Jesus said (I may be paraphrasing; at least I am going by memory), “Narrow is the way and straight is the gate that leads to life, and few there be that find it.” I first came to know the Gospel of Jesus Christ when I was in sixth grade. I remember sitting on my bed, one time, that school year, and asking Jesus to come into my heart, and visualizing Him doing so. In tenth grade, an acquaintance (now, more like a friend) named Dennis asked me, “If you were to die tonight and God were to ask you, ‘Why should I let you into my heaven?,’ what would you say?” I said to Dennis, “I would say that I tried asking Jesus into my heart in sixth grade. Would that be enough or would I be on shaky ground?” Dennis replied, “You would be on very shaky ground.” There is a sense in which I have considered myself to be on shaky ground, ever since. Sometime after that conversation with Dennis, I simply concluded I was not a Christian. (I think at an earlier point than that, I had asked God in prayer to not let me think I’m going to heaven if I’m really not). I suppose I did not always, after that, consider myself not to be a Christian; I would try to give my life to Christ once in awhile, and would generate an emotional experience along with that. So I was thinking, maybe I am and maybe I am not a Christian. Eventually, I sided with the non-Christian concept fully, and began enjoying my life in my new career and around my non-Christian friends. I also was eventually diagnosed with OCD, which explains, at least in part, why I was such a bad worker and had a rocky career. After my career fell apart and I had no friends, I started going to a psychiatrist and a psychologist. The psychologist was a Christian. He suggested I go to a certain weekly meeting at his church. I started doing so. But it came to seem to me that the psychologist, though a Christian himself, was enticing me with “easy believism” thinking. Easy believism is where you can superficially give your life to Christ, say, by saying a “sinner’s prayer,” and then not worry about your relationship with God or your walk after that, because you are saved. Being as cynical and honest as I am, I have long distrusted easy believism.
Next, my mother died. (My Dad had died years earlier.) Neither of my parents ever exhibited a real belief in the conservative, evangelical Christian Gospel of Jesus Christ. One or both of them may have been saved at the end of their lives; I do not know. I was raised to believe I was a good person. I was raised to believe in God, but also to go ahead and live as I pleased. My parents’ belief in God helped me to believe in God, and to realize the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true, once I heard it and understood it. But, having been raised in the belief that I am good and to believe in God but live as I please, and being the last-born, spoiled child, I turned out to have real problems with both fully understanding about the Christian life, and with being truly willing at heart to follow Jesus. But, after my mother died ten years ago, and realizing the Bible is the Word of God and that its main message is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and realizing what the Gospel says, I began seeking to be saved, full time. I would give my life to Christ, but then doubt I was sincere and really saved. My OCD has become religious OCD. People with religious OCD keep doubting their salvation. But I suppose not only real Christians can have religious OCD, but non-Christians can also have it. Including non-Christians who take the Gospel of Jesus very seriously. I began posting on the Christian Forums website. My confusion may have reached its zenith when someone on the Forums said that I am not trusting Jesus Christ for my salvation, but am trusting myself. I’ve thought if I sincerely asked Christ to be my Lord and Savior, He would save me. But this poster on the Forums said I was making my sincerity the key to my salvation, but that the key was not me but the Savior. That assertion has caused me doubt and confusion ever since.
I am wondering if, somewhere along the line, I have made a deep, committed, heart-felt decision for myself. My self is to be protected and promoted at all costs. This may include my reaction to the Gospel. What if I am so committed to Self that my givings of my life to Christ are all shams? What if am both directing and acting in a movie that is in my head, in which I supposedly sincerely seek Christ and surrender to Him? What if, in my heart of hearts, I am so committed to Self that my seeking and surrendering to Christ is all a pantomime? What if there are so many layers of fantasy and self-delusion in my psychology that both God and I have a lot of difficulty breaking through them all? What if God cannot get through my layers of fantasy to get to the real me? What if I can’t get through the layers of fantasy to get to the real Christ?
I sometimes think that I have a wavering faith. Having a wavering faith and religious OCD is like being in the perfect storm. But maybe Christ really saves some or all people with a wavering faith: at least, there is some faith there, and Jesus said that if you have faith as small as a grain of mustard seed, you will move mountains.
I’ve looked for advice from experts about people with religious OCD. Mitsy VanCleve wrote a book I read called Strivings Within – The OCD Christion and is subtitled “overcoming doubt in the storm of anxiety.” She suggests ERP therapy: Exposure and Response Prevention. This is where you expose yourself to the “What Ifs” that OCD always throws at you, and don’t fight them, but train yourself to not have an adrenaline response to them, either. She says that John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress, had religious OCD. He ended up handling it by deciding that whether he was going to hell or to heaven, he was for going on and living his life for Christ. She essentially recommends that religious OCD sufferers reach that same point. She said that in her case, she would have an attack of the thought that she wasn’t really saved and was going to hell, and then just respond; “Oh, well, I guess there’s nothing that can be done for it. I might as well finish cleaning the house.” I find it hard to take this advice. It seems I cannot reach the point of deciding that come hell or heaven, I’m going to live the Christian life and go on with life.
For the past ten years or more, I have been seeking salvation full time. That has meant that I have not been working. In recent times, I’ve often come to the conclusion that I’m saved, only to have doubt take back over shortly. What if I’m just convincing myself that I am saved on these occasions, but am not really saved?
