The Battle Of Depression

Introduction

When you review the great names and personalities of the Scriptures, you become aware very quickly that almost all of them knew, at one time or another, great discouragement and deep depression. Job is singled out as a man of God. Blameless and upright, whose staggering losses and long and painful illness brought him low.

"My days . . . come to an end without hope . . . my eye will never again see anything good." (Job 7:6&7)

Moses is described as the meekest man on earth in Numbers 12:3 and is one of the greatest examples of an ordinary man who, submitted to God, became one of the greatest of all of the Old Testament characters. He was faced with the formidable task of being the leader and "go to" man for over a million Hebrew people, as well as the administrator of God's Law. A role to which he was assigned by God, but one made more complicated by the constant tendency of the Israelites to gripe, to doubt God, and attack Moses. There came a time when Moses felt the crushing weight of this assignment and at last, he cries out, "How can I bear the troubles, burdens, and disputes of these people by myself?" (Deuteronomy 1:12)

Elijah, one of the greatest prophets of old, asked for his life to be taken. David, in his efforts to hide sin, made a journal that speaks of the total loss of strength, the fading away of all that is worthwhile in life, and groaning all day long (Psalms 32:2). Jonah, the first foreign missionary, became deeply discouraged when God did not destroy Nineveh. Jeremiah was so profoundly sad that he is known to this day as the weeping prophet and confessed that he wished he'd never been born. Then there's Nehemiah, Ezekiel, Peter and more in the pages of Scripture.

The company of the depressed is a very noble company. And whether we admit it or not, all of us have been numbered among them. Pastor Chip Ingram calls depression "the common cold of emotional disorders." All of our lips have spoken the words of discouragement and depression. All of our hearts have felt it. Every one of us has known, at one time or another, the slap of setback, the grief of loss, or the disheartening effects of stress. To be human is to feel that numbing, exhausting, de-motivating fog of depression.

And then there is a kind of depression that is even more complicated because it's triggers lie within in the form of chemical imbalance, which means we cannot escape the black hole without medical attention. Some of you know the private battle of a weary sadness that can take on many forms and show itself in many ways.

What adds to the burden of the depressed and discouraged is the common and misguided notion that good Christians don't get depressed. Any hint of depression around the church, and clichés start to surface. "You just need to have more faith" or "Remember: rejoice in the Lord always!" Or sometimes it comes off as a pep talk, "Come on, get up and get moving! Stop the pity party and pull yourself together! What will people think of God if they see you like this?"

And of course, that just pushes those who are depressed deeper into the hole and teaches the discouraged that unless they want to hear those cheap clichés again, they had better fake happiness. We're not going to do that today. Instead, I want to show you that God is closer than you think when you are troubled and depressed.

Psalm 77 is an intensely helpful passage when you're in the pits. Let me outline a few steps that give us a pattern we can follow to regain emotional balance when life gets you down.

1. Send an SOS to God. (Psalms 77:1-3 & 7-9)

"I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and He will hear me. In my day of trouble I sought the Lord. My hands were lifted up all night long; I refused to be comforted. I think of God; I groan; I meditate; my spirit becomes weak."

Right away we hear the hopelessness. Asaph draws pictures with words that depict textbook desperation. For instance, the word trouble in verse 2, describes a feeling of being confined, of the walls closing in. Asaph felt like he was in a dark tunnel, only there is no light at the end. When he says his soul refuses to be comforted, he means he tried to shake this off by the normal means we all resort to, but it wasn't working. He closes verse 3 saying that when he meditates, when he ponders the situation, trying to think his way through his problems: "my spirit becomes weak." His emotions sabotage reason. He can't sleep he's so depressed. He stretched out his hand like a drowning man, longing to be saved.