“All day long my disgrace is before me, and shame has covered my face.”
Psalm 44:15
Some of us truly understand shame. It’s like we have been dipped in it, we have wallowed in it, and awful things are sticking to us. We live out our lives in disgrace and in the sense of nasty embarrassment which we can’t truly resolve. And it effects all that we do, even in those rare moments we are not aware of it.
Sometimes I wish I was teflon.
I would love to have a ‘non-stick’ heart. There is often a constant sense of being totally insufficient as a person. It seems I can develop a deep awareness of being defective and unworthy. Many of us feel this way all the time. It is painfully welded to us, and we keep trying to figure how to break that dark bond that’s on our hearts and minds.
Sometimes mental illness thrives on that blackness.
Depression feeds on that stuff, it seems to cycle through us. Our pasts become its nourishment, and at certain times it flourishes. Sometimes it explodes in our minds.
A psychiatrist once told me that 90% of resident psych patients could go home, if only they knew they were truly forgiven.
Shame is a monster that is constantly tracking us. At times we can put some distance between us. But occasionally it leaps up on our backs and drags us down. We are humiliated with our guilt. That is precisely when we should scream out for help.
There are pastors and psychiatrists, therapists and friends who are most helpful. Practicing prayer and soaking ourselves in worship can drive the monster away. And maybe meds can often provide help. All of these have helped me.
Human beings were never created to bear guilt.
But we really don’t know what to do. Shame is vigorously parasitical and consuming. If it runs amok through your life it can and will destroy you. And it’s caustic, it erodes your relationships with others. It blocks grace.
“You know my reproach, and my shameand my dishonor; my foes are all known to you.” (Psalm 69:19)
“To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him.” (Daniel 9:9)
God has made an incredible effort to remove your guilt. Your sin, though it is crimson red in its intensity and very obvious, becomes as white as snow. Your shame and guilt can be erased.
The blood of Jesus, and the cross, can free the guilty and give us real life.
Please trust Him in this. He wants to do this for you.
“Come now, let’s settle this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.”
“For whoever finds me finds life
and receives favor from the Lord.
But those who miss me injure themselves.
All who hate me love death.”
Proverbs 8:35-36
“There are seeds of self-destruction in all of us that will bear only unhappiness if allowed to grow.” Dorothea Brande
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“If one looks with a cold eye at the mess man has made of history, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he has been afflicted by some built-in mental disorder which drives him towards self-destruction.” Arthur Koestler
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Among people with a mental illness, there is a sort of impulsivity, and in advanced cases we can see a ‘self-destructive behavior‘. We do things, superficially we recognize and even assert that it is detrimental, but we will continue to do it regardless. Those ‘in the know around us’ can’t believe what we are doing. It is totally irrational.
Bipolar, schizophrenia, and many other mental illnesses have impulsivity as a common aspect of their disease processes.
We drink,
do drugs,
do pornography, strippers
steal from our friends,
cut ourselves,
misuse our credit cards (and go deeply in debt)
get crazy at rock concerts,
and much more.
We are impulsive and we do things that a healthy person would never do. We consistently choose the worst things and we can’t seem to stop ourselves.
We are the ‘wild children,’ we just seem to thrive on the edge of destruction, repeatedly. This is in spite of the consequences. We just don’t worry about the side-effects of our choices. We don’t think ahead, all we think is of the moment. We consistently choose what is really bad for us, and then throw ourselves headlong into the darkness. The more we do these terrible things, the wilder it seems to get.
We can’t seem to stop.
I can say this because I had a personal issue with ‘self-destruction’. You might say I have a ‘Masters degree’ in it. I have gotten very proficient at it, and have utilized deception to cover my tracks. So much of my life is hidden and I seem to float my darkness out in such a way as to diffuse questions and to excuse awful nasty behavior.
Being impulsive/self-destructive is a hard life in many ways.
We cultivate an image to others that we have really never attained. We are very good at deception, we have discovered how to do and say what we want without others “getting in our faces.” Being impulsive, ready to step into the most pleasurable darkness, becomes something we must cover up, at all costs.
“Can a man scoop a flame into his lap and not have his clothes catch on fire?”
Proverbs 6:27
Am I secretly drinking, doing drugs or using sex (esp. in pornography)? The impulses that drive us to do this stuff will become the way we experience destruction, but somehow we don’t seem to get it. The mentally ill have a horrendous rate of alcoholism and addiction. I’ve seen figures that put us at 80% that have significant issues. We seem to be ‘self-medicating’ ourselves to escape, or trying to get some stability.
