- Apr 5, 2007
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I need to apologize in advance for the length of this post... if you have the patience to read it I want to say thank you and I would appreciate any comments or input on this subject:
THE VOLITIONAL FAITH OF THE OCD CHRISTIAN
I want to share something that has been of encouragement to me in my own battle against the bully of OCD. I'm not sharing from a position of one who has total victory over the beast but rather as a fellow sufferer who very often falls off the wagon and ends up treading the miserable path of intrusive thoughts, obsession and consequential anxiety.
I want to start by sharing Psalm 13 (A Psalm of David)
How long, Oh Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I keep asking myself what to do, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long must my enemy,(OCD) dominate me? - Look, and answer me, Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death. Then my enemy would say, "I was able to dominate him/her," and my adversaries would rejoice at my downfall."
Pause
"But I trust in your grace; my heart rejoices as you bring me to safety. I will sing to the Lord, because He gives me even more than I need."
When I read this Psalm I feel a deep connection to the psalmist. I cry out from the pain of OCD to the Lord but it seems as if He doesn't hear. I can't feel my faith in Him. I can't sense His presence. Instead I'm overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness. Desperation envelopes me as the accusing and condemning voice of my OCD spikes are all that I can hear. My own questioning cries ehco back to me unanswered. I can only focus on MY fear, MY emotional pain and anguish. I feel shame at my lack of faith. I feel conquered and emptied of my inner strength and resources.
At this point I just want to give up because no matter how long or how loudly I cry to God nothing seems to change.
But as I consider this Psalm I see a complete shift in focus in the last paragraph. Suddenly the Psalmist begins to affirm his faith in His Lord, He rejoices in what God has done for him and He chooses to sing praises to Him. The focus has turned from himself with all his inadequacies to His God. He has exercised his will to move ahead in a determined way to make the choice to trust in God. There is nothing between the first and last paragraph to indicate that anything changed other than the attitude of the psalmist. Not knowing how things will play out in the end the pslamist exercises volitional faith.
His faith is not bolstered or motivated by his feelings, emotions or circumstances it is motivated by his free will to choose to serve his God with praise and loyal obedience. As I contemplated this psalm I was reminded of Job as he endured his intensely painful and confounding trial. I remember how he cried out over and over to God for deliverance or at least for some answer some explanation for the reason that he was in the trial. He had nothing tangible by which he could say...."this is why I know that God loves me". He did have his own accusers. Although they came from without instead of within like the voice of OCD they said the very same things. Things that accused and condemned and tortured him. Then at the very peak of his suffering when the closest and last member of his earthly family turns to him and says in effect..."I don't know why you don't just curse God and die?" Job exercises his free will and says... "Even if He slays me, yet will I trust Him."
Fast forward centuries later and we see our Lord in the depth of emotional and physical suffering as he cries out from the cross. "My God, My God WHY have you forsaken me?" But prior to that we read that even knowing that the cross lay before him, "he set his face like a flint" to go to Jerusalem, the very place where he knew all this horror would come to pass. He didn't get to escape the emotional and physical suffering of the cross. He endured it. Far more amazing than that He actually chose it. He demonstrated the most perfect faith in this way. He did have the choice to avoid His suffering, he could have avoided those hours where He hung there feeling so abandoned by His Father. Feeling abandoned but never, never, turning from His choice to die on our behalf.
There have been days when the haunting emptiness - the hollow abandoned feelings that this disorder creates have been so intense that I cannot find even the smallest trace of emotional reassurance to bolster my faith in God. It is then that I too must choose to believe in and follow Him any way. It is then that I will chime in with the Psalmist in proclaming that, "I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall continually be in my mouth." On those days when my intrusive obsessions and anxiety are so intense that I greatly fear I could be lost to hell...my will is still in tact and I choose to affirm that... "even in hell I would still praise the name of Christ."
I am certain that a faith that does not rest upon the foundation of emotional validation, physical healing, or material blessing but rather on the Holy and perfect Character of God is the more praiseworthy choice. This is volitional faith, faith that is chosen. It is the type of faith that every individual has the ability to walk in because every person has been granted a free will. This is the kind of faith that OCD will cause many of us to walk in . We can be so thankful for God's gift to us of a free will. Because of this we can look right into the faces of our OCD accusers and say... "So what!!.. no matter what you throw at me today... "Yet will I trust Him."
This is the kind of faith that I've been reading about on all these heartfelt posts. This faith has been demonstrated so eloquently over and over by so many of you as you share of your heart's deepest desires to believe in and follow your Savior to the very best of your abilities. This forum has been such a great source of encouragement to me as I read these great affirmations of volitional faith.
Thanks - to all of you for opening up, for showing such heartfelt compassion and for always lifting up the name of Christ.
