Dave Burke | Dave Burke

The problem of bogus behavioural research

One of my catch phrases is, ‘Psychology and theology can be friends’. We have the truth in Christ, but we also benefit from God’s common grace to humanity through science. However it is very important – especially in psychology – that you are careful about the science.

Pop-psychology is popular and there are rich rewards to be made by writers and researchers. A number of psychologists have become like rock stars during the first quarter of this century. David Commerford, Professor of economics at Stirling University describes this era, “It’s almost like the more simplistic you could make your theory, the more fun, the more likely it was that you were going to get big rewards”.

Here’s one example, if you adopt a ‘power posture’, a stance projecting dominance and confidence, for just two minutes, you will perform better in an interview. Amy Cuddy, a Harvard psychologist, claimed that levels of testosterone increased, and cortisol decreased, in people after standing like this for two minutes.

It feels plausible, and people could imagine it working. She wrote a bestselling book about it, and her TED talk on the subject is still in the top 25 on that website. But there is a problem; no-one has been able to reproduce her results.

Professor Michael Saunders of Kings College London identifies three reasons why research like this might reach false conclusions. Some studies, he says, are fragile because the researcher has not collected enough data, their conclusions are unlikely to hold up to scrutiny. Amy Cuddy, who had only 42 people in her sample, fits this category.

Other studies are failed, he says, because of data or statistical methods used are dodgy. As one scientist put it, “Data is like people, if you torture it for long enough it will tell you whatever you want to hear”. The final reason is fraud, which does exactly what it says on the tin, the researcher had made it all up. This is rare, but it does happen.

If you are beginning to think, “How am I supposed to tell good from bad, I’m not a scientist!” There is a simple solution.

When I began doing animal behaviour research my mentor, a grumpy old feller called Steve, passed on a very useful nugget. “If you see something happen once, that is an incidence”, he said. “If the same thing happens twice, that is a coincidence”. Then, pointing his pencil at me to emphasise the punchline, “If the same thing happens three times, that’s a pattern!”

You can apply Steve’s logic to anything you read. One piece of research is just something that happened, a second showing the same results is more interesting, but you need multiple studies by different researchers to be sure.

So the next time you see an article in a newspaper with a headline like, ‘Cambridge study claims standing in ankle-deep water for five minutes cures baldness’, don’t hold your breath. Especially not if you are bald!

Government and NHS advice, as well as the best training courses available, rely on research that has been confirmed by multiple researchers in multiple studies all ‘round the world. Because it is trustworthy, it is a good friend to Christians trying to support their friend’s mental wellbeing. Theology and good science can be friends!

Do you need a Christian counsellor?

As a pastor, when I feel that someone is a bit stuck, I often refer people to a friend who has worked as a professional counsellor for several decades. Where I have been ineffective by listening or offering some biblical advice, my friend as often able to help them get un-stuck by asking the right questions and guiding them as they navigate the difficult landscape of their life.

Counselling is not new. The roman biographer, Plutarch, records that a Greek thinker called Antiphon “invented a method of curing distress, just as physicians have a treatment for those who are ill ; and at Corinth, fitting up a room near the agora, he wrote on the door that he could cure by words those who were in distress ; and by asking questions and finding out the causes of their condition he consoled those in trouble. But thinking this art was unworthy of him he turned to oratory.” This happened around 450BC!

Oratory, which is what preaching is, is a core activity in the churches, I am a preacher myself. Yet I know some preachers who would say, “You don’t need counselling, you just need the word of God!” Well, we would say that, wouldn’t we? Preaching can be helpful, but sometimes people need a one to one conversation.

Counselling usually focuses on specific problems and life challenges. It is a series of conversations with someone who is able to help you get through a phase in your life when you are feeling stuck. Maybe you need to understand something about yourself, or find a way through an emotional problem, or you have a decision to make. The right counsellor can be an enormous help.

But do you need a Christian counsellor?

Let’s think about what we mean by that phrase. All counselling is shaped by the world view of the counsellor. There are Christians who work within the same counselling models as their non-Christian colleagues; they are counsellors who also happen to be Christians. A lot of Christians, including the friend I have just mentioned, are drawn to this way of working.

