Dealing with Depression Biblically

Depression is something that many people deal with at different times of life. There are many factors in depression. Physical health is related. Studies show that diet can impact depression and other mental or emotional health concerns. Sometimes depression comes with an explanation. The person may be reacting to a particularly stressful or emotional event, such as a death or major life circumstance change.

Sometimes Christians feel that depression is a fault in their faith, or a lack of faith. This is not necessarily the case. In fact, some well-known Christians have suffered from depression, even some very admired leaders. One great preacher, who may be one of the most-quoted preacher in modern times, is Charles Spurgeon. He is known for his captivating messages, which caught the attention of all of England in his time. He was by all accounts a godly man, who practiced what he preached. And Charles Spurgeon suffered from depression. In fact, some have said that had he been diagnosed in our day, he would have been considered to have major depression.

Here are a few things he said about depression:

“I find myself frequently depressed - perhaps more so than any other person here. And I find no better cure for that depression than to trust in the Lord with all my heart, and seek to realize afresh the power of the peace-speaking blood of Jesus, and His infinite love in dying upon the cross to put away all my transgressions.” - Charles Spurgeon

“I know, perhaps as well as anyone, what depression means, and what it is to feel myself sinking lower and lower. Yet at the worst, when I reach the lowest depths, I have an inward peace which no pain or depression can in the least disturb. Trusting in Jesus Christ my Savior, there is still a blessed quietness in the deep caverns of my soul.” -Charles Spurgeon

Spurgeon pointed out that depression is not necessarily a sin:

“No sin is necessarily connected with sorrow of heart, for Jesus Christ our Lord once said, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death." There was no sin in Him, and consequently none in His deep depression." -Charles Spurgeon

He also spoke of how depression can come after happy times. People who have completed a great task that they have worked towards often feel depressed after it is all over. Ask an athlete who won the championship, or an actor who worked on a part for months, or a musician who prepared for a concert, or an engineer who completed a major project. Each of these would have put all their heart and soul and energy into the goal, and once the goal has been achieved, for many, a time of depression can follow. Retirement can have this effect for some as well.

“Poor human nature cannot bear such strains as heavenly triumphs bring to it; there must come a reaction. Excess of joy or excitement must be paid for by subsequent depressions. While the trial lasts, the strength is equal to the emergency; but when it is over, natural weakness claims the right to show itself.” -Charles Spurgeon

Finally, Spurgeon noted the ultimate solution to the problem of depression:

“The worst forms of depression are cured when Holy Scripture is believed.” -Charles Spurgeon

Spurgeon had long seasons of depression. Sometimes it was somewhat explainable, such as the time there was a crush at one of his meetings. Someone yelled fire and caused a panic, and people died. Other times, it seemed to be seasonal. Spurgeon recognized both the physical and spiritual aspects. For the physical side, he would take long walks, or get out into nature. If you have depression, you ought to consider the physical factors. If your diet is terrible, that will affect your emotions. If you don’t do anything to get moving, if you never get a little sunshine on your face, your body will not be at its best, and when that happens, your moods and emotions are effected.

Do not discount these factors. As someone who has been very unhealthy at times and at other times have done better with diet and exercise, I can affirm that these are real and impactful factors in our emotional health. My mood is much better when I am taking care of the physical body. So when you are depressed, you ought to examine your habits and see if your diet or lack of exercise is contributing to your sadness or depression.

But depression most certainly has a spiritual side as well. So how do we deal with that side of depression?

I’ve heard people say at times that you shouldn’t complain to God - Or should you?

Well, I would say that scripture gives many examples of godly men and women complaining to God. The complaint may not necessarily be a sin. But it might, if is includes an accusation against God, such as the accusation that he isn’t just. In general, though, prayer will often include a complaint of sorts. In fact, praying for healing involves a complaint. When doctors see a patient, what is one of the words they use? “Patient complains of a sore shoulder”. The symptom, or reason the patient is there, is called the complaint. When we pray for healing, it is a complaint. The problem is not in making the complaint, but there would be a problem if we accused God of evil in our complaint.

So it is not necessarily the case that a complain is sinful. And God already knows what our complaints are anyway, even before we state them.

There is an entire book of the bible that is titled “Lamentations”. This title could possibly have been translated to mean something like book of complaints. And it was written by a prophet who made quite a few complaints. I’ve used this passage before in discussing depression or sadness or despair.

Cry out to God

Let Him know your complaint

Request his help

Resolve to worship

Be in command of your emotions

Jeremiah: The Weeping Prophet

He believed God, and so he wept. He pleaded with the people to repent, he believed God would keep his word in judgement as well as blessing, so he wept.

Lamentations chapter 3:

Acrostic: Suffering from A-Z

22 letters

66 verses

Acrostic could have been to help people memorize this. Lamentations was something part of the culture, recited at solemn events such as funerals. A recounting that life is full of suffering, but God is graciously extending his mercy to all those who follow him.

