Thank you again so much for having me.
And if you weren't here last week, I spoke about the topic of hope.
And particularly, as Steve said, hope through my own story.
I'm not going to talk about myself so much today,
so you can have a break from that.
But my thesis of Christianity is that hope is actually found
very often through suffering,
which is an incredible reframe on this topic of mental illness.
That the gospel is not stoicism.
Our message is not, there's no pain here.
The message of the gospel is absolutely there is pain.
We have a whole category of lament in the Bible.
And in the midst of that pain,
you can find true hope that does not put you to shame.
And with that, one of my umbrella arguments, I suppose, to you last week
was that I don't believe in pitting psychology against theology.
But rather, if we try to do psychology without theology,
we're going to miss a vital part of what it is to be made in the image of God.
And so last week was broadly aimed at asking the question,
what if it's me who's suffering?
And as Steve said, this week's frame as we zoom out is,
what if it's somebody who I love?
What if it's somebody in this church?
What if it's somebody in my life?
How do church communities respond to this increasingly common issue?
And at the risk of just a little bit of shameless self-promotion about me for a moment,
this talk is in many ways the marriage of two books that I have written.
One on the topic of mental health called Down Not Out,
and the other one which is actually coming out in about six weeks
called Here to Love,
recapturing the centrality of Jesus' greatest command.
And I'll talk a little bit about that in a moment.
Now when I told people about Down Not Out in 2017,
finding a mainstream publisher,
the very common question you get is,
how did you get a book deal?
I've heard it's really hard, and it is.
I'd submitted many book proposals over the years,
and I knew what a rejection letter looked like.
But I knew that when I approached the good book company in the UK,
it wasn't an automatic yes, but it also wasn't a no.
And so I dove a little bit deeper and tried to just make my foot go through that door.
And of course, the God answer is that it was God's will that I got a book deal.
But the human answer is,
I refer to a lady by the name of Alison Mitchell.
Alison is one of the senior editors with the Good Book Company.
And the reason that she was intrigued by my proposition is that she, like me,
had endured a long-term mental health condition.
In fact, I would say hers was far worse than mine.
She had a medical resistance to any sort of medical intervention,
which meant that it was just such a long journey,
and it's still ongoing for her.
When my book got published in 2017,
Alison wrote a blog post that went with it called
When Depression Makes Church So Hard.
Now, Alison is a beautiful, beautiful woman of God.
She loves the Lord with all of her heart.
But she has this mental health condition,
and it gets very messy in terms of what church looks like for her.
Alison lives in London, and she takes the tube to church,
and she told me that sometimes she'll get in the tube,
she'll rise up the stairs to where her church is,
and she'll look at the church, and she'll shake her head,
turn around, go straight back down in the tube back home.
Some weeks, not every week.
And yet she loves Jesus.
And she tells this story about an Easter Sunday service
that I think is very, very profound.
What you hear in Alison is a wrestle.
She loves God, as I said.
She loves her community.
And yet, there's this other thing going on in her mind sometimes.
And this is what she says in the blog article.
She probably thought I was very rude.
She sat next to me on Easter Sunday morning,
smiled and asked how I was.
But I just nodded my head and looked away.
She didn't try again.
What she didn't know was how hard I'd battled to get to church.
Now, I was just barely managing to stay in my seat and not burst into tears.
Every muscle was straining, desperate to flee.
And yet part of me wanted to be there.
I was glad to be in my own church for Easter and to join with my church family in singing the Lord's praises.
This is what depression can do to a Christian.
Having struggled with severe depressive illness for over 12 years, which is now about 20 years,
I can tell you that I never, and she emphasizes the word again, never want to go to church on a Sunday morning.
It is an exhausting battle every single time, and I don't always make it.
Getting through the door is an achievement, but the battle isn't yet over.
Where can I sit?
Is there anyone safe to sit with?
Do I have an exit strategy so that I can leave, if needed, without climbing over people or causing a distraction?
Will I be able to sing, or would the words tumble out as sobs instead?
Am I able to lift my head high enough to see the words on the screen,
or will my depressed hunch mean my head stays resolutely down?
