Why does God tempt us in certain ways?

[EphelDuath]

I have recently been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which means I have extreme impulsiveness due to uncontrollable mood swings. I am in no way trying to excuse myself from the sins I commit, but I feel like I have barely any control over myself sometimes because a wave of incredibly depressing and sadistic thoughts will hit me at any random moment.

When I’m in my normal mood, I can accept all of God’s sufferings and I wouldn’t doubt Him for a moment. I am tempted by worldly things like money and pleasure, but I know in my heart that they are nothing before God and can refuse them by His grace. But what I have so much trouble wrapping my mind around is why God would tempt me through my personality disorder, where my love of God becomes just a whisper underneath overwhelming emotional distress. God proves my love for Him with His grace when I am normal, but then I am thrown into the most sinful of states because of my abnormality. Why?

 

[Julia_Mae]

I have recently been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which means I have extreme impulsiveness due to uncontrollable mood swings. … God proves my love for Him with His grace when I am normal, but then I am thrown into the most sinful of states because of my abnormality. Why?

I’m 61 years old. I’ve been struggling with this all my life. Here is where I am now:

God has His reasons why we have the crosses we have. Sometimes carrying a cross is living with the junk we get in our heads, instead of living a whole life in a wheelchair or being tortured by abuse all our lives or a billion and one other things we could have. At some point we have to stop resenting our burdens and thank God for them. We have to. Focus on what you can do when you are in a good place. Figure out what triggers you. Be regular in habits. Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t beat God up, either. It is what it is. Hang on and survive.

You are not “abnormal.” You are a beautiful and beloved child of God Who seems to have more faith in you than you have in yourself to carry this cross. It’s not about if we love Him, it’s about how much He loves us. He’s with us whether we can feel that or not, He’s with us through the stuff we do or obsesses about or rage over or any other thing.

Don’t worry. In another 30-40 years you’ll have lots of practice dealing with it. Until then:

God’s power is made perfect in weakness.

God bless you abundantly.

 

[yablabo]

I have recently been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which means I have extreme impulsiveness due to uncontrollable mood swings. I am in no way trying to excuse myself from the sins I commit, but I feel like I have barely any control over myself sometimes because a wave of incredibly depressing and sadistic thoughts will hit me at any random moment.

When I’m in my normal mood, I can accept all of God’s sufferings and I wouldn’t doubt Him for a moment. I am tempted by worldly things like money and pleasure, but I know in my heart that they are nothing before God and can refuse them by His grace. But what I have so much trouble wrapping my mind around is why God would tempt me through my personality disorder, where my love of God becomes just a whisper underneath overwhelming emotional distress. God proves my love for Him with His grace when I am normal, but then I am thrown into the most sinful of states because of my abnormality. Why?

I don’t think it’s correct in the least doctrinally to claim that God tempts us to evil.

Have you ever thought that you may have extraordinary demonic influence in your life? I know most people scoff at such a suggestion in our materialistic age. Any mention of the preternatural is often met with derision. That being said, demons are real and they do “minister” to us ordinarily through temptation to sin, extraordinarily through possession (in general, taking some aspect of physical or possibly mental control over a human, with or without the human uniting his will to the demon), obsession (in general, flooding the intellect with repetitive, unhelpful and often sinful thoughts), oppression (in general, causing bad things to happen consistently to a specific person or group of people) and infestation (in general, taking some aspect of control over a physical location). Some things you may consider trying are applications of holy water and other sacramentals. True devotion to the Blessed Mother of God would also help greatly…the demons fear her greatly.

God is not the cause of our sin, nor does his providence necessitate sin.

– Nicole

 

[WesleyF]

But what I have so much trouble wrapping my mind around is why God would tempt me through my personality disorder, where my love of God becomes just a whisper underneath overwhelming emotional distress.

I cannot possibly fathom what you’re going through that makes you say this, but we must always remember that “God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13).

 

[Little_One0307]

I cannot possibly fathom what you’re going through that makes you say this, but we must always remember that “God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13).

Thanks WesleyF for posting this verse, I could not find it anywhere. I looked for it several days.

God bless you.

 

[Little_One0307]

I don’t think it’s correct in the least doctrinally to claim that God tempts us to evil.

Correct.

De Fide doctrines taken from Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Dr. Ludwig Ott. If you want a further explanation of each De Fide doctrine the book explains those doctrines in light of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

God is absolutely perfect - De Fide
God is actually infinite in every perfection - De Fide
God is absolute ontological Goodness in Himself and in relation to others. - De Fide
God is absolute Moral Goodness or Holiness - De Fide
God is absolute Benignity. - De Fide

God cannot tempt anyone because to do so would be to violate the reality of being Infnitely Good and Perfect. It is not in his characteristic to tempt us. How can someone who is All Holy, tempt anyone? It cannot be done by God.

