As some of you may know already, I have frequent delusions and hallucinations that tell me that I am God and that people are praying to or worshiping me. These delusions and hallucinations are very troubling for two reasons. The first reason they are troubling me is because I am afraid that no one will be able to understand me. This is a real fear I have because I do not want to be looked upon as some sort of freak of nature. The second reason they are troubling me is because I am afraid that one day I will act on these delusions and hallucinations. Currently, I know and understand that they are lies, but what will happen one day when my mental state progressively gets worse? I think about this often as I go throughout my days on this earth because when you have a severe mental illness every moment is like a ticking time bomb. However, as I contemplate this issue more, I have come to a startling revelation. I am no freak of nature. Regardless of the fact of my hallucinations and delusions, everyone has the same ultimate desire, and that desire affected even our First Parents. In this blog, I shall discuss exactly what this phenomenon that plagues us all is. The purpose of this blog is to give people who deal with anything similar to what I deal with some hope in thinking they are normal people. As 1 Corinthians 10:13 says,
"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide a way of escape, that you will be able to endure it"
There are two primary takeaways we can get from this text. The first one is that any temptation we struggle with is common to all people. This means none of us are freaks. Temptation of any kind is perfectly normal for our human condition. The second one is that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability. He knows our frame and He knows what we can handle. In His Sovereignty, He is holding us together even when it does not feel that way. We can trust Him no matter what our feelings or experiences are telling us. The reason I need you to grasp this point is because I understand all too well how it feels to be the only person who experiences auditory hallucinations and delusions telling you that you are God in the flesh. It is tempting to think that no one else in the Christian church has ever dealt with this before and thus, we should keep these things to ourselves. However, that is precisely what we should not do. The devil knows full well that when we keep our temptations quiet, we are fair game to be preyed upon. Anyways, so let us go into what is The Sin That Affects Us All...
Ye Shall Be As Gods...
As you may have already guessed by now, any discussion of Original Sin must go all the way back to the beginning. Genesis 1 and 2 lays out how God created the heavens and the earth in six days. It also lays out for us how God created man and woman in His image from the dust of the earth. Things seem to be pretty good so far, right? Well, in the third chapter of Genesis, things take a turn for the worse. In verses 1-7, we read the following exchange,
"Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'? and the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die'. But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths"
As you can see from this passage the devil attacked our First Parent's in exactly the same way he attacked us. First, he asks a question to cast doubt upon God's word. When Eve rightfully corrected the devil's misrepresentation of His word, he then played off her legalism by causing her to believe God was holding out on them. Adam and Eve were commissioned to work and tend the Garden and this means they were to rely on God's interpretation of reality. Before the devil came to Eve, they had no other interpretation to rely on. Now, the devil was offering his own interpretation of the facts. It was now up to Eve to decide whose interpretation she would accept and listen to. Would it be her Creator's or the devil's? All of eternity was hanging on a thread. As we can clearly see, Eve chose poorly. She decided that she was not content with knowing reality based on what God says is real. She wanted to decide what was reality for herself. In other words, she wanted to be autonomous from God and be her own God. Tragically, Adam, who was her figurehead, made the same exact choice. Adam and Eve thus became the first atheists, in the sense of being "against God". As a result of our First Parent's decision to rebel against God and His authority, all of us who are born afterward, are faced with the same choice they were faced with: Will we rely on God's interpretation of reality or will we try to be gods ourselves by forging our own realities? Whatever decision we make on this earth concerning that important question will have eternal consequences.
The truth is, to some extent we all worship ourselves. We all want to be as little gods in this universe. We want to think that we are the masters of our own destiny. This is why paganism seems so attractive to our carnal hearts. Deep down, we all want to be gods. We got this desire from our First Parents and if we do not put it in check it will eat us alive and destroy us. We were never meant to be gods, but we were called to serve the One True God who manifests as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When we properly understand the Creator-Creature distinction between God and us, it will help us to properly understand our place in this creation. It is when we do not have a proper understanding of the Creator-Creature distinction between God and us that we tend to blur the lines between the two.