Alongside this are schools of counselling practice that aim to be wholly Christian in their methodology. The Biblical Counselling movement are a good example; and they are serious about training and supporting their members.

A warning: If you are diagnosed with a mental health condition, counselling may be part of the mix of therapies that will help you. But some Christian ministries view themselves as alternatives to the mainstream. If a potential counsellor says to you, ‘Don’t see your doctor and don’t take any medicine’, walk away.

Christians often find it helpful and comforting to engage with a counsellor who shares their world view. Apart from anything else it saves a lot of explanation if spiritual issues are part of the problem. But don’t be closed to meeting with a professional who is not a Christian. Counsellors are trained to be non-judgemental and to help absolutely anyone navigate a tricky aspect of their lives.

So you have a choice, a counsellor who is a Christian, a counsellor who believes they are working with an entirely biblical model of counsel, or someone who is not a Christian at all. How do you feel about those options?

Did you see what I did there? I gave you options but did not tell you what to do! That is what a skilled counsellor will do, help you to identify the ways forward and hold your hand as you make a choice. A counsellor won’t solve your problem, only you can do that with God’s help.

However, I am going to give you one piece of advice. Make sure that your counsellor is accredited by a reputable organisation. There is no single body in the UK responsible for regulating all counsellors, but several bodies exist including the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society. Biblical Counselling UK seek to train and regulate Christian counsellors.

I occasionally become anxious in enclosed spaces. The result of a traumatic incident in my teens. I once shared this with a counsellor who listened carefully and then asked, “What is it that you are frighted of?”

In fifty years I had never asked myself this blindingly obvious question, yet the answer changed my whole perspective in my little phobia and, eventually, my life. This is what a gifted counsellor can do.

Helpful links:

Biblical Counselling UK – https://bcuk.org/about/finding-help/

Association of Christians in Counselling and linked professions – https://www.acc-uk.org/

British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy – https://www.bacp.co.uk

National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society – https://ncps.com

A place of rest

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Someone once said that the purpose of the news media is the manufacture and maintenance of anxiety. I Think he was right, but I also think that some churches do something similar.

That famous quotation, “If Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him” (C.T. Studd), is true. But sensitive souls are vulnerable to a dangerous distortion, “If Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice I make can ever be enough for him”. I wonder if this explains an unhealthy drivenness in the churches?

Activity is good, the lord himself was noted for it, he ‘Went about doing good’ (Acts 10:38) and so should we. But why do I meet a lot of neurotic Christians living with a constant sense of failure, “I’m not doing enough, I’m not keen enough, I don’t have enough faith”.

Preachers and youth leaders can make this worse. Most sermons conclude with an appeal for more activity or more intensity. More activity means that we must ‘do more’, ‘witness more’, ‘pray more’, ‘worship more’. More intensity means ‘pray harder’, ‘worship harder’, ‘have more faith!’

The Bible rejects this driven culture. All but one of Paul’s epistles begin with a simple greeting, “Grace and peace to you…”. We start with God’s grace. Grace means that you are good enough for him already – you cannot work yourself up to a new ‘level’ to enjoy this, you can only receive is as you would a generous gift.

Then there is peace. A little English word that sits on the shoulders of a giant Hebrew one, ‘shalom,’ which means ‘wellbeing’ or ‘wholeness’. Gospel peace is the eventual restoration of my broken humanity – body, mind and spirit. It also means that we can know inner calm in dire circumstances right now.

That is why the most resilient Christians are those with a very high view of the sovereignty of God – they trust him. Our drivenness derives from a poor understanding of God’s nature. ‘Grace? Surely, he couldn’t be that generous?’ ‘Peace? Surely, we need a bit of a kicking to get us going?’

Yes, he is that generous and, no, we don’t need a good kicking. Know this, if you stopped praying today, never go to church again, never share your faith or read your Bible again, God will still love you as much as he would if you fill your life with those things.

So many Christians, in their life and witness, convey a simple message, “Follow Jesus and you could be as frazzled as me”. They are working out of drivenness. My friend Chris once said to me, “If I wanted more peace in my life, I wouldn’t do church, I’d check out Buddhism!”

