Holding on to Hope: 10 Action Steps to Fight Depression
1. Call out to God
There are all sorts of Psalms in Scripture in which the psalmist calls out to God in distress.[1] The Bible encourages us to call out to God and be real with Him about where we’re at.
2. Fight Against Depression’s Lies
Depression often says things like: “You have no hope” and “You’re not worth it.” Those statements, however, are in flat contradiction to what the Scripture says. For example, look at Lamentations 3:21-24: “This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I have hope in Him.’”
3. Fight Against the Lie that says Life’s Meaningless
I agree with Matthew McCullough, “It is resurrection or vanity.”[2] Thankfully, through Christ Jesus, “Meaningless! Meaningless!” (Eccl. 1:2) is not the end of the story. In light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have purpose! Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are called to work hard for the Lord, knowing that our labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58). This is good news![3] There is something in life that counts, faith expressing itself through love (Gal. 5:6).
Set Us Free
Paradise,
polluted and poisoned.
Our resounding plea:
“Set us free.”
We are writhing and reeling from the Fall.
Our affections wander and wane,
our struggles remain.
O’ Lord set us free.
We fettered our shackles,
we tossed the key.
But O’ Messiah, set us free.
The Psalms and Our Songs
The Psalms are important for a number of reasons. For one, they take up a fairly large portion of Scripture and they have been a comfort for many. Spurgeon, known as the “prince of preachers,” struggled with depression and he found comfort and solace in the Psalms. He spent some twenty years writing his three-volume commentary on the Psalms.
The Psalms are also important because we are exhorted to sing Psalms. The Psalms are important because they give powerful truths poetic expression. This is helpful because it not only helps us remember the truths but helps us feel the truth. The Psalms are beautiful and will have a very practical impact on us when we soak in them.
Interestingly, Scripture has laments in it and so does our surrounding culture. Most Christian circles, however, do not have laments. Why is this? Is it because Christians are always happy? And always live victoriously? I don’t think so.
How should Christian art be informed by the Christian worldview? (part 4)
We have already made some important observations about how the Christian worldview impacts Christian art. In this post, we are going to…
Consider the Crash
Man disobeyed and rebelled (Gen. 2:16-17; 3:6) and this brought spiritual and physical death (Gen. 2:17; 3:19), pain (3:16-17), difficulties (3:18-19), and separation from God (3:23-24). This is the bad news that we all live in (so, in a future post, we’ll consider our current condition).
In Genesis 3:1-24 we see the Fall of humanity. We see various forms of death given birth to. We see “’an ever-growing avalanche of sin, a continually widening chasm between man and God’. It progresses from disobedience, to murder, to indiscriminate killing, to titanic lust, to total corruption, and uncontrolled violence.”[1] Sin truly brings a litany of death. “Disease, genetic disorders, famine, natural disasters, aging, and death itself are as much the result of sin as are oppression, war, crime, and violence. We have lost God’s shalom—physically, spiritually, socially, psychologically, culturally. Things now fall apart.”[2] Sin opens Pandora’s box and unleashes a horde of evil.
As we have seen, God’s creation was intended to be good, beautiful, and aesthetically pleasing to our senses, emotions, and intellect beyond what we can imagine. So, in the Fall, we see we have marred more than the mediocre; we have marred the Michelangelos of the world. We have marred superb beauty and made it unbelievably hideous.
Suffering and Our Savior
When caring for someone who is suffering it is often best to say little. It is often best to sit in silence and just be a support by your presence. Even when people ask, “Why? …Why did this happen? …Why are we going through this?… Why?…” It is often still better to refrain from giving an answer. Instead of offering answers (that really can’t be satisfactory) we should pray and point them to our God who cares.
However, as Ecclesiastes 3:7 tells us, there is a time to be silent but there is also a time to speak. When it is time to speak here are some things that I have found helpful in the midst of suffering.
Suffering is a result of sin
Suffering was not part of God’s original intention for the world. God created the world “very good” (Gen. 1:31). It was only after humanity rebelled that suffering came on the scene.
