Anyone Else experienced these

[Shawb]

Hello All
I hope you are having a blessed day. I was just wondering if people have OCD thoughts that tell you to do something. For instance for me it has been to give up my favorite hobbies for no reason or the spontaneous thoughts of giving up everything to evangelize. They might sound biblical but often fill me with a lot of anxiety. I guess my question is how do I know the difference between OCD, God, Myself, or other outside forces?

 

[AlexDTX]

Hello All
I hope you are having a blessed day. I was just wondering if people have OCD thoughts that tell you to do something. For instance for me it has been to give up my favorite hobbies for no reason or the spontaneous thoughts of giving up everything to evangelize. They might sound biblical but often fill me with a lot of anxiety. I guess my question is how do I know the difference between OCD, God, Myself, or other outside forces?

I went through this when I was a young Christian. I don't have OCD, but I mistook my thoughts as God's. There are several points to use to check if it is from God.

1. Content. What ever God says to us will always agree with the Bible. Not just any part of the Bible, mind you. For example the Bible tells us that the patriarchs had multiple wives. But God will not tell you to marry two women based on those verses. Jesus said that was allowed back then because of the hardness of their hearts. So the content will be in the spirit of Christ.

2. Jesus said his words were spirit and life. When Christ speaks two characteristics will be evident. Spirit means according to the will of the Father, thus is the same as point 1. Life means that there will be a motivation to act on the instruction. Many thoughts simply pass through your mind, but a thought from God will stimulate you to action.

3. Peace and checks. When the Lord speaks you will also have a sense of peace in the instruction. When it is not from God you will have a check in your spirit, which is from God, not to do it. When it is from God it will feel right, when it is not, it will feel wrong.

4. Timing. Circumstances and coincidence will align. This is a weaker litmus, but it is a Gideon's fleece that will contribute to your confirmation that God has spoken to you.

 

[JesusIsLord_]

Yes. Become a nun, stop doing x just because, if you do y it means z etc etc etc. They usually come with some Bible verse but with a distorted meaning, like satan did to Jesus in the desert (if you really are the Son of God then throw yourself from this cliff, because the Scripture say that angels will catch you..). Hence, don't give attention. I try to ignore most that I can.

 

[Mari17]

YEP. I've heard this one a lot, and struggle with it to some extent myself. It's a tough one, because of course we don't want to ignore something we actually should be doing. But I find that with OCD, there is usually a sense of oppression, anxiety, or really not wanting to do something. Of course we do have to do hard things sometimes, but often people with OCD just go round and round and round about whether they should do something, without actually ever coming to a decision. And there's fear involved so they're not able to think about an issue rationally; it just causes them anxiety and confusion to think about it. Here's an article that might be helpful: http://ocdandchristianity.com/?p=610