And what if the pastor says something like,
go and talk to the person next to you while the children are going out?
At that point, a shaft of dread strikes my heart.
Even the end of the service is hard.
How quickly can I leave without looking rude?
Will the noise of so many people talking at once trigger a panic attack?
Can I even lift my head high enough to smile at someone as I scuttle out?
And if not, will they think again how rude and abrupt I am?
I once described my own experience like this.
My church was like a colorful ocean liner,
sailing full steam ahead,
but I had fallen overboard,
and was drowning in a monochrome sea as they sailed away without me.
Thankfully, not every depressive finds church as hard as this.
It's not even true for me every Sunday.
Sometimes I manage a brief chat at the end,
or to pray with someone before I go.
When the depression is less severe,
I can lift my head and sing with enthusiasm.
I guess that's part of what makes it hard for my church family.
They don't know which Allison is going to turn up.
There's a lot there, but I don't know about you,
but when I read Allison's article,
and I'm someone who has always found church a refuge.
I'm an extrovert.
And so even if I've had a rough week,
church is actually good for my soul.
But for her, it's a very different story,
which makes it a deeply confusing situation
for a community of believers.
How do we respond?
It's confusing for Allison.
It's going to be confusing for those who are not Allison.
Which is why before we ask,
what do we do about this issue in our church?
And I will hopefully give you some thoughts on that towards the end.
I want to zoom above the what and look at the how.
Because before we respond to Allison,
or to Chris, or anybody else,
each room has a different manifestation
of certain mental dysfunction,
we need an umbrella principle.
And I believe that that umbrella principle is love.
Love is the principle,
not just of mental health care,
but of all of life.
In Matthew chapter 22,
Jesus famously says when he's asked
what the greatest commandment is,
to love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the first and greatest commandment.
And the second is like it.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Those are famous words.
When I ask Christians what the greatest commandment is,
very interestingly,
often they forget the as yourself bit at the end.
That's a different sermon,
but just I'll give you that little seed to think about.
But in my own journey,
and as I wrote this second book that's about to come out,
it was the next words that stopped me in my tracks.
Verse 40 of Matthew chapter 22.
All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.
All the law and all the prophets.
What I think Jesus is saying here
is that love is not the greatest commandment
because it's better than all of the others.
He's saying that love is the greatest commandment
because it is all of the others.
That is to say,
if you are doing your faith without love,
you're kind of missing the point.
And if you're like the Pharisee,
you know everything,
but you're doing it without love.
Love is crucial.
In fact,
it's indispensable.
But here's the challenge.
Loving a friend who has just gotten engaged
is very different to loving a friend
who has just lost a mother or a father.
What does love look like?
It might be the umbrella principle,
but how do we apply it?
And I want to say that we have to apply it
first by looking at God's love for us.
One of the things I said last week
is that in order to move forward,
and even to stay in the present
and to believe that God is still with us,
we have to look at his past faithfulness.
Grounding ourselves in everything God has already done
is a powerful mental and spiritual discipline.
And I said last week in Romans 5 verse 8
that God demonstrates his own love for us in this.
While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
And I am going to get to Psalm 103 and Romans 12 in a minute,
the readings that we had.
But before I do,
I just want to hone in on one other passage
that I just find some of the most beautiful words of Scripture.
What does it mean that Christ has died for us?
What does the response to that look like?
And Hebrews 4 says something very, very powerful to us.
Therefore, since we have a great high priest
who has ascended into heaven,
Jesus the Son of God,
let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.
For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses.
What does it mean that God demonstrated his own love for us?
It means that when God sees our suffering,
he doesn't just say,
oh, I've read about that in a textbook.
I've heard that's hard.
He says, I know.
I know pain.
I died on a cross.
And a father says,
I know I turned my face away from my son.
He is able to empathize with our weaknesses.
I find those some of the most beautiful words of Scripture.
That when we cry out,
even sometimes without words,
he says, I know.
And so we may receive mercy
and find grace
to help us in our time of need.
And just as we receive mercy and grace from God,
the more we can reflect that same
mercy and grace to others,
we reflect God's love in our church communities.
