A Crucial Contributor To Great Mental Health - Eternal Childhood

Don`t Grow Up

Mental Health.

This topic has moved from the sidelines to become a significant focus of the global wellness conversation. 94% believe that taking care of mental health is crucial for overall wellness, up 46% from 2022.

Roughly half of the world`s population is estimated to experience a mental health disorder in their lifetime. The top two most prevalent disorders are anxiety, affecting 284 million people and depression, following at 264 million.

Now, many good articles, therapies, medicines and strategies are geared to help us have better mental health, and we would do good to heed a lot of their advice and take the medicines prescribed by our medical professionals.

However, there is one ancient powerful contributor to mental health that is rarely, if ever, discussed, and it's this - Don`t Grow Up !

Yes, you read that right. Let me ask you the question: How many children do we know who are being loved and being well taken care of by their parents that suffer from depression and anxiety?

Not very many.

Of course there are always exceptions to the rule but generally speaking, young kids in their parents care don’t suffer from chronic depression or anxiety. Why? Typically, this is because the parents are taking care of all the serious business on behalf of the child.

You might rightly argue, but I am not a child. I am an adult. I have responsibilities. I am the parent who needs to take care of those children. Even so, the gospel invites you and me to live like children even while handling the affairs of adulthood.

It is this gift of “eternal childhood” that leads us into rest and helps us escape anxiety and depression.

Eternal Childhood

People were never intended to outgrow the need of a parent. At certain ages in our development, probably in our mid-teens and early twenties, it was communicated to us by parents, school and the culture that we are becoming adults now and we need to be responsible, take care of ourselves and prepare to take care of others. All this is true, but it is only partially true.

What this messaging did to me, and I assume did to you, is to create the idea in my heart that adult means “do it on my own,” “take care of everything,” “figure it all out,” but now, without the support of the parents who took care of me my entire life.

But your childhood of dependence on your natural parents was only the preparation stage for you to continue to depend on your Spiritual Parent in your adulthood- namely, God the Father.

So, as you embrace God as the Eternal Father, you automatically embrace eternal childhood. However, this has to be learnt and practised - maintaining childhood as an adult under God the Father. This is a broad topic, but let us look at some essential heart postures of the “eternal child” from Psalm 131:1-2.

Humility of Mind - Psalm 131:1-2

Lord, my heart is not proud;
my eyes are not haughty.
I don’t concern myself with matters too great
or too awesome for me to grasp.
² Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself,
like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk.
Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

My heart is not proud….

Humility is the first important posture of living as an eternal child. It is an attitude that says “I do not know”, “I have limitations”, and “there are things beyond me”, and I am ok with that. Everything in us kicks and screams against this posture. We fancy ourselves knowing everything, or if we don`t understand something, we can definitely discover it through science, Google, or ChatGPT. It is this very lie that welcomes in mental disorders such as anxiety and depression when we come face to face with our limitations.

A child does not worry about tax season, and there are things the Father will not have us worry about, but we constantly do. What are some matters that are too great for us? I will give you a hint: they are the issues that tend to bring worry into your life. Worry can indicate that you are crossing over into the realm of things too great for me.

Many of these things usually fall into the category of “what will happen to me in the future” or what will happen to the “futures of others we care about.” Many also involve us trying to manage and coordinate the choices and responses of people and situations to arrive at our desired result. Another category is that of times and seasons: “When will this happen?”, “Why hasn’t that happened yet”? “ I thought I`d be further ahead”. A big category of things too great for me is “Why is God allowing this evil or bad thing to happen to me or to them?”

Lastly, they can also include global issues we have little control over. When we engage these issues by ourselves, apart from God our Father, or engage issues that are not our Father`s will for us to engage, we will find that they are too great for us and lead us into anxiety and depression.

The key to not being consumed by issues that are too great for us is to focus on the revealed will of the Father and let that be our nexus of concern. The point here is not to be disinterested in things that concern us but not to take them up as personal concerns for you to manage “as an adult,” but to take them to the Father as eternal children and trust Him with them. This leads us to the next point.

Like a weaned child is my soul within me…

The other essential posture of the heart is contentment and trust. The psalmist uses the image of a weaned child that shows that this child is no longer crying for milk, driven by desire (even good desire), but has reached a place of contentment with the just the presence of the mother.

We are being invited to a place of contentment with the Presence of the Father and the arrangements of His will in our lives. Where our drives and desires are not the primary influence over us, be it marriage, career or grandbabies, but His will is. Whether we be abased or whether we abound, we are ok, not because the situation is ok, but because we trust the Presence, the Providence and the will of God the Father in our lives as His eternal children.

Jesus, The Perfect “Eternal Child”

Jesus Christ is the perfect eternal child. He teaches us what it means not to be consumed by great matters but only the will of the Father. He focuses on “the one thing”.

He teaches us what it looks like to rest and trust in the presence and providence of the Father, which is highlighted as He slept during the storm and climaxed when He died on the cross and committed His spirit to His Father.

In and through Jesus, we are offered both a vision and entrance into an eternal childhood to God the Father, which is fundamental in rescuing us from anxiety and depression.

Have you begun the journey of eternal childhood? If not, the Holy Spirit eagerly awaits you to ask Him to do this work in you.