Jim felt disturbed. He'd been having a good week - successful at work, and decent time with his family. He had been pretty pleased with life, but this morning, he woke up feeling quite different. He stewed on it quietly for a while, it felt like a bottomless pit in his stomach. In his estimation, nothing seemed to have changed, but he felt as if the world had tilted on its axis a bit and thrown him off balance.

He spoke to a friend later that day, who encouraged him to consider this as a spiritual problem - this feeling of a hole inside was God's prompting by the Holy Spirit. Since everything else seemed to be just as it was, this idea struck Jim as plausible. He decided to start attending Sunday school in addition to his regular church service, in an effort to bring everything back into focus. "If God is prompting me to have more God in my life, then that's what I need to do," he thought.

So he did, and for a while it seemed to help. At least, that inner misgiving was tamed for a while. But it grew again, and Jim had to consider what else it was that God wanted him to change.

We do that in relationships - we feel around for the right things to do. The way before us isn't so clear that one simple choice will resolve our issues. And many of us, especially those of us who regularly experience life in "the fog," we don't make these choices because we have an overflow of gratitude or joy. Instead, we're operating from a deficit of those very qualities.

Feeling around - we don't know what the real source of our misgiving is. We wake up one day feeling like the world has turned against us, it's cold now, it won't bless our efforts. Often we'll spiritualize that feeling and make it personal: God has turned against us, God is cold now, God won't bless our efforts.

And because of that feeling, we act in ways to appease or balance that other presence around us. If we're not hearing the voice of God clearly in our lives (and those within the fog certainly do not), then we find ourselves groping in the darkness for bits and pieces of whispers, hoping we get a clear enough sense about them to take proper action. We can't get it entirely, so we have to surmise a bit.

Because we start with this vague inner turmoil and feel about for its edges, we start hitting everything with a hammer to see what works, willing to break everything to regain an inner state of wholeness. When that's spiritualized, we can overcompensate and become obsessive about going to church whenever it's open. Doing more because we feel less. Serving and serving, but only from a place of deficit.

Look around you in church. We often look up to the super faithful around us, because we aspire to have that same confidence in the Lord driving us to great works of faith. We assume it of the pastor. The priest. The elders. The missionaries. The Sunday school teachers. The deacons.

Look again - the very faithful we see in church may be feeling that same pit in their stomachs. Not all, of course, but certainly some serve because they feel like they need to appease God more.

How many ways do our mental health proclivities steer us toward unhealthy patterns of relationship with God? Just like we usually insist on mind over matter, we'll often follow an unspoken rule: "Spirit over mind." Is it? Do we get to trump our anxiety and depression by simply pursuing more spiritual activities?

On the contrary, we need to become aware of the ways we imply that the way of Christ is a panacea for our mental health issues. You see, we can be very clear in saying sin is our primary problem, it separates us from God, and sin is only resolved by Jesus in his death and resurrection. We get less clear when it comes to something like anxiety.

For example, Blaise Pascal said, "There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ." Ask the anxious one, "Do you feel a God-shaped vacuum in your soul?" Well yes, there's that bottomless pit feeling - and we steer them toward the Savior who will free them from sin.

And while we can consider that anxiety an effect from the fall of creation, is it a condition we can honestly tell people Jesus will free them from in this life? Certainly, some appear to be made free. Others, not so much - and tying it all back to Jesus will promote a further anxiety response, because now they feel as though they may not be saved.

So what about Jim? Well, his friend was begging the question a bit when assuming the problem was a spiritual one. Instead, Jim needed to take a step back to get to the root of the anxiety itself, which may have had a number of causes. It takes a trained and experienced eye to see the difference between a moving spirit and budding health situations.

These are not the patterns God would have us follow for relationship with him. His mercy is that regardless of our mental, emotional, and physical state, we belong to Christ.

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