From the occult to redemption The occult has never been more culturally normalized. Entertainment glorifies it, social media glamorizes it, and young people experiment with spiritual practices that promise power and enlightenment. But spiritual warfare is real. Demons are real. And the cost of dabbling in darkness is higher than anyone wants to admit. I've been asked to write about my occult past and demonic experiences and how I found God again. To understand this story, you need context: I survived childhood abuse under a mother who twisted Christianity into something unrecognizable. She died when I was 14. I'm autistic, was isolated from peers, homeschooled, and utterly unprepared for the world. When you're that broken and that lost, you're vulnerable. I got into really bad things, not because I was evil, but because I was hurt and confused. This is my testimony of what happened, and how God refused to let me go. Fair warning — parts of this are hard: abuse, self-harm, real spiritual darkness. When the Battle Began We lived on the family farm until I was about four. One day, walking from the kitchen to the living room, I let out a scream that my mother said was blood-curdling. She came running and found me at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. She didn’t see anything, but I sure did. A demonic female figure at the top of the stairs zeroed in on me, mumbling and wanting me to come to it. After that, we experienced many things in that house. Once, we left the living room and heard loud banging; when we went back, it was destroyed, walls and pictures included. Another time, I watched kitchen chairs slide out from the table on their own and move across the floor to the wall. I also remember trying to put things in front of my door at night to keep “them” out. The Escalation - Preteen Years For a while, nothing major happened that I remember. We’d moved several times by this point. I don’t recall which house this was, but things started coming back, at first just once in a while. A black, shadowed entity would stare at me from the corner, then from the foot of my bed, until it progressed to pinning me down one night. Most people would call this a nightmare, but I was wide awake. I hadn’t even gotten into bed yet. I’d barely walked into my room when I was thrown into the air, hit the ceiling, and then landed across the bed with this heavy black figure on top of me, snarling, “Come to me, come to me, come to me,” over and over inches from my face. That encounter left bruises, and I was so terrified I crawled into the closet, buried myself under whatever I could find, and stayed awake crying through the night. After that, strange things began happening in the house (objects moving, noises, cold spots), but it never attacked me like that again. Every so often, though, I’d still see it during the day, watching through the window at different hours, just standing there and looking at me. We moved a few more times and then, eventually, to our first real home, where I’d end up living the longest. As the moving truck was unloaded and people helped carry things inside, I remember looking at the house and knowing something was in it. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t have to. As we were unloading, a couple of us were inside doing different things when chaos erupted upstairs. My dad and a couple of the men headed up cautiously, and true to form, I snuck in behind them. Every box and piece of furniture we’d put up there had been tossed, contents dumped out and broken, and the attic door stood wide open. I got yelled at to get out of there, and trust me — I did. The men came down and told us kids and women, to wait outside. One of them turned out to be a pastor, and he, my father, and two others prayed before going back in to deal with whatever was in that house. After that, things stayed quiet for a long time. The place felt peaceful again, at least in terms of anything demonic. The Choice That Changed Everything - Teens I had my first and only so‑called “alien” encounter. (aka a demonic one for anyone wondering). It scared me so badly I peed myself. I was with two friends, and we tore back to my house in a panic. My dad didn’t see it, but he saw us, and he still remembers the way we came running and the fear on our faces. After that, things took a turn. I started having regular encounters again, seeing demonic entities, and dealing with objects moving and noises in the house. The nightmares were the worst; they left bruises and scratches in places you physically can’t reach on your own. Around that time, a boyfriend and his friend introduced me to occult practices, and that became the starting point of my occult years. Not being too bright at the time, I tried a Ouija board with friends and learned how to channel these things, talk to them, and get them to respond. Before long, I was holding late‑night séances in the woods next to our property. Some Memories Never Leave You I remember one night vividly. There were six of us in the woods doing our usual thing when something far bigger than anything I’d ever encountered showed up. Even now, it amazes me that no one was hurt worse. That night reminds me just how serious the situation was and how much danger I put myself and the others in. I am responsible for that, and it humbles me. The first thing it did was talk. I couldn’t understand the language, but it was talking. Real words, real sentences, real inflection, just not one I recognized. That went on for what felt like a couple of minutes, but was honestly probably less than a minute. By then, I was scared, like deep down in the pit of my colon scared. And then my dumb a$$ asked it for a sign. It chose my finger, of all things. My hand and arm wouldn’t move, but my third finger was yanked straight up and bent backward, and later I found a puncture-type wound in my hand. Then it went after my friends before I could scream. One friend was clawed across his back, another had her shirt sleeve nearly torn off and her arm, wrist, and hand scratched, and another was hit so hard they flopped to the ground. Then we heard what sounded like dogs coming at us. We helped up the one friend and ran like the dickens. When we got back out on the road, we thought it was over. Chased By Darkness Walking back to our cars, we started to hear heavy foot stomps behind us. A couple of us looked back and saw this huge black figure coming at us. We all ran and got into vehicles. This next part is insane; if it hadn’t happened to me, I would be skeptical. If you don’t think demons have power, you’re so freaking wrong. I ran to my car and jumped into the driver’s seat while a couple of friends piled in behind me. As I tried to start it, something slammed into the back of the car hard enough to move the back end into the ditch. I was frantic and crying; they were yelling at me to go, but the key wouldn’t turn. When it finally did, and I was about to hit the gas, I froze. We saw a thick, black, freezing-cold mass moving inside the car. No one moved; I don’t even think I was breathing. The next thing I knew was my foot was forced off the brake, I was physically shoved into my door and cracked my head on the window so hard I was bleeding, and the gas pedal was pushed to the floor. We went flying toward the other ditch. If I hadn’t turned the wheel when I did and hadn't had those few seconds of delay because the back end of the car was in the ditch, we would have hit a tree. I remember screaming, “God, help us!” Then it was gone, just like that, and I had control of my car back. I will never forget what that felt like. The anger, the hatred, that stench, and the physical strength it had. It practically sat itself on my lap and tried to take over my car. The Internal War After that, I cooled it a bit, but trust me, I still got into things later. This is also when I started to look at the Bible more on my own, not what my mother had “taught” me. Oh, I still get things screwed up, though. But even then, I still remembered my first encounter with God. I always knew He was real, that Scripture was true, and that He was with me. I just didn’t understand yet, and I was constantly fighting what the secular world taught me against what the Bible said, all while trying to make sense of it with an autistic, traumatized mind. Frankly, it sucked. 