In a survey of 500 pastors by Christianity Today, the percentage that have seen mental health issues in their congregation is 98%; however, only 12% of the pastors feel that the issue has been discussed or handled in a healthy fashion.
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The usual training plan for athletes calls for the occasional “off” day. These days are scheduled in advance to allow the athlete to rehabilitate sore muscles and to recover mentally from the toll steady exertion has on body. Much like athletes, Christians need time to recover.
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One of the first books I read in seminary was The Courage to Feel. The book is appropriately titled, as it requires lots of courage to understand our feelings or emotions. Often we discount our emotions or ignore them, causing us to feel depressed or even angry, which is unhealthy. God gave us feelings as a road map to understanding ourselves.
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On a basic level, anxiety is based in the future; guilt is based in the past. Anxiety is a product of our fight or flight response, our brain is telling us to act because something is not quite right in our environment. Too much anxiety is unhealthy and causes our brain to work extremely hard to regulate our fears, leading to distress, and eventually to ineffective coping strategies. We worry about the future because we cannot control it. We don’t know what will happen, and that inability to control our circumstances leads to anxiety.
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