Read time: 3 minutes

Psalms 28: 1-2

Lord, my Rock, I call out to you for help. Do not be deaf to me. If you are silent, I will be like those in the grave.2 Hear the sound of my prayer, when I cry out to you for help. I raise my hands toward your Most Holy Place.

Forward

Journal, Junior Year of college. Spring semester.

Journal

The closer I’m getting to God the more I see how unfit I am to be his son. I notice my pride, lust, ignorance, impatience, anger and failure to love others. I don’t think God is telling me that I am all of these things. I don’t even think he’s nudging me to make me think that.

It’s God’s holiness intersecting with my being where I begin to see where I don’t match with Christ and would utterly fail at saving myself.When this happens , the enemy takes advantage of these thoughts and makes me doubt my faith and forget the gospel of Grace.

The goodness of me recognizing I need a savior is being torn down by the enemy and my pride of wanting to save myself. I cannot do this without you Father, please be present in my life so that I can have mercy for my brokenness. I was far from you now you’ve made me close through the cost of your son.

Take away the pride that I can save myself and stop the enemy from damaging how I see you.

ReflectionReframing is the psychological technique of identifying and changing the lens through which you view a situation, event or emotion. By shifting perspective, you change the meaning of an experience.

It is beautiful watching awareness and reframing in action. How I work through and see my brokenness. That brokenness does not destroy me. Rather it draws me closer to the Lord, and I want more of him. I recognize the enemy. I label the enemy as being separate from me. The enemies plans are clear and I see his strategy. I am able to bat it down and ask for God’s presence.

I do not ask for better performance, for more money, for a wife, for anything but simply more of his Presence.

David often found himself in deep negative ways of thinking and feeling. He also found himself in some pretty life threatening scenarios and had every right to feel those emotions. On a consistent basis, regardless of what David feels or thinks, time and time again he brings EVERYTHING back to God. Declaring truth over his life. Trusting God to deliver even when the situation on paper is hopeless.

Psalm 28: 6-7Praise the Lord, because he heard my prayer for help. The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust him, and he helps me.I am very happy, and I praise him with my song.

This is a man who does not doubt God’s presence. He brings it all, fully expects and joyfully waits for the Lord to answer.

Questions

How can you relate to David in the way that he brings everything to God in his life?

When things get shakey in life, where do you like to go mentally and spiritually?

Challenge

Deep Breath.

Interoception is the brains sense of internal organs and structures. The reason we have it is that when its out of balance, we can regulate our nervous system. Getting in touch with this sense can be very helpful. If you’ve ever heard of a body scan meditation this is a focused form of it.

With your eyes closed, try to settle the self talk inside your mind. Today we can just focus on your head.

Once its quiet, pay attention to the sensations in your head.

How does your head feel? Can you feel a pulse, which location can you feel it. Does your head hurt, how heavy does it feel. Is it on one side or both sides? Sit with the sensations for a moment.

When you feel calm or readjusted, take a breath and go about your day.

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Read time: 4 mins

Romans 6:21But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

ForwardThis is a short journal entry. Highly emotional with anger at myself. Perfectionism is a clear theme. This was mid semester, junior year of college.

Journal11/1/2015

AngerI got really angry at myself when I make mistakes. When I’m bad, I get angry and the attitude is reflected onto others.I get angry when people take or use what’s mine because then I have to pay for it.I get angry when somethings not being used for my benefit if I’ve worked hard for it.I put this facade up that I care about Small Group, even when I don’t sometimes.

I get angry at my performance at work.

ReflectionTypically, what causes anger is an infringement upon boundaries. When someone crosses the line and threatens your safety or control, our emotional response is anger. Let’s just use the movie Taken for example. Liam Neeson’s daughter is kidnapped and the iconic line in the movie is, “I have a particular set of skills” and “I will find you and I will kill you.”Liam’s daughter’s safety is now in jeopardy and Liam’s anger response is kicking in to enact justice on the boundaries that were crossed.