I hope that this blog better helps you understand two things: 1) It is normal to have delusions and hallucinations that tell you you are God. That was the lie that first affected Adam and Eve. So, you are not a freak of nature. We need more than anything to stay in His word, remain in the fellowship of a local body of believers, and psychiatric medication. 2) We must resist these voices at all costs by reminding ourselves of the Creator-Creature distinction between God and humans. When we truly understand this, then we will understand what our true purpose is in this life and the next. We are not called to be God nor can we ever be God. So, we might as well rejoice in that fact and be content in being creatures in God's hands. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and I will look forward to seeing what you all think about what I am saying here. May the grace of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ richly bless you all!
-David Lee Chu Sarchet
Christian Mental Health Advocate
Check out the Christ-Centered Mental Health Ministry Website
"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide a way of escape, that you will be able to endure it"
There are two primary takeaways we can get from this text. The first one is that any temptation we struggle with is common to all people. This means none of us are freaks. Temptation of any kind is perfectly normal for our human condition. The second one is that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability. He knows our frame and He knows what we can handle. In His Sovereignty, He is holding us together even when it does not feel that way. We can trust Him no matter what our feelings or experiences are telling us. The reason I need you to grasp this point is because I understand all too well how it feels to be the only person who experiences auditory hallucinations and delusions telling you that you are God in the flesh. It is tempting to think that no one else in the Christian church has ever dealt with this before and thus, we should keep these things to ourselves. However, that is precisely what we should not do. The devil knows full well that when we keep our temptations quiet, we are fair game to be preyed upon. Anyways, so let us go into what is The Sin That Affects Us All...
Ye Shall Be As Gods...
As you may have already guessed by now, any discussion of Original Sin must go all the way back to the beginning. Genesis 1 and 2 lays out how God created the heavens and the earth in six days. It also lays out for us how God created man and woman in His image from the dust of the earth. Things seem to be pretty good so far, right? Well, in the third chapter of Genesis, things take a turn for the worse. In verses 1-7, we read the following exchange,
"Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'? and the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die'. But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths"
As you can see from this passage the devil attacked our First Parent's in exactly the same way he attacked us. First, he asks a question to cast doubt upon God's word. When Eve rightfully corrected the devil's misrepresentation of His word, he then played off her legalism by causing her to believe God was holding out on them. Adam and Eve were commissioned to work and tend the Garden and this means they were to rely on God's interpretation of reality. Before the devil came to Eve, they had no other interpretation to rely on. Now, the devil was offering his own interpretation of the facts. It was now up to Eve to decide whose interpretation she would accept and listen to. Would it be her Creator's or the devil's? All of eternity was hanging on a thread. As we can clearly see, Eve chose poorly. She decided that she was not content with knowing reality based on what God says is real. She wanted to decide what was reality for herself. In other words, she wanted to be autonomous from God and be her own God. Tragically, Adam, who was her figurehead, made the same exact choice. Adam and Eve thus became the first atheists, in the sense of being "against God". As a result of our First Parent's decision to rebel against God and His authority, all of us who are born afterward, are faced with the same choice they were faced with: Will we rely on God's interpretation of reality or will we try to be gods ourselves by forging our own realities? Whatever decision we make on this earth concerning that important question will have eternal consequences.
The truth is, to some extent we all worship ourselves. We all want to be as little gods in this universe. We want to think that we are the masters of our own destiny. This is why paganism seems so attractive to our carnal hearts. Deep down, we all want to be gods. We got this desire from our First Parents and if we do not put it in check it will eat us alive and destroy us. We were never meant to be gods, but we were called to serve the One True God who manifests as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When we properly understand the Creator-Creature distinction between God and us, it will help us to properly understand our place in this creation. It is when we do not have a proper understanding of the Creator-Creature distinction between God and us that we tend to blur the lines between the two.
I hope that this blog better helps you understand two things: 1) It is normal to have delusions and hallucinations that tell you you are God. That was the lie that first affected Adam and Eve. So, you are not a freak of nature. We need more than anything to stay in His word, remain in the fellowship of a local body of believers, and psychiatric medication. 2) We must resist these voices at all costs by reminding ourselves of the Creator-Creature distinction between God and humans. When we truly understand this, then we will understand what our true purpose is in this life and the next. We are not called to be God nor can we ever be God. So, we might as well rejoice in that fact and be content in being creatures in God's hands. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and I will look forward to seeing what you all think about what I am saying here. May the grace of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ richly bless you all!
-David Lee Chu Sarchet
Christian Mental Health Advocate
Check out the Christ-Centered Mental Health Ministry Website
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