Why is Jesus Good News for Mental Health?
- Alison Courtney
- Oct 24, 2018
- 14 min read
Updated: Apr 11, 2020
The following is an adaptation from a talk presented at the InterVarsity Large Group Meeting at Northeastern University on October 23rd, 2018. This author combines personal and biblical reflection to understand the unique hope—good news!—for mental health that can be found in the work of Jesus Christ.
Psalm 42 is attached to a very personal and vivid memory for me. I was 22 years old, in my fourth year of college, sitting on the stairs to the back porch of my then fiancé’s house. The sun felt warm on my skin. The cracked, concrete steps supporting my body and feet were gritty to touch, dry, also warmed by the sun. I was crying. Head in hands. Mind in a dark and airless space. My fiancé was sitting next to me talking, but when he spoke comfort and encouragement, his words were processed through layers of hopelessness so that they sounded muffled to my inner ear, impacting my monolithic, immovable depression with a feeble bump.
My fiancé opened his Bible to Psalm 42:
“As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
Where can I go and meet with God?”
Photo by Jared Erondu on Unsplash.
Immediately a cascade of refreshing water is brought to mind. A word-picture of the living God, who refreshes and enlivens us. But the writer is feeling neither refreshed nor enlivened, for he is in a drought of despair. His throat is parched, hoarse perhaps as he sings his question, where can I meet God? He is confounded by his experience, desperate to know how to make it go away. I wonder if you have experienced such a drought? Perhaps you are in a drought at the moment, thirsting for a solution to your mental and emotional pain? Begging God, “please show up!”
“My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
‘Where is your God?’”
As I listened to these words read out loud on the back steps of a suburban house under the Australian sun in the year 2008, I felt a great deal of solidarity with this ancient writer from a land and a time inaccessible to me. Before “mental health” was a category, before counseling was a profession, before any psychology textbook was written, before we knew about hormones like serotonin or dopamine, this writer knew what it is like to eat one’s tears day and night: to live with the discomfort of disorder in the core of his being. And, as I hope to convince you tonight, so does God.
I share these reflections from my perspective as a Christian counsellor. I’m currently an intern at Harbor Christian Counseling where our vision is to provide clinically skilled, biblically informed, gospel driven counseling services. Since September last year I’ve been meeting with individuals with a variety of issues, including depression and anxiety, eating disorders, trauma, difficulties with adjusting to life changes, and navigating difficult family dynamics. Not everything people bring to counseling falls within a clinical definition of mental disorder, but what is clear is that the world’s brokenness is experienced in deeply personal ways, and in a broad spectrum of ways.
What follows is a few thoughts about why Jesus is good news for mental health. I’m going to reflect on how God has acted in human history to restore the profound brokenness that was unleashed on creation—which includes our minds, bodies, identities and relationships—when Adam and Eve disobeyed and distrusted God’s word. But before we get to the good news, we should first define what we mean by mental health.
My working definition of mental health (adapted from the World Health Organization) is this:
experiencing freedom to take risks as you develop and use your gifts in the service of others, with a stable sense of worth and identity when stresses buffet against you.[1]
I like this definition because it frames up health in positive terms. Mental health is not just the absence of illness or disorder. It is a picture of living into God’s design for humanity.
It’s a beautiful image, isn’t it? This is how I want to live, how I want to be. But think for a moment about ways this image can be disrupted. For example, holding back from following a passion because you’re anxious about failing, or anxious about your parents’ disapproval. Or deriving so much personal worth from your boyfriend or girlfriend that you go against your principles in your dating relationship. I’m sure you can think of more ways our experience falls short of this definition of mental health.
What about mental disorder? If our definition of mental health is a picture of orderin human living, in one sense you could argue that we are all dis-ordered in some fashion. Though there are degrees of health, none of us escapes the effects of the curse, neither in our bodies, nor our minds.
In another sense—and this is important to emphasize this distinction—mental disorder has a more specific, clinical definition. Here’s my paraphrased version of the definition from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders:
A clinically significant disturbance in a person’s thinking, ability to manage emotions, and behaviors, due to a problem with the psychological, biological and developmental building blocks of mental health. Often mental disorders affect a person’s ability to engage in their social relationships, occupation or other meaningful activities.[2]
The DSM also outlines some things that aren’t included in the definition of disorder, such as culturally normative responses to the death of a loved one.
The last bit of this definition is a helpful guide if you’re wondering if you or someone close to you might be struggling with a mental disorder—ask yourself, are you/they struggling to handle relationships/work/study/leisure activities/church in a way that I would normally expect of myself/them? If something seems off in these areas of life, there might be something going on and it’s worth asking the question as a caring friend.
A few examples of mental disorders include bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, bulimia nervosa, and borderline personality disorder. While labels like this can feel textbook-y and cold, the lived reality of mental disorders feels awful. Mental disorder is without a doubt part of the brokenness of this world, residing in the kingdom of darkness and death.
But, in the person of Jesus we have good news for mental health. Let me explain with two simple but profound ideas.
