(This is part of a series. Please read my Disclaimer).
There are a lot of Bible verses that I’ve leaned on, over the years, for what has amounted to self-gaslighting. Here are a few of them.
The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
Jeremiah 17:9 NIV
I took “the heart is deceitful” to mean that the heart is bad, or can’t be trusted.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV
I took “lean not on your own understanding” quite literally. Paired with pop-Christianity that taught me that God’s Spirit living in me would communicate with me through my emotions and the thoughts that entered my head, meant that I was at the mercy of any strong emotion or thought I’d happen to have. This was particularly problematic in high school/early college, when I was deep in those religious influences.
It fed off of these verses:
You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
James 2: 20-24 NIV
I internalized “faith without deeds is useless” or “faith without deeds is dead.”
That my faith must also include obedience to count, or it wasn’t real, and if it wasn’t real, I was going to Hell.
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-22 NIV
“Pray continually” (or, “pray without ceasing,” depending on the version) was the key part that was applied to this- along with the idea that one should not “quench the Spirit.”
So, I was caught in a trap, of needing to obey the voice of God, not trust myself, and having the voice of God being something that I had to “listen” for.
Discernment was easy to say, far harder to do, when one was taught to simply pray all the time, listening to everything you felt as if it could be the voice of God- telling you to talk to that person sitting by themselves, telling you to take an early turn left driving home.
Preachers I’d listen to would tell stories of “miraculous” sounding things that would happen when people would obey their emotions and thoughts as if they were God’s voice.
*Magical thinking* was pervasive for me during times I was influenced by this- the idea that God was giving me special insight into his will, by leading me through my thoughts and emotions, as these were something I could trust to be increasingly mirroring HIM as his Spirit lived in me.
I’m so glad to be out of that now, but I know many others are still trapped, with the ongoing torture of seeking God in this way, and the sense of it being a test, to obey that voice. Some family members of mine have lived their entire lives in this way, including taking actions that had negative outcomes, and they only blame themselves for these outcomes, as if it was their fault for not “obeying God better.” It is a trap, one with real consequences for people, and a torturous one.
For me personally, I eventually learned that my thoughts were my thoughts, and my emotions were my emotions, not the voice of God. It didn’t mean that God wasn’t able to influence me, or give me spiritual experiences, but I had to totally reorient myself away from magical thinking, and back towards logic, and away from the unending torture of that cycle, assuming that somehow “discernment” could make it not be the unending torture that it was.
*Disclaimer: this is about my own personal experience, and not prescriptive or implying judgment of anyone else’s experience.
There are so many parts of this to unpack, but the part I’m wanting to focus on was that I became disempowered by this entire setup. It meant I didn’t know how to approach problem solving in a logical way, when it came to make decisions about my own life- even big decisions, like life-changing ones. I decided where to go to college based on a feeling that I attributed to God’s voice. Truly.
Thankfully it worked out but… woah!
Many Christians in therapy have a sense of their lives being out of control, and it’s because they have removed their own voice of agency from the equation, only doing what they think they were “supposed to do” (whether listening for God was part of that process, or not).
I’ve applied a lot of Paul’s writing to my life in ways that, for years, caused me to undermine my sense of knowing what I wanted, and that what I wanted was ok- precursors for the ability to make good life decisions.
How could I make good decisions if I did not know, first, what I wanted? How could I seek anything to meet my own needs, if I did not listen to myself?
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.
2 Corinthians 10:4-6 NIV
The part of this verse that I clung to the most was “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” I thought that I had to have a posture of rejection and judgment toward my own thinking.
I could not trust myself to think good thoughts.
How could I know what I thought?
How did I know what I wanted, and what was the difference between that, and the “flesh” Paul spoke of as an enemy to be fought?
I could not trust my body to want good things.
For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
Romans 8:13 NIV
This did seem to be in line with the way Paul saw himself. He himself seemed to be at constant war within his own self- between the “spirit” and the “flesh”-two opposing forces. I could be wrong, but Paul here, does not sound to be at peace, but hating himself.
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Romans 7:14-25
I’m careful to say that the way I’ve applied verses has hurt me, and I’m going to do that, here.
I can only say that, I used to make myself like Paul, in this battle, and it was torture, and I cannot ever go back into it.
Especially because… the dichotomy of good/bad, flesh/spirit forces compartmentalization that is simply impossible, and there are many things Paul calls “flesh” that are simply a matter of attitude definition.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Galations 5:19-21 NIV
Some of these are easier than others to define… but jealousy? Selfish ambition? What is the difference between “selfish ambition” and self confidence? Is not the definition of witchcraft who is doing the naming- what is casting lots (as the disciples did)? Summoning Samuel’s spirit? What is reading palms? How is discord of the flesh, yet standing up for what’s right in a way that makes people mad is ok?
How do you define any of these things?
More importantly… did this attitude towards self affirm what is good, and encourage? Did this continue a false dichotomy line of thinking- that all actions are either “good” or “bad”? I think so, respectfully. I’m not saying there is no value in what he said. But the way this got applied in my own life meant I was constantly self critical, and constantly looking for what was wrong, and didn’t trust my mind, and didn’t trust my body- and thought my natural inclinations would be sinful.
When it came to making decisions, I did not trust myself, and did not think my body would lead me towards what was good, or what I needed, so I was sincerely lost.
And without trusting my mind and body, I was not an integrated person, living in alignment with my full self, not only who I thought I “should” be, and what I “should” want.
People don’t fit neatly into boxes. At what point do we see that every single vase, no matter how many times it has been cleaned, will in some way remain dirty? That there never was a place sufficiently far from the Israelite camp that unclean things could go that would make Israel holy?
At what point would Paul be able to see that his flesh wanted to survive, and to love and be loved? To be nourished? And that this was ok?
And yet for every standard he set… he would continue to fail, not due to flaw, but due to perfectionism and compartmentalization of the human experience in ways it is simply impossible to compartmentalize, measure, and sort. And sometimes we want what is best for ourselves, but that is not necessarily “selfish,” it is survival. And sometimes people do things that others will judge, but their motivation is ethical- love. People will break the law to save their families’ lives, for example (thinking of the southern border). Things are not easily categorized, black and white.
Anyway those are some verses that come to mind on this topic. I’m not advocating for moral relativity, but I needed to debunk this thought process in myself, because it was destroying me, and keeping me from knowing myself, accepting myself, and functioning as a fully integrated person who is able to trust their mind and body, and make reasoned decisions that make sense to me.
It’s helped me do what I want to do, not just what I think I’m supposed to do, and take responsibility for what I do, rather than blaming it on the Bible, the voice of God or of anyone else, or who I might feel afraid of making angry if I do something- ie causing “discord.”
I’ve frankly had to ignore a whole lot of the Bible to get to this point. I’m not fully comfortable with that, but I’m more comfortable with myself than I’ve ever been.
