All my life I have been a Christian who cannot get close to God because my OCD keeps getting in the way. When I find something that works for me, it stops working for me just as fast because I start to worry that it is wrong.
My paralyzing thoughts concerning all things Christian-oriented have kept me distant from God all 30 of my years after being baptized into the Lord Jesus. After many years of struggle, some therapy, and lots and lots of thought about it, I finally came up with a strategy that helped me get closer to God by managing my OCD. Before that, I simply tried not to think of Him at all because of the agony such thoughts brought me. Recently (last year or so) I have tried to actually apply the strategy to each day. But now I am stuck again, paralyzed with the anxiety that this strategy isn't acceptable to God.
Here is my strategy:
If I am justified by the finishing work of the cross, I am free to not have to dot all my is and cross all my ts. When I have a perfectionistic mindset (or one of too deliberately or too laboriously trying), I get very anxious, to the point of paralysis. My anxious thoughts consume me. Yet I dont want to go the other extreme and not try at all. So doing my best (in view of my anxious scrupulosity and incessant doubt about what constitutes the list of what I should and shouldnt do) means keeping it between the lines. The question becomes, then, what does this look like?
The only thing that keeps me between the lines right now is to strategize a balanced approach where I dont keep the ropes too taut or too slack. The way I have remedied this (so that I can get my mind around my walk somehow) is by having a limited number of defined focus areas where I apply my energies. Maybe in time I will be able to totally let go and trust God, but for now I need a structured approach; otherwise I get overwhelmed with trying to manage all the details that I see as part of the Christian walk and the doubt that comes along with themwhich are in the okay with God column and which are in the displeasing to God column.
Could it work with God to focus on just one or two things at a time and let the others go? (And to give lowest priority to the grey areas, where no blatant sin is involved? When I open up the list to gray areas, I end up in a quagmire of analysis over each input to my mind I encounter, burning lots of mental energy, working myself up in increasing anxiety, but getting nothing resolved beyond a point of doubt.)
I would like to keep in mind that the law is the ideal (and it is to our benefit to stick close to Gods ways), but mercy triumphs over judgment. Jesus takes a hard line on sin but is merciful toward the sinner. So grace is always the bottom line, to the extent I miss the mark. And it covers me as long as I am at least pointing my life in the right direction. That is not meant to discourage trying to live in more of Gods way than less, just because I can get by with less. I rob my life of peace and joy by doing this. But I dont have to feel the pressure to perfectionistically try to do everything right. This is a freeing thought to one who gets snared up in the details, fearing always that she is disqualified on point after point. (Complicating this detail-oriented approach to the walk is the added confusion of which points compulsion demands that I adhere to are actually really God intended. Some things that are taught as His truth are based on misunderstanding of His word.)
HOWEVER, this thought trumps all thoughts of assurance related to the principle of justification and freedom in Christ: If there are consequences for sin, how can I not live in fear if I fail to scrupulously adhere to all the is and ts? And how can I take on a strategy that seeks to focus on just a thing or two at a time (and therefore lets me get by with not adhering to the others)?
Bottom line, every time I go to church or read the Bible or read faith-based materials, I find many thoughts (real or perceived by an over-anxious, too analytical mind) that invalidate the things that work for me and help me to manage my OCD in a way that allows me to walk with God and not push Him away. These thoughts get 'stuck' in my mind and I can't get rid of them. They cause paralyzing anxiety so that the very strategies I use to help me cope with my anxiety and walk with God themselves become a source of new anxiety. I find sin in EVERYTHING. I am truly stuck.
Questions that remain forever unresolved in my mind distract me from doing or thinking about anything else, questions like these:
How can we know for sure that something is right? How can we avoid a paralyzing works mentality? What is the place grace is supposed to have? If I am not going all out to be obedient, I am sinning so grace may abound. But if I am going all out, I get all bound up, anxious, perfectionistic, legalistic It feeds right into my OCD.
What is the difference between valuing obedience and perfectionism/legalism? In trying to be obedient in everything, the pressure causes me to sin even more. For example, I feel uptight and irritable and fearful and angry. My attitude toward God and others is compulsion-based and weary, not loving and not from any kind of wellspring of peace with God and love relationship with Him. How can we ever have peace in Christ or rest in Him when His standard is so exacting that we have no breathing room? The list of things I must think and do is so extensive. Or is it? How much of what we bind on ourselves is a result of an inherently works-oriented, legalistic mindset and misinterpretation of Scriptures? Is His requirement really less complicated and more big picture than I think? Is His burden actually light? The list of questions in my mind is as exhaustive (and exhausting) as my perception of God's lists of 'Do's' and 'Do Not's'.
I feel like I can't do this anymore. My anxiety makes me physically sick and mentally derpessed. I have no energy to sustain a relationship with anyone, even those close to me. Forget any hope of another marriage (my husband, who understood me, died) or children. Forget travel. Everything that isn't staying in the house feels like more than I can bear. I can't concentrate at work. I get nothing done at home. My house is a wreck because all I can do is try to figure out my walk with God. I feel I'd rather just forget about Him and go to Hell. Could it be any worse than the Hell my life is?