Sadly, there are all sorts of effects because of sin. The world is fallen. And we have faulty and frail bodies. We are susceptible to Lyme disease, cancer, and all sorts of other things. We all suffer, we will all die. That is sadly the way the world is because of the curse that sin brought.
The suffering we experience is not just the result of various kinds of sickness. It is also the result of being sinned against. People afflict others with emotional and physical pain and fail to love as they should. So we see, sin brings upon the world sickness as well as psychological sorrow. Sin is not good.
So, in one sense, we can give an answer to the “why?” question by saying sadly the world is broken and we as individuals are broken physically and spiritually. However, that’s not all. We, thankfully, are not left there. We also see…
God takes our suffering seriously
Our Lord is not up in the sky indifferent to suffering.[1] God takes sin and its effects seriously. Let’s look at four ways God sympathizes with us and takes sin seriously.
First, we see Jesus sympathizes with our suffering. John 11:35 says that “Jesus wept” at the death of Lazarus. Jesus was “deeply moved” (v. 33, 38) and “greatly troubled” (v. 33). Jesus can sympathize with us and our suffering (cf. Heb. 4:15). Our Lord is not up in heaven unaware of the suffering of His servants. Our Lord is aware and He cares. He cares deeply.
Our Lord cares so much that second He comes as our Savior. We see “God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.”[2] Jesus offers a solution to the problem of suffering, by suffering in our place. Suffering without medicine or morphine, suffering on a Roman instrument of torture. Even as we grieve over suffering and death we do not grieve as those without hope. We have hope! We have hope through Jesus!
Jesus didn’t heal everyone when He walked the earth and He doesn’t heal everyone now, but He does take care of our biggest problem. Jesus suffered, bled, and died. He was cast out by the Father so that we could be welcomed in.
God is good. Even when we cannot see His hand, we can trust His heart. God memorialized His love for us, when we see the cross, we see that God’s hands are open wide to welcome us in, comfort, and renew us.
So, dear beloved, take heart, Jesus, who is God, weeps as you weep. He feels your misery. However, He does not leave us there (as everybody else has to because they are not Lord) but offers us the solution to all pain and misery. How does He do that, what solution does He give? Jesus gives Himself, His own life. He takes the misery upon Himself on the cross. He bears the wrath we all deserve. Through what Christ did on the cross, for all those in Christ, all things will be restored, made new!
Actually, even now we, in Christ, have the Holy Spirit as a down payment of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it (Eph. 1:14). So, in the midst of suffering and difficulties, we shouldn’t project ourselves into a graceless future. Because, third, God will be there, grace will be there. The LORD will not leave us or forsake us (Deut. 31:6). Our Shepherd, who neither slumbers nor sleeps, is with us now and He will be with us through the storms of life (Ps. 23 cf. 121). Even in our suffering when we can’t form words to pray, the Spirit is there to intercede for us (Rom. 8:26).
Fourth, we see that Jesus will come back and set all things right. There will be no more reason to weep for He Himself will wipe away every tear (Rev. 21:4)! We know, as Paul says, that this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Cor. 4:17 cf. Rom. 8:18). Read More…
How is our burden light?
“My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30)
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5)
“His commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn. 5:3)
I don’t want to, as the Pharisees, lay on burdens too hard to bear; especially since I can’t carry them myself. I want us to see that Christ carried our burdens! Christ says His burden is light. John said that Jesus’ “commandments are not burdensome.” Yet, how is this true in light of the all-encompassing call to which He calls us? Does He not tell us to take up our cross and follow Him? How is an instrument of torture light or easy?
Jesus is the image of the glory of God, the exact imprint of His nature; our call to imitate Him is no easy calling. We are to conform our life to His life, and death. So how then could Jesus say, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30)? It is because it is in Him that we have fulfilled His commandments and it is through Him that we’re empowered to fulfill His commandments. Our burden is light because Christ took our burden. Our burden is light because through Christ we have the Spirit who helps us. In Jesus, we find “rest for our souls” (v. 29)!
