Perspectives From Above Regarding Mental Illness

Our cloud of witnesses testify to why all types of suffering are allowed.
Let us learn from their lives, their sufferings, their death.

God is able to cure and heal any and every ailment.

What does it mean when the healing does not occur?

Not every case where faith is present, and all efforts are exhausted, does healing or a cure come.

When the Lord was in the flesh, recall how He prayed for the cup of death to be withdrawn.. but not according to His flesh's will, but according to the Spirit's will.

What does this mean?

Was God not listening when we or our loved ones begged for a healing of their ailments?

Was God withholding a cure as a way of saying the sick person was not worthy or didn't have faith or something else?

I don't think so.

God allows certain things to happen for reasons sometimes not fully understood... but let us make an effort to understand.

Looking at Messiah is always the answer when it comes to difficult realities such as death, or mental illness, or when unimaginable evil happens to those we may deem innocent.

When it comes to mental struggles, not every person's situation is easily categorized or fully understood... but men do try to put a name to any such thing.

For some people who are challenged by detrimental thought patterns prevalent in their minds and hearts, their part may be to choose their thoughts wisely and take captive any thoughts that lead them astray.

Yet, for some of these people, their minds are seemingly always tethered to balloons... and they are unable to take their thoughts captive. 

The issue with scientific approaches is a dependency on observation, and man has yet to observe how a mental disorder comes about despite similar symptoms closely resembling certain ailments as defined by someone.

I personally think the rise of diagnosis may have also exacerbated the rise of mental illness.

Man has a desire to properly label every single thing they perceive as an anomaly while also legitimizing the art of medicine or some practice in every which way.

Diagnosis has often times be very correct... and also very wrong.

My mother, as a first-hand example, was diagnosed with several guesses by experts when she began to be overcome with confusion, indecision, and an inability to verbally communicate.

There was no physical evidence in the brain scans that gave a hint to what was physically happening.

There was no measure of chemical change that led experts to understand what was happening.

This didn't prevent the medical experts from diagnosing her and placing her on a regiment of medicines.

The initial guess was that a pair of minor strokes occurred as she slept.

This diagnosis, along with associated synthetic medications, was the protocol for some years.

And who could argue with experts in white robes and many letters next to their names?

Despite the good that comes from man's medical practices, it is after all a business and sadly financial incentives are woven into treatment (repetitive doctor's appointments, patented medicines, tests, et al).

Experts at the best west coast hospitals (USC and UCLA) couldn't determine what my mother's ailment was.

It was not until my mother lost the ability to utter a single word did her brain scans show physical evidence of what had gone wrong.

Her frontal lobes had significantly eroded and eventually were gone.

This is called "aphasia'.

I had initially recognized my mother's illness as something likely caused by the stress of watching her beloved father deteriorate.

This, coupled with strained relationships in the family, insecurity at work (being laid off), and likely my lack of empathy and patience with her, added weight to life's ever-present stresses and challenges.

I noticed the medical visits were not working.

It didn't matter whether or not people were able guess what it was, but I think this added to her frustrations and to that of those around her.

Somehow, I knew this problem would not be fixed, healed, or cured. 

When my prayers for healing went answered, a different answer in another way came about.

I was confronted with the realization that God allows certain things to happen despite our perception of what we think should happen.

God's good will does not always appear as a cure or the saving of a life.

In my mother's case, there was much good that came about if it were not for her struggle.

Her ailment brought our family together in a much needed way.

My sisters were somehow reconciled and their extended families brought closer together.

Many more lessons came about.

Hearts were exposed and character traits confronted (in me personally, and perhaps for some relatives).

This is how life (and struggles and eventual death for most of us) teaches us life's most difficult yet vital lessons.

In some cases of mental illness, I don't think it matters what a person 'does' to stave off or prevent further decline or suffering.

In some cases, what God allows is what is going to come about regardless of people's efforts.

If this is difficult for the faithful to accept, how much more difficult it must be for those who doubt or disbelieve in a loving and just God.

It has been my personal experience that when people are unable to continue with God's will, they are apt lose their own minds in the process.

This is what I think may have started my mother on her decline.

