An elderly saint once made a comment that has always stuck with me.  She said, “A Bible that’s tattered and falling apart usually belongs to a person who isn’t.”  Good one!  I’ve since traced that comment back to Charles Spurgeon.

I thought about this recently while speaking to a Primary School teacher.  Apparently her school has just extended the working hours of the school psychologist so that it’s now a full time position.  That suggests something about the number of troubled children in our schools.  In fact the rise in mental health problems among our school children has escalated in the last ten years to scary proportions.  Let me quote for you a figure from the state of NSW.  It is now estimated by the NSW mental health commission that of the one million or so school children in NSW about one-hundred-thousand will have mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression and disruptive behaviour.  I recall two occasions not so long ago where we had to talk to our daughter and help her come to terms with the brutal fact that classmates had taken their own lives.

Mental health issues in our schools is not only a serious problem, it’s also a complex problem.  Many teachers find they have neither the time nor the expertise to deal with dysfunctional kids.  Hence the increasing trend of appointing psychologists in our schools.  The most recent report indicates that in NSW there is now one counsellor for every 750 students – with many counsellors being shared across a number of schools.

I’m sure the problem is far more complicated than I could outline in a few minutes.

There is, for example, the huge problem of family breakdown.  Many issues are not being dealt with on the home front and too often the home adds to the problems.  I have memories of a student in my Scripture class being in tears because she had just learnt the previous evening that Mummy and Daddy were splitting up.

It would also be interesting to know what contribution social media has made to mental health problems in our children.  They are allowed to start far too early with a medium that exerts huge social pressures on our kids.

Of course in a fallen and broken world we all have our own issues to deal with.  I’ve heard it said often lately that we’re all of us, probably, on a spectrum of some problem or other.  It’s only by the grace of God that the mental health statistics are not worse than they are.

But I want to come back to my opening comment: Bibles that are tattered and falling apart usually belong to people who aren’t!  The fact is that the Bible addresses so many of our mental and relational issues.  I could give you numerous examples of that.  Let me limit myself to just two.

My favourite ‘go-to’ verses in the Bible when I’m struggling with depression are found in Psalm 42.  “Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.”

Whenever I find myself becoming stressed and anxious the advice of the apostle Paul helps me to put things into perspective:  “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Here are just two of dozens of examples why a Bible that is tattered and falling apart at the seams usually belongs to a person who isn’t.  The Lord God has given us the Bible to be our guide – a lamp for our feet and a light on our pathway.

Yes, escalating mental health issues among children is a serious problem and a complicated problem.  But we could do worse than insisting that schools go back to having weekly Scripture classes – or SRE (Special Religious Education).  And the NSW education department could do worse than going back to a previous arrangement where parents had to ‘opt-out’ their children – if they had objections – instead of the present ‘opt-in’, which has  seen a dramatic fall in numbers of children attending Scripture classes.

The point is that when children and young people are directed back to the Scriptures they will discover the truth of Psalm 119: “I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes.”

John Westendorp