QUESTIONS, DOUBTS and TORMENT

As life moved on so did my growth in Christ. I hungered for His Word and desired to walk in obedience to Him.  However, during my college years, Satan began to throw fiery darts of doubt my way.  It began when a close friend returned from holiday break announcing her salvation. This brought about a time of uncertainty in my life because I had no reason to doubt that this person was not previously saved.  The evidence of salvation had appeared in her life since I had known her.  I began to wonder:  If that one was not saved, then what about me—how could I even begin to think that I was saved?  I struggled with this until I met with my pastor.  He encouraged that I would not offend God if I extended to Him another invitation to come into my heart through my repentance of sin.  In doing this, my salvation would be confirmed or I would discover I was now a new child of God.  After that prayer, I felt assured that Jesus had already made a home in my heart.  I reached the place where I could move on trusting God in and for my salvation.

Over time, the enemy took opportune moments to fire more darts into my mind regarding my secured relationship with Jesus.  This went on for years.  The lies were nagging, constant, and relentless.  Even decades later, after experiencing great rejection from the one I loved the most—my husband— Satan again took ground and made a stand in this area of my life.

Questions like:
“What if you thought you were chosen, but really were not one of the chosen?”

Or, “When you stand before Sovereign God, what will you do when He says to you, ‘Depart from me, I never knew you?’”

Other darts the enemy used were, “What if you didn’t choose correctly?  And, “What if you are just religious and not righteous in Christ?”

Oh how these lies would utterly destroy me within.  I loved God with all my heart and desperately wanted to be in relationship with Him.  What if I spent my life believing I was His child only to learn that I was not of the elect?

Conversations over the very subject of election would almost do me in.  In fact, I forbid this topic from our home.  I desperately wanted to be saved, but found myself surrendering to the lie that this might not be or I might have messed up the process by not choosing right!  Regardless of my quest to know Jesus, I feared that the predestined fate of my eternity might be complete rejection from the one I really loved the most—God Himself!  After years of torment over my spiritual state, I came to a simple place of asking God to show and reveal truth to me.

...more to come