I have a Bible from my youth, one I purchased for myself when I was in middle school.
I underlined a number of verses during those formative years of adolescence. Flipping through the pages now, I see a common thread in the passages I singled out. They are predominantly calls to action, the instructional sections that mapped out an identifiable way for me to feel I was doing enough to satisfy God.
One of my greatest recurring anxieties is the possibility that I might in some way not be taking my sin seriously enough. That sounds ultraspiritual, but it is more fear-driven than pious. I review not just my actions but every internal agenda, and I come to the same conclusion as Jeremiah: The heart is a convoluted mess (Jer. 17:9). I scrape my mind for any residue of wrong that might need to be confessed and eradicated, only to discover new twisted layers underneath. Pulling the lid off of my soul felt like staring into a bottomless cauldron of horrors.
It never occurs to me in the midst of all the soul-scrubbing that perhaps part of what God desires for me is freedom from the self-loathing and cruel harshness that tries to pass itself off as making me more like him. The very self-admonishment I equate with holiness is in fact distorting my perception of God.
Pursuing the path of taking “full responsibility” for my sin only pushes me toward despair, because I find that the problem is deeper and more pervasive in me than I can begin to address (“Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me”—Romans 7:21). I am unable to discern my true motivations with certainty. The more I dissect my confessions, the less adequate they seem, pulling me further down the rabbit hole of introspection.
My attempts to fully own my sin end up competing with my ability to accept what Christ did on my behalf. He went to the cross precisely because we are all incapable of taking full responsibility for our own sin.
Martin Luther addressed the fallacy of such thinking: “This attitude springs from a false conception of sin, the conception that sin is a small matter, easily taken care of by good works; that we must present ourselves unto God with a good conscience; that we must feel no sin before we may feel that Christ was given for our sins.”
The alternative to being responsible is not being irresponsible—it is trusting God with the responsibility, the way a child trusts a parent with their care.
In his book exploring OCD and faith, Ian Osborn shares the story of Thérèse of Lisieux. Thérèse was born in the late 19th century. She was about as thoroughly religious as someone can be. She received her education in a Benedictine school, then went on to become a Carmelite nun. Carmelites maintain a very strict lifestyle, praying for long hours every day, enduring very ascetic conditions, and observing complete silence for extended periods. If anybody exemplified diligently working to put on their own armor, it was Thérèse.
Despite her devotion, uncontrollable doubts and fears haunted her. She tried performing severe acts of self-punishment to counter what was happening in her mind, but the effort provided no comfort to her conscience.
Unable to find any method of alleviating her mental distress, Thérèse concluded she needed a fundamentally different approach to God. After much prayer and reflection on Scripture, she developed what she came to call “the Little Way.”
It was a radical departure from the rigid moralism of her time. She focused on all the verses that portray God caring for the small and humble—like Matthew 18:3: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
SOURCE: CHRISTIAN TODAY