Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness

by Edward T. Welch

Anger is always a form of imitation. Either we are imitating the way mercy trumps anger in the character of Jesus, or we are mimicking the destructive anger of Satan (John 8:44). There are no other choices.

Your worst relationship with other people reveals your heart before God. If we don’t love others, we don’t love God. If we are angry with others, we are standing against God. With our complaining and grumbling, we have set up an implicit test for God: Will he give us what we want or not? We have made life about us, and when we do, we are doomed to a life of perpetual dissatisfaction.

Hope is risky. The more you look forward to something, the greater the chance of being let down. Set your heart on a sun-soaked day at the beach and an afternoon shower is very disappointing. It seems safer to take the more pessimistic route and anticipate a monsoon. Then, at least, your hopes won’t be dashed.

When you see nothing ahead of you in the future, there is no reason to get out of bed, love, or work now. Kill hope and you kill more than you anticipated. You thought it would make life less painful, but all attempts to kill hope kill both future hopes and present joys.

If you kill hope, you think you are protecting yourself, but, instead, you doom yourself to lifelessness. If you let hope gradually die without putting up a fight, you end up in the same place. It renders the present meaningless. Without hope, you feel like the walking dead.

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.

We might believe that God loves us, but we aren’t so sure he will give us what we want. We want to be loved, and we also want to dictate the way and by whom we are loved.

Confession is when we acknowledge the against-God root of our behaviors. It is the beginning of a process where we turn away from our self-focused desires and turn to the Holy God.

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? When you feel like God has taken away your dreams and hopes, ask, Do I have a right to be angry? 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.

On this side of the cross, misery persists but the scales are tipped in favor of joy. The King is seated; the celebration has begun in heaven; we could not be loved anymore than we are right now; and there are tastes of heaven available even now. There are realities present now that can sustain your hopes. Pray for eyes to see.

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. You can even see it in your posture. It is as if the unmet expectations and standards weigh you down. You can almost feel them; you half expect them to register on the bathroom scales. The weight is all on you. There is no one else to blame.

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 life in which you live for approval. 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.

If failure and shame fit your experience, then you most likely have people-gods. You want something from them, and they haven’t delivered. Depression doesn’t exempt you from the problems that afflict us all, and all of us have an instinct that turns us away from God and toward people.

Low self-worth and a sense of failure and shame do not simply arise because we feel bad about ourselves. We have also trusted in other people, and we think that they feel bad about us. Perhaps we have experienced overt rejection from someone especially important to us, but the truth is that we don’t really need anyone to speak against us. We can tell when we have failed. We know people who do it better than we do, are more attractive than we are, seem to have more intimate relationships, better jobs, and so on. It is as if we are born with an innate ability to poll the world on hundreds of different measures, and on the ones most important to us, we rate average or worse. We fear that we are ordinary.

Our purpose is not about us; it is about God. For this reason, God seems to prefer the average and below average. Otherwise it would be about our talents and abilities.

Life is not about my résumé; it is about ways to extend the fame of Jesus. And one way to do this is to say that God is more than enough. After all, he is love. It has been proven at the cross. All other loves are, at best, imitations that point back to the original rather than usurp it. 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. 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.

A rule of thumb in confession is to keep at it until you have inklings of hope or joy. Confession is not a time to grovel. It is a time to trust in the God who delights in forgiving because it brings him glory. Don’t forget the story of the joy the shepherd takes in the one lost sheep that is found.

What we call failure, shame, and not measuring up before other people, we call guilt before God.

This anti-gospel is called legalism, works righteousness, or living under the law. It simply means that we trust in Christ and something we do.

It sounds religious and contrite until you really think about it. Then you realize that when you add anything to what Christ has done, it diminishes the glory of God. It is a rejection of God’s gift as sufficient. We can try to excuse ourselves and say that the gospel seems too good to be true. But no matter what we say, when we add something to the gospel we are minimizing the completeness of God’s work, and we are essentially trying to share the glory with God by bringing our own gift.

