Christianity

Scrupulosity

/ joethewaller / 7 Comments

I never actually committed to hang out that night. I never said I couldn’t hang out either, though, so the plan proceeded. Leading up to the day, I was nervous but hopeful. Maybe I could go. Maybe I wouldn’t get the feeling. Then the day arrived, and I started to feel it: conviction. I was wrestling all day, wondering whether it was the hangout being targeted or something else, and I couldn’t quite make up my mind. As the time to leave grew closer, I was struggling, feeling like I should probably reach out and cancel but not wanting to let my friends down. But I was torn. “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin,” right (Romans 14:23)? That’s what Paul said. And I definitely didn’t have faith that this was an okay move. 

Then it happened. The time to leave arrived, and I stood up and started heading to meet my friends. And surprisingly, I felt peace. 

That was a turning point for me. Until then, I’d assumed that if I felt convicted about something, then I needed to step away. To proceed, I thought, would be to act against the guidance of the Holy Spirit and would be blatant sin against God. But if I acted in spite of my feelings in this instance and felt not condemnation but peace, maybe my perception was off. Maybe I wasn’t interpreting these feelings and thoughts correctly. 

I say the turning point was there, but I’d noticed some indicators that something was off prior to this point. Conviction often seemed to point in some pretty odd directions, some of which seemed like they’d lead to discomfort and harm that seemed out of line with the way the Lord appeared to work.

For example, I felt the need to confess things to people regularly. I felt conviction when I pursued romantic relationships, and I felt compelled to share my convictions along with my conclusion that God must not want me to pursue such a relationship. I felt convicted about my thoughts toward people, and I believed God wanted me to confess those thoughts to those individuals. In many cases, the things I felt compelled to confess weren’t things that really needed to be confessed. I’d see someone, think of a thought I’d had about them that wasn’t right, and feel compelled to tell them what I’d thought, even if it seemed like doing so would lead to discomfort for them. Internal attitudes and intrusive thoughts—things I needed to work through with the Lord and with trusted friends—suddenly became the object of my obsessions, and I felt I needed to share them, no matter how uncomfortable the sharing might make me or those around me. 

I also noticed that there were instances when the conviction would fade if I held off on acting long enough, if I just kept postponing the step the conviction seemed to be leading me to take. In some cases, where I thought the confession would offend or confuse someone, I held off, and I noticed the strength of the compulsion eventually faded. 

With these observations and this newfound evidence that peace might come by acting in spite of the conviction, I began to wonder if maybe something was off internally, if maybe my thoughts and emotions weren’t as in tune with the Lord as I’d previously assumed. Initially, questioning these thoughts and feelings felt wrong. I’d met with counselors, talked with trusted friends, prayed—nothing seemed to change. So wasn’t I sinning by questioning where I’d already received an answer? 

But by this point, my life had been in a state of near-constant tension for months. I’d had a difficult couple of semesters that led to a summer where I no longer had the major distractions of school, so all the feelings and thoughts I’d been avoiding could be felt more fully. I’d also decided that I needed to stop running from the Lord and trust his leading, so I started trying to face the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings and then act on them. If I felt off, I’d investigate it. If I felt like I got clarity on the step I needed to take, I’d try to take it, no matter the cost to my comfort, my image, or to my relationships. Again, this was the Lord leading me, right? “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD ” (Isaiah 55:8). Wasn’t this true? Furthermore, “whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17). These passages meant I had to trust the Lord no matter how little I understood his leading, right?  

The problem was that the conviction rarely lifted. I’d feel convicted, get an idea of what I needed to do, then wrestle with the decision until I finally gave in and acted. Then I’d feel some relief, but it was short-lived. Sometimes I’d still feel off and would feel the need to act again before I’d feel some peace. I’d assume I hadn’t done it right the first time, so I would feel like I was still in sin until I took the right step in the right way. Other times, I’d feel okay until something new pricked my conscience, stripping me of my peace until I acted on that new conviction. And on and on it went.

When I had enough data to reasonably doubt my thoughts and feelings, I decided to stop acting on them until I figured out what was true and what was false. I still went to work, still did my job at the church, still took steps forward in the program at school (though with some fear and doubt as to whether I was right to do so), but I stopped acting on the feelings and thoughts like I had been doing. And eventually, those emotions and thoughts settled down a bit. I still felt those tugs, but my decision to stop acting on them kept them from taking over. But I still wasn’t sure what to do. To look into OCD, something I’d begun to suspect could be a culprit, still felt like running from the Lord, so I remained in a state of pause until the emotional weight of some unresolved situations grew too heavy. 

