A Christian View on Mental Health- Laborers' Podcast

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Have a conversation. On a Christian's view of mental health.

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Defining Mental Illness and Mental Health Questions

Welcome back. The comment line is open. It's open live and it's open later if you're listening or watching. We'd love to hear from you hear your questions. Critique, we'll try to answer to the best of our ability guys.

How's it going? We've got Tyler from bread of the word Troy the humble Baptist podcast and big John real talk with big John. You guys doing? Okay.

Yes, sir.

Good good. I'm glad well, this is this is a daunting task. As I mentioned before in our prayer, that's that's how I feel about every time we approach a subject. Where we want to hear? From God his perspective out of Scripture on on any subject.

Our desire to Handle it correctly rightly divide the word of truth hear from God and what he has to say on a subject. It's a daunting task just because of our our inability because of our sin nature all those things Wrapped up together.

It's hard and we have a desire to glorify God and to do that. We've got to understand him correctly so that we can communicate him correctly and. This subject especially the the depth of it, I think this is this is definitely outside of my Expertise, but I'm not it.

I'm not a doctor and and nothing that is said tonight is going to be. How do they say it's not advice. Medical advice.

It's a waiver. I'm here.

More like a disclaimer.

And I want to do my best to not be dogmatic about any opinions I'll share. You know the best thought of my ability what I've learned and I look forward to hearing from you guys. But you know, we are in no way giving medical advice.

We're just going to share from our experiences in our studies of what we've learned and hopefully Hear what God has to say from his word and glorify his son, so I I really think we need to start with a a definition of Mental illness.

I'm gonna share this one and Tyler. I know you've been looking into this and You can give me a thumbs up you can give me a different different definition. But this is what I found when I look this up.

This is a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition emotion Emotion regulation or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological biological or developmental process underlying mental.

Functioning. What what have you found?

What definition would you use?

So just to I guess simplify. Because that was a very clinical definition right there we are very unclinical people. But essentially.

The.

Official definition for mental illness tends to be along the lines of abnormal behaviors just as a group of Behaviors of different patterns you might say that are what we would consider not normative.

And this isn't normally what? People experience. But in some cases they do experience that and it leads to unique challenges in navigating the world in which they live oftentimes. Some of those patterns we lump in things like anxiety different forms of depression things of that nature.

Would you say as a part of that definition that Those things are not really one-offs or Occasional they're part of the definition of mental illness, but those things would be persistent.

Yes. Okay.

Yeah, I think there are I think you could can see that there are Individual cases of anxiety, but when we get into the mental health discussion These are patterned Cases of these things. Like I got you might see the term chronic depression where it's it's almost in cycles.

It might might be years it might be months, but it's it's a it's a battle.

Yeah.

Trolling John. I'm gonna. I'm starting at the top and this is related to that question of defining it. It says what is your understanding of mental health issues? Like anxiety depression or trauma and how do you approach them?

They look like so I.

Had the question pulled up because I'm Understanding of mental health issues like anxiety depression trauma and how do you approach them biblically? Is that the question you ask? Yeah. Yeah. All right, making sure I answers so things like anxiety.

Depression I.

Would I don't know that I'm again. I'm not a health advisor by no means. But I wouldn't lump. I would more likely to lump them together than I would the third one which was trauma and I'll tell you why.

Because things like anxiety and depression is often more perception than anything. You get 15 people the same scenario and most of the time you'll get 15 different ways they look at it and sometimes people Get anxious over things that other people don't get anxious about.

And sometimes people can be depressed about things that other people just let rolls her back. So there's gonna be perceptions. Trauma on the other hand is different. Trauma that I take is something that is that is Inflicted on someone and then the reaction from that is the trauma or is the response to trauma.

Trauma is an act Against an individual which might elicit some of the responses formerly mentioned or even some that aren't mentioned. That would be some other kind of case so Biblically, I think that things like anxiety and depression are.

