Not Safe But Good

“Aslan is a lion—the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
…“Safe?” said Mr Beaver… “Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”1

If you’ve read the Chronicles of Narnia, chances are you have heard this quote, and if you’re been in Christian circles for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard it used as an illustration (perhaps overly-used!).

I’ve appreciated this illustration to show the truth that while God does not spare us from suffering, we can trust his intentions for us are good. But I’ve also been encouraged as I think of how this applies specifically in the experience of scrupulosity.

God is Not Safe

In the context of scrupulosity, God is not “safe.” He does not promise us a shame-free, anxiety-free life. He says in him we find perfect peace, but in my experience this is more of an objective fact of my standing (peace with God through Christ’s blood) than a subjective feeling of my experience (fraught with doubts and fears). Thus, much of our experience is not one of peace. Perfect peace is not an all-consuming emotion; if that’s the case, then as my counselor once said, “I’ve been in perfect peace for about 16 seconds of my life.”

God does not guarantee certainty of our standing with him in the same way that he doesn’t guarantee healing in this life, nor disclosure of all his ways and purposes. There’s a mystery there that we cannot know. We are not safe from the next bad thing; we are not safe from experiencing more suffering than we can bear alone. We are not safe from chronic pain, disease, mental illness, tragedy, or mistreatment.

God is not “safe” in that he doesn’t promise to give us certainty. He doesn’t even promise all of his children will have assurance. He does not promise that my fears will be completely eradicated, that my strivings will cease once and for all, or that my obsessive-compulsive symptoms will disappear. He doesn’t promise those kinds of safeties. As those who struggle with scrupulosity, we are not safe from uncertainty.

This un-safeness of God is taken to a deeper level in my scrupulosity. I feel cut off at the knees. Even in my OCD, I struggle to find solidarity with the Lord, as my obsessions revolve around God’s very nature. He does not feel completely safe to me. Not just because of what he might do, but because of who I perceive him to be. I know theoretically who he is, but in my struggle I often act as though he’s unkind, ruthless, and just waiting for me to mess up so he can punish me.

Much of Scripture feels unsafe to me, because it has been the catalyst for some of my biggest seasons of doubt and anxiety. Verses that have brought comfort to countless Christians around me have stirred troubling thoughts within me. If God’s Word feels unsafe to me, I begin to wonder whether God himself is really safe.

Add to that the risk of practicing exposure for OCD and trying to live in uncertainty. It doesn’t promise relief. Taking communion when I doubt if I’m saved could be careless; choosing not to compulsively confess a sin (which I’ve already confessed several times) could be unwise. By devaluing obsessions and resisting compulsions, I have to take the risk of being wrong, and that’s not the safety I want.

Objectively, God is not “safe” in that he will not protect me from scrupulosity and the uncertainty and fear it brings. Subjectively, God feels unsafe as I battle with doubt.

But He’s Good

At the end of the day, if we can’t discern what God will allow us to face next, we can lean on this fact: he is good. He has not left us to ride the rickety rollercoaster of our wild lives alone. He has not gone to the greatest measure to redeem sinners only to let us struggle through this life on our own.

I often equate God’s love with assurance. If God truly loves me, he would not withhold assurance of salvation from me. Even in that thought, there is this suggestion that it is more of a spiteful, coldhearted denial. We know our Father does not give us a stone when we ask for bread. It’s a lie to say that during this life, God will reveal every reason for our suffering, even if it’s after the fact; I know people who had things happen to them decades ago who have still not discerned the why, even if they can see the growth that was the byproduct of such suffering.

I don’t know why God hasn’t taken away my scrupulosity. Sometimes I think I could bear it better if at least I just have assurance of my salvation; then I would feel safer and not like I’m walking a tightrope every day, ready at any moment to fall to my death with no safety net beneath me.

But though he is not safe, he is good. Not only can I trust his overarching plan for my life, but I can trust the God who became man to save my soul, even when I struggle to believe this truth applies to me. I can trust the One who walks with me even though I try so hard to do it alone, the One who sits beside me even as I cry out angrily, “Where are you?” He is good because that is his very heart. He cannot be otherwise. As Dane Ortlund says in his book Gentle and Lowly, “when God deigns to lavish goodness on his people, he does it with a certain naturalness reflective of the depths of who he is. For God to be merciful is for God to be God.”2

God is not capricious. He does not take joy in allowing us to suffer. He is not cruel, derisive, and eager to dole out sorrow upon us. Would he have sent his own Son to suffer, die, and be torn from his presence—all for our sake—if he was?