You see, in the course of this wrestling, I’d walked away from some of my closest friendships and had left some wounds in the process. I’d not talked to some of my best friends in months, and while I wanted to reconnect, I didn’t know if I could. If the Lord had led me away, could I simply go back? Would the Lord allow that? Would they? 

I’d also stopped writing. Writing was a major part of who I was, and I missed it. But I thought I’d been led to stop. I remember posting a poem one morning and feeling what I thought was conviction shortly after. So I took the post down, edited it a bit, and reposted it, only to feel convicted yet again. I went for a run, trying to settle my emotions, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t supposed to post that poem for some reason. I eventually took it down, and I didn’t post again for over a year. I believed God had told me to stop writing, and I wasn’t sure I was allowed to go back, so I didn’t. I didn’t feel free to make that decision.

If the first turning point was me deciding to hang out with friends in spite of how I felt, the second was opening up about my questions and emotions to a friend who could speak both to my spiritual needs and to my emotional and psychological needs. He was able to confirm that I had OCD and that I was coming out of a flare up of those symptoms. He was further able to help me start sorting through my thoughts and emotions along with the beliefs underlying them all, giving some explanations for what I was experiencing and connecting some dots that allowed me to see where the issues lie. I started meeting with him a couple of months ago, and through those weekly meetings, I’ve begun to put things back together in my life. 

In short, he helped me realize that I was struggling with scrupulosity, which is basically a religious variation of OCD. Instead of my obsessions and compulsions being tied to matters of cleanliness or assurance (though I experience some of those as well), mine are tied to matters of sinfulness and obedience. At some point, I started interpreting anxiety as conviction and intrusive thoughts as the directing of the Lord. In my mind, if I felt convicted about something and the Lord told me to take a step, then my response was a matter of faith and obedience. Did I trust the Lord enough to obey even when I couldn’t see or understand his reasoning? Was I content to live in sin by ignoring the feelings and thoughts that I perceived to be from him?

When I learned that the Lord wasn’t the one I’d been listening to but that OCD had essentially taken over my thoughts and actions, I began to sort through my experiences with the help of a mentor, sifting through my thoughts and emotions to determine why I thought what I thought, felt what I felt, and did what I did. It’s been slow progress, and it’s not over, but it’s progress nonetheless. And that brings me to where I am now. I’m finding my footing, sorting out my experiences, learning about how my mind works, and growing in my understanding of God and of myself in relation to him. By his grace, I’m learning a lot, and I’m feeling freedom and hope in fresh, new ways. If you’re interested in reading about some of the things I’m seeing, keep an eye out for part two of this story!

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Out of Character

/ joethewaller / Leave a comment

I once saw a Chick-fil-A employee yell at customers in the drive-through line.

The employee sounded frustrated. It was around lunch time, so Chick-fil-A was busy. Employees were outside taking orders on both lines before the customers merged into one lane to wind around toward the window to pick up their orders. As is the nature of drive-through lines, the traffic was very stop-and-go, so a lot of customers were on their phones while in line, resulting in a number of customers caught off guard when the line started moving.

I heard the employee yell, “Pull forward!” as she motioned for the cars to keep moving, but her overall tone was more peeved than patient. She made a couple of other remarks that further reflected her mood, each one surprising me and, admittedly, somewhat disturbing me. Her comments and tone seemed out of character for a Chick-fil-A employee.

Experience has taught us that Chick-fil-A employees behave differently than employees elsewhere. There’s a calmness to their demeanor, a patience to their interactions, and a genuineness to their service. We know them to be held to a higher standard, and we’ve come to expect that high quality of character when we visit a Chick-fil-A. So when I saw an employee who seemed to act in a way that ran contrary to that standard, the experience struck me as wrong. Things aren’t supposed to be this way, right? Something’s off here.

You can find the same kind of experience when you pay attention to how we as Christians sometimes act online. Christians, those people who are supposed to look like Jesus in the world, the group that is supposed to reflect a different set of values and a different approach to life, sometimes act in ways that seem contrary to the way Christ acted. Rather than reflecting humility, we demonstrate arrogance. Rather than embracing lowliness, we fight for power. Rather than loving the body of believers, we slander and bite and draw dividing lines within the fold. When we consider the standard, however, we should feel the same sense of surprise as we feel when he hear a Chick-fil-A employee shout at customers. We should be a bit disturbed at the dissonance between the character of Christ and the behavior of his people.