One a.

Result of the fall I Think that it's a part of the fall of mankind. We see things like anxiety and depression too, I think that You have to look at them one of two ways one in the sinner's life Or the one that's lost and in the Saints life or the one that's saved.

How do these two? How do these two things approach? What I would say that if we're going to look at those that are lost apart from Christ Anxiety and depression are going to be the natural Response of living in a sinful state being a sinful person and having no hope.

To those that are in Christ, I would say that whenever things like anxiety and depression affix themselves to someone it's most of the time because they've lost sight of the bigger picture and it's an it's a Don't say a forgetfulness of it, but maybe there's an error of having forgotten.

Trauma again is something that that is inflicted on someone and without a little bit more of I guess of a definition or a little bit more of a Example I don't know that I could give you Any kind of biblical response to that?

You're welcome to throw something out there, but just the word trauma in itself. I don't know that I can dissect that.

Well and and to Tyler's point. And and looking at your point where you're talking about giving people the different people the same scenario. There's also going to be like a spectrum.

Sure of.

Responses, so. Two people may have anxiety over the same issue, but they may find themselves different places on the spectrum of Anxiety. So so I mean this is a real Complex situation complex issue when you're looking at mental health.

Becky's with us miserous self. She says it's hard with clinical depression because I feel like the psalmist where I trust God, but I'm completely broken all the same.

And see I can relate to that. I'm just personally up. And I guess if I was get tested I'd probably come back back with with chronic depression if I was to go see a doctor.

And.

Get the the prescriptions on that but I Actually had a particularly rough bout of depression about a year ago, maybe two. Came out of nowhere. And it's I refer back to that time as the week on my knees that it was it came out of nowhere.

It hit like a train. Because I didn't doubt the goodness of God I didn't doubt his sovereignty there was just I Would say was demonic honestly something like we see in the Old Testament. I thought it was a it was a temptation to despair.

Essentially it wasn't necessarily that I had moved or that I had Forgotten God, but for whatever reason my feelings told me one thing even though my head said it wasn't true. And so it was at its core it was a it was a temptation to give in to despair.

Did that make sense?

Yes What.

Objective Truth, Scripture, and the Subjective Experience of Suffering

Pointing back to what what Tyler just said and Big John as well whenever we look at things like anxiety depression and Even trauma, it's real easy. It's something that the that the believer has to keep in their mind and I'm and I'm glad miss miss Becky brought it up as well as well as David because he's a he's a wonderful picture of this all throughout the Psalms is that these anxiety and depression And even and even trauma are gonna have some level of subjectivity to them.

That they're subject to circumstances. They're subject to Expectations they're subject to what has happened. But the way that we approach them biblically is that that the Bible contains? Objective truth.

Yeah, and so that it is truth. That's going to be true for all times and One thing, you know, I can't really speak much on the anxiety and the trauma. I can personally speak to the depression side of things.

I was on antidepressants for nine years however. Whenever these subjective feelings as Tyler put it, you know come to us. We have to check them through the objective Word of God, which means, you know If those moments that do come for the believer you know, we're gonna have to constantly be running back to the objective truth of if I believe the gospel I am his if I believe the gospel this is true.

And we see David doing it a lot in the Old Testament as a Miss Becky Pointed out the Psalms. He's crying out Lord Cast off Lord. My enemies are gonna devour me, but yet I know I have trusted in you Lord.

I know you are my salvation. And so we can see he's preaching the objective truth to himself in his subjective circumstances.

Yeah, I would agree with that one. That's Partly the direction I was going by saying your perspective, you know, sometimes you have to remember. We say all the time hindsight is 20 -20 and that's because When you're going through something you have no idea what's coming in five minutes.

But you have the benefit of history where you can look back. So as as a believer Whenever I'm faced with things like Anxiety for instance or something like that You have to consciously take this thought captive.

