Madness means to be mentally ill or insanity itself (doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.) I chose this blog “HOPE IN MADNESS” so I can shed awareness on OCD and Scrupulosity or “religious OCD” which I cannot think of a worse mental torment for a human being to suffer.
The worst form of madness I have seen manifested in life has been my struggle with OCD or (Scrupulosity) also known as religious OCD, so I type these blogs as a safe haven for the brethren going through these same things. I know the devil has thrown every intrusive thought into your path for you to forsake the narrow road. Yet you are still here beloved!
If you know nothing of these things I hope you stay around for our discourse about OCD I want to be obedient to The Holy Spirit and God is my witness. I would rather go to Hell without sin than go to Heaven with sin. So I must have a written documentation of the things Christ has put on my heart, in my task to beat madness itself. That is Scrupulosity (I will explain soon what this is.)
There is nothing more mentally agonizing than to believe in the truth yet think yourself not be “of” the truth and self deceived. To proclaim and intellectually understand the gospel yet you believe yourself eternally hell-bound. And that on Judgement Day Christ say to you: “DEPART FROM ME.” Even now with tears I don’t have a steady assurance of my salvation, my only hope is the character and Grace of God to save me on that day.
As The Lord God said about Himself:“Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.”
John 14:6 as amazing as this verse is to the person with scrupulosity this is horrifying. Why? “Well what if I am not of the truth? Do I truly believe properly? How can I know I am of the truth?.” If there is no 100% assurance that I am saved from The Wrath of God there’s no point in being alive, to live in this life and be thrown into Hell for eternity is utter futility! Why live if your under the wrath of God?
Yet I cannot stop from talking about these things. Scrupulosity is equal to you being given the key to a door, though it is the correct key you cannot open it yourself! Though you look around and see others opening the same door as you with the same key. So it is with the Christian stricken with OCD, you see your beloved friends and family following Jesus with much joy, of no doubt of their salvation. But you yourself with a terror stricken conscience about Hell day in and day out. You have the wonderful “key” called The Bible you observe it, study it, even delight in it. But you feel as if you don’t have the door that is Christ. Or you are left with the unwarranted suspicion that you’re doing something wrong.
You have all the spiritual benefits of being a christian, God’s people, the church, The Bible but you have not Christ. And further more you see unless God in His infinite Wisdom and Grace seeks to save you there is nothing you can do to save yourself, no amount of reading, praying, tears, crying. All you do is met with a void of darkness and no assurance. “If I am headed to Hell, then there is no point in living, I am better off dead yet to not be born if I have not Christ!”
As it says in Romans:
“What shall we conclude then? Is there injustice upon God’s part? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion (pity) on whom I will have compassion. [Exod. 33:19.] So then [God’s gift] is not a question of human will and human effort, but of God’s mercy. [It depends not on one’s own willingness nor on his strenuous exertion as in running a race, but on God’s having mercy on him.]”
Romans 9:14-16
So I see that unless God in His Infinite Grace and mercy chooses to save me from His Wrath I am doomed. I would wonder how other believers would read these texts and still have joy in this life. Because still to this day there’s warning texts from Romans, Hebrews, and Matthew 7 that still stick to me. I wish people pondered on their eternity more!
Wouldn’t you want to know where you go when you die? So I would be astonished when I saw how men would belittle the topic of eternal damnation, even scoffed at it, so you say “it’s not fair.” What?! Instead of complaining about your sin how about you cry out to God to save your wretched soul!
This is madness. The Christian is of all people the most to be pitied if we have only trusted in Jesus for everything in this life (1 Corinthians 15:19) So this is amplified for the OCD Christian, if they not 100% see themselves as not eternally damned to the lake of fire. What follows is a sickness that I can only compare to as mental cancer, everything is a bleak pit dark pit. There is no hope for tomorrow after-all if I be eternally destroyed forever I should eat drink and tomorrow I Die!
I wanted to give an example of scrupulosity for the Christian and now we will discuss what it is exactly. First what is OCD? (OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER) people have used the term OCD loosely so I want to clear up the misconceptions. My friend just because you are a tad bit organized does not mean you have OCD.
In short an “obsession” is an intrusive thought. It’s a thought that comes out of nowhere it’s intrusive, disrupting your train of thought. A compulsion is an action or “ritual” done to ease the obsessive thought. This is when madness comes into play, though the OCD sufferer does a compulsion to ease the obsession the intrusive thought still comes back.
An example of OCD is a man who repeatedly checks his gas stove for fear that he left it that’ll somehow cause an explosion in his house. The obsessive thought to him is: “there’s going to be explosion from the stove.” His compulsion to follow is to check the stove that all the switches are off. It’s a cycle of madness and insanity.
There are countless obsessions varied from each OCD sufferer. If it was a contamination obsession hand washing is common, to the point where the sufferers skin turns raw. For fear of the sufferer getting sick if they don’t wash their hands.
(I’m aware this is a long read but you can scroll on TikTok focused for 30 minutes you can bear with me.) OCD is focused around “FEAR” that’s why it’s such a crippling mental illness and is not understood due to the term being used so loosely.
Another example is a person with violent obsessions, the intrusive thought is when they look at someone is to kill them, another thing to note is the sufferers obsession aren’t linked to their will! That’s why it’s called intrusive thoughts, this person obviously means to will in their heart to kill someone. So they stand bewildered on why the thought came to mind anyways.
I’ve walked around in the grocery store and thoughts of insults towards others I see will just hurl around in my head. Insulting others looks, and other grievous insults. To make matters worse the OCD Christian knows what the word of God has to say about insulting people. As God said in Matthew 5:
“But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be answerable to the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be answerable to the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.”
Matthew 5:22
So what’s left is a feeling of condemnation “I’ve been insulting every person I’ve seen today, I’m going to hell.” Though this isn’t the believers heart it’s OCD and even if it was their intentions it’s covered by The Grace of God. However even now I don’t “feel” like my sins are forgiven, though I say what’s true I don’t believe it applies to me. The wrath of God looms over me in my head continually in my head, and my soul is bowed down within me everyday. I don’t understand understand the things I do.
MY STORY OF RELIGIOUS OCD 