Going Deeper Blog

      Prominent Issue

Part 1

Depression

Someone suggested that most of our days are three kinds.  On mountaintop days everything is going well and the world looks bright.  These experiences are temporary: they don’t go on forever.  It is unrealistic to expect, as some people do, that we can spend life leaping from one mountain peak to another as if there were no plains or valleys in between.  Instead, most of life consists of ordinary days when we work at our usual tasks, neither elated nor depressed.  Then there are the dark days when we trudge on through confusion, doubt, discouragement, and sometimes despair.  These days may be occasional, or they may string together into months or even years before there is a brighter outlook and a sense of relief.  When the dark days persist, they are days of depression.

Depression covers a wide variety of symptoms that differ in severity, frequency, duration and origin.  The signs of depression might be grouped into four categories: feelings, thinking, behavior, and physical health. Each of these is a change from what the person experiences and shows when depression is absent.

Feelings: Depression can bring sadness, sometimes for no apparent reason; low self-esteem often accompanied by self-criticism and feelings of guilt, shame, worthlessness, and helplessness; pessimism and hopelessness; and sometimes irritability, so the person is more prone to impatience and loss of temper.

Thinking: Depressed people frequently have negative thoughts.  In their minds they ruminate on their own incompetence and lack of worth.  Many experience difficulties in concentration, problems with memory, pessimism, guilt, self-criticism, self-condemnation, and sometimes though of self-destruction.

Behavior: Apathy and a sense of inertia are common, so the person lacks motivation and finds it difficult to face decisions.

Physical Health: General fatigue is common, despite more time spent sleeping.  Depression brings a loss of energy; a lack of interest in work, sex, religion, hobbies, or other activities.

Depression is a common, complicated condition. Psalm s69, 88, and 102 are songs of despair, but set in the context of hope.

“Save me, O God!  For the waters have come up to my neck.  ² I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. ³ I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. ⁴ More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause; mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies. What I did not steal must I now restore? ⁵ O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you. ⁶ Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord God of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel. ⁷ For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face. ⁸ I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons. ⁹ For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. ¹⁰ When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach. ¹¹ When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. ¹² I am the talk of those who sit in the gate, and the drunkards make songs about me. ¹³ But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.
At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness. ¹⁴ Deliver me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. ¹⁵ Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me. ¹⁶ Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me. ¹⁷ Hide not your face from your servant, for I am in distress; make haste to answer me. ¹⁸ Draw near to my soul, redeem me; ransom me because of my enemies! ¹⁹ You know my reproach, and my shame and my dishonor; my foes are all known to you. ²⁰ Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. ²¹ They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink. ²² Let their own table before them become a snare; and when they are at peace, let it become a trap. ²³ Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually. ²⁴ Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them. ²⁵ May their camp be a desolation; let no one dwell in their tents. ²⁶ For they persecute him whom you have struck down, and they recount the pain of those you have wounded. ²⁷ Add to them punishment upon punishment; may they have no acquittal from you. ²⁸ Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be enrolled among the righteous. ²⁹ But I am afflicted and in pain; let your salvation, O God, set me on high! ³⁰ I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him  with thanksgiving. ³¹ This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs. ³² When the humble see it they will be glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive. ³³ For the Lord hears the needy and does not despise his own people who are prisoners. ³⁴ Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in them. ³⁵ For God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah, and people shall dwell there and possess it; ³⁶ the offspring of his servants shall inherit it, and those who love his name shall dwell in it.”

Psalm 69 | ESV

“O Lord, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you. ² Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry! ³ For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. ⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am a man who has no strength, ⁵ like one set loose among the dead,  like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand. ⁶ You have put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions dark and deep. ⁷ Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah ⁸ You have caused my companions to shun me;  you have made me a horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape; ⁹  my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call upon you, O Lord;    I spread out my hands to you. ¹⁰ Do you work wonders for the dead?     Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah ¹¹ Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,  or your faithfulness in Abaddon?  ¹² Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? ¹³ But I, O Lord, cry to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. ¹⁴ O Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me? ¹⁵ Afflicted and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am helpless. ¹⁶ Your wrath has swept over me; your dreadful assaults destroy me. ¹⁷ They surround me like a flood all day long;   they close in on me together. ¹⁸ You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;  my companions have become darkness.”

