Bible Study The Growth Bible Series: -Psychological/Mental problems-

[Atonement]

I will be offering Bible questions and what I feel are Biblical answers to these questions. Let us study these that we allow ourselves to grow in the Lord. All responses are welcome

Question:

Can God heal psychological or mental problems?

My answer:

Yes, just as God heals the physcial body, so can He heal the immaterial aspects of a person. When a person has emotional problems, such as depression, guilt, grief, neurosis, or psychosis, God works with the immaterial the same way He does with the material. God may use diagnosis of the counselings of a specialist, medicine, dilution of practices, and/or food to help restore normality. God may also use understanding by analysis, support groups, or books. However, God may heal a person directly without any of these means. Or God may heal through the use of Scriptures, the Holy SPirit, and through the power of prayer.

 

[jgredline]

Agreed

 

[ChristineES]

I have depression/anxiety disorder. I have to take medication or I can not function. I suppose God does not want to heal me of this or I just don't have enough faith. I have asked and prayed on this.

 

[handy]

Christine, I want to encourage you to not think in terms of 'not having enough faith' or 'God does not want to heal me'.

Sometimes God visits things upon us, that He seems to expect us to work through. By work through, I do not mean solve on our own or pray that He solve it. Rather, by work through, I mean to live with it and do His work that He sets for us while living with it, until His purposes are completed.

I realize that this isn't 'feel good gospel'. But it is Biblical. We need only to look at Paul's thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) to see that even persons of great faith can ask God sincerely to remove such things, only to have God respond with "My grace is sufficient for thee." As far as I know, there is no record that God ever removed the thorn from Paul.

My husband has a seizure disorder. He must take medications for the rest of his life, or until such a time as God works a miracle and heals his brain. The medications are expensive, they cause him to feel fatigued all the time, and they make it hard for him to complete things in a timely manner, which has caused problems for him at work. As his wife, I was entreating God on my husband's behalf to remove the seizures. Then one day I overheard my husband talking with my dad about his health. He was praising God that he lived in a day and age in which there were such medical advances that he could have the brain surgery and medications that would keep the seizures under control. I realized that Steve was 'working through' the seizures. Not that it wouldn't be nice if God would simply remove them. But, the seizures, for this time, are a part of Steve's testimony of how God is working in his life. That he can work, support his family and do all that a husband and father must do, in spite of the health problems. I realized that I was the one who was having less 'faith' in God's work than my husband. His grace is indeed sufficient.

God's grace is sufficient, and He does supply all our needs. What gets clouded, especially in this day and age of Word/Faith healing, is what God sometimes does within the tribulations and sufferings that we face.

I know depression, though not to the point of needing medications. Depression can seem like one is constantly wading upstream in a river of mud. It saps one's strength, and makes everything seem pointless. But the Lord's purposes are never pointless, and even as you work through the physical side of depression, the fatigue, the listlessness and aches, God's will can be done. You may not ever be able to leave off the medications or be 'cured' of depression in this world. But you are an important member of the Body of Christ with spiritual gifts to share and works to do and blessings to give. Don't let Satan rob you of all of that by convincing you that God is somehow displeased with you or finds you worthless or your faith empty. A big lie, that is!