Helping you navigate the tension between faith & mental health by looking at a tension point, a talking point and a truth to ponder.
Tension Point
"I’m told that anxiety isn’t part of how we were designed to live, but I still have it and God’s not healing it."
Talking Point
Many of us live with or have experienced anxiety in our lives. Anxiety can be mild or it can be crippling, isolating us from everything and everyone.
Our experience of life can often leave us feeling on edge and always prepared for what might happen, particularly if stressful situations as a child have left your nervous system on high alert. Not only that, but with today’s media and social networks we are constantly surrounded by heartbreaking stories, extreme opinions and challenging perspectives from across the whole world. It’s no wonder that our inbuilt detector for risk is on high alert so intensively and often in such extreme ways.
If you have seen the recent Inside Out 2 film (which is great!), you’ll know that anxiety can be useful. It helps us prepare for a test, it motivates us to get ready for a job interview. In essence, anxiety is our inbuilt way of scanning the horizon for threats and clues as to how we can respond to them.
Whilst we may know this, we also have times when we know our anxiety is not doing us any favours and is in direct opposition of living freely. We believe God can heal, so why doesn’t he just take it away?
Truth to Ponder
It can be frustrating and demoralising when we don’t experience healing quickly, despite our best prayer efforts. But if we are seeking healing from anxiety, maybe there is a longer process he wants to take us through? A process of establishing safety within us, of building us up from the inside out, of strengthening us. Maybe the healing many of us long for is actually the long-term healing, the re-establishment of safety and calming of your nervous system.
Safety is so important to God. Consider how often God is described in the Bible as a rock, a place of safety, a dwelling place of refuge, a high tower, a cleft in the rock…the list goes on and on!
“ In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety.”
If we rush ahead with the expectation of having it taken away, is there a risk that we might miss out on the absolute bedrock of relationship with God? That he tenderly cares for us and that we can trust him to do so, to take us through the process himself?