I have set up a particular set of boundaries for myself. To be a good Christian, do not fall into temptation, “Do not be bad.” Do not watch porn, don’t drink too much. Be self sacrificial, don’t be selfish. These standards set myself up to break them. Consistently.Breaking these standards causes a self hatred to boil over. The anger spreads like fire to other people in my life, I become ungrateful and selfish. All I can focus on is my self, my performance, what I am getting out of life. This is unfruitful thinking.

I fear that in making mistakes, It means I’m defective. In being defective, my livelihood is in question. If that’s the case, all of my self worth is gone. Who am I if my worth cannot be found in my performance? I literally don’t know where to place my worth if its not in the things I am doing.

Friends, my whole system is jacked up on performance. When I do this to myself it results in death.

Romans 6:22-23But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It is not of God to use our performance to get validation. The fruit it produced in me was unjust anger at myself and others.

Excelling and performing well is not sinful in and of itself. Its good to perform well, but when I make it the basis of my self worth and judge myself on it, its not fruitful. Fruitfulness comes from letting down our pride and accepting the gift we have in Christ. The freedom from the constant barrage of perfectionism.

Matthew 11: 28-30

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

QuestionsHave you ever set boundaries with yourself and crossed them?What was the response internally towards those boundaries being broken?

ChallengeDeep breath.

Come up with 1 thing you’re angry at yourself for.Now, close your eyes then invite God into the picture and imagine what the God of Mercy truly thinks of you.

Come up with 1 thing you’re proud of yourself for.

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2 Corinthians 12:9

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.”

ForwardI find myself again in the throws of mental anguish the month before entering Junior year of college.

Journal Entry

August 4th, 2015

I’m not seeking you I’m drinking a lot. I’m watching porn. I’m talking about others; not in a good way. Cursing a lot. Lord, I know I can’t get mad at myself for not being perfect. I don’t want to be a moralist and feel close to you only when I’m doing good.

When I don’t have a good relationship with you I know it, and I hate it.

All I think about is myself and my problems.

The little things, “Oh I’ll only have a beer” (Bulls***)“Ill start working out”I got super defensive with a friend when he told me I was just drunk.

I know our relationship is not about being good or bad but....There comes a point where my actions need to align with you.

I need to learn from this experience. I’ve fallen and forgotten God’s love for me. I don’t feel special because I’m not choosing God over sin.

WHAT GOD IS TEACHING ME

* I’m not okay without God

* Have no other gods before Him

* I do not want our relationship to be based on what I do

ReflectionI’ll be honest, this is difficult even for me. I was so heavy on myself. So much weight and pressure to be perfect in my relationship with God. I was so sensitive to whether or not I “sensed” his presence. If I did not sense His presence it must mean I was doing something wrong.

I wonder what these journals would look like If I had a little more grace with myself even though my relationship wasn’t perfect at the time.

How life could be different if I truly grasped at my heart the gospel that tells me I simply cannot please God with my actions. If I released all the judgement I have over my life that lead to feelings of worthlessness and despair, how different could my mindset be?Instead, how could life be better if I highlighted all the amazing work I was doing entering into Small Group Leading or my scholastic achievements.

Lets take a look and define it in a psychological way:Scrupulosity: A recognized subtype of OCD. It involves pathologically intrusive thoughts, excessive guilt over minor moral failures, and obsessive rituals (such as excessive praying or repenting) to appease God.

Now, I am not diagnosing, just observing thought patterns. OCD has some comorbidity with bipolar disorder and can flare up given stressful situations. I want to recognize that scrupulosity is a well studied psychological concept that involves intrusive thoughts about minor failures in relationship to God. It is very evident this has been a major problem in my walk with Christ. Regardless of whether I’m diagnosed, I can see at times I’ve shared symptoms.