•

Notes

  1. C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
  2. Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers.

8 thoughts on “Not Safe But Good”

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  2. This was very uplifting. Thank you so much for sharing this. If I can, I have been reading a book called Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners by John Bunyan. It’s talks about intrusive blasphemous thoughts and ruminating. I found a website called Net Burst Net that also talks about intrusive blasphemous thoughts as well as testimonies from those who have it, and scrupulosity.

    Nicky

    Thank you once again for bringing light to this ❤

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  3. I’m very thankful for your honesty and encouraging perspectives. Especially in the understanding of God’s character through this suffering. I’m also thankful for your including God into ERP. I’ve started ERP with a professional OCD therapist and it’s been terrifying trying to sit in the uncertainty of my salvation. Some of the things i tell myself is hard to accept but i always hear “trust the process”. Definitely easier said than done!

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  4. I’m not sure this is the place to mention this, but a very helpful book I’ve discovered is by Pastor Jeff Wells of the Woods Edge Community Church in Houston, and his battle with OCD that almost caused his suicide. The title of the book is “Breaking Free of OCD”. God Bless you all.

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  5. This absolutely resonates with me. You saying “Not just because of what he might do, but because of who I perceive him to be. I know theoretically who he is, but in my struggle I often act as though he’s unkind, ruthless, and just waiting for me to mess up so he can punish me.” Is almost word for word of what I’m dealing with right now. I won’t lie, I’ve persisted in some sin for the past year, and I’ve dropped church and fellowship nearly completely and also prayer 95% of the time because I’ve always lacked step 1: faith. I trust god for salvation, but I trust him with NOTHING ELSE. And this is how I’ve felt in the 3 years I’ve been saved. I still fear that he may rip me apart and kill me out of discipline and then serve my head as an example of anyone who wants to do the same thing. This has absolutely led me away from god, and everything to do with him. 

    Even the mere thought of god makes me very weary now, I feel physical symptoms like nausea and I feel tunnel visioned mentally and just overall foggy thinking when it comes up. Lately for the past month this issue has been brought to light by something in me about this situation and now I just… can’t get my mind off it now. I’ve always struggled with these behaviors as I was saved 3 years ago and now my entire faith seems to be just… ruined. I left church and all that because it was a symptom, not an issue, but I do not know if I made it worse by doing that, but I never talked to anyone at church or had friends there anyway… so I don’t think I’m missing out on much. I’ve always been someone who has kept to myself. I just feel so sick now. I still believe im saved but now I’m just seeming like.. trash. Any thought of “I need to get back to god” is met with 100 tredecillion (1 followed by 44 Zeros!) “What if? But what about? But then what happens if-“ And I feel like a prisoner of my own mind. I feel like he’s going to kill me for my persistence in a sin and now I’m gonna die any day now. But any thought of trying to come to him is going to be plagued by “He’s gonna hold you to a higher standard and if you don’t He’s gonna make you suffer from discipline and you’ll lose ANY and ALL peace you used to have left until you get your act together.” 

    So this has just made me put down prayer and just about everything else to do with Christianity, putting it on the back burner, but I always find myself coming back but never fully, like going to teachings, but never coming to god. Because I think he’s dangerous. This has led me to think that maybe I should just dump God and throw my faith in the trash… but that won’t solve anything! Maybe I could go to god.. oh no wait! God will expect more from you eventually, throwing MORE stress on you! Even though I can hardly function at home man!!! Come on God seriously!? Sometimes I think “If you’re gonna kill me, go ahead. This world is a dumpster anyway” But yet maybe He’ll let me drown via the sin unto death john mentions. He goes like “Ermmm yeah they’re sinning unto death don’t pray for them anymore lol” and then moves on like it’s a light subject COME ON DUDE I HATE THIS WORLD!!! ITS ROTTEN!! PUT ME IN A VEGETATIVE STATE ALREADY! I’m professionally diagnosed with ADHD and Autism, and Ruminating is something I’ve dealt with big time. I relate to these blogs so much it feels like I’m writing them! Stuff like this is so hard to find! I can’t go online in most places like YouTube or Reddit because I’ll just get mobbed with “Hmmm *peers in* Have you considered you were never really saved? 🍺😂🫵🏻” or just tell me some scripture I’ve already tried to drill into my head 999 quintillion times over and nothing seems to work and then they expect me to figure it out myself. But then when I do ERMMM 9 QUADRILLION DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE SAME VERSE! BECAUSE NOT EVEN THE NEUROTYPICAL PEOPLE CAN FIGURE IT OUT! GOOD LUCK!” 

