(If you haven’t read it, pls read my Disclaimer).
Tw: potentially triggering
Here are some Bible verses that I’ve applied in ways that have increased anxiety in my life.
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:48 NIV
It led to some perfectionism.
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Matthew 19:21 NIV
This one, also, haunted me a bit.
I mean obviously I love Jesus and do still believe that he is God so. The thing is I feel like. Like with all due respect why did he have to use the word “perfect’? It’s fine, he gets to, it’s fine. And. How is one who struggles with perfectionism supposed to deal with that? I mean it’s fine. Ok.
There is also the issue of accuracy of the person writing things down to note as a factor that exists here. As well as translation and I’m not fluent in Greek. So. It’s ok to @ me.
Ok there are more verses.
If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
James 14:7 NIV
This one. Yep. This one really got to me because I thought… welll.. shit.
Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”
He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’
“But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’
“Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’
“But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’
“There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.”
Luke 13:22-30 NIV
The idea that someone could think they were going to heaven, but then find out that they hadn’t been sufficiently obedient to show their faith to get into heaven, seriously screwed with my mind. Like. Like in this parable, they really thought they were going to get in.
This messed with me!!
Honestly I don’t know if I can post that many more verses about this because it’s so triggering to me. I can’t read the Bible right now without getting too triggered. Why am I doing this? Maybe some day I’ll comment more on this?
Basically the bottom line is the way that I have interepreted the Bible has meant that I see myself as a constant failure headed to Hell if I am not flat on my face in repentance at all times, and that’s a hard location for anyone to be in and also function as a human being. So.
Being honest, here.
I’ve had to simply not read it, to try to get healthy.
I don’t have a really great way to make this not be uncomfortable.
It’s horrific, when it comes down to it, to consider an eternity in suffering and torment, and it’s horrific to consider that we have power to choose to be there or not, and it’s horrific to think that something as small as an errant thought could send us there. It’s horrific to think of loved ones going there. It’s horrific to think of God having the power to make people NOT go there, and still people going there.
There is a whole lot of horror in this thought process. There is a whole lot of horror in the threat of Hell, and not only the threat of Hell, but the idea that we are each personally responsible for making sure we don’t go there, by sufficiently trusting in Jesus to keep us from going there, and sufficiently making our behavior line up a certain way. It’s just a horrific horrific horrific thing. And poeple will say “but grace,” as if those words just… make all of this go away. But for someone deep in it… it’s “but grace….if your faith is real.” “but grace… if your obedience proves your faith.” “but grace…. if you don’t fall into sin again and die before you repent!”
I’m writing this to show the pain for what it is and the fear for what it is, and there is no bow to tie it up with.
Trying to live as a non-perfectionist with the threat of Hell over your head is kind of hard. Trying to walk in a non-judgmental mode, with horror if you err and don’t sufficiently repent and don’t sufficiently prove your faith, is a never ending trauma, where you go from guilt to temporarily feeling better, to guilt to temporarily feeling better.
And I say this as someone who used to grin, and do the “I’m walking by faith! Jesus has won the battle! I’m trusting him and it’s all good!” thing. Because that has been me. And on the inside I was constantly hating myself, constantly rejecting myself, constantly ANALYZING myself, constantly repenting, constantly looking for what was WRONG. And thinking that expecting other people to ALSO be doing this was… good! And my purpose! And what I was supposed to get people to want to do- to make them change- to get them to have faith and to then prove it by what they did
so that they wouldn’t end up in Hell.
Fuck!!!!!!
I’m sorry I’m sure that’s.. you know. Irreverent. But. Fuck!!!!!!
I wanted so badly to feel emotionally safe, as a teen, child, and young adult. The world wasn’t that, but my mind was even worse, because of my religion.