For some reason, every little imperfection puts a barrier between Him and I. I never felt like I could appease God and get the affection I sought after. In some strange fashion, I thought maybe If I became obsessive compulsive about how “good” of a relationship with God I had, then I would get that affection I longed for.

In the context of the Gospel, even though this expression comes across as legalistic and perfectionistic it happens on a biological and psychological basis. There’s grace for this.

In my case, when I was experiencing some of the symptoms, It is not as though I wanted the symptoms. They were unwanted generating lots of strong emotions. I wonder how I would have responded to scrupulosity, and been able to give myself grace for it. Maybe when I noticed that I was having intrusive thoughts about my relationship with God, I could have stepped back from the stream of consciousness. Then reminded myself, Christ loves me like the father loved the prodigal son.

When I look back at this time, it was the most spiritual formative years of my life. But then I see my journals it looks like the most agonizing mental horrors. I don’t think the judgement I put on myself was helping me, I was loved by God regardless. The judgement of self only worsened my condition for me.

I wish I could tell young Luke, “Hey, there is an abundance of Grace and Mercy at every unknown turn along the way.” Then actually believed it at my core.

Questions

* Where can you give yourself more grace in life?

* Do you have any thought patterns that you also struggle with?

* What does a mindset of Abundant grace look like for you?

Call to Action

Deep Breath. In through nose. Hold it. Out through mouth.

Ask yourself the question “What has God given me?”

Close your eyes and say it out loud to yourself. Let your mind roll in the images that come up. Keep asking the question if your mind runs out of images.

It could be your car, relationships, anything that your mind associates with God’s gift.

This is a gratitude practice that lets you see how loving God truly is in all he has given.

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Read Time: 4 minutes

Romans 7:23But I see another law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. (NASB)

ForwardSummer struggles. Full swing of summer freedom and its consequences.

JournalJuly 4th, 2015

Lord, I miss you bad. I miss our relationship. Being able to talk and truly feel your presence in me. It’s not that I’m feeling guilty for what I’m doing, but I’m not stopping.

It’s clearly sin that is separating us. Maybe the spiritual dryness hit and I went back to my old ways. I can’t be in this condition going into school being a leader in my community. How am I supposed to love others when I cut off your presence?

I want to create a space in me for you to reside again Lord. Longing for you because video games, people and money are meaningless. These idols I am trusting over you.

Reflection.I desire relationship with the Lord but I also do not truly want to give up the Sin.Where do you see me intentionally making a plan to stop sin in my life? Its just me complaining about the side effects of porn, lust, distraction, and people pleasing. I have no actionable steps to remove the idols.

Yes, I identified them. But that’s not enough. At my core I still wanted to sin while benefiting from God. Therefore, my guilt was seared and I felt nothing but shame about how much I loved sin.

Psychological Education SegmentEmotional distancing can happen in a relationship. Emotional distancing is an invisible barrier that makes genuine connection difficult. This manifests in surface level conversations, withheld feelings and a lingering sense of loneliness even when the two parties are present.

Emotional distancing was what I was doing with God. I couldn’t come to him and tell him that I had no intention of changing my ways, instead I hid, felt alone, and didn’t address what was really going on. The byproduct of this was distance from God. Not because he was actually distant but because I did not want to let Him in.

We must also directly address with God the desire to sin. That we still desire sin over him. If I were to tell God that I’m ashamed I still want sin and I have no intention of stopping, the awareness would be huge. This confession would be the beginning of my journey in recovery.

This is only the beginning. We need other people in the fight with us. How would you learn to be a blacksmith if you didn’t have a mentor? How would you become an accountant if it weren’t for professors and coworkers ahead of you teaching you to do the work?

Once I saw God’s power heal me from alcoholism, I knew that God could heal me from pornography and I knew the work I had ahead of me. But all of this wasn’t done alone. It required me humbling myself and becoming a disciple alongside others.

