(music) - So I understand why we
ask the question that way, can a true Christian be depressed? But the premise behind the question is actually a little bit,
maybe even indulgent. So I was raised in middle class America where the expectation is
that we pursue happiness. That in the pursuit of happiness, we can attain happiness. And that the neutral
point for one's emotions is actually a positive,
happy, joyful sense that life is good, and I have what I need, and I have what I want. The Bible doesn't share those assumptions. I think of many different
places in Scripture that the regular experience
of a follower of God is not merely positive emotion. I would even go as far to say maybe not even normally positive emotion, if we're thinking of it just as a pure experience
of positive emotion. So what comes to mind
is places like Psalm 13, "How long will you forget me, O Lord? "How long must I sorrow in
my heart all the day long "and have no rest?" I think of places like Lamentations 3, "My soul is bereft of peace. "I've forgotten what happiness is." I even think that Jesus was trying to blow up some of these assumptions when in his Sermon on the Mount he reverses our expectations
of what blessedness is when he said, "Blessed
are those who mourn. "For they shall be comforted." So let me actually go a step further and say it's not just
that negative emotions are a part of the Christian experience. I would actually argue,
based on Scripture, that negative emotions are necessary to the Christian experience. The reason I can say
this is because emotions, whether they're positive or negative, are always, reflections of our evaluation
of the situation around us. So negative emotions means that we're negatively
evaluating what's around us. So Jesus experienced negative emotions, like in the Garden of Gethsemane where he was weeping, he was crying, he fell down on his face. And one could say, well, Jesus, don't you trust God? Why are you reacting with
such powerful emotions? But that would be a misunderstanding of what it means to trust God, because in that moment,
Jesus is evaluating the circumstance of
losing the relationship between the first and the
second person of the Trinity, the forsaking that has
to happen at the cross. He's evaluating that as a terrible thing, a thing he doesn't want to lose, and he's sorrowing over that. So as we move towards the
question of depression, how is depression a right evaluation of life? Well, it's a right evaluation of life because we live and a
broken, and a fallen world. Romans 8 talks about a very broken world that's having a certain
response to it's brokenness. That response is this term, it's "groaning", this expression of pain that can't even be captured in words. The world is groaning, waiting for it to be set
free from its corruption. Not only the world is groaning, but we who have the first
fruits of the Spirit, even Christians, they groan because they
want the same things. So the point is negative
emotions like depression, the apprehension of pain, these can be an expression of a heart that's seeing accurately that this world is not
how it's supposed to be. So Christians shouldn't
necessarily feel guilty when they have depressed feelings, because in some ways, that's
an accurate emotional response to a depressing situation
of being in a broken world. I've counseled many folks who
are from Christian circles that treat depression
as a purely wrong thing. It's the wrong response
when God loves you. Don't you believe in the joy of the Lord? They'll often hear things like that. And joy is a real thing. But joy isn't a simple replacement of depressive feelings in
the Christian experience. It's not that you have either
total joy or total depression, and therefore, it's a fighting
match to which one rules. That's not how it works. Joy is not a replacement,
so much as an addition. I would even say a more strong and more authoritative
addition to depression, because what it is recognizing is, yes, this world is broken, but that's not the ultimately true thing. It's broken, and God's going to fix it. "He's going to usher in
for those who belong to him "a world where there is no sorrow, "nor crying, nor pain, nor death anymore, "because these are the former things." That's Revelation 21. So joy streaks its way through depression. It doesn't replace it, but it renews it sort of like
a water cycle, if you will, of a swamp where there's stagnant water. It's unmoving, and the longer it sits there, the more it gets murky and just gross. But, then, you have this
fresh stream of water, whether it's coming down off of a mountain or from the sky, and it dilutes the murkiness. It refreshes it. That's how the joy of
the Lord works, often, when we're talking about the difficulty of living
in a broken world. So let me say something a
little bit more specific about how depression works
that might be helpful. Depression always
involves, to some extent, a person placing their hope in something and that hope failing them. So in life in a broken world, we are constantly tempted to
look at different situations that if only they were to change or if only they were to improve, that would give me
something worth living for. That would solve my problem. That would give me relief from my pain. So when those things don't
work out, that's a failed hope. Or maybe even worse, when
those things do work out, and then they don't deliver on what I thought they would deliver on, that is also a failed hope. So with depression, it's just helpful to ask
yourself the question what am I hoping in, or what was I hoping
in that has failed me? Identify what it is. And then, as we saw in Romans 8, you have to challenge yourself to think carefully about what God says about a greater and wider hope. So whatever ways this
broken world has failed you, there's a wider world, there's a larger world, there's a permanent world that's coming that will not fail you. If you believe that, then that belief, that faith, streaks through the failures
of all those other hopes, and it carries you along. So it's not the avoidance of all negative depressive feelings, but what it is is that keeps
negative, depressive feelings from taking over and hardening, and characterizing the
entirety of your experience of this world, and of this life, because God has a greater world, and a greater life that he's promised you. So all of this is a process. Depression does not go away overnight, and sometimes it will always
stalk a person's life. So in addition to that, there are physiological elements
that we need to recognize. Sometimes the cycles of depressed emotions and the cycle of thinking
that goes along with that can be so ingrained that there's
some physiological element that's contributing to
the overall experience, and we should have medical
attention when that's the case. But to go back to the original
question as it was phrased, can a true Christian be depressed? The answer's yes, because depression isn't
necessarily an indication that someone is seeing things wrongly. It can actually become a platform of where we can express faith. We are drive to see, and to value, and to long for that world in ways that, had we not gone through that depression, we wouldn't see, and value,
and long for the world to come. The promise, "the Lord is my light" is most precious from
a place of darkness. - [Narrator] Thanks for
watching Honest Answers. Don't forget to subscribe to find out the answer to
next Wednesday's question. (music)
