When Grace Has to Carry More Than We Thought

By LONNIE KING

I’ve been re-evaluating my beliefs about what the Bible actually says about “life after death” versus what I was taught it said for much of my life.

For me, that’s not a small sentence.  Because for a long time, those two things felt like the same thing.

They weren’t.

Recently, I’ve begun reading Hell Bent by Brian Recker, a former evangelical pastor whose journey sounds a lot like mine. He describes the slow unraveling of a belief system that once felt certain—especially around the idea of a literal, eternal hell—and the uneasy process of asking, What if some of what I was taught wasn’t the only way to read this?

That question alone can feel dangerous, depending on where you come from.

Because when your foundation includes the idea that getting this wrong could carry eternal consequences, and you should ‘know that you know that you know,’ even asking the question feels like a risk.

And if I’m being honest, even now, there are moments when that old voice still whispers:

What if they were right?

The Question That Changed for Me

But somewhere along the way in recent years, the question shifted.

It stopped being: What if I’m wrong about hell?

And it became: If grace is real, what does it actually have to be?

Because if grace is what I’ve always been told it is—unearned, undeserved, freely given—then it has to be able to carry more than just my mistakes… it has to be able to carry my theological misunderstandings too.

When Grace Starts to Feel Fragile

For most of my life, I thought faith meant getting to all the right answers.  The right timeline for creation. The right definition of hell.  The right conclusions about sexuality and identity. The right disdain for specific ‘sins’. 

And I didn’t always say it out loud, but the assumption was there: If you get these things wrong, you’re in dangerous territory.

But the more I’ve wrestled with all of this, the more I realize that is just the framework for a religion, not a relationship with anyone. And that framework starts to feel weak and fragile.

Because if eternal outcomes hinge on correctly interpreting ancient texts—written in languages I don’t speak, translated by people I’ve never met, filtered through traditions I didn’t choose—then grace starts to look less like a gift and more like a test.

That doesn’t compute with what a loving God would do. And I don’t think that’s what grace was ever meant to be.

The Weight Grace Actually Carries

If grace is real, it has to do some heavy lifting.

It has to account for:

• the environments we were raised in
• the things we were taught before we knew how to question them
• the translations we inherited
• the questions we’re just now brave enough to ask

Because none of us starts from a neutral place. We all begin with someone else’s version of truth.

And if God is who we say He is—if God is love—then He knows that. Which means grace isn’t just about forgiving what we’ve done. It’s about holding space for what we don’t fully understand or what we may have been misled—intentionally or not—to believe.

Coming Back to Something Simpler

That’s where I’ve found myself circling back to a verse I’ve known for years, but I’m hearing differently now:

“Anyone who comes to [God] must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”
Hebrews 11:6

Not those who get everything right.  But, those who seek. That word ‘seek’ carries more weight than I ever gave it credit for.

Seeking means:

• asking hard questions
• letting go of easy answers
• admitting when something doesn’t sit right
• and continuing to move toward God anyway

It’s not about reaching certainty.  It’s about the pursuit.

What Actually Matters

So where does that leave all the other things?  For me, it means this:

It is ultimately irrelevant, in my pursuit of a relationship with God, whether:

• I believe the earth is a few thousand years old or a few billion
• I question the idea of eternal torment
• I don’t see same-sex relationships the way I once did
• Or I wrestle with how identity itself may have been affected by a broken world

Those are real questions. Important ones, even. But they are not the center.

The center is this: do I believe God exists?  And am I actually seeking Him?

A Faith That Can Breathe

I’m not writing this because I’ve arrived somewhere neat and settled.

In fact, if I’m being honest, I sometimes feel like I’m moving in the opposite direction of most people my age.

A lot of people I know are settled. Their beliefs are firm, familiar, and no longer up for reexamination. And I understand the comfort in that—especially as you become more aware that time isn’t unlimited.

Which is exactly why this part can feel intimidating.

Because asking hard questions at this stage of life doesn’t feel theoretical. It feels consequential.

And yet, I’m learning that faith doesn’t have to be held together by fear.  That maybe grace—real grace—isn’t threatened by my questions.

Maybe it’s revealed…or even refined…through them.

And maybe the thing that matters most isn’t whether I’ve solved every theological puzzle…but whether I’m still willing to seek God.

And for the first time in a long time, I find real comfort in believing that I am.

Grace and grit to you!  – LK