Where is God?
Last week I wrote about depression as a loss of hope and a feeling that one's life will always be one-unending, monotonous, gray landscape of sadness and despair. An aspect of depression that I did not mention, and one that generally contributes to the sense of hopelessness, is the feeling that you are far from God. I went through a period of depression during my sophomore year in college, and during that time, it often felt like my prayers were going nowhere. It was as though my prayers were balloons hitting a concrete ceiling and getting stuck there, unable to make their way to the intended destination.
It's really the most awful feeling, because it seems like just when you need him most, God is nowhere to be found. There is no comforting sense of peace, no sense that you are God's beloved child, no feeling that this is temporary and that you will soon be delivered. That very downcast verse at the end of Psalm 88 (“You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; The darkness is my closest friend”) begins to aptly describe your life. So what do you do with these feelings? And how do you help someone who feels this way?
What next?
If you are the depressed person, it can be helpful to examine your life and discover what you may be doing or believing that might be perpetuating these feelings. Sometimes, people are engaged in some kind of disobedient behavior that is causing them to feel far from God. However, this is not always the case, and if you are a friend to a depressed person, it will not be helpful for you to immediately assume that your friend must have done something dreadful, otherwise he or she wouldn't feel depressed. It is very possible that your friend may not have committed some sort of deep dark sin that has led her into depression. Perhaps she is depressed after losing her job or after losing her mother to cancer. Or perhaps she simply feels like her life isn't going anywhere – that she is stuck on a never-ending plateau. But whatever the cause, a person's thought process during depression tends to play a big role in determining whether the depression will continue indefinitely or lift in a fairly short period of time.
Self-deprecating thoughts like, “I should have done X, Y, and Z differently. Then this never would have happened!” or “I can't believe this happened to me. It must mean that I'm a failure!” reinforce depression. Even thoughts like, “I thought I was a strong person, but being depressed for this long must mean I am emotionally weak,” can really erode a person's morale. To help a depressed person, you can strive to understand what kind of dark thoughts are oppressing your friend, and then seek to counteract those thoughts with the truth. Even if the truth is that your friend really should have done something differently, you can remind them that God is always ready and willing to forgive us for our failures and shortcomings, and that he loves us in spite of these things.
Depression as a test of faith
Depression often tries a person's faith. When faced with the sense that you are suffering (because depression is a form of emotional suffering) and God is distant, what do you do? Do you assume that this must indeed be the case, and that God has abandoned you? Or do you remind yourself of God's promises to never leave us or forsake us (Joshua 1:5) and his affirmation that he is close to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18)?
It is easy to give into hopeless thoughts when all your emotions are screaming that you feel miserable and that God isn't listening. But it's often helpful for depressed people to be reminded that, first of all, feelings of deep sadness and misery are not unfamiliar to God's people (see Psalm 88, and the book of Job). It can be tempting to think that depression is a very un-Christian emotion, and if we are subject to it, it must mean either our faith isn't real or that we're pretty unredeemably lousy Christians. But quite frankly, David writes plenty of psalms in which he describes being sad, lonely, and distressed, and plenty of missionaries, pastors, and other faithful Christians have experienced depression. Second, these depressed feelings often persist because we don't understand God's plan at the time and we begin to doubt his love, justice, and wisdom (again, see the book of Job). Doubting God's character always brings confusion and unhappiness. Third, we need to be reminded of the truths that God expresses in His Word and of his past acts of faithfulness and love. God is truly a faithful and loving Father, and it's essential for us to cling to that factual reality, even if at the moment, our emotions seem to be undercutting the truth.
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