Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness
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The desire for love is good. The problem is that, left unchecked, it never stops growing. Keep in mind that our hearts keep repeating the chorus, “I want.” We want more love, and more again. It is here that you observe the spiritual roots. There are times when we put our trust in a person (something created) and what we can get from that person rather than putting our trust in Christ and loving others. Once again, it comes down to spiritual allegiances. Like the ancient idolaters, we have said that God is not enough.
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Isn’t it true that suffering reveals us? While prosperity allows us to hide, hardships peel off masks we didn’t even know we were wearing. During the better times, we can be happy, unafraid, confident, and optimistic, but the lean years reveal the best and the worst in us.
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You don’t really know who you are until you have gone through suffering. We can measure our spiritual growth by the way we behave under pressure.
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Throughout history, God has used hardships to reveal people’s hearts, and this unveiling has had a purpose. It is an essential part of the process of change. You have to see what is in your heart before you can set out to change it.
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trials, he writes, have a purpose. They test our faith. They reveal what we worship, what we trust, what we love. From James’s perspective, this is evidence of God’s fatherly care. It is essential to our spiritual welfare. It would be a tragedy to go through life with a nominal faith we think is genuine but isn’t. God’s love is behind the trials that reveal the true condition of our faith. His desire is that we become “mature and complete, not lacking anything.” In other words, when our faith is refined so that we learn to trust God in all things, we will be satisfied in him above all else. We ...more
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This raises two questions. First, what is the kingdom? The kingdom is everything God promises his children: love, joy, peace, his presence, forgiveness, adoption into his family, the hope of being free from sin, and being with our Father, the King. Second, is the kingdom important to you? Perhaps you already believe that God is pleased to give you the kingdom, but the kingdom doesn’t sound that great. Perhaps you have your heart set on something else. You believe that “my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19), but you aren’t so certain that ...more
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Grumbling or complaining fits within the larger category of anger because it is a judgment. The grumbler has declared something to be wrong, be it a person, the weather, or the expensive car repair. Usually, it is directed at no one in particular. It is just a complaint. While those who are overtly angry might shake their fist at God, God rarely is
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mentioned during low-level grumbling or complaining.
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But grumbling is more about us than it is about other people or our circumstances. It is our hearts ...
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The reason God extends such mercy and patience is because his anger with our rebellion is ultimately poured out on Jesus. Make no mistake: the cross is about love and anger. God is angrier than any of his creatures, and the cross is where his anger and wrath were fully concentrated. When we turn to Jesus, God’s anger is turned away from us and turned toward the cross. His justice is fully satisfied by the very costly price of his Son’s death. Meanwhile, his mercy and love are fully expressed to us as he gives us true life through Jesus’ death and resurrection.
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Jesus never was angry because of what was done to him. Instead, he taught us to bless our enemies (Luke 6:27–31). He was only angry when leaders led others down a destructive path or money-changers shamed his Father’s temple. His secret was that he was passionate about his Father’s glory, not his own. He completely trusted his Father’s judgments to be good and true. He chose to give up his status as judge and entrusted it solely to his Father.
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Remember that anger is devious and hard to find. You can be “doing” anger without even feeling it. Pray, “Lord, search me.” Since prayer is one of the places our heart is revealed, allow it to test you. If you can meditate on the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9–13) and make it your own, it is evidence that you are putting up a good fight against lingering anger.
Sharon Brobst
So could a lack of desire yo pray be evidence that we harbor anger?
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For some people, when dreams crash, they just dream something new. Others, however, at some point decide that they have had enough. They decide never to hope again. Everyone who goes through suffering should be alert to hopelessness and consider God’s response to it. With depression, where hopelessness tends to be so prominent, this is critical.
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To live without hope is to live without a future. It is almost impossible to imagine such a life. Cynics and pessimists, however, mock hope, as if we can live without it. Those who are depressed try to kill it because it has betrayed them.
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Look for dashed hopes to be mingled with anger, but realize that they usually don’t stop there. Dashed hopes can lead to frustration with God. Frustration with God leads to self-imposed spiritual isolation or withdrawal, and spiritual isolation leads to self-pity.
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Perhaps you agree that God is good. You know what Christ has done, and you believe that the cross is evidence of God’s goodness. But his goodness doesn’t make a difference to you. It is irrelevant because good is defined on your terms rather than God’s. Like a child, the satisfaction of your plans, your wants, and
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your desires is the standard for God’s goodness. Jonah tells us that good must be defined by God’s terms, not our own. Otherwise, we are standing in judgment of God.