In his lovely book, ‘Working from a place of rest’ Tony Horsefall advocates the opposite. On old hymn captures Tony’s message like this:

Drop thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease;
take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of thy peace.

An ’ordered life’, one that expresses God’s grace and peace, is an incredible advert for the gospel. If Chris could see it lived, he wouldn’t bother with Buddhism.

I have not stopped challenging people to ‘go about doing good’. But I find myself more often encouraging people to learn to say ‘no’ and take time to appreciate grace, peace, love, hope, and joy. I believe it would transform our church life for the better if our pastors and youth leaders did the same.

Paul the anxious apostle

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In his letter to the church in Philippi Paul says, “Don’t be anxious about anything…” (Philippians 4:6-7). But in my experience, Christians are just as anxious as anyone else. And we make things worse by piling on the phony guilt, “If I were a better Christian I wouldn’t worry so much”.

But why would God allow a child of his be prone to anxiety and what do we say to those who are? Let’s start by taking a closer look at the man who wrote Philippians.

Paul speaks openly about his own anxieties in his second letter to the Corinthians. He had written a very critical letter to that church and couldn’t stop worrying if he had gone too far. He was too anxious to settle, despite finding Troas wide open to the gospel, he left to look for news of the church’s response. Have you ever lost sleep over an email you wished you hadn’t sent? That is how Paul felt. (see 2 Corinthians 2:12-13)

Paul is equally honest about an incident elsewhere in the Roman province of Asia (modern Turkey). He doesn’t say exactly what happened, except that it was terrifying (2 Corinthians 1:8-9). He tells us that he and his team were in fear of losing their lives, “We despaired of life”, he writes.

By contrast, when Paul wrote Philippians, he felt super confident, even though he knew he might be facing death. So here’s the truth about the Christian and anxiety: even ‘super Christians’ like Paul go through times when they are very vulnerable, this is not unspiritual, it is part of the normal Christian life.

In 2 Corinthians Paul reflects on why God lets this happen and he gives us three reasons.

First, experiences like his in Asia sensitise us to the struggle others have. Experience of anxiety gives you a superpower – empathy for others (2 Corinthians 1:4).

Second, anxious times can deepen our trust in God. Anxiety is not just switched off by prayer, it is a process. As we pray and trust God, we learn to deal with it and grow through it (2 Corinthians 1:9-10). We learn resilience through adversity.

Here’s the third thing, read 2 Corinthians right through and you see Paul working through the fact that he is not a ‘super Christian’ (‘Super-Christians’ were a bit of a problem in Corinth, as they are today!). “God’s strength”, he says, “Is made perfect in our weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

It is worth saying at this point that there are two kinds of anxiety. The first is a natural response to scary circumstances. The anxious feelings are part of our biology – they help us run away, fight, or perform to the best of our ability. This is normal anxiety, and it is very useful.

The second kind is not useful, an out-of-all-proportion response to not-very-threatening things. It lasts for ages and has a negative impact on our lives, we avoid the things that make us anxious, and our lives shrink around our anxiety. This is an anxiety disorder, and we need professional help to get through it. Seriously, we need to go and talk to our GP.

It was too long ago and too far away to tell which of these kinds of anxiety we see in Paul. Though you do occasionally see the second kind in the Psalms. But whatever kind of anxiety we face, the way to manage it is through connection. Four connections are essential.

First, connect with God – worship, meditation and prayer are all deeply therapeutic. Tell God exactly how you feel, tell him what you are afraid of. Above all, trust him, he won’t let you down. Holding on to the Lord in the dark times gets us through.

Second, connect with others – invest time in your friendships, and especially in one or two people you can be honest with. You need both superficial friendships (mates) and deep ones (real friends). Spend time with the people you love and trust.

Third, connect with the natural world – get out and enjoy the open spaces near you, get a couple of house plants and keep them on your desk, stop and enjoy the scenery. You are built to be a part of nature. Remember too that every living thing on the earth is built for a 24-hour rhythm – you are no exception, get some sleep!

Finally, connect with yourself – remember what you are, the dust of the earth animated by the breath of God (Genesis 2:7). Look after your body and your mind. Get some exercise and push some boundaries to flex your brain. Learn to be still. Oh, and give yourself something to look forward to at the end of each day!