Legalism is more common than you think. It is another one of those human instincts that you will find lodged in every heart. Have you ever said, “I just can’t forgive myself’? Is your life one long, “If only ...”? Have others called you driven? Are you burdened by past sins? Do you believe that God is chronically disappointed in you? Do you believe that God likes you more when you are really good? Do you make deals with God: “If you ... I will ...”?

Can you hear within these questions the conviction that your relationship with God rests more with you than with him? Now consider what you might add to the gospel. Life is found in God + ________. Serving in church Reading my Bible Not being too mean Being relatively honest Not getting drunk Being sexually careful

We make these additions to the gospel because they allow us to feel good about ourselves apart from God. They also give us a basis for judging others. If we have successfully gone through a day and measured up to our new law, we are a success (however temporarily). And we are now entitled to judge others who don’t measure up.

There are small, short-lived payoffs to legalism, but the emotional cornerstone of legalism is a lack of joy

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.

“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Gal. 5:6). If this is true (and it is) we as legalists should respond by saying, “Lord, forgive me.” We had been counting on something we could accomplish ourselves rather than relying on the grace of God.

If you think suicide is a good or viable option, you don’t know God. You think he is silent, but he is not. He is generous in the way he reveals himself, and he speaks clearly. He speaks of his patience and love for you. He calls you to trust him and to let that trust express itself in love toward others. He says he gives you grace to persevere and teaches you how to persevere. Maybe you are listening for something other than what he is saying.

From our perspective, there is only one thing that God could say that would cause us to listen: we want him to take away the pain. From God’s perspective, however, the most important thing he could give us is the power to trust and obey when we feel powerless. In the mind of God, sin is a much more serious problem than suffering. In ours, the order is reversed.

start. Consider that your present hopelessness is sin. Either you have put your trust in something other than Christ, which is sin, or, like the Israelites in the desert, you have essentially said that what God says is not true, which is the sin of unbelief. God not only forgives these sins against him, he empowers you to put your hope in him. In your despair, can you ask God to give you grace to resist sin and trust him through suffering?

You don’t belong to yourself. That certainly adds purpose, hope, and comfort to life.

But if you were an ambassador, called by the king—a royal emissary—you wouldn’t think about whether or not to get up. You simply get up. You are on a mission. God, you say, can easily get a replacement. You won’t be missed. There are, after all, thousands from which to choose. Be careful on this one. Be suspicious. Lies can mingle with the truth. Of course, God has called many people to himself, and he will accomplish his purposes. The reality, however, is that he chooses people, especially weak people, to accomplish them. He chooses individual people and has established our tasks from before the foundation of the world (Eph. 2:10). The comfort is that you belong to him.

The heart is the real battleground during suffering, and it deserves your utmost attention. As you learn how to put your hope in Christ, your work reaps eternal benefits. But that isn’t all. Since you are a hybrid consisting of both physical and spiritual, your physical body can respond to your spiritual growth. In other words, as the Spirit, Scripture, and wise people guide you, you might feel lighter (2 Cor. 4:16–18). Your pain won’t have the same devastating power.

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. You act as though you were just waiting for them to get frustrated with you, perhaps even hoping for it. You believe you are worthless, and you seem bent on proving it.

Resist depression on this point. Don’t let it excuse you from relationships and love; you will just deepen your despair. Loving others is not simply a duty; it is the way you are designed. God created you to trust him and love others. When you are not trusting or not loving, you are disconnected from your purpose, and hopelessness will thrive. Plan to love. It will look different when you are severely depressed, but as long as you are still conscious, you can find grace from God to love others in ways like these: Thank them Greet them Pray for them Listen to them Touch them If you stumble here, ask forgiveness of God and others. Ask others to pray that you would be able to love in a way that is noticeable, and set out to love again. If you are not even taking a step toward loving, your heart is being revealed.

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.

Family and friends, you will also be stretched in the way you love. You may discover that your love has been accompanied by mixed motives. Perhaps you wanted to change the other person or make life easier for yourself more than you wanted to love because Christ has loved you. Like your depressed friend, you, too, will have to consider your motives and ask for prayer to love deeply from the heart.

