Scrupulosity: Are OCDers Condemned to ######, like Pharaoh?

[STAGE DOOR]

In my decades of suffering with OCD (read my other post A Long and Miseable Life with OCD) one of the things I had mostly suffered with was/is scrupulosity although I had other OCD symptoms before this developed.

 

Like most suffers of scrupulosity I had struggled tremendously to keep my faith and to keep from blaspheming (if I did) and sweating it out with my stomach dropped to the floor, just knowing I committed the unpardonable sin.

I loathed myself for having such thoughts and lived under a cloud of self blame.

 

When I was around 40, I discovered that what I experienced was a medically recognized disorder; it even had a name. And to my utter astonishment, I found out that there was at least one other person in the whole world (perhaps in China) that had what I had. Shortly after I found out it was biologically induced.

 

After 40 years (although it took several years to actually believe there really was someone else who actually had what I did) I wanted to run down the street and shout:

 

"It’s not me, it’s the disease! Hey look, there are others beside me!” And even more emphatically: “It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault! For all you who condemned my “laziness” in not progressing with my life; look you idiots, it’s not my fault!

And wow! I thought now I can stop this self loathing."

 

But later this revelation brought sadness. I used to deceive myself that after the finishing some ritual I would start anew and begin a better life—like an alcoholic who says: “Give me one more drink and Monday morning I will quit and get a job.” Of course those Monday mornings never came, but I could deceive myself. By now the reality set in that I was stuck with this disease.

 

But a real change came in how I felt about God. I became so, so angry with God. “Here I am hating myself for having these thoughts and you made me this way!” The Bible says I am “wonderfully and fearfully made.” Yeah! Sure! I wonder if prolife people would be so much against abortion if they had suffered OCD.

 

I found myself pouring out anger against God, far more in situations where little or trivial things go wrong. Like when I forget something or cannot find something—especially if it screws up some ritual. Then I want, and start, to blaspheme and pour out more venom than any Satanist does.

 

I know now I really have committed the unpardonable sin for “It is impossible for those who were enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift […] if they fall away to be brought back to repentance.” Before I might have claimed blaspheming in ignorance but can I claim that now?

 

The irony is that when I did not know that I had an OCD (though I always knew something was wrong, that I was different from others) I directed my hate towards myself. But after finding out about OCD I directed my bitter anger toward Him.

I wonder when God speaks of:

 

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, (as you most certainly will with OCD) because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance [When has an OCD person ever developed perseverance?] […]

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to [those with normal brains] all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

 

"But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

 

"That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. [An OCDer not doubting??? Come on. Well that means an OCDer will never receive anything from the Lord.]"

 

The French call OCD the Doubting Disease. Why if an OCDer has to recheck the stove to see if he turned it off a hundred times, or recheck a hundred time or continue to doubt if a hundred doctors and medical doctors tell him he does not have cancer, how can God expect an OCDer to doubt when he is walking on water or something like that?

 

Even people with normal brains have trouble with believing things like God still loves me and will come through these difficult times—but surely He does not think an OCDer is going to have faith like that without doubting —what do you expect with OCD?

Every time I start to read the Bible something horrible out of the blue happens to me. I am deathly afraid of even opening it now. Why does not God protect me—at least once in a while?

 

I believe I am like Pharaoh of whom God says:

 

"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose [given you OCD?], that I might display my power in you […]

 

"Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens [messes up the Sertonin receptors in their basia ganglia—gives them OCD] whom he wants to harden."

 

You know God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” The word “heart” corresponds to the modern usage of the word “mind.” I think God gave Pharaoh OCD, as he hardened my brain.

 

Did I ever have a chance to be saved? You know I earnestly read my Bible, prayed as much as I could before the OCD interfered with my concentration, went to church—still do regularly, and really desired to live a Godly life. I did not want to be a nonbeliever and a sinner.

 

I know there are non-believers who are not saved, but they are not troubled by it. Pastors talk about sinners enjoying a season of pleasure. While maybe a sinner is what I should be. I never even got a season of pleasure. If God did prepare me in advance for destruction why did not he keep me in ignorance? Now I cannot even enjoy a season of sin.