Psalm 88 | ESV

“Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come to you! ² Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress! Incline your ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call! ³ For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace. ⁴ My heart is struck down like grass and has withered;  I forget to eat my bread. ⁵ Because of my loud groaning my bones cling to my flesh. ⁶ I am like a desert owl of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places; ⁷ I lie awake; I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop. ⁸ All the day my enemies taunt me; those who deride me use my name for a curse. ⁹ For I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink, ¹⁰ because of your indignation and anger; for you have taken me up and thrown me down. ¹¹ My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass. ¹² But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever; you are remembered throughout all generations. ¹³ You will arise and have pity on Zion; it is the time to favor her; the appointed time has come. ¹⁴ For your servants hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust. ¹⁵ Nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory. ¹⁶ For the Lord builds up Zion; he appears in his glory; ¹⁷ he regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer. ¹⁸ Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord: ¹⁹ that he looked down from his holy height; from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, ²⁰ to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die, ²¹ that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord, and in Jerusalem his praise, ²² when peoples gather together,     and kingdoms, to worship the Lord. ²³ He has broken my strength in midcourse; he has shortened my days ²⁴ “O my God,” I say, “take me not away in the midst of my days—you whose years endure throughout all generations!” ²⁵ Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. ²⁶ They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, ²⁷     but you are the same, and your years have no end. ²⁸ The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you.”

Psalm 102 | ESV

In Psalm 43 King David expresses both depression and rejoicing when he writes:

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”

Psalm 43:5 | ESV

Elsewhere in the Bible it appears that Job, Moses, Jonah, Peter, and the whole nation of Israel experienced depression.  Jeremiah the prophet wrote a whole book of lamentations.  Elijah saw God’s mighty power at work on Mount Carmel, but when Jezebel threatened murder, Elijah fled into the wilderness, where he plunged into despondency.  He wanted to die and might have done so except for the treatment that came from an angel sent by God.

Then there was Jesus in Gethsemane, where he was greatly distressed, an observation that is poignantly described in the words of the Amplified Bible:

“Then He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, so that I am almost dying of sorrow. Stay here and stay awake and keep watch with Me.”

Matthew 26:38 | AMP

These examples, accompanied by numerous references to the pain of grieving, show the realism that characterizes the Bible.  It is a realistic despair contrasted with certain hope.  Each of the believers who plunged into depression eventually came through and experienced a new and lasting joy, even when their circumstances did not change.  The biblical emphasis is less on human despair and more on belief in God, and the assurance of abundant life in heaven, if not on earth.  Paul wrote:

“We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. ⁹ We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.”

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 | NLT

Our present troubles are quite small and won’t last very long.  So we don’t look at the troubles we can see right now; rather, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over.

It is unrealistic to assume that all depression can be prevented.  There will be times when the pressures of life are certain to plunge each of us into deep sadness, if not depression.  Disappointments, losses, rejections, and failures come to everyone and lead to periods of unhappiness and discouragement.  There is a way by which we can prevent or soften the flows of depression.

Trust in God : Writing from prison, the apostle Paul once stated that he had learned to be content in all circumstances.

“ I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. ¹² I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. ¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

 Philippians 4:11-13 | NIV

Knowing that God gives strength to his children and is able to supply all our needs, Paul had learned how to live joyfully, both in poverty and in prosperity.  Through his experiences, and undoubtedly through a study of the Scriptures, Paul had learned to trust in God, which helped to prevent depression.

A conviction that God is alive and in control can give hope and encouragement, even when we are inclined to be discouraged and without hope.

Keeping a realistic perspective on life and death and our eyes on God can do much to effectively combat the problem of depression.

I pray that God, Who gives you encouragement, will keep you joyful and full of peace as you believe in Him.  May you overflow with the hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

God bless, LtA  ♥

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