Can a true Christian have depression?

0:00 (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.

0:48 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

1:37 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.

2:25 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

3:11 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,

3:56 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.

4:42 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,

5:31 "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

6:16 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,

7:03 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,

7:50 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

8:39 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"

9:25 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)