📖 Recommended Read: The Day God Shielded My Mind tells you about the moment God shielded my mind as a child and how He became the anchor that kept me grounded through this recollection. I dropped out of high school and graduated through a homeschool program, moved in with my boyfriend, and got a job waitressing. By then, I believed in God more firmly, but I was still deeply traumatized and searching for answers. One day, bored and wandering around town, I found a ceramic shop where you could buy a piece and paint it right there. I became friends with the people who worked there and eventually learned they practiced “white” witchcraft, as they called it. And Down Again I Went During those years, I didn’t experience the physical severity of what I had before, but I did experience A LOT of the “smaller” things again, like seeing demonic entities, things being moved around, and nightmares, a lot of nightmares. I also started having “premonitions” that became scarily accurate in very demonic ways. I participated in and conducted rituals, dated both men and women, practiced blood magic, spell casting, did seances, read tarot cards, used scrying, and consumed a lot of pot and alcohol. This is also when a hard internal struggle began in me. There was something in me that refused to let go of God or the Bible. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I kept trying to justify it, kept trying to blend God and the occult together. Looking back, I recognize that internal struggle as conviction. What I was diving into felt like taking a rusted cheese grater to my soul. Because of this and my openly questioning things, I was challenged on refusing to turn completely away from God by coven members and ultimately attacked and assaulted for it. Truth Broke Through After that, I sat back and saw everything for what it truly was. My eyes were opened to the fact that God did not exist to them, but He existed in me, and I couldn’t walk away from Him. I slowly started pulling myself away from that group. I had just started dating my daughter’s father around the same time, and when we moved, it helped put distance between me and all of that. I still dabbled, still did things, but inside I was miserable. Part of me wanted to hand everything back over to God, but the New Age ideas kept telling me that I could create my own reality. The battle inside me was horrifying and exhausting. When I became pregnant, everything in me shifted. I knew she’d be a girl, and even though I was young and unmarried, I was absolutely set on being her mother. I knew she would shape the rest of my life, and that certainty came from God. She was my everything, and feeling my love for her helped me understand God’s love for me. Despite everything I had done. Choosing God Over Darkness I still struggled, though. It took me a long time to realize I couldn’t stay friends with even the ones I considered “better” if I wanted God in my life, and one day I finally made that choice. I walked away from all of it. My daughter’s father was furious that I left the group completely, even though we weren’t together. At the same time, I was dating another girl, and I ended the relationship because I knew I was identifying with my trauma, not my biology. I walked away from everything I had known for years, everything I thought was safe, and the people I had considered family. My ability to be a mother was attacked more than once because of walking away. I’d had postpartum depression and had admitted myself to the hospital twice because I was in such bad shape mentally, and that was used against me. But I chose God, medication, and therapy, not rituals and crystals; they did not like that. I was investigated and found to be a good, stable mother, especially once I explained that I had just walked away from a toxic friend group and that my daughter’s father was angry at me for choosing help and peace instead of staying in that environment. From Darkness to Authority Those years were the darkest years of my life. I carried so much grief, anger, and hatred over what had happened to me as a child, deepened by spiritual darkness and demonic influence. It was also the period when I had two unsuccessful suicide attempts. The pull toward darkness was relentless, twisting and manipulating everything in me. I started going back to church again and had my daughter dedicated. I was still far from who I am now and still had moments where I messed with things I shouldn't have, but over time I broke away from all of it. And in the years that followed, I raised a beautiful Christian young woman. Many people will read this and assume I made it up or exaggerated it. I didn't. And if someone is skeptical, that's fine. It means you're at least thinking about what I've shared. These things really do happen to people, or we wouldn't have an entire entertainment industry built around them. As much as God has kept an eye on me, so does satan. The fallout from my occult past still shows up in my life, and it's clear that the enemy loves to stir the pot around me. He's mighty pissed, not just because I walked away, but because of who I've become and what I write about. If you've read my work long enough, you know where I stand and that I don't give two hoots what any person tells me to be, believe, or do. I stand on Scripture and with God. I wouldn't give up my past even if I had the chance. God used my occult past to train me, to equip me, to give me the authority to speak on these matters frankly and bluntly, without sugarcoating it or feeling shame. Because I lived through these experiences and more. And in a culture that's romanticizing spiritual darkness, someone needs to tell the truth about what it actually costs. If you're in darkness right now, know this: God hasn't given up on you. He didn't give up on me, and I was far gone. The occult promises power, but only God offers freedom. I've lived both sides of that battlefield, and freedom wins every time. And if you're a parent who thinks this could never happen to your child, that church attendance alone would protect them, you're wrong. I was going to church when I got into this stuff. My father had no idea what I was doing under his roof. Your kids are curious enough and young enough to play around with darkness without understanding the cost. Talk to them. Not to scare them, but to prepare them. Because someone needs to tell them the truth: the occult doesn't deliver what it promises, but God does. © 2026 Jane Isley If this testimony raised questions about spiritual darkness, demonic forces, or how to recognize spiritual battle, these articles explore what Scripture says and what these battles actually look like: 📖 New Testament Demons Are the Old Testament Elohim — Understanding what the Bible actually reveals about demonic entities and their nature. 📖 The Spiritual Battle I Never Saw Coming — Recognizing spiritual warfare when it's happening around you. Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or Cmd + P (Mac) to print this article or save it as a PDF.

