As God is exalted to the right place in our lives, a thousand problems are solved all at once.
— A.W. Tozer

I love quotes that articulate my own sentiments more succinctly that I could have. No sooner do I see the words than I mentally shout, “That’s it precisely!”

Tozer’s words hit me that way. They perfectly encapsulate a main idea of my book, The Word on OCD: What the Bible Has to Say about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder—only, regrettably, I didn’t come across them until the book was already in print.

That main idea: That the primary biblical remedy for OCD turns out to be the remedy for a thousand other problems: Removing ourselves from our life’s throne and surrendering it to God. When we fully pursue this remedy in one area (for me, it was OCD), we come to understand that we’re also remedying problems we’d forgotten we even had.

But we don’t generally see our problems this way, do we? Instead of simple common denominators, we see multiplicity—life issues popping up everywhere Whack-a-Mole style, each one a different issue requiring a different solution. Confusion! Chaos! We’re easily overwhelmed.

According to Tozer, though, it’s not complicated at all. If we trace each problem’s solution upstream far enough, we discover that they all come from a common headwater.

Don’t you love that God makes it so simple? So single-minded? Not a thousand different streams, but one stream in a thousand forms. When we get to the source where all the solutions begin, we find a sign posted with just one rule: “Love me more than you love anything else.”

As a longtime Christian fighting OCD, it took me way too much time to put this together. Sure, exalting God above all else could resolve simple spiritual crises, I used to think, but OCD was altogether different. OCD looked like a thousand things requiring me to think and do and ruminate in equally diverse ways.

OCD encourages this overwhelming sense of multiplicity, doesn’t it? It seems to want us bewildered, lost in self-made solutions such as ever-rotating rituals, mental loops, and “just to be safe” behaviors. So many trails. So many solutions. A thousand trivial pursuits with a thousand answers. Too much. Too much!

Tozer’s insight reframes everything. Our chaos isn’t a thousand separate issues. It’s one deeper issue expressing itself in a thousand ways: We have made ourselves our own headwaters. All the solutions come from us. Only when the source is restored—when God is exalted to His rightful place—does clarity begins to flow. Where OCD makes each fear, compulsion, or intrusive thought feel like its own crisis we must resolve with its own customized solution, God says, “No. Stop. Do just this one thing: Make me the source, and everything downstream will sort itself out.”

Trust God in this. Pick one thing and, on account of just that one thing, draw near to Him. Pray about it. Listen. Check the Bible on it. Confer with Christian friends whose opinions you trust. Do it all for just one thing, and then look around: One thing will have become two, and then ten. Next thing you know, that thousand mark will be within reach.