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When you feel like everything is going against you and suicide seems attractive, ask yourself that question: Do I have a right to be angry?
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When you can identify your frustration and are tempted to say, Yes, I have a right to be angry, let God reason with you about his love. Let him persuade you to say “no” and to trust him.
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Underneath depression’s veil of passivity is a heart that is busy making choices. Sometimes you prefer hopelessness. You want it. You aspire to it. Isn’t that a reasonable way to explain why you are so immune to encouragement? You hear the words and understand them, but you don’t want them. Even though self-pity and your attempts to kill hope are not working well, you are loyal to your hope-killing strategy. In response, God speaks words of mercy and grace, even though you don’t trust him. Then he repeats them. He pursues you and makes promises to you rather than ask you to make promises to ...more
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Depression is right when it says that death and sin cast a shadow over everything. There is reason to feel misery. But depression is wrong in surrendering to this interpretation. It is not the entire story. King Jesus has returned and is establishing his reign. The kingdom broke through with great power when the Holy Spirit was given and it continues to grow (Mark 4:30–32).
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Most likely, you want to change less than you realize. So don’t be deceived. We do hopelessness. We choose it. But there is a way out. Part of the answer goes back to what God says to people who fear. The connection is that fear, like hopelessness, is reluctant to trust God for the future.
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Notice that we can’t always achieve our hopes on our own. The desired object is never fully in our grasp. We need some help to attain it. For that reason, we don’t immediately blame ourselves for these disappointments because we can’t control the outcome. Failure and shame, however, are different. They point the finger at you more than outside circumstances. You have not measured up to your own expectations or the expectations of others.
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Many problems come at us, but they don’t just encounter a blank interior. They are interpreted by hearts that are constantly busy. When depressed, we feel like an empty shell, but we are doing something. Remember, the heart is always choosing. Try reframing your experience with this in mind. For example, instead of thinking that you are oppressed by the expectations that others have draped over you, recognize that the heart chooses to live under the standards of others. Instead of thinking that you are distressed because people aren’t pleased with you, recognize that you have chosen a style of ...more
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We don’t want to experience failure and shame; we don’t choose that. But we do choose to trust in other people and their judgments. It comes down once again to the deepest question of all: who will you trust?
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First, other people will never satisfy. You can never measure up well enough, and you can never get enough of what you want from them. Second, you become a servant to whatever you trust in.
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Idolatry is usually a good thing that has gone haywire. You can tell that something has gone wrong when you move from the goal of God’s glory to your own. Remember, we want to make it about us, but it’s not. Sometimes it is hard to detect the gradual deification of people in our lives. Our hearts erect the pedestals for these idols while our backs are turned, but there is a way to alert yourself to what’s going on. When you are lukewarm toward God, or when you are not fixing your eyes on Jesus, then you can be sure that idolatry has taken root. If you are not worshipping the true God, you are ...more
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If failure and shame fit your experience, then you most likely have people-gods. You want something from them, and they haven’t delivered.
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You realize, of course, that when we talk about trusting in anything or anyone other than God, we are talking about sin.
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To trust is to say that we need Jesus. Our search for self-satisfaction has been a failure, and we now turn to the One who, all along, has been our true destination.
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There is a certain paradox in trusting God. When we trust him, we are saying that we are entirely inadequate, which is true though it doesn’t do wonders for our self-image. But when we trust him, it is also as if we have arrived home. All is well. Yes, there may be many problems, but we are home, and the comfort and joy of home reduces the problems of life to the level of hassles. We have the Father’s love, and we know that he is the ruling king. That is enough.
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Having received the love of Christ, we are willing to say to other people, “My desire to love you will outweigh my desire to be loved [honored, appreciated, respected] by you.”
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Failure and shame are signposts. Listen, and you will hear them say, “You are not okay before God.” The principle is this: if you see a problem in your relationships with other people, you will find the identical problem in your relationship with God. If you are angry with others, you will find anger with God. If you don’t love others, you don’t love God. If you feel as if you can’t measure up to the expectations of yourself and others, then you feel as if you have not measured up to God’s standards either. What we call failure, shame, and not measuring up before other people, we call guilt ...more
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There are small, short-lived payoffs to legalism, but the emotional cornerstone of legalism is a lack of joy (Gal. 4:15). Could you expect anything else? If you believe that your most important relationship is dependent on appeasing an angry or irritated God, no matter how much you do, you will never be sure it is enough.
