Can you elaborate on this so I may better understand what you mean? What are some details, if it's OK to ask, in this experience that you had? Thank you for sharing.
It's perfectly okay to ask. I don't mind sharing my agonies and...stress.
It was like this with me: I met God and received the Holy Spirit. I used to always have a sense of His presence where I would be covered in goosebumps and feel like...waves washing over and through me.
At some point, I began to feel that I had to be good, that I owed this to God for saving me and letting me meet Him and giving me the Comforter. I can't say that there wasn't some added aspect in there of a pride that didn't know just how bad I was, but I think I wanted very much to be good and so I set about to be good.
I knew from reading that to have anger in my heart was murder, so I set about trying hard to never be angry in my heart at anyone. But the harder I tried in this, the worse my resentments and fuming in my mind over how others treated me became.
So I would go through a cycle over and over : I would fail at some point and resent and gnaw over the behavior of someone toward me, their lack of respect or care for me, their selfishness. I would see that I had been murdering. Then I would get depressed at my failure to be good. After a while, I would pull up out of the depression and would resolve to try again and do better and be better. I would be doing okay and then someone would be very selfish or mean or rude and I would once again be consumed with resentments and anger at them. Failed again. Sink into depression again. Resolve to try harder. Fail again, etc., etc. And this was the cycle I repeated over and over for many years.
And then, one day, I just came to the end of myself and saw that I couldn't be good. That there was something in me that prevented it. I just gave up. I said if I was ever to be good and was ever to stop being a murderer, He would have to do something because I couldn't do it.
Very, very suddenly after I gave up and began counting on Him to change me, I began to see victories. When I became aware that I was resenting and fuming and murdering, I just said: see, Lord, this is who I am. You'll have to fix it. And He did. I don't know how, but He did. I began to not get angry or disturbed when someone treated me bad. And it was very restful to not be always consumed with resentment and anger and paybacks. My ugly side was not controlling me any more.
A while later I read Galatians again and got a big shock when I read where paul told them: you were doing so well. Who has bewitched you? How is it that what was begun in and by the Spirit has now become you trying to finish by yourself what was begun in the Spirit?? And I realized that was what I had been doing! Trying to finish what the Spirit began in me!
I have my moments still sometimes, but I am able to catch myself very quickly and call to Him for help. And He answers. He fills me with a love and peace that just removes the resentment and anger.