When the Soul Sinks

What It Feels Like When Your Eyes Leave Christ

Dear Disciple of Christ,

People have asked me for years—quietly, carefully, sometimes desperately:

What does it feel like to be crazy?

They are not asking out of curiosity.
They are asking because they love someone.
Or because they fear something in themselves.

The answer is simpler—and harder—than most expect.

Listen to the audio reading of this letter.

It Does Not Feel Like Losing Faith

It does not feel like rebellion.
It does not feel like choosing darkness.
It does not feel like walking away from God.

It feels like clarity.

Conviction sharpens.
Certainty intensifies.
Words come quickly.

You feel right.
Even inspired.

That is the danger.

Because the loss of agency does not announce itself as chaos from the inside.
It announces itself as overconfidence.

Peter Did Not Sink Because He Stopped Believing

Peter stepped out of the boat because he believed.

He was striving to be obedient.
Moving toward Christ.
Doing what he knew was right.

And then he sank.

Not because he doubted the Lord—
but because his attention fractured.

Scripture is literal here.

Peter saw the waves.
Felt the wind.
Tried to remain upright.

The moment the self attempts to rely on the flesh alone,
the soul begins to sink.

“I Don’t Need Help”

For eleven days, I was convinced I could beat the system.

I didn’t need doctors.
I didn’t need intervention.
I didn’t need help.

I was sleeping—on average—about ninety minutes a night in the hospital—after being tasered 4 times.

And still, I believed I was in control.

I wasn’t hitting anyone.
I wasn’t reckless in the way people might imagine,
like running around a padded cell.

But my words cut.
They were loud.
Unedifying.
Unbecoming of me.

I felt inspired to speak them.
Certain they were right.

My wife later said it plainly:

You were not yourself.

She was right.

Not possessed in some movie like form of levitation.
But not acting for myself.

I was open to suggestions as they flowed rapidly and unceasingly.
Impulse became the norm.
Being right overlooked charity.

It is double-mindedness at full speed.

Obedience Without Integration

This is the part that confuses people.

My belief in Christ did not falter.
If anything, I was striving to be more obedient.

But I missed the mark.

Not because I stopped aiming at it—
but because I allowed myself to be acted upon rather than for myself.

I became susceptible to any impression—
thinking it was inspired of God—like I had a direct channel.

And like Peter, unable to hold myself together, I sank.

That is double-mindedness at its best, even madness.

Collapse and Chains

Eventually, the body gave out.

I fainted.

I woke days—or weeks—later,
being escorted in chains to the state hospital.

I remained there for six weeks.

Which is astonishingly short period of time, for that kind of commitment.

This was not condemnation.

It was restraint.

Scripture has always had language for this:

• taken captive
• bound
• delivered up
• out of one’s right mind

And this lack of a sound mind was the result of turning my agency (not my identity) over to an unseen power that sought to deceive me.

The Answer, Plainly Spoken

So what does it feel like to be crazy?

It feels like moving toward God
at some exalted level, as though tapped into some raw source.

It feels like certainty
without Christlike governance.

It feels like obedience to some higher law,
but it is a law unto oneself.

It feels like sinking.

One Truth to Hold

I did not stop loving God.

I stopped being able to hold myself together
while pursuing Him.

I tried taking on Christ's personality,
rather than His character, perfections, and attributes.

That is the truth Peter’s body preached
as the water closed over his chest.

And it is the truth my life has borne witness to.

Where This Leads

The story does not end sinking in the water,
sinking serves as a pride breaker.

It is but a trial, a tribulation, a weakness, ...
it is an invitation to accept Christ's grace.

Because mercy does not make sense
until humility is your choice.

You can flounder, tread water, or even swim,
but until you seek and receive the hand of God,
you are nothing ... you are finite ... you have no lasting power.

But in humility and surrender, you can walk on water with Him.

In faith,

Kent
Free to Serve Now

Watch the video reading of this letter.

Still walking. Turns — to jump the wave. Already sinking.