God has helped me with some recent breakthrough moments regarding this ocd.
I can see He has done and continues to do wonderful things for many of us on this site. May He be praised.
Do any of you find that we are most vulnerable after a breakthrough moment or victory?
I felt at great peace yesterday evening, praising God and feeling blessed. But that wasn't good enough for my busy brain. My thoughts had to start in with "what if I've got it all wrong?" It sort of let the air out of my sails. It was sort of a new intrusive thought, more subtle, more easily disguised as me; quite possibly it was me. I don't feel condemned or anything, just a sense of blah almost immediately after having had the most joy I had experienced in a while.
This fits with much of what my underlying experience has been with most things in my life. If something is going well, don't worry I'll find a way to somehow spoil it.
My wife and I spent years of praying for a child, now we are blessed with twins on the way. The euphoria turned to worry - the "what if's" regarding health, safety, etc.
I just somehow would like to hold onto a sense of peace and a sense of gratitude. But maybe my definition of peace and gratitude are not God's. Maybe I am confusing "calm" and "goosebumps" with what peace and gratitude fully are. Maybe gratitude is being obedient to God in the way we love others and sharing his love. Maybe peace is what has occurred through Christ. So maybe these terms, Peace and Gratitude are absolutes and therefore eternal. Absolutes do not change with our emotions and thoughts.
Hebrews 11:1 describes faith as "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
Assurance.
Hope.
Conviction.
Absolutes. Why are these absolutes? Because they are eternal. The rest of Hebrews 11 gives examples of great faith (Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc.) Their faith was not measured by what they felt or even thought, but how they responded. They responded by trusting God; by being obedient to His word. Believing it and living it.
It took Noah how many years to build that ark? Scripture doesn't say whether he had his "internal moments" while building this monstrous ark. Did Noah think to himself, "what am I doing?" We don't know. If it was important for us to know, it would probably be in Scripture. We do know, however, that he continued to build in accordance with God's plan. The accounts of these heroes of the faith, do not spend much time if any on what was going on in the brains of these people. They are focused on the response that was based on faith. That must be more important. They lived their lives outside of their own heads and in the reality of the living God. God used them to carry out the early phases of His salvation plan. Their God-inspired works are therefore eternal.
My head can be a bad neighborhood. With His help, I am moving out to God's country.
I can see He has done and continues to do wonderful things for many of us on this site. May He be praised.
Do any of you find that we are most vulnerable after a breakthrough moment or victory?
I felt at great peace yesterday evening, praising God and feeling blessed. But that wasn't good enough for my busy brain. My thoughts had to start in with "what if I've got it all wrong?" It sort of let the air out of my sails. It was sort of a new intrusive thought, more subtle, more easily disguised as me; quite possibly it was me. I don't feel condemned or anything, just a sense of blah almost immediately after having had the most joy I had experienced in a while.
This fits with much of what my underlying experience has been with most things in my life. If something is going well, don't worry I'll find a way to somehow spoil it.
My wife and I spent years of praying for a child, now we are blessed with twins on the way. The euphoria turned to worry - the "what if's" regarding health, safety, etc.
I just somehow would like to hold onto a sense of peace and a sense of gratitude. But maybe my definition of peace and gratitude are not God's. Maybe I am confusing "calm" and "goosebumps" with what peace and gratitude fully are. Maybe gratitude is being obedient to God in the way we love others and sharing his love. Maybe peace is what has occurred through Christ. So maybe these terms, Peace and Gratitude are absolutes and therefore eternal. Absolutes do not change with our emotions and thoughts.
Hebrews 11:1 describes faith as "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
Assurance.
Hope.
Conviction.
Absolutes. Why are these absolutes? Because they are eternal. The rest of Hebrews 11 gives examples of great faith (Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc.) Their faith was not measured by what they felt or even thought, but how they responded. They responded by trusting God; by being obedient to His word. Believing it and living it.
It took Noah how many years to build that ark? Scripture doesn't say whether he had his "internal moments" while building this monstrous ark. Did Noah think to himself, "what am I doing?" We don't know. If it was important for us to know, it would probably be in Scripture. We do know, however, that he continued to build in accordance with God's plan. The accounts of these heroes of the faith, do not spend much time if any on what was going on in the brains of these people. They are focused on the response that was based on faith. That must be more important. They lived their lives outside of their own heads and in the reality of the living God. God used them to carry out the early phases of His salvation plan. Their God-inspired works are therefore eternal.
My head can be a bad neighborhood. With His help, I am moving out to God's country.