Jesus Understands Disorder
The first idea is this: Jesus is good news for mental health because he understands disorder. Have you ever had the experience of feeling deeply understood by another person? It can be such a relief, can’t it? When someone sits with you and gives you space to talk without being interrupted, and truly sees you where you’re at. This is so impactful that studies into different therapies have shown that regardless of what type of intervention is used in counseling (whether it’s cognitive-behavioral, narrative or family systems, to name a few), part of their success comes directly from the therapist’s ability to show accurate empathy.
If a person showing real empathy is enough to bring good news in your suffering, how much more if God sees you and meets you in your struggle with mental health. But, how can we be confident that God actually does care? How can we know that he gets it? The Bible paints a pretty huge picture of God that might cause us to question his ability to get the human experience.
Here are some things we learn about God in the oldest book of the bible, Job. After Job has expressed his complaints and questions about his intense suffering, God finally replies, almost mockingly:
38:4“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
8…Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
11…when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
Here is where your proud waves halt’?”
The end of Job is an amazing passage to read if ever you feel that your image of God is too small. But it’s perhaps a little jarring to our sensitive ears that God’s response to Job’s suffering is to assert his power and majesty, and not even provide an answer to Job’s question of “Why am I suffering?”
But, can you hold this image of God in your mind while I tell you a few more things we learn about him from the Scriptures?
This same God who marked off the dimensions of the universe and told the oceans where to stop,
“made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness… becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (meaning, the most shameful kind of death) [Philippians 2:7,8]
This same God was an outcast of society, experiencing the pressures of poverty at the moment of his human birth, and fielding the public disapproval and anger from those in power during his ministry
He was “tempted in every way” [Hebrews 4:15] which doesn’t mean that he brushed off temptations like Teflon, but that he dug in and endured them until they reached their absolute peak
This same God experienced betrayal and abandonment by his closest friends—Judas (who turned him over to be killed), and Peter (who denied knowing Jesus at his hour of need) and the rest of his disciples (who fled when he was arrested)
God experienced first-hand what it feels like to have a loved one die. When Jesus stood before his friend Lazarus’ tomb, it says he was moved in his gut with sorrow and anger.
And, when he was hanging on the cross, he became acquainted with the words of our Psalmist, who desperately calls out, “’[God!] Why have you forgotten me? My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me… ‘Where is your God?’” Jesus’ cry of dereliction on the cross was the question we all cry out when we suffer: “Where are you God?!” And when Jesus called out, he received nothing but silence in response.
God becoming fully human is a core teaching of the Bible called the Incarnation. And if the Incarnation tells us anything, it’s that God gets it. Not in a polite-but-disingenuous, “that must be hard for you,” kind of way. He entered in, right in, to our predicament and disorder.
There are two quick implications to highlight before I move on. The first is that Jesus’ humanity validates the various ways you can get help when you’re struggling with a mental health issue. Sometimes Christians can be unhelpfully spiritual about mental health problems, assuming that the only means of recovery is to pray and trust God more. Praying and trusting God are definitely behaviors to encourage, but we have to remember that the Incarnate Son of God had the same hormones in his brain working to regulate his emotions just like ours. He had an autonomic system that responded to stressors, just like we do. He had a personality and interacted with other personalities. And he had self-care habits to take care of his mind and body—notice that he had to eat and take time outs away from his work and the crowds to be with his Father. He understood the contingencies that we all live with, that impact our mental health. And even after his death and resurrection, he affirmed that human bodies are good by remaining in a body rather than returning to spirit form.
This doctrine therefore gives us a huge theological neon sign saying YES to treating our minds and bodies holistically. While still exercising some discernment, treatments like medication, improved eating, better sleep, exercise, and any number of counseling approaches are on the table as possible means of recovery and management. And actually, if you are neglecting your mental or physical health, I would encourage you to do something about that, because God thinks your body is valuable and important.
My second implication is that you should feel free to pray to God with the same vulnerability and honesty and force that we see the Psalmists do. God wants to hear from you. Though he is transcendent and bigger than human comprehension, he has checked into our disordered world and understands the burden of living with disordered minds, disordered emotions, and disordered identities.
Of course, while this can bring great comfort, it may not qualify as good news if not followed by my second simple but profound idea. For, what good is a cuddly, empathetic God if he doesn’t also have an ultimate answer to our afflictions?
Jesus Has + Is + Will Overcome Disorder
This ultimate answer is bound up in the death and resurrection of Jesus. On the cross we see Jesus enduring the disorder we all experience right to its end. This is good news because we are all afflicted by the brokenness of this world in some way. But it is even better news in light of our willing participation in perpetuating the brokenness of our world. We are agents of sin as much as we are helpless victims. Death and everything it stands for, including mental disorder, are the “wages for sin”—not as an arbitrary punishment, but as the natural consequence that follows when we live in rebellion to the life-giving God. And on the cross, Jesus absorbed it all so that we wouldn’t have to.