The Bible says take every thought captive. You have to consciously take the thought captive and my suggestion is to Remember a time when when God has seen you through that. If for some reason you can't remember a time you can go to scripture and find a time throughout scripture Where God is as has brought somebody through the same exact thing or something very similar.

I've never by God's grace. We've never dealt with anything like clinical depression. I sometimes deal with with being anxious and And worry at my wife would say worrying about stuff all the time that I don't have no control over.

That's a you know, just being real with you. That's a that's a burden that I carry. Even when y 'all's minds whenever you go go to bed after you've cut everything off you think about 15 ,000 different things that You might have done different that day and a 15 ,000 things that might happen the next day and start planning Contingency plans for every scenario you find yourself in or am I the only one I?

Have to have. Like a podcast or something going. I actually sleep with one earbud in. Like and that's how I go to bed because that's the only way my brain will shut off at night. And my wife actually plays the Bible app out loud.

Yeah.

And so yeah, yeah, I'm one of those white noise guys that needs some kind of auditory input while I sleep.

I tell you what helped me with this is Two things and I know I'm getting ahead a little bit but because some of mine don't make sure I say it one is reflection and Thanksgiving. There's been more than one time That I have found myself worried about something that I know that that My wife knows that the Lord knows that I cannot affect change on.

Now I can't stop it from happening. There's nothing I can do to do. You know events that are in motion are in motion, and I can't stop them you see what I'm saying and I'll pray about whatever. I'm worried about and then I'll begin to thank God for the things That he's already given me whether or not I Get to keep them or whether or not any bad thing happens and then typically For whatever reason I read the book of Colossians.

It has always given me a great deal of peace every single time. I've been Dismayed by some event some I read I read one of Paul's books and immediately Things tended to come into focus the big picture the little picture the the nonsense picture I began to prioritize and it helps with my anxiety.

First Peter 1 first Peter 1 is is mine.

Miss Becky says I will suggest to anyone going through a bout of depression to read Job where God speaks from the world when it Puts me in the right mindset most of the time there you go. They have that probably hit a chord with you up there Tyler read Job.

I've been in Job for two years. Yeah, I think there's I think there's two viewpoints to this question and of course we went in that the natural direction of Solution, you know, what was the what's the biblical approach? finding biblical solutions going to God's Word, but I think there's another viewpoint to this question and Think about it like this.

What is what is the biblical approach or how would you?

Approach.

This biblically. And I thought about it conversations. I've had with Tyler and and I know if I'm thinking back correctly I'm thinking we've talked about and discussed folks who have had a very harsh They have a very harsh response to those who are facing these battles that they'll call The the folks who are on a spectrum.

What are what are some of those folks say Tyler? Do you remember what I'm talking about? They're very harsh to folks who are on the autism spectrum. Okay, I'm trying with you. Yeah.

See, I've had people tell me I'm possessed. I've had people tell me it means I'm not a Christian. You get all kinds of things. Yeah, people are very harsh.

In their response to these issues with even if it's not chronic or Persistent and maybe would be labeled a mental illness those you're dealing with anxiety depression You know just do this or You're possessed or you're oppressed or just very rigid and harsh but until you have Experienced something like this and you're like where in the world did this come from?

It's just there. So when I look at this question that says what. How do you approach? These things biblically I'm thinking. Now with the perspective that I have I want to approach these things with gentleness and kindness and patience.

Because some oftentimes most oftentimes people don't know where this this thing comes from. That's Attacking them and causing them to feel this way. And so to me the gentle approach the kind approach.

As as together you see God's Word to find his solution. Because that that that rigidity and and harshness is is just so unhelpful. I believe.

Sure, and I think that's almost like a lingering Influence from the prosperity gospel that we have we tend to have this idea. I think that I'm a Christian so I shouldn't have Struggles, I shouldn't suffer.

