The Fight of My Life (Part 4)

As a young woman, age twenty-one, my childhood fear of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and consequential separation from God came back with a vengeance, worse than it had been as a child. I was dumbfounded because I thought I had gotten over that fear. I had experienced God in major miraculous ways through the grace of the Holy Spirit and the preciousness of the Bible. I was shocked when suddenly one day, that old terror just gripped me like some ugly, ancient fetter.

I had been praying for and in contact with several missionaries who were under intense spiritual attack from enemies who loved darkness. The missionaries had been facing severe opposition from spiritual evil for years, and they knew it. I knew it too, and so I began to pray into those situations. And right about that time, that old fear which I was certain God had already overcome - it came back in the ugliest way, a spiritual attack that could hurt me more than any other thing. Physical suffering is one thing, but taunt me with the threat of losing my identity as a child of God? That's the very worst thing imaginable.

That familiar voice I had heard as a child, the one ringing with the worst blasphemies against God, came back worse than I had remembered it. I was bewildered. I loved God so much, but when I tried to worship, the voice just got louder. I now recognize it as a spiritual attack - and not as my own thoughts. But I was caught off guard and was so terrified.

I have been abundantly blessed to be part of a family who loves Jesus. I have several missionary and pastor relatives with whom I had kept contact throughout my teen years. One day during that terrible time of spiritual attack, I wrote to my great-uncle who has been a pastor in the States for decades. I knew he was really into theological topics. I decided to humble myself and be completely honest with him about my embarrassing fear.

One day, I wrote this to him:

“I have found myself under intense attack. It came in the form of a very old fear that I was sure I had left far behind me. But I guess I was still carrying it after all these years. 

You see, when I was a girl, I read the verse about the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I was terrified. What if I did that someday? What if I had already done it? I had been certain that I had committed that unforgivable sin and that I was not saved. As a girl, the thought so plagued me that sometimes, I wouldn’t want to play or have kid fun. I would cry and long for God so intensely. I would pour over my Bible and read and read until I could find something that would break the chains of fear. I remember the book of Romans used to help a lot. 

But when I became a teenager, I experienced God’s presence in such an intense way that I couldn't deny that He was indeed still with me. And after experiencing some persecution and feeling God super close to me, I was at rest, knowing that I must have been wrong about thinking I had committed the unpardonable sin because, evidently, God’s Spirit was within me - and I knew it deeply.

So I am kind of in shock when, now in my twenties, that old and terrible fear has suddenly gripped me afresh, almost worse than it had when I was a child. 

So uncle, I had been praying for missionaries who were under spiritual attack. About that time, this horrible voice would play through my head all the most terrible blasphemies against God. I absolutely hated it, and of course, I didn’t believe any of those terrible curses. But the more afraid I became, the less I was able to push them out of my head. I could scarcely think. When I’d try to sing God’s praises, the voice would just get louder. And that’s when I reverted to eleven-year-old me’s response of terrified despair.

I asked a lot of people whom I trusted to pray for me. And soon enough, the voice was gone. But the fear was still deep-set. As soon as one accusation lost traction, another would replace it. 

Sometimes it would argue:

“You committed the unpardonable sin when you felt uncomfortable about some forms of charismatic expression. Since you doubted the source of spiritual expression that seemed uncontrolled, you are no different than the Pharisees that said Jesus cast out demons by the power of Satan. You did that!”

And then it was: 

“What if all this time, you thought God's Spirit was working in your life, when really, it was the enemy trying to trick you?” 

And after a few seconds of that thought, a deeper accusation would arise: 

“By even considering the possibility that God’s work was actually the work of the enemy, you have blasphemed the Holy Spirit. Attributing God’s work to Satan - that’s what Jesus was talking about when He said that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven. And you just did it!” 

And then I’d try to think of something else by pondering God’s character and the intricacies of the Trinity and another accusation would come: 

“You might be getting something wrong when you think about God. Thinking an untrue thought about God - that’s blasphemy against the Holy Spirit too!”

So uncle, as these thoughts messed with me, I could hardly eat. I could hardly think. The fight against despair was all-consuming. So now, I am praying more, and reading the Bible more, and writing more. I started fasting and have gotten really serious about dealing with this issue. I know the enemy is trying to stop me from writing to and praying for suffering believers who are under attack, so I do it even more. 

But every time I sing, pray, read the Bible, or even when I think about God, I weep. My tears are a mix of fear of not being saved, sorrow over the ways I have legitimately disrespected God throughout my life, and joy that somehow, I am still experiencing His presence - because believe me, I am! Tears come throughout the days so often that they are now very normal. 

But I literally feel God so intensely that it is like I can almost see Him - I can’t actually physically see Him, but it is almost like I truly can - like a constant vision playing through my mind of the face of Jesus. I’ll never be able to fully describe that holy sense! 

God’s Word is pretty much my only relief from terror, so I read verses every so often throughout the day, just to get a minute of respite. There’s nothing worse than longing desperately for God while being accused of being separated from Him forever. I know it just can’t actually be true that I am not a child of God. I know He is with me! But yet I still feel constantly sick with anxiety. I am kind of shocked that after overcoming my childhood fear, I am facing that all over again. I never knew just how many tears somebody can cry just when you think you must not have any more left…”

Looking back on that letter, I acknowledge that season was a pretty bleak place to be, and although I still have some moments of temptation to fear, I can truly say that the deep-set terror is gone, and I am so thankful to God for His precious faithfulness to me!

How did He get me out of that terrible fear? That, in a nutshell, is the goal of this book: to outline the beautiful arsenal of gospel truth that has freed me, and can free you too. And dear reader, thank you for bearing with me as I give you a picture of why in the world one might care to dig deeper into what has become a perplexing issue in most evangelical circles. But more than a perplexity, I could truly say that, for me, it has been the fight of my life.