I have recently tried to commit to productivity, to start to carry out a plan that involves both working on an invention and on a novel. But I find that if I doubt my salvation, I see no point in working on those plans, but instead should full time seek salvation, as I have been doing. But if salvation Is as difficult to find as it has been for me, I can give up on finding it anytime soon. Just today, I started out committed to working on my plans. Then I got to thinking. I thought, maybe I should pray to Jesus that if I am not His, that I find Him eventually, and just go ahead with my “Christian life,” and life. Like John Bunyan. But I find lack of assurance of heaven too distracting to concentrate on anything else. On a number of occasions, I have decided: “This is it. I am not going to do anything (except absolutely necessary things, like go to the bathroom) until I find that I am in the kingdom of heaven.” Having set out with this commitment, I usually reach the point where I’m sure I’m saved. But that assurance simply will not last. Today, I was thinking about the statement of Jesus, “Narrow is the way which leads to life and few there be that find it.” Since I can do nothing else – neither be saved nor stop thinking about salvation – I just decided I would contemplate that statement, and that’s it. I am so far, today, dropping my plans for today and my life, and just thinking about Jesus’ statement: “Narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it.”
Next, my mother died. (My Dad had died years earlier.) Neither of my parents ever exhibited a real belief in the conservative, evangelical Christian Gospel of Jesus Christ. One or both of them may have been saved at the end of their lives; I do not know. I was raised to believe I was a good person. I was raised to believe in God, but also to go ahead and live as I pleased. My parents’ belief in God helped me to believe in God, and to realize the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true, once I heard it and understood it. But, having been raised in the belief that I am good and to believe in God but live as I please, and being the last-born, spoiled child, I turned out to have real problems with both fully understanding about the Christian life, and with being truly willing at heart to follow Jesus. But, after my mother died ten years ago, and realizing the Bible is the Word of God and that its main message is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and realizing what the Gospel says, I began seeking to be saved, full time. I would give my life to Christ, but then doubt I was sincere and really saved. My OCD has become religious OCD. People with religious OCD keep doubting their salvation. But I suppose not only real Christians can have religious OCD, but non-Christians can also have it. Including non-Christians who take the Gospel of Jesus very seriously. I began posting on the Christian Forums website. My confusion may have reached its zenith when someone on the Forums said that I am not trusting Jesus Christ for my salvation, but am trusting myself. I’ve thought if I sincerely asked Christ to be my Lord and Savior, He would save me. But this poster on the Forums said I was making my sincerity the key to my salvation, but that the key was not me but the Savior. That assertion has caused me doubt and confusion ever since.
I am wondering if, somewhere along the line, I have made a deep, committed, heart-felt decision for myself. My self is to be protected and promoted at all costs. This may include my reaction to the Gospel. What if I am so committed to Self that my givings of my life to Christ are all shams? What if am both directing and acting in a movie that is in my head, in which I supposedly sincerely seek Christ and surrender to Him? What if, in my heart of hearts, I am so committed to Self that my seeking and surrendering to Christ is all a pantomime? What if there are so many layers of fantasy and self-delusion in my psychology that both God and I have a lot of difficulty breaking through them all? What if God cannot get through my layers of fantasy to get to the real me? What if I can’t get through the layers of fantasy to get to the real Christ?
I sometimes think that I have a wavering faith. Having a wavering faith and religious OCD is like being in the perfect storm. But maybe Christ really saves some or all people with a wavering faith: at least, there is some faith there, and Jesus said that if you have faith as small as a grain of mustard seed, you will move mountains.
I’ve looked for advice from experts about people with religious OCD. Mitsy VanCleve wrote a book I read called Strivings Within – The OCD Christion and is subtitled “overcoming doubt in the storm of anxiety.” She suggests ERP therapy: Exposure and Response Prevention. This is where you expose yourself to the “What Ifs” that OCD always throws at you, and don’t fight them, but train yourself to not have an adrenaline response to them, either. She says that John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress, had religious OCD. He ended up handling it by deciding that whether he was going to hell or to heaven, he was for going on and living his life for Christ. She essentially recommends that religious OCD sufferers reach that same point. She said that in her case, she would have an attack of the thought that she wasn’t really saved and was going to hell, and then just respond; “Oh, well, I guess there’s nothing that can be done for it. I might as well finish cleaning the house.” I find it hard to take this advice. It seems I cannot reach the point of deciding that come hell or heaven, I’m going to live the Christian life and go on with life.
For the past ten years or more, I have been seeking salvation full time. That has meant that I have not been working. In recent times, I’ve often come to the conclusion that I’m saved, only to have doubt take back over shortly. What if I’m just convincing myself that I am saved on these occasions, but am not really saved?
I have recently tried to commit to productivity, to start to carry out a plan that involves both working on an invention and on a novel. But I find that if I doubt my salvation, I see no point in working on those plans, but instead should full time seek salvation, as I have been doing. But if salvation Is as difficult to find as it has been for me, I can give up on finding it anytime soon. Just today, I started out committed to working on my plans. Then I got to thinking. I thought, maybe I should pray to Jesus that if I am not His, that I find Him eventually, and just go ahead with my “Christian life,” and life. Like John Bunyan. But I find lack of assurance of heaven too distracting to concentrate on anything else. On a number of occasions, I have decided: “This is it. I am not going to do anything (except absolutely necessary things, like go to the bathroom) until I find that I am in the kingdom of heaven.” Having set out with this commitment, I usually reach the point where I’m sure I’m saved. But that assurance simply will not last. Today, I was thinking about the statement of Jesus, “Narrow is the way which leads to life and few there be that find it.” Since I can do nothing else – neither be saved nor stop thinking about salvation – I just decided I would contemplate that statement, and that’s it. I am so far, today, dropping my plans for today and my life, and just thinking about Jesus’ statement: “Narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it.”