I shouldn't have this. I shouldn't have that that because I'm a Christian I've got the joy joy joy down in my heart. And so I shouldn't have depression. But Job's just going back to Joe, but Job said that man is born for trouble as the sparks fly upward.

Even to go to the words of Christ from the lips of our Lord is in this life. You will have Tribulations, that's right. But take heart for I have overcome the world. Amen. We're told time and time again Old and New Testament that troubles struggles trials.

Whatever term you want to use there can be expected. That is just how it is. Well, there are times where God makes things crooked. So it would seem I.

Would say this for that. I Want you to finish it, but I want to say this when you're saying it though. You're 100 right. The prosperity gospel has has destroyed people's perception of.

The.

Why people Come up on hard times or whatever whether it be Depression anxiety. Would it be something else? I mean I put it this way if if you forget if you have forgotten that there's a war raging and The weapons that we fight aren't carnal.

Right weapons this warfare that we fight aren't carnal. But we're we are in the fight of our lives Battles not ours to win. But I have found that the people that are afflicted the worst with these things And are afflicted the most often with them are the ones that Are standing in the hardest opposition to the enemy.

By that I mean you're usually doing the right thing whenever you run up on these kinds of troubles. The devil's got no reason to fight. Somebody's on his side.

That's right. That's right.

That makes sense. I'm sorry, but I interrupt you go. Oh, you're good.

I think we're going the same way and so we have have to recognize that. Struggles and trials are things that we can anticipate. This isn't This is an abnormal. This isn't Just you're not a good enough Christian yet.

And if you just get more more sanctified to be super Christian, you won't have these problems. God tell us time and time again. We're gonna have these problems. But he also gives us hope that there is a purpose in them that there's something that we can benefit from them.

Because it is God who worketh in us. For his good pleasure. That's right. And that has to be the the baseline I think for how we work through things like mental illness is that. It's not just because people sin.

But also that guy can still work in it. Whether we see it as that or not God is at work. Amen.

Scripture, Shared Burdens, and the Church’s Role in Mental Health

We've already been touching on this but let's move to number two. How how do you guys integrate scripture personally when it comes to these. We want to of course offer help to others. Maybe they can glean from some of the practices that we take on.

I'm always pointing back to Objective truth. We have to stand on what is clearly promised in scripture the fact that we have so many pictures of this from Moses to Elijah to David to to Christ and his disciples going through tribulation going through struggles going through.

Everything especially with like Elijah and David you see depression clearly.

And.

It being Something that a that a believer will go through.

And.

And so that's that's what we constantly have to keep on our hearts. You know. We'll have something like the the verse of the day right if it's just one scripture that you're that you're going back to.

You know and each one of us threw it out right. Tyler was quoting Job. Miss Becky Said go to go to Job. Brother John. Where'd you go to Colossians? Yeah, I'm second Corinthians Colossians and second Corinthians and you know mines first Peter and it's just where.

Where do you go? To find your your help where you know. What are the words of our of our great helper that that will help us in in time where where this? Circumstances isn't changing but our perspective on it.

That's good.

That's real good. I.

Look at these these mental health issues similarly to like a physical injury most of the time physical injuries. Take time to heal, right? Yeah, I mean you you got to put ointment. Sometimes you have to take antibiotics.

There there's a regimen to be getting better and it takes time to to heal those physical injuries and the same thing is true just because of the state of our Being that that we are still in this simple fallen world.

We're Fallen simple creatures. And so when it comes to these mental health issues Is it God's prerogative if he wants to he can miraculously heal somebody? Forever at starting at one point.

Yes.

He can do that and I'm sure he has done that and and it's not wrong to pray for that because we want to be Done with this. We want to be done with sin. We want to be done with the effects of sin. I and you know, we just we just want to be done with it forever but it's not in always in God's plan for all of us and we don't want always understand what he's doing and.

So.

God's Word is like that that healing ointment as God is continually healing us. We don't know how long he is gonna take to do that healing process. But but that. But the scripture is that healing bomb that that we.

