At last waves of warmth and tinges of light – light with prism colors. Long have been the cold and dark days. We have survived the ‘Dungeon of Despair’ days and now, so thankfully, we have remembered forgotten promises. The believed promises (all together) are the key to unlock all the locks that keep us ‘bound in the shallows and miseries.’ How do we come to these places of bleak and sorrowful perspective? Well, although we are Christians, we are yet human and prone to such maladies. ‘All is yellow to the jaundiced eye…’ All is blurred to impaired vision. All is sad to the brokenhearted. Whether we come to such dungeons through sin, physical weariness, bereavement, regret, fear, doubt, varied combinations of these or an endless list of other causes, the result is the same – spiritual depression. Even vague familiarity with the Psalms tells us that we are not the only rueful-faced Christians in Vanity Fair or its suburbs. But there is always hope (a true Christian’s faithful companion) because we always have the sure promises of God – but sometimes we all but forget them. Even a waning hope encourages us to not resign to despair.
Paul reminds – even commands – us to rejoice in the Lord always (Philippians 4:4). Before we scold Paul (the beaten, stoned, left for dead, imprisoned Paul) we need to understand what he was telling us to do as a safeguard for our own good (Philippians 3:1). To rejoice in the Lord is not the same as rejoicing in our present circumstances. To rejoice in the Lord is to rejoice in Him – who He is and what He is: His wisdom, His control, His power… On the worst day of our worst season, as Christians we always have the voice of His Spirit reminding us of HIM – the faithful, merciful, and gracious God who never changes. This awareness is our bedrock foundation when earthquakes and black tornadoes seem to be the norm.
“God is our refuge, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea…Be still and know that I am God…” (from Psalm 46)
But to remember that there is a key within our clothing does us no good unless we act to use it. We must believe the promises and force ourselves to act and then rest upon them. It is not enough to just know what you know and then resolve to wait out our allotted time of difficulties on a raft woven of sloth and sadness, kept afloat by that resolve alone. Our feelings (whether painful or joyful) are secondary to what God has made known to us. Feelings come and go – they can change with the wind – but God never changes. His promise to never leave nor forsake us is never at question. He has loved us with an everlasting love and has therefore drawn us to Himself (Jeremiah 31:3). With him there is no variation, not even so much as the slow shifting of a shadow on a sunny day (James 1:17; Hebrews13:8; Malachi 3:6). These are unshakable truths whether we feel them or not. We are to bring every thought – anything that rises up against our knowledge of and trust in God – into obedience and captivity to Christ (II Corinthians 10:5).
Our knowledge of God must reign over our fluctuating feelings. Of course we are not to be stoics, thinking that feelings are altogether abstract to our faith – they can be wonderfully good and they are indeed part of our God-given physical makeup and are also part of our worship and walk with God. But we must let the mind inform the heart. We inform the heart through knowledge of the Holy Scriptures – God’s written and preserved revelation of Himself to mankind. Away dullness of mind, of heart and spirit! It is not our duty to feel, but to believe and act upon that belief.
The Evil One knows that God is not glorified when we hide our light under a veil of paralyzing depression. He knows that our Christian testimonies are ineffective when our prevailing facial countenance is one of bewilderment, sadness and gloom. May God cause us to know and breathe out from our hearts,
“The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; and His song will be with me in the night. A prayer to the God of my life” (Psalm 42:8).
There is no good to come from bemoaning how we “used to go along with the throng (of other believers) and (even) lead them in procession” or any other aspect of what we used to be or what we formerly did. If we have fallen and repented, returning to our walk with God in true contrition, then we dare not let Satan take advantage of his countless devices to yet ruin our testimony and the remainder of our lives. If God has forgiven us, if other believers have forgiven us (as they dutifully should), then we must also forgive ourselves lest a sense of constant guilt and shame renders us not ‘suitable’ for our given callings.
May God also forever remind us,
“…God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (II Timothy 1:7). Keep this nugget of golden scripture in your memory and never lose it! Know that God’s Spirit is within you (Romans 8: 9&11) and His Spirit is not one of dread, misery, sadness or fear. His Spirit is of power (the same power that raised Christ from the dead), of love (the same love that sent our Redeemer to His death on a cross), and of a sound mind. “…God is not a God of confusion but of peace…” (I Cor. 14:33). We need to constantly focus on who and what we are “in Christ”. We must know that His grace will be sufficient for us in all circumstances (II Corinthians 12:9). We must think and do according to what we know of God’s faithful promises. Then we might actually make use of the key that opens the locked doors that bar us from the light and warmth of His felt presence and the comfort of His sure promises. If God (for unknown reasons) hides his face from us for a season (no felt warmth, no discernable light) we must still know that He has His good reasons and that “all things work together for good to those to those who love God…” (Romans 8:28). As His children, in all circumstances and conditions, we are what we are by His grace alone (I Corinthians 15:10). His children never shed a tear of grief in vain. We shall always yet praise Him if we are His. ~ DLA (Suggested Scripture Readings: Psalm 42, 142 and referenced passages)
This writing was inspired by personal spiritual affliction, the words of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in Spiritual Depression and by remembered images from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. I would also like to express that I am not ‘anti-medication’ for treatment of clinical depression, which can be quite different in its causes than those of spiritual depression. However, sometimes the two may occur simultaneously.