Sometimes you will grow weary in loving. We all do. You will genuinely love, but it will seem fruitless or irrelevant. It won’t seem to matter to the depressed person. But know this: your love makes a difference. That doesn’t mean that one concerted push to love will snap anyone out of depression.

There are a few ways to prepare to love someone when the relationship no longer seems reciprocal. Foremost is to realize that you can no longer rely on natural affection. In the past, there was a give and take to your relationship with the depressed person. You enjoyed the person, and he or she enjoyed you. This dynamic interaction spawned a growing, caring relationship. Now, however, the relationship appears unilateral, which, of course, is not what we think of as a relationship. Very few people are willing to commit long term to such a one-sided arrangement. After an initial sprint of love, they give up.

Without your normal relational passions to energize you, you have a tremendous opportunity. You, too, have the privilege of really loving as an expression of your trust in Jesus Christ and your love for him. This is one of the key spiritual skills needed by those who are depressed, and, typical of God’s ways, it is exactly what you need as well.

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.

To help a depressed person, you don’t need expert knowledge. You do need an awareness of your own spiritual neediness, a growing knowledge of Jesus, and an eagerness to learn from others, including the person you would like to help.

Without passion or keen spiritual clarity, those who are depressed find it nearly impossible to maintain a vision for the things that are most important. There is nothing emerging from their haze of despair to capture their attention.

What depressed people need—what we all need—are daily reminders of spiritual reality. As the truth of Christ is impressed on our hearts, we must offer that to others, and they to us. The target is always Christ and him crucified. The words are not magic, but they are food for the soul. Don’t get derailed. What you need is not something new. You simply need to persevere in applying old truths to present situations.

Since you are more like a depressed person than different, think in terms of partnerships. You are working together to walk a difficult path. Sometimes you will be doing the heavy lifting (Gal. 6:2), but if you are walking together you will look for ways to share the load.

One mistake that families and friends can make in the early stages of depression is to make all the effort themselves. It is a noble sacrifice, but you can’t walk that way for long. You can read to, pray for, exhort, and express love in many ways to depressed people, but you can’t drag them to your goals. Your destination must be a shared goal. The end goal is Christ. The near goals are sometimes infinitesimally small steps that bring structure to an existence that can feel aimless. Structure refers to boundaries, guidelines, accountability, reminders, and organized plans. The principle is this: the more painful and disabling the depression, the more important it is for counselors and friends to provide structure.

Structure could include the following: Go to bed and get up at the same times each day. Eat at appointed times. Exercise at appointed times. Have a schedule for the day. Write down one thing you agree to work on every day. Follow through on agreements you made with other people. Let your “yes” be “yes.” This structure is not simply imposed on an unwilling victim. It is a partnership among brothers and sisters in Christ. Also, it includes times of considering “why?” Remember and review God’...

There are two ways to err when helping depressed people bring structure into their lives. One is to impose a pace that is beyond their ability, making them feel even more hopeless. Start slowly. Help people set very basic goals initially, and then work together to gradually increase the number of tasks and goals in a day. The other way to err is to omit frequent times of accountability. At least daily accountability is best. Since this may continue for months, those who minister must dev...

when depressed people interject their skewed and self-defeating interpretations of life, you can’t sit idly by. You need to challenge and interrupt their inaccurate interpretation because it is wrong and leads to deeper despair. This, of course, is normal behavior in loving relationships. With depression, however, friends sometimes don’t pursue these normal interactions. Perhaps they are afraid that the depressed person will feel rejected. Perhaps they are afraid that the least provocation could lead to suicide. As a result, depressed people are often handled very gingerly. You feel as if you are carrying a torch around a bomb with a short fuse. Wisdom and love, of course, must dominate your relationships with those who are depressed, as they should dominate any relationship. But if you find that you are increasingly reluctant to say important things, reconsider your path. Talk to someone who has been on a similar path. 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 unde...

A friend who helped me to move from the “tyranny of the should” to living out of the gospel of grace.

One reason to listen to depression is that you will realize that it has a history. It usually emerges for a reason. If you think of your own history of depression, you can find early warnings.