And while there are many,
many passages I can use to point to God's love,
I want to go back to that Psalm 103,
that first reading.
Because King David,
as he opens,
begins by praising God.
And look what he does again.
What we saw last week.
He starts by looking at the past.
Praise the Lord,
my soul,
or my inmost being.
Praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord,
my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.
The reason we praise God,
the reason we love God,
the reason we love our neighbor,
is we remember the benefits
we have received from God.
That is our primary motivation.
And what I love in Psalm 103,
and if you don't have it open,
I'd really encourage you to have it,
because I'm going to move through it very quickly.
And I just want you to,
I guess,
test what I'm saying.
What we see in Psalm 103
is a God who is spectacularly powerful
and spectacularly loving.
And that's also what we see
in that moment of Christ on the cross.
Ultimate love on Good Friday.
Ultimate power on Easter Sunday.
And I love that,
because so often in the world,
we either have one or the other.
We have very powerful people
who seem to be lacking in love,
or we have very loving people
who seem to have no sort of platform
to show that love.
It's not always the case,
but rarely is it both in one person.
And in God,
we see the perfection of both,
love and power.
Psalm 103, verse 3.
He forgives sins.
He heals diseases.
He redeems life from the pit
in order to crown us
with love and compassion,
to satisfy desires,
to work justice,
and righteous for the oppressed.
In verse 19,
His kingdom rules over all.
A God who the angels
and even the stars themselves
would consider worthy
of their allegiance.
This is,
to use an overused word
in the English language,
an awesome God.
A God who demands our awe,
our fear,
our reverence,
our whole heart.
But here's the thing
that gets me about Psalm 103.
If we see that God is love,
and the greatest of the commands
is love,
Psalm 103 shows us
that it's not just God's quality,
it's not just who He is,
it's also a comment
about the quantity
of that love.
And I just want to pause there
for a moment
in our church communities.
Love is not just the quality,
but it's also about the quantity,
and I'll come to that in a moment.
Verse 8,
King David in his poeticism
tells us that
not only David,
sorry,
not only that God
is compassionate and gracious,
but it's also that
He's slow to anger.
He's abounding in love.
Verse 11,
not only does the Lord
love those who fear Him,
that's a qualitative statement,
He loves them as high
as the heavens are above the earth.
Quantity.
Verse 12,
not only has He removed
our transgressions from us,
He has removed them
as far as the east
is from the west.
Verse 17,
His love does not just last,
it lasts from everlasting
to everlasting.
Verse 22,
not only does the Lord work,
He works everywhere
in His dominion.
This is a God
of unending power
and abundant love.
And these are the benefits
that King David
is talking about
in verse 2,
that we are called
not to forget.
So what's all of this
got to do with mental health?
We'll come there in a moment.
But for now,
Romans 12,
we see in the New Testament
that God's love
is confirmed
in Jesus Christ.
Verse 1,
I urge you,
brothers and sisters,
again, look,
He goes to the past
in view of God's mercy,
in view of the God
of the Old Testament
and in view of the God
of the New Testament.
What do we do?
We offer our bodies
as a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God.
This is your true
and proper worship.
And so here,
we begin to pivot
from the vertical.
What has God done for us
into the horizontal?
How do we respond
to one another?
Paul begins
to give us the answer
that we offer our bodies
as a living sacrifice.
Why?
In view of God's mercy.
As King David would put it,
to forget not
the Lord's benefits.
And so it's not only
the quality of God's love
that drives us to compassion.
It's not just that
He loves us
so that we love others.
It's the extent,
it's the extra mile
that we will never fully
be able to replicate,
of course.
But the more we can think
about love in quality
and quantity,
the more we reflect
the love of God
in our churches.
And why am I talking
about quantity so much?
I think quantity
is a key issue
we need to think about
because it's probably
the thing
in the mental health landscape
I think is missing the most.
Not just in our churches
but in our society.
What am I talking about?
I think very often
the way we talk
about mental illness
is we describe it
as an acute illness
when actually
it's a chronic illness
for the most part.
You probably have heard
this statement that
in an effort
to destigmatize
mental illness
we say to people
it's okay to get help
and it is.
