Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness (27 page)

Hope is a skill that develops over time. It is also a corporate venture that needs the reminders of the body of Christ. Commit yourself to a church where the story is told, and seek opportunities for daily reminders.

And finally, here is a brief summary of this chapter: Learn to say “Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20). This reminds you that your hope is in a person, and such a hope is certain. His response is, “Yes, I am coming soon” (Rev. 22:20).

What is your plan for growing in hope?

Aim high.

Bill had been in the “slough of despond” more than he was out of it. Survival was his guiding principle, which made sense. What else can you do when you feel like a zombie? Depression had been wearing him down, and I hadn’t been much help. Survival sounded like a bold expectation. I had lost a larger vision. That’s why we had to begin our times together with a call-to-arms. “Wake up,” we would say. “We are acting like mere mortals when we should be boldly aiming for thankfulness and joy.” “Consider it pure joy ...” is what Scripture says, and we were going to hold the Spirit to it. If he told us to consider it joy, he had to give us the power to do it.

Every depressed person should set out to be an expert in joy. It is a no-risk proposition. The worst that can happen is that you will honor God (Ps. 126:1–2), be surprised that he promises you great gladness, and even taste something of joy in the midst of sorrow.

Truth be told, however, there
are
some barriers and risks that can make it difficult to pursue joy. Depression can sometimes be a familiar companion—a loathsome one but a companion all the same. Anytime a difficult experience has some longevity in our lives, we can gradually derive some personal identity from it. For example, depression can be very powerful in the way it dominates relationships. For someone who has never really had an impact on others, depression changes things. It can make us the center of attention, the focus of people’s concern.

Another risk is that depression usually wants something at the same time it fears getting it. What if the desire is satisfied, and there is still an underlying ache and despair? What then?

In frustration, we often think that what we would really like is to have all of our desires and emotions satisfied. ... But no understanding of the passions is possible until we come to appreciate this all-important and perhaps surprising feature: that their unsatisfied existence is, in general, often more important to us than their successful expression and satisfaction.
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If anger is in any way a piece of your depression, the possibility of joy creates a challenging predicament. When you think that others, including God, have wronged you, there is a difficult choice to make when they do something unusually kind. Consider a six-year-old girl who is angry because she had to do her chores before going out to play. To display her anger and indulge her self-pity, she does her chores very noisily, then shuns her parents and sequesters herself in her room. So far, so good. But what will she do when her parents invite her out for ice cream and miniature golf? If she says no, she hurts herself because she loves both ice cream and miniature golf. If she says yes, she has to humble herself and give up her snit, which would mean losing face. She decides to split the difference by going with her parents while doing her best to look miserable. Every time she makes a putt, she must mask her joy.

In other words, there is something marvelous about joy, but there is something humbling in it too. Joy takes our attention off ourselves and places it on God and all the things that have God as their source—things that are true, noble, right, pure, and lovely (Phil. 4:8). You could split the difference and consider joy halfheartedly, but be forewarned: if you even crack the door open to joy, you will get more than you expected.

We could just as easily have picked thankfulness as the area in which to develop expertise. Many Christian books you read on depression will push you—wisely—to practice thankfulness. The skill of thankfulness can hold the darkest depression at bay; it can even push back against depression and lighten it.

Thankfulness begins with a sense of our own desperateness. We are needy and unable to supply our own needs. Then comes someone who gives us what we couldn’t give ourselves and our lot improves. We in turn are filled with gratitude and thanks.

When we come before God, thankfulness begins by knowing that we are spiritually destitute. We are sinners who can’t help but sin, and we deserve God’s eternal rejection. God then pursues us, opens our eyes to his grace and mercy, and satisfies our deepest needs and spiritual thirsts. Our lot improves immensely. We in turn are forever thankful.

Most gifts are one-time events, but God’s mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3:23) and his love is forever. Therefore, we always give thanks.

Give thanks to the L
ORD
, for he is good; his love endures forever. (Ps. 107:1; 118:29; 136:1)

You can’t go wrong if you let Scripture give you reasons to be thankful. Keep a pad and paper next to your Bible to write down
those reasons every time you read. You could also use your mealtimes as opportunities to give thanks.

Even so, joy is better. Thanksgiving is gratitude for a benefit we have received. Joy includes gratitude, but its true delight is in the beauty of God and the deep goodness in all the things that come from him. Joy draws attention outward with a non-possessive appreciation for something that is good.

For example, you are in a boat and about to die. The winds have whipped the waters into a maelstrom that will engulf you within minutes. Jesus speaks a word and the waters are still. No one, however, thanks him. They are all too amazed (Matt. 8:23–27). This amazement at Jesus’ power is the beginning of joy. It is not primarily self-referential. It is more than satisfied to contemplate the majesty of the One who just spoke.

Another example: You are blind. Jesus is coming, and you call out for mercy. When he stops, he asks what you want. You ask for sight. When he gives it to you, you don’t simply thank him; you follow him. This, too, is the beginning of joy. Your attention is captured by the Giver more than the benefit received (Matt. 20:29–34).

Thanks and thanksgiving can be found dozens of times in Scripture. Joy, gladness, rejoice, and enjoy can be found hundreds of times.

Joy is not the opposite of suffering. If it were, a person practiced in joy could crowd out pain because one couldn’t exist with the other. Instead, joy can actually be a companion to suffering. You can see this at Christian funerals. These are grievous events in the church because of the loss of someone beloved. But they are also some of the most joy-filled as worshippers contemplate the glories of heaven and remember that death is not the last word.

