Depression – How to Think Right

Q. I feel so “down” lately. It seems like God is far away and I can’t shake the feeling of darkness all around me. Any ideas how to get back to sunshine and lightness in our lives?

Answer:

I’m not sure we have many “happy” answers for you. It appears many of us feel this way lately. It’s hard not to when so many people are struggling to keep their jobs and homes. Families are breaking apart because of the stress.

Added to that crime is on the rise. Anger is multiplying everywhere. Children feel our tensions and act out, too – even in the schools. Teachers see it and feel it. Diseases such as heart disease and cancer seem to be taking its toll on more people than usual, too.

Close to God?

I don’t know the official statistics but it does seem like your perceptions are correct. In this atmosphere it’s hard to feel close to God. Yet, this old saying does portray some truth:

“If you don’t feel close to God anymore, guess who moved?”

The very fact you are a Believer means that you will be sensitive to this world on a spiritual level and be saddened by its darkness. So do not be suprised when you feel depressed at times. In fact you should expect it. It is very likely that our Lord is teaching or testing you in order to strengthen you.

In times like these we are to redouble our efforts and become deliberate Christians. We admit that evil exists and yet we decide to do the will of our Lord when it is most needed. Jesus spoke this to Peter:

“Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strenghten your brethren.” (Lk 22:31).

So even though we feel depressed, it is at that precise moment we are to reach out and encourage others who need our help. I am sure that if we look around we will find friends, family and even strangers who could use our encouragement. Remember we are to be the light in a dark place and we cannot do that if there is no darkness.

A Wasted Generation

The Bible presents many stories of people who lived in dark times. Four hundred years after Joseph’s life the Egyptian Hebrews were terribly oppressed in life-threatening situations. Although there were at least two million of them they were treated cruelly as slaves in hard-working conditions.

Training a New Generation

Once God rescued them through the leadership of Moses they spent 40 years in the wilderness on a trip that should have taken them just 10 days! They were rebellious, discouraged and a whining group of people. Through their difficult circumstances God trained up a new generation of warriors who could take the Promised Land and defeat the giants in their lives – literally and figuratively.

A Spoiled People

We aren’t so different today. In 2007 Jerry Robinson said of us, “Without a doubt, America has become a house-flipping, day-trading, non-saving, debt-exporting, Chinese-importing, oil-sucking, money-printing, credit-loving, entitlement-demanding, foreign-financed nation” (Robinson 2009, 7).

9/11 Sacrifices?

In other words, we’re a spoiled group of ex-wealthy people who had life easy and are now “facing the music” of our previous behaviors.

For example, what did our previous President ask of us after the horrid terrorist attack now called “9/11?”

“Get out there and shop. Take vacations.”

That was our President’s advice to his war-ravaged people! We didn’t hear: “We need to stop our silly consumption, buy war bonds and devote the necessary manpower to finding Osama bin Laden and his band of plotting murderers. We need to make sacrifices to achieve our goals”

No, instead his message was “Go shopping at your local mall and take a vacation.”

That was not the message of sacrifice we needed to hear at this point in our history. The resulting challenges for America are bound to be difficult, long lasting, and discouraging to many of us. Robinson concludes his message with these words:

“As the American economic empire enters its final stages of decline, the message that arises will be one of sacrifice. This coming era of “sacrifice” will do more than simply reveal the absurdity of America’s immoral financial excesses. It will expose the American Church’s reliance upon man-made kingdoms. Instead of focusing their adherents upon the necessity of the coming Kingdom of God, the American Church has often misplaced its hope in worldly kingdoms. When the government is finally forced to demand sacrifice from the living, the American Church, inebriated by a false prosperity, may finally awaken to the need for the coming Kingdom of God. Then, various versions of the message of sacrifice will ring loudly across the United States of America.”…

(Robinson 2009, 229-230).

Accurate Perceptions

I think you must be a highly sensitive, astute person with excellent discernment and accurate perceptions!

Reality Show

Yes, you are right. This is our current reality show. We are living in dark times. The days ahead will be difficult and demanding. The best thing we can do for each other is to admit the truth and begin the process of healing ourselves and our nation.

Who Runs Things for Now?

We must begin to realize that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). Satan is the “ruler of this world” and the “prince of the power of the air” (John 14:30 and Ephesians 2:2). It’s an ugly, broken, tragic world ruled by the most evil power in the entire universe. That’s reality!

Looking forward to Better Days

Maybe instead of fighting the darkness and cheering ourselves up, our real job is to begin the process of learning how to rejoice or be thankful when we are “distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7).

Not happiness now. Not here. But, then – and there. We “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16). “For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come” (13:14).

That is when we will truly be happy and live in the light.

__________________________

References:

Robinson, Jerry. 2009. Bankruptcy of our nation. 2009. Green Forest, AZ: New Leaf Press.

Ryrie Study Bible, NASB. 1996. Chicago: Moody.