One truth that cannot be denied is the simple fact that life without good health is barely a life worth living. We can debate on and on about the meaning of life and ponder our purpose on earth, but when our health is not in order, life seems to quickly lose its subjective worth. Even the slightest inconveniences with our well-being can be enough to distract us from every other facet of our life. Bad health consumes us wholly as it should; it is necessary for us to develop tunnel vision when we’re ill in some manner or fashion because it increases the chances that we will take it seriously enough to do something about it if we could.
Doing something about it is exactly what we are going to be discussing here. Many have rightfully placed faith that God will provide healing for them, and no medicine could indeed be useful in healing us if he does not allow or make us be healed. This faith in God's absolute control and power over everything is quite wise, but often people are misled, thinking that human-made medicine is futile. As true as it is that God alone provides healing, it is not God’s will for us to refuse attempts that we make to get better as long as we give him reverence.
Faith in God does not equate to a complete lack of faith in everything and everyone else. Some people refuse modern medicine because they think it means that they lack faith in God. If you find this ridiculous, you will surely understand why it is also ridiculous to refuse needed help when you have health issues with your mind. Many of us recognize that we have several unresolved problems or trauma, but for some reason, seeing a therapist is seeing as an anti-believer. This idea is not one that is biblical at all, yet it is a sentiment shared by a lot of people.
Therapy can also be called psychotherapy or counseling, and it is the process of resolving problematic emotions, behaviors, somatic responses, and relationship difficulties by meeting with a therapist in a comfortable and ideally vulnerable environment. Therapy is a very important practice that can be quite life-changing for many people. Its practitioners, over many sessions, go through their patient’s experiences, memories and thoughts through voluntary conveyance to reconcile them in a manageable manner.
Many people carry heavy burdens on their shoulders for years without proper resolutions for them, and when they go unresolved, it tends to weigh down on them in occasionally nasty ways. Understandably, it is quite common for people not to want to explore certain periods in their past that were particularly problematic for them, to say the least. How many people deal with tough times is by suppressing the memories and trying to forget them, and talking about it does not help that cause.
In numerous cases, confronting your past is like embarking on a journey to slay a dragon. Just like a dragon, your past can be quite dangerous and terrifying, as it is often those kinds of experiences that traumatize people in the first place. Every time you approach the dragon, you hear it bellow, and you see its fire cascade through the air, the heat grazing your skin. If we could simply ignore this dragon, life might be much easier, but it does not work this way.
You see, this dragon is not just sitting in its cave minding its business as most think. Instead, it flies over your village, and it terrorizes its population, taking women and children alike for its meal. It's not a beast you can ignore, it burns you daily, and the only way to stop the beast from attacking your village is to climb the mountain, enter the cave and slay the dragon. As you approach it, you might feel like this fire-breathing serpent is a force that you could not possibly overcome, but the only thing you cannot do is retreat.
Now, beneath all of that confusing narration is an important point about human beings and how we deal with our past, especially the things that we have left unresolved. The first question you must ask yourself is, why do we remember the past? What is the practical use of having memories? If you have things in your life that you wish didn't happen, you most likely also wish that there are things you could just forget. If only you could delete certain things not from your life but your memory. If you are thinking about a particular memory right now, then hold on to that for now as we explore why you want to forget and what to do with it.
The truth is that we remember our past not simply to be able to look into different times in our lives but so that we can learn to move forward in a more efficient manner. The memory of our past only serves to navigate us forward and nothing more. For example, when we get seriously injured in a car accident because we didn't wear our seatbelts, we have that painful memory so that we know how to approach that same situation better. Or if someone royally betrays our trust, even if we decide to forgive them, psychology shows that our level of trust in them will never be the same. This doesn’t mean that we hold a grudge against them or that we hold that sin against them in our hearts; it just means that our guard is up a little bit more than it previously was.