The serenity prayer – Christian faith and stoicism

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It is surprising how many people with no church background can quote the ‘Serenity Prayer” attributed to the German theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr; “God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things  which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other”

I can’t think of a wiser prayer in a world like ours where so much is beyond our control. It helps us to concentrate on what really matters; how we handle a crisis and how we can find peace. Yet the heart of that prayer can also work for anyone, even an atheist, in fact it is the first principle of a system of thought called Stoicism.

“The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy”, say Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman in The Daily Stoic, “Is differentiating between what we can change and what we can’t. What we have influence over and what we don’t”. It’s the same core idea as in Niebuhr’s prayer.

You may remember that the apostle Paul met and debated with Stoic philosophers in Athens (Acts 17:16-21). After this encounter, Christians would compete with Stoics for the affections of the Roman people for the next three centuries. The Christians won that contest, but Stoicism never really went away.

Today we are witnessing the return of popular Stoicism. Books applying Stoic thinking to modern life are popular, like Brigid Delaney’s Reasons not to Worry. “When life started changing rapidly – and fear was in the air – the ancient Greco-Roman philosophy proved to be a remarkably useful tool”, she writes, “ And much of their advice is as fresh today as it was in ancient times”.

Sales of the original stoic writers grew steadily during the pandemic. The writings of Seneca (a teacher), Epictetus (a slave) and Marcus Aurelius (an emperor) are now selling in the hundreds of thousands and their appeal is a wide as was their varied social backgrounds. It is such a pity they are not around to enjoy the royalties!

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), widely available on the NHS, is essentially the practical application of Stoic philosophy to the distorted thinking that makes people miserable. CBT helps silence some of the rubbish that goes ‘round and ‘round in our heads, the evidence says it can do people a lot of good.

On a quick comparison, Christian faith and Stoicism look very similar, both are concerned with virtuous living, both look for peace in turbulent times. But go a little deeper and they tell two very different stories. Stoics say, “You are on your own, but through a lifetime of struggle you may nurture the virtues that lead to peace”. The gospel says, “You are not alone, you have a brother, a saviour, the Lord of life and love – trust him, he will help you, he is our peace!”

I’m pretty sure that Christian faith triumphed in the ancient world because the friendship of a gracious God appealed more than the austere solitude of the Stoics. Modern Stoics are offering the ancient package, so are we, and it still compares badly with the grace of God in the gospel. We have a better story to tell, beautifully expressed in the whole of Reinhold Niebuhr’s prayer – not Stoic but Christian:

“God, give me grace to accept with serenity

the things that cannot be changed,

Courage to change the things  which should be changed,

and the wisdom to distinguish

the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,

Enjoying one moment at a time,

Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace.

Taking, as Jesus did,

this sinful world as it is,

Not as I would have it,

Trusting that You will make all things right,

If I surrender to Your will,

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,

And supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.”

The perils of perfectionism

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Are you, by any chance, a bit of a perfectionist? You have high standards for yourself, yet struggle to acknowledge your achievements? If your answer is “Yes!”, or you know someone like that, then this is for you.

Perfectionism lies at the root of much unhappiness. Indeed, perfectionist attitudes often correlate with poor mental health such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders and even suicidal thoughts. Pablo Martinez, a Christian psychiatrist, writes about the ‘inner policeman’, a nagging voice telling us we’ve not done enough, or we’ve not done it right. When he gets the upper hand, we are in spiritual and psychological trouble.

Psychologists have identified three kinds of perfectionism (see The Perfection Trap, by Thomas Curran): First, outside pressure, like the Christian leader who feels that his congregation expect him to be a perfect example. The second is the pressure I create for myself, like the young man sobbing his heart out because he came second in a test at school. A toxic combination of these two are loose on social media, fuelling the doomed quest to look fabulous . Finally, there are those who pressurise others to be perfect, as one man said to me, “My genes loaded the gun, but my boss pulled the trigger”.

Some of the things that drive us are good, others are not. “There is a difference between neurotic (compulsive) perfectionism and the search for excellence”, writes Pablo Martinez, “The latter is related to spiritual maturity and seeks to please God, the former arises from insecurity and very much needs the approval of others”.

