In my previous post, I introduced this new series. Today I’d like to begin exploring why I believe the Bible can be a valuable companion as we seek to understand our mental health and ourselves.
As I write these posts, I’m discovering how to put into words something that has quietly been part of both my personal faith and my professional life for many years. So, in many ways, we’re exploring this together.
The Bible is far more than a book that points out our sin or reminds us that we need a Saviour—although that is certainly part of its message.
The Bible is a book that can help us find hope, grace, acceptance of who we are and what the world around us looks like – even if we don’t agree or don’t like what’s going on in our present world.
Through stories like Job’s, Daniel’s, David’s, Esther, Ruth, Paul the Apostle and so many others, we find solace in the fact that these people struggled just like we do, but more importantly, that they found a way to work through their troubles, through their support networks (families, friends, pets, angels and others), through their faith in God, and through sound advice and repentance.
From a psychological perspective, we might think about acknowledging our mistakes, taking responsibility for them, learning from them and extending compassion towards ourselves as we grow.
From what I’ve just said, some people might think:
“yeah but you just called me a sinner, how is that comforting, positive or reassuring to my mental health?”
I know, it’s a two-edged sword, but here’s my response – being a sinner doesn’t mean we are bad, it just means we acknowledge that we live in a fallen world, where things are not perfect.
We are not in Eternity with Jesus yet, so we can expect ourselves to “fall short” or to make mistakes that make us feel ashamed, guilty or bad about ourselves.
The good news is that we can feel bad for a bit, but we can rest in the promises that the Bible gives us, that God is a forgiving God, that he will open the door to us if we knock with genuine repentance and turning away from the behaviour that’s making us feel bad.
There is freedom in that.
There is redemption in that.
There is healing in that.
I said to a church friend years ago that I was feeling depressed. Her response left me wondering so many things…she said
“Oh no, Christians don’t get depressed”.
It’s safe to say I didn’t seek support from her for my mental health or my struggles at that time anymore as I was completely invalidated and felt unheard or met where I needed at that point.
It is not true that Christians can’t be depressed. I was struggling at that point, and my struggle was real. The situations I was dealing with were hard and there was no way I was gonna be all “happy-go-lucky” while that was going on.
What I did have was faith that things would get better, that I’d find a way if I only trusted God to make a way.
Eventually things did get better and I stopped feeling depressed, but it took a while and lots of big changes in my life to get there.
So if you’re reading this, I’m sharing this bit of my story so you can be reassured that it’s OK if you’re a Christian and you’re struggling with mental health.
Being a Christian doesn’t remove us from the troubles of life – abusive relationships, a toxic boss, hormonal imbalances, accidents, low self-esteem, and other life situations that happen to everyone…J
ust like being a counsellor and clinical psychologist doesn’t mean I have everything worked out and I don’t struggle with life issues like everyone else when they come up…
“…He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” – Matthew 5:45
We will delve individually into each of the books of the Bible that can relate directly to psychological issues or that support mental health in one way or another.
For example, if we look at the Psalms, we will se a mix of emotions and distress being sung by King David himself – sorrow, grief, anger, revenge, doubt, and other negative feelings, and towards the middle to the end we see hope starting to arise, a light at the end of the tunnel and ending in praise in spite of the hardships, and eventually victory over these struggles.
King David goes from despair, questioning, anger, fear and yet so often ends in trust, remembering praise, and not because his circumstances necessarily changed, but because his perspective shifted.
So…
what I’m trying to portray here is that the Bible is full of real human stories, when it was good for them, and when it wasn’t, and how they navigated through that with a worldview that put God at the centre (even if sometimes they forgot! They were after all human like us.)
Finally, I leave you with a quote from the book The Bible and Mental Health that beautifully captures what I’m hoping to convey through this series:
“Scripture can become a rich resource full of possibilities: a complex text, which mirrors the complexity of the contemporary world and human relationships, a text that weaves together personal, social,, theological, spiritual, economic and political concerns, and provides multiple entry points to speak about mental ill health, wellbeing and a vision of what it means to be fully human”. (pg. XVII)
