Tell me if you can identify with this song. “Gloom, Despair, and agony on me. Deep dark depression and endless misery. If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all, Gloom, despair, and agony on me.” I know that there are times in my past where that could’ve been the theme song of my life. And I would dare say, that I’m not the only one in this room who is like that.
More than seventeen million Americans suffer from depression. The resulting absenteeism and loss of productivity is estimated to cost the American economy more than $20 billion each year. Edward F. Ziegler calls depression "the common cold of psychological disorders.” It is just that common. We all experience days when we get the blues. And it hurts. Not the pain like you would have for a broken bone, but this is worse, this is pain that others can’t see. This is pain that others can’t understand. In one of his reoccurring bouts with depression, Abe Lincoln once said, "If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on earth."
Now some of you here today are struggling with depression. You are down and though you try to lift yourself up, you can’t seem to do it. Your friends and family say, “Just snap out of it!” or “Get over it already!” and only if you could. If only it was that easy.
This morning, I want us to look at a man in the bible, a man who did courageous things for God’s kingdom, and yet a man of God who had to battle getting discouraged and depressed. As we look at Elijah and how God helped him overcome his battle with depression, I ask this morning that you let the Holy Spirit speak to you and comfort you this morning, and allow Him to help you to overcome your thoughts of discouragement and depression.
Now Elijah had many reasons to be depressed, but I think he had more reasons why he shouldn’t be depressed. First of all, he knew the power of God. God did mighty things through Elijah. While a fugitive in a foreign land, he lived with a widow and her son. Upon Elijah’s promise, their food supply was never depleted—their last jar of flour never ran out, and the last jug of oil never ran dry. When the widow’s son mysteriously and suddenly died, Elijah raised him from the dead! Elijah knew that God worked miracles, he had saw it first hand. So why should he doubt the power of God to save now?
The second reason why Elijah shouldn’t have been afraid is that he had confidence in God. God had delivered him before and had provided and protected him many of times. When Elijah predicted a drought and a famine, the famine did come as he predicted, and Elijah was forced to flee for his life; but while he was in hiding, God sustained him by having the ravens bring food to him feeding him miraculously every day. If God, who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow cared for Elijah then, surely Elijah would know that God would take care of him in the circumstances of today.
And the third thing is that Elijah was an obedient prophet. If Elijah was a wayward prophet who had been ignoring God’s instructions, then it might be easier to understand, but Elijah was an obedient prophet. He wasn’t like Jonah he tried to run and not do what God told him to do. Elijah was living in the will of God, doing what God told him to do and doing it when God told him to do it. Yet with all this said, Elijah still got discouraged and Elijah still got depressed.
You know, we as Christians have a great deal going for us. We know that God cares for us, He’s proven it to us through the cross. We know that God provides for us, We have a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and bread in our belly. We know that God works miracles, we’ve seen it first hand in this church…and I wish I could say that as Christians we never got the blues, that we never got discouraged or depressed…but that’s simply not true.
As Christians, we have the joy, joy, joy down in our hearts, but we are not immune from having those blue moods. Great Christian men and women have struggled with bouts of deep dark depression. The great reformer Martin Luther was prone to bouts of depression so much so that he would lock himself in his study. Once his wife dressed in all black and wore a black veil, when Luther asked her, “who died?” She said, “God did!” Luther got upset and said that would never happen, and she replied, “Well then, stop acting like it has”. Even the great leader of the Protestant Reformation got depressed. Luther wasn’t the only one. Moses got depressed, David prayed that God would take him away, Job cursed the day he was born. Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers from back in the 18th century, used to get so depressed that occasionally the church deacons would have to carry him to the pulpit. Charles Spurgeon later stated that, “The best of men are but men at best.” So it is understandable for us to feel defeated and depressed and stressed out occasionally, but that should not be the norm. The Christians life is one marked by joy, but to think that means that you’ll never have those bad days when you get the blues is simply unrealistic.
Now Elijah got depressed and their were many circumstances that happened that made him vulnerable to being depressed. As we look at these, know what they are so that you can be on your guard when they happen to you. The first things that made Elijah susceptible to being depressed is that he had just won a major victory. He had just defeated 450 prophets of the false god Baal. God had won the victory, and the people’s hearts were turned back towards the One true God. Elijah had won and won hands down. What excitement that must have been, yet that made him vulnerable to being depressed. Now that sounds odd, that after being on cloud nine you are more susceptible to depression. Being on top of the mountain is great, but the problem with being on top is that the only direction you can go is down. Think about when State plays Ole Miss, and both teams are contenders for the championship, and State wins and everybody is so excited and energetic, then the next week State plays some inky-dinky team, and they struggle. Why, there’s that let down that happens. Just like many people get depressed after the Christmas holidays, because there is so much going on, that when the excitement goes, what do you do? Let me warn you, life is full of ups and downs, and when you get on those ups don’t expect that you’ll never come down. Eventually you will and you need to be prepared for that.