To simultaneously say that some things are bad and others are good seems like a precarious balance, but that is the nature of this time in history. The curse and sin persist; they are bad and we wait
with hope for their eradication. But the original goodness of creation can still be detected, and the glories of the cross and everything it ushered in are evident through Jesus. These, of course, are great blessings that we enjoy and for which we praise God. We continue to suffer, but suffering cannot rob us of the eternal joy that has already begun.

Job spoke of his “joy in unrelenting pain—that I had not denied the words of the Holy One” (Job 6:10). He took joy in the fact that he had not denied God or questioned his faithfulness throughout his ordeal. He did not take
pride
in this; he found joy. He knew that God saw his faithfulness as a good thing, and Job himself saw it was good as well.

Now splice this together with God’s promise that he will never let us be tempted in a way that makes sin inevitable (1 Cor. 10:13). This means that God will give you grace to avoid sin during depression, especially the sin of charging God with wrongdoing (Job 1:22). You, too, can have joy in the midst of unrelenting pain.

This is the precedent for “consider it pure joy ... whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2). The joy in this case is not a denial of pain. It is joy that something wonderful is taking place. The person in trials has the opportunity to observe faith being refined, perseverance developed, and maturity attained. These are a joy to behold, whether they are being nurtured in us or in others.

Before trying to identify the things that provoke joy, consider how depression overlaps with boredom. Boredom has much in common with depression and is sometimes key to it. It could be described as depression without pain.

Boredom is “the declaration that nothing possesses sufficient interest to be worthy of attention.”
²
It says, “I dare you to try to excite me— I’ll bet you can’t.” Everything is flat and in shades of blue and gray.

You can become bored in one of two ways.

First, you may have your eyes wide open to the ugliness of life while you are blind to the shafts of glory that can be found almost anywhere, especially now that God’s Spirit has been given. When you see no glory, there is not much in this world that is worth your attention.

Second, boredom is a form of pride. The bored person is too cool to be moved by the ordinary or popular.

Cultivated and sophisticated observers have been known to dismiss as “boring” people they encounter, meetings they attend, sentiments they hear or read. To do so attests to the fineness of their sensibilities.
³

Joy is the antidote for boredom. It says, “Look, God’s glory is all around.”

To have joy, you must be willing to look for it. You must be willing to welcome joy rather than feel like you are betraying your depression by looking for it. (And it is true—looking for joy is a betrayal of depression.)

As with hope, there is humility in joy. We have to acknowledge that we were wrong. We were betting that there was no beauty—in God or anything else—but there is. So start with confession and repentance. Confess that you have disagreed with God when he has said that there is good. Confess that you have not even considered how to glorify him by pursuing joy, even though you know it is an obvious way to surprise a bored and pessimistic generation.

Looking for joy in creation.
The most common place to look for joy is in creation. Scripture doesn’t emphasize this, but it does assume that there is goodness in creation that points to the good Creator.

Oceans, mountains, and anything big are favorites. A good friend chose something small. He had cultivated a rose garden that yielded beautiful blossoms, but he was too busy to appreciate them. His self-imposed assignment one day was to enjoy a rose. After dinner he brought a chair out to the garden, seated himself in front of a flower, and got to work. His goal was to enjoy its variegated color, scent, and overall beauty. Even if he had been unsuccessful on this first attempt—though he did enjoy the rose—he was on the right path because he was committed to looking. If there had been no pleasure in the rose, he soon would have found it in even better things.

The caution here is to allow the rose to be a signpost. If our pleasure extends only to the rose itself, we risk idolatry. Ultimate joy is not there. Instead, the rose says, “It is not I. I am only a reminder. Look! Look! What do I remind you of?”
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Creation, no matter how beautiful, says, “We are not thy God, seek above us ... he made us.”
⁵

Creation might be surprised by the way it elicits joy because, no matter how attractive it can be, there are better signposts all around us. Scripture portrays creation as groaning until it, too, is released from corruption (Rom. 8:22). Scripture also reveals that creation is more accustomed to being caught up in the joy of God (Isa. 44:32) than it is being enjoyed itself. It would probably be uncomfortable with all the attention it receives.

Say among the nations, “The L
ORD
reigns.” The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.

Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them.

Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; they will sing before the L
ORD
, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. (Ps. 96:10–13)

If creation is glad in the goodness of God, and if unborn children leap in the womb when they hear the news of the Messiah (Luke 1:44), then joy is within our reach as well.

Finding joy in the Lord.
The real object of joy, of course, is God. He is what all earthly joys reflect. Throughout history people have found great joy because the Lord is present (Ps. 21:6). God is the joy and delight of his people (Ps. 43:4).

This was Jonathan Edwards’s test of true religion. Do you find joy in God?

Joy ... consists in the sweet entertainment their minds have in the view or contemplation of the divine and holy beauty of these things [the character of God], as they are in themselves. And this is the main difference between the joy of the hypocrite and the joy of the true saint. The former rejoices in himself ... the latter rejoices in God.
⁶

Some find the thought of heaven boring. But once you start finding joy in the Lord, you will find an inexhaustible delight. Day after day you will find new divine beauty to enjoy, and the search will continue for all eternity.

Remember the summary of Scripture offered by the authors of the Westminster Shorter Catechism? “What is the chief end [aim] of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever.” The summary is truthful. God is the God of joy and gladness, he freely and liberally gives joy to his people, and he actually commands us to search for it in him (Ps. 106:4–5; 1 Thess. 5:18). Therefore, the psalmist truly
understands God’s thoughts when he prays, “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice” (Ps. 51:8). This is not a selfish prayer; it is purposeful. The psalmist wants to be what he was intended to be, the person every follower of Christ will one day be—a joyful worshipper.