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[raven1]

On another sight. The girl said she wants to believe with all her heart but just can't pretend she does. She wonders if God will condemn her to hell also. Many people say you need whole faith. My same exact feelings. So depressing.

 

[tripletiger1200]

Those many people aren't talking about OCD, and if they are they don't know anything. If I were you I'd try to stop looking for confirmation about Heaven as much. You may comfort yourself when you find something you like, but if you run across something that feeds your fear it's going to be a lot worse than if you had just not scrounged around for information in the first place. Try to go like 3 days without looking for reassurance of God's existence and praying every time you start to doubt.

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

Let this be your prayer Raven:

"And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

Trusting in this promise:

"if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself." (2 Timothy 2:13)

Depending on God's faithfulness:

"God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful." (1 Cor. 1:9)

We may waver in our resolve, but God will remain faithful to the end.

"Becoming a Christian is the work of a moment; being a Christian is the work of a lifetime." -Billy Graham

 

[raven1]

Also someone said really I won't know if I am doomed to hell or not until I am dead.

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

Also someone said really I won't know if I am doomed to hell or not until I am dead.

John under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit said we can know:

"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life." (1 John 5:13)

John didn't say we will always know, or we know right now, but that we MAY (we can) know by heeding his words..it is possible and attainable to have assurance in the Lord.

Whoever said that you cannot know, does not know what their talking about.

 

[raven1]

SOS I was looking through some old post you wrote to someone in the same boat as me and u said u stop doubting when u choose to. ?

 

[OCD=Owie]

Great point SoS.

Try not to over analyze your situation Raven. There might be others out there who are asking the same questions as you, whether because they are agnostic or just because they are going through a period of doubt as a Christian. But just because some agnostic posts their thoughts online, and your thoughts seem to be like them, that doesn't mean that you too are agnostic. Remember, you have OCD and you're trying to get rid of your doubt. There are others who can't say that of themselves.

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

SOS I was looking through some old post you wrote to someone in the same boat as me and u said u stop doubting when u choose to. ?

Could you post a link? Not sure what you mean.

 

[raven1]

Oh no

 

[tripletiger1200]

I think for you raven, the key is going to be to reduce your anxiety. I doubt my salvation, but because my anxiety is no longer what it once was, it isn't so bad. You may want to try fish oil vitamin b 7. I don't know if I'd start popping a bunch of anti anxiety medications and become dependent, but a healthier diet can definitely help

 

[raven1]

I can't remember where I saw it she just said she doubted God exists and u replied with that. that girl said she wanted to believe in God but she couldn't she doubted and couldn't pretend. I am no different than her. I can't seem to believe because I can't prove. I can't just believe because my anxiety that heaven doesn't exist blocks that. If I knew there was no heaven maybe it wouldn't be so hard to believe but how can I believe when I can't prove heaven exists that is so scary. People say just believe they don't get I am terrified of no heaven I can't just relax.

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

I can't remember where I saw it she just said she doubted God exists and u replied with that. that girl said she wanted to believe in God but she couldn't she doubted and couldn't pretend. I am no different than her. I can't seem to believe because I can't prove. I can't just believe because my anxiety that heaven doesn't exist blocks that. If I knew there was no heaven maybe it wouldn't be so hard to believe but how can I believe when I can't prove heaven exists that is so scary. People say just believe they don't get I am terrified of no heaven I can't just relax.

I may have said something like that, "that you can stop doubting when you choose to". I'm not really sure though, I try and be careful with what I say to OCD sufferers, the slightest thing can invoke a lot of misery.

Raven, I want to see you get better, I want you to be able to come out of these fears. I just want you to know that it is possible, one day it can all be better. OCD is a disorder and it is not something that can just be defeated, sometimes it must be treated slowly over years.

Notice Raven that your OCD attacks certain ideals, it does not attack everything at once, only certain aspects of your faith. It takes one issue and makes it ten times larger than anything else. One thing you have to realize is that you can work on looking past the isolated doubts to what is true.

Try and see from a universal and eternal perspective, our minds are small, we think we can comprehend our world and the next, but our minds are nothing in the scope of things. Our little brains reveal to us the world around us. But our minds also can believe lies, our minds will usually try and believe anything they hear. Humans react to suggestion, if we hear a rumor about someone, our first instinct is to believe it as truth...now the best thing to do, is to examine the evidence and not trust your instinct, instincts and reason can be wrong and many times they are.

