Torment as Mental Suffering
"He was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard." — 2 Peter 2:8
The Second Form
"And if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard)." (2 Peter 2:7-8)
The word translated tormenting is basanizō — the same root as the jailer of the parable.
And here it describes something entirely internal. Not a body that fails. A soul under sustained pressure.
So the second form is mental suffering: depression, darkness, heaviness, anxiety, unrelenting stress, torment of mind.
What This Looks Like
Consider a young pastor who went through a devastating divorce he did not initiate. It broke something in him. He spiraled downward, lost his job, and became so depressed he could not leave his house — for two years.
His father, himself a pastor, was on his knees daily for those two years praying for his son. Nothing changed.
Then the father learned the principles in these lessons and did something different. He repented on his son's behalf — for all the sins he imagined his son had been dealing with: anger, frustration, hurt, unforgiveness. The prayer took about fifteen minutes.
Ten days later his son called. "Dad, you won't believe what happened. Ten days ago the depression instantly left. I am totally normal now."
Two years of immovable depression. Fifteen minutes of the right kind of prayer — prayed by someone else entirely.
Or consider a young woman who described crippling anxiety and PTSD following severe childhood trauma. Waking every morning certain something terrible was coming. A mind that never stopped, twenty-four hours a day. Multiple diagnoses, a heavy regimen of medications she expected to take for life.
She went through this process of repentance. The next morning she woke without fear. For the first time since childhood, peace. Her psychiatrist, seeing her, said that if she felt that good she did not need the medication. She stopped, and had not needed it in the six months following.
Said Carefully
This subject requires more care than any other in these lessons.
Mental illness is real. Brain chemistry is real. Trauma does real neurological damage. Medication helps enormously many people and has saved lives.
Do not stop taking prescribed medication because of anything you read here. In the account above, a physician made that call. That is the right order, and it is the only responsible one.
Do not tell a depressed person their condition is sin. That has done incalculable harm and is not what this teaches.
What this does say is that some mental suffering — not all — has a spiritual root that no amount of correct psychiatric treatment will reach, because the treatment is aimed elsewhere. When that is the case, dealing with the root can end it, sometimes overnight.
You are permitted to ask whether that is your situation. Asking is free.
Point to Ponder
Some minds are ill. Some minds are under siege. The treatments are different, and the second one has almost never been tried.
Verse to Remember
"He was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard." — 2 Peter 2:8
Question to Consider
Does my mental suffering behave more like an illness or more like an attack?
Today's Practice
Describe your mental suffering with precision. Vague descriptions get vague answers.
When does it hit? Time of day, day of week, particular places. What precedes it? Anything, or nothing? Is it constant or does it come in waves? Does it speak? Are there sentences — you are worthless, everyone would be better off, nothing will ever change? Does it intensify when you pray, read Scripture, or move toward God?
That last question is diagnostically significant. Ordinary depression does not have opinions about your devotional life.
Add everything to your issue grid with today's intensity rating.
Then pray specifically: "Father, show me what is genuinely illness in me and what is genuinely attack. I want to treat each correctly."
Prayer
Father, my mind has been a hard place to live. I have taken what I was given and tried what I was told, and some of it has helped.
But if part of what I am carrying has a root that no treatment can reach, I am asking You to show me.
Give me wisdom to know the difference, and keep me from foolishness — I will not abandon good care because I want a spiritual answer. Work through both.
You made my mind. Bring it peace. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Two years of immovable depression ended in ten days, after a fifteen-minute prayer prayed by someone else.