Questions And Doubts
It's been a while since I posted here. It feels like a good time to collate thoughts and feelings.
I've been wrestling with so much lately.
Mental Illness
The mental illness I have isn't better. Even after 36 days in hospital I am unchanged. Every day I still wake up wishing I was dead. Every day begins the same debate again and again. Do I carry out my plan and end it all or fight to hold on one more day?
My local community mental health never do anything, even when my part time psychologist calls them and says she's telling me she's thinking about suicide, you need to call her because I can't be there for her, even then they do nothing.
I really need to see a psychiatrist but there's none I can access. Yeah unless you can find $800 per appointment you can't see a psychiatrist at all in Australia. And it's not like I need a one off appointment, I would need regular follow up.
What am I suppose to do?
In hospital they decided that sleep was the only thing they wanted to address. So unsurprisingly no one gave a crap about anything else. So it's not surprising that after all that I'm still the same.
Neurodivergence
It's not just mental illness that means I need to see a psychiatrist. Both my psychologist and I both are convinced I have undiagnosed and untreated Autism and ADHD.
We'd both like to try me on some ADHD meds but of course the only way to do that is with a psychiatrist. Which I can't afford and there's no alternative funding options available.
So increasingly I am seeing that there's nothing I can do about my conditions.
Caring
I still care for my father. He's just been diagnosed with White Matter Disease. To summarise, he has an abnormally high number of lesions in his white matter that impact his ability to function as a person. The lesions happen as we age but you're typically close to death before you get enough to be a problem. But certain lifestyle factors among a few other things can cause more to appear and earlier.
And despite this, I can't get any help whatsoever for caring for my father and he is rejecting any additional help also, leaving me in an impossible situation.
Faith
Lately I've been struggling with my faith.
The core of Christianity is the gospel. That God made everything perfectly and the pinnacle of his creation was us. And for a time we lived with God as King, but then Satan convinced us (Adam and Eve) that maybe God wasn't always right and so we sinned. And as a result the only outcome was to consign all of humanity through all of time to hell. But God in so caring about his creation sent his son Jesus into the world, and Jesus went about teaching people to repent and believe and turn back to God, and when the time was right he died on a cross. But because he was perfect AND sinless, death couldn't hold him, so his father raised him to life again, and all who believe that that death and resurrection was a substitution for them, so that they don't have to go to hell will be saved and brought to heaven.
I believe Jesus existed and died on the cross. I believe Jesus's words about sin and what his death would do, I'm not completely certain but I think I believe in the resurrection also (even if it goes counter to all I know as "normal").
But despite all that I've really struggled lately to keep going and to hold on to my faith.
I've been weary of life. I think that's evident in my struggles with mental illness and caring and other struggles.
I keep coming back to these same questions:
Am I a Christian if I don't desire what God desires? (See David: 1 Samuel 13:13-14, Acts 13:22)
Can I have the Holy Spirit if I desire to walk away?
If all I want is to kill myself, does that mean God has abandoned me?
If I'm not a Christian, does that mean I had a false conversion?
I do know I don't want to go to hell, If I pray that God "helps me in my unbelief" (Mark 9:23-25) and nothing changes, does that mean God didn't choose me?
Does this mean Hebrews 6:4-6 and the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-23, Mark 4:1-20, Luke 8:1-15) apply to me?
Am I doomed?
Is all of this mental illness?
I spent some time reading on Hebrews 6:4-6...
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
I found my commentary and study Bible helpful.
My study bible says:
"The most common interpretations of this difficult passage are:
It refers to Christians who actually lose their salvation
It is a hypothetical argument to warn immature Hebrew Christians (Hebrews 5:11-14), that they must progress to maturity (Hebrews 6:1) or else experience divine discipline or judgement (Hebrews 6:7-8)
It refers to professing Christians whose apostasy proves that their faith was not genuine (1 John 2:19)
This view (number 3) sees chapters 3-4 as a warning based on the rebellion of the Israelite in the wilderness. As Israel could not enter the promised land after exploring the region and tasting its fruit, so the professing Hebrew Christians would not be able to repent if they adamantly turned against "the light" they had received.
According to this interpretation, such expressions as "enlightened", "tasted the heavenly gifts", and "shared in the holy spirit" indicate that such a person had come under the influence of God's covenant blessings and had professed to turn from darkness to light but were in danger of a public and final rejection of Christ, proving they had never been regenerated. (Hebrews 10:26-31, 2 Peter 2:20-22)"
I appreciate what Matt Witman says when he says the NIV plays it "safe" with their study notes now. My study Bible (Yep NIV) doesn't really draw any conclusions on this passage but I do like that it gives me all the different views. I really do like that. If we want to teach Christians to think for themselves and make their own conclusions up, having all the different views listed can help a Christian to think through them all.
My commentary (New Bible Commentary) just assumes the third interpretation is correct. It raises some interesting questions it explores as well which I find helpful in my thinking.