Ask yourself who you are, and watch how fast the answer is for something you did, something you own, or something someone once called you. I am what I've accomplished. I am what people think of me. I am my worst mistake. I am the role I play, the body I have, the past I can't undo. We treat identity as something we build, brick by brick, out of performance and approval. And then we spend our lives afraid, because anything you build can fall. Scripture tells a different story about where our identity comes from. It says you don't construct your truest self at all. You receive it. Paul opens his letter to the Ephesians not with a to-do list but with a pronouncement. Before you had done anything, good or bad, God had already chosen you, adopted you, redeemed you, and sealed you as His own (Ephesians 1:4–14). A few lines later he adds that you are saved by grace, not by works, so that no one can boast, and that you are God's handiwork, His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:8–10). Notice the order in both passages: identity comes first, and the doing flows out of it. You don't work in order to become God's. You already are His, and the work follows. That single reordering changes everything. If your worth is something you earn, you are always one failure away from losing it. If your worth is something you were given, then failure, rejection, comparison, and even your own past lose their power to name you. The labels don't get the final word, because they were never the ones holding the pen. This is one of the most searched-for aches of the human heart, "am I enough," "who am I really," "why do I feel like I'm not enough," and it's one Scripture answers with unusual directness. Below are five articles from our writers that walk into that question from different perspective. Wherever you're standing right now, one of them is likely speaking to exactly where you are. Read them as a path, not a pile. Start where the ache lives. If the question hits you as a feeling before it hits you as a theology, begin with Favour's Why "Am I Enough?" Keeps Haunting You. It names the exhausting treadmill of comparison, the sense that ten compliments can't outweigh the one person who didn't clap, and turns to Psalm 139 to answer it: you were fearfully and wonderfully made, and your worth was settled long before anyone had an opinion of you. It's the gentlest entry point into everything the other pieces build on. Then face the names you never chose. Nathan Cole's When the World Defines You, Remember Who You Are in Christ is the anchor of this whole idea. He shows how we don't just build identity, we absorb it, from culture, from old failures, from the loudest voices around us. Against every false name the world assigns, he sets the names God gives in Ephesians 1: chosen, adopted, redeemed, sealed. Growth, he argues, isn't becoming someone else; it's remembering who you already are. Name the specific idol most of us serve: achievement. For many of us the false self has one particular shape, the belief that we are what we produce. Nathan Cole's More Than What I Achieve walks straight into that through Ephesians 2:8–10. Grace comes first, works second; you labor because you already matter, not to prove that you do. It's the piece for anyone whose stomach drops at someone else's success, and it frees the daily grind from being an endless audition for acceptance. Go deeper into the Scripture underneath it all. If you want the theology worked through slowly rather than summarized, Randy DeVaul's Blessed Beyond Measure takes Ephesians 1 phrase by phrase, chosen, adopted, redeemed, sealed, and shows that each blessing is already yours, not rationed, not withheld, not waiting on your performance. This is the piece when you want your feet planted on the actual text. Then answer the fear underneath the whole thing. There's an objection that shadows all of this: if my identity comes from God, do I disappear into Him? Do I lose the real me? Sabina Kumi's I Thought Following God Meant Losing Myself sits honestly with that fear and answers it. Following God was never meant to erase you; it was meant to involve you, the real, unedited self, brought before Him rather than hidden from Him. It's the reassurance that receiving your identity from God doesn't cost you your personhood; it's where your personhood finally comes home. Where this leaves you. Put the five together and the same truth keeps surfacing from every angle: you are not what you achieve, not what they called you, not your worst day, and not a self you have to manufacture under pressure. You are beautifully chosen, adopted, redeemed, and sealed, named by the only voice that was ever qualified to name you. The work of the Christian life isn't earning that. It's remembering it, on the good days and the days you fail, until it's the first thing you reach for when someone asks who you are. © 2026 Jane Isley Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or Cmd + P (Mac) to print this article or save it as a PDF.