But the way we frame that
is we say
well just like you'd go
to a doctor
for a broken leg
you should be okay
to go to a doctor
if you're struggling
with depression
or anxiety.
It's a beautiful sentiment
but it's also flawed
and I gently want
to push back on it
because what we're doing
is we're comparing
what is for the most part
an acute illness,
a broken leg
that has a six
to eight week recovery
and you put it
in a plaster
and generally
it goes well
we are comparing that
to a vastly
different story
and if we subliminally
expect our loved ones
just to get better
with one tablet
and a few
psychologist sessions
then we've probably
got mismatched
expectations
and if we have
mismatched expectations
then we're probably
not going to love
very well.
In 2012
Harvard University
developed a new
technology called
magnetic resonance
scanning.
This is what it
looked like.
This is a real brain
and it was designed
to show the different
neural pathways
that would go on
and just as an aside
I have to stand up
for God for a moment
and say
I can't be an atheist
when I look at that
but that's not my point.
My point is this
that's more complicated
than a leg bone
and you don't have
to be a scientist
to understand that.
It's complex.
This is the biology
behind Alison's comments
about church on Sunday.
When something
goes awry here
it's a very
very difficult journey
to work out
what's going on.
We may not
actually fully know
why
with some people
this side of eternity.
Alison doesn't know
why she's medically
resistant.
She just knows
that she is
because she's tried.
My point is
that the journey
of mental illness
is seldom short
and if you're not
a science person
let me show you
one more diagram
that was shown to me.
This probably speaks
more my language.
This is a diagram
I was shown
as I was beginning
to leave hospital
as the outpatient program
and it was designed
to show us
what to expect
as we left.
This was shown
actually as the goal
of good mental health
recovery.
And as you can see
very clearly
it's still a journey
of ups and downs.
And as a church
this is what
you should expect
from people
in your church.
And this is why
it's important
to consider
the quantity
of love
and the chronic
nature of the illness.
Because it's very
tempting
to look at
just one of those
peaks and troughs
and take that
sample size
and formulate
some sort of truth.
It's easy for us
to do it
within ourselves.
It's very easy
to use
as what psychologists
would say
that we would
catastrophize
certain situations.
We would look
at one of those valleys
and think
oh my goodness
I'm back at square one.
But what we want
to see within ourselves
and within our communities
is that upwards trajectory
over a longer
period of time.
which is why
I'm talking so much
about quantity.
It's a long game.
Slow and steady
in my experience
really does win
the race
in good mental health care.
Now granted
there will be
some acute situations.
Sometimes
when somebody
is in desperate need
it's a triple zero
phone call
to a hospital.
But outside
of those very
immediate
pressing situations
where there is
danger at hand
the broad picture
of good mental health care
is a long game.
Romans 12
confirms this
for us
because it asks us
how are we
to love one another
in view
of God's mercy?
In verse 12
we see it.
We are to be
joyful in hope
patient
in affliction
faithful
in prayer.
This is how
we are to use
our gifts
in the church.
that Paul
has been speaking
about earlier
in the chapter.
And
I can't think
of a better
model of care
for mental illness.
To be joyful
in hope
to recognise
there is hope
to be patient
and to be
prayerful.
And in particular
I want to hone in
on that word
patience again.
If you know
your Bibles
1 Corinthians 13
love is
patient.
I distinctly
remember in
hospital feeling
like I wasn't
worth being
loved.
Not only was
I unloved
but I was
unlovable.
And this is
one of the
common
thoughts
or the
common
litmus
tests for
someone wrestling
with depression
this feeling
of unlovability.
what you crave
most of all
when the chips
are down
is unconditional
love.
That someone
still values
you
when you
find it
near impossible
to value
yourself.
And the
gospel is a
balm to that
crisis because
it reminds us
that God's
love for us
is patient.
He stands
with us.
And the
flip side of
that is
the hurt of
condition.
love.
For someone
to come to
you and
for you to
think again
that they are
just six weeks
away from
recovery and
then when they
don't recover
you put them
in the too
hard basket.
I'm actually
going to say
something a
little bit
punchy here and
you can
disagree with
me if you
want.
