I Walk Away

Between the Roots has me thinking a lot about what happens when doubt becomes louder than faith. I heard a story today about a professor on the first day of Theology 101. He walked into the classroom, stood in front of students who had come to learn about God, Scripture, faith, calling, and truth, and he began by telling them about his doubts. He told them he believed just enough to stay, but the pull was no longer there. Faith was still part of his language. It was still part of his work. He still knew the words, the verses, the doctrines, and the structure. But somewhere inside, the roots had started to feel loose. A few years later, he walked away. Away from faith. Away from God. Away from the promise he had preached about and taught from for decades. That kind of story sits heavy with me, because I do not think most people walk away all at once. I think sometimes doubt starts quietly. It gets planted beside faith, and if we are not careful, it starts growing louder than everything we once knew was true. When Doubt Gets Loud Sometimes doubt gets loud when life does not make sense. When you are struggling to pay the bills, but your neighbour in the trailer park seems to do less than you and still feels like he has won the lottery every second Friday. When you are still sick, still praying, still waiting, but someone you secretly judged as lower than you gets healed from the same thing you are still carrying. When someone else gets the thing you have been asking God for, and they do not even believe in Him the way you do. That is the part that feels unfair. It is not just jealousy. It is not just frustration. It feels like a sucker punch to the back of the head, like today’s pastor said. You are walking forward, trying to trust God, trying to do what is right, trying to stay faithful, and then life hits you from behind with a question you were not ready for. Why them and not me? That question can get dangerous when it starts growing roots. Because it does not stay as one question. It starts becoming a whole conversation inside your head. Do You see me, God? Do You hear me too? Am I doing something wrong? Why does it feel like people who do not follow You are getting the answers I have been praying for? And if we are honest, this is where faith can start to feel small. Not because God changed, but because comparison has a way of poisoning the soil around us. It makes someone else’s blessing feel like our rejection. It makes someone else’s healing feel like proof that we were forgotten. It makes someone else’s comfort feel like evidence that our suffering has no purpose. The Riches We Forget But Jesus never promised that walking with Him would mean we always got the easier road. He reminded us that our riches are in heaven. He reminded us that earthly wealth, comfort, status, and success are not always signs of God’s favour. Sometimes they are tests of the heart. Sometimes the person who looks like they have everything is carrying chains we cannot see. Jesus said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. That does not mean money itself is evil. It means what we cling to can become heavier than we realize. It means what looks like winning here can still leave a soul empty. It means what looks like lack here can still be held by heaven. That does not make the pain disappear. It still hurts when the bills are due. It still hurts when the body is tired. It still hurts when prayers feel unanswered and someone else seems to walk right into the thing you have been begging God for. But maybe faith is not pretending that does not hurt. Maybe faith is bringing that hurt to God before doubt turns it into distance. Maybe faith is saying, “Lord, I do not understand why they received what I am still waiting for, but I will not let my waiting become a reason to walk away from You.” I Walk Away So when I say, Between the Roots, I walk away, I do not mean I am walking away from God. I am walking away from comparison. I am walking away from the voice that says someone else’s blessing means I was forgotten. I am walking away from the lie that my suffering proves God is absent. I am walking away from the doubt that keeps trying to turn my eyes away from Jesus and onto everyone else’s life. Because my treasure was never meant to be measured by what my neighbour has. My treasure is in heaven. And if I walk with Jesus, even when I am tired, even when I am hurting, even when doubt gets loud, then I am not as poor as doubt wants me to believe. Faith is not always the loudest voice in me. Sometimes faith is the quiet root still holding under the soil. Still alive. Still reaching. Still there. So today, Between the Roots, I walk away. Not from God. From the doubt that tried to take His place.