Keys to Mental and Emotional Health

One of the things that I have noticed in the number of my years has been a change in our society that has created a deeper awareness of people's needs in regard to mental and emotional health.

There was a time I don't believe the society of America paid that much attention to it. There were hospitals, there were doctors, there were schools of thought and therapy and psychology.

But in the last 25 to 35 years or so, there has been a greater awareness, and there have been more clinics open, there have been much more open discussion of the matter of emotional health, mental health, mental health services in America.

It's a two-edged sword. There has been the awareness of it and the discussion of it, and the help that has been available in many ways has been good. On the other hand, there has been, I think, an increase probably in the amount of need for that. Witness the number of clinics and hospitals, and again, the discussions on it, the popular psychology of the subject and books and all that have been written on the subject of therapy and overcoming various matters of life, abuses and emotional traumas from the past.

Which indicates that there is still a very high percentage of that in our world and the needs that are there. When we discuss this within God's Church, it is a very important subject. Today I'd like to talk about a few keys to help us all deal with the stresses, some of the mental and emotional battles that we fight in order to maintain a level of mental and emotional health that is so important to us and important in our life as a Christian. God reveals a way of life that really, when you break it all down and look at it very simply, God's way of life produces sanity. And that's what God has revealed to us. His way is based upon His law. And law and order, stability is a very important key to mental and emotional well-being. God's way of life offers a structured foundation that includes belief in Him and contact with Him on a regular basis. The Church of God practices that way of life, and it is a way of life that can stabilize people. It can help people deal with their life, their past, move forward with a positive approach toward the future when certain principles are applied, certain matters of God's Spirit. There are some situations in people's lives that, in one sense, there may not be a complete cure in this life. There are certain abuses and emotional traumas that people are the victims of that they may have to wrestle with the effect for the rest of their life, and at least be aware of it. But I am a firm believer that the truth of God and the way of life offered and practiced within the Church of God can be a means by which people can manage and stabilize their life and move forward in a very positive way, as we deal with a total approach to life that helps people to cope with the problems and the stresses that are out there. Life itself is really based on law. No matter where you turn and how you look at it, there is order, there is complexity, but undergirding all of life, there are certain fundamental principles of laws. And when those laws are broken, it results in instability, it can result in chaos at a level of nature and in the level of human interactions as well. We need to understand that. We must understand that when our life is structured on law, things work better.

When life is not structured, when it's based on lawlessness, it results in a breakdown. You can call that a nervous breakdown, a mental breakdown, you can just label it a breakdown, but it happens. In the reality, when you kind of distill it all down, strip away all the jargon that has been layered on to human nature and human behavior in our time, you have to really come down to the principle that sin, broken law, leads to insanity. And it results in unstable situations and results in a great deal of problems. Now, correcting that, correcting the effect of that, can be a lifelong issue. As I said, there are times and situations that may not provide a quick cure. In some cases, perhaps life just has to be managed as a result of breakdown in certain situations as you go along. But I'm a firm believer that there are principles that we can learn and understand as a method of prevention and as a way to create a stable environment to help us deal with our lives and to even heal unstable minds and to begin to provide a cure. So I'd like to go through some of those principles here this afternoon in the short time that I have, just to refresh our minds and to focus our hearts on God's Word and certain principles that we can glean from God's Word to help us focus our minds on a stability that leads to mental and emotional health. The very foundation of a discussion like this has to begin with God's Law, the importance of obedience and keeping God's commandments. Point number one, therefore, is the need to obey and to keep the commandments of God. This is distilled in the wisdom that Solomon offers back in Ecclesiastes 12. Ecclesiastes 12. I've said many times this is a favorite book of mine in the Bible, perhaps within my top five books, the favorite books within the Bible, the book of Ecclesiastes. I was talking with Dr. Ralph Levy about this once down at the ABC, the Ambassador Bible Center, and he kind of looked at me odd that I would like this book that highly. It's not one of his favorites, I don't think, because of just whatever. But I told him, yeah, it's one of my favorites to read. When you come down to the end of the book, and Solomon's life is a textbook case of an individual who had it all, blew it all, and he had wisdom, he had righteousness, he had God's blessing, he strayed from it, and he went off the deep end, spiraled down into a host of problems that I think we only read the chapter headings about in the Bible. I don't think we read the whole complexity of what resulted in Solomon's life when he took the many wives that he did and went off into a life apart from God for whatever number of years. My personal belief is that Solomon came back around, repented, and got it all together at the end of his life, whether that was on the last day of his life, the last week, or the last six months, I don't know. But I've always looked at Ecclesiastes as kind of a summing up. And he comes down to verse 13 of chapter 12, and he says, Let's hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man's all. And I've thought many times about this verse, as I know you have as well, as it's one of those verses we all would remember from the Bible, to fear God and to keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty, or this is man's all.