But can genuine Christians become apostate?
How do we answer this question in the light of the rest of the Bible and even the rest of the book of Hebrews?
Is the passage saying some Christians were doomed from the start or is a warning that even those who are failing can still be saved?
And if they are doomed, what do you make of their genuine experiences of conversion?
It helped a lot to think through the thoughts of both of these commentaries.
I found the study bible notes on context helpful. I'm not as familiar with Hebrews as I am with other books of the Bible.
The suggested linked passages of Hebrews 10:26-31 and 2 Peter 2:20-22 I would broadly agree with. Of the three interpretations, I think the third one makes the most sense. My commentary cites John 10:28-29 and Philippians 1:6 as verses for support and refutation of interpretation 1. Although I couldn't give you the reference off hand, the words of John 10 have been kicking around in my mind in response to it. So on that point I think the commentary and I are in agreement that Christians can't lose their salvation. (For some reason this always sends off a bell in my brain about Catholicism).
Some helpful comments from my commentary included:
"But can genuine Christians become apostate? Hebrews certainly suggests that those who fall away may have every appearance of being truly converted. They have "once been enlightened", indicating a decisive entrance of the light of the gospel into their lives. They have "tasted the heavenly gift", which may mean receiving Christ himself and all the spiritual blessings he offers. "Tasting" implies experiencing something in a manner that is real and personal (not merely "sipping"). They have "shared in the holy spirit" (lit. "having become partakers of the holy spirit"), so that their rebellion involves insulting the spirit of grace. Finally we are told that "they have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age". This suggests a decisive experience of the benefits of the new covenant."
"We may wish to say that those who are truly regenerate will never fall away, but the genuineness of the new birth is proved by persistence in faith."
I found this made me think about Hebrews 11. I found it helpful in context with some of the notes from my study bible on 1 John 2:18.
More specifically the comments about how the antichrists (I like to think little or small antichrists vs big antichrist. Just my way of keeping them separate in my head) are so decisively different.
Specifically it says:
"But prior to him (big antichrist) there will be many antichrists (little antichrist). These are characterized by the following:
They deny the incarnation (1 John 4:2, 2 John 7) and that Jesus is the divine Christ (1 John 2:22)
They deny the father (1 John 2:22)
They do not have the father (1 John 2:23)
They are liars (1 John 2:22) and deceivers (2 John 7)
They are many (1 John 2:18)
In John's day they left the church because they had nothing in common with believers (1 John 2:19)"
As I thought about that I realised that I'm not a lot like that at all. And from what I've read and know I kinda feel like there's 3 groups of people.
People who get and believe the gospel completely
People who get the gospel but have a choice to make, to follow or not
And people who don't get the gospel and no matter what, they never would accept it.
And it made me realise there's a lot of fear underpinning my questions. And I wouldn't have realised that without digging into this. I've had Hebrews 6:4-6 used against me, to say that I couldn't be saved no matter what. And that fear still lingers.
But I know that I believe Jesus was a real person, I'm not strong on my Old Testament so I'm less confident on saying he's the divine Christ, but I know enough to say yes.
If Jesus is who he says he is, well logically what he says about the father must be true. And I think I know in my heart the father is who he says he is but I admit I'm not strong on this point. And I'm not sure what part of the Bible I'd point to with confidence on this.
As for having the father, my brain immediately went "whoever accepts me has the father". Something of a paraphrase of what Jesus said. It took going to google to find a reference because sometimes it's like that. But it came back with Matthew 10:40. Not sure that is the exact section I was thinking of but close enough.
For me that point is not a question. It reminds me of John 14:23.
For liars and deceivers, I am reminded of John 8:44. It's easy to think any person who ever lies is caught by that passage but the context is Jesus's identity and so by extension that of the father's and the holy spirit's and what they do and what they seek to achieve.
And that final point, they left the church because they had nothing in common with believers. I see a gulf between me and others, I see myself as having nothing in common but truly, that isn't accurate. Even if there is a gap, there are stepping stones of commonality. Jesus lived and Jesus died to name but two.
I don't know where I will land and whether I will find a way forward or not but I found comfort in poking this, encouragement that even someone falling behind has not yet failed, that there is a difference between me and a non-believer and that how I see myself and how God sees me or even how any of the apostles would see me is different to me.
I don't know what to do about everything but I know that I can't keep going on like this. I am at breaking point. Every day I wake wanting to die, the thoughts give me no reprieve and the challenges I face for myself and my father (earthly dad for clarification) are beyond impossible and I don't know if I will surmount them. Most days it's a win If I don't something stupid between waking and sleeping.
But maybe I can find a way through on the faith side of things. Maybe for the moment that's the thing I can deal with? My psychologist has suggested another hospital stay.....I don't know whether that's a good move or not given how the last one turned out and how community mental health have basically not even bothered to do anything.
So yeah that's me with all my questions, doubts, confusions and fear.