 

Oh when I see others being Spirit-filled and enjoying communion with God, oh how I envy them. I only wish there is a God whom Christians talk about who would love me and assure me I have eternal life.

 

These things that the Bible promises for others (that have normal brains) I so much desire if only “God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—[did not] prepared [me] for destruction.”

I deeply and earnestly desire that if there is a God who loves people the way it is claimed in the Bible and by Christians would love me, He will totally assure me I am not beyond forgiveness, that He most certainly will forgive all of my sins, (that I have not committed the unpardonable sin) and will come down here and make His self be known to me.

 

I care the least about “argument from intelligent design”; or creation science and whether the world was created in six literal days or if six days was figurative; or the Divinci Code; or who the Antichrist will be; or some speculative argument about end times prophecy.

 

I just want to know this! I am hurting. I have worldly needs. I am suffering. I am alone. Why cannot this God come down and help me???

 

I am tired of waiting. I am not young anymore. If I did get to heaven I wonder if I would hear: “Well, just be patient, what’s a billion years in relation to eternity? Then a trillion years come and I hear “what’s a few trillion years.”

 

I want to feel (or know, or experience) God now! The peace of God, “which passeth all understanding” always passes me by.

You who claim to know Him, can you ask Him in my behalf? And do not lie to me if you think I really committed the unpardonable sin just because it might be politically incorrect or what not what the public wants to hear.

I want to know the absolute truth.

 

Remember I blasphemed after I knew God.

 

Oh God, help me!!!

[CarolynN]

Hello again Stagedoor,

 

First I want to say how amazed again at how well you are able to convey your heart and what has been happening in your life. Not many people can write like you have and I am sure it is insightful for many.

 

There is so much I can say about what you have written. I want to start first by addressing this part of your post and I quote from your post... "I know now I really have committed the unpardonable sin for 'It is impossible for those who were enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift […] if they fall away to be brought back to repentance.' Before I might have claimed blaspheming in ignorance but can I claim that now?" This is referencing the passage in Hebrews chapter 6 verse 4.

 

Before I explain the verse and how it does not mean you can loose your salvation, I want to share with you, as briefly as I can, the story of my current pastor. It is goes directly to this issue and shows how God's grace is beyond our comprehension. My pastor, whose name is Mike, became a Christian at age 13. He spread the word of Christ to many throughout his teenage years. He had a horrible father who left their family and Mike became the one responsible for helping out his mother. Prior to his dad leaving, his dad abused the family and literally almost killed his mother. He had a lot of confusion about his family but still trusted God.

 

When Mike was about 21 years of age Mike met a girl he fell in love with. He got to the point where he was going to ask her to marry him and she abandoned him. All of a sudden all the anger of what his father had done to him and all the anger of this girl leaving him just completely overtook him. Guess what he did. He has shared this several times with our congregation, he went into a room to pray to God for the broken heart he had and all of a sudden his prayer turned to anger and he cursed at God, literally with the "F" word, and said "if that is the kind of God you are I want absolutely nothing to do with you. I would rather rot in ######". Now if that is not blaspheming God I don't know what is.

 

I love this part of the story..now after this occurance of yelling at God, the last place Mike ever wanted to be was in church. But, it just so happened by God's grace, he had promised a friend that he would be at church that particular Sunday after he cursed out God. While he was in the service the pastor stopped the service and said God is speaking to me right now. Someone in this congregation cursed out God this week. Mike knew it was obviously him. But God's message to him through this pastor was not one of hate but one of I still love you. It took two years but Mike came back to God because he realized God loved him no matter. The fact is God never left him. Mike only chose to not listen to God in those two years. Pastor Mike, to this day, will say he is so undeserving of God's grace and love because of what he did to God. But God is still loving Mike because of who God's nature is not because of the falleness of Mike. Pastor Mike has lead many to Christ and shares God's love everywhere he goes. By the way if you would like to listen to any of his sermons here is the link http://www.emcaz.org/Sermons.aspx . He is a great pastor!

 

This is a real life example of who the real and living God is. He is all loving and all gracious. Look what He did He sacrificed Himself for us!