The good news is that when we behold the cross of Christ we see the death of Death. But our good news has an unexpected plot twist in that God is doing something about the fundamental problem of our world but in a hiddenway; subcontrario, which means, under the conditions of the opposite. We see this theme traced all through the New Testament: the foolish are actually the wise, the weak are actually the strong, the last are actually the first. In the ancient world of the Roman Empire, the cross was a symbol that epitomized shame. It was the type of death that intentionally stripped people of their humanity. As Jesus hung on the cross, he was stripped of the dignity and glory inherent to not just his humanity, but even more to his deity.
But, in this incredible scene of humiliation, where God couldn’t be more weak, more absent even, God is actually demonstrating his power over Satan and Death, and showing his intimate solidarity with humanity. I’ve heard one theologian, Dr. Peter Anders, say it this way: in Jesus’ cry of forsakenness, God has never been more present to us, for in that cry of dereliction we are reconciled to him.This very paradox of the cross is good news when we are struggling with mental disorder because it is a cue, a key, to the way God chooses to work.
There is something incredibly isolating about mental disorder. When I had depression, I imagined myself in a glass box, sealed off from everyone. I could see them, and they could see me. But when I tried to communicate how hopeless I felt they couldn’t hear, and when they tried to tell me things were not so bad, I couldn’t hear them. I talk with clients about unhealthy behaviors in their life that are shrouded in shame. It’s not uncommon for people to say to me in counseling, “I’ve never told anyone that.” Mental disorder cuts us off from other people and can definitely cut us off from God. In the midst of mental illness, prayers can feel like they’re hitting the ceiling and God can feel totally absent. But taking our cue from the cross, we can be confident that even when it looks like God is absent, he is actually present. When the evidence suggests that God is indifferent to your crisis, he actually cares more than you could possibly comprehend. When we feel that he is powerless to heal, we see that he is the very source of healing.
The best news for our mental health is that Jesus was not consumed by death, but overcame it in his Resurrection. The apostle Paul describes Jesus as the “first fruits,” meaning, there are more resurrections to come—his is just the beginning. We continue to struggle with sin and brokenness but only for a time: there is a day marked on God’s calendar when he will complete the work started at the cross. On that day, we are told, God’s dwelling place will be with his people—he will be present in the fullest sense. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” [Rev 21:4]
Responding
So, how can this good news make a difference right now? Perhaps you are not mentally healthy in the fullest sense. Perhaps you are in a mental health crisis of your own right now. Perhaps you have a friend or a loved one who is struggling with a mental disorder. Are you thirsting for good news in this area?
Here are three ideas for responding to this message.
You and God
Satan has a history of sliding into our weak areas and whispering, “can you really trust God when he says that he loves you, that he cares, that he gets it, that he can overcome your suffering…” Are you hearing Satan’s voice planting seeds of doubt? If so, you can tell him to go to Hell where he belongs, because in Jesus’ death and resurrection we have enough data points to confidently say that YES, God cares, he gets it, he has done, is doing and will do something about it. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:20 that all of God’s promises are “‘Yes’ in Christ.” Are you connected to the living God through Christ? Are you connecting yourself to the living God in your daily habits? Let me encourage you again to bring your cares and concerns to God in prayer. Bring your anger, your pain, your questions to him in prayer. God wants to hear from you! And take comfort that when we are weak, God’s Spirit who is present within you “intercedes for us through wordless groans” [Rom. 8:26].
You and others
Don’t be afraid to reach out for help. I know that can be a terrifying step to make, to invite someone into areas of your life where you feel most exposed and in pain. Brené Brown, expert in the science of vulnerability and shame, points out that shame thrives in silence and darkness.[3] She says that when you put words around shame, when you throw light on those hidden areas, you undermine the power that it has over you. Find someone safe and ask for help. And if you are the safe person for someone else, get their arm around your shoulder and bear them up by being a patient, present listener, and by connecting them to other resources and people that will bring comfort and healing. Community is a powerful gift from the Lord when suffering hits. Speaking as one who is often a safe person for others, don’t do it alone; be community-oriented in the help you provide. And do the things you need to do to stay mentally healthy yourself. Otherwise you will burn out.
You and yourself
Looking after yourself is a legitimate way of worshipping Jesus, because Jesus loved you right to the cross. If you are struggling with what you think might be a mental health issue, take this message as a prompt to do something about that, whether you think you deserve it or not. God gives us both a future hope and a present hope for mental health. God does redemptive work through earthly means. Let me encourage you to take steps toward those earthly means. If you don’t have a doctor, find one (this was something I should have done much earlier than I did when I was at college). Make life style changes that will help you look after your physical body and reduce the white noise in your head. Go and see a counsellor. It doesn’t have to be a Christian one, but there are some advantages of meeting with a Christian because God can be a part of the conversation.
I’ll close with some words from the apostle Paul, who models a response to suffering and brokenness that is fully engaged with both the burdensomeness of this world, and with the power of the cross to overcome it:
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.[2 Cor. 4:16-18]
References
[1] Definition is adapted from the World Health Organization, which can be found here: <http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/mental_health/en/>
[2] American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edn. (APA, 2013)
[3] Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (Penguin Random House, 2012).
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of other Therapy and Theology contributors.
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