How to Backslide Correctly as a Christian

Backsliding is sometimes part of God's process. Here's how to make the most of it.

I know it sounds wild….an article about backsliding as a Christian.

If your journey is anything like mine, it is full of ups and downs. I still remember shortly after I gave my life to Jesus in 7th grade, I fell away hard. I hung around people that were a real negative influence on my life.

I find that this story is very common among my friends.

How do we think about backsliding as Christians? How do we think about it when we think about other people in our lives?

Here are a few thoughts to encourage us:

1. Accept that backsliding is sometimes part of the journey

If there’s anything I’ve learned about the long Christian journey, it’s that backsliding is sometimes part of the process.

As much as I want to be wholly given over to Christ, I have to accept that many of our biblical heroes had their seasons of “backsliding”. If you think about Moses, he was wandering in the wilderness for decades. If you think about Jonah, he was running away from God’s call on his life for some time.

There are many biblical characters who have had their seasons of “backsliding”. But God used them, like Moses, for their greater formation and purpose.

God uses backsliding in our lives to shape key aspects of who we are. For in backsliding, we can often see who we are without God. And like the prodigal son eating pigs’ food, it doesn’t look pretty.

This puts gratitude inside of us because we recognize that God didn’t have to take us back.

This puts patience inside of us as we look at the lives of others.

Sometimes backsliding is part of God’s plan for our lives!

2. Backsliding is not as important as the direction we point your life in

The thing I’ve learned about discipleship is that it’s not a destination; it is a direction.

It is a direction we point our lives. Sometimes we have seasons where we are just struggling. We are struggling with sins, bad habits, and bad thinking.

The key is to struggle forward. There is a difference between the one trudging forward in the mud toward Christ and the one who doesn’t walk toward Christ at all. The one in the mud trudging forward, I assure you, is still a disciple of Jesus.

Sometimes backsliding is simply a knock in the journey of pursuing Jesus.

3. God is always working. And often, that backsliding story is used for his redemptive purposes.

One of my friends who walked away from God around 10 years ago recently called me in tears.

He told me more or less that he had hit rock bottom. And that he missed God. Even though I missed him as a brother in Christ for many years, I knew in the back of my head that God wasn’t done with him.

It encouraged me and reminded me that God is always working. Even on the surface when things look pretty bad, we trust that God is working on the backslidden one to bring them back to him wholly.

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What do you think? Have you had seasons of backsliding? Does this help y you when you think about friends in your life that have backslidden?

You were made for greatness,
Phil