And it really sums up every piece of wisdom literature, every self-help book, every practical guide you might pick up that will give you information and helpful tips about life, about child-rearing, about overcoming the effects of this or that in one's life. And this is it. Fear God and keep the commandments. It can save us a ton of money, a lot of hours reading a lot of material. And it's all summed up right here. Fear God and keep His commandments. This is it. This is the essence of the responsibilities that we have and the key to it all, to making life work at a very high level, but it's obeying God's commandments. In Psalm 119, in verse 165, Psalm 119 verse 165, this long psalm that focuses on God's law and statutes, says here in this verse, Great peace have those who love your law, and nothing causes them to stumble. Peace of mind, peace of heart, peace of soul, however you want to express it. Great peace have those who love your law. And you put that with what Solomon wrote, then it really does help us have a foundation in understanding. The fear of God is a foundation of our conscience. To use that word that comes from psychoanalysis or therapy, the idea of the conscience, and another word for our mind or our heart in one sense. But really, the fear of God is the foundation of one's conscience.

And that conscience can be a very valuable, productive matter for us, as it guides us into what is right and wrong, helps us to make right choices, wise choices in our life. It is the foundation of building a good, tender, responsive conscience, heart, mind, toward life and toward God. Some of the problems with some schools of thought, or psychotherapeutic thought in teaching, is that they seek to reduce a conscience.

Some of the fields of study in that area of psychotherapy seek to reduce a conscience, as people come seeking help, seeking counseling to get through various issues and matters and to figure themselves out. And when you reduce, through that type of therapy, a conscience, you're really trying to remove sometimes guilt, which is another big area that psychologists and therapists wrestle and work with in people, to help them remove guilt from their life.

And one of the triggers that they use to do that is to remove any law, and certainly remove a God. And when you remove a conscience and remove guilt and substitute a self, or ego, as it may be put out, you're really telling a person, you have the ultimate responsibility. You have the ultimate duty and ability to decide for yourself what is right and wrong. Remove the guilt.

This is how you can remove the guilt that you may be struggling with. And what that does, in essence, is make a person a God to themselves. And it removes the God, the true God, and His law, and it makes one a God to themselves. And it's the essence of idolatry, but it makes the self an idol. And that is at the heart of so much of our thinking in our modern world, in our modern culture today. One's ability to determine right from wrong is an inherent right, and God's law, God's principles, don't enter into the discussion in many schools of thought of psychotherapy.

It's a kind of a secular grace that they try to achieve to remove a person's conscience, and thereby eliminate guilt. And it does not produce a sound of mind. It does not produce the mind that the Bible talks about, and is the one that we are most responsible for. So, obeying God and keeping His commandments and putting that first, as Solomon said, is the whole duty of man, and really the first and perhaps the most important of the principles of determining a principle and key of sound mental health, and emotional health as well.

There's a second principle that is very important, and again, part of that foundation, and that is the ability to maintain strong family relationships. A strong family relationship. Whatever that family is that we are anchored to and a part of, but a strong, godly family relationship is a key to that. This is over in Ephesians chapter 3, verse 14. We see that this is a key to really the whole plan of God, the family structure in Ephesians 3, beginning of verse 14.

