My mind disfigured your face in my mind, Painted piercing eyes, uncompassionate, Shaming, in place of those you said I’d find. My view of you and you were disparate Persons, known too well and not well enough. “You” imposed a self-imposed prison cell, Held hopeless standards, always called my bluff. I was always guilty, not free, unwell. Thus I assumed from this false gospel, lie Of law’s freedom. Truth is not so broken. You are love. Your yoke brings rest, peace, a sigh Of relief, rooted in words you’ve spoken: “I have overcome the world.” Now I see Your overcoming work extends to me.
OCD, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, is an anxiety disorder that affects my thoughts and actions and that attaches to what I care about. Scrupulosity, as I mentioned in part one, is a religious form of OCD. In my experience, OCD most often latched onto my relationships. I noticed it in romantic relationships as it convinced me God didn’t want me to date the people I wanted to date. I noticed it in my friendships as it convinced me God wanted me to step away from certain people or to cancel certain plans. I noticed it in my approach to community as it convinced me I needed to confess my thoughts and attitudes to anyone I might have wronged by those thoughts and attitudes. I noticed it in my work as it told me I needed to turn down jobs, stop writing, and pass on opportunities to get experience in my field. In each case, I thought I was being tested like Abraham was. I thought God was testing my faith by asking me to give up good things and trust him, to die to myself and be sanctified. And in my head, it checked out. If I was feeling conviction and if the Lord was giving me directions regarding which steps to take in response to that conviction, then I didn’t need to understand it or like it, I just needed to trust and obey.
Initially, questioning my thoughts and feelings felt sinful. I genuinely believed I was pushing back against God’s work by looking into OCD. But as my friend explained more of what OCD is and how it can show up, my experiences began to make sense. Where I thought God was convicting me, I began to recognize anxiety. Where I thought God was directing me, I began to recognize intrusive thoughts and some bad theology. Where I’d struggled to see any fruit from the steps I was taking, I could now see why: God wasn’t actually the one behind these directions. I thought my problem was spiritual, but it turned out to be biological. And because it was biological, I began to hope. Maybe God hadn’t been closing doors all these years; maybe it was me all along. And maybe, in time, some of those doors could be opened again.
Where was God in all of this? If he wasn’t the one leading me to take all these uncomfortable steps, why did he allow it go on for so long, especially when it caused so much hurt for me and for others? Admittedly, while I know the answer to the first question (he was here all along), I don’t fully know the answer to the second question. But I believe he is sovereign, even over my OCD and over the timing of this season, and I believe he allowed me to wander, to wrestle, and to fall how and when I did. And I believe the season wasn’t wasted.
So what’s my proof this season wasn’t wasted? What did God do in this time, and what has he been doing since? More than I know. But here are a few things I think I can discern.
God taught me that I can be okay in silence and solitude. While the reasons for withdrawing from people weren’t healthy, the lesson learned there was needed. For years, I’d grown used to busyness. I thought I knew how to rest, but really I was only ceasing from my normal work to engage in recreation. As I felt compelled to step away from friends and family and to just be by myself with the Lord, I found that God was present there and that I could find rest apart from the things I used to distract myself with.
God taught me that his provision doesn’t depend on my effort. I backed out of job opportunities, turned down classes where I could get teaching experience, stopped using my talents, stepped away from friendships, rejected someone I wanted to pursue a relationship with, and initiated conversations that could have created further division and discomfort. In spite of all of this, the Lord has provided for me. He’s given me friends who were faithful even when I was difficult. He’s given me teaching opportunities even when I thought the doors might not open again. He’s sustained me. He’s restored friendships and opportunities I was afraid were lost. As I’ve begun to work through this season and to explore how my mind and heart work, I’ve been met with an immense amount of grace. God’s proven himself faithful and good over and over again, providing for my needs and giving good gifts along the way.
God’s showed me that he cares about my desires in a way I didn’t know was possible. I’d heard Psalm 37:4 before: “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” I always read that verse as if it came with an asterisk, though. Sure, it was true. It’s the word of God, after all. But I didn’t really believe it was true for me. Or at least not in this season. My desires to write, to teach, to pursue a relationship, to talk to my friends—each of these desires seemed to be required of me at some point in my experience. I could affirm that they were good things, that they weren’t sinful things, that they could glorify God. But I believed God had called me to give them up. As I worked with a mentor, I realized I had a misunderstanding of self-sacrifice. I was “dying to the wrong things,” to quote Peter Scazzero (read Emotionally Healthy Spirituality for more on this idea). And as I began to grow in my understanding of God’s goodness, I began to take steps back toward those things I’d left behind, and I watched God restore the things I’d laid aside and lost. He has granted the desires of my heart, and he continues to do so, drawing me ever deeper into gratitude and delight in him.
