3 John 1:2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
Why is the issue of mental health very prominent in our days? Is it that in the past people had no mental health issues? They did but the awareness wasn’t there. Nevertheless, many young people at the slightest difficulty are falling apart mentally. Before I delve more into this, let me just quote this saying: Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. This came to mind when I reflected on mental health today. In times past, people didn’t have all the luxury we have today so they had to do much more, but in these times, inventions have led to easier ways of doing what used to take much effort. As a result, people have become lazier and weaker. Advancements in any field have been beneficial in their own way, however, they have also had their downsides.
For instance, in times past when there were only physical Bibles or books, many people have shared how they would save up money to get them to read. Others had to walk miles to a library to get them. But in these times when you can access books even online, the reading culture has dropped. Now if you want to know God and His Word, it’s way easier to get that information, but there are many distractions like movie sites, social media, events, and parties that hinder many. The attention span of many people today has also reduced. We can’t focus on one thing, our minds are all over the place so there is a weakness it brings to the mind.
What am I driving at? The reason why mental health is very much heard in our time is a result of the increase in information we have access to.
This influx of knowledge and information has created confusion in our minds.
We don’t know who to listen to or filter what we hear. We are taking it all in. On social media, anyone who has an account automatically becomes a speaker because, by their posts, statuses, and stories, they are speaking. Mental health has to do with the mind. It can also be called emotional health. The truth is that your mind is what regulates your emotions.
There are three major dimensions of health; Physical health – how your body is doing, Spiritual health – how your spirit is doing, and of course Mental/Emotional health – how your soul is doing. In the realm of the soul, we have the mind, the will, and emotions. These three are tied together and you can’t separate them. Why? The thoughts in your mind will eventually affect the choices your will makes and how you feel(emotions). The opening scripture throws light on this. It says that you prosper and be in health on a certain condition; that your soul prospers. In other words, whether I do well financially, in my health, or in any other area will depend on the state of my soul. And when I say the soul, I can use it interchangeably with the mind. Proverbs 23:7 As a man thinketh in his heart so is he. That means the totality of who I become is a reflection of what I have in my mind, which is part of my soul.
Mental health is so important that even your physical and spiritual health can be affected if something goes wrong there.
The Lord began to illuminate me on this concept even in my personal life about two years ago and I realized that the church has not given it much attention. Your mental health influences your thoughts, your feelings, and your behavior. Thoughts are to the mind, feeling is to emotion and behavior is to the will. So anytime you see anyone behave in a manner that looks weird, you don’t look at it from the outside but that something has gone wrong on the inside. Knowing this made me more forgiving and less judgmental. There are excerpts on this website on the soul and the identity crisis. This excerpt has a connection with that and you should go through them. Again our mental health also determines our view of ourselves, the health of our relationship with others, and our reaction to life situations.
There are many expressions of a mental health challenge and let me say this: because we live in a fallen world, I put it to you that no matter how spiritual you think you are, you have a flawed soul. The way the soul is, changes happen gradually unlike the spirit which changes immediately after you accept Jesus. Only a person with the full measure of the Spirit is not flawed in the soul realm and that was Jesus. Even the prophets like Elijah, Moses, and Elisha that you look up to had major issues and I don’t want to go there today. Your spirit changes its nature right after that encounter but your soul hasn’t. You know why, we are told to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Renewing is present continuous tense which implies a process not a one-time event. Again the bible says to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. If the body were also changed, we wouldn’t have been given that instruction.
These are some expressions of a mental health challenge; anger, anxiety and panic attacks, personality disorders, gender confusion, loneliness, trauma, suicidal feelings, depression, low self-esteem, pride, paranoia, bipolar disorder, substance addiction, sexual addictions, and perversion, among many others. Many mental health challenges that affect us presently begin in childhood. So a bible character like David was neglected by his parents and we know he loved God but he had a womanizing problem which led to adultery and murder. So anyone who is mature wouldn’t just see the murder and draw a conclusion, there was a deeper issue of neglect that led to low self-worth which in turn made him feel like having many women increased his value. Similar thing with Solomon. He was born to parents who started a relationship on adultery and I’m sure there was also neglect and rejection. He felt left out. I can’t go into details on that but I can connect it to Joseph and his brothers because there is an enmity and jealousy that breeds when there is a family with step-children. If you notice the examples I have given, they all have something to do with a broken family structure. The devil knows what a good marriage between parents can do to children and that is why he is attacking family life so much. There is a correlation between family and mental health. So if you see people who hit women or rape and you go deeper, you’d find something that happened when they were young that gave rise to that behavior. Because mental health has to do with the mind, you would have to replace wrong ideologies with the right ones to perpetually be victorious in this realm of the mind. Again, it would take time and consistency, not a one-time happening. So in the next excerpt, I’ll look into that. Remember that it all starts with the mind.