Ingest.

Daily. Hmm the rest of our lives.

I've got a sticky note right here on my desk. This is let us sing the 46th Psalm and let the devil do his worst.

Man, that is so spot-on last night We were going over some of some of this stuff at church as we were ending up and We're going through Joshua, you know one line at a time on Wednesday nights and You get to the place and Joshua chapter 11 and it's described that Joshua and Israel are going to war Against these Kings and their armies were like the sand of the sea and when I saw that it reminded me of God's promise to Abraham that his descendants were to be like the sand of the sea and this is Like a counterfeit of that the same way those fake snakes was that Moses is When it Moses's snakes ate when he went to Pharaoh, right?

And then These these these Kings wage war against Israel and God delivers them straight away over into Israel's hand and it's just like Right in the midst of that they hamstringed our horses and they burned their chariots with fire.

Then my mind went straight to I was Psalm 46, right? And how how he makes the world wars to cease. It's it's absolutely beautiful Psalm and yes, sister Becky's right on you go to the Psalms for stuff like that and I'm wondering when I read these Psalms is David reminding himself of what God has carried him through his whole life.

Is David reminding himself that why his own dad overlooked him God didn't. That God sent someone to go call him out from the from among the sheep and anointed him King when everyone else in this family had given up on him that God had delivered both the giant into his hand just like the bear and the lion.

And these Psalms. In my mind, I get a little Pentecostal rough. I had to I'm sorry, don't be mad at me. I love. Which is why Psalm 46 when my favorite. But that's one of the reasons we sung it at the first conference.

I Don't know if you remember that or not. Brother Tyler I do.

I remember it's taking a video and sending it to the rest of my family. Oh, did you. We're doing Psalm 46? Yes.

Churchy Churchy. God praise teams leading us in a Psalm. What is going on in the world right now in a reformed Baptist Church? Everything's upside down. There's no rules.

See.

My favorite Psalm is Psalm 130. Oh Out of the depths have I cried unto thee O Lord. Hmm. Because even out of the depths Does God hear? Hmm. I need that reminder a lot. Yeah, that's good.

And tell me what you think about this. Here's here's another I think Missing element that we've read it. We we know it but we Forget it and don't apply but another missing element that we fail to integrate and apply to our lives.

Listen to these passages and I know. Now don't get me wrong I think some of these some of these cases are due to consequences because of sin. Sure, and some are just a result of living in a sinful world.

I mean you have both and both circumstances but but listen these verses Romans 15 1 we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the the failings of the week and not to please ourselves first. Thessalonians 5 14 bear with the weak be patient toward all and then Galatians 6 to carry each other's burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of pride.

Ephesians 4 9 through 10 2 are better than 1 because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them fails falls down one can't help the other up. God has given us to each other. Amen, and Why do we not take advantage of that?

Why do we push people away and and Think that we can handle this on our own. Why do we not utilize this gift of one another. Right, yeah.

And also there's a stigma surrounding. Yeah, let's be realistic. Everybody on this. Well, most people in our network are in some form of leadership at their local church, aren't they? Right are my are my wrong.

I think I can write in that and So many people come to you with their problems.

And.

What I think in our mind sometimes we believe if they think that somehow another I've got a problem. And they'll never trust me with theirs or they'll they'll run me out on a rail which ain't nothing but corn carnality affecting your mind arrogance or pride or whatever or maybe even Believing alive the enemy.

In that case you talked about medicine being good for the body whenever there's an injury. Nobody thinks twice about going to the doctor to get a bone set. You break your arm. You go get it set. So that'll heal right if you don't get it set, right?

It won't heal right? That's just the way it is. Yeah, but yet. Stuff this mental. People don't ever want to talk about it. Well, if you don't never talk about it, you're never gonna make you just never going to get better.