God taught me to think differently about faith and sovereignty. I used to think walking by faith meant getting clear directions from God and then following those directions in spite of what you saw or felt or thought. I’m learning, however, that walking by faith is more like exercising wisdom and trusting God with the unknowns of life. It’s not necessarily about receiving some specific divine guidance as much as learning to walk in faith that he’s at work in and around you, guiding your steps as you seek to honor him in your decisions and redeeming your mistakes when you misstep or fail. Similarly, I used to think of sovereignty as more of a conceptual thing related to decisions and directions and wills. I’m learning that sovereignty encompasses everything, our good decisions and our bad, our joyful seasons and our seasons of suffering. The “all things” in Romans 8:28 really does mean all things, even those things that feel so beyond our control.
In short, this journey has been one of adjustments, some major and some minor. I’m rethinking my assumptions, examining my thoughts and feelings, and pursuing growth on many fronts, and I think I’m finding some success. I’m new to all of this. I’m very much still learning how to walk. But I’m seeing fruit in this season that I believe has grown from the soil of difficult seasons. I’m seeing God at work, and I’m finding peace and joy as I try to join him in that work. I’m making progress, by his grace, and learning to trust in his sovereign care for me.
I fear you are a disappointed Father, For I am just an ever-failing son. My life should be a blessing, not a bother. I should be held together, not undone.
O Lord, correct my misconceptions of you And all my misconceptions of myself. Help me to truly know you and to love you And in so doing know and love myself.
I remember feeling off the morning I originally posted this poem. I went for a run to try to shake the feeling, but it wouldn’t fade. I thought I needed to take the poem down, so I did, then I didn’t post on the blog again until July 22, 2022, over a year later.
Shortly after I started posting again, I started thinking about finding this poem and sharing it. Now that I know it was OCD leading me to take it down initially, I feel free to share it. And as I read it now, I see two things of interest. First, I see a snapshot of my mind and heart in the early stages of an OCD flareup. I’d already hurt and confused some friends, and I was struggling to make sense of life in the midst of a difficult and busy season. While this was not written during the worst of my experiences, the first stanza here captures my thoughts and feelings during the struggle pretty well.
Second, I see a prayer that I believe God has answered, one that he’s continuing to answer as I continue to learn and grow in my walk with him. While things would get worse before they got better, God used the journey to reveal some underlying issues that needed to be addressed. He was at work through the entire season, and through the processing and work done with a mentor, he’s taught me more about himself and about myself. I believe I now can recognize many of the misconceptions about God and about myself that I lived with for years, and I now believe I can better know and love him and myself. I think God’s answered this prayer in ways I couldn’t have imagined when I wrote it.
When I read this poem, I see evidence of God’s grace. He saw me at my worst. He heard my prayer. He delivered me. This is the story told by all who know him, the story presented in the Bible and echoing on for all eternity. The Lord saves. Blessed be his name.
If your power is made perfect in weakness, then why do I feel only the greatness of my weakness and do not perceive your power here? How long will I feel lost in my lack instead of found in your love? How often will my faith give way to my fear?
Could all this be part of the process of progress?
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.
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 recently read C. S. Lewis’s sermon “A Slip of the Tongue.” There, Lewis considers the human tendency to be wary of close proximity with God. While we may desire to know the Lord and to serve him well, we nonetheless approach him with caution, fearful of what he may require of us if we get too close. Lewis recognizes that we would much rather play at religion than embrace it fully, for we know that true religion, while being our only way to know true life, is costly.
I’ve been reading through Job lately, and I think a similar theme is at play in that story. There, Job expresses confusion at his circumstances, and he desires an audience with the Almighty. “Oh, that I knew where I might find him,” Job says, “that I might come even to his seat! I would lay my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would know what he would answer me and understand what he would say to me” (Job 23:3-5). And despite the mistaken diagnoses of Job’s friends, Job maintains his cause. He wants to lay his case before God and receive answers.