Where a weary parent's hope is anchored. I rarely give parenting advice. When I do share nuggets of wisdom, it’s typically to share my failings as a mom, helping others to learn from my mistakes. I look back at my years of parenting and see glaring faults which I would gladly go back and change if only someone would loan me their flux capacitor. Here’s the question that is always present in my brain: Is there something I could have done or said that would have kept my children from sinning? As he handed the throne to his son, King David shared these words with Solomon: “As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever. (1 Chronicles 28:9) The 3 things David shares? Know God Serve God with a loyal heart Serve God with a willing mind 1. To Know God When Hubby and I met, it was difficult to find a moment when he wasn’t in my thoughts. We desired to spend as much time together as possible, even meeting up for 20 minutes during our lunch hours (we were kinda like magnets)! As much as I love Hubby, he’s not God. Do I seek time with God daily? Is He constantly in my thoughts? Do I make an effort to meet with Him for lunch? Talking to God throughout the day in the form of prayer, and listening to His response as I read the Word, helps me to know the God who created the Heavens and Earth. “We are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business for those who do not know about God. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.” (Knowing God, J.I. Packer) 2. To Serve God with a Loyal Heart When I was first saved, I used to ‘serve’ God, thinking He needed me. But He didn’t create me to meet any needs that He has. God doesn’t need anything. He can accomplish everything without my help - He’s God! Even the effort that I expend in serving comes from Him; I cannot serve God without God giving me the ability to serve! Yet we are still commanded to serve the Lord with gladness and with a loyal heart - a heart forever committed to Him. Doing so brings Him glory and helps me to live as Christ, who came to serve by giving His life as a ransom for many. 3. To Serve God with a Willing Mind “Choose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.“ (Joshua 24:15) Following the Lord is a choice. I am confronted with decisions daily. “What would bring the Lord glory?” is a good question to ask. The more time spent getting to know God, the easier time we will have answering this question. As David shared with Solomon, the consequences of not knowing and serving God are harsh. “If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.” (1 Chronicles 28:9b) Did Solomon listen? I wish I could say, “Yes.” “Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, ‘Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant.’” (1 Kings 11:11) Solomon’s father, King David, was a man after God’s own heart. He gave great parenting advice, but Solomon didn’t listen. We, too, can keep pointing our children to Jesus, but they also won’t always listen and obey. When this happens, what hope do I cling to? God’s word does not return void. (Isaiah 55:11) He will never leave nor forsake my children. (Deuteronomy 31:6) He who began a good work in my kiddos will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6) My children are more valuable to the Lord than sparrows. (Matthew 6:26) And I will pray without ceasing, knowing He’s in control. © Tessa Lind First published in Pursuing Perfection on Substack by Tessa Lind, tessalind.substack.com More by Tessa Lind: The Healing Power of Grace in Mother-Daughter Relationships After years of distance and hurt, one honest apology opens the door to healing. A tender look at honoring our parents and our children the way Jesus honors us: with undeserved grace. Marrying an Unbeliever: A Mother's Reflection Twenty-eight years of praying for her daughter's husband, and now the wedding won't be what she dreamed. A raw, aching meditation on disappointment, letting go, and refusing to stop praying. Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or Cmd + P (Mac) to print this article or save it as a PDF.

Satan Doesn't Fear a Comfortable Christian Christians, stop allowing yourself to be fooled. Our world is a very dark place. Demonic forces lurk behind every door, every window, and every corner. There is not a moment of respite for anyone. There is only that constant echo of silky words whispered in our ears, pulling us toward destruction, coaxing us away from truth. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." ~ Ephesians 6:12 Assault. Hate. Drugs. Racism. Murder. Rape. Theft. Human Trafficking. Witchcraft. Violence. Sexual immorality. Pride. Gluttony. The list does not end. This is the world we live in. Do not assume as a Christian that you are immune to any of these. The Comfortable Pew Christian complacency is comfortable until you acknowledge the stench of sin that contaminates everything around us, we can stop kidding ourselves and become the lamp unto the world we were meant to be. But that requires something most of us would rather avoid - honesty. Not the kind you perform on Sunday morning, the kind that costs you something. Cowering looks different than you think. Sometimes it's nodding along when something conflicts with Scripture because standing firm isn't the popular choice. Sometimes it's staying quiet because the room might turn on you. Sometimes it's just never leaving the building. A person cannot stand on any truth they have never taken the time to study under God's wing, and study requires more than showing up. Get Up Nonbelievers do not understand that there is more to this life than those constant whispers from satan. They are covered by sin that is not yet forgiven, lacking a peace they have never felt and a love they have never known. That is not something to judge, it is something to invite them to. So get up. Not every seed looks the same, and the ones that reach people are just as varied as the people themselves. Every question someone asks is a seed. Every curiosity is a doorway. Meet people where they are and plant accordingly. Plant a seed or plant a church, it doesn't matter. Just start planting. The world needs it more than it needs your silence. © 2026 Jane Isley. Want more content like this? Explore more articles in Culture & Faith. Keep Reading: Comfort isn't only something we chase as individuals, sometimes it creeps into the pulpit too. See how prosperity gospel teaching softens God's Word to keep people comfortable instead of whole. Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or Cmd + P (Mac) to print this article or save it as a PDF.

