Mental Health is NOT a Lack of Faith, it’s About a God in/with Us in Our Weakness
This is an encouragement that is expanded from Ch. 3 in our FREE Living Grace and Family Grace workbooks (personal or groups), "God is bigger than our weakness."
Jesus reveals “weakness” is where God desires to respond
God is in our weakness, grace sufficient is Jesus himself
God is bigger than our weakness means He is closer than we think
We look for blame, God looks for grace.
With the story of the man born blind, the disciples are curious if his or his parents’ sin is responsible for his blindness (a common way of thinking at the time ... unfortunately still today with some mental health conditions; see the story in John 9:1-7).
Jesus reframes their perspective from sin to a grace response ... "“Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God would be displayed in him" (John 9:3)
In our Living and Family Grace workbook (Ch. 3), we use this story and other helpful points to look beyond stigma to see God restoring dignity and purpose ... even in weakness. Point three in the curriculum says,
"Mental health difficulties do not hold God back from working in our lives and the lives of our loved ones ... He desires to reveal His constant love and grace in our whole lives ...our entire journey."
God is displayed in Mother Teresa's Darkness.
The chapter’s Resiliency Exercise (Ch. 3) highlights men and women of faith who struggled with mental health challenges, including Mother Teresa. Her story reveals how God displayed Himself in/through her life. Many know her for her relentless faithfulness to Jesus and her global work among the poor, sick, and the marginalized; only a few knew of the deep inner struggles she endured from the very start of her ministry. In her own words, Mother Teresa writes...
"There is such terrible darkness within me as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started the work."
Mother Teresa is a life example of dealing with an unmovable dark thorn with the sufficiency of grace, much like Jesus responding to the apostle Paul’s painful thorn? ... "My grace is sufficient ... my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).
“Pleading” is a healthy faith expression (for Paul and Jesus) from a position of union.
Like many of us, Mother Teresa had pleaded with the Lord, just like the apostle Paul pleaded with the Lord three separate times. In Greek, pleading means here that Paul desperately cried out to God, “to invoke” and “draw near” the relief and help needed (Heb. 4:16). We see this same example and expression with Jesus (see Hebrews 5:7). So, you’re in good company when pleading for your painful thorn.
As we hone in on v. 9-10, Paul reaffirms that the sufficient grace is Christ, His power resting and dwelling in him. In a sense, the thorn activates a sufficient grace within, a strength to endure through (Greek meaning of “sufficient” means “to satisfy, to assist, to ward off, and to avail”). We also read Paul expressing this strengthening within, in other passages like in Rom. 5:1-5, 2 Cor. 4:7-9 and 16, Eph. 3:16, and Phil. 4:6-7. No wonder Paul said he welcomed being weak and boasting in it as it signified a deeper mystery of fellowship in Jesus.
Silence is not a sign of separation, but God as the undercurrent IN you (grace for a wholeness journey).
For Paul, his language is always reaffirming that we are “in Christ” or “in Him,” so that in all our thorns, it is a “withness,” union, and togetherness with Jesus Christ in the ongoing struggle, not distance or separation.
The point here is that for many of us, including Paul, God often seems or feels silent in our pain and trials (especially mental health challenges … personally or for our loved ones). This is a mystery I wish I had more insight for, but like Paul, God’s response sometimes is not a cure, but a grace-filled journey for strength and growth in our true wholeness. This is not a white knuckling faith or performance, but rather a learning, a growth, and a transformation through it. As I often encourage others, “In Christ, we are on a wholeness journey, not a brokenness one.”
What I typically have seen (as well as our research on our groups) is not necessarily a cure for mental health challenges, but a decrease in aggravating symptoms, better ways of managing them, improved relationships, faith renewed, and purpose restored or even discovered. That’s what I think wholeness looks like in a mental health journey.
It’s learning to rewrite a new story - IN Christ.
This chapter in Living and Family Grace (ch. 3) helps us see Jesus reframing grace into something more simple, yet powerfully sufficient. It’s way easier than willpower faith to overcome; It’s learning we are "in Christ," rewriting a new story of whole life (as he did with his disciples and his followers … still today).
So, when we say “God is bigger than our weakness,” we’re really saying …
God is bigger IN our weakness … dwelling in us … sojourning with us toward His loving goodness (see Philippians 2:13).
Joe Padilla | Grace Alliance
