Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
New Visions
My Evolution

My Evolution

Last updated on: October 5, 2020 at 4:00 am by Karl J. Forehand

My Evolution 2020-09-29T06:57:48-06:00 Karl J. Forehand

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Photo by Taryn Elliott from Pexels

Deconstruction makes people uneasy. Some have opted for gentler terms like restoration (as in art restoration). Tearing things down sounds negative to some and they wonder if we will have anything left after the deconstruction. Once we begin to deconstruct our faith, we realize there was so much more unnecessary things in the way of our authentic self that we worry much less than our groups of origin.

But lately the term that troubles me more than deconstruction is reconstruction. I really do not want to reconstruct my faith around any model that I see in the past. Not that they all did not have some validity, but I don’t necessarily want to recreate the past – I want to evolve!

And there I said – the dirty word – the word that my people considered antithetical to God and creation.

Our romantic obsession with re-creating the past seems to continually capture our imagination. George Burns sang, “I wish I was 18 again,” but if we think about it hard enough, we will realize we really don’t want to be 18 again and we really don’t want to recreate any time in history. The good old days weren’t really as good as what we remember, and it will suit us better to move forward and adapt instead of trying to wrangle the present into a version of a past era.

Evolving is responding to the environment

During the Covid-19 crisis, I see some people holding their breath hoping everything will simply go back to the way it was. But a much better approach is to recognize the situation we are in and respond to it accordingly. It is the way all creatures on this planet have survived since inception.

It is more than just novel to be concerned about the environment we live in and respond to what we observe. Often that require change – we do not like change – so we try to ignore it. But unless we adapt, we will fail to thrive and eventually fail to survive. Trying to hand our responsibility off to God is irresponsible and is just bypassing most of the time. We don’t really need a miracle; we simply must respond.

Everything is growing and expanding

Even though everything about Science fascinates me, I do not claim to understand much of it. I am the same way with the relatively new areas of psychology and physics, etc. What I do understand is that the universe is expanding and growing. It doesn’t seem to go backward or shrink inward. That is just a general impression on my part.

Although animals and plants do things that protect themselves, they do not seem to be focused on regression, they always move toward progression. Growth, expansion, evolving! That is the theme.

So much of my previous spiritual life was about fear, control and maintaining. Even if we talked about growth, the major themes were avoiding obstacles and how to keep things from going off the rails. As with everything there is some benefit to planning and modeling, but it is easy to reconstruct something that is small and stagnant and just repeats the patterns of the past.

As my faith and practices evolve, they tend to involve more nuance, mystery, and paradox. They are characterized by growth, expansion and thriving. It is more mystical than certain, and I cannot really say it’s well mapped out. I do not even swear that I know I’m going to succeed, because success is not really the goal. It is more about what I now claim as my tagline:

Be where you are Be who you are * Be at peace*

This focus causes me to evolve instead of re-creating. Reconstruction, reengineering, and the likes are fine because most times we tend to get way off track and stay committed to ineffective methods and practices for too long. But let us take the high road when we put it back together and not just build a better mousetrap — let’s reimagine the whole thing! Let’s evolve!

Support us on Patreon * The Desert Sanctuary Website

Karl Forehand is a former pastor, podcaster, and award-winning author. His books include Apparent Faith: What Fatherhood Taught Me About the Father’s Heart and the soon-to-be released Tea Shop. He is the creator of The Desert Sanctuary and Too Many Podcasters podcasts. He is married to his wife Laura of 32 years and has one dog named Winston. His three children are grown and are beginning to multiply!

The Tea Shop is available – Order now!

The Tea Shop

Previous Post

September 30, 2020

A Poem - The Tea Shop

Next Post

October 6, 2020 Stop Hitting Yourself

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Abuse Addiction Advent adventure Alpha Male Animals Answers Attachment Attitude authenticity Authenticty Authentiicity Awareness being Bible Black Community BLM body awarenss book Books Bravery Bullying Bypassing Certainty Certianty Chamge change children Christianity Christmas Church Comfort community Compaasion Compassion Complementarian Complementarianism Conditioning Consciousness Contemplation Control Conversation Converstations Covid-19 Creation Darkness Death Debate deconstruction demons depression desert Devil Disciples discussion Divine dreams Easter Eclipse Empathy Essence evolution evolve faith fatherhood Fear fiction Flood Focus Focusing Focussing Future Genesis Goals God Gratitude grief growth Guns Hate healing Health Heart Hell Holiday Hypnosis ignorance Improvement infallible Inner Child Integrity Intuition Jesus Jezebel Journey King LGBTQ+ Love MAGA Marriage meditation Men Mercy Message metaphysical Mindfulness Misogyny Mourning Music Mystic mystical Narcissism Nationalism Nature New Year Novel Nutrition Organization other Pain Pandemic parenting Pastors Patriarchy Patriotism Personal Growth Plan Poet poets Police politics Power practice praise Prayer presence pro-life Problem Solving Progress prolife Prophet prophets Purity Culture Purpose Queer Questions Racism Rape Rapture reconstruction Recovery Religion Resolutions Restoration Resurrection Retribution Reviews Root Cause Sanctuary Satan SBC Scripture Seeking Self-Care Self-esteem Seminary Sex Shadow shame social justice social media solitude Spirits Spirituality stillness Story Survivor Thanksgiving Theologians Theology Tradition Trauma travel Trump Uncategorized Unchurching Universe Violence Vision Voice Volunteer Vulnerability War Women Word worship Writing

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: Job lost all his children, wealth, and health in a single day.

Select your answer to see how you score.

TRUE FALSE

Books by This Author Books by The Desert Sanctuary

See All Titles »