But in my
experience I
would almost
prefer someone
not to enter
into my mess
at all
than enter
into it and
then leave
when I get
too hard.
It just
reinforces this
narrative of
unlovability.
And I
would gently
but somewhat
firmly say
what if God
had treated
you like
that?
God's
impatience for
our sin
does not
end in
abandonment.
God's
impatience for
sin ends in
the blood of
his son.
Without
patience we
would be
lost.
The Lord
is slow to
anger,
abounding in
love.
Again,
slow and
steady wins
the race.
And so
as we wrap
up let me
provide what
I hope to
be some
very practical
and helpful
steps as
to what this
might look
like in
practice for
you as a
church community.
Here are
just three
thoughts.
Number one,
you need
love as
well.
Carers need
care.
because if
this call
is true and
if you agree
with it,
the challenge
is you realise
it's going to
cost something
of you as
well.
There is a
self-sacrifice
involved with
this picture.
When I
left hospital
one of the
first things
my wife
had to do
was go and
see a
psychologist
herself and
that was the
right thing
because it
had taken a
toll on
her as
well.
Find
someone
external.
Find
someone
external to
the situation
and preferably
someone external
to the person
you're caring
for if you
can to
care for
you too.
Again,
it can be a
professional or
it can be a
friend but
being needed,
I've learned
as a pastor,
is a little
bit addictive
sometimes.
Being the
carer carries
with it an
identity but
again,
love your
neighbour as
yourself.
It's okay to
receive care as
well.
You're going
to need it if
you're going
to play the
long game.
And I
also just
want to say
something very,
very important
about love.
And I want
you to hear
this very
clearly.
When Jesus
calls us to
love our
neighbour with
all of our
heart and
with all of
our soul and
with all of
our mind and
with all of
our strength,
I think he's
doing two
things.
The first
thing he's
doing and
the thing I'm
advocating for
here is he's
giving us the
goal for life
itself.
To love
well because
God has
loved us.
But I
think he's
doing something
else as
well.
He's
revealing a
gap.
Because the
question becomes
who can
love with
all of their
heart and
with all of
their soul and
with all of
their mind and
with all of
their strength?
Only Christ.
And so the
reason I'm
saying this is
you are not
going to love
perfectly and
God knows
that.
He makes up
for that gap
in Jesus
Christ and yet
we still hold
on to the
goal.
The
absoluteness of
the call to
love is the
aspiration and
the thing we
remember that we
run to Christ
when we get it
wrong which we
will.
Again if I
come back to
that Hebrews
4 passage even
though God can
empathize with
our weaknesses
there is one
key difference.
we have one
who has been
tempted in
every way
just as we
are yet he
did not sin.
And so remember
that as you
love you're
going to need
God's love for
you as well
because you're
not going to
perfect that
love in
somebody else.
And yet we
still hold on to
that aspiration.
There are
actually a number
of services
professional
services for
carers as well.
I only learned
this a few years
ago but Lifeline
is actually
available to
call not just
if you're in a
bad way yourself
but you actually
need a bit of
support as you
care for someone
who's in a bad
way.
So you can call
Lifeline for
that.
There are online
resources like
Beyond Blue,
the Black Dog
Institute and of
course there is
professional help
if you need that
support too.
So my point
number one is
you need love as
well please don't
forget that.
You need it in
order to play the
long game that I'm
advocating for.
Number two,
there is a time to
listen and a time
to speak.
I say this because
I've seen both
ends of the
pendulum.
Some people come
in like a bull in
a china shop and
just goes,
here's what I
think is going
on.
Have you thought
about this?
Have you thought
about this?
Slow down.
Listen.
But also,
some of us tend
to listen and
nod and smile and
not say anything
at all.
And so I
would ask you,
are you more
of a talker,
which in my
experience most
of us probably
are, or are
you a listener?
Consider your own
starting point because
I'm saying there's a
time for both.
We need to listen
quickly in order to
understand deeply,
but also if we
really do love
someone and we
see them going
into destructive
paths, love
actually does look
like saying
something sometimes,
but always with a
gracious tone.