So the point I am trying to make is not to put so much faith into what your thoughts tell you, they can lie, your mind can lie. Thoughts deceive and the enemy of our souls will try and deceive us in our minds as well. Raven I know the doubts seem overwhelming, that they must be true...but it is all a lie, listen to others who have been where your at before, they can tell you that it is all lies, none of it is true, OCD always lies. As soon as you have an OCD thought you can be sure it holds some kind of lie.

Try and focus on not believing these things, let the thoughts come and when they do refuse to give in, refuse to believe the lies, just let it float past you. If there is anything about God that you know for a fact to be true, hold on to that. Look to that truth instead of the doubt when the thoughts come, hold on to the truth no matter what, cultivate what you believe and not what you doubt.

 

[raven1]

I don't feel like it is a lie because no one can prove God is real. That is what makes me think I am becoming agnostic. Everyone else on here seems to say statements that reflect they believe in God and OCD is lying. I am at the point where I say I cannot know if he does or doesn't. I know that is where faith comes in but how can you just have faith there is a heaven when your number one fear in life is there isn't. My brain always picks any apologetics apart. The bible for instance. How do we know God was the one who inspired it. Or prophecy in the bible could be fulfilled by a man calling himself God. Near death experiences give me a tiny bit if relief but then I start thinking. The bright light is easy to explain. There brain isn't dead etc. If I didn't gave so much to lose by having faith maybe I could. I mean I am saying there could be nothing after this. I can't just give myself false hope by believing without seeing. I know people have said what do u have to lose but I can't just gave faith when in the back of my mind I am scared to death. I want to be able to have faith. I feel like I am not trying and God is going to send me to hell. Deep down though I know I am trying my efforts are just futile. If I don't spend anytime with God in a day I feel like I am not trying and are going to hell but when I am spending time with him it seems useless because I doubt especially when I read genesis. I am wondering if I need an exorcism. Had one years ago didn't help but I was not struggling with religious stuff then. I feel like when I hear darwinism and natural selection stuff that makes sense but I also think God could be there as well. I don't want to lose my soul to Satan.Sometimes I also think maybe God is there but has no bearing on the world like he is just on a heavenly realm and abandoned.
earth cause people die early. We have natural disasters. Then sometimes I am like maybe he doesn't what keeps me is near death experience testimonies. Whatever I am going through stinks. Exspecially now I have to worry about comet elenin killing me this week. Oct 21 predictions and then if any of those are false 2012.

 

[tripletiger1200]

I think you just need to trust God's grace. The enemy will try to wear you out getting you to work work work, when in reality you can never work enough and don't have to. Just stop trying to fight and let God get you through it. It sounds really hard, but just try to go a few days without researching stuff, and spending some time in prayer. Don't pray compulsively or feel like to be saved you have to pray really hard, just relax, stop researching, and ask Him to guide you through it. My OCD had a major breakthrough when I took a few steps back and let God do the work, and I didn't completely trust that He would do it either.

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

I don't feel like it is a lie because no one can prove God is real.

God can prove He's real.

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

I feel like when I hear darwinism and natural selection stuff that makes sense but I also think God could be there as well.

Natural selection is an obvious fact of nature and Darwin was right in many of his theories. There is nothing wrong with a Christian believing in evolution, I personally acknowledge evolution as a scientific fact. Darwin was wrong, however, in his view of how life got here to begin with. Man, animals, all life was created, some evolved, some devolved, it is the nature of life. The fact is though, life could not create itself, reason did not come about through random, chaotic, natural forces. Something did not come our of nothing. No matter how you read Genesis (as metaphor or literal truth) the premise is the same: In the beginning GOD.

 

[raven1]

I want to believe SOS I truly do.

 

[gracealone]

I want to believe SOS I truly do.