I think we go ahead. We've we've gotten into. To churchy anity right where a lot of people their idea of a church is to go in and. You know you put on your church face. Oh, hey, how you doing brother?

It's you know, nice to you know. Good to see you this morning. I'm blessed. I'm blessed and highly favored. On and you do this to the next brother.

Too flexible be better shape.

You know. It's sad because this is really a foreign concept that that's rather recent. You read Spurgeon. Spurgeon dealt with depression. You read Luther. Luther dealt with depression. It's funny. There's a story of Luther and his wife he's in his depressed fit down there the study she gets all dressed up in black like she's going to a funeral and.

And she walks down the stairs to him and you know, he looks up and he's like, why are you dressed like that? And she's like, well, didn't you hear God's dead and what silly woman God can't die and he goes.

Well, that's the only reason you should be acting like this as if God's dead. Oh. She didn't she she pulled that car. Those two were a.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a whole nother funny story. It basically Joe broke nuns on Easter and one of them ended up Shanghai and I'm in to be in his wife. It's. Don't know if you know about that brother John, but we're gonna fill you in one day today.

Today is not that day. Okay.

But.

All all these great men of the faith Throughout the history, you know, you read more than just their their highlights. And you'll see the true men that had true problems and that that's a true Encouragement for people like us which are which are not high and lofty which you know None of us are and and if they if they heard us say that about them They'd probably slap us because they're like who am I?

But we ought to Help our brothers, you know. As as brother Rob pointed out all those scripture verses I've had one on my mind this entire time since we've been talking Romans 12 15 rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep.

Yep, we got to be there for our brothers and sisters. We need it.

We need to them. Do you find that the sheer number of scriptures that are encouraging to people? who would otherwise be depressed and anxious should give some calls for the amount of Depression and anxiety that must be within the church.

The fact that there's so many scriptures that people are going to whenever they're depressed or anxious should give you some measure of Some measure to know that there's a reason they're in there. Yeah, if they weren't in if there wasn't so many I mean undoubtedly Joshua needed to be encouraged not to be afraid.

Or God wouldn't have told him so many times to have courage to not be afraid. Right. God's not gonna tell you something. You don't need to know. So it's my fault that Joshua must have been one man who was prone to to fear.

If.

If God's character is the way that it appears to be and it is in fact unchanging. I Would imagine that Joshua in his flesh would have been the worst military leader of all of Israel. God tends to use people in their weakest areas to be the strongest.

Yeah, and in their weakness his strength is perfected. So if I had yeah, I guess I love 2nd Corinthians if I had to agree that.

I.

Wouldn't I wouldn't think that Joshua? Was it was a man that struck the heart or struck fear in the heart of his enemies?

Or there wouldn't have been so many that went to war with him. He's an old dude. Josh was an old dude.

So there's a reason God's continually Encouraging Joshua to remember what he'd done for Moses and what he's already done for Joshua and to have strength and to be of good courage and. And with that being said if we look at the New Testament, it's just one portion of the book for a measure of encouragement.

We're told continually to think on these things or to remember that this he turned that this short momentary line afflictions working for us an eternal weight of glory. That the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.

And things like that We're we're continually reminded throughout the New Testament, which tells me there must be a reason that God's reminding us to take heart and to be of courage and to shake off anxiety to Take every thought captive to be anxious for nothing.

But in all things give thanks to God.

Yeah.

Let me take a slightly different approach to this looking at solutions just just Drawing from personal experience. This is why I think the songs that we sing should intentionally be Didactic in nature.

What's that? Oh when I'm teaching layer. Oh, okay. We're in teaching. When I'm when I'm singing with others about Jesus and I'm singing about his Character his nature and his attributes or about the father.

When I'm singing those things The Lord brings joy to my heart and I really appreciate and I'm grateful that the Lord Created us that way. Mm-hmm. Where he allows us to enjoy music. Yeah to learn about him to learn how to rest in him.

I think that's part of that risk.