The purpose of remembering our past is to make sure that we can progress more efficiently, but the question is, what does this mean for therapy. If you ask a person who has been traumatized in some way, that is to say, has been shocked in a horrifying way that mentally affects them, they will most likely tell you that they have dreams about their encounter. It almost feels like your mind is bullying you; bring up the one thing that you do not want to experience or encounter again in front of you.
This can be quite distressing; when we haven’t dealt with an event in our past that deeply affects us, our brains seem to keep putting the spotlight on it, pestering you about it. We often catch ourselves re-enacting the event in our minds even though we don’t like it. This happens because our brain knows that there is some form of danger to us that we have encountered in our past but have yet to resolve entirely.
Our brains still see those things as possible threats, and if we haven’t figured out how to deal with this possible threat, it will pester us until we do. Problems in our past are like riddles, and sometimes we solve the riddle in real-time, and other times we ponder on it for a while, going through great emotional stress until we find the answer. And other times, we are unable to find the answer for ourselves, and we are haunted by the event or experience, forever living in the past until we can learn to break from it.
This resolution with a traumatic event can come in many different ways. It could be in the form of acceptance; when we understand something and accept it as a part of reality that we cannot change, we have solved that riddle. It could also come with the realization that you did something wrong; you made a movie based on a false understanding. This realization helps you accept what has happened because you can leave that event knowing you wouldn’t make that mistake again.
All of this riddle-solving might sound very simple, but it can often take months, years, and even decades for some people to pull off successfully. A lot of us are walking around with anchors of the past shackled to our ankles because we haven’t found the keys to free ourselves. A lot of people might not even know why they are truly suffering; they experience the symptoms, but they find it hard to identify them. The mistake a lot of people make is thinking that they can do it on their own, or maybe you are under the impression that if you ignore your problem long enough, it will simply evaporate. This is a misguided judgment.
Therapy is incredibly helpful in this process of finding the roots of our problems and attending to them. It's a process where a therapist who is skilled and knowledgeable on mental resolution guides you through your memories to help solve your quandaries for yourself. It isn’t so that you are told what to do to solve your problems, but you are guided, shown the way so you can help yourself up.
Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors, there is safety.
Proverbs 11:14
The bible makes it abundantly clear that proper council is empirical for the safety and thriving of any people. Too many people make the mistake of thinking that they can handle life all on their own, relying only on themselves. But to do this is to deny that other people have useful wisdom, which is a ridiculous arrogance that we cannot afford. God knows this and is telling us here that when we surround ourselves with wise counsel, we can be sure of our safety.
By insolence comes nothing but strife, but with those who take advice is wisdom.
Proverbs 13:10
Here, the bible hones down on the point we made earlier, speaking on insolence and how it brings nothing good. It might sound harsh, but when we refuse to listen to what others have to say and rely solely on our understanding, we bring ourselves nothing but strife. There is a saying that no man is an island; many times, we are tempted to feel like we know everything we need to know. Some even say that they do not want to take advice from people less successful than they are. This arrogance has no place in the Kingdom of God, and it leads us to more problems than we start out with.
God gives us wisdom, and he wants us to be wise enough to know when to listen to our own judgment and how to value the opinion of those around us. Of course, just listening to what anyone has to say is not the point of this passage. There are many people that might not want the best for you or might not be qualified to be effective in helping you. But when it comes to therapy, you are meeting with professionals who are some of the most qualified people in the world to give you guidance.
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
Colossians 2:8
Now that we have explored why therapy can be a very helpful exercise that is much needed by a lot of us, it is important to not lose sight of what is most important. We live in a time where self-gratification is the top priority for most people. A lot of people believe that being happy is the most important thing, but happiness is something that no one can guarantee all the time, if at all. What should be our number one priority is the will of God.
While going to seek guidance from a therapist, counselor, or even a person in our lives can be very wise; it is important to remember not to get carried away by what people tell us, especially when it goes against what the word of God says.
 

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