In the psalms we find depression looming over the authors’ lives like a dark cloud. But only a few of the psalms are completely negative. The rest of them show a distinct skill that serves as a truth anchor for us today.
• Some darkness will not lift. You cannot rouse yourself out of clinical depression.
• However, there is some depression that is not the result of an imbalance or mental disorder. There are some forms of depression where truth, hope & preaching Jesus to your own heart can cause the darkness to lift.
Truth Anchor #1: God wants me to be
with Him about my situation
• Eugene Peterson >> Psalms are not pretty, they are not nice, but they are honest, and I think we are trying for honesty, which is very, very hard in our culture.”
• Psalm 42-43 has an interesting structure, which shows us something about the way this psalmist thought about his depression:
Lament (vv. 1-4) >> Hope (v. 5)
Lament (vv. 6-7) >> Hope (v. 8)
Lament (vv. 9-10) >> Hope (v. 11)
Lament (43:1-2) >> Hope (43:3-5)
• In “Spurgeon’s Sorrows: Realistic Hope for Those Who Suffer From Depression,” Zach Eswine defines depression in three different ways: depression from
Truth Anchor #2: I can cultivate hope through active
in the Lord.
• Through what we believe, we actually
• The call to honesty is the first step towards opening the door to hope.
• Martyn Lloyd-Jones >> Spiritual Depression: Its Causes & Cure
Have you not realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself….
The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’–what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’–instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: “I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God”.
• How long will this particular scenario
• Courtney Reissig >> He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. & he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:4-5) This is not a trite or pat answer. This is an anchor on which to cast your weary soul. We cannot always find the cure or solution to depression in the immediate, but we can trust that there is a day coming when it will not plague us any longer. Depression has an end date, maybe not in this life, but most certainly in the one to come. Better days are coming.