Paul writes, This reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. Family is the foundation of God's purpose and God's plan. And any attack on the family that comes from any source is an attack against God's purpose and His plan. And we see many attacks from different angles and sources that go on today.

The family has been under attack from, in our modern world at least, so much so that we've turned things upside down. I've done a number of programs on it for Beyond Today in the last year and a half on the subject of the family. And we're going to do another one this coming Thursday. We're going to do one entitled Before You Divorce.

And in all of these programs, I think one of the key thoughts that we've always tried to express is the fact that no matter what alternative society puts forth beyond the traditional family of the husband and wife, and in a committed relationship, that is same-sex marriage or cohabitation, even advocating divorce, rampant divorce, there are problems inherent in each one of those, but especially in the first two of same-sex marriage and cohabitation, there is still, in those efforts to completely revamp the concept of the traditional family, there is still this desire that seems on the part of those that advocate and engage in those to achieve something in terms of a relationship that is an inherent need of the people, of human beings.

And they're trying to get it just in a different way. They're trying to get it by two women marrying, two men marrying, in that type of fashion. They're wanting something in a relationship at the human level that God hardwired into the traditional family, and yet that's not good enough, or that's not what is advocated, and society tries to redirect it and rewire the whole thing, and they come up with a mess. But in doing so, if you really analyze it and listen to what people are doing and saying, they are still striving to fill some need in themselves, but they're going about it the wrong way.

Again, that's because the family is a part of what God has hardwired into human beings and within the creation, and we see that back in the book of Genesis, that it's right at the very first story of the creation of a man and a woman. He put them together in a relationship, and he said, cleave to one another. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother. And that's the relationship that God created that produces the maximum amount of value, and if you will, for this sermon's purpose, mental stability and emotional stability and good, healthy human relationships, that's what does it.

But we all know that that hasn't always gone according to the record, to the rulebook, and as a result, families don't always produce what they're supposed to. And so often, the acts of violence and crime that we see blared across our television sets and we hear on the radios, we're driving back and forth of an abusive situation that results in the death of a child.

Or someone being charged with sexual abuse, or some of the horrendous things that we hear about, virtually, several new ones that come up every week. That some various twists of either murder of a child, murder of a pregnant mother, or a missing woman here and there. It comes down to crazy family situations. And pardon my use of the term, I don't mean to label any specific, any one necessarily, but you have to, you hear it and we mourn, we shake our head, but it comes down to craziness in human relationships that leads to some of the horrendous things that we hear about.

And some of the things we don't hear about as well. But unstable families will produce unstable mental situations and emotions that come out in any, anyone. And many of us have to look at ourselves, look at what formed and shaped us in our environment and in our mess as we look at the home life and the family life and we come from all different kinds. None of us, you know, we're not immune from any of that. And we can all have our stories. Many problems start in the family and can lead to all kinds of problems. Child abuse, beatings, spousal abuse, emotional upset situations that people might have.

It is so important to break the mold, to break the chain of habits of violence and of behavior at some point and be the change agent within a family, within a line of people. God's calling gives us the opportunity to do that. That's why it is so important that we have and maintain strong family relations and we seek to live in structured, ordered lives and have a life that we create for ourselves, for our family that is structured and ordered and has stability.

