Dealing with Depression
Imagine this scene. A man in a fine suit has just ended the greater portion of his busiest day in the week. He goes into his private study and before he can open his book to read he begins to cry with uncontrollable longings for comfort but finds none. His disturbed wife calls his closest friends to please come and help. They pull and half-way carry him to his bedroom where they undress him, put him into his nightgown and lay him down. He was known to stay in that bed whimpering and crying for two to three solid days. After his spell had ended, he would clean up, adjust his mental state of mind and go out and about his service to His God and community as though nothing happened. I just described to you, not a business man of our present era, but rather the man they call “The Prince of Preachers,” Charles Haddon Spurgeon of Victorian England.
Listen to the great preacher himself in his wonderful book entitled, Lectures to My Students. “As it is recorded that David, in the heat of the battle, waxed faint, so may it be written of all the servants of the Lord. Fits of depression come over the most of us. Usually cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down. The strong are not always vigorous, the wise not always ready, the brave not always courageous, and the joyous not always happy.” Later in this chapter appropriately named The Minister’s Fainting Fits, “…the children of light sometimes walk in the thick darkness; …the heralds of the daybreak find themselves at times in tenfold night.” The ancient mystic, St. John of the Cross wrote a famous book entitled of all things, The Dark Night of the Soul.
Lord Byron wrote, “We of the craft are all crazy. Some are affected by gaiety, others by melancholy, but all are more or less touched.” Michael Drayton wrote, “…his raptures were, All air, and fire, which made his verses clear, For that fine madness still did retain, Which rightly should possess a poet’s rain.” In the words of the poem by Stephen Spender of those artistic temperaments, we find they are “touched with fire.” That line of poetry served as impetus in a book by Dr. Kay Jameson by the same title. She said, “…most people who have manic-depressive illness are, in fact, without symptoms (that is, they are psychologically normal) most of the time.”
The definitions of depression are: a person who experiences deep, unshakable sadness and diminished interest in nearly all activities. The term depression is also used to describe the temporary sadness, loneliness, or blues that everyone feels from time to time. Another source says it is a time of low spirits; gloominess; dejection; sadness.
The Psalmist in emphatic depression cries out, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God” (Psalm 42:11). These words are identical in Psalm 43:2 and almost identical in Psalm 42:5. Within twelve verses of inspired Scripture this emphasis is laid before us. God’s people can hurt emotionally! In some cases the pain is worse than physical. For the physical, one can often take two aspirin and sleep like a baby, yet I have known others with outstanding physical stamina that will lie awake with soul damage trying to sort their minds into a place of peace.
In I Kings 19, we find one of God’s choice servants in a place of depression. Elijah stood valiantly for the truth in I Kings 18 in the trial by fire, but now in chapter 19 when Jezebel threatened his life, he is ready to give up. Elijah became so despondent he even requested that God would allow him to die (I Kings 19:4). How did this man, one of God’s greatest prophets, get into this frame of mind? I would suggest that:
I. Elijah presumed the worst. When the messenger gave the word that Jezebel threatened his life, Elijah ran for 120 miles, until finally ending up under a juniper tree feeling sorry for himself. It seems that such a man of God, who saw what God did in giving him the victory at Mount Carmel in the previous chapter, would not be worried about what man can do unto him. “In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me” (Psalm 56:11). But he was. In the end, he did not die, but he presumed he would. It is often the fears that win over the reality. God in His kindness left this record of comfort as testified by the Psalmist, “I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears” (Psalm 34:4).
II. Elijah was under the impression that he was all alone. He said, “I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (I Kings 19:10). God almost humorously corrected his misjudgment by saying, “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal….” This was quite an exaggeration wasn’t it? He was telling God he was the only one and God was telling Him there are seven thousand beside him. No matter how lonely we may in fact be, we have this great word from God, “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5).
God’s cure for His distraught servant is the same cure for us today.
III. Elijah heard the still, soft voice of the Lord. God allowed Elijah to realize he need not look to the strong wind that could blow him off the mountain, or the earth quaking that could dissolve the very steps beneath his feet, or the fire that could burn up his dreams (I Kings 19:11,12). God, in Elijah’s most stressed out moment, permitted Him to simply hear that still, soft voice. Do you need that today?
Look at the healing message of that soothing voice: “…What doest thou here Elijah” (I Kings 19:13). God is asking the questions of the purpose that drives us. He is interested in the motivating driving force behind our actions. He is desiring faith, not fear!
Then God says, “Go return on thy way….” God next assigns Elijah the task of the prophet to anoint Hazael to be King over Syria, Jehu to be king over Israel, and Elisha to be the next prophet who will follow in his steps (I Kings 19: 15,16). The Lord understands better than we do that operating in our gift provides a healing touch. When we are tempted to stall out due to unpleasant circumstances, God requires actions that will pull us up out of those circumstances.
It is amazing that the prophet of fire, one truly “touched by fire,” needs to re-fire. Only God could do this for him. Let us all learn the lesson of Elijah. Let us have God be our driving force and let us act upon the knowledge of His will as He reveals it.
- Pastor Pope -