It has been my observation that some people's minds may become troubled because they choose to focus more on the negative aspects of life rather than the positive.

Bad media programming comes to mind.

News media is largely 'bad' news, also sensationalized drama latent with violence and overt sexuality (both exploited natural sex, the vulgar, and the unnatural).

A focus and mental repeating of negative themes that remind the media consumer of past hurts and injuries.

This is similar to looking at one's past in a hopeless manner filled with injury and victimization, instead of searching for learning lessons and God's grace through it all (which is the attested fact).

In other cases, the mental issues are hereditary.

Not according to DNA, but in following poor or detrimental behavioral patterns. [news article link]

Since children do not choose their parents, nor choose the environment they are raised in, and since a child takes in their upbringing as usual / typical and often lack objective reflection on what happens in other homes, children are apt to adopt and follow initial behavioral models.

Consider the following:

The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation. 

- Numbers 14: 18

It may seem unjust for God to punish the children for the sins of their parents.

Yet, when considering the challenges every generation suffers according to the humanity of the previous, we may be able to understand this punishment is a consequence of sin (the bad choices of the previous generation).

Thus this punishment can be understood in the physical sense of a natural law of occurrence, similar perhaps to Newton's law of motion (a physical observation to speak of human behavior).

Herein is a possible link to less than ideal behavioral patterns and societal influences persisting into subsequent generations if unchecked / unrepentant.

Consider also this:

The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them. 

- Ezekiel 18: 20

I think this speaks to those who, despite their learned patterns from forefathers, are not guilty when being found ignorant of the difference between what is right and wrong.

We each have our blindsides don't we.

Although subsequent generations suffer, they are not guilty unless / until they know better.

After knowledge comes, then responsibility is now theirs to own.

This responsibility may seem overwhelming, especially for those who decide to live and exist outside of God's will and life in His established earthly kingdom (His sanctifying will).

We see this pattern with the litany of kings after David (over the kingdoms of Israel and Judah), and we can relate this to our very lives and heritage and progeny if we have taken that difficult journey of soberly looking at our forefathers and their highs and lows... and ourselves in life's mirror.

This is why in some peoples there is found an inability to adjust to life's challenges.

Where there is resistance instead of acceptance, one's humanity and inherited detrimental patterns may overcome and overwhelm.

Acceptance does not mean continuation, but rather acknowledging sin's existence ... and this allows for repentance, change, healing, growth, perseverance, hope, maturity, etc..

It is this spiritual growth which, I think, is largely ignored in mainstream medical practices and by extension popular culture as a whole.

It is, I think, a practice largely concerned with things observable and not things invisible, even matters of the heart and spirit.

I think this is why medications are difficult to ascertain because the vast majority of them are synthetic, while the body is organic.

And where God's qualities are largely ignored as myth, thus the spirit world is not only ignored... but mankind becomes susceptible to it and tossed vessel on the spiritual seas.

A feeling of God's abandonment may arise when one allows negative and doubtful thoughts to flood the mind (allowing weeds to grow).

This speaks those who are able to take their thoughts captive and submit them to Messiah.

I think every single person on earth is a bit askew... some more than others, but all are damaged goods in some way and to some degree.

Management is key, at times more on the part of those not afflicted.

To manage the sick with absolute love, grace, kindness, patience.

We read that all people in the Bible had their victories (and constant trials, their humanity - sin - to deal with, and also certain defeats) according to how they managed life's challenges.

Victories reflecting how they refused to allow sin to flourish in and / or outside their homes... defeats when they were unable to address sin... or didn't make the effort within themselves and without themselves.

In this article, it may seem I attribute mental illness to sin... and someone may delineate a conclusion that those who suffer mental illness are afflicted by their self-inflicted sin.

This is the sobering reality for some who suffer mentally.

But this is not the case for every individual overcome or overwhelmed psychologically.

What does God's message state and explain in His Word?

It is my strong opinion that much of the ills in society today (as in the past) is a direct consequence of sin, both intended and unintended (purposed by one generation and imitated by a subsequent generation).

