The beautiful world in which we live is a broiling, warlike, mysterious, stormy, difficult place. The way one thinks determines how the sometimes harsh, sometimes gracious, world of people and habitat is managed. What does one do: with flood and fire, crime and punishment, competition and warfare, wealth and depression, illness and death – and the like? Some are overwhelmed by life, and have neither the inclination nor the education to think and act clearly through situations and environments. They may be taken with paranoia. Troubles become incarnate for their minds. Schizophrenic, Saul fell into paranoia focusing on David, clouding his life and public reign. David genuinely wanted to serve the king.
Paranoia sees sinister ghosts around every corner. Someone is lurking with ill will ready to do in the individual and/or society. The government includes many persons who care little, sometimes nothing for the people’s good. Business is evil trying to milk dollars from us. No one really cares. Someone is stalking me. The doctors, the lawyers, even parents, are self-oriented, perhaps incompetent, using the knowledge they have to get what they want at an unfair cost to me or to the public. I am victimized at many turns. Poor me!
Persons afflicted with some paranoia, number in the millions in America. Their lives are stained. The people around them are uncomfortable with their preoccupations. We acknowledge that there are some Christians taken with paranoia. They are fearful of the slightest turn from what they believe. They may pillory a pastor for something he says, or does not say. They may be suspicious of joyful and optimistic people. Their prayers are grim, mingled with despair more than with faith or a belief that God lives and cares about our making a way through life’s jungle of bramble bushes. God is not seen as one who, for his own reasons, has permitted us to live in a paradoxical world of good and evil, of life and death, of hope and despair. With patience, careful planning, adaptation to nature, good organization, and some work, human beings can live, function contentedly, even though the world seems warped in the problem of evil. Other words for sin may appear – like depravity or the least offensive terminology – like dark side of mankind.
The naysayers should not be permitted to rob us of our inheritance in the world, a world given of God. We can effectively negotiate our lives with the virtues of the best side of the race – to think clearly, to solve problems, to adjust to the balances of nature. This affirmation is to learn how to dress the garden and know it. So it is that we, Christian or secular, live by a helper (God) in a standard life context offered in creation. Christians add prayer meaning and hope from Scripture; and, belief that God holds their futures. Christians hold basic necessities for balance and courage in life, with no effective excuse for paranoia. Everything is in the mix for solutions through application of truth, as well as service to self and others. Christ’s call to serve others is broader than simply meeting human needs. It is a way to personal development and peace. Biblical recommendations are worthy of experiment, even for non-Christians. Try them, you’ll like them. God has a common grace that can guide nature’s life. We need to remind ourselves that the difference between the Christian and non-Christian ought to be in the personal and partly private relationship with God, or the lack of relationship. Scripture offers a way of life that is workable for all. When matters go wrong, as they sometimes do, the Christian has resources of prayer, courage, resolution to problem solving and promise for better things. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020