This came up in a discussion, and my answer confused most people because my answer is a dual one. When I was asked to pick one I went with request, but the whole time I was thinking why does it have to be just one? Why can't it be both? I may be wrong, I am still working through this, but here are my thoughts. Free Will Is the Starting Point We are not puppets. God gave us free will to choose what we want, and that matters so much to this question. He makes it very clear what He wants from us, but He does not override our ability to choose. That choice, to come to Him willingly, openly, and freely, must mean something extraordinary to God. A love that is chosen is not the same as a love that is forced. So does that mean I do not believe in the Ten Commandments (because they are commands) or that they are simply a request? Absolutely not. I believe in them completely and I believe we are absolutely called to follow them. But here is the thing, we still have to make that choice. Some people do not, and that is a painful reality. When we choose to truly follow Christ, not halfway, not conveniently, but fully and completely, we begin a process of learning and living out His commandments. I describe it as a pull. Something draws us toward being more like Him, and as that pull grows stronger the commandments stop feeling like a list of rules our flesh keeps trying to fight and start feeling like the natural expression of who we are becoming. The Word That Changes Everything Here is where my dual understanding comes from. Acts 17:30 says: "In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent." That is not a gentle suggestion, that is a command. The Greek word used there is paraggelló, it carries the weight of an order, a directive issued with authority. God is not asking politely. And yet. Look at how Jesus describes His own heart in Matthew 23:37: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing." That is not the language of a king issuing a decree. That is the language of someone longing, pleading, aching for people to come to Him. The command is real. The love behind it is also real. And both of those things exist at the same time. A Request & a Command Are Different But They Coexist A request and a demand are two different things, but they are not mutually exclusive. I think that is exactly what is happening here. God commands repentance and belief, that is His authority speaking. He is the Creator and we are accountable to Him. That is not up for debate. But the way He pursues us, the way He pleads with us, the way He sent His own Son rather than simply wiping the slate clean and starting over, that reads like so much more than a cold command handed down from above. He is commanding, He is also asking, He is also pleading. 2 Peter 3:9 puts it plainly: "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." Not wanting anyone to perish. That is the heart behind the command. He is not issuing orders from a distance, He is a God who desperately wants us to choose Him and has made every possible way for us to do so. My Conclusion (For Now) Commandments are given to us, not forced upon us. The fact that we can still choose to ignore them is proof that the choosing matters. That is why I land first and foremost on request, because the entire framework of our relationship with God is built on the fact that He wants us to come to Him freely. But the command is real too. Both are true at the same time and I think that is exactly the point. And the fact that He does all three at once says more about who He is than any one of them could say alone. © 2026 Jane Isley. (revision) Want more content like this? Explore more articles in Exploring Scripture. Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or Cmd + P (Mac) to print this article or save it as a PDF.

Most Bible study advice was written for a brain that isn't ours. It assumes we'll naturally catch the subtext, will sit still through long passages, move easily from one idea to the next, and land on easy answers. If your brain doesn't work that way, that advice can leave you feeling like you're doing everything wrong. I promise you're not. God built the mind you're reading this with, and He will meet you in it. What follows is what I've learned over time; a way of studying that works with my autistic brain instead of fighting it, and that I want to share with you. One more thing before we start: there are two resources I use constantly that have made a huge difference in how I study. I'll share both, and why they help me so much, at the end. Start by expecting subtext Here's the first hurdle: the Bible runs on subtext. It constantly means more than it says. Many autistic people process language literally—we take words, instructions, and questions at their exact, concrete meaning, and the implied layer that most people catch automatically can be harder for us to see. That's not a flaw to pray away. It's how our mind processes, and it isn't going anywhere. The fix isn't to change your brain; it's to change your expectation. When you open a passage, assume there's a layer underneath the plain words, and treat finding it as the task. Ask what the writer meant, not only what the sentence says. This is also why studying the original languages and historical context can be so rewarding for literal thinkers—it gives you concrete ground to stand on while you dig for the meaning. If a passage feels obvious to someone else and not to you, that's not a failure on your part, it's part of your process and looking into it your way can be very rewarding because of everything else you will learn along the way. Use hyperfocus on purpose Hyperfocus tends to get labeled a problem. But used well, it's one of the strongest study tools you have. When a topic grabs you, you can go deeper than almost anyone and stay there for a long time. The one thing to watch: hyperfocus can lock you in a single rabbit hole while it accidentally buries everything interesting you noticed along the way. So build a way to capture those side quest possibilities without abandoning the one you're on. The goal isn't to shut the intensity off. It's to aim it and keep a record of where it wants to go next. Build an Autistic Bible Study System Cognitive flexibility (moving cleanly from one idea to the next) is something a lot of us struggle with. Rather than force your brain to do that on the fly, build the flexibility into your setup so the system carries it for you. A few things that help: Give each topic a physical home. More than one Bible, each with its own job. Folders, notebooks, or tabs assigned to specific topics. When something new catches your attention mid-study, you can shift to it without losing your place or your momentum. Give each topic a mental home too. Knowing a topic has a fixed spot, on the shelf and in your head, means you can set it down and come back without losing it. Stock the supplies you actually run through. Sticky notes, paperclips, fidget toys, notebooks, whatever keeps you functioning. These aren't clutter. They're the infrastructure that lets you study without burning out. If it makes no sense to anyone else why one Bible is for this and another is for that, or why you are studying a certain way, that's fine. It only ever has to make sense to you. Let the Bible be one whole thing We tend to lean toward cognitive rigidity, and one way to ease it is to stop treating Scripture as a stack of separate, rigid topics and start seeing it as a single connected whole, that is complex and all for exploring freely. When you get tired of one topic, jump to another. Jump around as often as you need to. There is nothing wrong with studying that way. I do this everyday. This is also where it gets fun. Over time, with enough reading behind you, the dots start connecting on their own. A book you shelved years ago, a passage you're reading today, something you researched long ago—they go ding, ding, ding and suddenly link up. You don't have to be able to quote chapter and verse for this to work. Recalling whole stories, their meaning, and the ideas around them is enough to start seeing the patterns. One discipline worth