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In reality, whatever good deeds we do are intended to be a response to what God has done, not a cause of it. God’s grace and love to us precede our own good works. He loved us before we loved him or even acknowledged him.
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Leaving entrenched legalism is a straightforward process, but you should expect to leave many times. It won’t happen all at once.
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God’s promise is that he will never put us in a situation where we have no choice but to sin. He either will relieve the intensity of the temptation, or he will give us grace to trust and obey in the hardship. This promise means that depression cannot coerce you to sin.
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Depression can be hard on relationships. If you are depressed, you need relationships but you isolate yourself. You want help but you reject most counsel. You get encouraging words from others but you don’t believe them. And if family or friends get frustrated, you say you predicted it all along.
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You are going to do something when you don’t feel like doing it. It isn’t that you don’t want to love; it is that you don’t feel. Some buy the lie that such behavior is hypocritical. Why would you do something when your heart isn’t in it? The truth is that it is heroic. It may be the first time in your life that you did something simply because of Jesus.
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Perhaps the most obvious challenge posed by depressed people is their apparent lack of passion or enthusiasm for anything. For close friends and family, this is difficult because our passions are what make us recognizable and unique to those around us. A passionless person seems different to other people.
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can you quickly identify your purpose? Anything that falls short of “to know Christ and to love others for his glory, not my own” will leave you hopeless and powerless to love. One of the many unique features of God’s ways is that we all shift back and forth between our roles as physician and patient. You need help and others need your help. You may never have struggled with depression yourself, but the issues surrounding depression are basic to all our lives.
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If you are slow to say the things you think are important, you are not really engaging in a relationship. As a rule, the closer the relationship, the more open you should be with the other person. Don’t hesitate to interrupt the flow of despair, self-pity, and complaints that only reinforce the person’s unbiblical interpretations of God and himself. To do this too early in your relationship with depressed people (or anyone) communicates that you don’t really want to understand. It can silence people. But when your purpose is explained, it can be easily understood as an expression of love.
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There is more to persevering than you thought. It is not simply a word that appears briefly in Scripture. It is a powerful, deeply spiritual response to struggles that don’t quickly disappear. When we persevere with one another, we are imitating one of the glorious facets of the character of God. It is here, in persevering with someone who struggles with depression, where you have the advantage over the experts. Experts consult; then move on. Friends and family keep at it.
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If love proceeds from anything other than “we love because he first loved us,” expect to be disappointed.
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Depression gives you tunnel vision. Scripture gives you vistas that extend from the beginning of creation to eternity. If you aren’t dazzled by the expanse that Scripture lays in front of you, be persistent. As you keep looking, you will see more and more. One of your goals is to let the apostle Paul be your eyes until you can see more clearly.
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Depression can accumulate lots of inaccurate interpretations about ourselves, other people, and God himself. Scripture comes and corrects those misinterpretations and false beliefs. But Rod was saying that we can’t just expect the old mental files to be removed and new ones inserted. No, these changes come only through a battle, and key to the battle is that we humble ourselves before the Lord and believe what he says.
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If you are hopeless, there may be many contributors, but two are certain. First, you have placed your hope in something other than God—a person, money, personal reputation—and it has let you down. Second, you may understand that Jesus conquered death, but you live as though he is still in the grave. All hopelessness is ultimately a denial of the resurrection. It falsely prophesies that the last words are death, despair, meaninglessness, ruin, and nothing. Yet the resurrection trumps death, sin, misery, and everything touched by the curse. Resurrection is the last word; as a result, “your labor ...more
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Some hopeless people who anticipate only death cite Scripture that says “I desire to depart and be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23). But Christ is not what hopeless people really want. The God-talk is misleading. The goal of hopelessness is to end the suffering, and if God happens to be there when it happens, fine. But God’s presence is not essential.
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God’s story is a great story. We, however, are people of habit. Change does not come easily or quickly. We stubbornly cling to past interpretations and old stories even when God’s universal story is much better. The reason is not that we lack education and knowledge, but that we overflow with pride.
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Deep change is rarely a matter of knowledge. It is a matter of repentance. We have chosen a path apart from God; repentance is the process of turning back. We have chosen a different story, filled with subtle lies about God, questioning his love, care and compassion. Repentance means to renounce our story and believe that there is only one Storyteller. God alone is authorized to interpret our lives.