Is the healing of the mind more or less difficult than the healing of the body?
The healing of the mind can be split into three categories for the purposes of understanding the way it should be handled.
Firstly there is ministry to mental illness which covers a wide range of dysfunction —from headaches, migraines and mild mood swings right up to life–threatening and life–destroying illnesses. At the one end of this range these things seem of little importance and at the other end, for the medically uneducated, these things seem completely mysterious and virtually unapproachable.
As with any form of physical illness, a major barrier to receiving healing is not our lack of comprehension of an illness in itself but the wholly understandable, scientific view that some things are more difficult to heal than others.
As this is so in the medical world, we mistakenly think it must be true in the kingdom of God. But there is no biblical evidence to support this idea.
Jesus did not find ‘serious’ diseases any more difficult than what we might describe today as relatively inconsequential ones —he healed them all.
There surely would have been those suffering from mental illness in the crowds that surrounded the Lord. Until recently in church history, mental illness has been classified in the Christian mind as being something demonic. Thanks to present–day advances in medical science and the treatment of such illnesses, we now know very differently; the incidence of demonic involvement in mental illness is probably no greater than in physical disease.
In fact, just as with any other form of serious illness, we need to overcome doubt if we are to see consistent healing taking place.
Secondly, the mind can be said to be ‘not whole’ to the degree with which we lead our lives out of kilter with God. This may, of course, be the result of wilful and deliberate anti-God activities but often stems from all sorts of other reasons, much to do with the changing role of the church in society and how that is perceived by the public at large.
For the individual, the deepening of life with God, which is an important factor in the restoration of mental health, is only a function of prayer, of spending time with him, learning to hear and respond to the voice of Jesus. He spoke of our relationship by comparing it to sheep following their master.
The sheep, “…follow him because they know his voice.” (See John 10:3–5).
Thirdly, we need to consider the damage done to our present ability to relate to God and to other people by the wounds of the past.
Not one of us has had perfect parents, perfect teachers and perfect playmates in youth; we are all scarred in some way or other. Most of the bad ways in which we react to those around us are actually bad reactions surfacing off past hurts. Such moments in time may be lovingly redeemed by God through prayer and ministry.