Christianity and ocd

@TeamGDD I’m sorry we go through this. How do you manage or get through it?

@degsy I appreciate your kind words. It’s so hard to not feel alone when everything is happening in your mind. How do you manage and get through it? I usually only consume Christian content, EWTN mass, etc.

@alan87 Your faith journey may be different from mine, so please take everything below with a grain of salt. As silly as it may sound, I try to use maybe, maybe not in those moments. For example “maybe Jesus isn’t real, maybe he is, but I choose to keep believing that there is a loving God looking out for me”. I also recently heard a talk from Justin Hughes on the OCD Stories podcast, he wrote a book called The Christian's Guide to Overcoming OCD. I can’t recommend it fully yet since I am only in the first chapter, but maybe check it out and see if it is something you’d be interested in. The first verse referenced in the book is Jude 1:22, “be merciful to those who doubt” and that hit hard for me.

@lavendas🍇 I’m sorry you went/go through that. I had a really bad existential episode about 15 years ago in college and it really changed my thinking about the world. But I have since come back to Christ a couple years ago. That’s where I struggle, the logic I learned in school versus Christianity, intelligent design, God the creator, etc.

@alan87 I understand. Yeah. So far, if it helps, I believe God is real. Christ is for sure present & significant However, I think maybe not everything is true in the Bible? Like for me, it doesn’t make sense that women were created from Adam’s rib? I wonder if that’s a metaphor because it doesn’t make any logical sense…and also, Adam and Eve had to have come from a woman and if there was a man who existed already, unless humans are actually invasive species to the earth? Idk. I have so many questions to try and align logic and Christianity. So I understand in my own way. That’s frustrating. I wish everything we knew was the truth, but a lot of it feels like it isn’t if that makes sense. Thanks for your response, I also keep returning to Christ again and again. It’s just , hard sometimes for me to put the politics and history relating to Christianity and religion aside bc those are human chosen actions yk? agh. We gotta just keep moving forward and step back from these details for a while from time to time. Like, for instance, when we step back from a problem we try to solve on an exam , most of the times we are ready to find the answer later or the answer is revealed in a different moment of the exam. Maybe you (and I) can find time to just be neutral and know that God knows what we’re going through & that we are trying our best🙏Yesterday, I tried that and today. To be neutral until I wanted to give thanks to God earlier today.

@lavendas🍇 The funny thing is, back in the Reformation, it was mainly understood that reading the entire Bible as completely and literally true was considered ludicrous, by actual Christians of that part of history. The book of Revelation was especially not to be taken at face value, as it was most likely an encrypted message to help deal with the persecution of the then-contemporary Ancient Roman Empire.

@piinthesky And the completely literal interpretation of the Bible is actually fairly recent, as in, only the last 2 centuries recent, and mainly in America. Me researching these facts as someone who still goes to Church.

@lavendas🍇 This is such a thoughtful response. Thank you for taking the time. I understand one hundred percent what you mean. I try to rationalize the logic of reality and the logic of the Bible and Christianity. Miracles and other things that don’t make sense in the realm of science or our human understanding. When I start going too far into that kind of rationalizing that it really makes me feel less free and loved. Like I am not forgiven and I am not saved. That I am suffering in this life and that’ll be it. But when I come back to Jesus and His love I feel loved, forgiven, made new, redeemed. I will keep coming back to Him regardless and hedge my bets on Heaven and meeting Jesus one day.

@piinthesky I agree with @lavendas comment about making Eve from the rib of Adam is a maybe being a metaphor. I don’t mean to get into a theological debate, but I just dislike when my brain makes me question something like Christianity that feels so right. God is Love. Love is eternal, and choosing God over earthly things and believing in Jesus gets me to Heaven.