Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness (6 page)

Faith feels many different ways. It can be buoyant; it can be depressed and lifeless. Feelings don’t define faith. Instead, faith is simply turning to the Lord. When you speak the psalms, you are “doing” faith. And remember that faith is the work of the Spirit of God in our hearts. As such, if you can speak psalms, God is near.

With this in mind, persevere. Don’t just speak the prayers so that your depression can lift. Speak them because they are true and because they are evidence of Christ at work in you. Speak them often.

I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the
L
ORD
, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth. (Isa. 62:6–7)

Say your liturgy at set times during the day. Get others to pray with you and for you.

Maybe you feel like a spiritual misfit because you can’t own an entire psalm. As soon as you are connected to it, it moves off into spiritual heights and leaves you behind. If you can stay with parts of it, that is more than enough for now. Faith is not the presence of warm religious feeling. It’s the knowledge that you walk before the God who hears. Read Psalm 88. Notice how it ends with “darkness is my closest friend.” We don’t think of this as an expression of faith, but, when you say it to the God who hears it, it is heroic faith.

Let me remind you where we are. We have not yet delved into the specifics of your depression. Instead, we are just touching on some of God’s communication to you. Please don’t think that we are going to exhaust Scripture’s depths. Instead, be encouraged that God’s words of comfort and direction are nearly limitless. Scores of wonderful books only begin to unwrap Scripture’s surprises.

If nothing resonates with you, then consider why. Sometimes we want God to be distant. Although your indifference could come from other places, isn’t it true that we are indifferent when we no longer want to bother with someone? Perhaps you have unvoiced frustrations in your relationship with God. What might they be? Speak them to him.

Trust in him at all times, O people;

pour out your heart to him,

for God is our refuge. (Ps. 62:8)

Carol would say that it was impossible to fight against depression, but she already
was
fighting. She had sought help from professionals and peers. She read. She kept putting one foot in front of the other. She tried to steer clear of the especially dark thoughts that threatened to overtake her. So she really had engaged in the battle. It was settled.

Her next step was to fight smart.

If you knew an enemy was in hot pursuit, you would be on guard, especially if that enemy specialized in guerrilla tactics. Even when depressed, a threat on our lives is enough to ensure a surge of energy, unless, of course, we didn’t know an enemy was after us.

During times of suffering and difficulty, spiritual warfare is virtually guaranteed. We watch Satan seize what he thought was his golden opportunity when Jesus was led into the desert to endure physical suffering and spiritual isolation (Matt. 4). How much more will Satan pursue mere mortals when they go through the emotionally arid experience of depression? The Bible depicts him as a lion,
lurking in the tall grass, patiently waiting to devour those who are susceptible (1 Pet. 5:8).

Think about the nature of depression. Life is turned inward. You already have a sense that, for all practical purposes, God is not present. Add to that your relentless condemnation and pervasive self-criticism, which have persuaded you that God doesn’t love you. You couldn’t be a more obvious spiritual target if you painted a bull’s-eye on your chest.

Satan masquerades as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14), which means that he is not easily noticed. But the apostle Paul assures us that God has revealed enough to make us aware of his schemes and tactics (2 Cor. 2:11). To identify them, we should be thinking about the common and ordinary more than the bizarre. Overt demon possession, with its frightening manifestations, is one of Satan’s tactics, but it also doubles as a ploy to have us think that his strategies are
always
accompanied by signs that draw attention to him. The truth is that, for his day-to-day business, he prefers not to alarm. He works more subtly in the following ways.

Lies.
Is there anything more common and ordinary than lies? They certainly don’t capture our attention anymore because they come so naturally to us. Young children lie without being taught. Politicians lie and we expect it. The variations are endless: white lies, whoppers, self-justifications, exaggerations, minimizing, changing the subject.

Behind these deceptions is something more than an attempt to duck personal responsibility for wrongdoing. Behind them is the father of lies, Satan himself. “When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

You too are vulnerable. You might be loyal to beliefs that are wrong but highly resistant to change. For example, since you
feel
like you are a burden to your family and you
feel
like they would be better off without you, you
believe
that is the truth. All their protests and expressions of love will not persuade you to change your mind. If you
feel
that God has abandoned you, then you believe that he actually has. Nothing will persuade you otherwise. In other words, feelings can lie.

Do you see the progression?

You are spiritually vulnerable → your emotions are so powerful that they skew your interpretations → Satan attacks → you swear allegiance to your most pessimistic interpretation no matter what others say.

There are no incantations, spinning heads, strange voices, or obvious satanic rituals involved here. It all seems very natural. But this is knock-down, drag-out spiritual warfare.

Lies about Us.
Satan’s lies are calculated and strategic. They are directed at the spiritual jugular—the most important issues of life.

Do you believe that some things you have done are too bad to be forgiven? If so, you are believing Satan’s lie that the blood of Jesus can only handle little or unintentional sins. The truth is that, through the cross, the judgment for sin has been taken by Christ for those who believe, including yourself if you have claimed faith in Jesus.

Do you believe that it is impossible for the Holy God to love you and even delight in you? If so, you are believing Satan’s lie that God loves you because of what you do. The truth is that he loves you because he is the God who loves, and the sacrifice of Jesus proves it. The cross of Christ expresses God’s delight in all who believe, and if you believe that Jesus is the risen Lord, he delights in and loves you.

Do you believe that you have no reason to live? If so, you are believing Satan’s lie that you belong only to yourself. The truth is that you belong to God and you have a God-given purpose. Furthermore, the cross of Christ reveals that God’s purposes for your life are
good.

