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May 17 2007

Renewing not Subduing the Mind

Written by Paul Anderson-Walsh

Thursday, 17 May 2007

Subduing the Mind – The World’s Solution to Burnout and Depression

During the course of writing this book, I have come across a significant number of Christians who are on anti-depressant tablets prescribed by their doctors to combat stress! Glouberman said, “My view is that one of the major differences between depression and burnout is that depression has to do with failure and loss, while burnout has more to do with a profound disappointment in love, meaning and our ability to be of service.”⁶

My understanding is that “stress” is a term used to describe a condition born out of an inability to cope with the pressures of life. Now, whilst I hear all the arguments about medicating to restore the chemical equilibrium in the brain, such therapy seems to neglect the fact that the Bible does not say, “God will never give you more than you can bear.”

Au contraire, God is committed to doing precisely the opposite and that is the very dilemma which so often brings us into conflict with Him and His above-the-line⁷ purposes for our lives. Nobody, it seems, is exempt from this treatment. The Apostle Paul, in his writings, spells it out with chilling clarity – “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again.” [2 Cor. 1:8-10].

Be that as it may, I do not wish to be irresponsible and tell anyone to go against medical advice. Though I am not a doctor, we must also acknowledge that the Great Physician is in the process of treating each and everyone of us against a congenital predisposition to self-reliance which, if not checked, deteriorates into the condition known as stress.

“One of the major differences between depression and burnout is that depression has to do with failure and loss while burnout has more to do with a profound disappointment in love, meaning and our ability to be of service.”

One of the reviewers of this book, Dr Amarilis Iscold, a medical doctor, remarked that when she read this section, she opined that “‘matters of the soul’ have been neglected by doctors and it is easy to hide behind ‘artificial ecstasy’. If you can diminish anxiety and emptiness through medication, you can ignore the root of the problem. It neither treats the source of the problem nor faces what depression, stress and sadness really are.”

Stress or, if you prefer, strain is the product of self-reliance, i.e. faith in self and if that is correct, the proper corrective therapy would seem to be Christ dependency with a view to the renewal of (not the subduing of) the mind [Rom. 12:2].

Depression is and can only be the product of misplaced dependency. As long as we still believe ourselves to be independent selves and we do not count ourselves dead to sin, the devil has an opportunity to dwell in the mortal flesh. Burnout occurs at the point where reality does not match expectation. In any area in which we invest our creativity, passion, heart or ability to make a contribution with a view to either consciously or unconsciously derive identity, value or self-worth apart from Christ, we have entered into the burnout zone.