Help when we Doubt our Identity
Nobody warned me how anxiety and fear can take the thing you care about most – your faith – and turn it against you. (Alan Noble)
‘I get bad thoughts…blasphemy…I must have sinned against the Holy Spirit. I go back again to Hebrews 6…is that me? I call my pastor to check if he believes I’m really a Christian. I’m reassured….But can’t settle. I pray over and over, Lord deliver me.’
The experience of scrupulosity
Scrupulosity is a tormenting experience. The term comes from the word, ‘scruple’ which literally means a hard pebble or a small sharp stone. Even in ancient times it was used to describe a feeling of unease or anxiety. It’s a ‘stone in the shoe’ that troubles the mind. Such disturbance mainly takes the form of fears and doubts over faith and morals.
Lack of assurance can be a normal Christian experience, often resolved through help in clarifying gospel truths. But the character of scrupulosity is such that fears of condemnation and doubts concerning my standing with God besiege the mind with obsessional force. Thoughts become intruders. A sense of irredeemable sin leads to lack of certainty about my salvation.
A mind gripped with such terrors will feel deep distress. Of course we crave reassurance from such trouble of the soul. This creates a drive to find peace, compelling the sufferer to certain relief-seeking behaviours. These might be, for example, confession of sin, finding reassurance or even performing acts of charity to appease a raging conscience. The quest for a quiet mind can also take the form of mental ruminations – if I can think my doubt through, or figure it out, or defend myself until it settles, or feels right, or I can feel sure, then I’ll get peace. But relief is transitory – there’s always one more doubt, one more question. A stone in the shoe. And we slip back into the cycle…fear and doubt…distress…the need to get relief…fleeting peace…and doubt intrudes again. The pattern repeats. The distress grows.
Fears, desires and other causes
What is going on here? Sometimes circumstances are at play. Stress in a person’s life may precipitate or exacerbate existing struggle. The body may contribute: obsessive-compulsive tendencies run in families – and illness, such as viral infection, or brain injury might be involved. Medication can help lessen the suffering for some.
The spiritual realm is always at play too, though. Beliefs about God (as merely punitive and harsh), ourselves (as overly responsible and needing certainty over spiritual questions) and the Christian life (overemphasising law over grace or over-focussing on Bible passages concerning judgment) can fuel a cycle of fear, doubt and compulsive relief. Further, we must never overlook the broader spiritual battle with an accuser whose mission is to unsettle and trip up the faithful.
The contribution of the heart is, of course, key. Often in pastoral struggles, we see both fear (what I don’t want) and desire (what I do want) present. In scrupulosity, fear can be a particularly strong driver. This is seen especially in the experience of intrusive thoughts. The thoughts might be about a faith lost, a sin committed or a line crossed but underneath lies a fear of not being loved and accepted by the King of all things – the flip-side of which is a desire to be loved and accepted by the King of all things. This fear can be experienced in such an intense and all-consuming way that the sufferer concludes it must be true – I am so bombarded by blasphemous thoughts, I must be a Christ-rejector. It feels like these intruding thoughts reveal my desire and identity. But they actually reflect the strength of the fear – what the sufferer doesn’t want. It’s because you care so much about your standing in Christ that the fear of losing it becomes so sharp and intrusive. This is an important truth for the struggler to hear.
Breaking a cycle through rest in Christ
The fear-relief cycle (sometimes called the obsessive-compulsive cycle) heightens the struggle. How do we find relief that lasts? Trying to address obsessive fears and doubts directly through putting off and putting on new thoughts is mostly futile against the barrage of intrusions. Simplistically encouraging people to confess sin and pray more is likely to fuel the fire. What then will be effective? As the name suggests, the compelling, driving factor in the cycle is the compulsive behaviours and ruminations. It is the checking, reassurance-seeking and attempts to settle our minds that are the very things fuelling the cycle.
So, we just remove the fuel and quell the fire? While acting to reduce, resist and delay compulsions is a recognised approach (stop compulsively washing hands to reduce obsessions over contamination, for example), with scrupulosity this isn’t straightforward. Many of the compulsions can seem right and godly. Confessing sin, reading Scripture, seeking assurance of faith are all means of grace. Even rumination over troubling passages could be construed as serious meditation. Can it be right to encourage strugglers to stop reading or praying?
The key is to remember that true relief begins with faith in Christ. He is our rest (Matthew 11:28-30). We can only find true refuge from our fears and doubts in all that he is and has done for us. We want therefore to reduce, resist, and renounce strategies for relief that take us away from restful trust. Sufferers know that agitated trawling through Scripture, or anxious over-focussing on one passage isn’t truly feeding on God’s word. Repetitive, thoughtless praying isn’t truly engaging with the Lord. When we are resting in Christ as our Rock and Refuge, we can read a passage on God’s grace and then rest in Christ. We can make a request once and resting in Christ we can leave prayer until next time. We aren’t neglecting the means of grace. We are resting in Christ by faith.
It is a process, taking time over many conversations. A structured, step-by-step walk, from the least to most feared scenarios is often best. Often it will feel worse before it starts to feel better. But those burdened with fears and doubts are urged to come under the yoke that Jesus carries for them, finding their rest – and a settled identity – in him.