Do you believe that these questions are unimportant? If so, you are believing Satan’s lie that our relationship with God is unrelated to our struggle with depression. The truth is that your relationship with God is absolutely necessary, especially now. Your life depends on it.

Waver on these questions and you will be experiencing the battle.

Don’t think that these lies are automatically downloaded into our minds where we robotically replay them. Lies don’t just impose themselves on our hearts. Instead, Satan’s lies come to us after the seeds already exist. He is the counselor who endorses the lies we already suspect are true. He is the false witness who is quick to confirm our false interpretation. This is why spiritual warfare seems so natural. We are not being taken against our wills. Rather than fight us where we have strong faith and certainty and lies will seem silly and obvious, Satan looks for faith that is weak in the hopes that we will meekly surrender. It begins when we harbor doubts. Satan, ever the opportunist, sees vulnerability and simply says, “Yes, what you believe is true.”

Lies about God.
If you look carefully at the lies you believe, you will notice that you are caught in a cross-fire. Yes, you are an intended casualty and the lies are self-condemning, but you are not the primary target of those lies. Instead, the volleys are aimed especially at the character of God. Their goal is to raise questions about God. Specifically, they question God’s love and power.

Notice, for example, Satan’s initial lies: “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’ ” (Gen. 3:1). “ ‘You will not surely die’ ” (3:4).

These words directly attack the goodness and truthfulness of God, which are both expressions of love. Satan is saying, “Can God’s words really be trusted?” “Is God really good?” “Perhaps he is just holding out on you.” “Perhaps he is stingy.” With these questions and accusations, he has all the firepower he needs. Most spiritual warfare consists of minor variations on these age-old assaults.

So if you suspect that you are vulnerable to Satan’s lies—and, if you are depressed, just assume you are—rephrase those lies and see that they are more about God than they are about you.

For example, “I am worthless” could be reinterpreted as, “God has not given me the success I desired; therefore, I don’t believe that he is good.”

“I have lost the most important thing in life” could be reinterpreted as “God is not enough.”

“I can’t go on” becomes “I don’t believe that God hears or is powerful enough to work through human weakness.”

Can you see it? Our suffering may come from many different places, but, regardless of its origin, Satan ultimately is a player. Suffering is the ideal time for him to raise questions about God because we ourselves are already asking them. Suffering raises spiritual questions that cannot be ignored. The apostle Paul underscores this when he reminds us that, during suffering, demonic warfare “sets itself up against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5).

Lies that focus on temporal, not spiritual realities.
This popular deception is underway even before suffering begins. During the better times, Satan happily encourages us to see the goodness of God all around us.

“You have a strong marriage? Isn’t God good!”

“Your health is fine? Isn’t God good!”

“Your bills are paid, and there is some money in the bank? Isn’t God good!”

“Train your eye on these earthly blessings, and gauge God’s goodness by what you see because life will not always be an accumulation of good things. Then, when the hardships come, you will look out and have no evidence of God’s goodness.”

This is what Satan tried, albeit unsuccessfully, with Job. Job had all the best things in life, and Satan assumed that once they were gone, Job would turn his back on God. But Job trusted in God throughout, causing Satan to flee.

If you want to follow in Job’s footsteps, you have the spiritual advantage over Satan. In fact, you have more of an advantage than Job did. Job didn’t know what we know about Satan. Job wasn’t preceded by Jesus, who stood firm against Satan in the wilderness. What happens in our lives when we simply say to Jesus, “Yes, I trust you,” is that we also trust in his power to stand firm against Satan’s attacks.

The details of how faith works in spiritual warfare are well known but easily forgotten.

Remember that you have an enemy.
Follow the lead of wise people who begin each day by actually saying, “Today, I must be alert that I have an enemy.” Ask others to remind you, and be quick to remind others. Realize that you are walking where rebels are known to be in the area. Their lives are devoted to your destruction.

Assume that warfare rages.
Don’t even bother looking for signs of warfare. Just assume that you are in the thick of it. If you want evidence, don’t look for it in the intensity of your depression. We don’t know if Satan has a hand in your depression itself, but we do know that he will use the chronic nature of your pain as a venue to employ well-worn strategies like these:

Are you hopeless? Do you believe God is aloof and distant?

Do you question God’s love?

Do you question God’s forgiveness?

Do you see no point in knowing Christ better? Remember that Satan will always attack the character of God.

Are you listening to wise counsel and Scripture? If not, it is a sure sign that you are losing some spiritual skirmishes. Listening is a mark of humility, and Satan can’t successfully fight against it.

Don’t think that your case is unique.
This popular lie questions God’s care: all sufferers are tempted to believe that their suffering is unique.
This lie immediately renders all counsel irrelevant because no one understands and no advice applies. The result is that the aloneness you already experience is now an established fact, and you are given ever more permission to despair.

No one is immune from this lie, and everyone can give personal examples of its attraction. For example, William Cowper was a popular eighteenth-century hymn writer who wrote lyrics such as “There is a fountain filled with blood.” Although he was immersed in Scripture, he reported of his depression, “There is no encouragement in the Scripture so comprehensive as to include my case, nor any consolation so effectual as to reach it.”
¹

With depression, assume the lie is present. Consider it a permanent attachment. As long as you struggle with depression, you will have to be particularly alert to it. Your goal isn’t to overcome it; your goal is to engage it with a growing knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Know Christ.
Satan’s energies zero in on one point: the truth about Jesus. If you are growing in an accurate knowledge of Jesus Christ, you are winning the battle. If you are not, you are losing ground daily.