That is so important in many, many different ways in order to avoid some of the other problems that can come up. Divorce can be a problem. Divorce can be a solution at times. But there are, even in the extreme situations where divorce may be a solution to a very unfortunate, shattered relationship. Particularly when there are children, there are still going to be some unintended consequences that come about. I was reviewing some material in light of this preparing for this program we're going to do called Before You Divorce. The intent of such a title is to urge people to stop, stand back, take a breath before you divorce. Think it through. Try to find another solution, if indeed that is possible in this situation. We go through certain principles that we try to bring out in the very short program that we have to help people stop and think before they divorce. I was looking over some material on a family website and they were going through various studies that I had been aware of before that show clearly that children of divorced families do have... The divorce makes an impact on them and it has far-reaching impact, even in situations where it may not seem to be having a problem at age 8 or maybe 18 or whatever. But they've done long-term studies of families that have suffered divorce and children of divorce. And they have shown that those divorces do have an impact on people's lives, children's lives especially. So, again, there may be a situation where that is a solution, but there will still be consequences that have to be lived with and dealt with. And, again, that's why it is so important to work, to maintain, to build, and to create those stable family structures that foster good mental and emotional development and health for the matter of all of those who are involved. When you look at that, even at the level of the community, let's say our church community, we talk about the church being a family, a spiritual family, in which God has placed us and we're all a part of that. That's so important as well. I've long felt that what we have within the church, in terms of the environment that we've always worked to create, is a whole community of people working together toward mental health, toward sound mental framework and mental approach toward life. Our services are structured in that way, our socials, our various clubs that we have. More so in the past, we had a lot of sports that were part of that program as well.

If you look at just the fellowship that we have, and are coming together and being together and getting to know one another, supporting and helping and encouraging in spiritual, physical, and every way possible, these relationships that are knit together over the years through the experiences we have are so important. That's why the structure of the church is so vital. You think back, I was telling them, I thought about this this morning up in Fort Wayne, to the structure of the church. There are certain structures that we have here that are part of our tradition. We have a service that is anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours long. It depends on how long winded the pastor happens to be on any given day.

But you come in and you know what to expect. There are going to be songs, there's going to be opening prayer, there's going to be a short sermonette message, there's going to be a sermon. As we have talent, special music, you sing, someone else may sing a solo or the choir perform. We have a structure is my point. The time I hear, especially over the last 10 or 12 years, when people come up with other ideas as to how the church service ought to be structured and revamped everything. I've listened to it and looked at it and usually I've just kind of said, no, I don't think so. One of the reasons is when we go into the service, whether it's here or wherever the church of God is meeting, the church of God that we've been a part of, there are certain traditions that we should expect, we do expect, and that lends a stability to our identity and what we think about ourselves and who we are. You go into a church of God, United Church of God, and let's say church of God, a church structure in California or New York or whatever, you're going to find the basic same service that you've been used to, and there's a reason for that. That is important. It helps to foster unity, but also just a comfort level. And you know what to expect. I've noticed that whenever somebody tries to interject some new idea and new twist, you know it's not right. You know it doesn't belong. I remember those of us that were around in the early 90s when things were spinning out of control and the church was in an insane condition. Let's just put it that way. And when we finally had to break away and to reestablish the teachings, and even in some cases the order of our service, how refreshing that was to be able to come together and to have that place and structure, it was very comforting in those first Sabbaths. And what we heard being what we knew we should hear and wanted to hear was important to our spiritual health and our emotional development at that time. Think back about the way we felt about various things and what we were looking for, what you found, and the importance of that. It works at our level of the church. It's important at the level of the individual family as well to fostering the security, the comfort, and the development, and the emotional well-being of children, and certainly all of us as spiritual children within the church. Strong family relationships, structure, order to our life and to our worship and toward the life that we create around the kitchen table, in the living room, in the four walls of the homes that we have for ourselves and for our children. That's important. And when those things get out of whack, then if they're not dealt with or worked through, they can create some challenges. We understand that. We know that. That's important to keeping our mental and emotional development working in the right direction. There's another key to this, a third key, and that is, and this is in one sense a little bit off in another direction, but it's as important to keeping mental and emotional health, and that is recreation.

