Branch On The Vine

By: Alli Matthews

Has anyone else felt the supposed struggle between faith and mental illness? 

Maybe you have felt defeated after struggling with depression for months or years while trying to keep faith that God can heal you. 

Maybe you have dealt with addiction and tried to fight it through your faith in God’s power. 

Maybe someone has told you that if you just had more faith, you could overcome your anxiety. (If this has ever happened to you, I’m so sorry. That is a harmful message.) 

I think it’s easy to pit faith and mental illness against each other as if the two cannot or should not exist at the same time. Doesn’t the Bible talk about how we should rejoice always (1 Thessalonians 5:16-17)? Doesn’t Jesus tell us to not worry (Matthew 6:25-34)? 

The Bible does encourage these things, yes, but the Bible does not say anything about people who struggle with mental illness having “less faith” than people who don’t deal with mental illness. What a relief. Before jumping into this discussion, let’s look at how the Bible defines faith.

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” 

Confidence in what we hope for.

Believing what we do not see. 

Faith is necessary for us to have a relationship with God. We must believe in His existence and presence, even though we can’t physically see Him sitting with us. Through our steps of faith as small as mustard seeds, God grows our confidence in what we hope. He grows our faith and trust in Him. 

Hebrews 11 goes on to give a bunch of examples of faith. Here’s a link to the rest of the chapter if you want to read those examples to better understand the definition of faith:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=hebrews+11&version=NIV

Now that we’ve established the definition of faith, let’s define mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association states, “Mental illnesses are health conditions involving changes in emotion, thinking or behavior (or a combination of these). Mental illnesses can be associated with distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities.” 

Another definition I’ve heard that has changed my perspective on mental illness comes from Daniel Amen, MD on the Whoa That’s Good podcast. He said that he likes to use the term “brain health” instead of “mental health”. He does this to help people understand that it’s not their mind that has an illness – it’s their brain. If we look at the pathophysiology, (which is a fancy word for how disease functions), we see that there is an imbalance in the chemicals released by the brain that happens with mental illness. 

This is a helpful approach because it allows us to see depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, addiction, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, and other brain illnesses more like how we see heart disease or diabetes or cancer. There is a process in our body that is not working how it was designed to function. 

Similarly, like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, mental illnesses often have multifactorial causes. That means they can be caused by multiple things. They can be caused by a combination of genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors.

For example, someone may be more prone to major depressive disorder due to their genetics. They may develop the disease no matter what happens in their life. Or they may not develop the disease until they experience something tragic which causes a change in their habits of socialization, regular exercise, and a nutritious diet. 

The point I’m trying to make is: mental illness is caused by multiple factors. People do not choose to have mental illness just like they do not choose to have cancer or heart disease. Even if they don’t live perfectly healthy lives, even if they make poor decisions, people do not choose to have disease. 

So far, we have defined both faith and mental illness. To recap, mental illnesses are diseases and dysfunction in the brain caused by genetics, behavioral and environmental factors. Faith is defined as “…confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see,” (Hebrews 11:1). 

We have also established that having a mental illness does not mean that someone has a lack of faith. 

Now, our question is, how do faith and mental health work together?

A lot of information was covered in this week’s post. Therefore, I’m going to work through answering that question in next week’s post. I’m going to share some of my story with mental illness – not because I have it all figured out – but to illustrate how faith and mental health aid each other. 

I fully believe that faith and mental health do work together because the God who asks us to have faith in Him designed our brains and minds. He knows how they function and gives us help in their dysfunction. 

I’m taking multiple weeks to discuss the topic of mental health because mental illness is such a common human struggle. That’s right – as you probably read in the title, we are diving into Branch On The Vine’s first blog series!! I’m excited to explore this topic with you all and to continue the discussion in the comments section. 

Feel free to reach out via email or social media with any questions. I’m not an expert, but I am a fellow learner using my God-given gifts and knowledge to encourage and equip people in their faith and health journeys. I’ll leave you today with some encouragement from the Lord who loves you:

“…Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

– Jesus (Matthew 17:20)

References

Njoku, Ihuoma. “What Is Mental Illness?” Psychiatry.Org – What Is Mental Illness?, American Psychiatric Association, Nov. 2022, http://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/what-is-mental-illness.