trust in silence

[lutherangerman]

Something that helped me much with my OCD was understanding how Jesus is usually a silent presence in our lives. In charismatic christianity we often want a presence of Jesus that is exceptional and outstanding. Some charismatics want to have visions and hear God's audible voice all the time. But I have come to think such experiences are outstanding for the reason that God doesn't give them to us all the time. And they are not meant to produce faith in us but only to clarify something, to help us get through a difficult situation that otherwise we would not get through easily. They are cherries on the cake, so to speak.

Jesus said blessed are those who do not see yet believe. Jesus loves to see faith, that is what amazes Him. But faith in what is seen is not real faith. God apparently also wants us to have faith when we can't sense Him at all.

For that reason, we must get acquainted with silence. Many people learned this. Silence is not always there but with some time and opportunity we can seek it easily. When we are at work we can go to the toilet or on a balcony, when we are at home in a crowded family house we can go for a walk into nature.

And this we must learn - that silence is good for us. It shows us the inward noise we carry with us and which we make louder through our acceptance of that noise and playing along with it. But like David said, we can instead just be quiet with God. The bible says - Be still, and know that I am God.

When we follow our OCD stuff (I have it too), we are never quite still inside. As soon as we experience some kind of trigger, we jump at it and have OCD thoughts. But in silence and in Jesus, we can lay that down. It may still be difficult, especially at first, we may want to have many strong good thoughts than having to contend with silence. But that is why we need to practice this. It takes time to get used to this.

Silence is something benign. If we can't help to have OCD thoughts, silence will not punish us. It will be like a mother that stays peaceful even when her child does chaotic things. Sometimes we crave an outstanding experience of God, but God may want to bless you with silence.

In this silence, we may take a single bible verse, something positive like this:

"The Lord is friendly and His goodness endures forever!"

This should quieten us inside, at least it does this to me. Part of me then wants to connect this verse to my thoughts and to make myself think a lot about it. But the aim is that we let such verses quieten us, and give us a tender feeling of joy.

OCD thoughts are thoughts like bricks. They are heavy and they ignore the tender parts of our soul which want to be treated gently. It imposes a human order on things while God's order is much more refined, solid and mindful of our weaknesses.

In silence and in Jesus we can let go of our thoughts and just trust God, and in that we become still as well. And then we can just look at the creation around us. When we are in nature we can just lay ourselves in the grass and watch the sky. The sky is a great example for a creation that God orders completely differently from how we want to order things when we pursue our OCD stuff. The clouds are always different. They are always a bit chaotic, and yet there is God's order in them. When we look at the sky we feel free. The clouds are silent, the blue background is silent, the sun is silent.

But they are all there. Likewise God is there for us in silence. This doesn't mean we loose something, it means we needn't uphold the world with our thoughts. God makes everything exist, you, me, the sky, the world. And God does this without it costing Him an effort. And likewise God can hold us in our mind if just we become still and trust Him.

Ok, this was my message for you today. I hope it helps you with your OCD struggles. God sees the problem and can help you. Memorize some bible verses you love and search a quiet place. Drink deeply from that well and know that God loves you and that He is perfect.

Thank you for reading.

 

[canamer]

I totally agree with you on this. What you have said is so very true. And, I appreciate you sharing this with everyone.

The other thing that I want to mention in addition to what you have already said is that feelings cannot be trusted. They are what they are and that is all. A wise older person once told me this and in living with OCD I have come to learn this lesson for myself in actuality.

Think about it. Our feelings are all over the board every day because of our OCD. Some of us feel dead. Others feel like they're going to harm something/someone and worse yet we all feel the guilt and worry as if we had actually done this stuff when we clearly have not! OCD messes with one's feelings big time. We all know this.

And, so let's take that one step further then. Why should we freak out when we feel down. Why should we freak out when we feel like we've lost our salvation because we feel that we've disappointed God? It's all just a feeling. If we start buying into those feelings the next thing we know we'll have made up a story in our head and we'll have ourselves convinced it's true!

This week I've felt crappy. I've felt really down today especially. I just feel sick - mentally. And so tired. Even after what I would call having a productive day today. I know I should be rejoicing now because it's Easter. But, I just feel down. But, I know that God knows my heart and I know he knows that I'm immensely grateful for what Easter truly means. And I'm leaving it at that. Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel better. Who knows. But come what may, I know I serve someone who is the same yesterday, today and forever. That's good enough for me! Happy Easter everyone and remember this: no matter how we may feel facts are facts. And the fact is that Satan is defeated because of the cross. And the fact is that we have an amazing hope and future if we endure to the end - because of the cross. Hang in there.

 

[lutherangerman]

Hi Canamer, thank you.

In Germany, when people meet they don't ask "how are you?" but they ask, in a rough translation, "How do you feel yourself?". It literally means, "Can you sense yourself?". That is the part of feelings we can hardly do without. We have to sense ourselves in a certain way so as to enjoy ourselves. Our minds must learn to interpret feelings correctly. It's not about overwhelming things like happiness. It's about tender stuff, so that we believe again we are delicate beings and not just a stone. OCD is about a delicacy that is disturbed by habitual thoughts that are not tender to us. And sometimes we christinas further complicate this problem by misintepreting or at least misapplying scripture. For example, many christians hold that humanity is TOTALLY depraved. That we have nothing inside of ourselves AT ALL. But this is wrong and I have come to love the catholic position of this. Depravity is about a condition of man, like an illness, not about his true being. When we believe in Jesus and become a new creation, God recreates us to become whom we have always meant to be, just without all the sin sickness. Paul said if we sin that we die and sin lives in us. But now we can let go of ourselves and let Jesus live in us, and in that way we actually become ourselves truly. Jesus said who hates his life for His sake will find His life. If we accept Jesus in us and subordinate ourselves to Him and His will, He will give us back our real self. Our whole personality comes back, how we were always meant to be.

And so in that we have full justification to be tender with ourselves. We don't have to follow the OCD thought spasms. We don't have to force the evil thoughts away through an act of sheer will. In Christ and in His silence we let them go, and Jesus takes over. We just trust Him and He grows Himself in us. And to this Christ in us we can be tender and be confident about and esteem ourselves in Him.

This self esteem is criticial for OCD people. We don't have to be afraid to become proud. What we need is knowing other people who have healthy self esteem. All powerful christians I knew had some sincere, healthy self esteem in Christ.