When we come to Jesus, we discover that He loves us completely, including our ‘hidden side’. His love comes to us without any conditions. We are free to do whatever we want. However, we will find that ‘sin accepted’ is very brutal to us. Smashing out heads against a brick wall, over and over, doesn’t make the wall any softer. And yet we continue to do the most foolish thing we can do, and then we– REPEAT.
There is a way out of this. But few will really do it.
It’s called ‘public confession.’ We get it out into the open, where the sun shines, and it will be seen exactly for what it is. We choose not to live out our lives in secretiveness. We must learn the skills of transparency, as we lay out our evil, our deception for the church to see.
When we deceive others, we will end up deceiving ourselves. We absolutely cannot continue a life in darkness, or in long-term sin. wPeop cover their faults and excuse themselves do not have a repeneir faults and excuse themselves do not have a repentant spirit.
“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”
Genesis 3:6-7
The broken believer survives because he or she is constantly having to move toward “authenticity.” There exists a credibility and a realness about them. You’ll suddenly realize that you’re talking with someone who is real. They’ve stepped out of the wreckage and have survived their personal catastrophes. This doesn’t come easy.
It is a rarity and a gift.
On the other hand, we see those wrapped up in so much self-imposed deception that can’t admit anything is wrong. Like the problem drinker who denies he has a problem, we can’t handle the reality and drink to alter it. The addicted are compelled to live a delusion of their own choices, and soon discover they are hopelessly trapped. And so we hide under our favorite bush.
(Euphoria was my favorite.)
“When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the manand his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees.9 Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
Genesis 3:8
There is a Latin phrase, esse quam videri; to be rather than seem to be.” We would rather be “seeming to be” than actually just “be.” The sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve are still using “fig leaves.” We don’t want to deal with the truth about ourselves and face the sin of our lives. But it seems to be more than that.
The struggler and the broken believer may try to conceal themselves.
They may hold up an image that deflects the curious onlooker from seeing the real them. We won’t deal with the truth, and we choose to hide ourselves. We want to be seen as “together” even if we are not. It is all about looking good. This is pretense and sham. We dodge and deflect.
“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”
John 3:19
This was Jesus’ indictment of the human heart. I wish it was otherwise.
Each day I must put to death my old self. Take my meds, and ask the Lord for strength to stay real. No more pretense, and no more projecting a false self to others (and myself.) I choose reality over fantasy.
The Holy Spirit is eagerly waiting to fill me. In this I discover I can live well with the strength and joy He gives me.
“The God who can change a sinner into a Christian by giving him His life can equally transform the fleshly Christian into a spiritual one by giving him His life more abundantly.”
—Watchman Nee
Lord Jesus, may it be that the real me meets the real You. Keep me real and authentic. Amen.
This should give direction and dialogue on the issues faced by every church member. It is a great opportunity we have been given— to minister to every person in the Body of Christ. —Bryan
by Ken Camp, Associated Baptist Press —
Living with depression — or any other form of mental illness — is like viewing life “through a glass darkly,” according to Jessy Grondin, a student in Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School. “It distorts how you see things.”
Like one in four Americans, (25%), wrestles significantly with a mental illness.
Depression is one of the most common types of mental illness, along with bipolar disorder, another mood-altering malady. Other forms of mental illness include schizophrenia and disorders related to anxiety, eating, substance abuse and attention deficit/hyperactivity.
Like many Americans with mental illness, Grondin and her family looked to the church for help. And she found the response generally less-than-helpful. “When I was in the ninth grade and hospitalized for depression, only a couple of people even visited me, and that was kind of awkward. I guess they didn’t know what to say,” said Grondin, who grew up in a Southern Baptist church in Alabama.
Generally, most Christians she knew dealt with her mood disorder by ignoring it, she said. “It was just nonexistent, like it never happened,” she said. “They never acknowledged it.” When she was an adolescent, many church members just thought of her as a troublemaker, not a person dealing with an illness, she recalled.
Mental Illness that affects believers must be accepted by the Church.
A few who acknowledged her diagnosed mood disorder responded with comments Grondin still finds hurtful. “When dealing with people in the church … some see mental illness as a weakness — a sign you don’t have enough faith,” she said. “They said: ‘It’s a problem of the heart. You need to straighten things out with God.’ They make depression out to be a sin, because you don’t have the joy in your life a Christian is supposed to have.”
A Baylor University study revealed that among Christians who approached their local church for help in response to a personal or family member’s diagnosed mental illness, more than 30 percent were told by a minister that they or their loved one did not really have a mental illness. And 57 percent of the Christians who were told by a minister that they were not mentally ill quit taking their medication.
It’s not a sin to be sick.