My paralyzing thoughts concerning all things Christian-oriented have kept me distant from God all 30 of my years after being baptized into the Lord Jesus. After many years of struggle, some therapy, and lots and lots of thought about it, I finally came up with a strategy that helped me get closer to God by managing my OCD. Before that, I simply tried not to think of Him at all because of the agony such thoughts brought me. Recently (last year or so) I have tried to actually apply the strategy to each day. But now I am stuck again, paralyzed with the anxiety that this strategy isn't acceptable to God.
Here is my strategy:
If I am justified by the finishing work of the cross, I am free to not have to dot all my is and cross all my ts. When I have a perfectionistic mindset (or one of too deliberately or too laboriously trying), I get very anxious, to the point of paralysis. My anxious thoughts consume me. Yet I dont want to go the other extreme and not try at all. So doing my best (in view of my anxious scrupulosity and incessant doubt about what constitutes the list of what I should and shouldnt do) means keeping it between the lines. The question becomes, then, what does this look like?
The only thing that keeps me between the lines right now is to strategize a balanced approach where I dont keep the ropes too taut or too slack. The way I have remedied this (so that I can get my mind around my walk somehow) is by having a limited number of defined focus areas where I apply my energies. Maybe in time I will be able to totally let go and trust God, but for now I need a structured approach; otherwise I get overwhelmed with trying to manage all the details that I see as part of the Christian walk and the doubt that comes along with themwhich are in the okay with God column and which are in the displeasing to God column.
Could it work with God to focus on just one or two things at a time and let the others go? (And to give lowest priority to the grey areas, where no blatant sin is involved? When I open up the list to gray areas, I end up in a quagmire of analysis over each input to my mind I encounter, burning lots of mental energy, working myself up in increasing anxiety, but getting nothing resolved beyond a point of doubt.)
I would like to keep in mind that the law is the ideal (and it is to our benefit to stick close to Gods ways), but mercy triumphs over judgment. Jesus takes a hard line on sin but is merciful toward the sinner. So grace is always the bottom line, to the extent I miss the mark. And it covers me as long as I am at least pointing my life in the right direction. That is not meant to discourage trying to live in more of Gods way than less, just because I can get by with less. I rob my life of peace and joy by doing this. But I dont have to feel the pressure to perfectionistically try to do everything right. This is a freeing thought to one who gets snared up in the details, fearing always that she is disqualified on point after point. (Complicating this detail-oriented approach to the walk is the added confusion of which points compulsion demands that I adhere to are actually really God intended. Some things that are taught as His truth are based on misunderstanding of His word.)
HOWEVER, this thought trumps all thoughts of assurance related to the principle of justification and freedom in Christ: If there are consequences for sin, how can I not live in fear if I fail to scrupulously adhere to all the is and ts? And how can I take on a strategy that seeks to focus on just a thing or two at a time (and therefore lets me get by with not adhering to the others)?
Bottom line, every time I go to church or read the Bible or read faith-based materials, I find many thoughts (real or perceived by an over-anxious, too analytical mind) that invalidate the things that work for me and help me to manage my OCD in a way that allows me to walk with God and not push Him away. These thoughts get 'stuck' in my mind and I can't get rid of them. They cause paralyzing anxiety so that the very strategies I use to help me cope with my anxiety and walk with God themselves become a source of new anxiety. I find sin in EVERYTHING. I am truly stuck.
Questions that remain forever unresolved in my mind distract me from doing or thinking about anything else, questions like these:
How can we know for sure that something is right? How can we avoid a paralyzing works mentality? What is the place grace is supposed to have? If I am not going all out to be obedient, I am sinning so grace may abound. But if I am going all out, I get all bound up, anxious, perfectionistic, legalistic It feeds right into my OCD.
What is the difference between valuing obedience and perfectionism/legalism? In trying to be obedient in everything, the pressure causes me to sin even more. For example, I feel uptight and irritable and fearful and angry. My attitude toward God and others is compulsion-based and weary, not loving and not from any kind of wellspring of peace with God and love relationship with Him. How can we ever have peace in Christ or rest in Him when His standard is so exacting that we have no breathing room? The list of things I must think and do is so extensive. Or is it? How much of what we bind on ourselves is a result of an inherently works-oriented, legalistic mindset and misinterpretation of Scriptures? Is His requirement really less complicated and more big picture than I think? Is His burden actually light? The list of questions in my mind is as exhaustive (and exhausting) as my perception of God's lists of 'Do's' and 'Do Not's'.
I feel like I can't do this anymore. My anxiety makes me physically sick and mentally derpessed. I have no energy to sustain a relationship with anyone, even those close to me. Forget any hope of another marriage (my husband, who understood me, died) or children. Forget travel. Everything that isn't staying in the house feels like more than I can bear. I can't concentrate at work. I get nothing done at home. My house is a wreck because all I can do is try to figure out my walk with God. I feel I'd rather just forget about Him and go to Hell. Could it be any worse than the Hell my life is?
