Is OCD a sin? I feel like this is the most important question to ask because it determines the steps we take in reacting to OCD.
Scripture is sufficient. I believe that with all of my heart, because it’s the truth. Around the time I started my OCD journaling, John MacArthur began preaching on the radio about the sufficiency of Scripture, and again it was reaffirmed in my mind.
So I don’t know why I was surprised when His truth was refreshing to my soul. As I spent hours reading verse after verse on each issue of OCD, I could literally feel the burden get lighter. I still had my work cut out for me, but for the first time I was convinced that by the power of the Holy Spirit, I could do this.
Category after category, compulsion after compulsion, I found verses to combat the root issue of each one. But one thing still nagged at me…OCD as a whole. The whole thing was wrong, but why exactly? I couldn’t put it into words, and therefore couldn’t completely shut it down. I couldn’t convince myself that these repetitive actions really didn’t matter. And if they did matter, then shouldn’t I keep doing them?
We were doing our family devotion and I was struck by this train of thought that, I believe, clarifies it all:
7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
8 They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.
9 O LORD, save the king! May he answer us when we call. (Psalms 20)
Cross referencing we find this passage:
“Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the LORD!
“The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD stretches out his hand, the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and they will all perish together.” (Isaiah 31:1&3)
And when Sennacherib invaded, King Hezekiah said :
7 ” ‘Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him, for there are more with us than with him.
8 With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God, to help us and to fight our battles.’ And the people took confidence from the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.” (2 Chronicles 32)
So, without any eloquent wording, I will map this out as clearly as I can, because it may just be the culmination of OCD.
We act on our OCD feelings because we are afraid. The fear is lessened, though not replaced with peace, when we do our compulsions because we trust OUR actions have either appeased God’s wrath or thwarted the enemy, whether that enemy is germs, dirt, or a bad circumstance. Our bad feelings return and we continue to compulse because deep down we know we’re not enough. We’re not sovereign, we’re not in control, we’re not redeemed in any way by works. We fail so often. We ignore fact and reason, and worse yet, every time we give in to our unbelief, we are undermining God’s authority, goodness, and mercy, and we allow sin to have a stronger foothold. That is why OCD is wrong.
Who do you trust? When Hezekiah’s army was afraid, he told them not to trust arms of flesh, but to trust the Lord their God.
When Israel wanted to trust in Egypt’s resources, Isaiah rebuked them! They should’ve been trusting not in horses or chariots, but in God.
We should trust not in ourselves, our actions, our abilities. We trust in God, who is sovereign over all. We collapse and fall, but not the Lord. He never grows weary or weak or makes mistakes.
And He’s certainly not letting your life’s circumstances hang in the balance of how many OCD symptoms you can appease before you break. He’s not waiting on you. He wants you to wait on Him.
But if you need one more example, here it is:
“There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.
And the LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?’ ” Job 1:1 & 8
Job was a righteous man, which God blessed him for, but then God sovereignly allowed one of the biggest trials on record to touch Job’s life. Job’s “friends” tried to tell him he had brought this on himself, but we know that isn’t true. God sustained Job through the trial, humbled him, bestowed His mercy, and blessed him once again.
Job is proof that God’s actions and His plan for our life are not necessarily influenced by our actions.
We are blessed with blessings we don’t deserve, and we sometimes have painful circumstances that are not consequences of our actions. Yet God promises to work them for good, and to reward a faithful believer with eternal blessings, and sometimes even blessings here on earth.
But all these decisions are left up to the sovereignty of God, and subject to who He is and what His Word says. Not whether we’re playing the exhausting game of OCD.
Our actions can affect our lives, and we should make choices that reflect a heart of love for our Savior. But we need to filter everything through His truth, which means stepping back and realizing that OCD is distrust in God and trust in ourselves.
We are called to a new calling, the high calling of the redeemed. Not for the purpose of salvation – we could never attain that; only Christ can save – but because we love Him, and have been set apart for His glory.
“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!-assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ephesians 4:17-24
Is having OCD a sin? No, that’s beyond your control. But it is part of living in a sinful world, and I can assure you, there will be no place for it in heaven.
How we handle our OCD and choose to respond to it, that is where it can become sin in our lives. But it doesn’t have to be.
It’s hard. You’re not going to win every battle. You’re going to want to give up. Believe me; I know.
But Christ can give you the power to overcome, and to keep going.
His Word is the truth we need to shed light on the lies OCD tells us. The more you are in His Word, the more those lies will be replaced with truth.
And friend, the truth really will set you free.
© Grace Baeten 2020
Photo Credit: Isabella Baeten
The Misplaced Mom 
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