This can lead to suicide.
Let’s be clear about a number of things. First, depression and a strong, vibrant faith are not automatically at odds with each other. Throughout Christian history, men and women who have been deeply committed to Christ have been gripped, sometimes mercilessly, in the icy clutches of depression.
Let me walk you through some names you might know.
In 1527, the great Protestant reformer Martin Luther, the man who started the Lutheran church and who penned the words to one of the greatest hymns of all time, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” wrote these words: “For more than a week I was close to the gates of death and hell. I trembled in all my members. Christ was wholly lost.” Luther would go on to write that “the content of the depressions was always the same, the loss of faith that God is good and that he is good to me.”
Translation? Depression.
Charles Spurgeon, the dynamic pastor behind the 19th century revival movement and considered the Billy Graham of his day, told his congregation the following in 1866 about his struggle: “I am the subject of depressions of spirit so fearful that I hope none of you ever get to such extremes of wretchedness as I go [through].”
Translation? Depression.
Famed missionary to China, Hudson Taylor, who founded the China Inland Mission, battled severe depression all his life. At one point, as discovered in an unpublished note in his papers, he even contemplated “the awful temptation” to “end his own life.”
Translation? Depression.
These people walked with God, loved God, gave their lives to God, and suffered terribly with, yes, depression.
How can that be?
First, it’s because we’re all broken, and anyone broken can experience depression. Yes, the Holy Spirit is alive and well and lives in us, but He lives in us as fallen creatures in a fallen world. Every one of us can get depressed.
