Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness (4 page)

We must be willing to say, “I don’t know” in the face of depression. We also want to seek more specific causes if that is possible, which we will do in some of the later chapters. But before we get more specific, Scripture complicates the matter. For example, there
might
be times when depression neatly falls into one of the five causes. We just shouldn’t count on it. Instead, Scripture typically resists reducing hardships to a specific cause. For each struggle in our lives, expect multiple causes.

A popular example is Joseph’s hardship (Gen. 37–50). What began as sibling jealousy led to his abduction and sale as a slave by his own brothers. This was the first domino in a series of events that included betrayal by a lying woman and time in an Egyptian prison. When Joseph providentially encountered his brothers many years later, his explanation for his suffering was, “You [brothers] intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Gen. 50:20). In other words, Joseph identified two causes of his suffering: his brothers and
God. In so doing, he opens a small window that provides glimpses of God’s character. As Joseph understood it, God could be a cause of hardship, but in such a way that even the hardship evidenced his goodness. This, certainly, is a mystery, but Joseph is portrayed in Scripture as a wise person. He is a model whose perspective invites further reflection, which we will do in later chapters.

Another well-known sufferer was the apostle Paul. His troubles were often caused by other people, but he, too, realized that God authored these sufferings to allow him to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and
his
sufferings. Among the more difficult trials was one he called his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7). Although we never learn the precise nature of this malady, Paul identified at least three causes: his own pride, a messenger from Satan, and God—three causes for one hardship.

When applied to depression, this teaching suggests that our quest to find one specific cause could be too narrow. For example, depression might have a physical cause, but that doesn’t exhaust the list of other possible contributions. It may simultaneously be a consequence of spiritual warfare, the sin of other people, our own sins, or mistaken beliefs about God or ourselves.

Although Scripture reveals that there are multiple causes of suffering, and that multiple causes can be at work at any one time, it is less forthcoming about diagnosing the precise causes of particular hardships. Of course, there are times when the causes of our hardships are obvious. For example, if a friend suffers bankruptcy after years of accumulated gambling debts, he is the cause of his own suffering. If a woman leaves her spouse because she simply prefers her freedom, she is the cause of her suffering (and his). But even in these cases, we can’t always discern the other factors that played a part, such as the person who introduced your friend to gambling, the bookie who kept extending credit, the co-worker who encouraged the wife to leave her husband, or the woman’s mother, who casually divorced her husband and abandoned her family, thus modeling an option that the woman may have never considered otherwise.

The reason Scripture doesn’t give clear guidelines for assigning responsibility is that it is not essential for us to know precise causes. This is good news: you don’t have to know the exact cause of suffering in order to find hope and comfort. Job, once again, is the model. Although we know that Satan caused Job’s suffering, Job did not have this insight. Even after his fortunes were restored, he never knew why he suffered. Although he asked for an audience with God to plead his innocence, the only thing God revealed was that God is God and Job was not. Yet this more than satisfied all of Job’s “why” questions.

So we might uncover some of the reasons for our suffering, but we might never find them all. There is a mystery in suffering, just as there is ultimate mystery at the end of all human investigations.

Instead of teaching us how to identify the causes of suffering, Scripture directs us to the God who knows all things and is fully trustworthy. In other words, Scripture doesn’t give us knowledge so that we will have intellectual mastery of certain events; it gives us knowledge so that we would know and trust God. “God, I don’t know what you are doing, but you do, and that is enough.” Somehow, turning to God and trusting him with the mysteries of suffering is the answer to the problem of suffering.

What does this have to do with depression? You might be able to discern some obvious causes of suffering, and knowing those causes might help alleviate the pain. We are all for less pain. But all suffering is intended to train us to fix our eyes on the true God. Therefore, depression, regardless of the causes, is a time to answer the deepest and most important of all questions: Whom will I trust? Whom will I worship?

This is a lot to take in at one time. Relabeling depression as suffering has important implications and is truly hopeful. Your response, however, might be less than enthusiastic. On the one hand, you know that there is hope for sufferers. Tens of thousands have grown through their hardships and bear testimony that God is faithful. But this still raises the age-old questions: How could God allow such a painful, life-draining event in your life? How could such a God care? How could he be good?

There are two ways to ask these questions. One is with a clenched fist; the other is with an open heart. The first person doesn’t want to hear any answers; the other is listening. If you are listening, these are good questions to ask because there are answers.

What difference does it make when you see your own struggle with depression as a form of suffering?

There are paradoxes in most depression.

You loathe the isolation of depression, but you avoid other people.

You want help, but you don’t always listen.

You believe there is a God, but you feel like an atheist.

Since the paradox regarding God is arguably the most important, let’s look at this one first. You will find it in all kinds of suffering.

You have heard it said that there are no atheists in foxholes. During times of intense crisis, many people who have never had a religious thought are suddenly, with all humility, praying, reciting the Lord’s prayer, and remembering, “The Lord is my shepherd ...” as if these things were encoded in all human DNA.

From here, there are two possibilities. One is that problems might disappear, and, with them, so do thoughts about God. We are all less attentive to God during peace-time and prosperity. The other is that the battle continues and circumstances don’t change. The humble pleas become questions that might not be angry but at least are bold. “Why, God, are you doing this to me?” “What have
I ever done to you?” Suffering nags us with questions about God in a way that comfort never could.