We should seek excellence. When Jesus said, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:28), that is what he meant. Think of a screwdriver. A perfect screwdriver is one that is right for the job. It feels nice in the hand and the blade fits the screw slots exactly. So, for the English word ‘perfect’, substitute the phrase ‘right for the job’.

We should avoid neurotic perfectionism. Paul writes of two kinds of sorrow in his second letter to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 7:10). Let me paraphrase his teaching: “Godly sorrow: we perform badly, we learn some lessons, we bash on. That enhances life! Worldly sorrow: we perform badly, we enter a downward spiral of self-recrimination and guilt, we make ourselves ill. That’s death!”

We should tell ourselves every day that it’s OK to fail because we know the God who will always be delighted with his children, so you can repent and move on, here’s why:

Nothing you can do,
Could make him love you more.
And nothing that you’ve done,
Could make him close the door.
Because of his great love,
He gave his only son.
Everything was done so you would come.

Shortly after our second child was born, I went shopping. I was in a hurry, as usual, and my guts were in a knot, as usual. I had felt anxious since our first child and the feelings had tightened with the second. Rushing through W.H. Smiths a book caught my eye, it was called “The good enough parent”. One look at the title and the anxiety disappeared never to return. The penny had dropped; I was trying to be a perfect dad, and it was making me ill.

Cathie, my wife, put it in a nutshell, “You cannot be Christ, but you can be Christ-like”. Not perfect, but fit for purpose, that is my calling. I am free!

Take a sabbatical!

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Everyone doing ministry in your church needs a three-month break every seven years or so. This includes your minister, elders or PCC, ministry leaders, youth team and Sunday school teachers. Why? Because the Bible commends it, and it is good for us.

First, the bible commends it. When Jesus asked his friends to “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:32), he was speaking from a heart shaped by his upbringing. At any point in his younger life, he was looking forward to a rest, every 7th day, the three major religious festivals in the year, and every seven years there was a Sabbath year when the land was to rest. For sure, there would be seasons like seed time and harvest when everyone was working flat out, but the law of God (an expression of his grace) would force people to stop. That rhythm of sevens seems baked in to our psychology and these patterns in scripture carry a simple message for all of us, do the same!

Second, it’s good for you. Every seven years the land had a rest (Leviticus 25:1-7). The seventh-year rest was known in Hebrew as shmita, which means release. It was a rest for the land but it was also a change of pace and purpose for the people. Their workaday focus on cultivation shifted to gathering and eating what the land produced without their help.

This is the core value of a sabbatical for a Christian leader; the pace and purpose of their work changes so that they may be rested, re-focussed, and renewed. For an extended season that leader stops sowing, weeding, reaping, and threshing. Their focus shifts entirely to gathering, building up a savings account of material they can draw on in their future ministry.

We are God’s creatures, and this is how we are designed to function. Try not getting that seventh-day rest for a sustained period of time and you will suffer psychologically or physically. We have different festivals, and different holidays, but the principle is the same, they are there for our good.

The idea of a sabbatical is so powerful that secular organisations are beginning to embrace it. In his lovely book Recovery, the lost art of convalescence Gavin Francis, an Edinburgh GP, writes:

“In my own GP practice, my colleagues and I have formalised a compromise into our contracts as a three-month break every five years. I return from my own sabbaticals relaxed, reinspired, and energised by the time away. I can’t rewrite my patients’ employment contracts to make sure that they can access sabbaticals, but I do encourage them to find ways to try”.

(Recovery, Gavin Francis, Welcome Collection, ISBN 9781800810488)

Along with Paul Coulter of Living Leadership I have spent a lot of the last year talking with people in Christian ministry about their sabbaticals and writing a Sabbatical Toolkit which is now available from the Living Leadership website. Our passion is to enable people in ministry to keep going and enjoy serving the Lord, we see these rhythms of seven as essential for effective Christian work. Why not raise this issue with your leaders and start thinking together about how the life of your fellowship may be enriched and its impact enhanced not by working harder but by learning to rest?

Achieve more by doing less and doing it better. To do this you all need a sabbatical!

The politics of pastoral care

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Every morning I scan the news online and spend half an hour reading the articles that fit my interests. In the last couple of weeks two have stood out as relevant to pastoral care. Let me describe them for you.