Call it a vacation, call it exercise, call it a diversion, call it a hobby, but it is something as part of our life that gives us a chance to play and to get a change in our life, a change of scenery, a change of place and position. And it helps us have an appreciation for what we have, but there is a time for that recreation. Now, even Sabbath services is a break from the routine of our weekly life as we come together for services, but certainly the Feast of Tabernacles is an even bigger break, and it is in that line of recreation that gives us a chance to be someplace else, wherever we go for the Feast, to have the spiritual teaching, but also to have the recreation with it. That gives us a whole chance and a different opportunity to play and to have a change of scenery. So much of the literature dealing with stress, maintaining a balanced life, maintaining dealing with even health problems like high blood pressure, much less any type of mental or emotional imbalance. So often you will read that one of the keys that they will bring out is the importance of recreation. All of these principles that I'm bringing out other than perhaps God's law, you're going to find in a lot of the literature and the things that you will read on the subject of developing and maintaining emotional and mental health. And either recreating or getting back in proper balance or keeping things in control before they get out of control in their lives, you will find these principles. The recreation is always up there, and it's a biblical principle in Ecclesiastes 3 and verse 4, in this section where Solomon talked about kind of an ode to life that was set to music a number of years ago in Ecclesiastes chapter 3.

Where he said to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven in verse 1, but down in verse 4, he says there's a time to weep and there's a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.

Knowing when there's a time to laugh and to enjoy yourself and to engage in some type of activity or behavior that gives you the opportunity to just let down in a right way and to laugh and to get away from the serious stuff, a time to dance, and a sense of something that, again, is a change from the routine. It's not sitting at a desk, it's not working and working and working, yet at hard physical labor it is a time to do something that is diversionary. You could substitute there's a time to play golf, there's a time to play basketball, there's a time to take a walk, there's a time to take a couple of hours. If that's all you can get off, and sometimes, for me, getting two or three hours away, I call that a vacation. I don't always turn that in on my time card, but if we will take the day we took three hours off and we went downtown to the Indianapolis Art Museum.

We hadn't been down there for several years and Debbie hadn't been there since they remodeled the whole thing. We went down and spent a couple of hours walking through the Indianapolis Art Museum.

To me, that's pretty good. I call that a vacation and it might be worth a couple of three days doing something else. I can then clear my mind for a while and go back and get back into whatever the project might be and tackle it again.

Sometimes you need a little bit more than that, and that's okay as well.

In Proverbs 15, it talks about a merry heart.

Going back a few pages to Proverbs 15. And verse 13 says, It says, A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken. A merry heart, an emotionally balanced or a cheerful or a relaxed or an unstressed heart. Again, fiddle with the language and you can bring it up to what we might be a little more familiar with. An unstressed life makes for a cheerful countenance.

The things that we may need to do to relieve that stress, whatever works for us, find it, do it, and continue to do it.

I learned years ago that I had to exercise on a regular basis in order to manage the stress that I have, and that for me was something to do.

I tried golf, and golf puts more stress on me than is worthwhile and gets ever more expensive, so I kind of have given up golf.

The dust is getting pretty thick on my clubs in the garage, and I haven't done it for a couple of years. The last few times out, it was very stressful.

I learned years ago, never try to play a round of golf while you're with a member who wants to counsel while you play golf.

Two hundred games, let me tell you that. My score is 200 when I do that. I mean, somebody wants to talk about their life or whatever their needs, don't do it on a golf course. It just blows everything.

But, actually, I found that where I can exercise, I set up a little gymnasium in my garage to do that with a treadmill and a stationary bike and some weights, one of these ski machines, Nordic Track ski machines.

One of the most interesting things I added to it to help relieve the stress was a punching bag.

I took some money last year and went to Dick's Sporting Goods, bought a big professional punching bag, a couple of 14-ounce punching gloves. And when I get those on and start punching the bag, I found that to be really a stress reliever.

I thought a few times of taking certain pictures and putting them on there.

But I haven't done that yet. So, rest assured, none of you have appeared on my punching bag.

I may have been tempted, but I haven't done that yet.

Whatever works on a particular day, to get 30 minutes or an hour into that, four or five times a week for me, is a necessity.

