‘You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’ – Jesus
Psychology asks the right questions, but can’t give good answers.
My mom used to tell me, ‘Wade, psychology asks the right questions, but can’t give you good answers.’
I’ve never forgotten her little axiom.
It stuck with me through pastoring, counseling sessions, and more than a few late-night conversations with hurting people who wondered why the therapy couch never quite delivered them freedom.
Please don’t misunderstand: I’m grateful for professional psychiatrists and psychologists.
When someone is wrestling with anxiety, depression, trauma, or the lingering effects of abuse, I’m the first one to say, ‘Get some professional help.’
The church has spent far too many years acting like mental and emotional struggles are nothing more than a lack of faith or a secret sin issue.
That kind of spiritual arrogance has wounded more sheep than it has ever healed.
So yes, by all means, sit with a wise, compassionate therapist who can help identify what’s going on inside that head and heart of yours by asking good questions.
Psychology is brilliant at diagnosis: It asks the penetrating questions the rest of us are often too afraid to voice.
But here’s where Mom was onto something profound:
The Diagnosis Is Not the Deliverance
To escape the prison of one’s mind, the cell must be opened by truth from God.
You can map every childhood wound, trace every unhealthy pattern, label every cognitive distortion, and still walk out of the office carrying the same old chains—only now you’re able to articulate exactly what size they are and who forged them.
Insight without truth is like a spotlight in a prison cell: it lets you see the bars more clearly, but it doesn’t open the door.
Jesus said, ‘You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.’
He didn’t say:
- ‘You shall know your triggers,’
- ‘You shall process your pain,’
- ‘You shall understand your story’
As helpful as those things can be.
Freedom comes when Truth walks into the room, looks you in the eye, and declares who God is, who you now are in Christ, and what is actually, eternally real.
I’ve watched it happen time and again.
A man sits across from me, broken by decades of addiction, fresh out of a twelve-step meeting and a year of therapy. He knows precisely why he drinks, exactly how his father’s anger and his mother’s absence wired him for self-destruction. He can diagram it on a napkin. Yet one day, he opens Romans 6 and reads, ‘Sin shall no longer be your master… You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.’
The Holy Spirit takes those words, drives them past the intellect, down into the marrow, and something shifts.
Truth Changes the Want-To
The power of the old master is broken, not because he finally understood the question, but because he met the Answer.
Going to a psychologist without regularly feasting on God’s Word is like going to a physician who writes you a prescription, hands you the slip, and then watches you fold it into a paper airplane instead of taking it to the pharmacy.
The doctor can be world-class, the diagnosis flawless, the treatment plan perfect—but if you never swallow the medicine, you’ll never get well.
So by all means, get the diagnosis.
- Ask the hard questions.
- Shine light into the dark corners.
- Figure out the right questions to ask.
But then take those discoveries to the Great Physician, open His Book, and let Him speak healing into every crevice of your soul.
Psychology helps you see the wound. Sacred Scripture, Spirit illumined, makes you whole.
Truly? I could write an entire article, or perhaps, a book on this.
I was given a diagnosis early on in my adult life — major depression. With that diagnosis, I knew that I was damaged, unworthy, a problem. I chose to never marry because I did not want to inflict my absolute blackness on anyone. Over the course of my life, I intermittently bounced off of religion. I would talk to ministers, but they, seemingly horrified by the depth of my depression, told me to go back to the secular world — to see the shrinks and the therapists. I had been “born into” the church. I considered myself Christian but hadn’t done my work. The secular therapists gave me advice that at the time seemed good, at the time eased my troubled mind, but in the end, I now realize, was not the best for me. Much of the advice was down right supportive of sin, but I received absolution from them for that.
Now a later decade of my life, I have delved into His word. His word is sufficient. It is enough. He is sufficient. In this modern age, we have given away too much….we have diminished God’s power. He can and does heal. (It was my 3rd trip through the entire Bible that I realized everyone with the exception of Jesus is damaged and that I truly fit. I realized that I am enough (age 62….!!)).
I would challenge you to read the book “Unshrunk” by Laura Delano. Although she does not claim religion, her remedy is in many ways what I know God wants for us. I know there are nuances to this conversation: what about the psychotic, what about the deranged, the violent.
Might it be that the overwhelming angst and depression that we are seeing in our children is because we are labeling them and they are living to the label? Might it be that we are not truly helping them to understand God. (There is likely far more than that…..excessive exposure to screens, inappropriate education, etc). The Bible contains the answers (I do recommend front to back…..Protestants spend too much time in the NT). The answers are not in the DSM or a dose of Prozac. Do not diminish Him. Do not tarnish His people with unhelpful labels. Is my mind “fixed”? No. I am not perfect. I live in a broken world. Am I healed? Yes. I am confident that my struggles have a purpose and He is in control. (Suffering–>Endurance–>Character–>Hope. Romans5:3-5 (abbreviated)).