If I disobeyed what I thought God had called me to do, I would be separated from Him forever. I felt that if I maintained my commitment to disobey God there would no longer be His grace to cover my willful disobedience.
Two years ago I concluded that God had told me to preach on the street, and if I didn't my life would be over, my purpose and calling unfulfilled. Despite having heard many times that salvation isn't achieved by works, I still had a heart belief in works-based salvation, a performance mentality.
I did not have a deep revelation of God's unconditional and unmerited favour and salvation, bestowed as a gift upon those who simply trust in Jesus. The truth is, when God sees me, He doesn't see my short-comings, rather He sees Jesus' perfect and clean slate imputed to me, covering my sins.
My problem with street preaching is that I was terrified of it, because I was deeply afraid of social rejection, a result of being badly bullied by many people throughout my school years. That pain I suffered from the rejection and abuse by my peers deeply instilled a fear in me about any prospect of reliving that pain - the pain of being publicly insulted, mocked and laughed at.
I was caught in the conflict between the fear to disobey God, supposedly disqualifying myself from salvation, and the deep fear of rejection from people I would encounter while street preaching. As a consequence of this dilemma, I developed extreme anxiety, so intense at times that I wonder how I didn't collapse into some form of psychosis.
This may seem like a silly mistake to fall into, one may even snicker over the dramatic language used here, but when confronted with the sincerely believed prospect of damnation and having to face one's fears, strong emotions are roused.
I suffered intensely for over a year, and eventually mustered enough determination, while quaking and trembling, to walk onto the bustling central city street and start preaching. I declared how much God loves them all, imploring people to trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins.
Emotional breakdown
After this intense and, I hope fruitful, experience I had an emotional breakdown.
As I arrived home flustered and exasperated after this momentous day, I lay on my bed. I then realised that somehow I had to preach again in the future. This prospect utterly overwhelmed me, how could I endure these emotional extremes any further. I began to feel my heart cave in, and I experienced what I can only call emotional trauma.
Looking back it was so dreadful, I can only compare it, analogously, to the pain of someone in physical trauma at the emergency room, only in an emotional form. My ability to cope, to hold on, finally broke. It was the total loss of control. My soul gave up and let go as it lost its grip on life.
At that moment I cried out to God, and I felt His presence quicken, secure and console me, while numbing the pain. I then realised that no matter what, when the threshold and tipping point was too high, God would be there in that moment of greatest desperation to catch me.
I could rely on Him. I could cry out to Him when things became too painful. But in the meantime I had to deal with my faulty and erroneous beliefs, which were the causes of my prolonged emotional distress.
What followed afterwards was a person who was deeply damaged, who had a very low threshold for stress. Any unsettling thought could trigger gripping and severe anxiety, it was like my brain had been rewired to that of a fearful and injured animal, mortally wounded, and clinging to life.
I was vulnerable, fragile, timid and disturbed, but I now knew deep inside that I could rely on God in the worst moments.
I should have been medicated and had professional psychological help, but I wasn't, instead emotionally crippled and impotent I curled up in my room for weeks, venturing out occasionally as a frail senile person. I felt God's presence but He didn't remove the anxiety. To overcome this I had to deal with the erroneous beliefs which were making me afraid - thoughts and impressions triggering stress hormones, anxiety responses etc.
I had to start believing the truth and reprogramming my brain (You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free), this takes time. God doesn't always do quick fixes because sometimes we have to play a part in helping ourselves.
My story is like many young Christians who have somehow develop erroneous Christian theology and tomorrow I'll reveal more as to how my scenario worked itself through.
Amos Sale grew up in Auckland and recently moved to Wellington to assist his girlfriend with her youth ministry. Amos enjoys learning about history, politics, philosophy and biology and he likes sci-fi and action movies. Amos has a passion to defend the Christian worldview and value system against its enemies and detractors by any means he can, and to encourage others to seek out an experiential encounter with God.