 

Now getting back to Hebrews 6:4. The thing is if you take the passage just as it is and not in the context of the entire Bible then certainly it looks like once you have turned away from God there is no hope. But that is not at all what it is referencing. There are just way too many scriptures to contradict this. Here is a great website that lists all kinds of scriptures as to why you cannot loose your salvation http://www.truthortradition.com/modules.ph...cle&sid=127 . The one thing I know for certain is the Bible does not contradict itself so when there is a scripture that does not make sense in the light of other scripture you have to look at the context of who is the original audience the scripture was being written to and the context of the scripture that precedes and follows it. You have to make sure you have a clear understanding of the entire scripture.

 

The point of the Hebrews Chapter 6 scripture is this. There are people who are around the truth of God, for example people in my own church, who are exposed to the truth, who have seen the Holy Spirit, God, do miracles right in front of their very eyes but they still choose not to accept Him as Lord and Savior of their lives. There is nothing left to show these people. They have seen it all and they still choose to live by their own works, in other words those things they think will please God other then accepting Christ as Savior. This scripture is not referencing a person who has God in their heart it is to a group of people who have the head knowledge of God but have never taken Him into their hearts.

 

The Hebrews who this letter was being written to apparently were a very stubborn group of people in terms of believing that it was still their works that saved them not Christ's sacrifice. So Paul is just trying to get through to them by saying. and of course I am paraphrasing..."hey guys you have seen the truth of Christ what else can I show you. There is nothing left for me to show you to convert your hearts into accepting that Christ is indeed the only way to heaven. It is impossible for there to be anything left for you to witness that will change your heart to the truth. So you either believe or you still go about thinking that your works can save you". We know clearly by Ephesians Chapter 2 verse 8 "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and not from yourselves it is the gift of God-not by works so that no one can boast." So again it comes back to the fact it is NOT works of ourselves that save us but our faith in Christs completed work.

 

I thought you might like this link that explains this whole Hebrews chapter 6 passage real well http://www.biblebb.com/files/macqa/1301-O-15.htm . Again it goes to the point that this passage is referencing people who have seen every thing they could possible see of God but never accept Him as Lord and Savior. They still want to do things their own way.

 

I, myself as a Christian, have gone through periods of time where I have just been tormented in thinking thoughts of God that are just horrible and all I want is for them to go away. But I can tell you God clearly showed me in, in one of these obsessive thought moments, that there is there is nothing I can think of or say about Him that can change His Holiness, His Righteousness, or His steadfast love. I finally came to understand that God was not looking at what thoughts I could come up with about Him in my head. Certainly there are millions of ugly thoughts we can come up with that are unbearable but God was and is looking at my heart for Him. The exact reason I hated these thoughts so much is because I love Him and He knows that.

 

One thing that became very clear to me, about 3 years ago, is I had labeled myself OCD since my early 20's when I finally understood what label to brand myself with thanks to a psychologist. Prior to this I had no clue what was wrong with me. After being labeled OCD ..when I thought of myself I would first think "well I am OCD" person. Kind of like if I was an alcoholic I would have said to myself "well I am an alcoholic". But God showed me something 3 years ago that that labeling myself as OCD is not who I am in His economy. I am a Christian first who happens to also be dealing with obsessive thoughts. The same be said of a Christian who is dealing with alcoholism. God does not define that person as an "alcoholic" that is only by our human definitions. God looks at that Christian as a person struggling with alcohol but He does not define that person by the alcohol. In other words I am not defined by God as OCD but a child of His. Once I removed that label from my foremost thinking and started looking at my obsessive thoughts through His definitions I started to see the hope that I was not predestined to be OCD because God can change everything including our patterns of thinking.

 

From what I am reading of your writing you believe because you have these intrusive and horrific thoughts of God that you have been preprogrammed by Him to never be able to be accepted by Him. I cannot tell you how far off from the truth that is. That is exactly what the Bible would classify as trying to be saved by your own works. In other words because you cannot stop thinking ugly thoughts you cannot be presentable to God? Why do you think Christ died on the cross? It is because we are all imperfect and He knows none of us could have lived up to the standard of perfection. You are trying to think perfect thoughts to please Him when all he wants from you is to accept that He died for you because you are not perfect and He loves us UNCONDITIONALLY in spite of your thoughts.