And I think the critique should start with oneself. I am often a fearful man, doubtful of my Lord’s goodness and unfaithful to his commandments. I am often an arrogant man, desiring recognition and glory and kicking against anything that might reveal my weakness. I am often a sinful man, choosing self over God and others.

By grace, however, I’m not lost in my sin. The Lord has saved me and remade me, and he enables me to follow him. I fall short, but I find encouragement to keep walking. I fail, but I find mercy for my failures. As I see all the varied ways I fall short of the glory of God, I find fresh ways the Lord meets me with love. And I pray I will be conformed more and more to the character of Christ, that I might better reflect him day by day.

Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

Change and Constancy

/ joethewaller / 2 Comments

The train is now departing.
I stand upon the platform and I wonder,
Did I choose rightly when I chose to stay?
Is this the better way?
What life would now be starting
If I had stepped aboard and joined the thunder
Of racing steel and distant storms, away
From where I stand today?

But who could say?

Life is a series of decisions,
Of written words without revisions.
I wish I never made mistakes.
I often do.
Yet on clear tracks and in collisions,
You meet our needs with good provisions.
Through all that mends and all that breaks,
You remain you.

Photo by Stefan Kunze on Unsplash

Note: A quick Google search revealed that the line “Life is a series of decisions” has been used in many other works. While I didn’t have any specific source in mind when I decided to use that line, I recognize that the wording isn’t original to me.

Sufficient

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“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”

2 Corinthians 12:9

His grace is sufficient. But sufficient doesn’t mean that grace makes weakness and suffering nonexistent.

Consider Paul’s life. He writes verse nine immediately after describing his pleading before the Lord that a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, would be taken from him (2 Corinthians 12:7-8). The account of such pleading follows an extended list of Paul’s many sufferings (2 Corinthians 11:23-33). And the letter in which we find these sections begins with the admission that Paul’s sufferings were once so great that he and those with him “despaired of life itself” (2 Corinthians 1:8-10). God’s grace sustained him, strengthened him, and enabled him to fulfill the work set before him. But Paul’s life was still filled with tremendous suffering.

I’ve written recently about the longing for rest in difficult seasons, for relief from burdens, for peace in the midst of fear. Life hasn’t been easy for some time. But in the midst of an extended, hard season, God’s grace has been sufficient. He’s given strength for the work, provision for the day, and sweet moments of rest in the busyness. He’s consistently proven himself faithful to be strong in my weakness, often in times when my weakness has seemed too great, the season too hard. He remains wise and good.

I’m learning that sometimes grace doesn’t feel sufficient, but it is. God’s grace may not deliver you from the season you’re in, but it may sustain you through it. It may not keep you from suffering, but it may provide what is needed to endure it. You may be tempted to despair; God’s grace can enable you to hope. You may feel downcast and brokenhearted; God’s grace can cause you to rejoice.

I’m grateful for God’s grace. At times, I wish it did more than sustain. I wish I could be stronger than I am. I wish he would heal and deliver in ways that felt more comfortable. But as I learn to rely on the grace of the Lord, I learn to trust him more fully, to follow him more closely, and to rest in him more completely. And I think that growth is more important than my comfort in this season. So I pray for grace to trust him more, to follow him more, and to rest in him more, thankful that he sustains me.

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Longing for Rest

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I’m tired.

Life has been busy for some time. That’s nothing new. Between school, jobs, and ministry, my weeks stay pretty full. I enjoy my work, and I’m grateful for the Lord’s provision. I know the busyness isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But I’ve noticed myself feeling worn lately, looking for a break but not finding one.

But it’s not just busyness that’s been weighing on me. There’s a heaviness to life these days that I can’t quite escape. People I love are walking through great difficulties, times of fierce testing, and prolonged seasons of waiting. Weariness and discouragement affect many of us. We’re working to bear each other’s burdens, but we’re feeling pressed.

And personally, I’ve also been wrestling with more confusion and fear lately than I’m used to. As I’ve tried to discern the Lord’s leading and sought to obey him, I’ve found myself often faltering, often straying, and often feeling more out of step than surefooted. I want to be faithful, but I feel more faithless. I want to be strong, but I feel weak.

What do you do in such times? How do you respond when life seems heavier than normal?

I’m reminded of the words of Jesus:

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

A few observations from this passage bring some comfort in this season.

