avatarJeff Peirish

Summary

The article discusses finding acceptance and peace with the challenges of ADHD, particularly focusing on the struggle with concentration, through a personal journey of faith and understanding of biblical teachings.

Abstract

The author shares their experience with ADHD, emphasizing the constant battle with focus and the frustration that comes with it, despite therapeutic techniques and medication. They find solace in their faith, drawing strength from the belief that God intentionally created them with ADHD and that their weaknesses are an opportunity for divine intervention and growth. The article suggests that accepting one's limitations as part of a divine plan can alleviate the frustration associated with ADHD and lead to a more peaceful and humble existence. It encourages readers to trust in a higher power rather than their own abilities, citing biblical figures who overcame their weaknesses through faith. The author concludes by inviting readers to embrace God's will and find comfort in the purpose He has for their lives, even with ADHD.

Opinions

  • The author believes that ADHD-related focus issues are part of God's intricate design for individuals, suggesting that such challenges are intentional and not a flaw.
  • They express that accepting ADHD as part of God's plan can reduce the frustration and tension that come with the condition.
  • The author opines that trying to force oneself to fit into a neurotypical mold is futile and that embracing one's unique way of being can lead to a more fulfilling life.
  • They argue that trusting in God and relying on His strength, rather than one's own, is key to overcoming the challenges of ADHD.
  • The author posits that biblical narratives of imperfect individuals chosen by God to do great things serve as a testament that one's weaknesses can be a vessel for divine power.
  • They suggest that accepting one's limitations and God's will can lead to a more peaceful existence, free from the frustration of trying to change what is inherently part of one's nature.
  • The author implies that therapy, while helpful, cannot provide the same level of comfort and acceptance as faith can when it comes to understanding the "why" behind one's struggles with ADHD.

How You Can Learn to Accept Your ADHD Faults and Frustrations

It’s going to take a bit of faith…

Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva from Pexels

Everyone with ADHD understands how difficult it can be to focus. Our minds, like a leaf in the breeze, have the innate ability to wander everywhere but where we’re supposed to turn our attention.

During my school-aged days, I let my mind wander wherever it pleased. School was never interesting to me, so whatever popped into my head was much more stimulating than what was being discussed during a lecture.

However, the more frustrating part is when you’re legitimately trying to focus, yet within a few moments you’ve still wandered off into daydream land.

No matter the therapeutic technique, no matter the medication, it still happens to the best of us more frequently than our neurotypical peers.

While losing focus will always be frustrating, we can at least come to a point of genuine acceptance, relieving some of the tensions that loss of focus can create. I will lose some of you right here, but doing so is going to require some faith in the God who made you. Hear me out.

The revealing wisdom of my morning ritual.

My mornings are spent with coffee, my dog, and the Bible. My daily Bible reading consists of some version of a “Bible in a year” themed devotional. I’m currently three-quarters of my way through the Bible for the second time, which is precisely 1.75 times more than I ever anticipated reading the Bible from cover to cover.

While anyone who’s reading the Bible in a year is going to routinely lose focus (such as when you’re in the middle of Numbers or 2 Chronicles), having ADHD makes it all the more challenging. I often catch myself in some far-off land nowhere remotely close to the passage that I’m reading.

Frustration sets in. I double back and skim what I just finished “reading” in an attempt to comprehend what I was too mentally distracted to focus on.

I think to myself, “If reading the Bible is so important as a Christian, why would God let it be so hard for someone like me to concentrate?!”

God has a way of answering prayers, or in this case, answering pointed questions.

Recently during my daily reading, I was met by the following from Psalm 139:

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. — Psalm 139: 13–15 (ESV)

Huh, that’s quite the line, David.

It’s also the answer to my plight with focus and other frustrations.

It’s okay to have problems sustaining focus.

See, God formed you and I himself. He knows everything there is to know about us, including our perceived weaknesses and faults. This includes our inability to maintain focused attention for prolonged periods.

With this being the case, it must be okay for us to have a difficult time sustaining focus. If we are formed by God himself, it means He formed us this way on purpose, and as David said, we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

While nothing feels wonderful about focus-fueled frustrations, the fact remains that we were designed this way on purpose. I find peace in this knowledge because no matter how hard I try, I won’t ever achieve the proficiency with focus I would like.

And that’s okay.

I find further peace in other corners of the Bible, such as the following from Jeremiah:

Thus says the Lord, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord.” — Jeremiah 17:5 (ESV)

If you read this and thought, “What…? You find peace in THAT?!” I get it, but hear me out.

As Christians, we are called to die to pride and accept humility. We are to forgo trusting in ourselves in favor of trusting in God. If I accept this and trust in the Lord instead of my own flesh, I can more easily accept my ADHD frustrations and embrace that it’s all okay.

So in essence, I’ve come to accept that God wants me this way on purpose and He wants me to lean on Him instead of myself.

Through faith our frustrations also wane.

If you’re still with me you may be thinking, “Okay, I can accept the way things are, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.”

It should. Here’s why and how.

Throughout the Bible, God provides countless examples of imperfect people who He chooses to do the extraordinary. Let me give you a very short list to prove my point:

  • Abraham and Sarah — Unable to have children for their entire lives, finally at a very old age they conceive and Isaac is born, creating the eventual nation of Israel.
  • Moses — A man who struggled with speech and anxiety, God called him to lead the entire nation of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and to the promised land.
  • Peter — A poor, impulsive, even cowardly fisherman, is called by Jesus to be the foundation of the entire Christian church.

This narrative is further exemplified by Christ’s words to Paul in 2 Corinthians:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. — 2 Corinthians 12:9 (ESV)

Thus, we too are permitted to boast of our weaknesses. Whether it’s a lack of focus, impulsivity, forgetfulness, or the like, we can set aside our ADHD frustrations and accept God’s desire to work through us.

Or put more simply, God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called; and that’s something we shouldn’t be frustrated about.

Through this understanding, I have come to accept my inability to sustain focus, not only on my daily devotional but in most areas of my life. God desires me to be this way, and I have to be okay with that.

Maybe God uses this weakness of mine as a way to stay in his word every day. Maybe he uses it as a way to guide me in a direction that will better fit my nuances. Either way, I can’t be frustrated about God’s will, I instead must humble myself and accept the peace He provides.

I would not expect this perspective to be an easy one for you to accept. It takes work, it takes wrestling with God; but in the end, I find it to be one of the only ways to accept the way things are. Sure, therapy helps, I can attest to that, but therapy has a hard time answering the question “why” in the same way faith does.

I’ll leave you with one more verse to help drive the point home:

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. — Proverbs 19:21 (ESV)

You can pitch a fit and attempt to pound the square peg of your ADHD weaknesses into the round hole of life, or you can accept God’s will for you and let your frustrations go by the wayside. One way or another, God’s will be done.

The question that remains is, will you accept it?

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To read more from me, I invite you to check out the following:

Adhd
Mental Health
Christianity
Focus
God
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