My bipolar Christian struggle 

Thank you Janelle for your kind comment. Yes, bipolar can definitely be a challenging illness to deal with. Fortunately, with the right meds and a good mindset, you can overcome it. In the past 5 years, I have been hospitalized twice, which for me is actually pretty good, since from 2001-2013 I was hospitalized on average twice a year. I pray you are healthy, and can use your spirituality and relationship with God to help you through some of the tough times. God bless.

I have come to realize the only unpardonable sin is when we fully and completely turn our backs on God and remain so until our death. I believe as long as we have breath in our lungs, there is hope and God can forgive us when we come to Him in sincere belief and repentance. May God bless your journey and make your life fruitful in His Name

Dear Faith, may God bring you that wonderful peace that surpasses all understanding. You are definitely not alone. I believe there may be more of us than anyone knows. I had a website called bipolar Christian. net, but it was taken down due to my domain expiring, but maybe it's just as well because there were some manic writings on there that might confuse readers. I want all that I do from now on to glorify God, in my thoughts, my words, and my actions. I pray God sends a special blessing to you, and fills your heart with unspeakable joy. The deep joy that can only come when we have assurance that we will spend eternity praising Him in heaven. Amen

Held by Grace Forever thank you for your kind comment. If you ever wanted to read more about my struggle to overcome bipolar, feel free to visit my website at bipolarchristian.net. There is even a forum where individuals can share about their experiences with mental illness. So far I’m the only one that has posted, but I would be honored if you shared any of your experiences in the forum or chat room. Thanks and a God bless!

Kim, praise God you are doing better. I'm also praying God helps me to help others. CHECK out my latest cool video that attempts to do just that, using some amazing apps I discovered in the app store! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5qs_LD2rj0o.html

Tara, God bless you richly. I just read your comments this evening, and I agree 100%! Often times it is the Lord who gives such incredible mercy and grace, but we ourselves are unable to offer that same degree of mercy and grace to ourselves. We fail at something, or give into some sin, and instead of forgiving ourselves and running back into the arms of God's grace, we condemn ourselves in our own minds, and feel as though God condemns us as well, and that makes us fall into the tendency of turning our backs on God and running from Him. And as I'm sure you probably know just as well as I do, that when we run from God, we run back into our sin, and we harden our own hearts against Him. For me it was a vicious cycle for many years, but I would like to share with you that I fully believe the vicious cycle is over. I had an all out wrestling match with God about a week ago. I told Him that I had come to the end of myself. I told Him that I realized I was incapable of fixing my sin stained life on my own, my porn addiction and my cursing and using His name as a cuss word, my sinful habits that were doing nothing but driving me into a world of desperation and fear. I told Him I was done trying to fix all my problems, and that without His help I would never get out of the vicious cycle of sin, guilt, self condemnation, and poor life choices. I know God answered the cry of my heart, because I have felt over the past week, in spite of the fact that my ex-wife renewed a restraining order against me for 5 years, a peace and a joy deep in my heart that I haven't felt in years. I knew I was not capable of manufacturing these feelings within myself of my own ability, and so I give God all the glory. I want to live a God centered life, and I want Him to be on my mind, each and every day as I go about my life, not just an afterthought when I offer up a feeble prayer from time to time. I want to trust Him like a skydiver trusts a parachute, like the baby trusts His own father when he is held by Him and knows he is safe and will not be dropped. That is the trust and faith I always longed to have in God deep down, and I know God is transforming my mind daily as I dwell on His goodness and thank Him deeply for his tender mercies every day. I just started reading a book called Praying With Purpose by Stephan Nelson Rummage. He talks about something called importunate prayer, where we pray fervently and with repition until God answers our request. This is the type of prayer that moves God to act. He sees our faith, that we know He is a God who answers prayer, and He experiences the deep cry of our hearts, and it moves Him to act. I just learned a quote that I am repeating in my mind every day. It goes:. When we Pray, God listens. When we listen, God Speaks. When we believe, GOD ACTS. I prayed for many years, but often I didn't recognize when God was responding because I didn't know how to listen, I was so obsessed with my own thoughts and feelings. I'm starting to listen now. And believe. And man, GOD IS STARTING TO ACT. AMEN!!

