When You Are Depressed ...

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Matt. 27:46

I remember a young man in his twenties once commented to me, “I don’t understand why people get depressed. Life is too short to be sad. You just choose to be happy and go on.” That’s a nice sentiment, but it (sometimes) doesn’t square with the reality of life. My first reaction was to ask him, “You’ve never been married, have you?” Now, I’m not slamming marriage, I’m stating a truth. We would think something was seriously wrong if a person floated through life and never had a fight with his or her spouse, never were disappointed by something a spouse had done, or never grieved after losing a spouse, a dream, some independence, or the ability to do something he or she held dear.

If you think about it, the only way you could live a life without pain would be to detach yourself from caring about anything. Indeed, Buddhism teaches that one can only reach nirvana by shedding all attachments. The problem with this concept is that we were created to care about people and our own outcome, regardless of what we may say. It goes against all that has been placed within us to be loners. All we have to do to confirm this fact is look around and observe those who isolate themselves by not allowing others into their life or those who live for themselves. These are among the saddest people in the world. So protecting your heart from any attachments that might cause pain is not really living. As I thought about it later, I came to the conclusion that you have never really experienced earthly life if you have never felt the crushing heartaches of life. This includes the pain as well as the joy.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Heb. 4:15

The most wondrous aspect of Christianity is that Jesus came and experienced all joys and sorrows that we could ever experience and them some. No other world religion has a God that has done this for us. Jesus felt temptation, sorrow, abandonment, betrayal, and a thousand other passions to the fullest. Where God is gracious is that He prevents us from feeling the fullness of these things, while He poured them out in their completeness upon Jesus.

It blows me away to think that God prevents me from feeling the full weight and consequence of my sin, yet He poured it out completely upon Jesus. God is so gracious to us; He knows that we would go insane, or worse, if we were made to fully understand what our sin really looked like and what it meant. Jesus, however, experienced the full reality of this earthly existence. He really lived life. Jesus suffered the crushing dread of depression in the garden as He faced the prospect of being made sin for us and the heartbreaking abandonment of the Father while He was on the cross. If you think about it, the only way Jesus could have escaped the crushing depression of His situation would be if He were crazy or a fool. And of course Jesus was neither of these.

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials... I Peter 1:6

Though depression is a natural physical and mental response to pain, trauma, uncertainty or a host of other circumstances, the question still remains “why must we face depression?” Part of the difficulty in the Christian’s experience of suffering is the question of suffering itself. This can be further heightened by the fact that the Bible never gives us a definitive answer to sorrow, pain, death, and depression. The only thing I can say about our distress is what the Bible explicitly says as well as share my experiences which correlate to those facts. I believe we can ask why and ask questions the Bible never asks or answers. The problem with doing so, in my experience, is that it causes more problems with my spirit and mind than it solves. I finally came to some sort of peace when I let the unanswerable or unasked questions alone.

This passage teaches that first Christians do have something to rejoice about even when everything else in our lives has fallen apart. We can rejoice that our inheritance is kept guard in heaven for us so no one can take it away from us and so no one, including ourselves, can corrupt it.

This passage also teaches that sometimes being distressed, or grieved as the English Standard Version states it, is necessary. It was necessary that Jesus be grieved, so He could say He knows experientially what we feel. It was necessary for him to be grieved, so He could substitute His death for the death his children deserve. It was also necessary for Jesus to experience the abandonment of the Father, so Jesus could prove His love was not solely based on what the Father had given Him. Jesus proved His unconditional love for the Father by loving God even while He was rejected.

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. I Peter 2:21

Christ’s sufferings were necessary to give us an example of how to love God when we are grieved. They were also necessary to demonstrate what it takes to help those trapped by sin and grief. If we are to be conformed to His image we must be conformed to His sufferings.

He also demonstrated to us in the garden what we should do when we are depressed: you call out to God and continue on with the last thing God asked you to do. Jesus was deeply grieved at the prospect of what He must do, but He didn’t allow His mental or physical reservations to keep Him from the task at hand. Jesus trusted that the same God who led Him into the wilderness and into the garden would lead Him on to His next task. In the same way, you can be sure that the God who may lead you “through the valley of the shadow of death” will lead you onto “the House of the Lord.” We cannot allow our depression to keep us from our mission at hand.

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