That troubles neuroscientist Matthew Stanford. “It’s not a sin to be sick,” he insists. Stanford, professor of psychology and neuroscience and director of the doctoral program in psychology at Baylor, acknowledges religion’s longstanding tense relationship with behavioral science. And he believes that conflict destroys lives. “Men and women with diagnosed mental illness are told they need to pray more and turn from their sin. Mental illness is equated with demon possession, weak faith and generational sin,”
Stanford writes in his recently released book, Grace for the Afflicted. “The underlying cause of this stain on the church is a lack of knowledge, both of basic brain function and of scriptural truth.” As an evangelical Christian who attends Antioch Community Church in Waco, Texas, Stanford understands underlying reasons why many Christians view psychology and psychiatry with suspicion. “When it comes to the behavioral sciences, many of the early fathers were no friends of religion. That’s certainly true of Freud and Jung,” he noted in an interview.
Often sin is not the main issue.
Many conservative Christians also believe the behavioral sciences tend to justify sin, he added, pointing particularly to homosexual behavior. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association famously removed homosexuality from its revised edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. As a theologically conservative Christian, Stanford stressed that scripture, not the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, constitutes the highest authority.
But that doesn’t mean the Bible is an encyclopedia of knowledge in all areas, and all people benefit from scientific insights into brain chemistry and the interplay of biological and environmental factors that shape personality. Furthermore, while he does not presume to diagnose with certainty cases of mental illness millennia after the fact, Stanford believes biblical figures — Job, King Saul of Israel and King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, among others — demonstrated symptoms of some types of mental illness. “Mental disorders do not discriminate according to faith,” he said.
Regardless of their feelings about some psychological or psychiatric approaches, Christians need to recognize mental illnesses are genuine disorders that originate in faulty biological processes, Stanford insisted. “It’s appropriate for Christians to be careful about approaches to treatment, but they need to understand these are real people dealing with real suffering,” he said. Richard Brake, director of counseling and psychological services for Texas Baptist Child & Family Services, agrees. “The personal connection is important. Church leaders need to be open to the idea that there are some real mental-health issues in their congregation,” Brake said.
Pastors much carefully reach out to the mentally ill.
Ministers often have training in pastoral counseling to help people successfully work through normal grief after a loss, but may lack the expertise to recognize persistent mental-health problems stemming from deeper life issues or biochemical imbalances, he noted. Internet resources are available through national mental-health organizations and associations of Christian mental-health providers. But the best way to learn about available mental health treatment — and to determine whether ministers would be comfortable referring people to them — is through personal contact, Brake and Stanford agreed. “Get to know counselors in the community,” Brake suggested. “Find out how they work, what their belief systems are and how they integrate them into their practices.”
Mental-health providers include school counselors and case managers with state agencies, as well as psychiatrists and psychologists in private practice or associated with secular or faith-related treatment facilities, he noted. Stanford and Brake emphasized the vital importance of making referrals to qualified mental-health professionals, but they also stressed the role of churches in creating a supportive and spiritually nurturing environment for people with mental-health disorders. Mental illness does not illustrate lack of faith, but it does have spiritual effects, they agreed. “Research indicates people with an active faith life who are involved in congregational life get through these problems more smoothly,” Brake said.
You can’t fix the issues, but you can love them.
Churches cannot “fix” people with mental illness, but they can offer support to help them cope. “The church has a tremendous role to play. Research shows the benefits of a religious social support system,” Stanford said. They stressed the importance of creating a climate of unconditional love and acceptance for mentally ill people in church — a need Grondin echoed. “There needs to be an unconditional sense of community and relationships,” she said. She emphasized the importance of establishing relationships that may not be reciprocally satisfying all the time.
People with mental-health issues may not be as responsive or appreciative as some Christians would like them to be, she noted. “Others need to take the initiative and keep the relationship established. People don’t realize how hard it can be (for a person with a mood disorder) to summon the courage just to get out of bed,” Grondin said. Christians who seek to reach out to people with mental illness need to recognize “they are not able to see things clearly, and it’s not their fault,” Grondin added.
Mostly, Christians need to offer acceptance to people with mental illness — even if they don’t fully understand, she insisted. “Just be present. Offer support and love,” Grondin concluded. “You won’t always know what to say. Just speak words of support into a life of serious struggles. That means more than anything.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Camp is managing editor of the Texas Baptist Standard.)
A great book:
“Grace for the Afflicted: A Clinical and Biblical Perspective on Mental Illness” [Paperback] can be found at www.Amazon.com, by Matthew S. Stanford Ph.D
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For more information: National Alliance on Mental Illness (800) 950-6264 Anxiety Disorders Association of America (240) 485-1001 Depression & Bipolar Support Alliance (800) 826-3632 American Association of Christian Counselors (800) 526-8673 Stephen Ministries (314) 428-2600
Broken Believers 