Thank you I'vehearted for your kind and thoughtful response. I have a difficult time meditating because my mind often wanders. And when I pray and read scripture I just usually talk to God and tell him everything that's going on in my heart and mind- He knows it all anyway. As far as rating your comment, I would agree it's a 10/10. Presentation is very important- Its the side of us we show to the world. Perspective is submitting to Gods view of the world and of us- seeing the universe through Gods eyes. Attitude is working out our faith, serving and loving others with a positive mindset- not grumbling about anything or complaining to God about our lives as though it is His fault when negative things happen. And finally, our intent, which could quite possibly be the most important, because it reveals the state of our heart, our deepest motivations for doing things. As we see Jesus angry at the Pharisees for their intentions/ the states of their hearts, we realize we cannot hide our deepest motivations from God, so if we recognize that we may have impure motives, it is best we come to Christ, confess our sin, ask him to search our hearts and help us to purify our inner thought life. The more we do this, the easier it will be to defeat selfish or impure intentions.

@@ChristopherDavidMoyer Wow.....I can see this is not going to be easy, if it goes at all. Please know that anything I say, is said with the most kind and sincere of INTENT. I have every reason to believe that I hear the same voices you hear, and I often see visions, and feel sensations, smell things as well. Most of the time I also feel an EMOTION, ranging from barely noticeable, to gut crunching, where all I can do is sob. This has been going on for nearly 15 years now. It started when I was re-baptized as an adult, and decided to make the commitment to find God, whoever or whatever that might be. I can't say that I am always deep in meditation when these things happen, but the majority of the really INTENSE ones happen OUTSIDE of the actual "meditation session", and the really technical ones tend to happen INSIDE meditation, but similar experiences can happen in either state. ….Meditation is a lot like physical exercise. It continues to work even after (or especially after) you quit doing it. I think I should start by clarifying what I mean by meditation. I tried unsuccessfully to teach myself to meditate for over 50 years. I'm convinced that there is no single method that works for everybody, and that not all meditation is even the same. You can meditate to relax, or to block out pain, or find your lost keys, or a whole multitude of other reasons, but for ME meditation is done to COMMUNE with the voices in my head, which I BELIEVE is/are the COLLECTIVE CONSIOUSNESS that is God. My INTENT is not to pray TO God, but to commune WITH God, and therein lies the critical difference. It's my ATTITUDE toward meditation that makes the difference. …. I believe Matthew 6:5-13 eludes to meditation, but the thing is, you need to already be communing with God, before you would realize that. Where it says to go to your INNERMOST CHAMBER and close the door, it's talking about going into the center of your own mind, and disconnecting your CONSCIOUS thought process, which can be confusing to some. You DO remain conscious, but instead of THINKING about things, you merely OBSERVE, but you don't want to concentrate on observing, because in order to do that you'd need to THINK about observing, which is self defeating. Hope that makes sense. For that reason, I find it EXTREMELY useful to listen to music during meditation. I can only speak for myself, but most of the music that is supposed to help with meditation is extremely annoying to me. I'm not gong to tell you what I listen to until you have tried it on your own for awhile, but if one kind of music doesn't work, then try something else. Also you'll probably want to listen to it at a higher volume than you might think "appropriate" for communing with God. Once you are in that place, just sit and listen to the music. Let your mind do what it will, but be very careful that you are not CONSCIOUSLY leading it. I just have to laugh that you would say you can't meditate, because your mind "wanders" . That's EXACTLY what you are trying to do. You want to SUBMIT your SELF, and set that other part of your mind free. You will probably envision this process in your mind differently than I do, but for me, it sometimes reminds me of when I was a child and I'd take the dog for a walk. She'd run frantically around the yard and check everything out, then return to me, and sit there wagging her tail like she was saying "OK now what should we do?" That other part of your mind will do the same thing. You will PROBABLY experience a whole series of visual images, but if you wait and just OBSERVE it, it will come back to you, at which point you can ask a specific question, or just ask it to show you something really cool, or better yet just do nothing at all, just let IT do what It wants to do. The most important thing is that you don't interject your own thoughts into any of it, other than to ask a question, or write down what you are experiencing. ..Matthew says THINE will be done. That means you OBSERVE It, not GROVEL to It Gotta go for now.

