Adele’s new album will contain a voicemail she left during a panic attack

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Adele arrives at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards on February 12, 2017 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss / Invision / AP, on file)

“Throw all your anguish on him, for he cares about you” (1 Peter 5: 7).

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins is one of the most popular and acclaimed singers on the planet. She has sold over 120 million records, won fifteen Grammy Awards and was named Artist of the Year by Billboard thrice. Time the magazine twice named her as one of the most influential people in the world.

And yet, while Adele and her husband Simon Konecki were recently going through a divorce, she says: “My anxiety was so terrible that I forgot what I said or not. [her son] about separation. At one point, she told a radio interviewer, “I was having a panic attack and called my best friend to try to talk to her to calm me down, but she didn’t respond.

The voicemail for that call is on her new album, which will be released on November 19. She says the album, titled 30, focuses on the drama of his personal life: “I have the impression that this album is a self-destruction, then a self-reflection, then a kind of self-redemption.”

The most common mental illness in America

Harvard University reported last February that “the global pandemic has worsened an epidemic of loneliness in America.”

The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 31 percent of American adults experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their life. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in America, affecting 40 million adults aged 18 and over in any given year.

Before I continue, let me be clear: If you are suffering from depression or some other mental health issue, I urge you to get help. Psychologists, psychiatrists and other counselors can be as essential to our emotional and mental health as physicians are to our physical health. I am not a qualified advisor and do not intend in this article to replace their vital and valuable expertise.

Rather, I would like to focus on a biblical component of mental health that our secular culture often overlooks.

The health benefits of attending church services

Research shows that attending religious services offer a wide range of health benefits:

  • Medical workers who said they attended church services frequently were 29% less likely to become depressed, 50% less likely to divorce, and five times less likely to kill themselves than those who never attended.
  • Regular use of services helps protect children from depression, substance abuse and premature sexual activity.
  • People who attended church as a child are more likely to grow up happy, to forgive, to have a sense of mission and purpose, and to volunteer.
  • “Deaths of desperation” (death by suicide, drug or alcohol overdose) are reduced by 68% for women and by 33% for men who regularly attend religious services.

One of the reasons is that the connection with the God who created us connects us to the “abundant” life that his Son came to give us (John 10:10). As Tim Keller notes in Reason of God, the miracles of Jesus did not suspend the natural order, they returned to it. They reversed the Fall by producing in miniature a realm of justice and equality without blindness, disease, darkness or death.

However, to experience the abundance that our Lord offers, we must be connected to its source.

“And saw the signs he did”

The Gospel of Luke depicts Jesus praying to his Father at his baptism (3: 21-22), in private (4:42; 5:16; 6:12; 9: 18), before choosing his disciples (6: 12-16), at his transfiguration (9: 28-36), and in Gethsemane (22: 39-46). He was transparent and honest about his need for his Father’s help: “I cannot do anything on my own” (John 5:30).

Then he extended this fact to his disciples: “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15: 5).

As a professional speaker and writer, this statement strikes me every time I think about it: “The kingdom of God is not in words but in power” (1 Corinthians 4:20). Not our power, but his: “Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4: 6).

Acts 8 records the astonishing fact that Philip “went down into the city of Samaria and proclaimed Christ to them” (v. 5). This despite the fact that Jews and Samaritans hated each other (cf. John 4: 9). But on this occasion, “the crowds with one accord heeded what was said by Philip, when they heard it” (Acts 8: 6a).

Here is why: The sentence continues, “and saw the signs that he did” (v. 6b). Luke explains: “For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city ”(vv. 7-8).

Philip did what he could by proclaiming the good news of God’s love. Then he trusted the Spirit to do what he could by showing signs of supernatural healing. The latter drew people to the former and opened their hearts to the message of grace.

Viktor Frankl on the path to change

The anxiety and loneliness of our time is an open invitation to the good news that God loves us and offers us a life filled with peace “that surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4: 7). The rising tide of relativism, immorality and vitriolic secularism is an open door for Jesus’ followers to speak his truth with love (Ephesians 4:15).

Tomorrow I plan to discuss some truly amazing ways Christians are making a transformative difference in our world. For today, let’s focus on the source of such a transformation. Let us follow Jesus’ example in seeking the kind of intimacy with our Father that cleanses us from sin (1 John 1: 9), leads us to the best of God (Proverbs 3: 5-6), manifests the character of Christ in our daily lives (Galatians 5: 22-23), and strengthens our testimony in the world (Acts 1: 8).

Holocaust survivor and psychologist Viktor Frankl observed: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. The good news is that when we ask God to do the latter, He also does the former.

Jesus wants to reverse the Fall in your life and mine. Then he wants to reverse the Fall in our culture through our influence.

Are you going to settle for less today?

REMARK: The Ten Commandments hold the key to how life works and how to live if we are to live well. They are also at the center of my latest book titled A Biblical Look at Difficult Questions, vol. ten. So please request your copy today – and get the “rules of the game” for a life well lived. *

* Get answers to dozens of our culture’s toughest questions when you request the set of 10 volumes of A Biblical Insight into the Difficult Questions. It would be a wonderful collection for your library or to give to someone you love this Christmas.

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