I long ago quit doing it. I don't do it. I think I'm going to live forever. I pop my vitamins, not thinking I'm going to live forever.

I do all the things that I do to try to keep an edge on my health, just so that the days that I do live, I can live them at a higher level.

I just don't want to wind up, you know, debilitated and with chronic illnesses.

So, I take my vitamins, I do my exercise, but not to live forever or to maintain a certain physique or whatever, but to just try to have a decent life with what I do have. That's my approach, and certainly to manage the stress and a lot of things.

But whatever works for you, it's important to do it in order to deal with, you know, staving off some of the effects of depression or whatever it might be.

I really kicked up the exercise a few years ago whenever I was going through a particular phase, and I think I skirted the edges of depression. I didn't have to go to medication, I didn't have to go to a doctor, but there were a few months that, you know, I just knew what I was dealing with because I'd read a lot about it and I dealt with it with a number of members, and I knew the symptoms.

I knew what I was struggling through. By the time my dad had died, we had just moved down here from Fort Wayne, and a lot of things were just turned upside down in life.

You know, one of the ways I dealt with it was through exercise. That was not the only way, and in the end it wasn't the most important.

There was prayer and spiritual side of things was the most important when it was all said and done.

But you find what works for you, and you deal with it in order to maintain that merry heart.

And understand that there is a time to relax, to recreate your life through whatever form of recreation you may choose.

It just may be a walk in the neighborhood. You don't have to invest a lot of money.

You don't have to do those things. Just a walk in the neighborhood can go a long way toward helping you to deal with that.

A fourth key is to avoid a dependency on drugs or alcohol to cope with life's problems.

Both are readily available. Both can provide certain effects and impact in your life.

I'm not even talking about the hardcore drugs. Just look, there's enough over-the-counter or things you might get through a prescription with your doctor that are drugs.

That can be a means of coping with life's problems. And alcohol certainly is an area there.

You've got to be careful how you handle what you do.

In this, I'm not saying that a person is clinically depressed and they are prescribed a depression medication that gets off of that.

I'm not saying that at all. Don't misread that into anything that I'm saying. There is a time and a place for that.

But for a normally healthy person with a healthy, balanced approach to life to depend on alcohol or a recreational drug or something of that matter to cope with certain problems and a knowing, conscious decision, that's a whole other issue.

The Bible has a lot to say about that because it can cause us to lose a discernment and sound judgment in our mind.

Let's just turn to Isaiah 28 and notice one principle here, Isaiah 28.

And this is dealing with alcohol.

Verse 1, he says, "...woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which is at the head of the verdant valleys, to those who are overcome with wine." Here's a pronouncement, a judgment, or it says, a woe, which is a warning to the drunkards of Ephraim.

It's collectively put upon a tribe of Israel, but the principle comes down to the individual as well.

A person can be overcome with wine or alcohol and lose judgment, lose control, and even lose control of their life, as we well know.

Down in verse 7, it says, "...they also have erred through wine, and through intoxicating drink are out of the way." And this is, again, you can just read into this without reading into the meaning, but you can understand this is talking about wine or intoxicating.

It says, "...the priest and the prophet have erred through intoxicating drink. They are swallowed up by wine. They are out of the way through intoxicating drink. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment." Now, the prophet here in God is talking in terms of the spiritual condition of the people, but look at what he uses to describe how they have done that.

And he uses drink, strong drink, and the abuse of it in what we know that it really does do to an individual's life. One who is not able to handle alcohol comes to a point eventually where you will err in vision or an understanding of what that drunken behavior is going to do to your life if it overcomes you, and a number of different problems that can develop. And I don't have to go through that list for you. I think you well know what alcohol abuse can lead to individually, for a family, and the impact far beyond one's own home, but they err in vision and stumble in judgment.