Romans 6: 6-7We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Although we wait for a savior to fully restore us in the future, with great hope, we are dead to sin, now. It is now that we receive the Gospel. There is never going to be a time later in life where you will feel “good enough” to receive it. Right now, this very moment. If I choose, I can stand up, wipe off the dust, repent and live a new life in Christ. We must repent, not just of our sinful actions, but of these ungodly views or lenses we hold that keep us under the power of sin.

Questions

* What areas in your life can you Identify as an “idol” but have no intention or action plan around it?

* Do you still hold on to desires to sin?

* Do you emotionally distance yourself in your relationships? Characterized by surface level conversations, withheld feelings and loneliness even in presence of person.

ChallengeThose were some tough questions, lets combat it with a happy challenge.Think of something joyful this week.First thing that comes to your mind.

Fully imagine it, what do you see?

What do you smell? What do you feel?

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Read Time: 4 minutesPsalm 51:10Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

ForwardA deeply genuine confession to the Lord.

Journal6/28/2015Dear Lord,This is bad. Again and again I’ve let the enemy take over my choices. I’ve given into my flesh and at the core of who I am I’m selfish, Lord. I’ve cut you off from myself and I’m ashamed that I allow you to be so far away. I’m content with seeking to satisfy myself when nothing in this world can satisfy me, Lord. Only you can. I’m going to be a leader, Lord, and I’m sinking in sin. A broken life. You are clearly still with me and I don’t know what to do, Lord.

After two and a half weeks of work my relationships with you has deteriorated. If I had a relationship with you in the first place, I’d stand strong against temptation but my sin humbles me and shows me there is more to our relationship then reading the Bible. Lord, I WANT you, but I’m content in taking the easier road to doing what I want. I’m tired and ashamed how easily I give into temptation.

Purify my heart and make me new, Lord. Make the gospel and your Holy Spirit all new to me again because I’m dying inside. Make me alive, Lord.

ReflectionThe duality of knowing God is with me while also feeling frail and week.This is a beautiful illustration of a man coming before God and asking for healing. Asking for help, who has acknowledged he’s done wrong.

1 John 1:9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

James 5:16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

What my life looks like now.If I were to do something considered sinful, I may deny feeling guilty at first. Eventually, a friend or the holy spirit would convict me. Then I would seek out actions to take to prevent that sin from entering my life again. In the example of lust, if I gave in, eventually the holy spirit would convict me in my denial. I would then confess to a group of believers who know me deeply. And then I would take action by blocking access, moving my phone into another room for a few nights, or throwing away objects that lead to sin. The actions themselves were ways of obeying God. Ways to acknowledge that I am weak and need him.

In this journal, we see that I was drowning, with a cinder block chained to my ankle in this idea that I am unsavable and unloved and fully distant from God. There seemed to be no way out of this distance from God.

Were these emotions valid? Were they the new reality I had to base my life on?

Feelings become your reality. Its a common cognitive distortion. That because, “I feel distant from God” I believe that I AM distant from him. Therefore, I needed to uncouple my emotions from the truth. The truth is that God sees me as his son always.

I think a part of my younger self tried to use emotions to show God how sorry I was. If I could produce this great negative emotion and I felt was this horrible person, he would have mercy on me. It would spare me from his judgement. I was trying to recruit God’s mercy through an emotional storm.At that time, couldn’t I just as easily brushed it off, received forgiveness, and continued my walk with the Lord without the drowning?

QuestionsHow are your emotions dictating how you view God?Can your emotions get in the way of drawing closer to God?What’s the truth about how He sees you?

My prayer is that he renews a right spirit in you, today.

Call to ActionTake a Deep Breath.

Come up with one thing that’s keeping you further from God than you want.Say out Loud“Lord, _________ in my life is taking me further from you. I give you ________ so I can be closer.”

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Read: 6 minutes

Romans 6:14For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

ForwardI hope that this struggle is relatable and makes sense. Time an time again the battle surrounding lust and temptation is mental, the silent battle happens AFTER giving in.

