Pursuing Christ Through Adversity

by Glen Moore

My name is Glen Moore. I have lived with schizophrenia. The following is a summary of some of what I have learned in my journey to pursue Christ and attempt to be like Him.

First of all, I got saved through my struggles with my illness. I was living in Claresholm, very burdened with my illness, and I turned to Christ in desperation. I also thought that if there was a hell and I ended up there, that would be a bad thing. Right away, my burden felt lighter. For the first two years as a Christian I was overwhelmed at the love of Christ and the love of my local church.

Many people who have health problems, especially mental health problems, are angry that God has given them these troubles. I know people who have rejected the idea of there being an all-powerful and all-loving God on this basis. To the unbelievers specifically, I would say that if there is no God, then on what basis can you say that anything is good or evil or beautiful or ugly?

God lovingly says, “Thou shalt not” is the universal standard of all things. If He doesn’t exist then we can have our own ideas of good and evil, but no societal ideas of good and evil. If society can’t have any agreement on what is good or evil, then we definitely can’t impose that on God.

To the believers, I would say, along with the apostle Paul: “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?'” (Romans 9:20 ESV). Also, I would say that while this article will do the unbeliever some good, I think it is the believer who I’ve really targeted with this post. So read on.

When I was a student, I was very proud. I majored in physics. Hugh Ross said that many scientists are proud. When I was a student, people were very impressed with what my major was. As soon as they learned that I what my major was, they would remark on how smart I must be. After a while, this went to my head. I began to think that I really was all that and a bag of chips. Then I got a disease of the mind. Is there a connection? I think so.

When I was in the hospital, as well as when I was very ill and not in the hospital, I was not able to do very much. Even to this day, I’m still not able to work anywhere near full-time. All this is very humbling. Despite all this, there was one time when I was leading a Bible study and I started to get full of myself again. I started to think that I was leading the study because I was more intelligent and holy than the other people in the study. After a while, God convicted me. I repented and was restored to having a true picture of how things are. I got into this state of mind despite the fact that some of the people who were in the study were able to work full-time and were, therefore, functioning better than I was in that way.

Now, after getting sick and experiencing some recovery, I’ve had a chance to reassess my life, and I find myself happier than before I got sick. I’ve been a Christian for about 25 years. I find that the more I focus on God, the less trouble I have with my illness. Some of those years have definitely been better than others, but recently I’ve found that I feel like I’m in the honeymoon phase in my relationship with God. I attend a church that really emphasizes the preaching and study of God’s word. I run a street-person ministry in my neighborhood.

So when He chooses to bring some kind of struggle into your life, think of what James says: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4 ESV). I have also found meditating on Scripture and singing hymns to be really effective methods of getting my stress down.

When I was a university student, and not yet a Christian, they showed a film in a biology class. In the film a biologist was being interviewed. He said, “There is no scientific evidence for evolution but I still believe it.” This is a startling statement! Then he talked about a famous collection of fossils of horses. He said they weren’t evidence because the fossils weren’t arranged by the age of the fossils. They were just a collection of horse fossils arranged according to size. Therefore, this isn’t evidence. A scientist believed in evolution even though in his estimation there was no evidence for it.

But despite the complete hypocrisy of that statement, it didn’t make me think until after I got saved. It didn’t strike me as odd that a man who made his living as a scientist believed a scientific theory that in his estimation had no evidence. I think this is nothing other than the hardening power of sin on my mind. This hardening power must have been on the mind of the scientist that made the statement, and on that of my professor as well, otherwise the scientist would have investigated this further and possibly found some evidence that would make him stop believing in evolution. We need to remember when witnessing and giving evidence for the gospel that Satan has blinded their minds. Not only that, but changing one’s view is scary, especially when people’s entire livelihood is caught up in their worldview.