The first is a puff for a book by psychologist, Gillian Bridge. The headline is “Our fixation with feelings has created a damaged generation”. Bridge discusses the mental health of young people; a million prescriptions for antidepressants are being written for teenagers each year. She provides an explanation, “This focus on me, myself and I is the problem… it’s taking people who are vulnerable to begin with and asking them to focus inwards”.

The second is a report on research from University College London and the headline expresses outrage, “Obese patients are ‘being weight-shamed by doctors and nurses“. Here’s a taste, “The problem is so widespread that health professionals need to be taught as students that excess weight is almost guaranteed in modern society and is not the fault of individuals”.

One of those articles is from the left-leaning Guardian, the other from the right-leaning Daily Telegraph. Now, without following those links, can you tell which is which?

Those on the left assume the innocence of the individual and the guilt of society. It is wrong to offend, or to challenge, just be kind. People on the right stress individual responsibility, we shouldn’t pander to people’s feelings, people need to better themselves, you may have to be cruel to be kind. I’m discovering that choosing an approach to pastoral care can be surprisingly political!

Each writer advocates a different kind of pastoral care; the first says, “challenge the me-centredness of our culture and don’t let people binge on the sugar-rush of their feelings”, the second says, “Listen without judging, do not condemn, don’t humiliate people”. Reading these two articles it struck me that, like the red marbling in raspberry ripple ice cream, Christian ideas run through both.

The gospel says that we are saved when we look away from ourselves to the cross and that we stay spiritually healthy by caring for others. It tells us that our feelings are not our identity but fleeting responses to our environment, my identity is not my gender or sexuality but who I am in Christ. And yet the bible also tells us to listen carefully, not to judge or condemn, to be gentle and patient, not to crush the bruised reed (Proverbs 18:13, Matthew 7:1-2, Galatians 5:22-23a, Isaiah 42:3).

Hold these two in tension and you have the way to go. Paul calls it ‘… speaking the truth in love’ ( Ephesians 4:14-15). Love is a verb, a doing word, so we walk with someone faithfully and listen empathetically. We resist a quick fix, the relief of getting a difficult conversation out of the way, we wait instead for the right time. Then we can speak with frankness, and with compassion, because there can be no doubt that we love that person.

Those two articles, from the left and the right of our political spectrum, challenged me. The first strengthened my feeling that we need to help people out of themselves and talk more than we do about gospel virtues like endurance, perseverance, and courage. The second underlined the importance of tender-heartedness, always looking for good ways to say hard things to fragile people. A bit like Jesus, really.

John Bunyan and suicidal crisis

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Suicide is a serious problem. According to recently released figures 6,069 people ended their life in 2023. About 20% of the population have entertained thoughts of suicide at some time in their life, so how can we be prepared to help?

John Bunyan explores this in his spiritual classic, Pilgrim’s Progress. Christian is imprisoned with his friend Hopeful in the castle of Giant Despair. The giant beats them senseless and throws them into a dark, stinking cell.

Bunyan spent twelve years in Bedford gaol for his refusal to conform to ‘official’ Christian forms of worship. He lived on the edge of poverty much of his life and his daughter was completely blind. This is writing from experience:

When morning was come, Giant Despair goes to them… he told them, that since they were never like to come out of that place, their only way would be forthwith to make an end of themselves, either with knife, noose or poison, for why should you choose life, seeing it is attended with such bitterness?

This takes Christian to the edge:

Brother, said Christian, what shall we do? For my part I know not whether is best, to live thus, or to die out of hand. My soul chooseth strangling rather than life, the grave is more easy for me than this dungeon.

At first, Hopeful tells that suicide is self-murder and that God won’t like it. This was typical thinking for Bunyan’s time – until 1961 suicide was a criminal offense in England. Those who took their own lives were not buried on consecrated ground – occasionally, they were left to rot on the town dump. Times have changed, but the guilt card is still tempting; Don’t do guilt, it doesn’t work.

But Hopeful learns quickly, listening carefully to Christian’s woes, and gently challenging his pessimism:

My brother, rememberest thou not how valiant thou hast been heretofore? Apollyon could not crush thee, nor could all that thou didst hear, see or feel in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. What hardship, terror and amazement thou hast already gone through!