JournalMay 31st, 2015I’m screaming inside. Summer is coming back with full force and I can’t stop this dreadful feeling of resentment. Resentment towards myself for what I’m giving into it. I’ve lost the fight in me. If I had any in me to begin with. I want to cry out to people and tell them how horrible I am and confess but I can’t. No ones here. The longing for beauty was too strong. I keep wanting to stop the sin but I need to search the problem of the heart, God. I don’t really want to talk to you because it hasn’t been helping me. That’s how selfish I am.

I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO GOD, WHY IS THE ENEMY SO HARD TO RESIST? HOW DID YOU DO IT?I’m sorry I chose this over you.You were telling me the whole time to back out and I blatantly ignored you. Disobeyed you. Killed a piece of you that’s inside me. How is it possible that I feel like I haven’t changed at all God? Or is it just the enemy. I know I have to treat this wound while its still fresh.I want to be truly sorry.So confused... Where do I go....

ReflectionWhen I fell into temptation, look at what happens to the mind. It’s like a mental autoimmune disease. Sin breached my mental defenses and I mistakenly view myself as the enemy. So my mentals puts up a fight against itself. The brain is affected through inflammation, headaches, and fatigue. The energy spent attacking itself is immense. It isolates me from others to figure out how to resolve it. It does not even feel safe to confess to God. The last thing I want is help.

Cortisol levels rise, heart rate rises, blood pressure rises. All sympathetic responses to a threat.

Part of what is happening here is shame. The brain reacts to shame by hijacking the pre-fontal cortex (impairing logical thinking) and stimulates the sympathetic nervous system (CPTSD Foundation). This is a fight, flight or freeze situation. I’m fighting myself and fleeing everyone else socially, even God.

The cascade of events is that I use porn, I experience shame, fight or flight response triggers, I hate myself and withdrawal or isolate.The enemy didn’t have to do much here. I did the majority of his work for him. He sets things in motion but I further criticized, judged and hated myself.I was the one holding myself down.

In John 5 there’s an lame man who couldn’t walk. Jesus asks, “Do you want to get well?”The lame man replied with an excuse. He couldn’t because of other people jumping into the well ahead of him.Jesus tells the man, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”So the man was healed and then he obeyed. Hard to tell what came first.Later on Jesus meets the man and says, “See you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (John 5)

This man wasn’t healed because he stopped sinning first. He was healed amidst whatever sin he had going on. Jesus loved the man, cut through the excuses he was making and brought healing.

Jesus said to stop sinning, why would he tell him to do something that feels so impossible? Is Jesus asking us to stop sinning? If so, what does that even mean? Can I just stop doing the action I hate? Is it even about the action or is it about the mindset? Or is it both the action and the mindset?

If I took Jesus words literally, stop sinning its very clear instructions. I have a tendency to interpret his words, “Well maybe he was using it as a metaphor for our hearts,” so I can continue my maladaptive behaviors while some how keeping my “heart” clean before God. Its all connected, heart, mind, body spirit.

To fix this issue in my life, I couldn’t keep trying to fix it on my own. The same way I had been trying to fix it for 20 years. I was making excuses, and Jesus was calling me to pick up my mat. I needed help. By the grace of God I got involved with a group of seven men dedicated to fighting porn in their life.

I have been over a year free from watching pornographic content.

If you are struggling with porn and lust, that can be you too. What do you need to do differently in your recovery?

Romans 6:14For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

Personal QuestionsWhat would it look like for you to obey Jesus and pick up your mat?Do you believe you have any power over sin in your life?Can you see yourself making any excuses in your life that are holding you back?

Call to Action

I want you to identify One thing in your life holding you back.

I want you to say “Blank is holding me back”

Thanks for reading Journals of a Madman! This post is public so feel free to share it.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit parry6lb.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit parry6lb.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit parry6lb.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit parry6lb.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit parry6lb.substack.com