Have you ever felt stressed, anxious, defeated, or drained, but couldn’t pinpoint the cause?
Sometimes, the struggles in our mental health aren’t just psychological—they can actually stem from spiritual issues.
What if some of the mental battles you’re facing right now are tied to unresolved spiritual problems?
This is a necessary but tricky topic. Right from the start, I want to be clear: not all mental health is necessarily related to spiritual issues.
Mental health is complex and can be affected by and rooted in a multitude of factors, including lifestyle, genetics, biology, your own personal chemistry, past history, and so many other factors.
However, for a Believer, it can be very helpful to reflect on these spiritual issues and rule them out, as they certainly can contribute to (& escalate or intensify) mental health symptoms.
The three issues are: unconfessed sin, ungodly beliefs, and unforgiveness. Let’s start with unconfessed sin.
- Unconfessed Sin
When we’re hanging on to sin, or even choosing to continue in repetitive sin patterns, we can experience symptoms like: anxiety, guilt, anger, lack of good sleep, and hindered prayers, or sense a distance between us and God.
Because God is holy, there’s an obstacle between Him and us when we approach Him with unconfessed sin in our lives. (see Psalm 66:18)
Solution: Confess and Repent
As a Christian, the solution to this problem is to confess the sin (agreeing with God that it is sin) and repent (choose to turn from it, with His help).
To be honest, this may require some boundaries. For example, if you’re turning from pornography, you’ll need to set some serious boundaries, such as deleting the apps on your phone where you access porn, having a friend/mentor hold you accountable to your screen time usage, etc.
Unconfessed sin is a big contributor to mental health symptoms, but not the only one. Ungodly beliefs can play a role as well.
2. Ungodly Beliefs
Cognitive Behavioral Theory has taught us that our beliefs affect our mental health. Our beliefs influence our feelings, which influence our actions and behaviors.
Signs or symptoms related to ungodly beliefs might be: anger, fear, anxiety, obsessions, avoiding people/places/things, lack of restful sleep, etc.
Some common ungodly beliefs are:
God’s out to get me; He’s judging me all the time.
God can’t use me; I’ll never be useful to Him; I’ve done too much.
Bad things always happen to me.
I’m broken; Something’s terribly wrong with me.
I never fit in.
Nothing I say matters.
I’ll never measure up.
Solution: Confess the ungodly belief and Replace it with Truth
Check out this blog to learn my tricks for identifying an ungodly belief and how to replace them with Truth.
Sin and beliefs are important to address, however, even secular psychology recognizes that one of the most powerful contributors to mental (and physical) health symptoms is unforgiveness.
3. Unforgiveness
Choosing to forgive can bring much healing and relief. In fact, when my clients make the choice to finally forgive someone, many of them report weights being lifted off their chest that they didn’t even know they were carrying.
Symptoms of Unforgiveness:
Broken relationships
Hatred
Anxiety, stress
Anger, irritability
Heavy heart, heaviness in chest
Depressed
Rehearsing arguments
Tensions (physical and emotional)
Avoiding particular person/groups of people
Lack of sound sleep, nightmares, insomnia
Wanting to get revenge
Myths about Forgiveness:
I have to wait til they apologize or I feel like forgiving.
Truth is, your healing and relief are not dependent on another person’s choice to apologize or not. Forgiveness is an act of obedience, not a feeling. If I wait til I feel like forgiving, I may wait a life time…or it might not ever happen. I have learned feelings are not good leaders. In the case of forgiveness, when I choose to forgive, as an act of obedience, my feelings sometimes follow. They take a bit, but often they’ll catch up and I’ll feel forgiving toward someone.
Letting them off the hook, saying what they did wasn’t wrong or wasn’t that bad.
Forgiveness is not pretending they did nothing wrong. And it’s not letting them off the hook. It’s a way to set you free from the hold that person has on your life. It’s a choice to break free from the past and no longer remain stuck there. It’s turning them over to God, who sees, knows, and is just and good. It’s releasing them from your vengeance and allowing God to determine their punishment.
I can’t forget what happened.
Forgiveness is not forgetting what happened. It’s acknowledging the pain they caused, the debt they owed you, the needs they did not meet…and handing those things to God, for Him to deal with. Forgiveness takes the sting out of the hurt; it doesn’t necessarily mean you forget it.
I can’t allow them to keep hurting me.
Forgiveness does not mean going back to a harmful or abusive or offensive relationship. Forgiveness does not always have to end in reconciliation of the relationship. Moving forward after forgiveness may require boundaries in order to keep you from getting hurt, abused, etc anymore in the future.
I already forgave.
You may have. However, it’s important to know forgiveness is not always a “one and done” action. It’s often a process, where you forgive for the initial offense and then continue to forgive each consequence that stems from that offense. For example, you may forgive your friend for lying to you last week. However, this morning, you may realize that because she lied to you yesterday, you’re a bit paranoid your other friends are untrustrworhty too, and it’s affecting your relationships with these other friends. So, you’ll need to forgive the friend for this consequence: you’re struggling to trust the other friends now. And honestly, another consequence from that lying incident may show up later today or tomorrow, and you’ll stop and forgive those too. Forgiveness is a process.
As Believers, God has forgiven us of an enormous debt (all our sin!), and He expects us to forgive others like we’ve been forgiven.
Solution: Choose to Forgive
Here’s 2 steps to forgive:
It can be helpful to imagine the person standing in front of you… (or you can stand with the Lord and tell Him about the person).
- Count the cost.
Forgiveness involves grief…grieving what was lost, what didn’t happen, the hurt that incurred, the needs or expectations that weren’t met, etc. So make a list of each offense you’ve experienced from this person…every single one.
Read each offense outloud and choose to forgive each one and hand it to Jesus.
B. Identify Unmet Needs.
Determine the needs that person should have met but didn’t (or couldn’t).
Ask God to meet those needs, or fill that role.
While not all mental health struggles are tied to spiritual issues, it can be helpful to take these into consideration, especially for a Christian.
There’s additional spiritual issues that can affect mental health, but I’ve found these three to be fairly common. I want to challenge you to take a practical, but often difficult, step toward freedom and healing today:
- Identify which of these spiritual issues—sin, ungodly beliefs, or unforgiveness—are you currently struggling with? If you’re not sure, ask the Lord. He can show you.
- What action do you need to take in order to address the issue(s)?
- For unforgiveness: Choose to forgive
- For sin: confess and repent (may also need to set boundaries around certain people, places, or things)
- For ungodly beliefs: Confess the lie and Choose to Replace it with Truth
I’m cheering you on as you become unhindered from what’s holding you back and weighing you down.