Sin or Sickness?

This past winter, I took a Vital Life class at church called Counseling for Everyday Life. Bill loaded us up with plenty of reading material and messages, including Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands. One of the articles was by Ed Welch, called Sin or Sickness? Biblical Counseling and the Medical Model. The last paragraph of this article has been extremely helpful to me, and I've referenced it in multiple conversations since reading it. It's come up twice within this past week, and I thought I would share it here.

The resulting model, which includes the medical evidence without sacrificing a biblical view of personal responsibility, shows the heart and body in a dynamic interaction (Figure 1) and allows for various possibilities. For example, sin (from the heart) can make some people feel depressed (body), e.g. Psalm 32. The physical experience of depression can then influence the heart in such a way that the heart chooses hopelessness over faith, and the cycle might become a downward spiral. Another possibility is that a person may have had a disease that feels like depression (fatigue, feeling blue, concentration problems). The physical feelings then can influence the heart in such a way that the heart is more susceptible to forsaking biblical hope. Of course, the cycle can be stopped through repentance, faith, and obedience, in which case the physical symptoms may persist but no longer have the same power over the heart. The cycle also can be affected by treating the physical symptoms with available medical treatments.

I have found much help in this clear description of the interplay between sin, suffering, and repentance. It has helped me to acknowledge physical realities and see that my hope is not in the end of suffering, but in the power of God's grace to keep me from sin and at peace in the midst of the "heated" circumstances of discomfort and suffering. Although temptation to sin may increase from a physical reality, I am no longer a slave to sin but Christ's power is at work in me to lead me to repentance and faith - to freedom even if my body is still experiencing the effects of decay because of the fall.

And on top of that, as if that weren't enough, oh how sweet it is if/when God chooses to grant relief from that suffering. I no longer see it as something I "deserve" (to be perfectly healthy and without the "heat"/temptation to sin), but as an outpouring of His lavishly rich and kind grace on me. Our God is a loving Father!

You keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on you,

because he trusts in you.

Isaiah 26:3