@@I_AM-MICHAEL - Thank you for the effort you put into that latest post, it is clear you are a very caring and concerned person. I've tried various types of meditation when I go to sleep- I used to listen to soundtracks that were designed to help a person lucid dream, or to astral travel. I know that might not be considered meditation to you, but when it worked, on occasion I would have really vivid and exciting dreams. I have considered purchasing CDs from a company call Centerpointe Research. I'm not sure if you have heard of them, but they claim their holosync technology helps people derive incredible success through meditation in months what would normally take a person years to experience. Their CDs are a bit expensive though, so I have been reluctant to try it. I suppose I do let my mind wander sometimes while I am listening to music, but I'm not sure I would really call that meditation. I always thought meditation involved pondering and using your mind to dwell on deep truths or a particular idea- such as Meditating on verses in the Bible- Reading them silently, then out loud, then emphasizing certain words of the text, trying to glean deep meaning from the text. It has happened before that I will read a verse in Scripture I know very well, and somehow, it strikes me in a whole new light, almost as though it is the first time reading it. I'm certain the Bible holds many mysterious truths that can be pondered and meditated upon when we just open up our minds and allow the Holy Spirit to work in it. By the way, if you ever feel the desire to call or text me on my phone, the number is 530-575-7650. I'm always looking for new friends. Both mentors who can teach and discuss deep truths with me, as well as less mature believers I can come alongside and encourage. Feel free to visit my website as well- it is www.bipolarchristian.net. I'm trying to develop it as an online resource for people who struggle with bipolar or other mental illness- there is both a chatroom as well as a forum there. Peace!

@@ChristopherDavidMoyerI'll check it out I've got all kinds of stuff going on right now, and I just now remembered I marked another one of your videos to watch later, and never got back to it. I think I will start there. I heard you say in one of your videos that your voices have told you to do some pretty wild stuff, but have they ever done anything constructive? Mine have pretty much taught me the basics of quantum physics. NEVER anything negative. I wish they were more accurate about real life stuff, like winning the lottery, but from what I know about quantum uncertainty, that would be impossible.

​@@I_AM-MICHAEL - No, I've never actually heard voices- just thoughts that were so powerful that they practically seemed audible. When it comes to learning things, I've never actually heard voices- I just had to apply my mental acuity to the subject I was studying. Learning new things has always been kind of difficult for me. Especially complicated things. Back when I was in high school, I felt new subjects weren't too difficult to learn, but after 40+ hospitalizations for bipolar, plus all the meds that have been pumped into my body, sometimes I feel like today my mind has been limited in what it is capable of.

I've Hearted, I'm just starting a yearly Bible Reading plan, where I read verses, about 2 or 3 chapters a day, and meditate upon them by paraphrasing the verses in my own words, writing out how they apply to my life, and writing down prayers for God to help me in understanding. I'm looking forward to spending time with God each day, for the next year, as I have kind of been an on again, off again Christian for much of my life. As to Quantum Physics, I must admit I am quite ignorant of how it works, and sometimes I have difficult times accepting the truths that it presents. I'll watch your videos on Quantum Physics when I have the opportunity- it might be very interesting. I also understand your perspective of being a drop of consciousness in the Universal Mind- it reminds me of the verse in the New Testament where Jesus tells His disciples (and all believers as well) that as He is One with the Father, and the Father is One with Him, so too they (believers) also may be one in Them, "that the world may believe that You sent Me". Now I'm not sure if Christ is talking about Consciousness here- I think it may be talking more about the Will of the people being the same as the Will of God, and this is what makes them one, not necessarily sharing the same consciousness. I'm not a Pantheist- I don't believe we are part of God, like individual parts of His body. But I do believe that His Mind works in us if we are yielded to hIs Holy Spirit, and I also believe that we have only seen traces of that Holy Spirit here on Earth as fallen, sinful human beings. However, I believe in Heaven, the Spirit will permeate every part of our being, and we will indeed be ONE with God in Will and Purpose. I read a book called Heavenly City and Gracious King, where Heaven is essentially described as a place where we are so close to God, that our thoughts and God's thoughts intermingle, such that we always are free to choose our thoughts, and yet God is working behind the scenes to inspire each and every thought. He still knows what we will do, for every moment, now into eternity, because He is All Knowing. And the longer we are in Heaven, the more united with God we will be in our thoughts, and the more wonderful and glorious will His nature appear to us.