Looking for stories of people who doubted their salvation

I think I heard that Thomas Goodwin struggled with doubt and depression for a whole decade from Michael Reeves' series on the English Reformation and the Puritans you can listen/watch online.

Are you an overcomer of the evil one?
A New Commandment
7 Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very beginning. This old commandment—to love one another—is the same message you heard before. 8 Yet it is also new. Jesus lived the truth of this commandment, and you also are living it. For the darkness is disappearing, and the true light is already shining.

9 If anyone claims, “I am living in the light,” but hates a fellow believer,[a] that person is still living in darkness. 10 Anyone who loves a fellow believer is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble. 11 But anyone who hates a fellow believer is still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness.

12 I am writing to you who are God’s children
because your sins have been forgiven through Jesus.[c]
13 I am writing to you who are mature in the faith[d]
because you know Christ, who existed from the beginning.
I am writing to you who are young in the faith
because you have won your battle with the evil one.
14 I have written to you who are God’s children
because you know the Father.
I have written to you who are mature in the faith
because you know Christ, who existed from the beginning.
I have written to you who are young in the faith
because you are strong.
God’s word lives in your hearts,
and you have won your battle with the evil one.

Waitingforgood said:

I have problems with not being sure if I am saved. I have asked for advice for this on another thread, but something I would really like is to hear how God has rescued others from the same place.

Have you had problems doubting if you were saved? Do you know someone who has struggled with that? I would like to hear your stories or even get in contact with people who have such stories.

Click to expand...

Hello Waitingforgood, this fairly short radio/internet broadcast, by Dr. Sproul, should be helpful

God bless you!

--David

Lost people can rightfully doubt they're right with the Lord. People who are right with the Lord can doubt that they are. Doubts don't prove anything, other than that one is not at a significant place of maturity and boldness in the Lord (if right with Him); or otherwise their absence can prove that one has progressed greatly in presumption against God (if not right with Him).

I had a lot of doubts in my earliest years as a Christian due to instability in my Christian walk then. Looking back there was reason to doubt, not the genuineness of my conversion, but whether I was being faithful and continuing with the Lord afterwards. I see now that a genuine conversion doesn't guarantee continuance and endurance in Christ. There is much painful discipline and many valleys one will face after conversion, and there also many bad heathen attitudes, mentalities, and habits in yourself to discern and to overcome in continuing in Christ (since He is a refiner's fire who will deal with those!). The only way to gain confidence in God in the midst of this is to cooperate with Him and draw near to Him with your face in the dust. I think doubts are inevitable until you've undergone some painful crucifixion on a daily basis as the Lord disciplines you (Hebrews 12) and until you come to know Him very closely in the midst of such. God has a school wherein He teaches His children some hard lessons about walking by faith (often involving loss and disappointment related to earth and one's own prideful self-esteem)- and really learning such lessons and apprehending them deeply takes a lot of patience, pain, and time. The only exceptions are maybe those were raised and instructed very well in a faithful, properly disciplined Christian household and church where the basic Christian mentalities, habits, attitudes etc are things one has been trained to receive and walk in (Proverbs 22:6) from early on; and where the examples and testimonies of one's parents and the faithful in their fellowship really shape a person's character and outlook on life from early on. And even then, there are still lessons one must learn firsthand as a teen and adult which aren't necessarily without a great amount of pain and perplexity. A little or a moderate amount of doubt in the midst of such can be natural. Doubt can also be a great thing when one is really on the wrong path; and when one doesn't have what they thought they did and are not even on the way to obtaining it. Heeding doubt can save a person in such cases. It comes down to whether we follow our doubts and what the consequence of doing so is- and that can be good or bad depending on what we are doubting and how we react to that doubt. It rarely if ever hurts to be more sober and careful, and doubt can aid us in that.

The book of 1 John is a book written to clear doubts- not to blindly reassure that all is okay- but rather to delineate between light and darkness, to persuade us to walk in the light of God's Word, to make certain that you cannot love God and love the lusts of the world at the same time, to cast down the confidence of those who walk in darkness yet say they know the Lord, to reassure and strengthen those who walk in the light that they are doing well and shouldn't forsake their present course; and to emphasize to us that we should not heed those who tell us that we need knowledge and experience outside the realm of God's Word to be right with the Lord and complete in Him. And of course that is just a sample of its lessons. It is a great book to read to label our doubts properly and to act or not act on them appropriately