SoliDeoGloria
Puritan Board Freshman
Excuse me if this thread is placed in the wrong forum, although I'd care to share with you all my experiences I've had over the past six or so months in life and what you all think.
My conversion was roughly 18 months ago. In reading a book to help me with one of my sexual addictions I came across Ezekiel 36:26,27 and the Lord showed me my depravity and I came to repent of my sin sincerely and since that day I've displayed common fruits of conversion- i.e. constant prayer, high religious affections which were genuine, much feeding in the Word, repentance, hatred of sin, and so forth. I don't want to dedicate this thread to a defense of my salvation, nor do I want to sound as though I have to do everything to validate it. For the sake of the thread I'd simply like to let it be known that my church body as a whole has confirmed my salvation via gifts and spiritual fruit and I am by no means unregenerate for I can affirm to you I am no one near or anything like I formerly was.
Moving on, back in October in 2009 I had a very difficult evening of my life that has since marked me. Before that night I was experiencing religious affections like none other. I was massively infatuated with Christ as Savior and I saw my depravity in light of the Gospel and I spent my days on my knees in prayer, repentance, and soaking my heart and life in the glory of the Gospel and God's goodness to me.
Since October though I've had a very immediate dark and difficult season of my spiritual well being. The Puritans (as all you educated people are all aware) diagnosed that people at times experience periods of "desertion" where it appears God's presence is so very faint and we feel very long. Sinclair B. Ferguson wrote on this in his book Deserted by God? and the Psalms wrote an experience about this in Psalm 42 as well.
Very suddenly after this very bad night in October I've been constantly wrestling with God and my salvation. I'm very confident I am a justified sinner saved my grace but I am also struggling with such things on a daily basis (which can be a good and bad thing). This is difficult because the Gospel is not as glorious or illuminating as it once was to me. I find it hard to find my joy in God despite how often I pray for it and seek the Lord in it. I find myself dry and empty and hard to get into the word despite how much I used to delve into it with pure excitement and joy that I may be sanctified by the Word.
Now, day after day, I find myself occasionally battling some forms of depression because of how serious of a desertion this feels like. When it comes to spiritual warfare, there were times I felt very discouraged because of accusations I heard subtly in my mind. Of course they always came in you, you, you! and I rightfully spent a lot of time listening to myself instead of talking and preaching to myself.
It would be a lie to say that I have not made progress. At the lowest point of my dark season I was so discouraged and depressed I wouldn't leave my bed because I felt so tired and discouraged about everything. I had feared God had abandoned me and that He didn't love me, or die for me, and I was going to hell. This of course is not my current or immediate state of being but I was just putting that in here for your informatino.
I must confess that I've never felt so heavily distraught in spiritual warfare before prior to this mess and I was wondering if any of you guys had any encouragement or information or any good books for to read on it.
Anyone you ask that knows me (like Mike Doyle on here) might affirm to you that I am a born again Christian and I am surely not who I was. So my salvation is not a question or doubt in my mind.
Another thing that is not a doubt in my mind is that God has me where I am for a very good reason. My level-headed Christian family believes I have a call for ministry, my pastors and elder board do, friends I know suggest so too. They all are comforting me that this Dark Night of the Soul is for a very good purpose and I will come out of it trusting in God more than ever, which I don't doubt. But this does not always comfort me when I am feeling most discouraged. Some friends I know are on their peaks, who read their entire Bible in one or two months out of pure infatuation with Yahweh, and others are reading constantly other spiritual books because they want to grow, while I am struggling with sin daily (as are they, but it seems so much more magnified in my mind) and struggle to remind myself of the glorious Gospel truth that is before me every day. My hope and prayer is that if God has called me for ministry that this will be used in a major way in my life a a defining moment to make me the person He needs me to be for whatever purpose He has for me.
But what I'm asking all of you (Puritan Board members) is that do any of you have any comments, encouragement, books, or suggestions to help me through this time of my life?
Edit: I'd also like to clarify that I'm not spending massive hours dwelling on my sin. I do my best to take my sin that I encounter and fight it with the Gospel and when I do sin I seek the Lord in repentance and ask for forgiveness (not in a legalistic sense). I understand the concept gutsy guilt that I must fight as a glorified sinner being sanctified by the grace of God.
