storm

This is the second article that I wrote for the local newspaper.

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Depression is a frightening thing.  It descends quickly causing all hope and ambition to flee.  In the midst of the battle, large tasks are impossible and even simple tasks seem overwhelming.  It is a paralysing experience that cannot be dismissed with a simple “get over it.”  According to research, mood and anxiety disorders are all too common in Australia.  Next time you are out in public, you will be rubbing shoulders with people who are struggling emotionally.

You may no realise it, but the Bible is no stranger to depression.  Many of the “godliest” men in the Bible struggled emotionally.  Let me give you only a few examples.  King David, the greatest king of Israel struggled throughout his life, at one point saying, “all day long I walk around filled with grief.”  Both Jeremiah and Job cursed the days they were born because of their emotional struggles.  Even Paul, the greatest missionary the church has ever seen said at one stage on his Journey, “for we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.”  The Bible is familiar with depression and God is not an enemy to those who suffer with this frightening reality.

So does the Bible provide any resolution to the problem of depression?  To answer this I want to look at the struggle of the man who wrote Psalm 42 (If you have a Bible please read it).  Nothing is known about this man, not even his name.  All we have is his Psalm.  But this is a good thing because it makes his struggle all the more relatable to our own.

Everything is going wrong for this man, to the point where others begin to think that God has abandoned him – they ridicule him, “where is your God?”  Inside, he is mess.  He struggles every minute to hold back tears.  He is drained of all physical energy.  He has no answers.  He feels isolated, alone, rejected – even to the point in believing that God himself has forsaken about him.

So how does this godly man battle through his depression?  He deals with it in several ways.  First, he asks God why?  He wants to know why God has allowed such terrible circumstance to fall upon him.  This is a legitimate question, and God is big enough to have such a question directed at him.  God does not want superficial people; he wants real people – people who are able to express to him their deepest hurts and fears.

Second, in the midst of his darkness, he affirms God’s love.  He says, “each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs.”  He cries out, “my salvation and my God.”  Even though he feels as though God has forgotten him, he never stops believing that God is in absolute control of all his circumstances.  Through his dark struggle, he never loses sight of the great truths about God.  They keep him from falling into complete hopelessness; they provide a foundation while his own world spins out of control.

Third, this man preaches to his own soul.  He stops listening to the negative thoughts that come so easily, instead he says to himself, “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him.”  We know that our greatest hope is in Jesus Christ: crucified for our sins and triumphant over death.  So in our own lives we must learn to preach the great hope of the gospel to ourselves.  We can say to ourselves – If God is for you, who can be against you?  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for you, how will he not also graciously give you all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn?  Christ Jesus is the one who died- more than that, who was raised- who is at the right hand of God, who is interceding for you.  Who shall separate you from the love of Christ?

Finally, this man thirsts for God.  He says, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.”  This man is not thirsting mainly for relief from his external circumstances.  He is looking to God and placing all his affections and hopes onto the only one who is able to save.

What then is the outcome to this man’s struggle?  Like everything in life, it is mixed.  He has not yet received hope and peace, but his faith is amazing, his fight is noble and he never loses sight of God.

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For the sake of length, I had to cut a number of ideas from the article.  I wanted to quote Spurgeon, but was unable.  So here is a Spurgeon quote that has helped me.

“It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me,
that the bitter cup was never filled by his hand, that my trials were never measured out by him, not sent to me by his
arrangement of their weight and quantity.”

“It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by his hand, that my trials were never measured out by him, not sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity.”

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