starting: show your steps to yourself, even if it's just a quick little note. When you connect ideas fast, you can reach a conclusion and forget how you got there. What's obvious inside your head can read as a leap to everyone else. Write the in-between steps down for further study to make sure you are on the right path. "I'm not sure yet" is a great answer You may have a question for years without a clean resolution. That's not failure and should never be a frustration. "I'm not sure yet" is itself a concrete answer, and treating it as one is freeing, also God is not up there taking score points of what you have or have not figured out yet. It takes the pressure off. You get to be a student of God without rushing to a conclusion or grabbing the easiest one just to be done. That matters especially if you tend to absorb the beliefs of people around you—it's easy to build an identity on a doctrine before you actually understand it. Letting a question stay open protects you from that. Set yourself up to last Studying Scripture can overstimulate and overwhelm you fast if you don't build in safety nets. So set up for endurance, not intensity: your system, your supplies, permission to jump topics, permission to leave questions open. This is a study mission between you and God, and it will take you to strange, specific places a typical reader would never think to go. Those odd corners are exactly where you'll meet Him, because that's where you are. He meets me in many weird corners of Scripture all the time. If you've been told you're doing this wrong, or that your brain is too much or not enough for God, ignore that chatter, because that is all that is. You and God, that's what this is about, not you and everyone else around you. There's already a lot of pressure put on people studying the Bible—pressure over how to think, or to catch up fast, or to just understand. That is not and never will be how this works. Give yourself permission to unmask and just be yourself with God. The two resources I use all the time I promised these at the start. These are the two I reach for constantly, and between them they solve the biggest problems my brain runs into when I study. Bible Gateway — This one has a huge number of translations all in one place. When the wording in one version isn't making sense for me, I pull up the same passage in several others and compare how they each put it. For a literal thinker, that's gold. Sometimes a verse that felt confusing or flat in one translation suddenly clicks when I see how a different one phrases it. It's like getting several angles on the same thing until the meaning comes into focus. BibleHub — When I want to get underneath the English, this is where I go. It lets me dig into the original Greek, Aramic, and Hebrew words, so instead of guessing at what a word means, I can actually see what's there in the original language. That gives me the concrete ground I need. Half the time, chasing a single word here is what kicks off a whole new rabbit hole, and that's exactly the kind of study I love. If you take nothing else from this, take these two sources. They've done more for how I study than almost anything else. © Jane Isley If this way of studying resonates with you, come dig deeper. My Neurospicy topic page is full of rabbit holes and articles that break things down for neurodivergent minds like ours—wander around and find your next one and I always have more coming. And if you'd like more like this, subscribe to the newsletter. It's spam free and goes out just once every two months, so it's a slow, low-pressure way to keep what you love coming to you.

Your faith was never the church's to control. If a church ever made you feel small, shamed your questions, dictated exactly how to pray, or left you feeling that God lived inside that building and nowhere else, you already know the painful ache the phrase "church hurt" points to. Plenty of people carry it, even if they rarely say so out loud. I carry it myself. Here's the truth those four walls sometimes work so hard to obscure. The church is not gatekeeper of your faith. It was never meant to be your validator, your monitor, or the only address where God can be found. When a church shames your honest questions, dictates the posture of your prayers, or makes attendance the measure of your standing with God, that failure belongs to the institution, not to you and not to God. That's the common thread running through the four articles below. Each one takes on a different way the institutional church oversteps, and each one hands the same truth back to you. Your relationship with Christ does not depend on an institution's approval. Read whichever one meets where you are. When the church shamed your questions. If you ever asked something honest and got a look, a deflection, or a "just have faith" that left you feeling stupid, When Church Makes You Feel Stupid. That Is Church Hurt is for you. It makes a real case, that your questions were never the problem. A church that shames curiosity is usually protecting weak doctrine, not a strong conviction, and Scripture is full of people, (Abraham, Moses, David, Job, Thomas), who questioned God and were met with answers, not rebuke. Your mind is a gift, and a church threatened by it is revealing its own insecurity, not your inadequacy. When the church tried to dictate how you pray. Some churches go so far as to prescribe the "right" posture for prayer, an older article of mine addresses this. Does a Church Have the Right to Control How You Pray? Scripture shows people praying seated, standing, kneeling, pacing, hands lifted, face down, eyes open, and God never ranks one above another. When Jesus taught prayer, He gave words, never a physical position. What God looks at is the heart, not the body, and no leader has the authority to script an intimate moment between you and Him. When the walls started blocking the light. For the reader who's sensed the institution itself stunting their growth, Gary Ellis's Learning to Grow Faith Outside Church Walls is a gentle, honest reckoning. He compares the church to a greenhouse that can nurture faith but can also block the sun, and traces his own discovery that faith is rooted in Christ, not attendance. Jesus said "abide in me," not "abide in the church," and Ellis found that when he loosened his grip on the institution, his faith didn't shrink; it expanded. (Ellis passed in 2026, and this piece remains part of the archive in his memory.) When it's time to rethink the building itself. And for the reader watching the institutional church compromise and wondering what comes next, my article More God, Fewer Walls, and a Comfy Couch? names it bluntly: you don't need a building called a church to have church. As congregations bend to the world rather than to God, the answer isn't to abandon faith but to rediscover it, in living rooms, around kitchen tables, with Bibles open among friends and family. The walls were never the point. The relationship with Christ is. Where this leaves you. Put these together and the truth is clear. Being hurt, shamed, or controlled by a church does not mean you've failed God, and it does not mean your faith was ever the problem. A church that trades discipleship for control has lost its way, but your faith isn't bound to its walls or its approval. Naming the hurt isn't abandoning Jesus either; often it's the first honest step back toward Him. The institution can guide, and at its best it's a gift, but it was never, ever meant to be the gatekeeper. That was always Christ, and He has never been afraid of open skies. © Jane Isley

