Last winter, a young friend of mine named Rob gave up on his faith. I’ve seen people drift away from God before— me included—and I’ve seen people wilt in the face of hardships, doubt and temptation. But this guy’s experience was unlike anything I had faced. He just gave up—knowingly, willingly and without a hint of remorse.
Rob had gone through a tremendously tough patch. His younger brother had hung himself. Rob’s pastor and mentor had been caught in an extramarital affair. For months, Rob had been telling me about his other struggles—pornography, depression, a disinterest in college. Life had been hard for this kid. And he was doing his best to get through it.
And then, suddenly, he wasn’t.
We got together after work one day; and Rob told me, smirking, about how he had gone to a bar and hooked up with a married woman. Then he went out another night and hooked up with someone else. He had found a new group of friends at college, and they showed him a great time. One after another.
“So,” he explained to me, “I’m done trying to resist these temptations. I’m done trying to be a Christian. Why bother?”
I listened to Rob carefully, then did something I did not know I was capable of doing.
I did nothing.
Not that I didn’t torture myself over how to respond. I worried over Rob, prayed for him and asked around for advice on responding to his situation. My wife reminded me that Rob was a guy who had lost his brother tragically and whose primary figure of spiritual authority had betrayed his trust. “He needs time,” she said. “What he’s doing is dangerous, but it’s not unusual. See where he is in six months.”
It’s at this point that I wish this print magazine could become a blog, because I’d be grateful to have you post comments about what you would do in this same situation.
It’s something every youth worker faces, right? A kid you’ve known to be spiritually hungry, even mature, does an about-face. A kid faces the apparent silence of God and decides, Screw this. When that happens, what do you do?
A Miserable Course
There is a name for this kind of behavior: despair.
Earlier generations of Christians knew despair was a special spiritual category. It was not a mild drifting away from God; it was a real break from relationship with the Almighty. It was an inability to receive grace at all. It was the state David prayed against when he begged God, “Take not thy holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11, ASV).
I knew Rob was in despair, and I felt powerless in helping him face it. For months on end, I did nothing. Rob and I talked occasionally, and I tried to strike a balance between being his friend and not enabling his behavior. I continued to find that meant doing nothing beyond praying. It meant not interfering and letting Rob’s life run its miserable course to the end.
Turning a Corner
I’m not sure we’re at that end yet, but we have turned the bend. Last week, Rob and I met again; and this time Rob told me he was sad. Good news! It was, at last, a real emotion. He hates the way he is living, he knows it is a dead end, and he longs to be back in the good graces of the God he knows loves him, after all.
I offer this story because I suspect many of you face similar situations with students, where you wonder if you should do something or a lot of nothing. As I say, alas, we can’t post comments to a print column. But I hope you’ll think on it and discuss it with others and that we’ll all have grace to know how to respond to those trapped in despair.
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Patton Dodd is an editor for Beliefnet and the author of My Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion (Jossey-Bass). His writing has appeared in a range of publications, including the Financial Times, Newsweek, Christianity Today, and Books & Culture.
