Psychological distress and sin
8/20/2008
Working as a counselor and experiencing it myself, I know psychological distress can be as hard, or maybe even worse, than most trials. Awhile ago I was doing some yard work when I decided to move a big rock from one area to another. As I was moving the rock, I dropped it on my big toe. As you can imagine, it hurt a lot. Yet that weekend, my heart was breaking over a situation which was causing me great psychological distress. To my surprise, my heart was hurting even more than my toe. Can you relate?
As Christians, what can you do about psychological distress? One of the most important things you can do if you want relief from psychological distress or from past hurts that hit you hard psychologically is take care of the sin in your life. It was probably other people’s sins and living in a world that is held in the grip of sin that got you in psychological anguish, but it could be your sin that is keeping there. Even if your psychological distress is from a chemical imbalance (whether you are on prescription medicine or not), allowing God to get sin out of your life makes you close to Him thus giving you His peace and strength to cope.
It is important to remember, when you finally agree with God about a sin, then you are working with Him not against Him (1 John 1:9). Be patient. Some sins do take a long time to get out of your life because they have become how you deal with life! Yet, if you truly want that sin out, ask God, and He will lovingly get that sin out of your life. Read Psalm 32:1–5 & 38:18 & 139:23-24, Proverbs 28:13 and 1 Peter 2:24-25.
Because of His distress on the cross, Gini