Where is God in the mental health crisis?

Almost anywhere you look today, it’s clear that mental health is a big issue. In fact, many would go as far as saying that it’s in crisis.

There is an extremely good chance that either yourself or someone who is close to you will have gone through periods of poor mental health. We see it on the news, stories revolve around it in movies and tv shows. Everywhere you look it is hard to ignore it.

All of this can leave us asking, where is God when we’re struggling with our mental health? Where is God in this crisis?

As Christians we believe that God made us. Not just that but He made the whole world, and He made it perfectly. But that perfect creation was ruined. Because of the fall, the world was warped. Nothing was perfect anymore, nothing was what it was made to be.

I don’t know about you, but I feel that. Even in my favourite things, they are not perfect. I feel it in myself. No matter how good I want to be or think I am, I’m not perfect. I can do rubbish things, and I can feel pretty rubbish.

The Bible is filled with people who are going through difficult situations. God speaks to and works through ordinary people. He does not use perfect people, they don’t exist, He uses broken ones.

The book of Psalms is full of poems and songs. And in these pieces of art, we see the full spectrum of human emotion: the highs and rejoicing, the lament and sorrow. We see pleading and we see weeping. The Bible doesn’t shy away from the difficulties of human emotion. It acknowledges it and affirms that this is a part of what it is to be human. And in the Psalms, while it doesn’t say it directly, it definitely talks about times of poor mental health. Psalm 42 is one of these Psalms.

I remember the first time I heard this Psalm. I was so surprised about how raw it felt. How it expressed so much painful emotion.

The Psalmist writing this is not as happy as they once were. They recognize this change in them, and it makes them feel distant from God. They talk of crying day and night; of their soul being downcast and at turmoil within themself. They are overwhelmed by the trials of life and comment on the seemingly slow response of God.

This depressed state is placed in the Word of God for a reason – God doesn’t ignore these emotions. The writer feels like God has forsaken him, but God loves him despite their struggle. And even through these dark thoughts, they have hope in God and long for Him – their soul pants and thirsts for God.

This is where God is in the mental health crisis. He can feel distant, and it can seem like nobody could possibly know how we feel. But in our lowest points, we crave someone who cares, someone who understands, someone who can take the pain away. We can come to God with this. That’s what the writer of this Psalm did and that’s what we can do too. God, like no one else, knows how we feel.

When Jesus died for the sins of the world, He cried in anguish that God had forsaken Him. And in that, he was in agony. He had to deal with the mental and physical torment of His Father, the creator of all things, turning His face away from Him. He experienced real, physical and emotional pain. All for us.

Jesus knows exactly what it is like to feel alone, to feel abandoned, to be mocked and not understood by those around Him. In that moment Jesus was separated from God, but God had not forgotten Him. And it’s the same for us today, we might feel alone, but God has not forgotten us. He will never leave us, not even in our darkest moments.

And so, we can turn to Jesus, who knows and understands us. Who cares for us enough to go through torment Himself. We don't have to rely on ourselves to do anything or be more than we are.

Even though Jesus defeated sin and death, we aren’t free from suffering in this life. We still experience brokenness, we still go through things like depression and anxiety. But as we see throughout the Bible, God uses people like this and loves them. We can look to him and what he says to give us hope for the future, calm our fears and give us purpose and peace. God's capacity to love us is something to trust and feel secure in.

And because of Jesus’ victory, the Bible tells us that He will come again one day, to make all things new. The perfect creation that once was, will come again. All the darkness will leave, all poor mental health will be gone.

The last book of the Bible, Revelation, tells us a bit about what this will look like. It tells us that that God will be with His people, and He will wipe every tear from their eyes, that there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying or pain, because the old things have gone and the new has come. God makes everything new.

When God comes again, He will bring an ultimate perfect Kingdom. God's creation as he intended it to be. In a world of bad things and bad mental health, this Good News that Jesus brings can really help us through these dark times.

This blog was written by Cat Driver, Key Relationships Manager at UCCF.