Mental Health

The line we often sing—As the deer panteth for the water—sounds peaceful. In Psalm 42 it is not a Thomas Kinkade meadow. Animal experts say a deer pants when it is being chased. The songwriter is watching an animal almost killed, and he says, that is what my soul feels like.

Randy’s question is simple: what is chasing you?

Psalm 42 is a maskil—a teaching song—written by the sons of Korah in the middle of a mental health crisis. Tears have become food. Appetite is gone. The writer used to walk into the house of God with joy. Now he is living on memory. He cannot get there. Crowds of people who look fine make it harder.

The refrain people throw at him all day is, “Where is your God?” Randy used to hear that as the taunt of an atheist. He now hears well-meaning, uninformed believers: If you prayed more, fasted more, read more, this would not be happening. Job’s friends did the same. Karma theology piles suffering on suffering. It is not true, and it is not help.

He tells the story of PGA golfer Grayson Murray—a young man who named Jesus, named his mental health struggle, held up a trophy, and not long after took his own life. People who have never been inside that darkness ask what and list every reason to live. Those reasons do not line up in a straight line when the mind is ill. If the diagnosis had been pancreatic cancer, the church would have rushed in. Mental illness is mental cancer, Randy says. Treat it with the same urgency. Remove the stigma.

Scripture is not silent. Elijah, after calling fire from heaven, curled up in a cave and asked God to take his life. Jesus in Gethsemane was under such pressure that he sweat great drops of blood. God left those stories in the book on purpose.

The check-engine light is not the problem. Replacing the light without asking why it came on is. Pain is information. You are not your illness. It is okay not to be okay. Not everyone is walking through what you are walking through—but everyone is walking through something. You are not alone. In the name of Jesus, it does not have to stay this way.

Nearly one in four U.S. adults struggles with mental health. The church should talk about it, deal with it, and help.

The psalmist’s turn is one word: yet. “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him.” He is not in the temple. He is hours north, watching waterfalls crash down Mount Hermon, and he says the breakers have swept over him. Depression can feel like a cold, black landscape. It can lie and say God has forgotten you. That feeling is real to the person who has it. It is not the truth.

A drowning person does not need the Greek word for life preserver. They need you to throw one.

If you are struggling

• Choose to feel. Name it: I feel sad. I feel hopeless.
• Choose to tell. Call or text 988 if you are having thoughts of ending your life. At LifeFamily, go to care.life.family for lay and professional counselors. Generosity in the church underwrites that care.
• Choose to fight. We all hear voices. Decide which ones you listen to. Take thoughts captive (2 Corinthians 10:5). A voice that tells you to destroy yourself is not the voice of God. He is about life.
• Choose to live. It can get better.

If you love someone who is struggling

• Choose to pray. This is a spiritual battle as well as a mental one (Ephesians 6:12).
• Choose to be present. You do not coax someone out of depression. Create an atmosphere where they can be seen.
• Choose to know them. Do not ask why—you would not ask why someone has cancer. Stand where they can find you when the sun comes out again.

If you or someone you love is in crisis, call or text 988.

Key Scriptures: Psalm 42; 2 Corinthians 10:5; Ephesians 6:12; the stories of Job, Elijah, and Jesus in Gethsemane.