You Asked: Does God Care About My Mental Health?
This Sunday, we continued our summer You Asked series with the question, “Does God care about my mental health?”
Sadly, the church hasn’t always been open to talking about mental health. Thankfully that is changing, but there are a couple of myths that have been prevalent.
Myth #1: Christians shouldn’t struggle with mental health.
The narrative many Christians have been told is that they shouldn’t battle with anxiety, depression, or burnout. If they do, they then think it’s their fault, stemming from not having enough faith, not praying enough, or from sin.
The TRUTH is, you can love Jesus and still fight depression. You can faithfully read God’s word and still battle anxiety. You can trust in Jesus and take medication. When we read the Bible, we see many examples of heroes of the faith who also struggled with their mental health: Elijah battled depression and wanted to die. David was a “man after God’s own heart” and also struggled with deep despair, wondering if God had abandoned him. Jeremiah was known as the “weeping prophet” and even cursed the day he was born. Struggling with your mental health doesn’t mean you’re not a Christian—it means you are human. And God wants to meet you there holistically. Which leads to our second myth:
Myth #2: God doesn’t care about your mental health.
With so much going on in the world, why would God care about our mental health? One look at the Psalms tells us the TRUTH: not only does God care about our mental health, he cares a lot. (See Psalms 23, 27, 34, 88, 91) God is not afraid of our honesty. He wants his children to cast all their cares upon him, because he cares for them. He cares for you.
We get a glimpse of God’s promise for his people in Isaiah 26:3: “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!”
In Hebrew, perfect peace is Shalom Shalom. Exponential peace! Do you long to experience perfect peace? You can start by being open and honest with God, bring him all of your anxiety, worries, fears, and begin to fix your thoughts on him. Ask him to renew your mind and give you wisdom for next steps. And then, ask for help.
Getting help with your mental health isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of wisdom. There are a myriad of resources available to help with mental health. Here are a few to start:
ResLifeNYC.church City Resources Page
Church and Mental Health Resources
Podcast: Being Known with Curt Thompson
Podcast: The Place We Find Ourselves with Adam Young
Does God care about your mental health? He does. And as always, he wants to meet you right where you are and bring your forward into his peace.
This week, take a few moment to meditate on these words the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.”
Amen.