When dire circumstances continue their assault, you might notice the paradox of being an “atheistic believer.” In other words, you might acknowledge that God exists, yet that reality doesn’t make any difference in your life. You feel increasingly isolated and alone. The more extreme the suffering, the more intense is the sense of aloneness.
If God exists,
you think,
it certainly doesn’t feel like he does.
“During my deepest depression I had no faith,”
¹
is the refrain, even among those who have had obvious faith. A French psychiatrist, after years of seeing depressed patients, observed, “All depressed people are sullen, radical atheists.” Whatever side of the paradox is emphasized in your own life—believer or atheist—depression raises questions about God. They are unavoidable during any prolonged suffering.

At its very roots, life is about God. Whether you shake your fist at him, consider him so distant that his existence is irrelevant, or tremble before him because you feel that you are under his judgment, the reality is this: the basic questions of life and the fundamental issues of the human heart are about God. Life is about knowing him or avoiding him. It is about spiritual allegiances. Whom will you trust in the midst of pain? Whom will you worship?

Job’s intense suffering and great loss drove him immediately to a basic spiritual question. Now that suffering was a resident in his home, would he still trust and worship God?

His answer was unambiguous. When he lost all his children, “he fell to the ground in worship,” and made a shocking declaration: “The L
ORD
gave and the L
ORD
has taken away; may the name of the L
ORD
be praised” (Job 1:21).

At this moment you may not feel like falling to the ground in worship. Numbness, pain, and worship don’t seem to go together.
But at least consider who God is. Depression both requires this and avoids it. It requires it because all suffering leads to questions about the character of God, but it avoids it because no one naturally pursues God. Suffering makes him seem all the more distant and disinterested.

As you consider God, expect to find fallacies in your thinking about yourself and God. In other words, although you may think that you know all you need to know about God—or all you want to know—you don’t. When in doubt, let humility be the order of the day. If you resist an offer to know God better, you are probably angry with God, in which case it is all the
more
reason to consider who he is. He invites angry people to come and be surprised.

There is a strange split we sometimes make between Jesus and God the Father. The Father is always a little testy and picky with our faults; Jesus is always kind and forgiving. The triune God, however, is one God, and he has chosen to most fully reveal himself in Jesus. Jesus is God’s summary of himself. “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Heb. 1:3).

Jesus is the most complete expression of God’s person to us. In him you can take your pick of what is surprising. Here is one: Jesus shared in our sufferings.

If you invented a religious system, it’s unlikely that you would imagine a god who became like the people he created. But God did even more. He became like his creatures
and
willingly suffered a horrifying death so that they could be spared. Even the men and women who studied Scripture didn’t anticipate that God would come this close. They never guessed that the Messiah, God himself, would suffer in the way he did.

If you think God is far away and indifferent, here is the surprising revelation. From the foundation of the world, God knew your sufferings and declared that he himself would take human form and
participate in them (which means that we, too, could share in his). This is not a distant, indifferent God.

In an African hospital, a pastor who had just witnessed another death was approached by a poor, elderly woman.

“You know,” she said, taking my [the pastor’s] arm, “through many losses of family and friends and through much sorrow, the Lord has taught me one thing. Jesus Christ did not come to take away our pain and suffering, but to share in it.”
²

Just one chapter of Scripture (Mark 14), chronicling only one day, reveals the extent to which Jesus shared our sufferings.

The chief priests and teachers of the law were looking for a sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him. (v. 1)

Judas agreed to betray Jesus for a fee.

Jesus predicted that one of his followers would deny any knowledge of him.

Jesus predicted that his other followers would abandon him.

The leaders arrested him.

He was spit on.

He was struck with fists and beaten to the point where he could have died from the lashings alone.

And this was
before
he was shamed and crucified.

Yet it was the L
ORD
’s will to crush him [Jesus] and cause him to suffer. (Isa. 53:10)

He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. (Mark 8:31)

In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. (Heb 2:10)

He was called “man of sorrows” (Isa. 53:3). He was oppressed, afflicted, despised, and rejected, to the point where people would turn away to avoid seeing his face. You know these things about Jesus, but now that you, too, are familiar with suffering, it should shock you that anyone would voluntarily take such suffering on himself.

Sufferers should be able to recognize other sufferers. As a sufferer, you should recognize Jesus’ sufferings; he certainly recognizes yours. A deep sigh gives it away. When Jesus healed a deaf man, he let out a deep sigh as he looked up to heaven (Mark 7:34). He was moved by the suffering he saw around him, and as the risen Lord he continues to be moved by ours today.

Martin Luther said that the cross alone is our theology. At the cross we see that God took the suffering and judgment on himself. Look closely and you will see an innocent lamb slaughtered. As a result, theologians have been quick to note that what happens to the sinful creatures of God, however tragic, is less monstrous and criminal than what happened to the Son of God.
³

How can you respond?

• Have you noticed that sometimes, in the presence of someone whose suffering seems greater than our own, our suffering seems lighter, less intense? It is as if the suffering of another can temporarily take us out of ourselves. The sufferings of Jesus can, indeed, elevate us and take us out of ourselves.