How do you know you’ve truly repented? How do you know you’re trusting Christ for forgiveness? How do you know your faith is genuine? If you have scrupulosity, you know these types of questions well. When your greatest fear is that God is displeased with you or that you’re not even a Christian, these loops... Continue Reading →

Imagine you are standing inside a house that is burning down. Fire rages around you, climbing walls and roof and floor. What do you do? You do whatever you must to keep the house from utter destruction. You sound the alarm. You evacuate the house. You call the fire department and you ensure that the... Continue Reading →

I’ve recently been helped by the long church tradition of collect prayers (pronounced COLL-ect). Collects are old prayers, many dating back to the sixteenth century as part of the Book of Common Prayer, and they are commonly used in liturgical church services. They’re designed to be short and follow a particular format of addressing the... Continue Reading →

Lately I’ve been thinking about Psalm 34:5: “Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.” And I’ve been wrestling with the verses on either side of it: “I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears” (v.4) and “This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved... Continue Reading →

Last year I had the honor of contributing a liturgy to Every Moment Holy, Vol III. (If you're not familiar with the series, check it out at The Rabbit Room or Amazon.) I'm sharing it below. I hope this prayer gives you words to speak to God in the midst of a struggle that often... Continue Reading →

Do you ever struggle to take communion? If so, you’re not an outlier when it comes to scrupulosity. If you struggle with obsessions about your standing with God and others, it’s no wonder that the Lord’s Supper would be a place of increased anxiety. Perhaps you’ve had these thoughts: “I can’t be certain I’m saved,... Continue Reading →

I know Holy Week can be hard for a lot of us who struggle with scrupulosity. Often, special seasons or holidays in the Christian year mean more church services and thus heightened exposure to Scripture, prayer, and the other things that can trigger our intrusive thoughts and anxiety. But I want to encourage you with... Continue Reading →

What does it look like to rest amid scrupulosity? “Rest” and “scrupulosity” feel contradictory to me. Is there room for rest amid the persistent cycle of rumination and anxiety? Obsessions don’t clock in and clock out. They don’t berate you for a limit of 40 hours a week and then relent during off-hours. They give... Continue Reading →

How do we reconcile the sufferings of life with who God is? There’s so much joy and beauty in this world, but there seems to be equal amounts of suffering and horror. I recently read Psalm 77 and was struck by the way that the writer, Asaph, navigates this question. He is simultaneously honest about... Continue Reading →

There’s an implicit belief in those of us with scrupulosity that we are all-knowing, or at least, that we can be. We don’t truly believe this. We know that we are finite creatures and that God alone is omniscient. But we functionally believe that we alone have a clear view of ourselves. I see this... Continue Reading →

I’ve often heard well-meaning Christians say something like this to someone facing a decision: “God will make it clear.” The problem is that sometimes we make this a kind of superstition. We start to essentially think, “If I pray, God will answer with peace, or give me certainty, or show me exactly what to do.”... Continue Reading →

Do you ever get stuck in confession? Like a stuck tire futilely spinning in mud, you continually confess but never find freedom. You’re always trying to discern whether you have sinned or not, whether you need to confess or not. And because your conscience is predisposed to condemn you, you’re likely to err on the... Continue Reading →

Recently I visited a church with my brother. It’s a reformed congregation that uses liturgy to guide and structure its service. When we got to the time of confession and assurance, I was struck by something unexpected: this part of the service was “backwards.” The pastor read the words of assurance first, and then came... Continue Reading →

What do you do when you pray for healing, and the answer is silence? I don’t doubt that God can heal me. I believe his power, ability, and sovereignty. But I do struggle to believe his goodness. He can heal; he is able; but is he willing? It seems to me that if God were... Continue Reading →

Sometimes it feels like God has forsaken us. We don’t hear his voice. We don’t feel his presence. We struggle even to see his hand at work in the world. We cry with the psalmist, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1). We know the theological truth: God will never forsake his children.... Continue Reading →