If we see someone
heading to self
destruction and
all we do is
nod and smile,
we've got to ask
whether that's
true love.
Sometimes a
gracious word is
what's needed,
but we have to
do it slowly,
grounded in
listening and
understanding.
And my third
and final point,
somewhat related
to the first,
recognize your
limitations.
Know that our
government has
put significant
funding into
mental health
care.
If you don't
know, you
can access
through your
GP, very
often a
mental health
care plan,
which means
that you get
subsidized
sessions and
therapies,
psychologists,
because no
single one of
us can do
everything.
But here's
why churches
are beautiful.
A church can
do what a
psychologist
can't, and
a psychologist
can do what a
church can't.
And so the
more, as I
said last week,
we can handle
this from every
angle, the
better our
recovery options
become.
Because churches
are here to
love and walk
side by side
for the long
term.
That is a
beautiful piece
of the puzzle
that is so
often missing
in our
society.
And it's
why we've
created Life
to the Full
that Steve
talked about.
I've been
doing these
talks for
many years,
but I just
love that we're
able to put it
into practice
now.
We have
professionals who
can help,
professionals who
are coming from
a Christian
worldview.
We have an
amazing team
that God has
raised up,
and this
has been
part of the
evidence that
he has been
in this
journey from
the very
start.
And so if you
do need help,
whether you are
the one
struggling or
you're the one
caring, we
would love to
support you in
that journey.
And so my
final point,
which I hope
and pray has
been helpful,
is this, that
whether you're
living with
mental illness
or whether
you're caring for
someone with
mental illness,
I would encourage
you to see that
your identity is
not in the
illness, that
your identity
is not in
your performance,
but it's
actually the
identity that
you have in
God, no
matter who
you are and
in whatever
circumstance you
find yourself
in.
From 1 John
chapter 3,
this is my
prayer for each
of us, that
we would know
this more and
more, that we
would see what
great love the
Father has
lavished on us,
that we should
be called
children of
God, and
that is what
we are.
Father God, we
thank you that
we are children.
We're not
identified by our
illnesses, first
and foremost.
We are
identified by
your love for
us, that we
saw in the
Psalms, is not
just a quality
that you
exhibit, but is
infinitely
quantitative as
well.
Lord, in our
own imperfect
ways, and we
pray that we
would run to
your throne of
grace when we
don't get it
right.
But in our
own imperfect
ways, we
would pursue
this more and
more each
day.
I pray for
St. Paul's
that they
would continually
work out what
this looks like
in practice, that
they would be
willing to make
the sacrificial
move to play
the long game
with one
another, knowing
that this does
cost something
of ourselves.
And as this
community works
out how to do
that sustainably,
and how to
love their
neighbour as
themself, help
each person in
this church to
get the support
that they
need as they
walk with
others.
And ultimately,
Lord, we pray
that this would
be a community
that is
flourishing in
what our world
so often lacks,
which is love,
compassion, mercy,
tenderness.
May this be a
safe place for the
hurting.
And again,
Lord, may those
who are caring for
the hurting get
care themselves.
ourselves.
Thank you that
in love, you
give us the
goal, and you
also reveal the
gap that only
Christ can
fulfil, that you
are able to
empathise with our
weaknesses, and
yet you are not
like us, because
even though you
were tempted, you
did not sin.
And so thank you
that because of
that, we are
able to approach
your throne of
grace with
confidence, so
that we can find
mercy and receive
grace to help us
in our time of
need.
So Father
God, hear our
prayers, see our
hearts, and we
pray that you
would give us
wisdom to know
what to do with
our hands and
feet.
Amen.
Thank you,
Chris.
I'm going to
continue to pray
and invite the
music team to
come on up and
be ready to
sing.
Gracious
God, you
created a good
and perfect
world, and how
much it must
grieve you, the
destruction of
what you have
made good has
been so destroyed
by human sin.
As we live in
this world of
suffering, the
grief that we
experience grieves
you.
Your heart is
bound to
ours.
You're a God
of infinite
compassion.
And as we've
heard right at
the beginning of
this service from
Psalm 34, you
are the God who
is close to the
brokenhearted.
You are the one
who saves those
who are crushed
in spirit.