    Like this is way too hard for me. Sometimes I feel like maybe the Bible wasn’t made for people like me, and that maybe salvation at the end of the age is all I’ll get and I should expect absolutely nothing from him in this life when it comes to being with me when things get hard or anything like that, not necessarily removing my problems but just.. being there with me. But maybe I’ll be alone and I’ll just have to wait until Jesus comes back to have anything to do with him. I want to come back. But I don’t even know where to start. I have no idea what to cry out to god for. Maybe I’m too far gone? I think im ruminating again. I always see it as a Very tall, very mighty king (God) and his 

     young children, but one of them just cries and cries and cries from stress. He tries to rock him and shish him, but he just keeps crying because he’s hurting. The thought of Us being small children to the mightiest king there is is very comforting to me, but even that often gets robbed from me with “what if this view is incorrect?” And whatever else I get crushed with.

    There’s a song that really speaks how I feel from my heart, it may sound weird, but it’s from a Godzilla movie. that contains my favorite version of Godzilla. now usually, Godzilla is about epic rock music, DUN DUN DUN DUN *EPIC GUITAR RIFF AS EVERYONE DIES FROM GODZILLA’s WRATH HECK YEAH* 

    But this one’s different. This is Shin Godzilla from the 2016 movie. Shin’s in constant pain throughout the movie. Eventually, he evolves his atomic breath out of a response to an attack from the humans. But as he roars in pain and he bends down and his mouth splits to shoot his atomic breath for the first time, A sorrowful song plays. These lyrics contained really do resonate with me on my battle with this and has helped me cope. You can find the one on YouTube but these are the lyrics:

    if I die in this world,

    Who will know

    Something of me?

    I am lost,

    No one knows, 

    There’s no trace

    Of my yearning…

    If I die in this world

    (But I must, Carry on,)

    Who will know something of me?

    (Nothing worse… can befall..)

    I am lost, No one knows,

    (all my fears, all my tears,)

    There’s no trace of my yearning…

    (Tell my heart… there’s a hole…)

    I wear a void, 

    Not even hope,

    A downward slope, 

    Is all I see…….

    I wear a void!

    (As long as breath comes from my mouth!)

    Not even hope!

    (I may yet stand the slightest chance!)

    A downward slope!

    (A shaft of light is all I need,)

    Is all I see!

    (To cease the darkness killing me!) 

    And that’s it. Those are the lyrics. I connect the “I am lost, no one knows, there’s no trace of my yearning” To the extreme scarcity of understanding or trying to find anyone else that has this struggle, And mostly you feel alone on it. 

    “But I must carry on, nothing worse can befall” I can understand as a lament that cries out “even as I struggle with these tormenting thoughts, I have no choice but to move forward, But it hurts so bad”

    “All my fears, all my tears, Tell my heart, there’s a hole…” Resembles the massive void in my heart that I cannot fill. The fears of god, being afraid of him. The times I’ve broke down crying because of it. It leaves my heart crying out and hurting.

    “I wear a void, not even hope, a downward slope, is all I see…” Resembles my partial despair that maybe I’m going to be sentenced to a life of grieving that I’ll never be able to get close to God due to my what if’s that consistently drive me away from him. I just want him to love me and hold me even if I kick and scream.

    But even as the chorus starts back up and closes off one last time with “As long as breath comes from my mouth, I may yet stand the slightest chance! A shaft of light is all I need, to cease the darkness killing me!” This resembles that everytime I come back, Even if just partially, I echo this chorus’s line. Maybe there is hope. I can’t give up now. Maybe there really is a shaft of light that can cease the darkness killing me.

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