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by Eric Hansen

If you’ve been a Christian within the last 2,000 years, I’m almost certain the experience of a spiritual valley has hit you at least once. I’m not referring to those fleeting bouts of annoyance with your church or brother in Christ but the real deep valleys – those times where you sit there in your chair, staring at your Bible and just say to yourself, “Why am I even doing this?”

These are some testing times, and to put it bluntly, they suck. You can feel like there’s no hope, rhyme, or reason for things to be going on. If you’re in a disagreement with a fellow Christian, you can even start thinking, “If this is what Christianity is then forget it.” Even just having faith for a few years now, I’ve experienced these emotions more than once. In this blog post, I want to recap those experiences so far, and then address ways that I went about handling the situation. Along with that I’ll share some experiences in hindsight. While I might sound like I’m complaining in describing the events, I truly am not, but that’s one of the things you may realize once you start getting out of that valley.

The first time I experienced this was back in January of 2020. I was going in for some major surgery (a heart cath) and was afraid. Luckily everything turned out fine, but the recovery from it was kind of brutal. My wife was going through some things on her own, having to quit her job not long before, and she was probably more afraid than I was during the procedure since I did have a risk of dying. But, at no point before, during, or after did my church show any support or love to us. The pastor offered some comfort before, but he was on vacation while I was gone and didn’t reach out to me after he returned. None of the elders reached out to us to see if we needed anything or how we were doing. Only one time did anyone reach out (besides the kids we were pastoring to at the time, God bless them), and that was to just say, “Hope to see you in church soon.” For a month, we dealt with fear and depression, and it just intensified immensely the last 2 weeks of that. We felt alone, unloved, and unimportant. After we got out of this valley, though, my wife confessed that she was afraid I was going to give up on my faith. Sometimes that thought crossed my mind, but then I reminded myself that my loyalty is to Christ, not to the church. But it took a long while to even want to pick up my Bible again.

Even though I haven’t yet experienced such a deep valley again, the intense dread of the matter recently crept up again. I won’t go into the details much as I don’t want to support gossip. However, things came to a head when I started realizing just how a person I had asked to mentor me had changed in their theology since the start. They became a different person to me, and I wasn’t the only one to see it. But this being the 3rd person I’ve held in high regard on a personal level, I basically felt abandoned and hurt. I’m very much for showing and extending love and grace to others, but we can’t be selective on who we extend that to. From my perspective, the situation became very hypocritical, and that was the very thing this person has been adamant about not being. I could also be wrong on my observation, and I hope so, but I remember after speaking my emotions out to them, I was thinking, “Man, if this is what I gotta deal with as a Christian, is it even worth it?”

Now, this isn’t to say that the road was paved in death the whole way through. There were definitely bouts of sunshine and rainbows spread throughout the journeys. But, when we’re in those valleys, it’s hard to remember them let alone look back and see it.

I can’t honestly explain how I recovered from the first instance. I remember waking up on February 1, 2020 and feeling like an immense darkness had been lifted. Now, during that month of the valley, I prayed and tried to keep a relationship with God as best as I could. So I can always say God lifted me from the depths of my own personal hell. But, at the same time, almost all of those prayers felt like they were bouncing off walls and satellites. I also hadn’t been reading the Bible, so it was much more of a one-way conversation, unfortunately. But, the fascinating thing to me is that my wife, who had been struggling just as bad as me, shared the same thoughts on the same day.

As for the second trial of fire, it’s been a really different experience. Between the first valley and now, I’ve gained a much deeper understanding on how the Spirit directs me most often. When something is God’s will and not just my own will, I sense an incredible feeling of peace about it. Unfortunately, what brought me that peace was accepting the difference in theological views and realizing that for my personal growth to not be stunted, I needed to step away from such a deep relationship with them. I love them dearly, but I love them enough to know when it isn’t healthy as well. This is probably one of the biggest lessons I learned from this valley.

Both times, and with all the other more minor valleys I’ve had, perseverance was definitely key. It’s very easy to walk away from God when things get tough.

Some would say to be in the Word, read it more, etc. But, I can’t sit here and suggest that because each situation is going to be different. But, I will suggest finding a Christ-focused, Bible-believing person and talk with them about your valley. Keep in mind to not start gossip, and the easiest way is to only focus on “I.” If you can read the Bible, then by all means do it. But, if we’re being practical about these situations, it’s not always comfortable to read such a book, especially when you’re already at the point of doubting your faith. Even as an introvert, I’ve found much more success in this most recent valley talking to others about my emotions than I did keeping everything internalized during the first one.

A passage I held close to my heart during this last valley is from 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2: “Finally, dear brothers and sisters, we urge you in the name of the Lord Jesus to live in a way that pleases God, as we have taught you. You live this way already, and we encourage you to do so even more. For you remember what we taught you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.”

The book of 1 Thessalonians is one of the few epistles that has deep praise for keeping true to the Christian faith even during turbulent times. It reminds me of what the book of Jude was meant to be originally (Jude 1:3: “Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people.”).

I know that I was on a righteous path to Christ before I got tossed into the valley. While I tumbled my way to the bottom, it wasn’t impossible to rebound. The opportunity granted me the time to understand that my faith was unstable. The way back to Christ was to build my faith on a sturdier foundation than I had previously. So the first book I reached for from my bookshelf was What Every Christian Ought to Know by Adrian Rogers. The next book I’ll be reading is Worldview Warriors’ very own Charlie Wolcott’s Biblical Foundations. While my faith is still building firmer, these resources from a biblical perspective have helped me explore the Bible deeper (such as digging into 1 Corinthians 14) and to learn what is needed to grow further with God.

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