How Often Do You Take Prayer Requests for Mental Health?

How Often Do You Take Prayer Requests for Mental Health? April 28, 2017

Mental Health
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I begin each class with prayer. I also take prayer requests. On one such occasion this year, a student asked for prayer for her mental health. I was struck by the student’s courage and transparency. Rarely, if ever, have I heard someone ask for prayer for one’s own mental health in a seminary classroom or a church home community gathering. Why is that?

No doubt, there are many reasons. One reason is that there is a stigma often associated with mental health. There is this notion that circulates in our heads that mental health and spiritual health are one and the same. But what if the psalmists like David struggled with depression? If so, were they not spiritual?[1] Charles Spurgeon struggled significantly with bouts of depression. Was he spiritually immature? Paul and his comrades “despaired of life itself” (2 Corinthians 1:8; ESV). Had they lost the faith?

Is the following depiction of mental illness to be equated with a definition of sin?

A mental illness is a condition that affects a person’s thinking, feeling or mood. Such conditions may affect someone’s ability to relate to others and function each day. Each person will have different experiences, even people with the same diagnosis.

Or could it be that those who are looking to Christ Jesus, and not to sinful props of various kinds, might experience such phenomena as greater anxiety and depression, as they withdraw from aids that have often served to medicate their pain? Perhaps there are cases where those who struggle in these ways are not less mature, but more mature, as a pastor shared at a church forum this week titled “Holistic Approaches to Mental Health.”

Certainly, the Bible tells us that God gives us a spirit of wholeness. The NKJV translation of 2 Timothy 1:7 reads, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7; NKJV). The ESV and NRSV translate the closing word σωφρονισμου along the following lines:

“for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (ESV).

“for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline” (NRSV).

Does spiritual maturity entail that we have no struggles mentally and emotionally, and that we are always mentally healthy? Could it be the case that mental health itself is not a constant, but a process? One of the panelists at the church mental health forum noted above spoke of mental health as a process. Robert Lyman Potter (M.D., Ph.D.)[2] asserted that we should think of mental health in terms of having a realistic grasp or sense of life, living with a sense of ultimacy (finding our meaning, significance and hope in God), and moving forward with a sense of urgency (rather than paralyzing indecisiveness). He confessed that he himself has struggled to be constant in all three areas. Haven’t we all struggled similarly in various seasons of life?

A pastor friend once shared with me that Christians are really good at dealing with problems from the neck down, but horrible at dealing with problems from the neck up.[3] This needs to change. It requires better theology and greater attention to the whole corpus of Scripture, including reflection on the Psalms of lament, Lamentations, and other biblical heart cries to God. It also requires Christian leaders being honest in discerning and appropriate ways about their own struggles with depression, anxiety, and other mental challenges. Certainly, it is not only lay people who struggle in these ways, or people outside the church. After all, as the National Alliance on Mental Illness states, struggles with mental health and experiences with mental illness are widespread in our society:

One in 5 adults experiences a mental health condition every year. One in 17 lives with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. In addition to a person’s directly experiencing a mental illness, family, friends and communities are also affected.

To return to the opening reflection in the post, the student who requested prayer for her mental condition was not the only one in my class that struggles with mental health. If the statistics above are any indication, about one in 5 of those in my class do. Include me in that percentage! When the student shared about her situation, I thought it important that she not go it alone. So, I shared, too, though it wasn’t comfortable. I hope the rest of the fifth of my class experiencing a mental health condition presently will feel more freedom and less stigma as they go forward in life to share about their situation. After all, they are not alone. The other four fifths will struggle with mental health from time to time. So, too, Scripture encourages us to rejoice with those who rejoice and grieve with those who grieve (Romans 12:15).

I will keep taking prayer requests for people with bad backs, sore knees, and cancerous conditions. All such health concerns are very important, as we are psycho-somatic beings. But given that we are psycho-somatic beings, I need to pray for the other half of us as well. We all need to take such prayer requests for mental health and share our own, too. Otherwise, we are functioning in a sharply divided or bi-polar way as a Christian community. Jesus came to make us whole.
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[1]In The Bible Jesus Read, Philip Yancey reflects upon Eugene Peterson’s claim that possibly seventy percent of the Psalms focus on lament whereas a minority of the Psalms focus on praise and thanksgiving. The former highlight distress and the latter well-being. Yancey has a “hunch” that Christian bookstores reverse the percentages in favor of well-being with their assortment of “books, plaques, and gift items.”

[2]For more on Dr. Potter and his work in holistic care, refer here to a recent interview with him at this blog.

[3]Refer here and here to two forums where this issue has been addressed.


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