By the way De Fide doctrines are doctrines that are immediatley revealed truths and can be accepted by either the authority of God revealing or the authority of the Church in her Infallible Teaching.

God bless.

 

[WesleyF]

Thanks WesleyF for posting this verse, I could not find it anywhere. I looked for it several days.

God bless you.

No problem. But I hope you use a good bible search software! If you need links, let me know!

 

[Little_One0307]

No problem. But I hope you use a good bible search software! If you need links, let me know!

WesleyF,

I uhhh use a bible and my thumbs to look for verses lol. I have a concordance somewhere but cannot find it.

The problem with useing bible software is that my computer in on dial up network, and I have no patience for uhhhh sitting there and waiting until Christas for the page to load. If you got any links that load really fast, I sure would appreciate it. Becuase I spent several days looking for that verse. [Hmmm me thinks I need to ask for patience lol.]

God bless you.

 

[Julia_Mae]

WesleyF,

I uhhh use a bible and my thumbs to look for verses lol. I have a concordance somewhere but cannot find it…

You can get the Bible software on a CD so you can just do it through the computer. I’m so sorry you are still on dial-up! I’m so glad you get to be here, anyway!

Also, is this site slow for you? blueletterbible.org/ It’s only 66 books but I’ve been using them for almost 20 years.

 

[Little_One0307]

You can get the Bible software on a CD so you can just do it through the computer. I’m so sorry you are still on dial-up! I’m so glad you get to be here, anyway!

Also, is this site slow for you? blueletterbible.org/ It’s only 66 books but I’ve been using them for almost 20 years.

Hi,

I tried out that site, and it seems faster than the other ones that I have tried. Thanks so much. And it has my favorite version too, the RSV on it.

Anywhere I can get the Apocophra books as well?

I am so thankful that the forum loads really, really, fast on it. I am blessed that I can be here too. Sorry to have gotten off topic, back on topic now.

God bless you.

 

[WesleyF]

WesleyF,

I uhhh use a bible and my thumbs to look for verses lol. I have a concordance somewhere but cannot find it.

The problem with useing bible software is that my computer in on dial up network, and I have no patience for uhhhh sitting there and waiting until Christas for the page to load. If you got any links that load really fast, I sure would appreciate it. Becuase I spent several days looking for that verse. [Hmmm me thinks I need to ask for patience lol.]

God bless you.

You can do one thing - Buy this software called Faith Database. faithdatabase.com/
It is really awesome. I have bought it. It works offline, so you don’t need the internet to search the Bible. It has several Bible translations including RSV, NIV, KJV, Douay, etc. Besides doing a Bible search, you can do many other cool things with it like searching for commentaries on a particular verse from the church fathers (for eg.). I use it almost every time I need to post something on forums.

When I don’t use the faith database, here are the links that I normally use to search stuff on the internet -

quod.lib.umich.edu/r/rsv/
This ^ is not a Catholic website, but fortunately they have the 7 books that they call “apocrypha” (7 books of the Bible excluded in Protestant bibles) included in the search. It’s a good search engine; works pretty fast for me; but I am not sure about dial up. Maybe you should try it.

Then there is this new website called newsfromgod.com/ which helps search content from church documents.

scborromeo.org/ccc.htm - I use this link to search the catechism.

 

[Little_One0307]

You can do one thing - Buy this software called Faith Database. faithdatabase.com/
It is really awesome. I have bought it. It works offline, so you don’t need the internet to search the Bible. It has several Bible translations including RSV, NIV, KJV, Douay, etc. Besides doing a Bible search, you can do many other cool things with it like searching for commentaries on a particular verse from the church fathers (for eg.). I use it almost every time I need to post something on forums.

When I don’t use the faith database, here are the links that I normally use to search stuff on the internet -

quod.lib.umich.edu/r/rsv/
This ^ is not a Catholic website, but fortunately they have the 7 books that they call “apocrypha” (7 books of the Bible excluded in Protestant bibles) included in the search. It’s a good search engine; works pretty fast for me; but I am not sure about dial up. Maybe you should try it.

Then there is this new website called newsfromgod.com/ which helps search content from church documents.

scborromeo.org/ccc.htm - I use this link to search the catechism.

Thanks a lot. I am going to add those to my favorties right now. I am looking over the Faith database, that looks like a good use of 40 dollars, I am going to have to save up for it. I cannot imagine downloading it on a dial up lol.

God bless you.