Salvation as Sanity

I was thinking about Jesus' healing of the demon-possessed man in the gospels, the man filled with "Legion," in relation to recovery.

As you'll recall, after Jesus heals the man the townspeople come and find him changed:

Mark 5.14-15
People rushed out to see what had happened. A crowd soon gathered around Jesus, and they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons. He was sitting there fully clothed and perfectly sane.

The man was restored to sanity. And that restoration of sanity put me in mind of Step 2 from the 12 Steps from the recovery community:

We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

A Power that can restore us to sanity. Salvation as sanity. Deliverance as sanity. Rescue as sanity. Emancipation as sanity.

When we think about sin we tend to think of one of two things. Sin as "missing the mark," as a performance failure. Or sin as "total depravity," a "sin nature" than is bent upon doing wicked things.

But today I'm thinking about sin as mental confusion, untamed, disordered, and broken thoughts. Sin isn't just about desire and cravings, it's also about how we think, our thoughts about ourselves, others and life. Getting control of ourselves isn't just about temperance and self-control, it's about a healthy mind and mindset.

A restoration of sanity.