Spiritual Depression

Depression is an overused and over-emphasized term in our society today. Despite that, I will use and emphasize the term depression in this post! :) We've all gone through times of depresison, ie - spiritual apathy, sadness, or lack of motivation. The joy's not there. The happiness is missing. At best, we're duty bound to read our Bibles, pray or do whatever we should be doing.

My personality tends toward depression. I have always had a melancholy spirit for whatever reason. I think my sin nature simply gravitates toward expressing itself this way. Thankfully, God has transformed my life in tremendous ways. It is God's supernatural work as I am not the same man I was 10-15 years ago. My times of sadness are not just less frequent and less severe. They are completely of a different nature than they were back then.

Regardless of my past, my present is the issue at hand. I think I'm going through one of those times that you read about in the Psalms - "How long O Lord? Will You forget me forever?!" It's really not that bad. But you get the idea. And as I was pondering and reflecting on the battle in my heart, I realized that I have been going through 3 common experiences that tend to draw people towards depression. Maybe you have gone through times like these too that more strongly tempt you to melancholy.

First, life has been stressful due to major life changes. We have moved twice in a 7 month period. That's enough right there to depress anyone. We moved to a new state, in a new city, to a new church, to a new job for me and to a new school for the boys and girl. That's going to create a lot of long term stress that I think I (and the whole family) have been reaping. The temptation to feel lonely and depressed are very natural in this state of trying to get settled in a new situation.

Second, it's been a busy couple of weeks, that are on the tail end of a busy summer, that is on the tail end of a busy year. Busyness doesn't lend itself to times of meditation and reflection on a day to day level. It's hard to truly ponder God's sovereign providence and goodness in your life when you are frantically rushing from place to place. In fact, just the opposite has been happening as I am forgetting about God's perfect wisdom and kindness in my life as I have been focusing on my pitiful attempts to create some kind of order amidst the chaos.

Third, my time in the Word has felt rushed in my personal devotions, my supplementary reading and especially my sermons. I like to study my sermons for 2 weeks before preaching them. My goal is 3 weeks, but lately, I've dropped down to 1 week. This is not good, and I cannot do this long term. I need weeks to let the Word of God soak into my soul. My heart needs time to saturate with the truth. My mind needs weeks to think about the implications of what the Word is saying. If I am going to stand up in front of my church, bare my soul and preach the Word of God with conviction and passion, then I must have had the time to develop conviction and passion for God's glorious Word.

Now where do I go from here? It's all fine and good to identify the causes of my depression but without a cure, it's rather pointless to stop here. Thankfully, I have a cure. As the psalmist wrote in Psalm 42 - "Why are you in despair O my soul? And why are you downcast within me? HOPE IN GOD, MY EXCEEDING JOY!" Hope in God. God is the source of all joy that overcomes the darkest days. Psalm 63 says - "O God you are my God. I shall seek you earnestly. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh yearns for you. In a dry and weary land where there is no water."

So if God is the answer, but He's also the problem in this state because He feels so elusive and far, how do I deal with that? On a practical level, I think it's important to try new things. If you read one chapter of the Bible a day, try 5. If you read with a plan, try reading spontaneously. If you don't read with a plan, try one. If you are having trouble praying, go to a different place to pray. If you don't normally read books, start reading some Christian books. If you are reading Christian books, try a totally different subject matter. If you don't listen to sermons from other preachers, try a sermon. If you do, listen to someone you don't normally listen to. Mix it up. But seek after God to make Him your exceeding joy.

I personally have been doing this myself in a few different areas, and it has been helping. I get a lot of encouragement out of Christian biographies and haven't read one in a while. I'd like to learn more about D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones whom I have read had a temperament like mine. He wrote a book called Spiritual Depression which has been on my to read list for a while. Maybe it's time to get it.

One last thought of encouragement. Won't it be nice to be in heaven where spiritual depression will be a thing of the past? God will never seem far because He will be absolutely brilliantly, radiantly and gloriously near. Every day will be a new day of fabulous joy that will be unlike any other previous day with wonders a new. Nothing will get old. Nothing will be stale. Nothing will be depressing. O glorious day!