She calls me “Mr. Checker.”

Over 21 years of marriage, my wife Nancy has teased me about the way I go through the house, before we leave on a trip, and check to make sure that appliances are turned off, doors are locked, and toilets are not running. I believe it’s a sensible thing to do, and I can handle Nancy’s gentle teasing, but I remember a time in my life when checking the house was not such a simple activity.

In my early 20s, when I was a student in college and divinity school, I found myself checking and rechecking appliances and lights, obsessing over the easiest of tasks and then anguishing over whether or not I had completed them properly. On numerous occasions I left my dorm room and then ran back in, just to make sure that an iron was turned off or a door was properly locked.

I was afflicted by Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), although the condition was not common knowledge in the early 1980s, and it was years before I had a name to attach to my personal struggle. Some OCD sufferers have an obsession with cleanliness, and have a compulsive need to wash their hands, over and over and over. Some will check appliances, as I did, but then find themselves paralyzed by doubt about whether they have completed the task or not. And still others have a religious obsession with confessing their sins, and respond to this obsession with compulsive praying. Maybe you’ve seen this disorder on the popular TV show “Monk,” in which an obsessive-compulsive detective named Adrian Monk uses his condition as a tool for picking up clues that more casual investigators tend to overlook.

For me, OCD was a mental health problem that had a spiritual solution. By checking things over and over, I was practicing a kind of perfectionism that is initially admirable, but ultimately destructive. Perfection, you see, is a quality that belongs only to God, and a critical part of my healing and spiritual growth was the discovery that God knows me and loves me as the flawed, imperfect, unclean and highly fallible creature that I am. I don’t have to confess every sin or unplug every potentially dangerous appliance in order to feel the acceptance of the God who has created me and wants to be in a relationship with me.

Today, OCD responds well to psychotherapy and serotonin medication, but for me the solution was provided by the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther, some 500 years after his birth. As a young man, Luther was a monk in the Roman Catholic Church, and he felt terribly alienated from God, crushed by his sinfulness, and desperate to find something to ease the pressure. He tried the way of good works and discovered that he could never do enough to save himself. He tried confession and confessed frequently, often daily — for as long as six hours at a stretch. The problem was that he could never be sure that he had confessed everything, and often he would remember additional sins as he was walking out of the confessional. Convinced that his entire being was corrupt and in need of forgiveness, he teetered on the edge of despair.

Then Luther turned to the Scriptures and experienced a breakthrough — he discovered that he was saved not by personal perfection, but by God’s gift of a perfect savior named Jesus Christ. The Bible told him that the God who judged him for his sins was the same God who sent Jesus to save him from his sins. In a flash, Luther realized that the key to his being in a right relationship with God was trusting Jesus, rather than relying on himself. He saw that forgiveness and salvation would come from Christ’s perfection, not from his or anyone else’s attempts at perfection. Luther discovered that holding on to Jesus by “faith alone” was the antidote to his despair, and this deeply personal insight ended up igniting the spiritual revolution known as the Protestant Reformation.

It also pulled me out of my OCD, because I came to see that my value as a person had nothing to do with having every door checked and every sin confessed. I discovered that God loved me in my imperfection — yes, that’s right, loved me in my imperfection. In addition, I found that God had sent Jesus to assure me of his deep desire for a personal relationship with flawed people like myself.

I’m convinced that our Lord wants us to know real peace in our lives — what the Bible calls “shalom,” in the original Hebrew. The meaning of this word, which occurs more than 250 times in Scripture, goes beyond the absence of war and conflict to include good relations between people and nations. It can refer to health or to the restoration of health, as well as to general well-being. Shalom is rooted in wholeness, soundness, and completeness, and can describe tranquility and contentment. In the Bible, God is credited with being the creator and source of shalom, and is said to give this gift to his people. It is clear to me that our Lord wants us to know the deep happiness that comes from shalom, and he has provided us with a number of tools to use in our search for this precious form of peace.

The bottom line for me is this: It is God’s will that we be well.

So, what can we do to ease our inner anguish? My problem had a spiritual solution, and I can now laugh about my behavior as “Mr. Checker,” but I know that not every mental illness can be controlled or cured by the Bible or theology. No, there are psychological problems that can be alleviated only by the additional contributions of modern medicine and psychotherapy. From a lifetime of observation, I have come to the conclusion that mental health requires the very best insights of spirituality, interwoven with science and psychotherapy. That’s why I am calling this four-part sermon series on faith and mental health The Threefold Cord.

As the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes says so simply and elegantly, “A threefold cord is not quickly broken” (4:12). This means that if we’re going to avoid being swept away by the shocks, stresses and strains of modern American life, we’re going to have to hold tightly to the three interwoven strands of science, spirituality, and psychotherapy. We are a nation of people in need of healing, and I am convinced that the key to our health and happiness -- our shalom -- is an understanding and acceptance of The Threefold Cord.

I am aware, however, that this combination is controversial, and that my approach will not be accepted by everyone. When Jesus approaches a handicapped man by a pool in Jerusalem, he cannot be sure that the man will accept his offer of healing. The man makes excuses for not entering the supernatural waters of the pool, and he blames others for not helping him (John 5:1-9). So Jesus asks him point-blank, “Do you want to be made well?” Jesus forces the man to take responsibility for whether he will remain stuck in his illness or not. It is only when the man embraces the desire to be healed, and follows the guidance of Jesus, that he is able to stand and walk. In the same way today, many people remain stuck — they find it easier to make excuses or blame others than embrace the healing that is offered by science, spirituality, and psychotherapy.

On top of this, there are powerful forces in our society that oppose my emphasis on the interwoven strands of The Threefold Cord. Two of the strands, faith and science, have always had an uneasy relationship, and they are moving apart today in areas ranging from stem cells to the theory of evolution. There are psychiatrists who see religion as a neurosis, and there are pastors who refuse to offer any help outside of biblical counseling. Some ministers are suspicious of counselors who are not pastors, and many psychologists are concerned about the side effects and addictive dangers of psychiatric medication. In churches across the country, both pastors and parishioners have a difficult time addressing issues of mental illness within the church, and they are often reluctant to lift these concerns in prayer or make referrals to mental health professionals.

I find this reluctance among church people to be odd. It seems strange to me, given that the Bible is full of passages that speak so powerfully of mental and spiritual anguish. In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul lets out a cry of despair, saying, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. … Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:15, 24).

This is a struggle we face every day: The difficulty of getting body, mind, and spirit in harmony, so that we can actually do good, healthy, and moral things. Fortunately, God sent his son Jesus to give us pardon and peace, and these gifts help us to escape our ruts and make some progress along the road to mental and spiritual health. By trusting in Jesus, we enter into a relationship with God that carries with it the promise of forgiveness and acceptance and everlasting life.

This is the promise of our Christian faith — the creation of a vital, life-giving, healing connection to our Lord. Combined with science and psychotherapy, it offers the best possible chance for living a life marked by peace, by shalom. God’s desire is that we come to know the tranquility and contentment of a relationship with him, one in which we discover the truth of Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want … he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul” (vv. 1-2).

As you experience these sermons over the next few weeks, I hope that you will discover that God wants you to know real peace in your life, and to help you “restore your soul” he gives you The Threefold Cord of science, spirituality, and psychotherapy.

It is God’s will that you be healed, but the question remains, “Do you want to be made well?” Amen.