Signs and Wonders: Severe Mental Illness and The Prosperity Gospel

“God has already placed His healing power within us, and it is now under our authority. It isn’t up to God to determine who receives healing; it’s up to us!“

Ever hear something like that statement before?

 

What about:

“It’s our failure to understand and use the authority we have that is keeping God’s healing power from flowing as it should. It’s imperative that we discover what we have and learn how to release it.”

 

Or how about the classic line:

“It’s never God’s will for us to be sick; He wants every person healed every time.”

 

Or even:

“If God wanted you sick, for whatever reason, then why visit the doctor or take medication? It would seem more logical to allow the sickness to run its course so God’s purpose could be accomplished. Of course I think that’s foolish, and hopefully, so do you.”

 

Why I Believed In The Prosperity Gospel

I drew these quotes from a televangelist’s website, whom I listened to 6 years ago at the time of entering my second bipolar disorder episode. The main emphasis seems to be on our prosperity in health and happiness. Ironically, shortly thereafter, the preacher quotes 3 John 2: “Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.” I say it’s ironic because the following verse says, “For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth.” How funny that is. Truth is the context, and yet he takes the verse (3 John 2) out of that setting and preaches the prosperity gospel as absolute truth.

2 Timothy 3: 5-6 reminds me of the way televangelists do their work: “…having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.”

Not surprisingly, this prosperity gospel wouldn’t be the first time someone preached it. And the problem runs deeper than just the trappings of the average televangelist. Within the church, those with severe mental illness are shunned, slighted or given a line to make it all better. It’s either ignored or dealt with quietly behind closed doors, out of fear of demonic possession.

For myself, the gospel of prosperity still appeared to me as the gift of healing when hyper-religious symptoms manifested. The thought crossed my mind: Can’t I seek healing from the Great Physician, supernaturally? Without a pill? After all, there is no ‘magic pill’…

Where God Wills, God Makes a Way

I will be completely upfront with you: God does heal. Most of the time, it is a gift of His that He gives, and most of the time, it’s in the form of medicine and the wisdom of doctors. Most of the time, it is not in a supernatural and divine encounter. Most of the time, those with severe mental illness are able to function when they’ve tried different kinds of anti-psychotics and mood stabilizers.

If you want to pray for a miraculous healing though, keep in mind God can still make you well; it is Himself that He wants you to seek. For the mentally ill, through the grace of medications there is a way. He wants you to ask and believe for healing, don’t get me wrong. But don’t expect an utter disregard for the science and integral application of the way our Creator formed our minds. Also consider the sin factor: we live in a fallen world in broken vessels.

I believe He still uses miraculous healing even today when such situations arise and He determines it. And yes, lack of faith was why He denied healing to some. God does miracles and gives good gifts to His children. However, He is primarily more concerned with His children’s state of the posture of our heart. He is seeking those to worship and lean on Him. In some cases, He gives crutches, in others its insulin, and in many it’s the form of psychotropics.

Healing Through Suffering

I don’t suppose I can really say whether God is going to heal someone or not. I do say that He does respond to the heart cry of His children and will move on His terms, in His way, and in His timing. I also know that in my life when I sought true healing and freedom from symptoms by going off my medication, I learned the hard way.

Therefore, I wish to put those myths to death that lead unwitting believers astray. You cannot determine your own healing – or else you would be God. God chose to heal me, for His glory, for my good, through the answer of medication. He didn’t do it without teaching me some important truth though.

The truth is, the prosperity gospel has no room for suffering. We learn and are molded when we suffer, and sometimes that is in the form of illness. I always identified more with Jesus’ pain and suffering when I was mentally sick. As disciples of Jesus Christ we are inevitably going to suffer while following our Lord.

You know when I found healing? Through suffering. I suffered and God met me in the pain, comforting me the most when I was delirious, confused and downright mad. He didn’t skip over the hallucinations or thoughts of grandeur and keep me from feeling the agony and sorrow that comes with depression.

He steers us into the storms of life to test us, to train us, and to transform us into the likeness of the image of His son, so we can, as 2 Corinthians 1:5 says, “share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”

So the next time you are confronted with someone who asks you if you prayed enough, tell them you are praying, and that you trust God to use whatever ailment or struggle you’re going through to glorify Him on His terms. It’s God who gives and takes away. Health and happiness are pedaled by the Prosperity Gospel Preachers, but holiness is what God has purposed us for.