You're a God
who's not distant
or absent.
You're not just a
mere force.
You're not detached
or unaffected or
unmoved by our
condition.
You draw near.
You came.
You, the author
of life, the author
of history, took on
our nature and
entered right into
your very creation.
You came to us.
You came to the
brokenhearted, the
crushed, the
lost, the weary, the
sinners, the
sufferers.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you for
leaving behind the
perfection and the
wholeness and the
joy of life in
heaven with the
Father and the
Spirit and coming
to us.
You descended not
just into human
form but even
further as you went
to death for us.
the author of life
dying on a cross
so that we might
live.
You were treated
as if you were a
sinner.
You carried to the
cross all the evil
and the carnage and
the sin of human
history.
You, the innocent
one, suffered
condemnation for us.
You chose for the
just wrath of God to
be poured out on
you.
And on the cross, you
cried out the
scream of
dereliction, the
scream of
abandonment, loss,
and isolation from
everything that is
good and lovely.
You descended into
complete darkness of
death all alone
that we might be
brought into the
light of life of
eternal relationship
with you, our God.
Lord Jesus, you
have gone deeper
into the depths of
darkness and
loneliness than
anyone could ever
imagine.
Gracious God, you
journeyed into that
together.
and so we ask
you on behalf of
sufferers and the
carers of
sufferers, we turn
to you that they
might find hope in
you and we commend
to your faithful
love those who are
crying from the
depths of darkness
now.
Holy Spirit, when
scorn and shame
and despair,
besiege when the
clouds, the dark
clouds of depression
and anxiety and
shame descend, and
hope is veiled in
grief, bring
sufferers and
sinners to the
embrace of the
wounded hands of
Jesus.
Restless with grief
and fear and
distress and
hopelessness, Lord
Jesus, you call us
to come.
you are gentle
and lowly and
call all who are
weary and loaded
with burdens to
find rest in you
and be lifted to
the gospel of
hope.
And so Holy
Spirit, we would
ask that you would
free us from
everything that keeps
us from hearing that
call to come.
In the darkness of
unknowing, when all
else seems lost, when
your love seems so
absent, draw us into
the heart of God to
find refuge and
rest and the
certain hope of the
dawn of forgiveness
and redemption and
renewal.
How generous is your
goodness, how great is
your salvation, how
faithful is your
love.
It is this love that
you have called your
church to display to
all people.
As you have loved us,
so you called us to
love one another.
And so in a world of
rage and suffering and
pain, Holy Spirit,
empower us and shape
us and convict us to
be a church that
displays the love of
Christ and especially
to descend to the
place of weeping with
those who are weeping.
Give us patience and
grace and steadfastness
to carry each other's
burdens, that we might
be a community of
refuge for sinners and
sufferers alike, a
community devoted to
one another in love,
joyful in hope,
patient in affliction,
and faithful in prayer.
Gracious and most
merciful Father God,
we pray therefore as
well for those who
work in mental health
care in our city.
We ask that you provide
them with wisdom and
skill and compassion and
patience as they engage
with patience.
All individual lives
made in your image for
your glory.
May they treat each
individual as precious in
your sight, worthy of
respect and dignity.
Give them discernment and
clarity in diagnosing and
treating.
We ask God that you would
sustain them through the
secondary trauma that they
come from seeing others
suffer and the carrying of
those burdens.
Provide them with peace and
space to care for
themselves.
A medical system that
equips and supports them and
resources them.
a community to shoulder the
burdens in order that they
might have the healthy frame
of mind to care for
others.
We would ask that you would
use them to be
transformative agents in the
lives of the distressed and
the suffering to bring about
healing and hope to them and
their carers.
We pray for your intervention
as well, Lord, in the public
health system in this state
that have seen so many crucial
mental health care workers
leave.
We pray for these issues,
whatever they are, to be
resolved through adequate
resourcing.
We pray for your protection
over sufferers not able to
access the care that they had
even months ago when it is
particularly needed.
And so, Lord, we ask that you
would have mercy on us.
Mercy on all who are afflicted
in mind and heart.
Because your heart is bound to
ours.
Amen.