First, rest is found in Jesus. I’m tempted to look to other sources for relief: to entertainment or to escape or to some new experience. But rest isn’t really found anywhere else but in Jesus, in knowing him and joining him in his work.

Second, we’re invited into rest. In spite of our sin, in spite of our doubt, and in spite of our weakness, Jesus loves us and offers us rest. He knows our state, knows our need, and brings relief.

Third, the road does not end here. There is a way forward, a way of good work and learning from the Lord himself. Thus, rest does not necessarily mean we cease to be active, but rather that we learn to follow the lead of the good shepherd (John 10:11). When I’m tempted to believe I’m stuck, that I don’t have anywhere to go, Jesus’s words remind me the path continues on with him.

Though I’m not good at it, I’m trying to learn to rest in Jesus. He is good. He is kind. He is faithful. So we can trust him in our weariness and find rest that satisfies our souls like nothing else.

Photo by Ibrahim Mushan on Unsplash

A Prayer for Faithfulness

/ joethewaller / 1 Comment

Make me the man that you want me to be
E’en if I do not want to be that man.
Teach me to trust you when I cannot see
The purpose in the details of your plan.
Help me to hope when tempted to despair
At circumstances greater than my strength,
To trust that, in the darkness, you are there
With love beyond all height, depth, width, and length.
Show me myself, and make me truly know
The greatness of my need and of your grace.
Remind me you are with me as I go,
And lead according to your path and pace.
Lord, search me, try me, know me, make me new.
Let all my life be lived in love of you.

Photo by Robin Spielmann on Unsplash

Still True

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Fear sometimes settles on you like a fog. You feel it all around you, it’s presence chilling and uncomfortable. It obscures your sight, preventing you from seeing the way forward. You know the world around you still exists, that reality is bigger than what you can presently perceive. You know that the fog will eventually lift.

But sometimes it doesn’t.

Or, at least, it doesn’t lift as soon as you’d like. That’s when you start to panic and despair.

It sounds silly, but fear can make you suddenly less certain of what you know to be true. God’s love and his faithfulness, his mercy and his grace, his purposes in discipline and the profit in the testing of our faith—suddenly, these subjects seem strangely foreign. You know the Scriptures. You’ve sung the songs, heard the sermons, read the books. But in the middle of the fog, as fear clouds your ability to think clearly, truth doesn’t appear to come to your mind or heart as quickly or as easily as it once did.

And yet, even when fear feels pervasive and overwhelming, what is true is still true. Though our perceptions may make recognition of truth more difficult, reality has not fundamentally changed. God is still on his throne. The light still shines in the darkness and the darkness still has not overcome it. The Lord’s love remains undiminished, his purposes unhindered. If God really causes all things to work together for good, then he’s still working, even in the fiercest seasons of fear. In spite of how we may feel, he has neither forgotten nor forsaken his children.

It isn’t easy to hold on to truth in the midst of fear. Thankfully, the Lord remains a firm foundation for feeble souls. Fear can reveal our weakness; his power is still made perfect in weakness. So we trust in him though we don’t feel okay, hope in him though things seem hopeless, and keep following him though we don’t know the way. And as we do these things, we will find him faithful, as he has always been and always will be.

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I hide behind snooze buttons and busyness

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I hide behind snooze buttons and busyness,
excuses to avoid you,
for fear of what you require of me:
everything.
Heart, soul, mind, strength,
passion, purpose, understanding, ability—
all of me,
myself in sum,
denied.
I know my life depends upon surrender,
so help my unbelief
until I sit
and listen
and obey.

Photo by jules a. on Unsplash

This poem was inspired, at least in part, by C. S. Lewis’s sermon “A Slip of the Tongue,” wherein he considers our hesitancy to draw too near to God for fear of what he may require of us, for we know that he requires complete surrender.

I make my pray’r to you.

/ joethewaller / 1 Comment

I make my pray’r to you. You answer, “No.”
And I don’t understand your reasoning.
I ask to stay, but you call me to go.
‘Tis daily bread with bitter seasoning.
I try to turn my grief into a gift:
My heart’s desires become my offering.
But I can’t see the rescue in the rift,
And sov’reign love feels much like suffering.
In seasons such as this, my faith is stretched,
A stretching that is needed though it hurts.
And through the test, your grace and truth are etched
Upon my heart more deeply and convert
My ignorance and fear to trust in you,
The God of love who’s making all things new.

Photo by Benjamin Huggett on Unsplash