We will with Christian of Pilgrim’s Progress, find our yoke easy and our burden light when at the sight of the cross our burden falls off. When we realize that our true burden, namely sin, has been carried for us by none other than Jesus, the Son of God, we will cry out “His commandments our not burdensome!” They are but an overflow of joy. The grace of the call of Christ bursts all bonds of the burden of the Christian life. We do have burdens, you could say, but we carry them now with joy.[1] We carry them knowing Christ carried our sin on the cross!
While we must be faithful to carry our cross, we do so in light of the fact that Jesus died on the cross for us and bore the wrath of God in our place. We carry our cross, yet not to death but to victory! The cross for the Christian is not a sign of death but of victory. We run the race set before us, yes with a limp at times, but the pain flees, as with any runner, as we gaze upon the prize. Life, and even death, has purpose in and for Christ. Yes, there are many commands in Scripture, but they are blessings. They encourage us on towards joyous Christ-like conformity. It is only when we are in Christ that these commands can begin to be truly obeyed.
Many in the Old Testament saw God’s Law as burdensome. How then did David love and delight in God’s Law? It was because God gave David that delight. In the same way when we are in Christ the Spirit comes to reside in us and changes us. We begin to love the things that God loves. His commands become not merely demands but delights to our soul.
We could talk long about the ills of contemporary Christianity, but what is the prescribed cure? Christ is! It is through Christ that we are once-and-for-all holy in our standing before God and it is through Christ that we become holy, i.e. live holy lives. Christ is the cure. Though, that does not mean that the remedy is simplistic. The prescription for the cure has been wrought in Christ, but ultimate healing won’t come this side of Eden.
We have right standing before God in Christ. No, this does not change the fact that we must still conform ourselves (that is, by God’s empowering) to match our position. But we are right before God!
No, you and I do not rightly evangelize but praise God Jesus did, and now, in Him, it is as if we do evangelize rightly. Are we willing to suffer? Christ did suffer for us! Do you spend your time wisely? Jesus always did what pleased the Father! No, brother and sister we don’t measure up. But Christ does! And in Christ we do! In our call to imitate Christ, we are just to imitate our actual standing before God; we are to, paradoxically, be where we already are.
David Platt has rightly said,
“You will never be radical enough. No matter what you do—even if you sell all your possessions and move to the most dangerous country in the world for the sake of ministry—you cannot do enough to be accepted before God. And the beauty of the gospel is that you don’t have to. God so loved you that, despite your hopeless state of sin, he sent his Son—God in the flesh—to live the life you could not live. Jesus alone has kept the commands of God. He alone has been faithful enough, generous enough, and compassionate enough. Indeed, he alone has been radical enough.”[2]
Interestingly, the way of Christ is at the same time impossible (more than just hard) and tremendously easy. We cannot carry the burden, we cannot bear the cross yet that is why the way of Christ is easy. Because we can do nothing. It is all done in Him. Jesus said, “apart from me you can do nothing.” Thus, the call of Christ is paradoxically impossible and easy.
Our burden is light because Christ carried our burden. He carried our cross. As we see from Isaiah 53, Christ has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
“He was wounded
for our transgression;
He was crushed
for our iniquities;
upon Him was the chastisement
that brought us peace,
and with His stripes
we are healed.”
Verse 11 of this chapter says that the Righteous One, Jesus Christ, will make many to be accounted righteous. We are not innately righteous. We have sinned, we do not rightly live for the Lord, yet we are accounted righteous in Christ. We have fulfilled all righteousness, but not in ourselves, but in Christ!
[1] Paul said he had many difficulties, many burdens, on top of all that he had anxiety for all the churches (2 Cor. 11:28 cf. vv.23-28) yet he also said, “We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (4:16). “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too” (2 Cor. 1:5). In fact, Paul was burdened to death. He said at one point, “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.” (2 Cor. 1:8). We learn from 2 Corinthians 1:9-10 that at times we have burdens to teach us to rely on Christ, we learn to give Him our burden and find hope in Him. We carry burdens, but it is different now, we have Christ’s comfort abundantly now!
[2] David Platt, Radical Together, 27.
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