God Bless,
Mitzi
THE VOLITIONAL FAITH OF THE OCD CHRISTIAN
I want to share something that has been of encouragement to me in my own battle against the bully of OCD. I'm not sharing from a position of one who has total victory over the beast but rather as a fellow sufferer who very often falls off the wagon and ends up treading the miserable path of intrusive thoughts, obsession and consequential anxiety.
I want to start by sharing Psalm 13 (A Psalm of David)
How long, Oh Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I keep asking myself what to do, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long must my enemy,(OCD) dominate me? - Look, and answer me, Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death. Then my enemy would say, "I was able to dominate him/her," and my adversaries would rejoice at my downfall."
Pause
"But I trust in your grace; my heart rejoices as you bring me to safety. I will sing to the Lord, because He gives me even more than I need."
When I read this Psalm I feel a deep connection to the psalmist. I cry out from the pain of OCD to the Lord but it seems as if He doesn't hear. I can't feel my faith in Him. I can't sense His presence. Instead I'm overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness. Desperation envelopes me as the accusing and condemning voice of my OCD spikes are all that I can hear. My own questioning cries ehco back to me unanswered. I can only focus on MY fear, MY emotional pain and anguish. I feel shame at my lack of faith. I feel conquered and emptied of my inner strength and resources.
At this point I just want to give up because no matter how long or how loudly I cry to God nothing seems to change.
But as I consider this Psalm I see a complete shift in focus in the last paragraph. Suddenly the Psalmist begins to affirm his faith in His Lord, He rejoices in what God has done for him and He chooses to sing praises to Him. The focus has turned from himself with all his inadequacies to His God. He has exercised his will to move ahead in a determined way to make the choice to trust in God. There is nothing between the first and last paragraph to indicate that anything changed other than the attitude of the psalmist. Not knowing how things will play out in the end the pslamist exercises volitional faith.
His faith is not bolstered or motivated by his feelings, emotions or circumstances it is motivated by his free will to choose to serve his God with praise and loyal obedience. As I contemplated this psalm I was reminded of Job as he endured his intensely painful and confounding trial. I remember how he cried out over and over to God for deliverance or at least for some answer some explanation for the reason that he was in the trial. He had nothing tangible by which he could say...."this is why I know that God loves me". He did have his own accusers. Although they came from without instead of within like the voice of OCD they said the very same things. Things that accused and condemned and tortured him. Then at the very peak of his suffering when the closest and last member of his earthly family turns to him and says in effect..."I don't know why you don't just curse God and die?" Job exercises his free will and says... "Even if He slays me, yet will I trust Him."
Fast forward centuries later and we see our Lord in the depth of emotional and physical suffering as he cries out from the cross. "My God, My God WHY have you forsaken me?" But prior to that we read that even knowing that the cross lay before him, "he set his face like a flint" to go to Jerusalem, the very place where he knew all this horror would come to pass. He didn't get to escape the emotional and physical suffering of the cross. He endured it. Far more amazing than that He actually chose it. He demonstrated the most perfect faith in this way. He did have the choice to avoid His suffering, he could have avoided those hours where He hung there feeling so abandoned by His Father. Feeling abandoned but never, never, turning from His choice to die on our behalf.
There have been days when the haunting emptiness - the hollow abandoned feelings that this disorder creates have been so intense that I cannot find even the smallest trace of emotional reassurance to bolster my faith in God. It is then that I too must choose to believe in and follow Him any way. It is then that I will chime in with the Psalmist in proclaming that, "I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall continually be in my mouth." On those days when my intrusive obsessions and anxiety are so intense that I greatly fear I could be lost to hell...my will is still in tact and I choose to affirm that... "even in hell I would still praise the name of Christ."
I am certain that a faith that does not rest upon the foundation of emotional validation, physical healing, or material blessing but rather on the Holy and perfect Character of God is the more praiseworthy choice. This is volitional faith, faith that is chosen. It is the type of faith that every individual has the ability to walk in because every person has been granted a free will. This is the kind of faith that OCD will cause many of us to walk in . We can be so thankful for God's gift to us of a free will. Because of this we can look right into the faces of our OCD accusers and say... "So what!!.. no matter what you throw at me today... "Yet will I trust Him."
This is the kind of faith that I've been reading about on all these heartfelt posts. This faith has been demonstrated so eloquently over and over by so many of you as you share of your heart's deepest desires to believe in and follow your Savior to the very best of your abilities. This forum has been such a great source of encouragement to me as I read these great affirmations of volitional faith.
Thanks - to all of you for opening up, for showing such heartfelt compassion and for always lifting up the name of Christ.
God Bless,
Mitzi