And it's not just talking about why one is drunk, but it's talking about a way of life, a dependency that is created to deal with, again, the stresses of life and some of the challenges that come up. If we ever make a conscious choice, we let life slip away from us, and we have to have that drink to settle our nerves, or pop those pills because we can't keep a lid on our life in other ways to deal with certain things, we can lose control. So again, remember what I'm saying earlier in terms of some areas of depression that may need some medical treatment. I'm not talking about some of those situations.

Those are best handled on a one-to-one basis. But for us to let our life slip away, and especially with alcohol, we can just focus on that. There was a time 12 years ago when the church was when I knew that I was going to lose my job. Because of the doctrinal parishes of the church, I knew that months in advance that there would come a day when I would no longer be drawing a paycheck from the church that I was working for. Things were going to change. I had no idea where it was all going to go, but I knew in terms of what I was going to be doing necessarily, I knew what was going to happen. That was there would be a day that I would be terminated.

You prepare for that as best you can, but I also made another decision at that time, and that was that I didn't drink any alcohol.

You're setting up late at night, you're thinking through, you're worrying, you're thinking and imagining the worst-case scenarios. It's also tempting to have an extra glass of wine, a few extra beers, whatever it might be, just to, as we say, take the edge off or to deal with it.

I knew I was susceptible to that, just like any other human being. So I made a decision, no alcohol, not even a beer. I went several months without any. That was one reason I lost a lot of weight during that period of time.

I did lose about 20 or 25 pounds. When things settled down, the dust settled, I lifted that prohibition, I fell off the wagon. So I put on the weight, the weight went back on as well.

My point is, I knew what I was dealing with, and I knew how bad it could get. So I just said, no. You have to maintain a control. That's the point. Especially with alcohol, I study this enough and listen to the experts, that there's something that does click over.

I'm not getting into the issues of whether or not it's a disease. We can discuss that later on. But there's something that psychologically or physiologically clicks over when you slip into alcoholism and you do lose control. You basically do have to go the rest of your life without drinking, because something probably does change up there. You can't control it. You can't even have that one drink. Alcoholics Anonymous is the foundation of their approach to therapy.

You can lose discernment of the mind that gives us good judgment, and it's important to avoid a dependency on those things in order to maintain good, sound mental health and emotional balance in your life. Use it wisely, use it as a benefit, use it as a benefit.

In a way, God's Word tells us it can be used, but keep it in control. It's a privilege that you really never ever want to lose the ability to enjoy that liberty and that privilege that God gives.

There's another principle here, another key to mental stability, and that is, we all have to learn to handle the themes of instability that are all around us in movies, in television shows, in music, in all various forms of media that we have. You stop and think about the instability of life, the mental imbalances, the emotional insta- to one degree or the other, that shows up and is a theme of so much of the stories that are on television, that are the stuff of movies and books and music, and it's there, and we have to understand it.

Now, in saying that, I'm not saying throw it all out, turn it all off at every time, because- but if it is a constant diet of our lives that we feed off of, we should ask ourselves why.

If that's what we have to feed off of, we all have to make choices and we need to make wise choices in our use and enjoyment of everything within our popular culture.

But stop and look at what drives so much of it, and what are the popular themes, and it is instability. It is sin, in many different forms and guises.

It's what the Bible describes as darkness. And we can engage vicariously in all kinds of mental illness, unstable conditions of a family, of a marriage, of an individual, through a movie, through the television program, and all. And it's there for us to- and it's available for us to sample. The question we have to ask ourselves is why we might feel, if we get to the point that we really do need that. And what are we looking for?

And again, I don't want to go into all the details of it so much, but we need to realize that those are matters that fall so much under what the Bible describes as darkness.

In John 12, verse 35, as Jesus was talking about his approaching death, he said to them, John 12, verse 35, A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. He who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. We can take this statement and adapt it to a principle in our life, the importance of avoiding the darkness and not being overcome and overtaken by darkness. Christ was speaking of his own way of life, his message, and that certainly the darkness of death was going to take that over and end it very shortly. And he was encouraging his disciples to listen closely to what he was doing and saying and pay attention. We can take it and apply it as a principle as well that we don't let ourselves be overtaken by darkness.

