While there is no doubt that mental health challenge or mental illnesses seem to be claiming more and more victims, the phenomenon is not really new, it is probably only just being acknowledged as a reality of the natural life. But it is also more the consequence of the kind of life humans have chosen to live.
Years ago, I recall telling some colleagues that just observing the bases upon which people make choices and decisions, I concluded that every natural human being is on a spectrum of mental health challenge. The mental health afflictions of all natural people, including those we think are some of the most intelligent, successful and accomplished in our midst, are only a matter of degrees.
Although the levels of vulnerabilities vary, the challenges of living with the complexities of a world drifting towards its final stages seem to be edging more and more people closer to being borderline cases just waiting for something to snap in their fragile minds. And any issues of life can be the trigger.
All of the preposterous human notion of the so-called Alpha Male, a James Bond-like idea of a man whom other men want to be like is just some figment of the hollow imagination of ordinary humans. Once all pretences to invincibility and the thin veneer of human braggadocio is ripped apart, anyone can easily get reduced to a tearful jelly.
While the obvious and immediate causes might be the increasingly daunting challenges of life — uncertainties about future prospects, professional setbacks, business failures, health challenges of loved ones, challenges faced by returnees from war fronts, those with self-esteem problems, debtors, bereavement, marital abuses, etc — the primary cause of mental un-wellness which most do not suspect is that anyone, I mean everyone, who is alienated from God is no longer whole, ab initio.
We all fell and came short of the glory of God. The latest ‘rampantness’ of mental illness is just to further put the implications of human disobedience and alienation from God under a magnifying lens.
Mental incapacitation has lived with man ever since his soul got severed from his spirit, hence the connection man has with the perfect God. The damage done to that original connection we had with God through our spirits has the most immediate effects on our souls which contain our will (for decisions), emotions (for feelings) and intellect (for rationalisations).
It is, therefore, safe to say that we all inherited sick souls from birth. Our minds got damaged congenitally. The original man was created to function in a perfect state of the harmony of spirit, soul, and body for as long as he remained “dependent” on his Creator who Himself is a paragon of internal peace, reconciliation, and perfect harmony. (1Thess. 5:23).
Unfortunately, man got seduced into “independence”. This independence (a mere euphemism for slavery to his own limitations and environment) is hallmarked by the switching of the control over his life from the Spirit of God to himself, the rule of his own SOUL. Man became his own “god”, determining for himself what is good and what is not.
The three components of the soul (will, intellect and emotions) make up the essential human personality. If we are looking to know who a person is, we should not bother much about how they look, but press beyond that facade to check out how they think, how they make choices and decisions, and how they express their feelings. This is the real identity, or if you like, the nature or the “name” of any individual.
As a result of the subjugation of life to the rule of our souls, we all became “soulish” beings. Man essentially now has to generate solutions and answers to life’s pointed questions from within himself rather than from the infinitely rich resources of the mind of God.
Negative spirit beings also moved in to offer “help” in filling the void. These entities exercise control over men through their souls that have lost connection with God. They can affect or influence how we feel, create influences that condition our thought patterns, choices and decisions. They may not know what you may be thinking but they can create realities to affect or influence your thoughts and what you decide to do or not do.
What we presently see as civilisation and cultural practices developed largely in this way. They are largely the results of the eruption of thoughts from the souls (minds) of men who have been alienated from God. Cultural practices and civilisations, and even physical realities of our world would have been vastly different from what they are at the moment if man had remained yoked with his Creator.
The radical truth about biblical salvation in Christ is that while it may take us to “heaven”, its primary reason is actually to whip us back into the divine line here on EARTH. Central to that project is the restoration of our SOULS to its original state where it stops being the primary controlling core of our lives, including being a tool in the hands of wise and dark spirits, to where it now takes its instructions from God’s Spirit through the human spirit and thus becoming the powerful tool it was once made to be – the primary birthing tool of the civilisation of God on earth.
When man fell, we crashed beneath the elevated place of the harmony of perfection with our God, and with it our wholeness and wellness. Our restoration to a spiritual from the present soulish state is the key to restoring our wellness.
Jesus did not come to save just our spirits, but more importantly, to redeem or “buy back” our SOULS which have been sold out to the wrong influences. Whoever or whatever controls the SOUL of anyone is the master of their lives. You can be born again and Jesus is still not your Lord and Master. Until the territory of your salvation experience extends beyond your spirit to envelope the SOUL, Jesus is never truly the LORD and the Master of any such life. This is the mind renewal process spoken of in Romans 12:2.
The reason God did not whisk everyone who has said the sinner’s prayer to heaven immediately after their “salvation” experience is because a chunk of their humanities still reside outside the realm of true salvation or redemption. The job of genuine shepherds is to “culture” the people’s souls and incorporate them into the territory of Christ’s control.
Until this happens, mental illnesses and similar experiences are still just seconds away, and you may need to be constantly prayed for, put on drugs, or just constantly “handled with care” in order to “manage” you amidst the encroaching death process.
That is why almost all of Jesus’ pronouncements on salvation are about the SOUL. In the church, we have often read these to mean accepting altar calls and going to heaven, but it means much more. At the back of the LORD’S mind is the restoration of mental and physical wholeness to the being of the individual.
At the root of that project is the application of spiritual means. That is the meaning behind such scriptural portions like prospering “…as your soul prospers…”, “he restores my soul….” A person can only prosper and enjoy wholeness of being only as their SOUL prospers (i.e. comes under the light of God).
The importance of the redemption of the human soul is underscored by the Lord Jesus when he asked rhetorically: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Jesus would later further connect the overcoming of life’s negative circumstances to the spiritual redemption of a SOUL when He said that all those who are labouring under life’s heavy yokes should come to Him to have their SOULS (emotion, will, and intellect) fixed.
All of the challenges of life – lack of joy, confusion, heaviness of heart, schizophrenia, depression, physical diseases, etc, are located or have their roots in the wellness or otherwise of the human soul. “You will find rest for your SOULS…”, He said.
It does not matter whether anyone is “born again”, if you did not go further to attain the salvation of your soul, you will not be markedly different from anyone around you in the world. You will not be free from the controlling power of foul spirits and will suffer the same afflictions as they do, even if you may die and ultimately go to heaven. The greatest miracle and healing anyone can walk away with from God in this present life (not in heaven) is a fully restored SOUL.
Christians who join the chorus of mental illness with the world without having clarity about its source and how to deal with it will be afflicted with the same fear that the world is afflicted with. The truth is that they can only device human-generated therapies or means to “manage” it without ever being able to stop or cure it. The only cure is a soul invigorated by the light of God.
In the Western world, while there are a vast number of those experiencing disorders in their minds, it is also fast becoming a popular alibi for those of unyielding hearts who want to have things their ways in anything and with anyone. Rather than shift their positions and conform to the rules of decent behaviour and conducts, they rather shift the blame to mental health. When a mind is permanently given to disobedience and is completely unyielding to corrective influences, it is a fertile ground for mental un-wholeness.
For as long as humans continue along the paths of self-will or self-determined courses of life; for as long as they choose to remain stubborn, self-willed and unyielding to corrective measures, mental health and other challenges will continue to be their next door neighbour.
Olushina Adisa is Associate Editor with Kingdom Times and wrote in from London, where he is based with his family.