Then believe. Faith, belief and hope are all choices. They are not comfortable feelings of reassurance. You need to focus on choice, just as John Bunyan did after years and years of struggling with his own horrible OCD war. "Obedience is the key to all doors." And, "Satan's goals are never more thwarted when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do God's will looks round upon a universe where every trace of Him seems to have disappeared and then asks why he has been forsaken and still obeys." CS Lewis.
To obey is to trust as trust is to obey. To have faith is to follow as to follow is to have faith. These things go hand and hand you cannot seperate them. OCD cannot rob of us these choices. We can choose to follow and obey even when we don't feel a shred of comfort on these themes. And in doing so we are living out our faith.
You are still making this a spiritual problem rather than treating it as a horribly painful manifestation of the very real and very treatable disorder of OCD. You will not get better until you change your tactics.
For now, everytime you visit this forum with one of the scary doubts and obsessions of your religious OCD and someone offers up some kind of logical reasoning in answer to those questions your OCD on this topic will become even worse. This is because the reassurance seeking is your compulsion. Do the compulsion and you've just lent credence and validity to the obsession. So then your brain says... "This is huge, it's an emergency and it must be attended to over and above everything else!!" And the OCD cycle gets fiercer than ever until every waking hour of every single day is spent in rumination on the theme. So painful, so exhausting, so terrifying!
What you need is a professional who will teach you to manage the disorder and the sooner you do this the better. I would be on the phone looking for help every day. And I would make it very clear to whoever I am talking to that I'm in mental hell and that the suffering is overwhelming my life.
I haven't stopped praying for you Raven. Not for your salvation but for you to get the help you need for your OCD.
Mitzi

 

[raven1]

that makes little sense to me how can u believe when 98 pecent of u doubts and how is that not spiritual these are regular doubts. Agnostics are the same and people say they are going to hell. Who doesn't want to believe in God and heaven my life wasn't nearly as scary when I didn't doubt heaven and didn't fear hell because of doubt but how can u pretend. I am thinking maybe I wasn't one of the chosEn to be saved and it kind of angers me. I feel God is going to condemn for saying that to other people t but it does. There is no such thing as faith people can believe or hope but people don't just have faith alone it is attached to believe which actually dismisses the need for faith or they hope which may not get you into heaven because it isnt belief.That is why I feel I haven't been chosen or this regular doubt wouldn't have shown up.

 

[gracealone]

It doesn't matter what word you use Raven. Belief or faith. They are the same. Faith, when you boil it down, means choice and it really means faithfulness. That's actually how it's written in the Hebrew Bible. And faithfulness is definitely a choice not a feeling.
Furthermore Christ put a huge emphasis on our obedience to Him as evidence of our true love for him. "If you love me, keep my commandments." What He didn't say was, if you feel like you love me, well then go ahead and keep my commandments.
Religious OCD is the same as relationship OCD. The relationship feels threatened because the sufferer is working so hard to find proof or evidence that the relationship is still in tact. They want to know if they can stil believe in the other person but more than that they also want to know whether or not the other person can believe in them. They don't trust their own feelings for the other person so they spend endless hours trying to find a way to get evidence or proof on these themes. The more they try to ascertain whether or not these feelings exist, the less they can feel them. All the intense mental activity to try and determine whether or not we have faith or belief will ipso facto remove all feelings of faith or belief. This is why CS Lewis used the analogy to describe what you are doing as; "taking your eyes out of your head to see whether or not they are working." All relationships, whether with a human or with God, require that we choose to believe in the other and to be loyal to them and to love them even when we don't really feel like we do. That's why God compares His relationship with us to that of a marraige.
But I do understand that the OCD is compelling you to keep on seeking reassurance and that you've been at it for so long that it feels nearly impossible that you could or should stop. That's why you need to get help from a person who specializes in treating OCD rather than trying to manage it on your own.
Of course the first step in doing that is to choose to accept that it is OCD rather than a spiritual problem. So now I will be praying that you will make that choice and then that God will guide you to the person who can help you the best.
I suppose there is really nothing more I can say to encourage you without repeating what I've already said again and again. And I won't offer up any reassurances to you on these themes because I refuse to cooperate with your OCD as that will make it worse.
You can, if you ever want to PM me. I'm sure you think I'm kind of mean and blunt but my motives are to help you because I cannot stand to think of how much pain this disorder is causing you. But God doesn't need me in order to be able to help you, He can and will use anyone he chooses and that comforts me.
I'll continue to pray for you kiddo.
Mitzi

that makes little sense to me how can u believe when 98 pecent of u doubts and how is that not spiritual these are regular doubts. Agnostics are the same and people say they are going to hell. Who doesn't want to believe in God and heaven my life wasn't nearly as scary when I didn't doubt heaven and didn't fear hell because of doubt but how can u pretend. I am thinking maybe I wasn't one of the chosEn to be saved and it kind of angers me. I feel God is going to condemn for saying that to other people t but it does. There is no such thing as faith people can believe or hope but people don't just have faith alone it is attached to believe which actually dismisses the need for faith or they hope which may not get you into heaven because it isnt belief.That is why I feel I haven't been chosen or this regular doubt wouldn't have shown up.