Cultivating a Sane Mind in a Fragmented World

Theological education has always been a double-edged sword. It is often good, but rarely safe. The great danger of higher learning isn’t heresy though that certainly happens but a quieter, more insidious threat: gaining more knowledge about God while enjoying Him less. This is the slow drift of the soul that can leave a graduate with a diploma in one hand and a hollow heart in the other.

If this sounds extreme, it’s not. Many have walked the path of seminary or academic theology only to emerge weary, dry, and spiritually distant. Why? Because education, especially in the West, tends to prize analysis over awe, logic over love, and system over mystery. But Scripture calls us to more. The Christian student is called to be sane and sanity, in the biblical sense, is far more than mental stability. It is a life rightly ordered around the glory of God.

So what is holy sanity, and how can we cultivate it in our learning and our lives? Here are five life-giving disciplines that guard the soul while sharpening the mind.

1. Feed Your Imagination

In the classroom, facts reign. We parse texts, dissect theology, and categorize doctrines. Yet as G.K. Chesterton wisely said, “Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason.” Reason, without the anchoring and enriching presence of imagination, breaks things apart but forgets how to put them back together.

C.S. Lewis helps us here. He called reason “the natural organ of truth,” but imagination “the organ of meaning.” Without imagination, you can understand the trees but never see the forest. Worse, you might forget the forest even exists.

A disciplined imagination doesn't distract from theology it deepens it. It helps us see how Scripture sings, how doctrine dances, how God’s world pulses with glory. Stories, poetry, art, and even nature train the heart to feel the weight of God’s truth. Read Tolkien and Lewis alongside Augustine and Calvin. Spend time in the Psalms not just for theology, but for the tone and tenor of worship. A well-fed imagination guards your sanity and draws your heart into wonder.

2. Embrace Mystery

We often imagine that education's goal is to eliminate mystery. But biblically, mystery is not something to be solved but something to be rightly placed. Chesterton wrote, “Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.”

The Trinity, the Incarnation, and the gospel itself are profound mysteries. Not irrational, but beyond full comprehension. And this is good news. Mystery humbles us. It rebukes the proud illusion that we can master divine truth on our own terms. As Paul wrote, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Corinthians 8:1).

Right theology doesn't erase mystery; it reveals it. It teaches us not to despise the cloud but to worship within it. When mystery is welcomed, sanity is preserved, and our souls are rightly stilled before the majesty of God.

3. Be Prone to Wonder

Wonder is the soul’s reaction to beauty and truth encountered as gift. It’s childlike, but not childish. The psalmist captures it best: “I ponder the work of your hands” (Psalm 143:5). To wonder is to look at the ordinary and see God’s fingerprints.

Education often sterilizes wonder. It turns marvels into equations and beauty into data. But the wise Christian never loses the capacity to be amazed. Proverbs 30 gives us the example of Agur, who delighted in the mystery of nature eagles, snakes, ships, and more. His wonder was a form of worship.

Chesterton once said, “The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.” A heart that wonders is a heart that worships. And a worshiping heart is a sane one.

4. Awake to Magic

We live in a disenchanted age. Modern education, shaped by rationalism and materialism, treats the world as a machine. But the Christian knows better. Creation is enchanted it is spoken into being by God Himself, and it overflows with meaning, glory, and wonder.

C.S. Lewis spoke of needing “a spell” to break the worldly enchantment that dulls our souls. Paul Tyson defines magic not as superstition, but as the shimmering sense of divine meaning beneath the surface of reality. The sunrise is not just physics it’s poetry. A tree is not merely biology it’s worship in wood.

God’s creation is an act of en-chant-ment. We must let ourselves be spellbound again by His word and His world. Let snowflakes preach grace. Let stars speak of glory. Let squirrels in your yard make you laugh with holy delight. This is not sentimental it’s sacred. God meant for us to feel His joy in the world He made. Rediscovering that joy is a key to sanity.

5. Love What God Loves

At the heart of all true education is love specifically, loving what God loves. Augustine called this the ordo amoris, the order of loves. When our affections are rightly ordered, we love truth more than being right, people more than ideas, and Christ above all.

Too often, students love the thrill of knowledge but forget the God that knowledge points to. But knowledge, as Jonathan Edwards said, must be sweet. The goal is not just to know about God, but to taste and see that He is good (Psalm 34:8).

Right affections are the anchor of sanity. When we love what God loves, we see clearly. We think clearly. We live clearly. This is the telos the end of every theological endeavor: to glorify God by loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30).

Holy Sanity in a Fragmented World

In a world that dissects truth and dismisses wonder, cultivating holy sanity is both countercultural and essential. If you gain degrees, write papers, master theology but lose your awe, your joy, your soul what have you gained?

God doesn’t want hollow scholars. He wants whole-hearted saints. May your learning lead you not only to truth, but to love, to wonder, and to worship. May you be sanctified in your scholarship and healed in your imagination. And may you never lose sight of the glory in every truth and the God behind every glory.

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