 

God is looking at your heart for one thing and one thing only and that is faith in His Son's completed work on the cross and resurrection. That is it there is no more you can offer Him. There is no string of perfect thoughts you could ever come up with that would please Him. That is all considered works and again Ephesians chapter 2 could not be more clear that we are not saved by our own goodness but by His grace!

 

If you have the opportunity you should read up on the life of Martin Luther, the great reformer, who brought the truth of grace back into the Christian church hundreds of years ago . For a lot of his life he dealt with obsessive thoughts about God and trying to fight back thoughts. But God clearly showed him, after years of torment, exactly what I am sharing with you that it is God's grace that saves us through Christ....not our own ability to hold back thoughts. This man, Martin Luther, went on to be a great man in Christian history because of God showed him the truth of His grace.

 

Regarding your reference to the first Chapter of James where it is addressed to "But when he asks he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does". I think where you are is you feel since God made you to be OCD how can you ever get beyond this passage so God will always deny you. The first thing I have to say is if you think logicially about this then how can I, who also has OCD, have seen God's amazing grace and love in my life? I have seen Him absolutely do miracles in my life and if I was preprogrammed by Him to doubt Him why am I so confident in Him? How is it I corresponded, on this very forum, with other Christians who are OCD. They are able to have faith in Christ. In spite of the OCD thoughts there is a part of us, in our hearts, that shows God our faith in Him. That is what He is looking at.

 

Certainly, faith in God is not based on the thoughts we come up about Him, again we can come up with all kinds of things especially if we are focused in on those types of thoughts, but again God is looking deeper at our hearts for Him. I can have faith and yucky thoughts at the same time. I know this to be true because I have experienced this on numerous occasions. The Bible tells us it is faith the size of a mustard seed that can move mountains (Matthew chapter 17 verse 20). Have you ever seen how tiny a mustard seed is?

 

The fact is if I am worried I am going to think bad thoughts of God or whoever it might be guess what is going to happen I am going to think those thoughts. There is no way around this because when we tell ourselves we can't think of something of course we are thinking about it. The trying to stop thoughts is anxiety and that is what you are dealing with. The only thing you can do is start telling truth over that anxiety. The truth that God loves you in spite of those thoughts and His love for you is deeper then we can ever imagine. Ephesians Chapter 3 verse 17 "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God".

 

Regarding Pharoh's heart being hardened I know this is a big conversation I have had over the years in Bible study. I found this website that I really helps explain the full context of this part of the Bible http://members.aol.com/twarren13/pharaoh.html .

 

I know this was long but the main point I want to get across to you is you are first a child of God. You are not to be defined by OCD but by who God sees you as. Please stop looking at this by our worldly labels but as God your creator sees you. I love in 1st Corinthians Chapter 1 verse 25 it states "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength". In other words, we may think we are wise in our human ways of defining people and ways of life but God's ways are higher and mightier than all human wisdom. He sees things from the clear perspective.....we don't!

 

I really do think you would benefit greatly by reading Bob George's "Classic Christianity". Here again is the website http://store.silaspartners.com/merchant.mv...Category_Code=B and I still would be happy to mail you my extra copy. It goes exactly into the heart of getting your head wrapped around how God sees us not how the world sees us. If you are interested in me sending you my extra copy you can send me a personal e-mail, through the forum, by just clicking on my name on the side of this posting.

 

God indeed does love you and I believe with ALL MY HEART he is using me to tell you this! I have absolutely no doubt and again that is coming from someone who has done a lot of doubting in her life!!!!

 

Carolyn

[Chemar]

if I can just reinforce what Carolyn has said by adding what our pastor has always told us:

 

if you are worried that you have committed "the unpardonable sin" relax!! you havent. the fact that you care shows you are God's child

 

I pray His peace be with you and that you will know with certainty that He fully understands your OCD and you....and LOVES you through it all!

 

my prayers are lifted for you

Cheri