Then God answers. The Lord speaks out of a whirlwind not with answers to Job’s concerns but with a series of questions about the details of creation (Job 38:1 and following). After chapters filled with speeches and arguments from Job and his friends, speeches presuming to speak of God’s character and ways in the world, God himself speaks, and all fall silent before him. The men understood their place when God answered.
Do we want God to answer us when we cry to him? Do we want to hear him speak? Do we want to enter his presence? In one sense, I’m not so sure we do. When God speaks, our misconceptions and misunderstandings about him and his ways tend to crumble. And while this is a good thing, it’s uncomfortable. The voice of God humbles and corrects us, revealing our arrogance and error and presumptions. We cannot remain as we are when the Lord speaks. We dare not.
But in another sense, we do want God to speak. Misconceptions and misunderstandings tend to be comfortable, but they’re also unhealthy. They reflect hearts and minds that aren’t as surrendered to the Lord or as conformed to the image of Christ as we might assume. If life and salvation are found in God alone, then we must recognize, as Lewis recognized, that to avoid surrender is to shrink back from life itself. If we would live, we must live on the Lord’s terms and not our own. Therefore, we must learn to know him and love him as he is and not as we wish him to be. He requires our all, and we do well to let him have it.
Lewis highlighted a common hesitancy, and his point is confirmed by the story of Job. Close encounters with the Lord change us in deep and profound ways, and those ways are not necessarily comfortable. But as Peter so insightfully said all those years ago when Jesus asked the disciples if they wanted to leave him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69). There is no other Savior, no other King, no other God than the LORD. There is no other life or love or happiness than what he offers. So we seek him while he may be found, knowing that we will tremble and be changed when we find him. But we seek him anyway, for he is worth the effects of the finding.
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.
You call me to surrender, to lay down the desires of my heart willingly. I would rather you take them from me, for then my part would only be to accept what I cannot change. To give me a choice— that is a difficult test. But let me be found faithful. Help me to trade treasure for greater treasure, the fleeting for the lasting, to sit through the eclipse by faith. None who wait for you shall be put to shame.
The psalmist waited patiently for you And then bore witness to your care and grace. Relief followed the waiting like the dew After a night when darkness hid your face. Though you are never absent, we may not Detect you in the time before the dawn. Your promises—oft doubted, oft forgot— Prove true, a hope long hidden, never gone. But patience is required, for though the end Is certain, yet it does not come too soon. You use the time we wait to break and mend. In silence, we learn how to sing in tune. So hope, though time be now a source of strain. Our waiting on the Lord is not in vain.
Have you ever noticed how important timing is to the Christmas story?
Paul writes that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4). At the right time, Jesus entered the story. Caesar’s decree “that all the world should be registered” (Luke 2:1) sent Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. Luke records that, “while they were there, the time came for her to give birth” (Luke 2:6). Scripture was fulfilled as these events aligned. At the right time and in the right place, Jesus was born.
But timing continued to play a key role in Jesus’s life. Jesus speaks of his hour and his time on multiple occasions (see John 2:4 and John 7:6, for example). He didn’t rush things; he worked according to the time given him. Even his death, according to Paul, occurred “at the right time” (Romans 5:6). Clearly, timing is an important part of the story.
We often focus on the gift of Christmas, and rightly so. At Christmas, we celebrate the entrance of the hero into the action. The Christ appears, the long-awaited Savior who would save his people from their sin. Life and light appear at Christmas like never before, and the darkness hasn’t recovered from the blow. Because of Jesus, we have everlasting hope.
But this year, I’m reminding myself that timing played a role in the story. While I don’t understand all that this truth means, I know it gives us hope when things seem hopeless. God, who knew our greatest need, was neither too early nor too late in providing the solution. God, who saw our helpless state more fully than we ever could, did not send Jesus the moment we fell but instead spoke a promise that was kept over long, hard years of uncertainty, exile, rebellion, blessing, and grace. Through every twist in the narrative, every tragedy and every victory, every loss and every gain, he was working. While I’m sure many before Christ wondered why God seemed to tarry, God sent his Son at the right time.
And we serve the same God. He who met our greatest need continues to provide for his own, and his timing is still best. The waiting is difficult. We can’t see all that the Father sees or know all that he knows, and we grow restless in our ignorance, impatient for provision and for blessing. But our God is good and faithful. He will do what is best in his own time and way, and his timing and way are always best. So we can hope in him this Christmas, for the greatest gift as well as for every good and perfect gift he may give as well, in faith that he will continue to act at the right time.
as i learn to walk 