The second thing that made Elijah susceptible to being depressed is that he was physically exhausted. He was wore out. He had just had this day long event, then he went to wait for the rain, and when the rain first fell, he had run 18 miles to reach the capital city of Jezreel, as quickly as he could. Then, when Jezebel threatened him, he turned around and ran again. For most of the next day, he traveled deep into the desert.
He was at the point of near exhaustion...and when you are worn out, exhausted, your are more likely to succumb to thoughts of depression. Now I say this because I know how active some of you are, which is a good thing. Yet some of you are so busy that you never take any time to recharge your batteries. You are setting yourself up for a crash. Learn to take some time off. Learn how to relax. And by all means, slow down. One Saturday morning a dad opened his briefcase at home and sat working. His first grad boy asked, “Dad, What are you doing?” He said, “I didn’t get all my work finished and had to bring some home.” The boy said, “”When you go back to work Monday, why don’t you ask them to put you in a slower group?” Some of you need to be put into a slower group, or you will suffer from burnout and then set yourself up for a battle with depression.
The third reason Elijah was a prime candidate for depression is that he was the recipient of bad news. Elijah had a contract on his life. That would depress most people! Elijah had just won a great victory only to discover that the evil Jezebel was still out to get him. Instead of repenting, she was more resolved than ever to spread her wickedness. Instead of getting better, Elijah’s problems had only gotten worse. Isn’t it funny how Elijah wasn’t afraid of 450 men, yet one mean woman causes him to run for his life. Yet Jezebel wasn’t just any ordinary woman. I think the best description I’ve heard of her is that she was Satan’s wife. And when she said she was going to kill Elijah, she meant it.
Almost always, depression is preceded by some type of bad news. An old man is sitting on a street corner sobbing uncontrollably. A guy stops and says, "What’s wrong?"
The man says, "I’m 85 years old, I am married to a 22 year old gorgeous blonde who is madly in love with me." The guy says, "So why are you crying?" The old fellow looks up with tears in his eyes and says, "because I can’t remember where I live!"
When something bad happens in your life, you get upset about it. Especially if it’s one of those dreaded D words, divorce, disease, disaster, or death. Now its normal to get depressed after one of these events. In fact it would be odd if someone close to you died and you weren’t sad about it. There needs to be a normal period of mourning. But there is also a limit. If you or someone you know has gone through a horrific ordeal, and 6 months later they still haven’t got back into enjoying life, they still haven’t gotten out of the house, then there is something wrong there and that person needs help in the grieving process.
Elijah was a prime candidate for a battle with depression, and that depression effected him. First it effected his drive. Elijah wanted to give up. In vs. 4 Elijah says, “I have had enough, Lord.” Elijah had given it his best, but events only got worse, and there wasn’t any sign that they were going to get better. Psychologist call this the helpless-hopeless syndrome, and that is when bad things are happening to you and you feel helpless to stop them, and you don’t see any sign that the situation will get better in the future, so you have no hope. So like Eeyore, the say, “Why bother?”
Elijah must have thought to himself, what good have I done? Nothing’s changed so I’m just going to give up. Now Elijah did exacterate his circumstances, he was not the only one left, but it is normal when a person is depressed to think that there situation is actually worse than what it is, and Elijah saw his ordeal as hopeless, so he wanted to give up.
Some of you might feel the same way this morning. You’ve tried to keep your marriage intact, but instead of getting better things are getting worse, so you want to give up trying. You try to be a good parent, but it makes no difference. You rush home from work, fix a decent meal, and try to be nice to everyone—and all they do is gripe. Nothing you do seems to matter.
Elijah wanted to give up, in fact he got so discouraged that he wanted to end his life. He prayed, “Lord, take my life.” Charles Spurgeon wrote about how strange it was that a man who would never die, but be taken into Heaven by a chariot of fire would pray a prayer asking for God to take his life. I’m sure Elijah was glad that God didn’t answer that prayer the way Elijah wanted Him to. Yet Elijah had taken his eyes off of God and onto his problems, and he didn’t see any hope, and if you don’t have hope…you don’t believe you have a future.
