The Journey...: Mental Illness of the Spirit...

Today I had a long interaction with Steven (not his real name). Steven suffers from extreme paranoia. He came to see me because he had been banned from the local Greyhound bus station. Of course, he was completely innocent. His story was that the ticket agent had jumped across the counter and assaulted him. He had called the police, but they had, just as he expected, taken the Greyhound employee's side. The witnesses had seen nothing...other than the fact that Steven had become very impatient and loud with the ticket agent and the agent responded by telling him to leave the station.

As I talked to Steven his mind was hard at work making mental connections. They were out to get him. This incident was tied to the recent fire in his apartment building. The fire was started by people connected to his step-mother. She had slowly poisoned his father over that last 5 years, leading to his eventual death. The step-mom is engineering all of this to keep him from collecting any of the inheritance. She wants to isolate Steven in Hope (thus the expulsion from the Greyhound station) so that he has no freedom to travel. This, he says, makes him a sitting duck for those who are seeking to kill him. It's quite a fascinating story - and I haven't even told you how his siblings are complicit in the whole affair.

After a few minutes of talking with Steven it becomes abundantly clear that the only thing that is out to get him is his own mental illness. He needs some intensive help, and probably some good medication in order to keep the paranoia at bay. But because he can function at a pretty high level in society, society tends to let him be, even if that is to his own detriment.

As is often the case, my personal interactions tend to inspire reflection. As I pitied Steven for the difficult challenge of having his own mind work against him, I was challenged to think about a malady that I often suffer from - spiritual paranoia. When bad things happen to me, when I am not sure where God is, when I don't understand how He could allow the things that He is allowing, I begin to allow these things to make me paranoid. What if He isn't good? What if He isn't in control. What if Romans 8:28...

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

...is nothing but wishful thinking? At that moment God looks at me, much as how I look at Steven. He sees the futility of my thinking. He marvels at my ability to miss so much of what is actually going on in the middle of my self-absorption. He hurts for my weakness. And somehow He still loves me.

Steven has lost the ability to trust. Every action that happens to him is somehow suspect. I often do the same. Trust is a fragile object that must be cared for. It is one that needs to be both nourished and practiced. As children we trust without too much effort. Maybe that comes from our lack of understanding of what the real world is like. As adults we "know better". But when it comes to our spiritual life, trust is the only antidote for spiritual paranoia. If we don't learn to trust, we spend all our lives running from everything - even those things that God works for our good at a level far beyond our own understanding.