So whether it is by directly demonic efforts, or simply bad behavioral patterns adopted by the next generation, is for believers and doubters to argue over... and some answers are yes to both sides of any given argument.

If the individual is able to measure the possibility of some manner akin to mental illness / instability, they are likely to also measure how they have adopted or imitated some manners learned at home or from society.

It is how such things are managed and dealt with which matters Today... for the sake of all walking the earth Today, and for the sake and hope of the next generation.

I have (and have had) several friends throughout my life who struggle with mental challenges, some diagnosed and some still unknown or dismissed as acceptably eccentric.... or argued as a 'right' or 'freedom' or some other concession to appease a greater societal madness now mainstreamed.

I think we each struggle with challenges on the spectrum, since man is fallen yet always in a state of grace.

I think every single person on earth is (and has been) damaged goods in some way (psychologically speaking).

The news article I linked to in this article shows how much of the mental challenges are actually adopted behaviorally... and this is the link I am bridging to the Law's consequences.

Think of a child who grows up in an abusive home.

They are likely unable to distinguish that such behavior is 'bad' or 'poor' or actually abusive.

If such things are not unlearned or dealt with, then such character traits may be automatically furthered into the next generation.

We each may have come across someone like this... or may be much like this example ourselves.

Notice it does not say that the child suffers for the sins of the fathers, but because of the parent's sin.

Like having to clean up after someone... and the lesson to clean up after ourselves so not to afflict another.

I think this may also speak to character traits and mental illness by-way of a lesser upbringing... yet what upbringing is definitively ideal?

In the paths of the wicked are snares and pitfalls,  

   but those who would preserve their life stay far from them.  

Start children off on the Way they should go,  

   and even when they are old they will not turn from it. 

- Proverbs 22: 5-6

Consider how this proverbial passage speaks to the parents... thus it is their initially responsibility regardless of their upbringing and their current condition.

Thank the Lord we have the Perfect Example in Messiah, and His Spirit to teach our hearts the Way.

The Way is not so much religious or a particular religion (which are man-engulfed ideas), but rather righteousness... which is following He who alone is Righteous - the Lord manifested on earth - the Image of God - the Son.

For those who are unable to take captive their thoughts, we learn to look for God's greater purpose when He allows suffering or a lack of healing.

For some people, their thoughts will forever beguile them.

However, God is gracious and just with such as these.

He is always good.

But can we always 'see' the myriad of ways He is good?

This calls us all to be very compassionate and generous with those who are troubled in such ways, for we can learn much about God from them (the least of these).

I would lastly say that remember so-called professionals are still practicing their medicine and perfecting their efforts, yet I have noticed, via experience, that love and kind words of encouragement can make a major difference.

When such efforts accompany faith, miracles can surely happen.. whether instantly in the heart and mind, or over time like a small seed growing into a flourishing shady tree.

Love and encouragement allows seeds of faith to be planted in even the most troubled soil.

I state this not to dismiss the medical industry as a whole, for much good has come from man's pursuit of this world's knowledge.

I do say that love is still more powerful and effective than any medicine or diagnosis of man.

Why?

Because healing comes after grace.

Meaning grace is at the forefront despite healing not occurring as expected.

God's love and grace is found through all things.

This is how I was able to understand God taking my mother in a difficult way when the expected miracle did not arrive.

My mother passed the test of this life, and this is why if we are focused only on healing or comfort over God's greater will, one can become confused when only focusing on cures (a miracle from God or the help of man's hands).

There needs to be room also for the more difficult road of God's encompassing will.

God's will often times includes suffering and trauma.

This provides for a greater purpose (think about the death of Messiah that brought about Salvation). 

Much fruit was born from my mother's trials.

Her passing spoke to the hearts of all the people she knew and who knew her.

This is how we find God's wisdom in the trials and death of His faithful children... similar to how God brought about the greatest of His fruits when He allowed His flesh to perish on the cross... only to bring us everlasting hope in a resurrection beyond things physical.

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Yeshua Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Yeshua. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of His blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—He did it to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the One who justifies those who have faith in Yeshua. 

- Romans 3: 21-26

Remember to keep the perspective from Above.