Then he assures Christian that he is not alone, encouraging him to be patient, reassuring him that his mood will lift.

Thou seest that I am in the dungeon with thee, a far weaker man by nature than thou art; also, this Giant has wounded me as well as thee, and hath also cut off the bread and water from my mouth; and with thee I mourn without the light. But let us exercise a little more patience.

Hopeful stays with Christian, gently encouraging him away from despair, towards hope. Here is the breakthrough:

A little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out in this passionate speech; What a fool am I, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon when I may walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle.

Bunyan knew from experience that that the promises of God can pull you out of the darkness. Yet even those who don’t believe can find reasons for living if, like Hopeful, we can keep our friend alive until they find their keys and use them.

Hopeful was a good listener who didn’t give up on his friend. He could gently challenge Christian’s pessimism and help him see reasons to stay alive. And he was prayerful.

We can all do this, and it would help if we did some suicide prevention training in our church. Be prepared, you never know when the crisis will happen.

Gospel-centred resilience

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How can we help young people become more resilient? We have all heard some the statistics but you only have to think of a person whose child is in their teens or twenties and is ill with anxiety, 100% of their heart is broken and that is the only statistic that really matters. The world has changed and poor mental health is on the rise, why?

Here’s a big factor, our culture tells young people that God is not real, his will does not matter, and that they must construct their own identity and set of values. The spiritual scaffolding that has sustained people over centuries has been removed. Sure, other factors are important, but we can’t overlook this one.

What we have instead are techniques like mindfulness and stress management. These are helpful, but Jesus said that a unique peace is available to those who trust him (John 14:27). The gospel offers psychological wellbeing that anyone can access first by trusting it and then by living it out.

The apostle Paul writes about this clearly in Romans 5:1-5. Access into God’s grace, he says, is the fruit of trusting Christ (v.1-2). The gospel re-connects us to the God who is there. We really do have an almighty Father we can lean on. We can put the weight of our life and our worries on him. The gospel puts the scaffolding back in place.

In the public mind, and in that of many young people, faith in God nurtures guilt because God will always demand more than we can give. The gospel says the opposite, faith brings freedom from guilt. The moment we trust Jesus we are ‘justified’; that means righteous, clean as a whistle, accepted without reservation, loved despite all our faults!

That is the first big thing about the gospel, here is the second. Trusting Christ is not a once-for-all event in our lives, it is the means by which we navigate all our troubles (3-4). Paul is telling us that suffering is one of the tools God uses to reshape my character and make it more like Christ’s. God has a purpose, and nothing – however horrible – is random. Adversity is the way to resilience.

You see this when Paul told the Corinthian church about his own psychological challenges, ‘…this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead’ (2 Corinthians 1:8-9). In other words, whatever caused Paul’s mood to plummet into despair the answer was to shift his trust from himself and onto God. That is how we can get through anything.

Some practical points might help focus our pastoral care.

First, nagging people to ‘have more faith’ won’t work. Faith comes by hearing God’s word, and it is therapeutic to dwell in it listening to his voice. Take a month or two to soak up Psalm 103 for example, learning to meditate on it as you go.

Second, listen without interrupting. Encourage, and support, reassuring people that whatever happens their life is in God’s hands. We can even help people to see that their anxiety or low mood is part of a plan, they will be stronger and happier when they learn to live with it, manage it, and eventually overcome it.

Finally, we shouldn’t dismiss the techniques they will probably learn at school, or therapy advised by a doctor. Just as an aspirin can help with a headache, knowing how to breathe when you are anxious can help a young person face an exam. We are spiritual beings, but we are also biological systems and every little helps.

I have a Christian friend who teaches dance to young people. As exams and assessments approach, she receives a lot of calls from her students, ‘I can’t make the exam, I’ve got anxiety!’ they say. ‘Of course you are anxious’, she replies, ‘That is your mind gearing up to perform your best’. Then she encourages them, ‘Come to the assessment and put your anxiety into your art, use it to give the performance of your life!’ Very few students fail to turn up for their test and those who do are buzzing with joy afterwards. They have won a victory and now they are stronger, they are more resilient!