge of what’s true.
Some days I still want to be my own god. That pull toward being in charge of my own spiritual destiny doesn’t just disappear.
But I know the peace I was seeking through spiritual curation (through taking what resonates, through making myself the ultimate authority) it never came.
Because peace doesn’t come from being your own god.
It comes from finally admitting you were never meant to be.
I wonder… have the signs been pointing the same direction all along?
Maybe the question isn’t “How do I build the perfect spiritual blend?” Maybe it’s “What happens when I stop trying to be the architect and start listening to the One who laid the actual foundation?”
There’s something in Paul’s letters about having access to wisdom that doesn’t come from your own reasoning, about the mind of Christ being available to us. That might be worth exploring…
I’m still asking questions. Still wrestling. Still learning what it means to surrender rather than curate.
But at least now I know where to look.
If you need help taking a first step: Don’t worry about reading an entire chapter or doing it “right.” Just try this: pull up John 14:6 (you can read it free at Bible Gateway). One verse. Sit with what Jesus claims about Himself for two minutes. Notice what comes up. If all you can say to God is “I’m confused, but I’m curious”… that’s enough. That’s actually a prayer. And maybe tomorrow, read the verses before and after it. Not because you have to. But because there’s something in that passage about not being troubled, about God preparing a place for you, that might change how you see the whole searching journey.