“Why would God give us four Gospels that don’t even agree?” It’s the kind of question that unsettles new Christians and delights skeptical TikTokers. The Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, tell the same broad story but often differ on the details. One has shepherds, one has wise men. One says two angels at the tomb, another says one. Jesus flips a table at the start in John, but near the end in the others. For some, these variations are proof of error. For others, they’re an embarrassment to be explained away. But what if they’re the very feature we should be paying attention to? The Beauty Of Difference We’ve been trained to want a single, authoritative camera angle. We want one feed. One voice. One perfect version of events. But God gives us four. Four voices. Four angles. Four portraits of Jesus, all telling the truth, but none pretending to tell the whole truth. They overlap, diverge, harmonize, and occasionally jar, not because they’re flawed, but because they’re faithful. Like a set of eyewitness testimonies in court, it’s their very difference that makes them trustworthy. If four people described a public event in exactly the same words, we’d suspect collusion. But if they highlight different moments, different emotions, different meanings — we lean in. That’s how memory works. That’s how life works. And that’s how God chose to reveal his Son. Declarations, not Documentaries The Gospels aren’t security-camera footage. They’re not 21st-century journalism. They’re more like banners, declarations, personal portraits of Jesus for different hearts and histories. Matthew speaks to the Jewish longing for a Messiah, the one who fulfills the law and prophets. Mark writes with breathless urgency, dragging us into a Jesus who disrupts and demands. Luke tells it with compassion and order — a historian’s heart for the poor and outcast. John writes like a poet, pulling back the curtain to show us glory in the flesh. Do they sometimes place the furniture differently? Yes. Do they sometimes rearrange the order of events to make a point? Absolutely. That’s not trickery — it’s theology. Each Gospel is telling the truth on purpose, not flattening it into sameness, but deepening it into multidimensional glory. What if you’re the one who needs all four? Let’s be honest: we don’t read the Gospels that way. We skim. We search for our favorite verse. We memorize the Christmas story from Luke and quote John when we’re evangelizing. But maybe the very differences that bother us are the ones we need most. Because we’re not one-dimensional either. There are days you need the Jesus who weeps. Other days, the Jesus who warns. Some days you’ll identify with the confused disciples. Other days, the bold woman who just touches the edge of his cloak. Each Gospel has a different path into his presence. And taken together, they help us not just know about Jesus — but know him. What if? And what if God wanted it this way? We assume a perfect Bible would be uniform. Seamless. Linear. But maybe God values something else. Maybe truth; the kind that grips the heart, changes a life, and needs room to breathe. Maybe God wanted the Gospel to feel less like a script and more like a song: the kind you can’t stop playing because every time you listen, you hear something new. Jesus is not a brand. He’s not a curated persona. He is the truth made flesh. And the Gospels don’t just describe him, they reveal him. In different voices, different rhythms, different textures, but the same Jesus. Where Devotion Begins Devotion isn’t about finding a perfect answer. It’s about lingering in the presence of a perfect Saviour. It’s about returning again and again to the same Gospel stories, not to master them, but to be mastered by the One they reveal. That’s why the Gospels are different. Not to confuse us, but to draw us deeper. Not to test our precision, but to soften our hearts. If you’ve only ever read one Gospel, maybe it’s time to open another. Read them all. Slowly. Side by side. Let them clash a little. Let them correct and complement. You might just see Jesus more clearly than ever. © Nathan Cole Want help seeing Jesus more clearly, one day at a time? Download a free 3-day sample of Identity in Christ, a devotional designed to help you sit with Scripture and let it speak into your heart.

Jeremiah 29:11 has been a favorite verse ever since I first met the Lord more than 40 years ago. Despite clinging to it, believing it, and professing it, I've not experienced the future I had hoped for. I certainly didn't hope that my husband would be disabled due to a stroke, or that we would lose everything we worked for all our lives. I know I'm not alone in this. This is God’s Word on the subject: “As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. “When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen. “When you come looking for me, you’ll find me. “Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed.” God’s Decree. “I’ll turn things around for you. I’ll bring you back from all the countries into which I drove you”—God’s Decree—“bring you home to the place from which I sent you off into exile. You can count on it. (Jeremiah 29:10-14) This past weekend I was introduced to a person who thought that he had adequately prepared for retirement by saving more than one million dollars. Unfortunately, these were Zimbabwean dollars. The currency lost its value to a point where one million dollars could barely purchase one loaf of bread. His retirement plans were destroyed by hyperinflation. I've talked about Jeremiah 29:11 before. I know this was a message to people in exile hoping to return to their homeland. I can't simply lay claim to this verse, nitpicking the parts of Scripture I find most appealing. However, despite realizing that this Scripture was a specific promise to a certain group of people at a particular time in their history, the heart wants what the heart wants, and my heart wouldn't let go of this verse. What can I take from this verse? Apart from the personal connection (my birthday is on 29/11), I can draw some parallels between my life and the Babylonian exiles. When I read my Bible, I understand that this world is not my home (1 Peter 1:1, 2:11). I'm in this world, but I'm not of this world. In this sense, I too am exiled from my home. God has a set time for His plans and purposes to unfold. In the case of these exiles, it was a period of 70 years. “As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home.” I don't know whether I'll wait 70 years before I go home, or whether it will be a longer or shorter time, but there is a set time for God to take me home. All the days of my life were written in His book before even one of them came to pass. My life and times are in His hands. Furthermore, I believe that God has a purpose and plan for my life. Paul wrote that God prepared me for the special works He planned for me before I was born (Ephesians 2:10). He called me out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). I may not have the life I dreamed about here on earth, but I hope to live a life that pleases God, and that I live according to His plans and purposes for me. God guides and directs my footsteps. He creates the desire in my heart to do His will, and He promised to work all things together for my good in accordance with His plans and purposes for my life (Romans 8:28). The Bible tells me that it's His plan and will for me to spend eternity with Him. Ultimately, that is my hope. In this sense God is giving me the future I hope for. I may not enjoy the life I had hoped to have here on earth, but God is more concerned about my character than my comfort, and my ultimate destiny is what truly matters. Paul learned this truth, and boldly declared that the things we suffer here on earth are small potatoes compared to what awaits us in eternity. It is no wonder that God continued His message to the exiles by saying that if we seek Him wholeheartedly, we will find Him (Jeremiah 29:14). He wants us to find Him. He wants us to be with Him. As such, I can focus on my relationship with God and eternity rather than temporary comforts and my carnal desires such as money and possessions. God has a plan and purpose for my life. He has a good future planned for me. It's a future where I'll never be separated from Him (Romans 8:38-39). What more can I ask than to call the Almighty, the Creator, the King of kings, my Father? What an awesome privilege. What an astounding inheritance. What an amazing promise. So yes, I think Jeremiah 29:11 is a verse that I can apply to my life, and cling to the hope it gives me. © 2026 Rina Schultz. Want more content like this? Explore more articles in Exploring Scripture.

