Depression

During times of economic difficulty and job loss, depression numbers grow, especially among the male population. Whenever circumstances around us are in a downturn, it causes many to feel down inside. As we lose confidence about the future, we can believe that our chances for advancement are lessened. When we base our future on human thinking, it is easy to allow circumstances to get us down. When we base our future on God’s promises, we can be confident in His power and faithfulness, which are both greater than circumstances. In this article we will briefly define depression,

What is Depression?
Depression, oversimplified, is the loss of hope. It is experienced as a down feeling that comes when we stop believing that life will be good for us in the future. Hope can be defined as a belief that life will go well with us and we will receive what we want in the future. Hope is confidence about the future. When we stop believing that our future will be good and believe that our future holds nothing but disappointment, we can spiral down into a depressed state. When we stop trusting God for our future and allow our doubts and fears to dominate our conscious minds, we can become discouraged and depressed.

Inner Dialogue
When people are depressed, they often are not sure why or how they got that way. They may think and feel that “no one feels the way I do”. We can ask, “Why am I so sad and why can’t I get over this”; “Why did this happen to me”, “Where is the light at the end of this tunnel”? Christians who become confused about God’s goodness when He allows them to suffer can go through a crisis of faith that leads to depression. Their inner dialogue will be filled with hurtful and angry discussions about why God allowed them to suffer the painful event. Every Christian who endures the spiritual journey through their life will go through some form of discouragement to some degree.

Physical Connection
Depression also can have a physical connection along with the mental and emotional suffering. When we are depressed, the neural receptors of our brain can be damaged, making it very difficult to pull out of it. Psychologists are not certain which comes first, the mental or physical, whether the mental causes the physical or the physical causes the mental. It is clear that there are genetic and environmental links from one generation to the next because children of depressed mothers and fathers often experience their own depression in adult life. The physical aspects of depression can be alleviated through medications that can even help the mental and emotional difficulties of depression.

Let’s summarize a few ideas to make sure we understand depression. It is deep discouragement that we go into when we suffer the loss of something or someone important. Depression can occur if we get stuck in the grieving process and don’t reach the resolution phase. The key trigger seems to be a loss of hope about the future. If we begin to anticipate continuing disappointment in the future, we lose hope that God will provide the things we want in the future. We lose the motivation that drove us ahead, the drive to pursue our goals and we go into a low place. The good news about depression is that God has a sure solution for it if we will get serious about His plan.

Heb 12:5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;

When God allows loss to train us in His will, we can faint and lose heart, which are bible terms for discouragement and depression.

Causes of Depression
Let’s further examine what we have already stated about what causes depression. First, it robs us of the happiness that we can have in life. It is a result of mishandling loss by believing negative sayings and images about the future and failing to believe positive images about the future. It is inevitable that we will suffer loss and the loss of someone we deeply value or something we see as necessary for happiness. When we do suffer loss, it is important that we grieve and get over it in a reasonable amount of time. We can get stuck in our grief when we refuse to accept God’s will and right to allow our loss, so that we grieve without hope.

1 Thessalonians 4:13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope.

We can become angry with God for our loss and then become angry with our self for fighting with God. This process can cause us to lose confidence in our self and even in God’s good intentions to bless us. If we will tell our self that we will be reunited with the one we lost because of the resurrection, we can regain our hope for the future. The truth of God’s word is always our answer for every problem in life.

The idea of loss can be connected to many things in life. We can feel loss if we fail to achieve a goal or we begin to have health problems. We might react to the imagined loss of future opportunities or even real losses. The difficult truth is that God doesn’t mean for us to hold on to anything or anyone in this life. Everything comes and goes, even life itself and the only permanence is found in the next life with God. When we are earthly attached and focused, we are vulnerable to depression and anxiety. As we grow in the Lord and detach or hearts from the things of this life, we find freedom to be content and more able to accept the losses we endure.

Intensification of Depression
Many people who suffer from depression feel ashamed of it and believe the lie that tells them that only the weakest of us get depressed. Those who feel ashamed of being depressed try to keep it a secret so that their weakness won’t be exposed. Shame about depression only adds to depression and secrecy to hide weakness cuts us off from the help we desperately need. When depression is kept secret it increases and intensifies feelings of shame and hopelessness. The brain becomes overloaded and we sink into a deeper hole within our own hearts. We can live for years with a low-grade depression that hinders our ability to manage our responsibilities and causes us to miss the opportunities to enjoy the pleasures life has for our lives. It is difficult to function as a good mate or parent when we are depressed and trying to hide it. In the most extreme cases, deep depression leads to suicide, the ultimate harm to family and loved ones.

Coming out of Depression
Depression is a breakdown in our faith in the Lord and is really a series of mental sins. One of the first ways to come out of depression is to stop hiding our problems and be honest about them. John tells us that honesty about our failures begins with God.

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Confession means to admit and be honest with God about our sins. Depression is a downward spiral in our thoughts and feelings that results from believing lies and committing the mental sins of self-pity, fear and shame. When we recognize that we have chosen to think our self into this hole and admit it to God, we are making the first move to correct the problem.
Secondly, God has provided the body of Christ with its individual members with their individual spiritual gifts to edify one another. Depression is a state of soul that often can be helped by encouraging words of truth from gifted believers. Depression is the result of believing lies about our self and the future and when we are supernaturally encouraged with truth by gifted believers it can help move us in a better direction. Recovery from depression is a journey not a one shot decision.

Ephesians 4:15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ,

Finally, the journey out of the hole of depression is a journey of reestablishing hope and confidence in God’s grace and love for us. Hope is the product of trusting God’s good intentions and believing that he has a positive future for us. The bible gives us the truth about how to find hope in the difficult environment of the devil’s world.

The bible teaches us that we find hope in the gospel (Col 1:23) because we are given eternal life when we believe it. This hope comes from God’s love for us (Rom 5:4-5), is laid up in heaven (Col 1:5), is connected to our calling in Christ (Eph 1:18), is learned from the promises of the bible (Rom 15:4), is the work of the Holy Spirit and is experienced as confidence when we trust the promises of God (Rom 15:13).

Depression is a result of telling our self lies about our future when we experience the pain of loss and disappointment. These lies paint a bleak picture and distort the truth about God’s love and good intentions toward us. The lies cause us to lose hope in His care for us and we find our self in a deep hole wanting to give up. We combat and defeat our lies by learning, believing and telling our self the truth of God. The truth is found in His word, revealed by the Spirit and renews our hope when we choose to tell it to our self and believe it instead of our lies.

Telling Self the Truth
I have helped many people who were depressed and talking suicide. When we discussed the inner dialogue they were circulating in their minds, telling themselves, it became clear why they wanted to end their lives. They had gone though some type of painful loss, couldn’t seem to get past the pain and had concluded that they would never feel any better within their hearts. When we were able to list the lies they were telling their self, we were then able to confront these lies and fight them with truthful, hope filled thoughts. When a client would choose to be alert to their inner voices and take charge of what they said to themselves, they were able to turn their depression around in short order. Some refused to stop telling themselves the lies and preferred to remain in their hopeless state. I felt for them but when they refused to be responsible for their own hearts, I knew I had done all I could do. Each of us must decide what we will believe, what we will tell our self and how we feel inside. We come out of depression by choosing to reject the ideas that make us feel bad and replace them with ideas that make us feel good. God wants you to know the truth and the truth will set you free.