Lamentations 3:1-3 (ESV)

Lamentations 3:1–3 ESV

I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.

Very cheerful stuff here.

Lamentations 3:4–6 ESV

He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.

Jeremiah is in the struggle.

Lamentations 3:7–8 ESV

He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy; though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer;

Have you ever felt shut out by the Lord? If so, you are not alone.

CS Lewis, as he was grieving over his lost wife, said:

“But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.” - CS Lewis

What a shocking statement from the man who inspired the hope of thousands with his Narnia books and other works!

“You can’t see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears… Is it the very intensity of the longing that draws the iron curtain, that makes us feel we are staring into a vacuum when we think about our dead?” - CS Lewis

But he also admitted that his view of God was imperfect:

“My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say this shattering was one of the marks of His presence?” - CS Lewis

Lamentations 3:9–24 ESV

he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked. He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow. He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver; I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.” Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

Great is thy faithfulness: the hymn is based on this: that although we suffer, question God, and even feel oppressed by Him (which may sometimes be our impression), he is faithful. He will keep his word. The blessings and curses of scripture, he will keep. For those who scorn him, the curses. For those who ignore him, the curses. But for those who trust in him, who love Him, and seek to do his will, and abandon their life of sin and embrace a life of the Spirit, He will bless and see us through those difficult times.

The end result of our faith is not in this life, but in eternity, and He will keep his promise to those who put faith in him.

Lamentations 3:25–27 ESV

The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

Good, how can bearing the yoke be good? How can going through difficult times be good?

James 1:2–4 (ESV)

Testing of Your Faith

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Lamentations 3:28–66 ESV

Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults. For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men. To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth, to deny a man justice in the presence of the Most High, to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not approve. Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins? Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord! Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven: “We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven. “You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us, killing without pity; you have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through. You have made us scum and garbage among the peoples. “All our enemies open their mouths against us; panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction; my eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of the daughter of my people. “My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, until the Lord from heaven looks down and sees; my eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city. “I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause; they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me; water closed over my head; I said, ‘I am lost.’ “I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’ You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’ “You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life. You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord; judge my cause. You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me. “You have heard their taunts, O Lord, all their plots against me. The lips and thoughts of my assailants are against me all the day long. Behold their sitting and their rising; I am the object of their taunts. “You will repay them, O Lord, according to the work of their hands. You will give them dullness of heart; your curse will be on them. You will pursue them in anger and destroy them from under your heavens, O Lord.”

How can the believer get through? Remember what Spurgeon said the solution is: Believe Scripture. And if we believe scripture, then we will believe what Peter said about the results of our trials.

1 Peter 1:6–7 (ESV)

6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

If we believe scripture, we can believe what Paul wrote about the faith that brings peace, and the hope that will not put us to shame, and we can believe that even as we are suffering.

Romans 5:1–5 (ESV)

Peace with God Through Faith

5 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

James said count it all joy, Peter said rejoice, Paul said rejoice in suffering, and Jesus gave hope to those who seem in this world to be the weakest:

Matthew 5:2–12 (ESV)

Matthew 5:2–12 ESV

And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The problem with suffering is that we must suffer through it. The only way to get through suffering is to suffer through it, and the only way to suffer through it and make it through to the end of it is to trust in the Word of God.

Trials perfect our faith, endurance, character, and hope.

Think of the stories you like to read, or hear, or see a movie made of. In all of the greatest stories, the hero or main characters have to endure some trial or suffering, or are faced with obstacles to the happiness they pursue. No one wants to read a story about someone with an uneventful life. Why is that? Because an author cannot develop a character worth reading about who has never faced a trial. That might work for a comic strip, but no one will read a novel about people with no troubles or trials.

The heroes of faith in Scripture, the great characters in literature, are those who go through great difficulties and trials. And so it is that our God who loves us is developing us as characters in His great story. He has chosen to allow us to go through trials and difficulties because someday we will become the characters he has in mind, and just as an author of a novel is the only one who knows where the character development arc is heading, so God knows how our lives will turn out.

But in a novel, in order for it to have some plausibility, some constants must apply. And so it is that God has given us the constants that apply to us. We find in scripture that He has given us that He has told us why there are trials, and how we can expect Him to act. And the promise for the believer is that he will complete our story in a very favorable way.

I have given you this morning three examples of men who had an impact on the faith: Jeremiah, Charles Spurgeon, and CS Lewis. All of them went through some very dark times, where they questioned their own salvation, their faith, and their eternal destiny. All of them are considered great men. There is no shame in doubt, no shame in despair, unless that doubt and despair is not remedied by a lasting trust that God’s Word is true.

Getting through those seasons of difficulty requires us to use all the tools God has given us: Reading His Word, being encouraged by the church, and crying out to Him for help.

Psalm 43 ESV

Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me! For you are the God in whom I take refuge; why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling! Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. 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.