Mental Health, Weakness, and God’s Presence in Suffering
Why Does God Allow Mental Health Struggles?
Many Christians and their families struggling with mental health naturally ask where God is, and Scripture shows a beautiful reality: A God near to the broken-hearted, weak, and afflicted, ready to act, not distant as stigma always creates.
In this article, we explore:
1. Why stigma keeps people stuck on the wrong questions.
2. How Jesus responded to stigma — with action.
3. Where is God in suffering — How God works through weakness
4. Mother Teresa’s lifetime with a dark mental health “thorn.”
1. Challenges make us question life; stigma keeps us stuck in the wrong questions, stalling life.
Mental health struggles and faith are often difficult and confusing for the individual and their families; and the mental health complexities and uncertainties are deeply uncomfortable for those on the outside. Like Job’s friends spiritually reasoning Job’s plight, all sorts of social and spiritual mental health stigmas are created, pushing (and punishing) the “weak” and “afflicted” to the margins.
“…. stigma creates a narrative of a distant and displeased God, with the sufferer to blame for it … However, if you notice, stigma is not about the ‘weak,’ it’s created by the self-made ‘strong,’ for the we-are ‘strong.”
Unfortunately, social and spiritual stigmas create a narrative of a distant and displeased God, with the sufferer to blame for it, and trapped to survive in the margins. However, if you notice, stigma is not about the “weak,” it’s created by the self-made “strong” for the we-are “strong.” The very nature of mental health stigma divides and creates distance (with God and neighbor): an “otherness” vs. “togetherness.”
I’m not pointing out anyone specifically, but rather pointing out the false narrative and world these stigmas create — to stall life. I’m calling out the lies, and for mercy for us all. Like Paul recounting his previous sinful error before Christ (1 Timothy 1:15), I am just as at fault believing some of these stigmas, but with God’s mercy helping me unlearn them, and giving mercy to help others (1 Corinthians 15:56-58).
So, faith and mental health suffering, weakness, and affliction- it’s natural to ask, “Why me/us, God?” The guilt and shame of stigma keep them stuck in the question — thinking God is distant and displeased, not near and resourceful.
However, instead of trying to break Christian mental health stigma, with simple Biblical hermeneutics, let’s explore the question, “Where is God in our suffering?” That might provide a deeper comfort and path than an exact answer.
2. Why me/us, God? We are prone to look for blame; God looks for grace, His goodness to be in actionable and restorative ways.
In John 9:1-7, with the story of the man born blind, the disciples are curious to know 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).
The disciples quickly spiritualized it into stigma-thinking; Jesus spiritualized it into God’s opportunity-thinking for restorative life.
“Jesus didn’t fight stigma; He denounced it, and stood in defense of the weak and afflicted man and his family.”
Jesus reframes their sin-perspective 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).
Jesus didn’t fight the stigma; He denounced it, and stood in defense of the weak and afflicted man and his family. This man’s affliction left him with no vocation and handicapped him to the margins (living on the alms-handouts of the religious). Jesus came near and changed everything for him and his family (and unfortunately they were persecuted for it — see the full story in John 9).
Jesus is showing His disciples (and us) not to look or think like stigma, looking for fault and blame (like Job’s friends), but to see everyone suffering, weak, and afflicted as an opportunity for God to display His restorative goodness.
The key is that we should first look to remove guilt, shame, and blame so that you can see Him ready to love you into more restorative goodness.
No matter how difficult or messy life may be, with this story and perspective, how would you answer the question, “Why me/us, God?”
3. Why me/us, God? … See where God is and where His Kingdom operates in blessings.
a. Weakness is where God is and where He identifies Himself. In the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, Jesus reveals what the Kingdom of God looks like — and it starts with those who are “poor in Spirit” and those who are “weak” possess God’s Kingdom (Matthew 5).
For me, this naturally alludes to God’s restorative promise in Isaiah 57:15, where God says He dwells in the heavens and chooses to dwell with those who are crushed, humble, and contrite to revive and refresh their hearts and spirits (whole lives - mentally, emotionally, spiritually). God doesn’t look for the strong palaces to dwell — He looks for you, right in the midst of your or your loved one’s mental health difficulties and disorders.
In the Bible, “weakness” is nuanced to those who are vulnerable, oppressed, afflicted, outcast, suffering, and sick (infirmity). Scripturally, the weak and afflicted are where Jesus and God Himself identify personally as and with them, so much so that mistreating them is mistreating God Himself — it’s personal to Him (see Matthew 25:38-40, Proverbs 14:31, 19:17).
Thus, God’s love is for us and inseparable (in all “groaning” of life) — though it tarries under all kinds of pressures (See Romans 8:32-39).
What does that say about God right now with you?
b. Weakness is where God defends and blesses in their care. Uniquely, God Himself will plead for the weak (poor, afflicted), and where/how His blessing operates reciprocally, His Kingdom ways, again how the Beatitudes reflect.
For more, see this from the Old Testament perspective:
Psalm 41:1-3; 22
Psalm 103:6
Psalm 140:12
Proverbs 19:17
Proverbs 21:13
Proverbs 22:22-23
God chooses the weak because He embraced it for all of us … for us to do the same. For me, the question of suffering often starts with the cross of Jesus Christ.
The cross is the ultimate place where God, revealed in and through Christ Jesus, willingly chose suffering, weakness, and affliction to restore everything. It’s how the Body of Christ will continue revealing God’s love to the world (see 2 Corinthians 5:18-21; Philippians 2:1-11, and Romans 15:1-3).
Based on the Scripture, not stigma for me, it’s more … “Why does God allow Himself to still suffer with His creation? … with me/us?”
“… The cross is the criterion for knowing how and where God works — that is, both among the weak (the 2 Corinthians 1:26-31) and through the weak (Paul: 2:1-5). The implicit corollary of the epistemological criterion for discerning the means by which God works, and the space in which God works, is that we participate in God’s sort of activity — which is of course the work of God’s Spirit (2:4, 6-16) — by means of, and in spaces of, human weakness.” — Michael J. Gorman, Participating in Christ (2019)
There are so many more Scriptures throughout the Old and New Testaments to amplify this further. And yes, the Bible shows God can do miracles, too — many Scriptures show this side of God, and I have seen a few throughout my years in ministry; however, I’ve seen more of a resilient journey, with breakthroughs all along the way (I wrote about it here).
From this short Biblical perspective, what comes to mind in answering the question, “Why me/us, God?”
4. Why me/us, God? God displayed in Mother Teresa’s dark mental health “thorn.”
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."
The chapter’s Resiliency Exercise (Ch. 3) highlights men and women of faith who struggled with mental health challenges, including Mother Teresa. 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
Mother Teresa is a life example that seems much like the apostle Paul dealing with an unmovable thorn, with Jesus responding to him with ... "My grace is sufficient ... my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). This response matches the various Scriptural points I outlined above — where God is … and where His attention is attracted to.
Mother Teresa’s mental health thorn didn’t shake her faith, maybe slowed her down at times, but never held her back. She endured with a hope not of this world, but something deeper from her faith (Christ in her weakness).
Note: “Hope” is a togetherness action in and with God. The Hebrew word for “hope” is “kawa,” which carries the meaning of enduring with faith and patience, an eagerness for what is not seen to come (under pressure), and an intertwined and binding “togetherness” with/for God.
How might you continue answering the question, “Why me/us, God?” or does it make you ask another, better question?
* * *
So, in our workbooks (ch. 3), 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).
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
Joe Padilla | Grace Alliance
