Hashtag Campaign Or A Sound Mind?

I noticed on ‘the Twitter’ today that “world mental health day” is trending. For those less inclined to serious topics, it’s also “national handbag day”, so take your pick. A day for literally everything, because someone started a hashtag. It’s fascinating. I’m all for a mental health day though, the world feels positively apocalyptic lately. The keyboard life-coaches are out in force, giving us tips on loving ourselves, giving ourselves a break, and doing more yoga. (I’m not kidding, I just read a tweet that said veganism and yoga are the way to perfect mental health.) I think bacon is, but whatever. Hashtag #BreakfastMeats…

I’d like to offer up the non-fancy, not-new (but AMAZINGLY EFFECTIVE) idea that all the self-help on the planet and awareness campaigns aren’t going to help chase the demons we all deal with away. Quickie solutions sound good, but why oh why do we need other messed up humans to tell us how to not be messed up?

I’m not making light of needing help. Who doesn’t? We struggle more than ever with fear, anxiety, depression and everything in between. I’m saying, if there ever was a lasting answer, it’s found in God’s word to us, not in some guru’s latest bestseller.

Here’s why: God created us to live with sanity and sound minds. 2 Timothy 1:7 is one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible, it says “God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” I struggle with fear. Fear of letting my kids out the door some mornings. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the known. But that fear isn’t from God, its the enemy whispering into my ear to disable me. The world feeds on fear, even if they don’t realize it. Twenty-four hour news cycles, disgusting tv dramas that elevate death and gore to an art form, commercials telling us we’d better get these  pills because new this disease is gonna get us. On and on.

We long for a sound mind but we don’t spend any time at all pursuing one. And we wonder why we are riddled with such manic instability in our culture. Our kids are pressured to compare themselves to everyone else, to be perfect at all times and always win the trophy. Middle schoolers are racked with issues I never even knew about at their age. They are living their lives based on what feels right or doesn’t feel right, and have become lost to the idea that a sound mind settled on Jesus is the rest they long for.

There’s a popular little idea going around that assures us we aren’t really the problem, the messy world we live in is the problem. I see the meme all over and it drives me nuts, takes away my sound mind, you might say. People, sometimes we actually are the problem, as hard as it is to admit that. Our selfishness, our refusal to obey and do our own thing, it gets us into trouble. Jesus takes care of all of that if we let Him. It takes humility, not pride in our abilities. He alone is our mental health solution. He promises us a sound mind, He took the place of all our shame and guilt and made us FREE to move forward in perfect peace.

Please don’t fall for the trendy sayings and feel-good band-aids for such deep issues of the heart. Don’t fall for the lie that you can replace the emptiness with material things or status updates or someone else’s idea of truth. The fact that we are “shocked” when humans we’ve put on a pedestal fail and act as humans baffles me. Friends, we are all human and not one of us has an upper hand when it comes to issues of the heart, unless we’ve handed our lives over to Jesus.

We have a duty to run after holiness, to pursue Jesus the way He pursues us. When our focus is abiding in Him, our mind is set in perfect peace (Isaiah 26:3). He keeps us steady, sane, sober and healthy. No shortcuts, no cute hashtags, no useless symbolic awareness campaigns… the living word and Jesus Himself. Anchored and at rest in a world that is tossed to and fro.