- Oct 8, 2018
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Hi everyone:
My name is Mike, and a I am a teacher in California.
I was saved on January 20, 1998, when I was fighting severe clinical depression and was desperate for someone to take away the pain. The good news is that I have overcome the depression, the anxiety, and the cybersex addiction that I had fallen into, and have been sober for over 5 years now.
But the thing is that now, I wonder if I got saved for the wrong reasons. I wanted an end to my pain, and I would have done anything to get it. It ended, but not because God reached down and ended it. I asked Him for over a decade to deliver me from the addiction and the emotional pain I was experiencing. It was only when I began seeing a therapist, taking anti-depressants, and doing the Twelve Steps that I got sober.
I know that God probably used the things I have just mentioned to deliver me. But some of the people in my church have told me never to speak about those things; they only want to hear that God performed a miracle.
I am embarrassed to admit to anyone that I don’t have the deep friendship with Jesus that I am supposed to have, or that I can’t find much in the Bible that speaks to me despite spending time reading it, meditating over it, praying about it and asking the Holy Spirit to make it clear to me.
So what should I do? Have I been living a lie? Do I need to start all over?
Please, don’t judge me. I am being as open as I can in a forum like this, and I would ask you to give me your thoughts as believers.
Mike
My name is Mike, and a I am a teacher in California.
I was saved on January 20, 1998, when I was fighting severe clinical depression and was desperate for someone to take away the pain. The good news is that I have overcome the depression, the anxiety, and the cybersex addiction that I had fallen into, and have been sober for over 5 years now.
But the thing is that now, I wonder if I got saved for the wrong reasons. I wanted an end to my pain, and I would have done anything to get it. It ended, but not because God reached down and ended it. I asked Him for over a decade to deliver me from the addiction and the emotional pain I was experiencing. It was only when I began seeing a therapist, taking anti-depressants, and doing the Twelve Steps that I got sober.
I know that God probably used the things I have just mentioned to deliver me. But some of the people in my church have told me never to speak about those things; they only want to hear that God performed a miracle.
I am embarrassed to admit to anyone that I don’t have the deep friendship with Jesus that I am supposed to have, or that I can’t find much in the Bible that speaks to me despite spending time reading it, meditating over it, praying about it and asking the Holy Spirit to make it clear to me.
So what should I do? Have I been living a lie? Do I need to start all over?
Please, don’t judge me. I am being as open as I can in a forum like this, and I would ask you to give me your thoughts as believers.
Mike