We all know there's enough darkness around us in many different forms in our society. A constant diet of unstable relationships or subjects are going to eventually warp one's reality. Many of you already know this and have chosen what to avoid and what you let in. Others don't and won't until it's too late in some cases. We have to be very careful what we dabble with in terms of even matters of the occult or witchcraft or demonism. We all see those ads for the various programs that come across and movies that are dealing with that directly.

I made a decision a long time ago that I don't need to spend an hour and a half watching those movies. And those type of themed programs that are directly dealing with witchcraft, demonism, and the occult. I guess in the ministry, in some of my experiences I had in my early years, I had enough of that. I know what the Bible does talk about in the reality of the spirit world. I've seen enough of it manifested in people's lives where their lives have been unstable and demon spirits have influenced. And in some cases, taken them over to, you know, I don't have to vicariously look at it and enjoy it for hours on end in a movie. Or certainly read whole books and whole series of books about it.

You know what I'm talking about there.

But anyway, those are themes that have just been completely turned around upside down in our world today. It's probably an important key for us to be able to, at any time in our life, when we might feel things slipping away.

And things are not quite in control to know when to seek help. And to do it early enough before something permanently damaging takes place. Or we are led into some type of behavior or situation that is going to be much harder to extract ourselves from. It's not a sign of weakness to seek help when we know it's needed. That actually can be a sign of great strength, and it should be. When we have control, that's the time to seek help. The main thing is to keep control in our life and be able to manage our life to the point where we can keep things in balance and offer there. God's Church, the Word of God and the teachings of the Church offer really a whole package of treatment that goes, I think, far beyond that of a therapist's office or therapist's couch. And a wise person learns to use what God's Church has to offer. And those when, at times, certain professional help is needed and is accessed in order to maintain mental and emotional stability. There is a time for counseling from the ministry. There is a time for counseling, perhaps, from someone who is more attuned and a specialist in a particular field. And there are counselors and therapists and doctors who can provide a benefit. When those are found, they can be very useful. Long ago, we recognized that, as many of us have. But the Church can offer much more beyond that than is all said and done. The fellowship with a support group of people with shared values, the family of God's Church, is really a very great support group for all of us to maintain contact with. The education that is available through the instruction of sermons and studies and other printed material provides a diet of knowledge and inspiration and encouragement that we should be aware of and use in order to keep us focused, in control, and balanced emotionally and mentally. When you look at really the whole package of salvation that God offers and teaches, it's really a great salve and a balm to minds that have been scarred by today's society. There is an admission and an awareness that there is a reason for the insanity of this world and for one's own personal life that has gone out of control. And that is broken law, and a desire to stop breaking that law leads to a stability and brings us to God and focusing on Him rather than just on ourselves. God grants forgiveness, then. And that grace and that forgiveness helps us to leave the past behind. It helps us to leave our past and can help us to leave the past of someone else behind as well. And then God gives us the power of the Holy Spirit. And that is an immeasurable power. Paul talked about the Holy Spirit being a spirit of peace and of a sound mind in 2 Timothy 1, verse 7. A spirit of peace and of a sound mind. That power is available in the right way, scripturally, to us, and it's a part of a balm that can help heal our lives, move us forward, and make sense of life as long as we stay connected to that. Let's turn back over to Ephesians 3. Pick up where I left off earlier and read this in conclusion.

Ephesians 3 and verse 16. Where it says that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man. God's Spirit gives us an inner strength and stability that fosters emotional well-being, mental stability, and a balanced life. That Christ may dwell in your heart through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with the saints what is the width, length, depth, and height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. God's Spirit given to us is a great strength and a great aid to develop and maintain the stability of life that is so important in a world that sometimes is just spinning completely out of control. It is important we maintain these principles and others we might find to make our life work at the high level that God expects it to work as He prepares us for His eternal Kingdom.