Not only did Elijah want to give up, but he began to feel down about himself. He claimed that he was no better than his ancestors. People who are depressed tend to think low of themselves. They think that nobody cares, and that the world would be a better place without them. They see themselves as failures and then look for evidence to match that belief. I call this “the Charlie Brown Syndrome.” We get so accustomed to failing that we identify with it.
There was a story in the newspapers a few years back about a man in Buffalo, New York. This man was so distraught at his failings in life that he jumped out of a fourth story window and landed on a car roof below and suffered only a few facial cuts. He went back into the building, took the elevator to the fourth floor and jumped again, and once again landed on the same car roof below this time only breaking his wrist and ankle. A police officer than arrested him and took him to the hospital where I understand they put him in a first floor room. If that man felt like a failure before imagine how he feels now. When we few ourselves as failures we lose sight of who we are in Christ and we start to doubt our worth to God and to others so often depression results and suicide is not all that uncommon. So we say, “How can anybody love a person like me” or “I can’t do anything right!”
And another effect of Elijah’s depression is that he felt alone. If you feel that you’ve been left alone and that no one cares about you, then you are a prime candidate for depression. The young adult away from home for the first time, the newly widowed, the soldier just shipped overseas, and the single mom often battle depression more than others. And when you get depressed, you tend to withdraw from others, which only makes things worse, and so you begin this downward spiral into deep depression.
Now Elijah was depressed, but God wasn’t going to allow Elijah to sulk in self pity for very long. God was going to lift Elijah from that pit, and by looking at how God did that, my prayer is that you will allow God to do the same for you. Now, I don’t want to pretend that if a person who has a chemical imbalance or a serious psychological disorder that they can suddenly get well the way Elijah did. A chemical imbalance is a disorder that needs to be taken care of, but most other kinds of depression can be healed by following Elijah’s example here.
The first thing God did to answer Elijah’s depression was to meet Elijah’s physical needs. God had an angel appear an fed Elijah and Elijah then rested. Some of you today need to take better care of yourself. There’s a reason why God gave you a day of rest, take advantage of it.
The second thing God did was that He revealed Himself to Elijah. Elijah had temporarily taken his eyes off of God and instead placed them on his circumstances. So God came in the gentle whisper to comfort Elijah and reassure him. You see, God is bigger than any circumstance you may have in your life. God is bigger than any problem you may be facing today. And God is bigger than any emotion you have. If you are down, the best thing for you to do is to look up…and see God. Psalms 42:11 says, “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” So even if you don’t feel like doing it, pray…read your bible…and attend the worship services. Let God speak to you and minister to you.
The third thing that God did for Elijah’s depression is that He put Elijah to work. The worse thing you can do when you are depressed is to sit around sulking and doing nothing. Get up and get busy. God gave Elijah a list of chores to do. So instead of having a self-pity party, get out there and get involved.
Get involved in doing things and doing things that would impact the lives of others. During a lecture on mental health someone once asked Dr. Carl Menninger: "What would you advise a person to do if that person felt a nervous breakdown coming on?" Most people thought he would say, "Go see a psychiatrist immediately," but he didn’t. Much to everyone’s astonishment, Dr. Menninger said, "Lock up your house, go across the railroad tracks, find somebody in need, and help that person." If you’re depressed, look for someone in dire circumstances and take some dramatic steps to help him or her. When you reach out and serve someone else, you’ll be amazed at how much comfort you receive in return. The Bible says in 2nd Corinthians that God "comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God"
And the final thing that God did to help Elijah was that He reminded Elijah that he wasn’t alone. God had reserved a remnant of those who did not give into the Baal worship, and God gave Elijah a friend who had the same purpose in life. When you realize that you are not the only one, and that others care for you and love you, and that there are others going through the same circumstances you are going through, for some reason, things don’t seem that bad. And if you are depressed today, God has given you a group of people who care for you and love you, and they are the church…and you will be surprised that many of them either have been or are currently experiencing the same thing you are today.
But more important than that, is the fact that you are never alone because God is right there with you. In His word He has promised to never leave you nor forsake you. Even when mired in sin, God did not abandon us but rather He sent His Son to die for us on the cross. Maybe this morning, God is speaking to you, not in the mighty wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, but rather God is quietly whispering in your ear, and He is saying, “I will take care of you.” Trust in Him this day.
