ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
May 16, 2026
So, you go to the gym or enjoy riding your bike around the neighborhood for some exercise. Excellent! So, you are reading food labels a bit more closely, trying to reduce your intake of sugar and sodium. Another excellent thing to do! But what are you doing for your mental health? In Ephesians 5, Paul was probably speaking more generally, but I appreciate the words he wrote, “Be careful, then, how you live, not as unwise people but as wise…” Wisdom acknowledges symptoms, but does not focus all of one’s energy on them. Symptoms are signals pointing us beyond these warning signals, to the place where we begin to ask the more important questions. If I am lacking in motivation, crying excessively, experiencing out-of-control anger, finding waves of anxiousness coming over me, feeling empty and alone, etc., it is good to not only ask the WHY, but to find someone who can help explore the WHY. Tomorrow, we will be focusing on mental health, and the need for us to be wise when it comes to naming the symptoms, while also acknowledging how those symptoms are calling out for us to go deeper, ask the more challenging questions, seek the insight of those who can help, and celebrate both the mind we have and the capacity for healing the injuries that we so often carry with us.
Pour out your wisdom upon us, O Great One who was, is, and shall be forever more. Pour out your wisdom as we seek to do the good and necessary work of caring and mending the wounds we carry deep within. Amen.