My conversion was roughly 18 months ago. In reading a book to help me with one of my sexual addictions I came across Ezekiel 36:26,27 and the Lord showed me my depravity and I came to repent of my sin sincerely and since that day I've displayed common fruits of conversion- i.e. constant prayer, high religious affections which were genuine, much feeding in the Word, repentance, hatred of sin, and so forth. I don't want to dedicate this thread to a defense of my salvation, nor do I want to sound as though I have to do everything to validate it. For the sake of the thread I'd simply like to let it be known that my church body as a whole has confirmed my salvation via gifts and spiritual fruit and I am by no means unregenerate for I can affirm to you I am no one near or anything like I formerly was.
Moving on, back in October in 2009 I had a very difficult evening of my life that has since marked me. Before that night I was experiencing religious affections like none other. I was massively infatuated with Christ as Savior and I saw my depravity in light of the Gospel and I spent my days on my knees in prayer, repentance, and soaking my heart and life in the glory of the Gospel and God's goodness to me.
Since October though I've had a very immediate dark and difficult season of my spiritual well being. The Puritans (as all you educated people are all aware) diagnosed that people at times experience periods of "desertion" where it appears God's presence is so very faint and we feel very long. Sinclair B. Ferguson wrote on this in his book Deserted by God? and the Psalms wrote an experience about this in Psalm 42 as well.
Very suddenly after this very bad night in October I've been constantly wrestling with God and my salvation. I'm very confident I am a justified sinner saved my grace but I am also struggling with such things on a daily basis (which can be a good and bad thing). This is difficult because the Gospel is not as glorious or illuminating as it once was to me. I find it hard to find my joy in God despite how often I pray for it and seek the Lord in it. I find myself dry and empty and hard to get into the word despite how much I used to delve into it with pure excitement and joy that I may be sanctified by the Word.
Now, day after day, I find myself occasionally battling some forms of depression because of how serious of a desertion this feels like. When it comes to spiritual warfare, there were times I felt very discouraged because of accusations I heard subtly in my mind. Of course they always came in you, you, you! and I rightfully spent a lot of time listening to myself instead of talking and preaching to myself.
It would be a lie to say that I have not made progress. At the lowest point of my dark season I was so discouraged and depressed I wouldn't leave my bed because I felt so tired and discouraged about everything. I had feared God had abandoned me and that He didn't love me, or die for me, and I was going to hell. This of course is not my current or immediate state of being but I was just putting that in here for your informatino.
I must confess that I've never felt so heavily distraught in spiritual warfare before prior to this mess and I was wondering if any of you guys had any encouragement or information or any good books for to read on it.
Anyone you ask that knows me (like Mike Doyle on here) might affirm to you that I am a born again Christian and I am surely not who I was. So my salvation is not a question or doubt in my mind.
Another thing that is not a doubt in my mind is that God has me where I am for a very good reason. My level-headed Christian family believes I have a call for ministry, my pastors and elder board do, friends I know suggest so too. They all are comforting me that this Dark Night of the Soul is for a very good purpose and I will come out of it trusting in God more than ever, which I don't doubt. But this does not always comfort me when I am feeling most discouraged. Some friends I know are on their peaks, who read their entire Bible in one or two months out of pure infatuation with Yahweh, and others are reading constantly other spiritual books because they want to grow, while I am struggling with sin daily (as are they, but it seems so much more magnified in my mind) and struggle to remind myself of the glorious Gospel truth that is before me every day. My hope and prayer is that if God has called me for ministry that this will be used in a major way in my life a a defining moment to make me the person He needs me to be for whatever purpose He has for me.
But what I'm asking all of you (Puritan Board members) is that do any of you have any comments, encouragement, books, or suggestions to help me through this time of my life?
Edit: I'd also like to clarify that I'm not spending massive hours dwelling on my sin. I do my best to take my sin that I encounter and fight it with the Gospel and when I do sin I seek the Lord in repentance and ask for forgiveness (not in a legalistic sense). I understand the concept gutsy guilt that I must fight as a glorified sinner being sanctified by the grace of God.