There are few things more exhausting than loving people who keep making foolish decisions. Right? You help them, and they repeat their dysfunctional behavior. You encourage them, and they fall right back into the same pattern. You forgive them, and somehow, they find another ditch to fall into. You begin to think: Good grief! Will they ever get it together? After a while, something hardened begins to rise inside of us. We think: “I’m done. I will no longer enable bad behavior.” It’s not because we stop caring entirely. But we get tired of carrying the emotional weight of someone else’s instability. Jesus said when iniquity abounds, the love of many grows cold. (Mt 24:12) Our love for people caught in a long struggle tends to wane. And our patience dims. We see this frustration at the Last Supper between Jesus and Philip: “Philip said, “Master, show us the Father; then we’ll be content.” “You’ve been with me all this time, Philip, and you still don’t understand? To see me is to see the Father. So how can you ask, ‘Where is the Father?’” John 14:8–9 Yikes! See what I mean? The I.M. translation says, “Dude, seriously…how can you not be getting this after 3 ½ years of solid mentoring? What’s wrong with you?” When we study the life of Moses, we discover something remarkable: God’s people were often irrational, fearful, rebellious, immature, and unbelievably frustrating. Yet Moses never stopped interceding for them. Again and again, the Israelites complained against God after witnessing miracle after miracle. They saw the Red Sea split. They ate manna from heaven. They followed a cloud by day and fire by night. And still they murmured. Still, they panicked. Still, they rebelled. At one point, they literally created a golden calf while Moses was on the mountain receiving the commandments of God. Less than three months earlier, they had walked through a split Red Sea. And now, they were ready to change Gods. If anyone ever had a reason to throw up his hands and say, “You know what, Lord? Start over with somebody else. These people are idiots.” it was Moses. But that is not what he did. Instead, scripture says he stood in the breach for the people. He prayed, pleaded, and interceded on their behalf. And he kept doing it. Not once or twice. But repeatedly throughout Israel’s wilderness journey. When fire broke out because the people complained, Moses prayed. When Miriam rebelled against him personally and was struck with leprosy, Moses prayed for her healing. When the people refused to enter the Promised Land because of fear, Moses pleaded for mercy instead of revenge. When Korah led a rebellion against his leadership, Moses still interceded to stop judgment from spreading through the camp. Think about that. Most people struggle to pray for those who hurt them once. But Moses kept praying for people who hurt him repeatedly. That is spiritual maturity. One of the clearest signs of growth is not how powerfully you can rebuke people, but how consistently you can love imperfect people without surrendering to bitterness. That does not mean enabling dysfunction. It does not mean removing boundaries. And it certainly does not mean pretending sin is acceptable. Moses confronted sin directly and often. But confrontation never cancelled compassion. That balance matters. Because immature people either become doormats or cynics. They either tolerate everything or give up on everyone. But mature believers learn how to carry both truth and mercy at the same time. The older I get, the more I realize this: everyone is a work in progress. Some people are just earlier in the process than others. The people in your life may frustrate you deeply right now. Your spouse, children, friends, family, or coworkers. Some of them may be acting foolishly. Some may be spiritually asleep, deluded, or deceived. Some may be trapped in cycles they seem unable to break. And yes, wisdom sometimes requires distance, boundaries, or difficult conversations. But we can’t let disappointment harden our hearts. Because one of the enemy’s greatest victories is convincing good people to stop believing other people can change. That they will always be that way. That they are irredeemable, bad seed, or broken beyond repair. Moses could have quit on Israel dozens of times. But he understood something powerful: people are often at their worst right before God does something transformative in them. It’s not the calm before the storm. It’s the storm before the calm. If Moses had abandoned them emotionally, much of their story never would have unfolded. And perhaps someone in your life needs the same thing right now: someone willing to keep praying, keep believing, keep loving, and keep standing in the gap for them. Even while they are still acting foolishly. Galatians says, “Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” (Gal 6:9) Sometimes the greatest act of faith is simply refusing to give up on people before God is finished with them. Your patience may become the bridge that carries someone into their breakthrough. That makes you like Jesus. How so? “Therefore, he is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf.” Hebrews 7:25 Jesus has a full-time job with me. I can imagine God saying, “Not Issachar again. Seriously? Will he ever get his act together?” But that conversation NEVER happens. Because He loves us. And knows our faults, frailties, blind spots, and sin tendencies. “For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust.” Psalm 103:14 And regardless of how we are, where we are in our process, what we keep doing over and over and over again: He will never leave us or forsake us. He never gives up on us. So, shouldn’t we be the same towards the people in our lives? © 2026 I.M. Koen Want more content like this? Explore more articles in Relationships. Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or Cmd + P (Mac) to print this article or save it as a PDF.